The Inspiration of Scripture

FireDragon76 said:

How do you get direct knowledge of 1st century Jewish life short of a time machine?

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Probably a little long and off subject for here. I will share this though... it will at least give an idea of what I am saying.

About 30 years before Christ, a student of Hillel named Jonathan Ben Uzziel wrote a commentary/paraphrase of what we call the OT, it was called "Targum Jonathan." He wrote in Aramaic (as expected, that is the language of Judean Jews at that time) and of the many things I can share about this ONE work.... is his use of the word memra. That word means "word." If John had written his gospel in Aramaic (and that is one book I think was written in Aramaic) then where we see "word" (as in, "in the beginning was the word") we would have seen "memra" in the original letter. Now, throughout the Targum, Jonathan took liberties with the word memra. He would add it to places he thought it needed to be, in fact, in a place or two, he replaced God's own name with the word "memra." In other words, Jonathan Ben Uzziel, and perhaps all of the disciples of Hillel (Paul went to the same school and studied under Hillel's grandson, Gamaliel), saw the "word" pretty much as Christians do... as the active force of God able to manipulate the physical realm. The memra, the word was God... and they understood that before the gospel of John declared it.

The gospel of John... as a side note... spends a great deal of time in the first chapter making sure we know that Jesus wasn't John the Baptist. One scholar I have studied under believes that is because the gospel of John was written to the followers of John the Baptist (who still exist today, they are known as Mandeans) in order to make sure it was understood that John was to prepare the way... not BE the way.

Dave-W said:

I believe many of them are - yes.

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You believe many of them are - that doesn't make it so.

Dave-W said:

And celibate priests - that is in violation of scripture. Congregational leaders are to be the "husband of one wife."

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That doesn't mean they HAVE to be married; if it did, then they would also HAVE to have children, be able to control them, be sober, not have a temper etc etc.

A Realist said:

You would think that if it was all "God-breathed", the 4 gospels would contain exactly the same story (plus or minus some other details added by the individual author).

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A Realist said:

I think he missed the key word....experiential....

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if it’s not experiential you have got to put a great deal of trust in people. I’m curious how others seem to do this without even the hint of skepticism. I wish someone would explain why they trust humans so much.

Calvin_1985 said:

I didn't elevate anything above anything. I simply said what the Bible is in a short comment. I didn't include anything regarding Christ because He is the reason we even Believe the Bible as Fathers word to begin with. I shouldn't have to mention Hin at all because He is all throughout scripture anyways and He is the one that wrote the whole thing anyway. Everyone Here already knows that the Bible is about Jesus

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Actually, in my experience it is not common knowledge, or if people think it is, often times the Christ they believe in is seemingly unrecognizable. So I am doubtful that we are safe in assuming that Christ is just implicit in the Bible to all.

Tropical Wilds said:

Given that any given Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation, I think that claiming it is the literal word of God would obviously be wrong. I think over 2,000 years and an infinite number of translations, the word of man under the pretense of being from God has absolutely slipped in there.

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Some translations do have interpretations. Those are usually your dynamic equivalent versions, paraphrase and easy to read Bibles. But we do have literal word for word translations. Some of the top ones being the KJV, NASB, LEB and ESV. There are some difficult passages in the original Hebrew and Greek which translators give their best representation in the English. But they usually tell us that in a footnote.

There are tens of thousands of extant manuscripts that scholars believe they have the words of the autograph.

By the way... I picked "false" on the poll. The bible is inspired in it's original letters. What we have today are copies of copies that have passed through at least a language or two before getting to English. I can show you Hebrew words that are not translatable and thus not even in our English bibles. That doesn't mean we don't have enough to learn about and please our Father... it just means God inspired the authors to write when they did and we are looking at copies and translations after the fact.

Tree of Life said:

@Ken Rank you've just dropped Christian Forums back down to a C plus. Why do you not believe that the Bible is the very words of God?

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Are you a 100% certain it’s all Gods infallible words?

Tree of Life said:

So you believe that God went through the trouble to speak infallibly but that he did not go through the trouble to infallibly preserve his word for us?

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Inspired and infallible aren’t the same though.

