Calling All Bible Experts

Great Debates
1

First let me get my own pov out front. I was raised on the idea that the Bible is the inerrant Word. As it was a solid Episcopal upbringing, the emphasis on the Bible was relatively muted when compared to what is called today “Bible based”, but nonetheless. I’ll spare you the details of my spiritual path I am, now that I think about it, past middle age and have finally come around to being, I suppose, a mongrel Pantheist and Taoist of the quietism type.

As a Pantheist, I parse The Golden Rule as a fact rather than advice: As I do unto others, in thought word and deed, I am literally doing it to myself. The idea that I am actually doing right or wrong to someone else is merely projection and illusion, literally a dream. From this pov, forgiveness is a no-brainer and Jesus speaks of it metaphorically in Luke 6:37 and Matt 6:14, 15.

As FAIAC, this could easily be interpreted as the whole of the Word. Comment welcome.

As a Christian based Taoist, I believe the Creator(Tao) speaks to all humanity all the time. The only thing that stands between me and immediate transcendence is my attendance to what I call my own thoughts. My transcendence or salvation, if you will, will be found in the very instant I put aside ALL thought and finally hear It That Speaks. At that one instant do I awaken to Eternity. Whew.

Imo, any “scripture” which purports the Deity to be anything but unconditional love is certainly not inerrant. But let’s put that aside and look at what I perceive to be a major contradiction in the Bible which, I posit, is in itself is sufficient to declare it fallible. There have, of course, been many pointed out but I would like to confine ourselves to this one. It has benefit of being a simple logic problem.

In these verses (from the KJV)

we are told to include the middle and in these,

we are told to exclude it. The neo cons prefer these:)

Imo, one condratiction implies at least the possibility of there being others. I’d like someone to convince me that the above is not self-contradictory and if that turns out to be impossible, why the contradiction shouldn’t allow a reasonable person like myself to take the rest of the Bible with a grain of salt.

Thanks for listening.

2

The simple, no-bullshit, no-interpretation-needed answer is that you can support nearly any position via selective quoting and personal interpretation in the Bible. It fails at rigor, explicitness, and continuity. So yes, you are perfectly fine to take the Bible with a grain of salt.

Figure out a system of beliefs that is consistent and beneficial to yourself and the world (deciding for yourself where to put the emphasis), and go with that. That will be the only way to find consistency unless you happen upon a work that very explicitly and rigorously gives you step by step instructions for everything you do in life.

3

Thank you for that witness.

4

Yep, me too.

5

Just a note:

You’re probably on the wrong message board to seek a resolution of contradictions in the bible–and seriously the wrong message board for finding defenders of the bible based on claims that there are no contradicitions.

We have about three posters, (one active) who actually hold that position. The rest of the board is composed of posters who hold one of the following positions:

  • believe it is all man-made nonsense that should be suppressed;
  • believe that it is man-made nonsense that might not need to be suppressed, but should be ignored by rational people;
  • believe that is is man-made attempts to express their beliefs in God without necessarily being inerrant;
  • believe that it is God’s Word expressed through fallible human agents, and thus subject to error
  • believe that it is God’s Word that may have apparent errors, but the errors are only examples of human misunderstanding.

(And, of course, any or none of those postions might be true without having any effect on the notion that the particular passages you quoted are examples of particular literary devices that might not need to be taken as either wholly true or wholly false, in any event.)

Good luck.

6

Perhaps you’re right about this being the wrong MB. I admit I was guided by this being the place to “witness” which my post in large part is. What do you think, move to IMHO? It’s your call.

Thanks for your encouragement.

7

Oh, no. You are witnessing, (or calling to witness), and also calling for a debate, so this is the correct forum, regardless. I was simply warning you that the response might not be what you expect. There would typically be a whole series of dismissive posts about silly appeals to Bronze Age Sky Gods or contemptuous declarations that religion is foolishness, interspersed with a few posts attempting to answer the question–but generally not from a position of inerrancy, since few posters hold that position.

The thread might even turn out to be entertaining, but it will probably not provide what you sought.

8

I can offer as many examples as needed. State a philosophical position and I’ll match it with bible quotes, and probably even be able to find a group which advanced that position.

9

I get it, Tom. I just didn’t really think about how sparse the inerrancy demographic might be here. But then after all, we are here to dispel ignorance. Maybe a thread name change, something like “Calling All Bible Thumpers”, might (ahem) let out some more line. Ah, well.

