Why is it necessary for a Christian to believe that the Bible has no errors?

Deidre32

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Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?

I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)

What do you think? :sunflower:
 

graceandpeace

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Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?

I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)

What do you think? :sunflower:

Christians have a wide range of views on the Bible. More fundamentalist oriented groups are more likely to take the position of inerrancy, but I'd say that view is not common amongst Mainline Protestants & others - so you may want to consider looking into different types of churches than what you've been looking into.

I don't believe in inerrancy, & I don't believe the authors of the biblical texts set out to compose inerrant writings. I believe that the Bible is in some sense inspired, but even more importantly I believe the Bible reveals Jesus Christ, who is actually the Word of God.
 
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Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?

I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)

What do you think? :sunflower:

No, it is necessary to believe that God has no errors, salvation means having him as your first love, he will reveal what he wants you to know directly, like he did to prophets and the early church. For that you need to (a) receive His Spirit (b) be taught of Him
 
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It depends on what you mean by errors, for instance there are scribal errors in manuscripts of Scripture that we've found where a scribe will repeat a word or section, or accidentally leave our an entire paragraph, or as in the case of 2 Samuel 21 where it talks about Elhanan killing Goliath but Chronicles says he killed the brother of Goliath, and the fact that the hebrew of 2 Samuel 21 can go either way, and a scribe just made a mistake in copying it. Things like that are well known, but they're just scribal mistakes basically and the Bible has a number of those.

However, if by error you mean it from a radical skepticism point of view which doesn't believe that mostly anything from Scriptures actually happened, say like the Exodus or even Jesus dying on the cross, then I would say that the Bible doesn't have those. Basically, trust it enough to believe that it isn't just blatantly lying about events that it claimed to have happened
 
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Reformed Lutheran

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Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?

I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)

What do you think? :sunflower:


The word of God haven been wrought by the Holy Spirit and penned by his servants the prophets has no error, for God is perfect.

However,, the bible itself is a man made translation of what was penned and is in no way absolutely without error.. Heck the NIV translation of the bible has plenty of errors.

But still we should trust that we have a pretty good "handing down" of Gods word in our bible and we can rely on it
 
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Deidre32

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The word of God haven been wrought by the Holy Spirit and penned by his servants the prophets has no error, for God is perfect.

However,, the bible itself is a man made translation of what was penned and is in no way absolutely without error.. Heck the NIV translation of the bible has plenty of errors.

But still we should trust that we have a pretty good "handing down" of Gods word in our bible and we can rely on it

Thank you for this! I tend to agree, and appreciate not being alone in my sentiment. I hope we are right lol

I feel the Gospels are 100% without error.
 
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Deidre32

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It depends on what you mean by errors, for instance there are scribal errors in manuscripts of Scripture that we've found where a scribe will repeat a word or section, or accidentally leave our an entire paragraph, or as in the case of 2 Samuel 21 where it talks about Elhanan killing Goliath but Chronicles says he killed the brother of Goliath, and the fact that the hebrew of 2 Samuel 21 can go either way, and a scribe just made a mistake in copying it. Things like that are well known, but they're just scribal mistakes basically and the Bible has a number of those.

However, if by error you mean it from a radical skepticism point of view which doesn't believe that mostly anything from Scriptures actually happened, say like the Exodus or even Jesus dying on the cross, then I would say that the Bible doesn't have those. Basically, trust it enough to believe that it isn't just blatantly lying about events that it claimed to have happened

Yes, by error I mean...did men take the words given to them and change them, leave things out to suit themselves, etc. Not in so much my interpretation of the words, but rather just factually, was anything changed? I realize that we don't need to take everything in the Bible literally, so there's that explanation, as well.
 
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Deidre32

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No, it is necessary to believe that God has no errors, salvation means having him as your first love, he will reveal what he wants you to know directly, like he did to prophets and the early church. For that you need to (a) receive His Spirit (b) be taught of Him
This is beautiful. :)
You know, I did receive His Spirit a few weeks ago, and that is what led me back to the faith. You are right about what you say here. ((thank you))
 
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faroukfarouk

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Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?

