My take on Biblical inerrancy

[tonychanyt]

Is the Bible inerrant?

The word "inerrant" is not in the Bible. I prefer to stick to the wording of the Bible when I argue with people. What does the Bible actually say?

2 Timothy 3:

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

At Biblehub, 13 versions use inspired by or of God; 10 versions use God-breathed

What is the mechanical process of being God-breathed?

Job 32:

8 But it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding.

I'd define God-breathed as the process of a sacred word/thought breathed out by God to inspire a human's spirit to record it in a human language.

Jeremiah experienced this process in 36:

4 Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD that he had spoken to him.

The LORD spoke the words to Jeremiah. Jeremiah dictated them to Baruch. Baruch wrote them down. But the king didn't like it and destroyed this scroll.

27 Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 28 “Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned.

Once again, Jeremiah was inspired and obeyed.

32 Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them.

Note that this 2nd scroll was not identical to the first one, even though both were inspired. In both cases, 1 Thess 2:

13 When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God

More generally, Ecclesiastes 7:

28 while I was still searching but not finding— I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.

In the above, did the writer of Ecclesiastes quote from the mouth of God?

I don't think so. He was inspired by God generally to write this book of Ecclesiastes. When it came to this particular verse, the stress is on the I, the author himself. He inserted his personal opinion or bias here.

In the NT, Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. …

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.

There is a bit of circular or recursive reasoning in this OP: I believe that the Scripture is God-breathed because the Scripture says it is. This is an axiomatic tautology.

What is the alternative?

Let proposition L1 = Scripture is a lie.

L1 is self-contradictory and self-destructive and cannot be asserted logically as true.

BTW, I haven't proven that Scripture is true. I merely assume it because assuming the opposite is nuts.

Is the Bible inerrant?

The word "inerrant" is not in the Bible. I prefer to stick to the wording of the Bible. People who like to generalize tend to overgeneralize.

 

[d taylor]

Bible inerrancy is speaking to the situation where The Bible seems to contradict itself. By saying one thing and then in another part of The Bible says something that disagrees with the other part.

Example, salvation is by faith in Jesus where other areas may say salvation is by something other than faith in Jesus.

The translations we have not have areas that i some cases have been altered in some areas because there may not be a word that will translate into English. Other types of changes is where a word may only be used in one context so it is hard to establish the word meaning.

This verse has been mistranslated
Job 26:7 it currently reads
He stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.

There is no support in The Bible for this verse to be translated this way.

But there is support for the translation to be translated this way.
"He spreadeth out the North over the desolate' place (the abyss of waters), and supporteth the Earth upon fastenings."

 

[eleos1954]

Is the Bible inerrant?

The word "inerrant" is not in the Bible. I prefer to stick to the wording of the Bible when I argue with people. What does the Bible actually say?

2 Timothy 3:

At Biblehub, 13 versions use inspired by or of God; 10 versions use God-breathed

What is the mechanical process of being God-breathed?

Job 32:

I'd define God-breathed as the process of a sacred word/thought breathed out by God to inspire a human's spirit to record it in a human language.

Jeremiah experienced this process in 36:

The LORD spoke the words to Jeremiah. Jeremiah dictated them to Baruch. Baruch wrote them down. But the king didn't like it and destroyed this scroll.

Once again, Jeremiah was inspired and obeyed.

Note that this 2nd scroll was not identical to the first one, even though both were inspired. In both cases, 1 Thess 2:


More generally, Ecclesiastes 7:

In the above, did the writer of Ecclesiastes quote from the mouth of God?

I don't think so. He was inspired by God generally to write this book of Ecclesiastes. When it came to this particular verse, the stress is on the I, the author himself. He inserted his personal opinion or bias here.

In the NT, Peter wrote in 2 Peter 1:



There is a bit of circular or recursive reasoning in this OP: I believe that the Scripture is God-breathed because the Scripture says it is. This is an axiomatic tautology.

What is the alternative?

Let proposition L1 = Scripture is a lie.

L1 is self-contradictory and self-destructive and cannot be asserted logically as true.

BTW, I haven't proven that Scripture is true. I merely assume it because assuming the opposite is nut.

Is the Bible inerrant?

The word "inerrant" is not in the Bible. I prefer to stick to the wording of the Bible. People who like to generalize tend to overgeneralize.

Do you assume or believe scripture is true?

 

[tonychanyt]

Do you assume or believe scripture is true?

Neither. I believe that all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

 

[eleos1954]

Neither. I believe that all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

ok ... you believe .... you just said so.

 

[tonychanyt]

ok ... you believe .... you just said so.

Of course, I believe in God. What did you expect?

 

[ByTheSpirit]

I'm not sure where I fall on this. The idea behind biblical inerrancy is that if scripture is inspired by God, or God-breathed, then certainly it would be inerrant. In fact, there scriptures that state the "Law of the Lord is perfect" and combine that with prophets speaking for God would have to be perfect, that doesn't leave much of scripture to get wrong.

Some of the historical text could be wrong if looked at from a literal sense. For example, in 2 Chronicles 20, scripture says that an army of 1 million Soldiers was coming up against Jerusalem to fight against it. 2700 years ago... an army of 1 million? I don't buy that. It's more likely that this number is hyperbole. I don't doubt the army was a large one, I doubt it was as large as described.