To what extent is the Bible infallible and inerrant?

Everything in scripture was written to be 100% truth. However, not everything in scripture was written to be 100% fact. We do scripture, the men who wrote it, and the Holy Spirit who inspired it, an injustice when we fail to discern between these two points.

For example, when we debate over who Cain married, we take our focus off of the reason why Cain was marked. When we argue over whether the flood was worldwide, local, literal, figurate, etc, we take our focus off of why Noah had to build an ark in the first place. When we argue over whether the creation account is literal or figurative, we take our focus off of the fact that God created. When we argue over whether Jonah was swallowed by a whale or fish, we lose sight over why Jonah was swallowed. When we argue over whether Jesus' robe was scarlet, purple, crimson, or whatever, we take our focus off the fact that Jesus was being mocked. When we argue over how many days it was after Jesus' death, what hour Jesus died at, how many angels and women there were at the tomb, we no longer focuse on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.

 

As we read God's word, it is a simple thing to determine, in some cases, when to decide a statement is literal and when it should be interpreted in a non literal fashion.

One rule we use is, if the literal statement is wildly untrue, look for a non-literal meaning!

For example, Jesus said, "if any man would follow me and hate not his father and his mother, he cannot be my disciple".

No christian feels comfortable in hating their father and mother, no matter what Jesus said - literally. Aha. Its not literal, its merely a way of emphasizing how much we must love Jesus by comparison to all others!

But the reason we KNOW its not literal is because the LITERAL CAN'T BE TRUE! Not other reason exists for knowning this is not literal.

It is the same with the creation of the universe. Merely knowing that the literal interpretation of Genesis leading us to a 6 to 10 thousand year old univesre CANNOT BE TRUE is enought to show us that God didn't mean that to be literally true.

 

Paul, the literal can be true, but the literal need not be fact in the situation you're describing. Big difference.

 

Yes, Johnv, you're saying what I'm trying to say as well. The scriptures are TRUE but not always LITERAL.

 

We DO have reasons for verification, JohnV. One big one is that skeptics accuse the Bible of being largely fiction and that we believe by BLIND faith.

I was somewhat skeptical myself years ago. One thing that began to open my eyes was that the totally-Godless Napoleon was asked if he believed in miracles, and he unhesitatingly said, "Oui". When asked if he'd ever seen a miracle, he again unhesitatingly answered, "Oui. The Jews."

My faith began with seeing Scripture is true, realizing God DOES exist, that He's in charge, and that He's given us only one way to be in His favor: belief and faith in His Son JESUS CHRIST, to whom He's given all authority for our salvation.

If one statement of fact in Scripture was to be proven untrue, wouldn't that cast doubt upon all the others?

The theory of evolution isn't a lot older than the KJVO myth, and has been proven just as false. Why are missing links missing? Because they never existed. Of all the creatures ever known to have existed, only birds have feathers. The first known bird is calles archaeopteryx. It's the first known fossilized creature that had feathers. But it had jaws with teeth, resembling those of a lizard, so some erudite evolutionist decreed birds evolved from lizards...completely disregarding the fact that scales are very different from feathers, and that Archie's wings and legs bend the opposite way from a lizard's(which bend the same as ours). it was an entirely-different creature from any known lizard! Even the famed pterodactyl's wings bent the same way a lizard's legs do! And there's no sign it had feathers or even scales!

But enuff about evolution.

Many people say those ancient people couldn't count very well nor did they observe the heavens; their years had only 360 days. Well, that's because at the time THE SOLAR YEAR HAD ONLY 360 DAYS! This is known all over the world, and the ancient mayas, who calculated the current year to within a few hundredths of a second, once had a 360 day year, as did the ancient Chinese, the great African empires, Egypt, Hawaii, and other peoples who didn't know of each other's existence in Biblical times. If the calculated year had been shorted by 5 1/4 days, farmers woulda been planting almost a month late within 5 years! (Most ancient farmers kept their own solar calendars.)