Again thanks for your attention.

10

I think a lot of us in your category 3 would probably also add that it’s great literature, and has had such a huge impact on Western Civilization that any educated person should have a good working knowledge of its contents.

11

I’m with John. I don’t see how any person in our society can call himself literate without having read the Bible all the way through.

As for the OP, I don’t understand why an appeal to the Bible to support a worldview which is unBiblical is necessary, except perhaps out of habit. Why not see what is reasonable given a combination of history, evidence, logic, and a bit of faith if you must? Your faith must come from within, no where else.

12

I more or less agree but somehow just couldn’t make it thru the OT.

Busted. In explanation I can only say that that my son, who was raised as a godless hippie, somehow morphed into into raging but sincere Southern Baptist. A conversation like this with him does absolutely nothing positive for our relationship. We both avoid it. I suppose I’m hoping to find his proxy here.

Amen.

13

shrugs You go too far. I’d like to think of myself as reasonably literate (even in the sense of having read widely to the point of acquiring familiarity with various cultural touchstones), and I’ve never come anywhere close to this. Some level of awareness of Biblical allusions is to be expected, but actually having personally read every word of the thing, from start to finish? I wager very few people have done this, especially so outside of Christian households, and yet I would not deny all those hold-outs potential consideration as “literate”, any more than I would make any other particular corpus such a litmus test.

14

Disclaimer: I do not affirm inerrancy; instead, I hold that a reasonable, careful, and critical approach to our written biblical tradition will lead to the conclusion that it contains errors, as in any document written by humans. However, I am disappointed with those who prefer quantity over quality in forming lists of biblical errors. In their effort to “disprove” the Bible, they list anything that might remotely even look like a possible contradiction, without careful investigation as to whether it is, in fact, a contradiction. This is one of those cases.

Well, then, adhay finds a “major contradiction” between two sayings, when I just cannot find a contradiction at all.

Look at it logically. Basically, the two statements are:

  • He who is not for us is against us.
  • He who is not against us is for us.

These are of the same logical form as the following two statements:

  • All integers that are not even are odd.
  • All integers that are not odd are even.

Of course, there is no contradiction between those two statements. There are two groups of integers: even, and odd. All integers are either even or odd, and cannot be both.

It is the same way with the two sayings of Jesus. Especially concerning the conflicts around demon possession, Jesus’ ministry was so bold and radical that it was impossible to be ultimately indifferent. Furthermore, there is never any mention of some alleged neutral ground in the surrounding context, so it is invalid to just “assume” there is a middle ground and interpret the sayings in light of it, especially when the existence of a middle ground is exactly what the sayings were denying. In the gospels, there is no neutral ground in the issue of Jesus’ Lordship. Either you’re for Jesus or you’re against him. And if you’re not in one group, then you’re in the other. Where is the contradiction in that?

This does have the benefit of being a simple logic problem. :slight_smile:

15

Yeah, good point. The OP says that you’re once told to include the middle and once told to exclude it, but, no: you’re never told to include the middle. Both times you’re told to exclude the middle. I’d say ragerdude has entirely stepped up to and met the concrete challenge of the OP.

16

The OP’s point is that there is a -third- item, i.e. the golden rule, which only seems to agree with one of these two statements.

17

The section of the OP after “But let’s put that aside and look at what I perceive to be a major contradiction in the Bible which, I posit, is in itself is sufficient to declare it fallible” makes no mention of the golden rule; it seems rather explicit that the alleged contradiction is between an invocation to “include the middle” and an invocation to “exclude the middle”. But reading “For he that is not against us is on our part” as an invocation to “include the middle” is mistaken, as explained by ragerdude.

That isn’t to say there aren’t other inconsistencies in the Bible. But this isn’t one of them.

18

What in the world are you talking about?

19

Anybody else see it that way? Am I logically impaired? Please show your work.

20

Ragerdude showed the work.

The two statements you say are contradictory are “For he that is not against us is on our part.” and “He that is not with me is against me”.

But there’s nothing logically inconsistent about this. Suppose some people are with you, some people are against you, and everyone is either one or the other. Then both those statements are true. They do not contradict each other.

In fact, in a sense, both statements say the exact same thing: “Everyone is either against us/me or with us/me (possibly even both, but definitely not neither).”

I said this is a case where both “exclude the middle”, but that perhaps was poor and ambiguous wording. The above is the explanation that matters.