Why is it necessary for a Christian to believe that the Bible has no errors?

[Albion]

But it doesn't matter, a person can tell himself whatever he wants....

...which is what I was saying before that your post seems, to me, to an example of.

 

[sculleywr]

...which is what I was saying before that your post seems, to me, to an example of.

How about instead of dealing in substanceless one liners, you prove that early Christians rejected the Orthodox canon? It shouldn't be that hard if you're right. you have literally hundreds of authors to use as evidence.

Oh wait...If you did that, you'd run the risk of proving your theory wrong.

Again, do you choose a canon used by Christians for 1800 years prior to Christian use of your canon or your new canon, that removed everything that disagreed with Protestantism so that it was easier to digest?

 

[hedrick]

What I said was conspiracy theory wasn't the widespread use of the LXX. That's well known. It was "a canon designed by Jews asking "how do I remove Christ from these so that Jews won't find Christianity?"" which seems to say that Jews formed the Hebrew canon by removing books pointing to Jesus. If that's not what you meant, I apologize.

On the canon itself, I don't have strong feelings. I use the Protestant canon because I'm Protestant, and it's our tradition; and I haven't seen anything in the additional books that seem to justify a change in canon.

 

[Wgw]

Not too sure if I want to go where the Lamb with the 7 eyes and 7 horns dwell along with the 4 living animal-human hybrid creatures. Oh that's right, Revelations calls it the new heaven. So I guess all the Bible is true, except for the large chunk they removed some 120 years ago..........

Indeed, was there even a major new edition published in 1895? I am baffled.

 

[sculleywr]

What I said was conspiracy theory wasn't the widespread use of the LXX. That's well known. It was "a canon designed by Jews asking "how do I remove Christ from these so that Jews won't find Christianity?"" which seems to say that Jews formed the Hebrew canon by removing books pointing to Jesus. If that's not what you meant, I apologize.

On the canon itself, I don't have strong feelings. I use the Protestant canon because I'm Protestant, and it's our tradition; and I haven't seen anything in the additional books that seem to justify a change in canon.

The problem is that Protestants haven't justified changing the canon IN THE FIRST PLACE. They were in the canon which was used by the Church without question throughout the pre-Reformation period, including the pre-Nicene and Apostolic eras. There is nothing to justify SHORTENING the Bible. So how about this: you justify it. You justify why we should REMOVE books that the early Christians openly and without Christian challenge called Scripture.

The Masoretic canon was simply an extension of the false Sadducceeic teaching that Hebrew was the only holy language. It has no place as the canon of the Church.

And therein lies your problem. You can't justify it, because it is a new tradition that you depend on, rather than the Tradition which was given by Christ and the Apostles. They quoted it and referenced books from the Greek canon without questioning their source and the early Church OBVIOUSLY called them Scripture. So what gives Protestants authority higher than theirs? That's pretty presumptuous if you ask me.

 

[klutedavid]

What I said was conspiracy theory wasn't the widespread use of the LXX. That's well known. It was "a canon designed by Jews asking "how do I remove Christ from these so that Jews won't find Christianity?"" which seems to say that Jews formed the Hebrew canon by removing books pointing to Jesus. If that's not what you meant, I apologize.

On the canon itself, I don't have strong feelings. I use the Protestant canon because I'm Protestant, and it's our tradition; and I haven't seen anything in the additional books that seem to justify a change in canon.

Hello Hedrick.

You seem to be someone that may be able to shed some light on a question I have.

Do you believe that the genealogies presented in the Old Testament are accurate,
i.e., the father and son sequences are correct? Or could there be in fact, missing
generations, i.e., not necessarily a linear sequence.

Everyone seems to have different opinion on the validity of the genealogies listed.

 

[hedrick]

I accept the non-conservative version of archaeology, which says that the Bible isn’t historical until roughly the time of the kings. You’d have to look at the specific genealogy, but many of them seem to use names to represent the founders of tribes or races, and thus show what the author understood as the relationship between peoples. But I wouldn’t say that this is always true.

 

[klutedavid]

I accept the non-conservative version of archaeology, which says that the Bible isn’t historical until roughly the time of the kings. You’d have to look at the specific genealogy, but many of them seem to use names to represent the founders of tribes or races, and thus show what the author understood as the relationship between peoples. But I wouldn’t say that this is always true.

Hello Hedrick.

Thanks for the reply.

I would agree with what you stated.

