I ITim 3:16 and infallibility

[Kamoroso]

the law was dictated to Moses by God through an angel,

Exod 31:18 18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

Deut 9:10 10 And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

Deut 10:1-5 1 At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.
2 And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
3 And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.
4 And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.
5 And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.

Exodus 19 10And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, 11And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. 12And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: 13There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. 14And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. 15And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.
16And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. 17And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. 18And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. 19And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. 20And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. 21And the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish. 22And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them. 23And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it. 24And the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth upon them. 25So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.
Exodus 20 1And God spake all these words, saying, 2I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
12Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 13Thou shalt not kill. 14Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15Thou shalt not steal. 16Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
18And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. 19And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 20And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 21And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.


Isaiah 8 20To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.


Bye for now. Y. b. in C. Keith

 

[Jim1999]

Not everything written in the Bible is true, but everything in the Bible was truly written.

I have no question about its infallibility in the original autographs.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[Tazman]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because the Church tells me so.

What?

 

[Matt Black]

Originally posted by swaimj:
But Matt, anyone can make a faith claim about anything real or imagined and by your own standard thier claim is as valid as yours.

But I'm not talking about anyone. I'm talking about the Church.

Mark, I see you resort to the tired old trick of personal attack where you have no reasoned argument. Change the record, mate; it's boring me.

 

[Matt Black]

Sorry for double-post, but I thought I'd better clarify what I mean by inerrant/ onfallible. First, I would consider 'incomplete' to be, though not necessarily mistaken, imperfect and errant (in that some important information is missing). As we all (I assume) accept that the OT is incomplete, in that the NT exists, and especially because in terms of revelation of the nature of God the incarnation is vital. It follows that the OT on it's own is imperfect.

So, it follows ISTM, that inerrancy, if it can be applied at all, can only be applied to the complete revelation of God in it's entirety. Though, that leads to the conclusion that an individual part of that revelation can still be in error without affecting the inerrancy of the whole. Is that making sense?

There's an interesting, if dense, essay by Rowan Williams in his book "On Christian Theology" where he makes the point that all claims about God are, by definition, incomplete and themselves subject to God's judgement; no-one can speak fully of God, and that the Church or any group within it does so at its own peril. Theology - expressed in prayer, praxis, worship, scripture, etc - cannot speak fully because it is not God, so theology can only really be trusted when it acknowledges that it cannot do this.and allows for the fact of its provisional and incomplete nature.

So, unless you are actually God, you can't actually speak the whole truth. Does that remind anyone of I Cor 13?

Tazman, you asked what I meant by the Church (I think ). Well, following from the above, taking it one stage further, as it were, can we not say that the revelation of God is only infallible/inerrant/as complete as it can be when you take all of it - Scripture, Tradition, the Word made Flesh.... For that you need the Church, both as "pillar and foundation of the truth" and as the Body of Christ here on earth.

 

[Mark Osgatharp]

Matt,

You remind me of the man I once heard who said our New Testament is 99% accurately translated and the Old Testament somewhat less so, giving some arbitrary percentage. I thought to myself, if you have it down to a science like that why not just give us the accurate translation and then we'll have it 100%!

Since you claim to know that the Bible is fallible, could you please give us a list of it's fallacies and then we can correct the Bible and then we have an infallible Bible!

;0)

Mark Osgatharp

 

[hamricba]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because the Church tells me so.

Where does the church establish it's authority from?

And what if the church started selling indulgences or teaching salvation by works based on some weird interpretation of James 2? On what basis could these practices be rebuked?

It seems to me there must be some source of infallibility that we count trustworthy ahead of time. Scripture (Revelation 2-3) and church history tell us that the church itself does not rise to the level of putting our faith in, above the teachings of Scripture.

 

[Pastor Larry]

but I thought I'd better clarify what I mean by inerrant/ onfallible

If you make up your own definitions you can be a lot of things. But historically, theology has never defined "inerrant" as "complete."

The verse in question (actually 2 Tim 3:16) claims that all Scripture is "God-breathed." That speaks of source. All Scripture comes from God. The question we must ask is "Can God lie?" The answer is no (Titus 1:2; Heb 6:18; etc). Since God cannot like, anything sourced in God is, of necessity, inerrant and infallible. So 2 Tim 3:16 clearly teaches the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture.

To answer a question with "The church tells me so," is biblically inadequate. Throughout church history churches have taught wrong things. In fact, a great deal of the NT is dedicated to correcting these false teachers who are using the church as their platform for false teaching.

Authority is not inherent in an organization or group that calls themselves "the church." The church is only right inasmuch as they teach what Scripture teaches.

 

[gb93433]

In the day in which scripture was written it waas a message people understood.

If God has delivered a message to us years ago and said to America that he is higher than a rocket flying to the Mars nobody would have understood that kind of magnitude.

God gave the message in terms people of that day could understand and identify with. Remember the elements were earth wind and fire.

Think of how many people laughed at Columbus when he claimed the earth was round.

 

[gb93433]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
There's an interesting, if dense, essay by Rowan Williams in his book "On Christian Theology" where he makes the point that all claims about God are, by definition, incomplete and themselves subject to God's judgement; no-one can speak fully of God, and that the Church or any group within it does so at its own peril. Theology - expressed in prayer, praxis, worship, scripture, etc - cannot speak fully because it is not God, so theology can only really be trusted when it acknowledges that it cannot do this.and allows for the fact of its provisional and incomplete nature.

So, unless you are actually God, you can't actually speak the whole truth. Does that remind anyone of I Cor 13?

Language is incomplete and cannot give a complete picture. For example how can one explain music and the emotion it brings out in a people. Language cannot desctibe that. Language cannot describe love but love exists and we know it.

