If the Bible has errors or discrepancies how am I supposed to believe in Jesus?

[pescador]

Blind in the sense that it's acceptance of information that was not experienced. Any faith is blind by definition, otherwise it's not faith. In that respect, much of science is faith as well. Something may seem to be correct, and thus you base your faith on this assumption, but what you believe in is not reality but an error. For example, it seemed perfectly logical to believe in the geocentric model of the Universe for the longest of time. It was strong faith based on observation in something utterly untrue.

Hebrews 11 begins, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." The rest of the chapter, too long to post here, fully explains the faith that people of the Old Testament had and which we have.

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

Hebrews 11 begins, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." The rest of the chapter, too long to post here, fully explains the faith that people of the Old Testament had and which we have.

Yes, same definition. Hope and not see, but be sure and certain. Blind faith!!! And it's a good thing. No salvation without it. No knowing God without blind child-like faith.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Yes, same definition. Hope and not see, but be sure and certain. Blind faith!!! And it's a good thing. No salvation without it. No knowing God without blind child-like faith.

God rewards faith.

 

[ByTheSpirit]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

I would say this, take the matter to God. You said you are wavering in your faith but have not lost faith yet, so use what faith you have and ask him to help you understand.

There are some passages in scripture I also have problems with like you do, but instead of focusing on what could be wrong, I focus on what is right you know?

There are some that believe the Bible has some errors on the minor details but on the ones that truly matter such as salvation and sanctification it is perfect. Either way we believe in Jesus not the scriptures. The scriptures just point us to Jesus, who is himself perfect and holy.

I hope that helps. I will pray for you

 

[JESUS=G.O.A.T]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

I wouldn't always trust scholars becuase there isn't a conscious between them, or in other words they tend to have different views on scripture.

Additionally, we should remmber each gospel was written for a certian group of people as well it wasn't just different perspectives.

Luke=Gentiles really

John=mainly just a keen focus on the teachings of JESUS

and then Mark and Matthew were written for Romans/Jews idr which one for which but yeah.

So when you read each one there will be slight differences but the doctrine is the same also take it to God that's a great option too.

 

[dqhall]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

I have not agreed with those who do not think John wrote the Gospel of John. I found early church historian Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History) described scholars before him who did not think John wrote Revelation.

All the books of the Bible are not the original copies. They are all copies of copies. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves at Qumran near the Dead Sea (1946-1956). There were copies of Old Testament books in the Qumran library that did not exactly match the next earliest Hebrew or Greek manuscripts in existence. Copying errors had occurred over time (Hershel Shanks lecture).

I heard preachers telling me I should try to gain a personal relationship with Jesus. Faith in a living God is important. One may look to find truths in the Bible and passages that lead to salvation. Accentuate the positive. Not all the passages of the Bible are of equal value to a reader.

 

[Rick Otto]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

I know, right? So I look at my options and it's first a schism of Catholic/ Orthodox, each claiming the corner on truth...
And that book... ! Revelations might not have been written by John. It may be the enemies plan!!!
It doesn't matter as long as your primary relationship is with Him, and it's on the right (improving) track. Jesus pointed out the two greatest commandments, making it pretty easy to put any situation in perspective (for me).
So don't even try to apply the same standards of divinity to the book or a "church". Churchianity is often just a destraction from what should and could be a personal relationship.
In seeking that relationship look for answers in the language described in Psalm 19:
] The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
[2] Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
[3] There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
[4] Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
[5] Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.
[6] His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
[7] The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
[8] The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
[9] The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

 

[-V-]

But in Revelation and Paul's letters they wrote as we'd expect: in first person.

So? "Common" doesn't mean "always".

 

[Soyeong]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

Hello,

This is an excellent lecture that presents evidence for why we should consider the Gospels to be high quality eyewitness accounts:

This lecture explains why there are differences in the Gospels:

 

[Soyeong]

Faith is blind in nature. You don't have to have a perfect record as basis of faith. On the contrary, the more obvious is the error, the more likely it will be believed in. People believe in funnier things, like aliens ruling our world etc.

On the contrary, there is no such thing as blind faith, so if it is blind, then it is not faith. For example, if you were going camping with a friend and they told you that they would bring all the food for the week, then the future is unseen, so having faith in your friend would be believing that your friend will do as they said and taking an action that would depended on them to do that. However, this faith would not be blind because it would be based upon your past experience with your friend and on how reliable you perceive them to be.