The ancient Hebrew language did not have terms like grandson or even grand father,
hence, the telescoping of generations would have occurred. The importance in the older
generations for the Hebrew record, was not a literal family tree so much. It was the
lineage of the significant folk in their history that was much more important. As you say
above, tribes, races and above all, the actual theocracy of their lineage.

Probably impossible to ever know, where this telescoping has occurred in the lineage
and the degree of the telescoping.

 

[shadowhunter]

that's a good point.

I can offer a better answer from some observations in scripture.

Modern theologians try to make the case that Paul's theology is different from Jesus and the other apostles. It is the same teaching AND a different teaching.

The Bereans checked his teaching against the OT that they had, and validated his teaching. It is the same as Christ. BUT because the Greeks did not wish to become Jewish, he chose to preach Christ and him crucified; the bare minimum for salvation. In this it is different. It is Christianity-lite.

The Gospels were written in the order Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Each author had about 10 years to study the scriptures more, and learn how to handle "the mystery hidden from the beginning".

Mark (recording Peter's teaching) starts the story with the preaching of John the Baptist. Matthew sees the hidden prophecies and pushes the beginning to Abraham. Luke sees even more and pushes the story back to Adam. John, having the most time to 'study' and show himself approved, pushed the story back to Genesis 1:1 and derives his doctrine of the Logos from there.

The gospels are the teaching of apostles who taught in Hebrew, captured in Greek for the Greek church that didn't want to learn to become Hebrew.

If you hear them as a Hebrew listening to a Greek who is teaching you what he heard in Hebrew, there are some interesting observations:

The word for mustard in Greek sounds kinda like the word for 'bruised by anger' in Hebrew. But saying the "seed who was bruised by anger"is nonsense to the Greek. The Hebrew immediately thinks of the seed of the woman who had a bruised heel. He was the least of all the seed because he served us all on the cross.

This starts us on a Hebrew-like study: Grass was given to the cattle to eat, and herbs were given to man to eat. The greatest thing men can eat is the body of Christ... and eating is a metaphor for learning. The herb is Jesus as the great teacher.

We actually celebrate the prophecy of cattle eating the grass too. At Christmas we put Jesus in the manger with the grass for the cattle (sheep) to eat. It is the same teaching at the beginning of his life as we have at the end with the bread.

The tree is the cross, and those who living in the Spirit rest in the cross.

Now the Greeks think that if they have faith like the literal Mustard seed, they can move mountains to the sea... even though no one has done it yet.

But the Hebrew word for water has a metaphor buried in it for the Father and Son. The Father is Spirit and the Son is Truth.

Jesus told the woman at Sychar that though they worshiped on the mountain, they would worship in Spirit and Truth. They would move the mountain to the water.

So the kingdom of heaven is like Christ at every turn: He was the seed of the woman with the bruised heel: God incarnate , he was the great herb: The great teacher and incarnate Word, He was the tree: The one who hung on the cross to give us life. If we live in the Spirit we rest in the cross and we worship in Spirit and truth.

Another example is that of mammon, translated money. the word actually exists in singular and plural for in the Old Testament, and it means "the believing ones".

The Greeks like to argue about how much money you can have. But the Hebrews see that you cannot serve God and YOURSELF. He does not say: There fore take not thought about how much is in your pocket, safe, or bank account. He says take not thought for your LIFE!

So there are no errors in the New Testament that are not corrected when translated back to Hebrew and sought out in the prophetic prophecies of the Old.

Heb 11:6 But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

 

[shadowhunter]

The large chunk of Scripture that 1800 years worth of Christians universally called Scripture that Protestants couldn't reconcile their doctrines with, so rather than change their doctrines to fit Scripture, they changed Scripture to fit their doctrines. They decided to use what is the true deuterocanon of the Old Testament, a canon designed by Jews asking "how do I remove Christ from these so that Jews won't find Christianity?"

Actually the books were dropped which God himself said were not scripture.

John was the prophetic fulfillment of the coming of Elijah.

Elijah made the rain stop, and it did not return until he spoke. Water symbolically represents the word of God.

In the fulfillment of the prophecy, there would be no word of God until John spoke.

So God divorced Israel and said he wouldn't speak to them for 400 years. Mal 4:56

There was no prophecy until John.

John's dad is in the temple and told to ask for a sign. He doesn't, and he is given the sign.. the same sign... he cannot speak until John.

Since God went to so much trouble to say he wouldn't speak to the Hebrews, why should we look to books which claim to be the word of God during that time period?

 

[hedrick]

Modern theologians try to make the case that Paul's theology is different from Jesus and the other apostles. It is the same teaching AND a different teaching.