I've asked many a skeptic concerning this to please read Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky, a Jew from Russia who had set out to disprove the Scriptures but proved many of them instead! He reminds us that the stoppage of the sun & moon for Joshua was recorded worldwide as actually being observed ot that the night was very long. Same with the reversal of the sun's course for Hezekiah. In North America, it was recorded by the Pawnees as the sun's rising a little way, then reversing & setting again.

Soon after this, the year was observed all over the world, to have become 265 1/4 days long.

Simple fact is, some people are more skeptical than others. I was QUITE skeptical. But GOD has supplied us with the means to see He's telling the TRUTH.

 

"Of all the creatures ever known to have existed, only birds have feathers. The first known bird is calles archaeopteryx. It's the first known fossilized creature that had feathers."

You should know that this is no longer the case. There have been many feathered dinosaurs discovered. From Tyranosoids and Sinosauropteryx
which were covered with downy feathers to Caudipteryx which had large tail feathers (which were symetrical and thus not flight feathers) to Microraptor which had fully developed assymetrical flight feathers covering all four legs. (It did not have the skelton for powered flight and must, therefore, have been a glider.)

Even for Archaeopteryx, it is more than just the teeth. It had scores of features in common with reptiles but not any birds. From the shape of vertebrae to which vertebrae are fused to a lack of a beak to the attachment of the head and so on.

As far as the claims of divergent calanders, I believe that most of the civilizations you mentioned actually had corect 365 day calendars. A little quick Googling confirms this for the Mayans and the Egyptians.

 

How can something be 100% truth if the facts are wrong? Isn't it an injustice to God and to the HS to say that His inspired word has wrong information in it?

 

You're kidding, aren't you? You're not able to discern between truth and fact? This is a problem with many Christians. Scripture itself is self-evident that truth and fact are not the same thing. The four Gospels have different accounts of what was posted over Jesus' head. Does that mean that the accounts are not truth? The Gospels differ significantly in the order of events at the discovery of Jesus' tomb. Does this mean that they're not truth? They also differ in the color of Jesus' robe at his trial. Does this mean this this is not true?

You tell me. If it's all factually accurate 100%, then scripture contradicts itself, and God has lied. Since God doesn't lie, then we cannot assert that scripture is 100% fact without error. However, since I can find no scripture that says scriprure is 100% fact, then to assert that it is 100% fact is adding to scripture. However, scripture maintains that it is 100% truth. Hence, to assert that scripture is such is not adding to scripture.

 

Since I have just now read through this, I'm somewhat behind.

On the subject of light and how fast it travels....are we forgetting that God created light a full 3 days before he created the source from which it came? Read the verses again, stars weren't created until the 4th day.

I believe if God can create light, He is perfectly able to create it already in motion traveling toward us. Questioning the earth's age because of the speed light travels will get you no further than Carbon 14 dating.

 

You're kidding, aren't you? You're not able to discern between truth and fact?


Uh, no, not really. You tell me the difference. If it's a fact that it's 2004, is that not true? If it's a fact that I'm 5'8", how is this not true? Are there true things that are not facts? Please elaborate.


</font>[/QUOTE]Scripture itself is self-evident that truth and fact are not the same thing. The four Gospels have different accounts of what was posted over Jesus' head. Does that mean that the accounts are not truth? The Gospels differ significantly in the order of events at the discovery of Jesus' tomb. Does this mean that they're not truth? They also differ in the color of Jesus' robe at his trial. Does this mean this this is not true?

 

"I believe if God can create light, He is perfectly able to create it already in motion traveling toward us. "

Did He create that light in transit with a record of a star's life that did not occur? When we look at a supernova a billion light years away, are you telling me that star never actually exploded or even existed?!?

 

Sorry, I messed up on doing the quotes -- it's hard to tell who said what, so I am re-posting it.

