To what extent is the Bible infallible and inerrant?

You certainly can disagree with me about the passage's meaning. But your translation of a narrative wayyiqtol verb as a participle (in a subordinate clause no less) is clearly not correct.

 

Dave needs to move out of the big city and live among those that work the ground for awhile ...

Regardless of who reads it or understands it. God's Truth is the only Truth. Regardless of who reads correctly and who does not ... His Word will stand for eternity.

When God's Word consumes you and burns within your bones by day and even hotter by night, then you can expect the Holy Spirit of the Mighty God to "divide the Word" of God.

But, when the Holy Spirit is not there ... The only other way to "divide the Word" is by using "science" to take God's glory ... Then the embers will leave your bones ...

Remember, The study of God was and is the "First Science" ... God is the Creator of Science & linguistics ...

There is only one thing for you to look for in the Holy Scriptures ... That is Salvation of God revealed in His Jesus Christ and paid for by His Blood ...

 

Again this is your opinion. I have documented mine. I could go on and document the several rules of the consecutive Wa:w which which my translation does not violate, but I won't waste everyone's time with this exercise (although I might if you persist in saying I am in error).

I might have a minority view but it is not erroneous.

Reread the translational view of Judaism which I posted.

HankD

 

The Jewish translation you referenced used "had formed". This postulates an epexegetical use - usually translated like the Greek pluperfect.

Usually the sequence of wayyiqtol verbs in Pentateuchal narratives is translated like: "and this happened, and this happened, and this happened, etc".

An epexegetical use is discontinuous with the previous narrative sequence. "Now this had happened..." It often sets background for a new statement.

My point is that you have translated this Qal indicative wayyiqtol verb as a subordinate participle, which is NOT correct. The "had" translation of the epexegetical form works (although is not really the majority opinion).

 

The Fickle Finger of Fate or the Sovereignty of God?

It is written, God said it, that settles it. Is it God's fault we understand not? God is without fault. Must be us.

However, "All things work together for good to them who love the Lord(many stop here), TO THOSE WHO ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE." The first of that verse is not applicable without the second.

Re: God using Israel to slay children and their parents in Canaan.

God knows the end from the beginning--all outlandish, hypothetical exercises notwithstanding.

Selah,

Bro. James

 

Marcia, to answer your questions, no, I don't take literally either the command or the rebuke ref the Amalekites.I believe this is a perfectly valid and thoroughgoingly Christocentric (as opposed to Bibliocentric) exegetical conclusion and that in turn produces the vital hermenutic of the call to rid oneself of all that is sinful, and I therefore take them both very seriously ref sin in my life, as I have said. Yes, I believe that Saul, Samuel and David really existed. . Yes, I do believe that those who are not in Christ go to eternal punishment - but we would first have to define what we mean by 'in Christ', and this thread is not the place to do that.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

And my point is that your statement is your opinion since QAL or connective Wa:w is not the major point but the several nuances which an imperfect verb can assume when going from Hebrew to English.

Please document the rule which says that a Hebrew imperfect verb cannot be translated as a "a subordinate participle" in the English language.

You have made a claim now prove it.

It, IMO carries forth the force of the incompleted act of the creation to Adam.

Repeat: it is my opinion that "having formed" does a better job doing this than "had formed" in the context although "had formed" does the job.

HankD

 

Hebrew will sometimes employ the participle as the main predicate, often with a durative sense. This usage overlaps the prefix conjugation somewhat.

2 issues:

The first is whether or not this should be seen as a pluperfect type imperfect (the so-called epexegetical form). This would have the sense of a background statement - "Now God had done this...."

The majority of commentators argue against this use since as S.R.Driver puts it there is "no reason" to see a change in temporal sense. The main reason to even postulate this use that to translate the verb as a narrative wayyiqtol would seem to violate the creation order given in chapter 1. The Jewish OT as well as the NIV employ this "had formed" translation - and it is obviously not ruled out as such.

The second is whether or not the English "having formed" is correct. Obviously there are not "rules" that forbid translating Hebrew to English in this or that way. To translate this all as a participial clause is not the optimal translation. Hebrew has both relative pronouns and participles and uses them frequently. The reason should be self-explanatory!

My argument is that you insist on the "had formed" because it lines up better with chapter 1 instead of letting the syntax speak for itself.

That is about all I can say on this one!

Merry Christmas all!

 

Yes, I admitted to the minority view.

True. My answer is that within this context the enduring is shown both as participial and punctiliar (so to speak), the "having formed" ending with the naming.