I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)

What do you think? :sunflower:
If we read John's Gospel, especially the middle chapters, we see that the Spirit of God works perfectly with the Father and the Son, and so God is not going to use His Spirit to contradict anything in the written Word, on which we can rely. There is a wonderful relationship between the eternal and living Word Who is the Lord Jesus, and the written Word which cannot be broken.
 
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SarahsKnight

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You ask a powerful question, Miss Deidre. One I was for a long time afraid to answer, or try to find the answer to. For many believers the Bible is the end-all, be-all of God's revealed word to us. It is scary to even consider the possibility of any kind of error, perhaps for fear of falling away from the faith or becoming a heretic or some other thing some Christian groups would always warn of. But I have had to face the hard truth that, while I firmly believe the Holy Spirit divinely inspired the words of the Bible and HE is indeed perfect, that does not necessarily preclude us imperfect humans from making mistakes in our translation or interpretation of the word, whether done deliberately or not. I suppose I could say I adhere to the common Protestant ideal of Sola Scriptura, as in I search the Scriptures alone to find the answer to my questions (though naturally in our imperfect interpretation of them we all arrive at different views on certain subjects), first and foremost. But ultimately it's not me believing the word is infallible that will give me eternal life; it is THE Word Himself, Jesus Christ, just as the good graceandpeace said above. It's good that you are taking things like this into consideration as you search for a church to attend. If my personal advice here is worth anything, might I say that I would not necessarily discard a church home that includes inerrancy (by man) of the Bible in their statement of belief, so long as they don't act cultish about the issue, and they understand well where eternal life and salvation truly comes from.

All in all I simply echo the opinions of previous posters like graceandpeace and Reformed Lutheran. I guess I just wanted to say it in my own particular way. ^-^
 
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Deidre32

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You ask a powerful question, Miss Deidre. One I was for a long time afraid to answer, or try to find the answer to. For many believers the Bible is the end-all, be-all of God's revealed word to us. It is scary to even consider the possibility of any kind of error, perhaps for fear of falling away from the faith or becoming a heretic or some other thing some Christian groups would always warn of. But I have had to face the hard truth that, while I firmly believe the Holy Spirit divinely inspired the words of the Bible and HE is indeed perfect, that does not necessarily preclude us imperfect humans from making mistakes in our translation or interpretation of the word, whether done deliberately or not. I suppose I could say I adhere to the common Protestant ideal of Sola Scriptura, as in I search the Scriptures alone to find the answer to my questions (though naturally in our imperfect interpretation of them we all arrive at different views on certain subjects), first and foremost. But ultimately it's not me believing the word is infallible that will give me eternal life; it is THE Word Himself, Jesus Christ, just as the good graceandpeace said above. It's good that you are taking things like this into consideration as you search for a church to attend. If my personal advice here is worth anything, might I say that I would not necessarily discard a church home that includes inerrancy (by man) of the Bible in their statement of belief, so long as they don't act cultish about the issue, and they understand well where eternal life and salvation truly comes from.

All in all I simply echo the opinions of previous posters like graceandpeace and Reformed Lutheran. I guess I just wanted to say it in my own particular way. ^-^

I can tell that the Holy Spirit inspired this post, at least in my opinion. :D Very nicely put. Thank you.

Perhaps, my question isn't worded quite right? I meant to say, like if man might have left out anything or added anything that wasn't really the Word of God, but his own assumptions into the mix. We don't need to take certain areas of the Bible, literally. Like Genesis can be seen as an allegory, but the Gospel message to me is completely without human error. Not that Genesis is with error, but I've always found it curious why fundamentalist Christians and say Catholics, differ on how to interpret Genesis...some interpret it as literal while others don't.
 