 

[Ed Edwards]

The word 'and' appears 23,867 times in the kJV1769
(according to crosswalk.com)

the 'word' '&' (meaning 'and') appears
1,085 times in 1,033 verses of the KJV1611 + Appo.
(according to e-Sword)
the word 'and' appears 51,037 times in 23,651 verses
in the KJV1611 + Appo. (According to e-Sword).

i.e. 'and' is a popular word appearing in the Bible.

'And' can mean one of the following. Which it means
in the Bible can made a difference.

1. as the ancient language form of our modern outline
2. the polysyndeton
3. connector of two sets denoting equal sets
(equal sets are two sets containing the same objects)
4. connector of a set and it's subset
(a subset contanins members only of the set, but not all the set
is that subset)
5. connector of two similar but unequal sets

I.E. (in other words): the meaning of 'and' cannot be determined by the form
of the 'and' either in Greek or English or Hebrew. Only
with the context and the Holy Spirit can one correctly
understand the Bible. In Greek 'and' is frequently the
translation of the Greek 'Kai'

BTW, as a Baptist I believe in Soul Competency:
the individual (if mentally competent) is responsibe
before God to work out their own Salvation (which BTW
is only through Jesus): to understand and worship God
of themselves. So it isn't enough that you provide an
infallible Bible, you must provide infallible people's
understanding of the infallible Bible. This isn't going
to happen. Care to talk about 'sufficient'?

 

[Matt Black]

Originally posted by Mark Osgatharp:
Matt,

You remind me of the man I once heard who said our New Testament is 99% accurately translated and the Old Testament somewhat less so, giving some arbitrary percentage. I thought to myself, if you have it down to a science like that why not just give us the accurate translation and then we'll have it 100%!

Since you claim to know that the Bible is fallible, could you please give us a list of it's fallacies and then we can correct the Bible and then we have an infallible Bible!

;0)

Mark Osgatharp

To me, it's not important to have an infallible Bible, so your question is not particularly relevant to me

 

[swaimj]

To me, it's not important to have an infallible Bible, so your question is not particularly relevant to me

Matt, I can't believe that you spend the amount of time you do on this topic and start the number of threads you start on it if it is not important to you.

 

[Matt Black]

I haven't started a thread on this for ages. And I only do because so many here seem so obsessed by the topic.

 

[Ed Edwards]

I'm the self appointed BB (Baptist Board) measuring person for
'infallible'. In the BB only portion, I get this among baptists:

See this place:
(be sure to use BACK to come back):

//Here are 203 results of poll #2 and poll #3:

votes, % - answer/response

13 (7%) - -1. the Bible has errors (i.e. is NOT inerrant)
4 (2%) - 0. the Bible has minor errors but is still useful
21 (11%) - 1. The Bible is inerrant on all doctrinal issues
39 (20%)- 2. inerrant on all issues like historic/scientific
92 (46%) - 3.The Bible is inerrant in the original autographs
11 (6%) - 4. inerrant only in the KJV1611 Authorized Version
4 (2%)- 5. inerrant in any English translation based on the TR
17 (9%)- 6. inerrant in all faithful English translation
1 (1%) - 7.inerrant as applied by _______ (post person or group)

(total is more than 100% because of rounding)

*The first poll had a different set of questions covering
the same range of answers in a bit more detail (12 steps
instead of 9)//

As you can see, there is quite a variance among different flavor/color
of Baptists about what 'infallible' means. BTW, My church (local) and
I both agree: the Bible is infallible.

Swaimj: //Matt, if scripture does not guarantee infallibility, how can you
tell which parts are true and which are not?//

Here is what I think is sad:

I. I know people who believe "if i can find one thing wrong
with the Bible, it is ALL false and nobody can know what is right in it"
They found something that looks wrong there; they are LOST.

II. I know people who believe: "if there is a problem with the Bible,
and there are; then I'm going to trust what is true there."
They are SAVED.

(this latter belief is usually expressed as:
If there is part of the Bible you don't understand yet;
believe the part you do understand.)

Example: The Doctine of Universalism. I haven't the foggiest
how anybody could figure out that everybody is going to get saved.
But what if the Universalist are right? But this I know for sure:
Romans 10:9 (the version in Ed's head):
If you confess Jesus is Lord and beleive in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you WILL BE SAVED.
This i am sure of, the other (universalism) i'm not sure of.
I'm going for the sure thing.

 

[Matt Black]

Thanks, Ed. I do appreciate the work you do with these polls.

 

[swaimj]

Matt, you started THIS one! That does not demonstrate disinterest in the subject.

 

[Matt Black]

Yes, but I wanted it to be within the more narrow confines of II Tim 3:16 (which inerrantists often cite) and whether that verse per se supports inerrancy; inevitably the debate has widened into the Dead Horse of inerrancy in general so that's what we now seem to be all talking about.

 

[Mark Osgatharp]

Matt,

You may not be concerned about having a fallible Bible, you sure seem to be bent on having an fallible one.

Mark Osgatharp

 

[Me4Him]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
But the text does not claim that for itself. That's my point. Inspiration does not necessarily equate to infallibility; the text says Scripture is inspired, not dictated through some automaton, as claimed by Islam re the Koran.

Joh 10:35 and the scripture cannot be broken;

But the scriptures does claim "IN-fallibility".

No mistakes, in the doctrine, teaching, Prophecy of scripture have "EVER" been "PROVEN" wrong.

Interpretations/understanding of it have been proven wrong, but never the scripture it's self.

One of the things most people overlook is the fact that you can "CROSS REFERENCE" scripture between the OT/NT, text that was written hundreds of years apart, by a variety of people, yet can't be "Broken".

Man isn't that "infalliable", a mistake would have appear "somewhere", but it hasn't.

The "word" is under "DIVINE" protecting, you have God's word for that.

Mr 13:31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.