To what extent is the Bible infallible and inerrant?

From Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary:

Fact: That which actually exists; reality; truth.

Truth: True or actual state of a matter. Conformity with fact or reality.

From OldRegular

The Bible, in its original manuscripts, is inerrant and infallible in all it addresses.

 

All this talk about the perfection of original manuscripts is irrelavent. We have no original manuscripts so how can we know? Sounds like Mormons and their Golden Plates.

Why don't all of us just read Genesis 1 and then read Genesis 2. Don't play with the wording, just read both chapters. Only the intentionally blind will fail to see two different stories with two different orders of creation.

 

Why is it sad to take stories about magic fruit and talking snakes as symbolism, and it is not sad to take stories from Revelation as symbolism?

Genesis three is an ancient near-eastern story about the nature of sin, not neccessarily its origin, and it makes a whole lot more sense to interpret it that way, than to insist it be taken literally. What is sad is the condecending attitude you have toward a different point of view than your own.

 

Why is it sad to take stories about magic fruit and talking snakes as symbolism, and it is not sad to take stories from Revelation as symbolism?

Genesis three is an ancient near-eastern story about the nature of sin, not neccessarily its origin, and it makes a whole lot more sense to interpret it that way, than to insist it be taken literally. What is sad is the condecending attitude you have toward a different point of view than your own. </font>[/QUOTE]Hello, DavidFWhite,

Just to clarify, Phillip had it wrong when he says that I think the serpent was a symbol. I do not believe that.

Gen is not just a near eastern story; it's the word of God. If we can't believe it it a narrative the way it's told, but that it's just a fable or allegory, then what other parts of the Bible are fable or allegory, and how does one decide?

 

Why is it sad to take stories about magic fruit and talking snakes as symbolism, and it is not sad to take stories from Revelation as symbolism?

Genesis three is an ancient near-eastern story about the nature of sin, not neccessarily its origin, and it makes a whole lot more sense to interpret it that way, than to insist it be taken literally. What is sad is the condecending attitude you have toward a different point of view than your own. </font>[/QUOTE]Hello, DavidFWhite,

Just to clarify, Phillip had it wrong when he says that I think the serpent was a symbol. I do not believe that.

Gen is not just a near eastern story; it's the word of God. If we can't believe it it a narrative the way it's told, but that it's just a fable or allegory, then what other parts of the Bible are fable or allegory, and how does one decide? </font>[/QUOTE]It is a story in a collection of literature we call the Old Testament, written in the near-east, in ancient times. It can still be the word of God, but that does not make it something it is not. It is an ancient near-eastern text and it is a story about human nature. The way you tell what kind of literature you are reading is to recognize the nature of it and how it compares with other literature from its time, in this example, other ancient near-eastern texts.

There is a major collection of ancient near eastern texts in a book called, "Ancient Near-Eastern Texts." You ought to go to a college library and find a copy and spend some time with it. And it is not fable or allegory. The best literary term I can think of would be parable, and parables do not have to be literally true to teach truth.

 

I have read some Near Eastern literature and I do not find that Genesis is in that style at all. I have also read a book on the literary style of the OT. Charles Meadows and I discussed this topic earlier on this very thread starting around page 8 or 9.

I think saying that Gen is a "collection of stories" and saying it is the word of God is a contradiction. Either God gave these words to the authors of the books or He did not. The theories proposed by the Higher Criticism School were based in a presupposition that there is no supernatural God, and were just that -- theories --and many have been refuted.

There is no indication at all from the text that Genesis is a parable. You can't just call it a parable; there has to be evidence for it. There is none.

 

Marcia,

" There is no indication at all from the text that Genesis is a parable. You can't just call it a parable; there has to be evidence for it. There is none. "

There certainly IS evidence. Otherwise why would many of us advocate this? You have asserted (partially correctly) that Genesis is not patterned after Enuma Elish and other near eastern literature. Genesis' portrayal of YHWH's power far outstrips anything else in any other literature. THAT MUCH is certainly true. But the overall imagery is in fact similar. That simply cannot be disputed.

What I keep saying is that based on the way Moses wrote the creation account we would NOT be expected to take it literally, especially as it pertains to periods of time. Perhaps it is the literalist who must explain why he/she insists of this type of interpretation.

If it were not for the whole evolution thing of the last few hundred years perhaps Christians would not be so afraid to actually use logical reasoning to approach these passages instead of by default retreating to the old traditional stance and not even considering anything else.