Yes, this is also true and I admit to that bias (lines up better) as well.

And a blessed New Year!

HankD

 

Of course there are. But just as cults misjudge who God is, the biggest mistakes Christians make, IMHO, are 1) failure to accept the inerrancy and infallibility of the Word and 2) the tendency to allegorize Scripture when it is meant literally. Often the two go hand in hand.

Of course it's possible to err on the literal side, but allegorical error seems prevalent. And there are minor translation issues and maybe even a few transcription issues. I'm aware of one issue where translators, in a noble but unnecessary effort to 'protect' the scriptures from polytheism, may have deliberately used an interpretation not indicated by the textual evidence. Yet new scholarship proves the originals right all along. New archeological finds prove the Bible correct in the dating of its history, after centuries of conflict with recorded history. And on and on.

We can all be thankful that allegorical interpretation is false. Were it true, you would be dead right now - and so would the rest of us.

I don't think so ... the literal destuction would be much more consistent with scripture, IMO. More useful, inspiring, and edifying? Please don't kid yourself, Matt, it breaks my heart. It seems you may have a problem with part of God's nature, and want to make Him out to be more in your image - kinder, gentler, and incapable of ordering the destruction of an entire community, including women, infants, and animals. But the truth is quite the contrary. Saul killed all the men, women, and children except for Agag the king. And he killed most of the animals but spared the best of them for "sacrifice to the Lord", so he said. For not killing them all - God judged Saul's sin as rebellion, divination, iniquity, idolatry, etc., and stripped him from power. Then, God had Samuel the prophet chop Agag into pieces with an axe.

Over the past 1800 years or so, the scriptures have withstood constant attack by many of the best and brightest minds in human history. When human history is over, the Holy Scriptures will still be standing there, infallible, unscathed, intact and inerrant. God has preserved His Word for His people, and the best translations of today mirror the integrity of the originals. Like thousands before them, efforts of today's thinkers to diminish the Holy Scriptures are futile. Unlike geology, it's not a matter of time and pressure.

So, regardless of what we may feel or think, it is up to us to yield to God's Word - not the other way around. I know every time I've done that, without fail the issue has always become clear, often without my doing anything or being conscience of it.

(Matt, I realize not everything I said may apply to you, this is my one response in this thread).

God Bless.


[ December 26, 2004, 09:17 PM: Message edited by: IveyLeaguer ]

 

Much to my surprise, here is the Douay-Rheims (The RCC English translation of the Latin Vulgate) rendering of Genesis 2:19.

Genesis 2:19 And the Lord God having formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatsoever Adam called any living creature the same is its name.

HankD

 

Matt, I appreciate your answer but the context of those passages, the passages of related accounts surrounding them, and of the book is clearly a literal narrative with real historical figures (that you agree are historical) in them. God does not put real, named people in allegories or parables.

Believing this account to be literal violates nothing about the incarnation or revelation of Christ, either.

There is no way to see 1 Sam. 15 as allegory. There are no allegorical indicators or elements in it. Furthermore, you would have to reject other passages where God states through His prophet Samuel that Saul's disobedience "in the matter of the Amalikites" has brought his judgment on Saul. Why would God talk about something that did not exist as a reason to punish Saul? It seems that you simply do not want to believe it is true.

 

Yes, God in Genesis 2 creates the animals to try and find a help meet for Adam. The animals don't work, so he creates Eve. Yahweh (God of Genesis 2) is a personal God who walks with man, while Elohim (God of Genesis 1) is a transcendental God.

 

Are you saying there are 2 different gods?

Or are you following the now debunked theory of different ms with different gods proposed by the German higher critics who did NOT believe in supernatural creation?

 

Thanks so much for your uninformed advice my friend, but you write as if those of us who are trying to be honest with the text as it is have a problem with salvation. You sermon is not well received.

 

The first mistake any Christian can make is that The Bible, not Christ, is God's supreme act of self revelation. One can be a Biblicist and use the Bible to justify all manner of behavior and attitudes that are inconsistent with what God has revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the lens that clarifies all of scripture, and that includes being able to tell when the ancient Hebrews had it right, and when they had it wrong.