Loversofjesus_2018 said:

Inspired and infallible aren’t the same though.

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That's the key. Some think inspired equals perfection but there has always been a human element. God didn't over take somebody's body and write... this isn't the SciFi channel. He influenced, inspired... but did not force. So, there is still a human element.

Meh....a C plus is still passing. That'll do.

Tree of Life said:

Of course there is a human element to the Bible. It was also written by humans. But this does not mean that any of it is subject to error because it is the word of God. Are you suggesting that there are errors in Scripture?

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Is it possible that there are errors in even the original text. I’m not even asking is likely. I’m asking is it possible?

Jon Osterman said:

These are not the manuscripts written by the original authors.

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You mean the autographs. The actual substance Paul wrote on for example, his epistle to the Ephesians.

Your level of scrutiny seems to not accept written copies of the original but the autographs. If so you can't take any human history seriously. Or is this just the standard applied to Holy Scriptures.

Edit: You may found these sources useful:

Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability | CARM.org

Manuscript Evidence for the Bible (by Ron Rhodes)

The Institute for Creation Research

http://www.equip.org/article/facts-for-skeptics-of-the-new-testament/

Manuscript Evidence by David Hocking

Is the New Testament Text Reliable? | Stand to Reason

The Textual Reliability of the New Testament | John Ankerberg Show

http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/410

4. The Manuscripts Tell The Story: The New Testament Is Reliable

A Closer Look: The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

Biblical manuscript - Wikipedia

The Earliest New Testament Manuscripts

Bible Menu

New Testament Manuscripts Copyright by Norman L. Geisler ppt download

The bearing of recent discovery on the trustworthiness of the New Testament : Ramsay, William Mitchell, Sir, 1851-1939 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

A Brief Sample of Archaeology Corroborating the Claims of the New Testament | Cold Case Christianity

New Testament Documents – Date and Authorship

https://www.bible-history.com/new-testament/timeline.html

Mark fragment Qumran: 7Q5: The Earliest NT Papyrus?

Matthew dating: Arguments for a pre-70 CE Dating of Matthew's Gospel

Early Gospels: The case for the early dating of the Gospels

NT documents: New Testament Documents – Date and Authorship

When Was the New Testament Completed?

Archeological Evidence - Evidences of the Bible

https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ramsay/ramsay_gasque.pdf

Josephus and the Old Testament | Scriptures of the Jewish Bible - the Law, the Prophets and the Writings

Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, Whiston section 8 --Josephus

Book of Daniel scholarship: An Introduction to the Book of Daniel

Biblical timelines: Time Line Survey of Bible Events

Daniel DSS: New Light on the Book of Daniel from the Dead Sea Scrolls

Jewish Talmud and Death of Jesus: The Jewish Talmud and the Death of Christ

Evidence external of historical Jesus Christ: Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources

Ancient Evidence for Jesus from Non-Christian Sources

Testimony of the Evangelists - Wikipedia

4. Jesus Feeds 5,000 People (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-15)

The Testimony of Two or Three Witnesses: We Can Trust the Factuality of the Gospel, by Bob and Gretchen Passantino

The testimony of the evangelists examined by the rules of evidence administered in courts of justice : Greenleaf, Simon, 1783-1853 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls - Daniel 9 Daniel 9fragments.

Tree of Life said:

The Bible is inspired by God. What does this mean?

Simply put - "What the Bible says, God says."

Some say that the Bible is inspired, but they are not comfortable saying that the Bible is the very words of God. They have some looser, stranger view of inspiration.

What the Bible says, God says. Can we give this a hearty "Amen"?

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If this is true then 1 Corinthians 7:12 is in direct contradiction to it. Don't get me wrong, I believe God can speak through the Bible, but there's plenty of instances where man is speaking and in the above case even explicitly states "I, not the Lord".

David Cabrera said:

Do you mean the Conservative Lutherans? the Pentecostals? Catholics?

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I meant those who deny the inspiration of Holy Scriptures. I know for a fact the Catechism of the Catholic church supports the OP. The Conservative Lutherans? You mean LCMS? Their confession of faith confirms the inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scriptures.