You're basing all our misconceptions on what is obviously a copyist's error? Good grief! Your objections were settled so long ago as to be small and insignificant footnotes in the history of biblical scholarship. And the citation of the "Cainan" non-issue is typical of those who strive to disprove inerrancy.
What on earth are you talking about? What "copyist error" are you talking about? What objections were settled long ago so as to be small and insignificant footnotes?
I'm not trying to use "Cainan" to argue against inerrancy. Are you capable of discussing things without flying off the rails? I didn't say the citation of "Cainan" was an issue of any sort. I don't think it is. I do think it shows that Luke is using the genealogies from the LXX, which I don't think should present a problem for anyone. I don't have a problem with this and don't think it's an issue of any sort. I'm probably going to have to repeat this again in a few posts aren't I?
Good grief.
I'm going to re-assert my primary argument against the idea in this thread that even though a young earth might not be a salvation issue, it means those who reject a young earth have a problem with biblical authority. My arguments are these:
(1) Neither a young earth or old earth point of view is supportable from the text. The reason is becuase the text makes no claim either way.
(2) A young earth point of view requires a literal, historical reading of the genealogies. However the genealogies are not intended to be literal, historical statements, rather they are intended to be theological statements about theologically significant events in Israel's history.
(2a) My first piece of evidence, that I can't seem to communicate well, is that the genealogies, specifically the numbers in the genealogies, are different across the existant OT manuscripts (the MT, LXX, SP...). The are different in ways that cannot be attributed to scribal mistakes. Why are they so different? If the genealogies were suppsed to be a literal historical account of the entire human family tree and eath's history, why did so many different scribes come up with so many different numbers? Why not just copy the numbers as you found them? I think the reason is becuase the numbers are not and never were meant/intended to be a literal timeline of earth's history. They are meant to be used to highlight the theologically significant events in Israel. Using the various timelines in the various manuscripts, important events in Israel's history always fall on significant numbers/dates (ie, they are easily divisible by things like 7, 10, 49, 50, 100, 1000, etc..). Regardless of the manuscript used, they all use this technique.
I think some people may have a problem with what the author intends to say vs what we think they ought to be saying and how we think they should say it.
Let me also start a list of things I have not said:
(a) The bible is in error
(b) The genealogies in the NT are a problem
(c) Luke is using Joseph's genealogy