 

Marcia:

Your response is evident that you are not familiar at all with even the most basic knowledge of Biblical Scholarship. Genesis 1-11 is a collection of stories, some definitely written as historical narrative and others in the ancient near-eastern style of etiology, a fancy word for saga, legend, even myth.I prefer to use the word parable because everyone knows parables do not have to be literally true to convey truth. But sagas, legends, and myths are literary styles that can be used to convey truth.Jesus used parables all the time, so why not the writer of Genesis? Certainly you are not so uneducated as to think if a story is not literally true it cannot teach religious truth.

Marcia, just take my challenge and read Genesis chapter one, then read chapter two. In chapter one the animals are made first, then God makes man and woman, male and female in His image. In chapter two he makes the animals after he makes the man in order to find a suitable partner for the man. Finding none, He causes Adam to fall asleep, takes a rib, and makes Eve. Two stories. Two different orders of creation. A literal reading will not allow us to rewrite the texts to suit our doctrines. I suggest you be more honest with the texts you are trying to defend by forcing them into your doctrinal position.

Lovingly,
Dave

 

The simple, truthful, correct answer to the original question is this:

As inerrant and infallible as God is.

 

Absolute Heresy to put anything, even the Scriptures, on an equal footing with God. This doctrine is the Fundamentalist Heresy, the heresy most destructive to genuine Christianity that begins with simple faith in Jesus, not an inerrant book. The idea that we have to have a perfect book in order to have a perfect God is absolute nonsense, and requires those of us who are not afraid to see what is front of us to point it out to all who are not afraid to think.

I really don't care in the least what a bunch of Fundamentalists think of me, but I do care for those they drive away from the love of God in Christ, by requiring them to worship at the alters of ignorance, before they can feel secure in their faith.

 

David, on what grounds do you say that genuine Christianity begins with simple faith in Jesus? How do you know that it doesn't also include faith in an inerrant book?

 

Enuma Elish (the first little part of it)

Does not sound like Genesis to me.

 

I suppose disagreeing with you would prove I was uneducated? Not only is this illogical, but it's an ad hominem. Putting that in there does not help your case nor your credibility.

When Jesus used parables, the Bible usually points this out directly, as in "He told them a parable. . ." or it's clear from the context. For example, no names are given in parables. Yet in Genesis, we have the names Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, and others. Adam is referred to in the lineage of Jesus in the NT.

Guess what? I studied Genesis in seminary and my prof of OT, who also happens to teach Hebrew (and Greek) and Hermeneutics, believes Genesis is a literal story. He's a very smart man and has co-written books with Norman Geisler. Do you think all people who believe Genesis is literal are dummies or uneducated? That is what you imply.

We also learned about the style of Hebrew literature, which is reflected in the two accounts of the same creation story. Gen 2 is an inversion of Gen 1 in that it starts with the creation of man. Gen 2 is also puts the focus on man, the crown of God's creation (since man was created in the image of God).

The order is not an issue in Gen. 2 as it is in Gen 1; Gen 2 is the focus on man and is not giving the order of creation.

 

[EE refers to Enuma Elish

 

A little more from the same link . . .

 

As far as Gen 1 and Gen 2 being two different creation stories, here is another view:

 

And from the same link, part of the view on the relationship between EE and Genesis:

 

Marcia,

I think we've mentioned this a few times! No one asserts that Genesis is based on EE. But they are the same genre of writing. Creation of lights, primordial monsters (like Rahab and Leviathan in Hebrew history), little detail given to scientific-type issues, etc.

Would you agree that Moses probably knew of Enuma Elish and new that some of the Israelites knew of it as well?

Why didn't Moses say something like this?

"And then got created green plants. For the nourishment thereof he allowed that they might use light and carbon dioxide. Angiosperms and gymnosperms he created them. And He saw to it that each type had gametophytes which might facilitate reproduction..."

While that would have been ideal for us today that would have made no sense to the original Hebrews. Moses wrote the creation account with HIS audience in mind. And they likely would have taken from the story that YHWH is more powerful than all, not necessarily that the world was created in 6 literal days.

 

Charles, my posts were directed more to DavidFWhite than to you.

I am not sure Moses knew of Enuma Elish since some think Enuma Elish was written after the Pentateuch.

I still disagree that they are of the same genre of writing. Yes, they are both creation acccounts but that's about it. Any creation account is going to have some similarities. The dissimilarities are much stronger than the similarities!

I think they would have thought it was a literal 6 days since that is what it says. There is no reason they would have supposed God was making that up or lying, giving metaphorical days. That is much less likely than that they believed those were literal days.

You are right Moses did not give the biological properties of the plants and it's true the people would not have understood it. God did not give advanced details like that, but what He said was true. Just because Moses did not give biological or chemical properties of plants does NOT mean that Gen 1 is not a literal account. That is not logical.