Our beliefs do spontaneously pop into our heads uncaused, but rather there is always some evidence that indicates to us that they are true, without which aour beliefs would never be formed in the first place. People who believe weird things will nevertheless usually try to give you their reasons to convince you to also believe, so even though their believe may be false, it is not blind, only mistaken.

 

[GirdYourLoins]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

If your belief is based purely on the Bible I suggest you pray and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit and for the Holy Spirit to give you revelation of scripture and its truth.

Scripture comes from God. Revelation of it comes through the Holy Spirit. The Bible contains all that is necessary and nothing should be added or taken away, but we need to be able to see it as the living Word of God.

 

[timewerx]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

You may even be surprised, Jesus NEVER referred to Himself as Jesus, nor even those who interacted with Him in the Gospels! He was only called "Jesus" in third person by the author of the Gospels and prior to the virgin birth by an angel.

Jesus often referred to Himself as an unnamed person.

We only find "Jesus" introducing Himself as "Jesus" in the Acts when He appeard to Apostle Paul. Even that witness account by Paul is inconsistent in later parts of Acts.

So how could Jesus say the great importance of His "name" when He barely, even never spoke of it? Actually, in the Greek context, "name" could also mean "cause". For example, "Anything you ask in my name will be given" can also be "Anything you ask for my cause....". "Cause" in the context of pursuits. Pursuits, mainly to do the Will of God.

"Anything you ask to fulfill the Will of God will be given". The Will of God is to believe in whom He has sent, to love our brothers and sisters, help them in their distress, and preaching of repentance (turning away from their sins) for the forgiveness of sins.

There is really no name..... Only a Godly Cause and if you are willing to lose your life for that cause.

 

[CrystalDragon]

So? "Common" doesn't mean "always".

Because you said that "the writers of the Bible don't write as we do today". If that was the case then there wouldn't really be any uses of first-person regarding writings, but we do see examples of that, indicating that accounts of events that the person was there to witness were written in first person just as we do now. Bot the case with the Gospels. They didn't even have names attached to them in the text, unlike John saying right off the bat that he's the one the Revelation came to.

Not to mention Luke says right in his introduction (though he never used his name) that he was not an eyewitness, but he compiled his Gospel from stories handed down from people who were eyewitnesses.

 

[Goatee]

Copies of copies. That's scripture as we know it. I understand that it is only with the Holy Spirit that one can truly understand scripture. Be it through a good teacher or by God opening up your heart. But, the truth comes through testing of the scripture too.

One cannot let themselves be open to being deceived either.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

Four men see an elephant, one says the elephant was ten feet tall, another says the elephant was 12 feet tall, another says the elephant was greyish white, another says it was a whitish grey.

There was still an elephant.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[AFrazier]

Just citing the examples of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, when the supper and day and hour of cruxificion is different, or, John in the gospel saying he was an eyewitness of the events, when scholars don't believe it was he who wrote ithe gospel, how am I supposed to believe in Jesus? I'm wavering on my belief.

There is this thing called confirmation bias. "Scholars" who believe John didn't write the gospel of John see what they want to see. There are obvious colloquialisms in the gospel of John to indicate that it was written by a Jew in the first century, and for every scholar who says that John didn't write it, there are two who can demonstrate that he did. These same scholars who doubt John's authorship would also tell you that "certain books were left out of the bible" for this reason or that, citing works found in the Nag Hammadi library, when a simple acknowledgement of the origin of these so-called excluded books discredits them as true bible content.

Discrepancies are a matter of two issues. 1) Our misunderstanding. That stuff was written two thousand years ago. There are colloquialisms that go over our heads, because we didn't live in that time. There were also matters of common knowledge that never found their way onto the pages. 2) Human error in the reproduction process. Copy one book of the bible yourself by hand and see how many typos you end up with. While scribes made every effort to avoid such things, it still happened. It doesn't change the intent of the story.

And as a point of particular interest, I can tell you that a gamma (3) and stigma (6) are easily confused. In the dating of Archelaus' banishment (Herod's son and successor), there are provincial coins with the date Λς (Hendin 1328), from which Hendin 1328a distinguishes as variants others that are assumed to be Λς, but are clearly IΓ.