Uh, no, not really. You tell me the difference. If it's a fact that it's 2004, is that not true? If it's a fact that I'm 5'8", how is this not true? Are there true things that are not facts? Please elaborate.

I need more time to look into this, but I recall a thread we had on the color of Jesus' robe. Color is rather subjective at times and the view of color even varies in cultures. Do you know in some countries a deep white is shaded red, but in the US it's often shaded blue? But we call it white? As far as what was posted over Jesus' head, I've read explanations for that but have to go to a Bible study now (where I guess we will study truth but some wrong facts, huh?) and will get back on this later -- maybe tomorrow, if no one else does.

But the scriptures are from God, are they not? Does God make mistakes and give wrong facts? How can there be truth when facts are wrong. You just said that the Bible is true but then pointed out things that supposedly show wrong facts. That makes those accounts, or at least some of them, not true. To separate fact from truth is illogical.

 

The parables of Christ are good examples of something that is not factual, but is true. When Jesus said that if a body part offends us, we should cut it off, this is not a literally factual statement, but is true. If it were factual, there would be a lot of Christian amputees.

Men gave contradicting facts. God face uncontradicting truth. Men wrote scripture. God inspired it. Two completely different things.

Because the facts in question have nothing to do with the truth contained in the message, as I stated earlier and gave examples to.

No, not at all. Minor discremancy in facts does not compromise the truth contained therein. Clearly, here in your replies, you're having a problem discerning between the two.

Not at all, sine truth and fact are not synonymous. Every day, this board is full of posts which complain that the liberal media tell us untruths. This despite the facts that they give us are typically correct. Likewise, we often read news stories which are true, but some of the details that appeared to be correct at the time may later be found not to be factual. In most cases, the truth of those news stories remains. Truth and fact are most definitely not synomymous.

 

UTEOTEW, why not?

God created the light, separated it from the darkness. Then three days later he decided to organize it into a system that we could comprehend so we could use it for "signs and seasons". What is wrong with God creating the universe already in motion and with the energy it would need to last us for however long He wishes it to last.

If that includes creating a star that has already exploded and placing the light from that star where we could see it and gain a little understanding of the processes of the universe that He created, in order for us to progress physically in this world.....so be it!

If we believe God created this world, then we believe He created it. Not just breathed the spark that set it in motion, but CREATED it in whatever form He saw fit to do it.

Anything else, in my opinion, limits God's power.

 

You can call me Ute.

You have given two different scenarios. For light from billions of light years away to have reached here, the light must have been traveling for billions of light years. Even if God set the universe in motion fully formed, you have two choices here. Either the light from billions of light years away has been traveling for billions of years and therefore the universe is at least that old. Or the light was created in transit telling a history that did not actually happen. You can't have a star explode a billion light years away and actually see it in a short period of time.

I am not saying God could not do this. But realize what you are suggesting.

But I think we may be taking this thread far from what was intended. If you wish to continue maybe we should start a new thread somewhere else.

 

Well, maybe a new thread, but I think this leads us back to the topic, give me a minute....

Would light being created in transit really be telling a history that didn't happen, or is it only telling us a history that we can see from our end?

If God created it like He says(back to the inerrancy question), then what we are seeing is only a partial history and not a factual one. Maybe not even a truthful one. The true history would be that God created it, He organized, and He put it out there for us to use. That is all the Bible tells us.

Now, do we believe the Bible is inerrant and man's technology hasn't caught up to It or do we believe that God made a mistake?

 

Chuckles, Christ and Paul took the account to be literal. Although the PURPOSE is not scientific, it all did literally happen the way Moses wrote it.

 

I've researched this matter on this board:

Bible Inerrancy Poll #2

Of the voters on the Baptist Board:
80% agree with this or more:
The Bible is inerrant on all issues: doctrinal, historic, and scientific
20% do not agree.

 

Well, Ed, we appreciate learning that. And I have faith that God will make His plans come to fruition in spite of the fact we don't all agree on this and other issues.