Modern theologians are certainly right in observing that Paul’s theology looks quite different from Jesus’ teaching. However current Pauline scholarship (the so-called “new perspective”) is an attempt to understand Paul in Jewish rather than Lutheran terms, and to maintain at least some continuity with Jesus.

While the basic concepts look very different, still, it looks to me like Paul’s core concept of faith corresponds to Jesus’ concept of being a follower. Both emphasize that it’s a matter of grace, and both see God as committed to us even when we are unworthy — Paul speaks of justification by faith; Jesus speaks of God’s willingness to forgive us.

But why the obvious differences? There are a number of possible reasons. It may well be that many are true at the same time:

* Paul is operating after the Resurrection. It would have made little sense for Jesus to preach about the significance of the cross and resurrection during his life.
* Jesus’ message in the Synoptic Gospels is told in a very Jewish style. Paul is writing to Gentiles with a different language and background.

But still, why doesn’t Paul quote Jesus more? Paul clearly considers himself to have been called by Jesus personally. He may well have based his message on his own experience of Jesus rather than Jesus teachings during his life.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

How do you know 'the Bible reveals Jesus Christ, who is actually the Word of God' (your language) if the Bible is not true and trustworthy? It is paradoxical that you want to affirm something about Jesus as the Word of God, which comes from Scripture, but that Scripture cannot be trusted as it may be erroneous.

When Scripture affirms that 'all Scripture is breathed out by God' (2 Tim 3:16 ESV) or 'all scripture is inspired by God' (NRSV), how is it that the perfect God (Matt 5:48) whose, 'way is perfect' (Ps 18:30) and whose 'work is perfect' (Deut 32:4) would create imperfect Scriptures in the original documents (autographa)?

It does not make sense that the perfect God would create a Bible that is riddled with errors in the original documents.

Of course the mainline Protestant churches in my country (except for the Sydney Diocese of the Anglicans) would not believe in inerrancy. They have denigrated the authority of the Bible for decades, have lost the Gospel, and attendance numbers have dwindled so badly that some churches are closing. I wonder why?

Oz

That Jesus Christ is the Word of God is the language of St. John the Apostle.

That said, the canonical sacred scripture is a sacred icon of the Word, describing Him.

If we believe as did St. Hilary of Poitiers, that Scripture is in the interpretation and not in the reading, it is possible to concede minor errors and inconsistencies, for example, the variance in the reportage of the same events in the synoptic gospel, without conceding an actual doctrinal error or error in the Gospel per se.

In other words, one is not forced to choose between saying that the Bible is entirely accurate, or potentially inaccurate anywhere; one can limit the scope of possible errors to known variations between different manuscript editions and between different accounts of the same event presented by different saints in different books.

The Bible must be understood for what it is: a collection of diverse writings, by holy men, inspired by the Spirit, and selected by the holy fathers of the early Church, who were also inspired by the Spirit, such as St. Athanasius (who defined our New Testament canon in the fourth century), as the primary means of conveying the Gospel message, which was initially understood as oral tradition in conjunction with the Old Testament during the early years of the Church, in the first century, when the epistles and gospels were still being written.

It is not a monolithic revelation by one solitary author or held to be an uncreated divine entity, like the Quran (or to a lesser extent, some Judaic or Samaritan interpretations of the Pentateuch).

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Unix,

The people in the pew don't know how 'to track down the best translation of a verse, a chapter or a Biblical book' as that is a field for specialists.

Then one has to determine whether one goes with a meaning-for-meaning translation (dynamic equivalence) such as the NIV or NLT or word-for-word translation (formal equivalence) as in RSV, ESV, NRSV, KJV, NKJV, NASB - that is difficult to do with Greek as some variation is needed to make sense in English.

But this is getting away from the OP, whether it is important to have a Bible without error - inerrant. I happen to affirm the inerrancy of Scripture because I find that is what the Bible teaches. I want to obtain my doctrine of Scripture from Scripture. I consider that the Scriptures give us an understanding of the nature of inspiration and that is - to put it simply - that all Scripture is breathed out by the perfect God (in the original documents), according to 2 Tim 3:16. This means that the perfect God creates inerrant Scripture in the autographa, which is consistent with God's nature and attribute of perfection (Matt 5:48; Deut 32:4; Ps 18:30).

Oz

I affirm the inerrancy of Scripture where Scripture is defined as the Patristic interpretation of Scripture, as preserved in the Orthodox Church. Thus, minor textual variations do not worry me.