The Christian Church survived and flourished in its first four hundred years without any concept of an infallable and inerrant Bible. The Doctrine of Inerrancy and Infallability is a relatively new one, late 19th and early 20th century, as is Dispensationalism. So I boldly say, the Doctrine of Biblical Infallability and Inerrancy is either a false doctrine, or a terribly abused if true doctrine. The Bible gives us an infallable and inerrant picture of God and Humankind without being infallable or inerrant within itself. The entire story of the Bible comes together in Jesus Christ, and by focusing on Him we are able to become something far more acceptable to God than we could ever be by getting stuck on the idea that because the book of Samuel was written by people who actually believed God was calling upon them to commit genocide, and that Jesus of Nazareth would approve.

Again I simply ask you folks to pay a little more attention to what Jesus actually said, particularly in Matthew 5. Many of you seem far more concerned with convincing yourselves your doctrine about the bible is more neccessary than understanding the Christ who answers these questions for us.

But we all know this is a waist of time. Some of us are free to radically love, forgive, be compassionate and merciful, and to do all we can for the sake of the Kingdom as it has come to us in Jesus. If we ere it will be due to too much mercy, too much compassion, too much love, and too much forgiveness. And when I stand before God on the great judgement day, I trust the words of Jesus, knowing God is not going to ask me questions about this or any doctrine to see if I pass your limited and ridiculous tests. He will judge me based upon my response to the "least of these", or upon my lack of it."

In 1978 The SBC was focused on Bold Mission Thrust. Remember? Then the doctrine police took over and after a decade of lies and political maneuvering, Bold Mission Thrust took a back seat to biblical inerrancy. As a result we did not accomplish the goal of the so called liberals who led the convention until 1979. What was that goal? Something as "liberal" as taking the life changing, life saving Gospel of Christ to all the world by 2000. Congratulations. It would have been an awful thing to let all of those committed to this purpose to continue unless we made sure we all had our doctrine in complete agreement with those who now lord over the SBC.

Dave

 

Well said, Dave; couldn't have put it better myself.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

But how do we know about Jesus and what he said? Only through the Bible. That is how we get the revelation of Christ.

When you say Jesus is the lens that clarifies scripture, on what are you basing this? Your own personal feelings or experiences? And how does Jesus do this for you? You said earlier that God telling Saul to kill all the Amalekites was inconsistent with what you knew of Jesus. But how do you know that without using the Bible?

 

I don't think anyone is denying that one can know Jesus through the Bible. But the point for David, myself and many other Christians is that, having thus known the Incarnate Jesus, the remainder of the Bible has to be interpreted in the light of that Incarnation.

But really, with respect, your question is more of a red herring and a straw man. Virtually every non-literalist who has been interacting with you on this thread fully believes that the Bible is authoritative; none of us have suggested that our own feeble wisdom(s?) trump scripture. You're barking up the wrong tree here. What we have suggested, however, is that the Bible can be authoritative without being literal, because the ultimate authority is not a book, but the Lord of whom it tells.

While it seems to you that we are setting ourselves up above Holy Writ, it also seems to us (me anyway) that you are setting the Bible up above God.

You asked how do we know Jesus. The main answer for me is "I got to know Him in Church. Where Scripture was read and preached, and the Word stood in the midst. In the total event of evelation which was always - is always - in the hand of Christ. Christ spoke. The inerrancy of the Bible had nothing to do with it. I wasn't saved by the Bible. I was saved by Christ."


All I'm saying here is be careful of falling into the trap of Bibliolatry, which replaces God and Christ with the Bible. If that's what you mean. And I believe that that is precisely the mistake you're making. You have now as good as said that you have to believe in an inerrant, literal Bible, or you can't be saved, because an inerrant literal Bible is the means of salvation. You're basically adding something to trusting Jesus. You're saying that you can only trust Jesus if the Bible is inerrant and/ or literal - i.e. you can only trust Jesus if you see the Bible in a certain way.

People have believed in Jesus on the basis of the flawed recollection of a Biblical text quoted from memory to them in a prison cell. People have believed in Jesus on the basis of the lives they have seen influenced by his Lordship over them, before ever they came in contact with the Bible, and thousands more have read the New Testament and believed in Jesus Christ without it ever crossing their mind that they were (or weren't) reading an inerrant or literal book. It was the truth of the testimony that led them to believe, not its inerrancy. It was its power, not its guaranteed correctness. People have come to faith on the basis of paraphrases of the Gospel story muttered after dark in labour camps, which were a proclamation of the Gospel that Christ filled with his presence. The Word Preached is as powerful as the Word Read, because the Word made flesh can fill both. That's the bottom line.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

hhhhmmmm! 23 pages and this topic is not closed??