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Just commenting on one detail here. Suppose the Exodus never happened in any way resembling the Biblical record - then I would have a hard time believing someone saw it as necessary to write the entire book of Exodus at a time when most books of the Old Testament had either already been written or the events at least passed. Why would someone go through all the trouble and not come up with a better story? The Exodus is not, from a human/historical/anthropological viewpoint, an optimal explanation to anything. Besides there are ancient elements in the book of Exodus, such as the mountain. An no, it was not believed in ancient times that Moses was the author of that particular book, so I find it funny how someone would supposedly go through all the trouble creating a fake book and not label it with the name of some authority and the book pretending it to have been written by such a person, it doesn't pretend anything! So it bears no elements of a typical forgery.
OK, so papyrus was cheap, but it was a material that didn't last long especially not when used or if left in environments with moist. It had to be copied very frequently. Stories were best preserved orally, but I find it hard to believe that the stories would have been preserved close to a thousand years orally while most parts of Exodus weren't even touched upon in the Biblical books. Wouldn't there have been several records in Biblical books coming from many parts of the material that yielded the book of Exodus? The book of Exodus isn't exactly eventless, You'd suppose there would have been interest for it. What I believe is therefore the truth of the book of Exodus and that it was therefore laboriously copied on papyri but neglected during hundreds of years and only known to some - and that explains the references to narrow parts of the book of Exodus in the Biblical record. I believe it to have been neglected because from time to time various works dominated, early Kingdom/Judges that the people had wanted or who had seized power, the Deuteronomistic History work, later on the priestly inserts (I believe the Exodus was popularized before the "priestly era", but I mentioned that as a sampling of what works entered the scene):
However, if by error you mean it from a radical skepticism point of view which doesn't believe that mostly anything from Scriptures actually happened, say like the Exodus or even Jesus dying on the cross, then I would say that the Bible doesn't have those. Basically, trust it enough to believe that it isn't just blatantly lying about events that it claimed to have happened
 
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Albion

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Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?
It isn't "necessary" to the extent that many Christians do not consider it to be without any errors.

But the importance of a trustworthy Bible to those who say they believe it to be inerrant ought to be self-evident. This is the source of all the doctrines of the Christian faith, so it follows that it matters whether this information is correct or not.
 
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SarahsKnight

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Perhaps, my question isn't worded quite right? I meant to say, like if man might have left out anything or added anything that wasn't really the Word of God, but his own assumptions into the mix.

Ah, so perhaps you meant if there was ever an instance/example in which it was evident that humans made an error in translation or deliberately added or took away from Scripture in order to support their own ideas when putting out a new version of the Bible? Sorry if somehow I'm just not understanding what you mean to ask, Miss Deidre. :)
 
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Reformed Lutheran

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Ah, so perhaps you meant if there was ever an instance/example in which it was evident that humans made an error in translation or deliberately added or took away from Scripture in order to support their own ideas when putting out a new version of the Bible? Sorry if somehow I'm just not understanding what you mean to ask, Miss Deidre. :)

Of course there is evidence that man has erred and deliberately tweaked the translation to fit the translators view.. Why do you think we have so many different translations,, different groups of Christians want a translation that fits their view.

Just pick up a Greek literal translation of the bible and read it next to an NIV version,, you'll see the NIV translation not only tweaked it's translation but purposely left out meaning and words from the Greek.

Example: the Greek word "melo" which means 'about to' is left out of the NIV translation 26 times when the word is found in the original Greek text in reference to the Parousia of Christ. The NIV translators did not give the original meaning of the Greek text cause they did not want it's readers to think the New Testament or Jesus or Paul said that "Christ is 'about to' come" in reference to the second coming,, They removed that word so the bible doesn't look,like it was wrong about the timing of the second coming.

There's plenty of other examples of a translation translating toward a certain view and bias.
 
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Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?

I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)

What do you think? :sunflower:

Deidre,

This is an excellent point that there might be errors and corruption in the Bible. If the Bible is not inerrant, how do you know it is true to believe what you state here: the overall message, God's grace for a relationship with Christ, and experiencing the Holy Spirit. How do you know this is true information if the Bible cannot be trusted?

I consider that it is necessary to define which documents might contain 'errors' and 'corruption' (your language). The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy met in Chicago in October 1978 and issued the 'Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy'. Article 10 clarifies what is meant by inerrancy:

Article X.

WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text [i.e. original documents] of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.​

WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.​

Therefore, that which is without error is what was originally 'breathed out by God' (2 Tim 3:16 ESV) and the process happened according to 2 Peter 1:20-21 (ESV):

20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.​

The doctrine of inerrancy is critical as it would be a travesty of justice to conclude that the God of perfection created imperfect Scripture in the original documents.

WHAT THIS DOCTRINE DOES NOT TEACH is that translations since the original manuscripts are perfect. The copies of these MSS that I have seen (I read NT Greek) demonstrate variants (like typographical errors) that happen when one hand copies from one papyrus or vellum to another.

Even though we don't have access to the original MSS (we'd probably idolize them), scholars - by comparing MSS available and those that go back to the earliest church fathers - are confident that we have a Greek text of the NT that is pretty close to the originals (autographa).

Oz
 
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Of course there is evidence that man has erred and deliberately tweaked the translation to fit the translators view.. Why do you think we have so many different translations,, different groups of Christians want a translation that fits their view.

Just pick up a Greek literal translation of the bible and read it next to an NIV version,, you'll see the NIV translation not only tweaked it's translation but purposely left out meaning and words from the Greek.

Example: the Greek word "melo" which means 'about to' is left out of the NIV translation 26 times when the word is found in the original Greek text in reference to the Parousia of Christ. The NIV translators did not give the original meaning of the Greek text cause they did not want it's readers to think the New Testament or Jesus or Paul said that "Christ is 'about to' come" in reference to the second coming,, They removed that word so the bible doesn't look,like it was wrong about the timing of the second coming.

There's plenty of other examples of a translation translating toward a certain view and bias.

Reformed,

Please refer me to where I can find 'the original Greek text' (your language) so that I can confirm that the NIV translators left out melo, 'about to' in relation to Christ's second coming.

Oz
 
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Many people do not realize all that goes into a Bible translation, but if you look it up, it becomes more evident. These translators are historians, linguists, and more. They do not just copy from one or two older sources and then translate it into another language like you'd do in a college French or Latin class. A myriad of factors are taken into account before decisions are reached.
 
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They can't keep abreast with all research - therefor one Bible translation for everything is not the best solution. Sometimes You have to track down the best translation of a verse, a chapter or a Biblical book. The teams also set limits for themselves, some of the limits made up for stylistic reasons, other reasons having more to do with that there are several copyrighted Bible version in English out already and You can't imitate any of them. We should wait for those who can choose between versions and for example translations in commentaries on Biblical books, Biblical section by Biblical section or a verse or a chapter at a time, not wait for more English versions:
They do not just copy from one or two older sources and then translate it into another language like you'd do in a college French or Latin class. A myriad of factors are taken into account before decisions are reached.
 
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Christians have a wide range of views on the Bible. More fundamentalist oriented groups are more likely to take the position of inerrancy, but I'd say that view is not common amongst Mainline Protestants & others - so you may want to consider looking into different types of churches than what you've been looking into.

I don't believe in inerrancy, & I don't believe the authors of the biblical texts set out to compose inerrant writings. I believe that the Bible is in some sense inspired, but even more importantly I believe the Bible reveals Jesus Christ, who is actually the Word of God.

How do you know 'the Bible reveals Jesus Christ, who is actually the Word of God' (your language) if the Bible is not true and trustworthy? It is paradoxical that you want to affirm something about Jesus as the Word of God, which comes from Scripture, but that Scripture cannot be trusted as it may be erroneous.

When Scripture affirms that 'all Scripture is breathed out by God' (2 Tim 3:16 ESV) or 'all scripture is inspired by God' (NRSV), how is it that the perfect God (Matt 5:48) whose, 'way is perfect' (Ps 18:30) and whose 'work is perfect' (Deut 32:4) would create imperfect Scriptures in the original documents (autographa)?

It does not make sense that the perfect God would create a Bible that is riddled with errors in the original documents.

Of course the mainline Protestant churches in my country (except for the Sydney Diocese of the Anglicans) would not believe in inerrancy. They have denigrated the authority of the Bible for decades, have lost the Gospel, and attendance numbers have dwindled so badly that some churches are closing. I wonder why?

Oz
 
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