Sweeping or dogmatically material changes, like what one sees in the 2011 NIV or the New World Bible produced by the JWs, do concern me; we don't read from those in the Orthodox Church (usually our churches, for purposes of English liturgy, use the KJV, the NKJV or the ASB for chanting the New Testament, and various translations of the Septuagint for the Old)

 

[OzSpen]

That Jesus Christ is the Word of God is the language of St. John the Apostle.

That said, the canonical sacred scripture is a sacred icon of the Word, describing Him.

If we believe as did St. Hilary of Poitiers, that Scripture is in the interpretation and not in the reading, it is possible to concede minor errors and inconsistencies, for example, the variance in the reportage of the same events in the synoptic gospel, without conceding an actual doctrinal error or error in the Gospel per se.

In other words, one is not forced to choose between saying that the Bible is entirely accurate, or potentially inaccurate anywhere; one can limit the scope of possible errors to known variations between different manuscript editions and between different accounts of the same event presented by different saints in different books.

The Bible must be understood for what it is: a collection of diverse writings, by holy men, inspired by the Spirit, and selected by the holy fathers of the early Church, who were also inspired by the Spirit, such as St. Athanasius (who defined our New Testament canon in the fourth century), as the primary means of conveying the Gospel message, which was initially understood as oral tradition in conjunction with the Old Testament during the early years of the Church, in the first century, when the epistles and gospels were still being written.

It is not a monolithic revelation by one solitary author or held to be an uncreated divine entity, like the Quran (or to a lesser extent, some Judaic or Samaritan interpretations of the Pentateuch).

It is theopneustos, i.e. breathed out by God. That sounds pretty monolithic to me.

There can be various writers that God inspired to deliver his Word. Since it is breathed out by the perfect God, what does that make the Scriptures in the original MSS?

Oz

 

[OzSpen]

That Jesus Christ is the Word of God is the language of St. John the Apostle.

That said, the canonical sacred scripture is a sacred icon of the Word, describing Him.

If we believe as did St. Hilary of Poitiers, that Scripture is in the interpretation and not in the reading, it is possible to concede minor errors and inconsistencies, for example, the variance in the reportage of the same events in the synoptic gospel, without conceding an actual doctrinal error or error in the Gospel per se.

In other words, one is not forced to choose between saying that the Bible is entirely accurate, or potentially inaccurate anywhere; one can limit the scope of possible errors to known variations between different manuscript editions and between different accounts of the same event presented by different saints in different books.

The Bible must be understood for what it is: a collection of diverse writings, by holy men, inspired by the Spirit, and selected by the holy fathers of the early Church, who were also inspired by the Spirit, such as St. Athanasius (who defined our New Testament canon in the fourth century), as the primary means of conveying the Gospel message, which was initially understood as oral tradition in conjunction with the Old Testament during the early years of the Church, in the first century, when the epistles and gospels were still being written.

It is not a monolithic revelation by one solitary author or held to be an uncreated divine entity, like the Quran (or to a lesser extent, some Judaic or Samaritan interpretations of the Pentateuch).

The problem I have with that view is that St. Hilary of Poitiers does not provide interpretations that are theopneustos, i.e. breathed out by God.

If Scripture is in the interpretation, that means there will be multiple millions of interpretations throughout human history. St. Hilary of Poitiers' interpretation may be different from St Augustine's, whose interpretation is different from Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jacob Arminius, John Wesley, John Piper, Roger Olson, John MacArthur, etc.

Nothing is established by the view that 'Scripture is in the interpretation and not in the reading'.

I find it much more productive to affirm that Scripture is inerrant in the original MSS. My interpretation does not change that inerrancy.

Oz

 

[benelchi]

Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.

Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?

I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)

What do you think?

Before delving into questions about the doctrine of inerrancy, I think it is really important to understand what is actually being communicated by the doctrine of inerrancy. A good starting place to begin is reading the 1978 Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy. It can be found here: http://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/ICBI_1.pdf, this is a statement that is affirmed by most Evangelical churches. It was signed by over 350 of the leading Evangelical leaders and scholars.

Some key points to consider:

1. Most evangelical churches believe that only the original autographs (i.e. the first copy of the manuscripts authored by the original author) were inerrant. Evangelical believe that the copies we have today, are remarkably well preserved, but are not inerrant. Within the field of textual criticism, there is a high degree of confidence in the texts that we have today. The wealth of manuscripts, as a whole collection, has allowed us to verify the accuracy of the text biblical texts we have.

