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There are some minor translation differences ... that's why it's a good idea to compare translations and also use Hebrew and Greek lexicons.
Sure, the big picture is the most important thing, yet I am also confronted with Christians who take every word in the Bible literally, and that makes communication and sharing of inspiration difficult. But yes, it is about the big picture, and also about Amazing Grace, yes.
Thanks, Arbiter01, that was exactly the term I was looking for. Making the Bible your idol. That is totally different than using it as an amazingly inspiring text, which should be read with some discernment. Hallelujah! Merry Christmas!
Whether or not they are inerrant or that sections have been added does not change the fact that God's truth within scriptures throughout is not inerrant. The message remains the same from start to finish. Human theology can be discounted without harm to God's truth. His truth addresses any changes that have been made even if the one's responsible thought they were adding validity. That truth is His will must come before our own.
Considering in a lot of ways we can only guess as to what was in the original texts, it seems like a moot point to say they were inerrant. Whether they were or not, our modern texts are not inerrant. So subscribing to a notion that the originals were inerrant is of little practical value.
I would say not inerrant, but faithful. What we have today is a reliable witness of what was originally written, particularly in the New Testament. Those passages which are in dispute by most scholars are not going to change a major doctrine of Christianity one way or another.
It does have value because, particularly in the New Testament, we have very good early manuscript evidence, along with many quotes from the early church fathers, which strongly suggest that the New Testament we have today is extremely close to the original texts.
I can understand that, and without doubt God had a hand in preserving the text we have today, and whatever errors there are in the text were allowed by Him for a purpose.
Considering He used Gentiles to forward scriptures until this day. Scriptures that still speak of putting His will ahead of the will of man yet the Gentiles carrying the scriptures forward abandoned the Kingdom to rejoin the world of man, accepting an offer from the Tempter that Jesus refused. Truth hidden in contradiction.
I'm not sure being close is enough when we're discussing inerrancy, because we don't know if any particular thing we're looking at was actually present in the originals. So we can be confident that what we have is generally trustworthy, but whether or not the originals were inerrant doesn't change how we interpret the texts today. We can use text criticism to approximate an original reading, but we'll never have what the originals actually said and our text criticism processes involve a fair amount of speculation.
Yes, and I would say the same is possible for the originals. They may have all of the normal historiographical issues of any text from the time they were produced without such things making a difference in their authority on the areas that they have relevance.
Appreciate the thoughts, it's certainly not my area of expertise either though considering this is a bit of a basic area of faith I'm not sure that we must rely on experts to have an opinion.
Archaeologists have discovered ancient Biblical texts, such as were found in the Dead Sea scrolls, that are word for word identical with the texts we have today. Of course some nuances that are in the Greek and Hebrew don't always come through in our English versions, but they are fairly minor and do not in any way detract from what the Holy Spirit says in the Bible. The exceptions are versions like the Passion Bible and the Message which are paraphrases by authors who have no knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and therefore have serious differences between the original language texts and what they have written.
Word for word identical? That sounds rather fantastic. No offense, but do you have resources on that?
You have Google. Look it up for yourself the same way I did. If the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the Bible, then the wording comes from the Holy Spirit (in the original) so the way the Bible is worded is important and significant. Most times the Bible is to be interpreted exactly how it says, not what we think it might say to us. We also have to determine which parts of the Bible are written for us, and which are written directly to us. What this means is that there is a difference between the descriptive parts and the prescriptive parts. For example, the Gospels and Acts are mainly descriptive and not meant to be the basis for Christian doctrine, but the letters of the Apostles are prescriptive and are there for reproof, exhortation, doctrine, and guidance.