So the discrepancy between Mark and John could be as simple as a stigma that looked too much like a gamma, and so it was copied as a gamma. Over time and many copies, the gamma is what stuck. So Mark's third hour may very well have been the sixth hour in the original copy. But since we don't have the autograph copy to confirm the scribal error, or to verify long form or short form of the numeral, we can't know for sure. It might have even been originally long form, but copied in short form by a lazy scribe. We simply don't know. I've perused quite a few manuscripts. I can tell you first hand that the handwriting is often atrocious, and they are loaded with scrunched words, corrections in the margins, crossed out words, and other things of that nature. Half the time, you can barely tell what you're looking at if you don't already know what you're looking for.

So all we can do is make comparisons with the remaining evidence to infer what we can. Matthew and Luke both have Jesus crucified near the six hour, when darkness came over the land. You confirm the truth by the testimony of two or more witnesses. Mark is clearly in error. The only question is whether it is Mark who was in error, or whether it is a scribe five-hundred years later who made the error.

Either way, what matters is that there is a reasonable explanation for the discrepancy.

At the end of the day, Jesus was crucified. It really doesn't matter if it was the third or sixth hour of the day. He was still crucified.

 

[hedrick]

Four men see an elephant, one says the elephant was ten feet tall, another says the elephant was 12 feet tall, another says the elephant was greyish white, another says it was a whitish grey.

There was still an elephant.

-CryptoLutheran

Right. But the OP is coming from a tradition where an assertion that the elephant is 10 feet tall is taken not to be one person's perspective, but an eternal truth, such that having another Gospel say it's 12 feet tall is a real problem.

I should note that your analogy is a bit different than the usual parable of blind men and the elephant. As usually told, the men describe different parts of the elephant, with accounts that are different, but from the perspective of someone who can see the whole thing, they're all accurate.

Your version of the analogy admits to some factual differences. That's closer to what we see in the Gospels. There's no way the Synoptics and John both contain accurate transcripts of what Jesus said. Reasonable interpretations of the same person from different perspectives, absolutely. Similarly, there's no way that 1 Tim came from the same person as the undisputed letters of Paul, though both obviously reflect the Christian message from somewhat different parts of the mainstream Christian tradition.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Is that the variantant of 70 virgins in heaven for committing suicide now? Jus curious, not really a question ...

 

[ViaCrucis]

Right. But the OP is coming from a tradition where an assertion that the elephant is 10 feet tall is taken not to be one person's perspective, but an eternal truth, such that having another Gospel say it's 12 feet tall is a real problem.

I should note that your analogy is a bit different than the usual parable of blind men and the elephant. As usually told, the men describe different parts of the elephant, with accounts that are different, but from the perspective of someone who can see the whole thing, they're all accurate.

Your version of the analogy admits to some factual differences. That's closer to what we see in the Gospels. There's no way the Synoptics and John both contain accurate transcripts of what Jesus said. Reasonable interpretations of the same person from different perspectives, absolutely. Similarly, there's no way that 1 Tim came from the same person as the undisputed letters of Paul, though both obviously reflect the Christian message from somewhat different parts of the mainstream Christian tradition.

I was mostly trying to say that discrepancy doesn't negate the truth of a thing. I thought about using the usual elephant analogy, but I don't think it fits quite right; because there are minute discrepancies here and there. These shouldn't be a problem (though I know for some they can be); our faith in Jesus shouldn't depend on these things. The Evangelists aren't trying to give us a jot and tittle biographical account, they are telling the Gospel story. What's important isn't where they give different details, what's important is that they are telling us about Jesus Christ who suffered, died, and rose again. The verity and trustworthiness of this isn't determined by perfect consistency in every bit of minutia; but in our faith and received confession which we have received from the beginning; and it ultimately is faith. Not faith in a perfectly inerrant text, but faith in Christ Himself and the Gospel.

Ultimately this is why I believe such inerrantism is damaging and destructive to faith, and frequently can and does lead to the shipwrecking of faith; it is a dangerous foundation for faith made on sand.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

Is that the variantant of 70 virgins in heaven for committing suicide now? Jus curious, not really a question ...

¿Que?

-CryptoLutheran