2. Biblical inerrancy only considers errors that would have been accepted as errors by the original authors. Spelling variants are examples of things we consider errors today but would not have been considered "errors" buy those who penned our biblical texts. Standardized spelling is a relatively modern invention i.e. 17th Century AD, and those who lived before that time simply spelled words in ways that made sense to them. The concept of an "incorrectly" spelled word was a concept that was foreign to all of the biblical authors.
​

With that background, the question about why it matters should be considered. The main issue is how does one decide what portions of Scripture are valuable for teaching and correction and what portions of Scripture are not. Those who accept the doctrine of inerrancy place the burden of proof on those challenging the teaching of Scripture to show that a passage is misunderstood because of textual or translation errors. They expect objectively verifiable information to be presented to establish these facts. When these standards are adopted we find that very few of the textual questions deal with significant doctrinal issues. Those who reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy typically have a much lower standard for rejecting teachings that they consider "errant," frequently rejecting teachings when no manuscript evidence suggests that an error in transmission may have taken place. The question is whether we require external objective evidence to demonstrate that an error in transmission may have taken place, or do we simply choose our own subjective standards by which to measure whether the teaching found in Scripture is true or false.

 

[Deidre32]

Thank you very much for that ^^ explanation! How could the original authors have detected errors, though?

Before delving into questions about the doctrine of inerrancy, I think it is really important to understand what is actually being communicated by the doctrine of inerrancy. A good starting place to begin is reading the 1978 Chicago statement on biblical inerrancy. It can be found here: http://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/ICBI_1.pdf, this is a statement that is affirmed by most Evangelical churches. It was signed by over 350 of the leading Evangelical leaders and scholars.

Some key points to consider:

1. Most evangelical churches believe that only the original autographs (i.e. the first copy of the manuscripts authored by the original author) were inerrant. Evangelical believe that the copies we have today, are remarkably well preserved, but are not inerrant. Within the field of textual criticism, there is a high degree of confidence in the texts that we have today. The wealth of manuscripts, as a whole collection, has allowed us to verify the accuracy of the text biblical texts we have.

2. Biblical inerrancy only considers errors that would have been accepted as errors by the original authors. Spelling variants are examples of things we consider errors today but would not have been considered "errors" buy those who penned our biblical texts. Standardized spelling is a relatively modern invention i.e. 17th Century AD, and those who lived before that time simply spelled words in ways that made sense to them. The concept of an "incorrectly" spelled word was a concept that was foreign to all of the biblical authors.
​

With that background, the question about why it matters should be considered. The main issue is how does one decide what portions of Scripture are valuable for teaching and correction and what portions of Scripture are not. Those who accept the doctrine of inerrancy place the burden of proof on those challenging the teaching of Scripture to show that a passage is misunderstood because of textual or translation errors. They expect objectively verifiable information to be presented to establish these facts. When these standards are adopted we find that very few of the textual questions deal with significant doctrinal issues. Those who reject the doctrine of biblical inerrancy typically have a much lower standard for rejecting teachings that they consider "errant," frequently rejecting teachings when no manuscript evidence suggests that an error in transmission may have taken place. The question is whether we require external objective evidence to demonstrate that an error in transmission may have taken place, or do we simply choose our own subjective standards by which to measure whether the teaching found in Scripture is true or false.

 

[OzSpen]

Thank you very much for that ^^ explanation! How could the original authors have detected errors, though?

Deidre,

There was no need for them to worry about errors because this is what happened to them as they were writing Scripture, 'All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work' (2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV).

Since this Scripture is theopneustos (God-breathed), it comes through the one who is Perfect, God himself.

The procedure for the biblical writers of how this happened is described for prophets in 2 Pet 1:21 (NIV), 'For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit'.

So, human beings were carried along by the Holy Spirit in writing Scripture in the original documents that could not be in error because God does not lie (Num 23:29; Heb 6:18).

It is hard for us who are human, fallible, and capable of lying to get a handle on the means God used to provide an infallible Scripture in the original documents. However, understanding how this could happen is based on our doctrine of God who is perfect in all his actions.

Oz

 

[ToBeLoved]

It is the same as Christ. BUT because the Greeks did not wish to become Jewish, he chose to preach Christ and him crucified; the bare minimum for salvation. In this it is different. It is Christianity-lite.

Where are you getting this from? Have you ever even read what Paul wrote? This is ubsurd.

 

[W2L]

The thing that i noticed is the lack of more epistles in the bible. Surely the apostles wrote more letters than we have now