Christanity vs The Bible

Great Debates
1

Once upon a time I believed the bible to be inerrant. Then after arguing with atheists for a while I believed the bible to be inerrant in only the important things(things like diffrent numbers and whatnot were ok as far as being wrong). After realising the utter silliness of that belief(the word of god would be perfect in all things, not just the important things) . I believed the bible to be an interesting history, with the use of ones own judgement to determine what is what.

Now with that little bit of history I come to my arguement. That there are bible worshippers. They claim to worship god, but instead they would rather cling to the bible and ignore god. They say things like “thats what the bible/god says” and ignore the fact that it is simply their own opinion of what the bible says.

Therefore I think the term “biblist” be invented for people who would rather not believe in god, but still want a moral system imposed on them for whatever reason.

2

I believe I’ve heard the term “bibliolatry” used for this phenomenon. It sometimes seems like the more rabid fundamentalists are, indeed, worshipping the book rather than its purported Author…

jayjay

3

Personally, I reject the command of Deuteronomy 21 that a disodedient son should be stoned to death by the elders of the city. I think that whoever wrote that one down didn’t quite hear God right. Also, I don’t believe that a faithful Christian has to drink poison, handle snakes during worship, or speak in tongues. It just doesn’t strike me as rational that we get closer to God by making women stay quiet in church, by ingesting poison, or by saying “Shamalamadingdongshakedjiboutitofuttilalalalaburgulatida”. Likewise, I don’t believe that God really commands genital mutilation. And most Christians through the ages have not seized upon these particular practices as essential to Christianity, though a few have insisted that these are requisite signs of a true faith.

Where should a Christian look to for authority? The Bible alone? For about the first 1500 years of Christianity, there were no printing presses, and virtually everyone was illiterate. Study of the Bible was primarily reserved to a tiny contingent of monks/scribes, since most people couldn’t afford a handwritten Bible or spend the time it would take to learn to read. Then, people started translating the Bible into all sorts of languages, and more people began to quarrel about what it all meant.

One possible answer to this quandary is the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”, which says that the four sources of authority in Christianity are scripture, reason, experience, and tradition. Any of these sources is easily abused if not scrutinized in light of the other three. None of the four sources stands alone. When Scripture is judged in terms of reason, experience, and tradition, we are less likely to fall into the traps of fundamentalism, where spirituality is traded in for a feeling of security. When Scripture is judged in terms of reason, experience, and tradition, we can find the spiritually valuable portion and separate it from all the crap about how God wanted the Israelites to massacre the Jebusites, Amorites, Amalekites, Moabites, Edomites, Dust Mites, etc.

Reason = the rational critical judgment of the individual, which might include some reference to modern scientific or literary theory
Experience = the experiences of the individual, which help contextualize the meaningfulness of the theological concept, make it concrete (remember that Jesus spoke in parables that were tailored to contextualize theological concepts in the experiences of typical first century A.D. peasants who lived in that part of the world)
Tradition = ways that Christians over the years have interpreted a given theological concept or biblical passage (some traditions are perverse, while others are illuminating, an overview of church history gives some perspective as to the proud and not-so-proud moments)

4

Well said - when one of the four becomes more important than the others, we run the risk of missing the central message of the whole Bible - that we are created, loved and redeemed…

5

grimpixie, I think that your interpretation of the central message of the bible really shows my point. I have always felt that the central message of the bible was that god is just and consistent.

I also dissagree with the idea of an authority in christanity. Didn’t Jesus once say that the current authorities on the bible were “the blind leading the blind”? An authority on the bible to me would fit that “Wesleyan Quadrilateral”. However on christanity you have Jesus as an authority, and any prophets that come along too. The people who wrote the bible are IMHO not an authority. If the bible really should be so important then Jesus would have written it instead of letting his followers do it.

6

I don’t really think there was a great debate in the originail post, but I thought I’d chime in anyway. I am a Christian who believes the Bible is perfect. At the same time, I do believe it is horrifying to see people worship the Bible.

The Bible was not officialy collected until 325.

Even then, almost no one could read and there were only a few copies of it(available at churches and monastaries).

Even when it became available widely(over 1000 years later), most peole couldn’t read. Literacy didn’t become extremely common until recently.

Having said that, let me say that all this shows that Christianity has been about having a relationship with Christ that is real. That is what the Bible says anyway, so it’s not all that shocking.

Oh, is the Bible inerrant? Yes. Is it reliable? Yes.

I guess that’s about it.

7

Mahaloth wrote:

Are those statements you would care to defend in a debate?

8

I believe the Koran to be the word of God.

Do I believe the copies or translations to be accurate in every detail?
No.

But I believe that when I read it with a sincere heart

that I will hear God’s message.

And interestingly enough the message is different every time.

As for the Bible which I consider to be as corrupt as Islam’s Hadith, the same principle applies. Read it with a heart open to God’s message and you will receive the message.

9

I’m not sure what the debate is supposed to entail, but:

Not a bad word, but I’ll stick with “bible-thumper” for the time being. It takes a lot less effort to get them to contradict themselves when they’re foaming at the mouth. I guess I’m just lazy.

10

Mahaloth wrote:

And more importantly, there were several Christian writings floating around within the Church at the time the New Testament was cannonized. Many, if not most, of them did not make it into the New Testament.

So how did they decide which Christian writings were to be part of the New Testament, and which Christian writings weren’t? Simple. Those that were Divinely Inspired were the Word of God and therefore belonged in the New Testament, while those that were not Divinely Inspired did not belong in the New Testament.

What I wanna know is, how did they determine which Christian writings were Divinely Inspired and which were not?

11

The Holy Spirit told them.

(See? That explanation wasn’t all that difficult.)

12

I agree with that, but I also agree with the idea that look at everything with a heart open to gods message you will recieve it.

The main problem with the bible being inerrant though, is the fact that there is no “the bible”. Theres the KJV, the NIV, etc. They all can’t be inerrant.

13

I suppose you’ll want a more mundane explanation.

Scripture is generally selected in the same basic manner by all groups creating a canon. They look at the writings that appear to express their beliefs most faithfully, then they apply some test to identify the writings that have “staying power.”

In the case of the Christian New Testament, the earliest (anti-)canon was put together by a guy named Marcinion who decided that God had rejected the Jews and that Jews were evil. He took most of the books that were floating around and threw out any book that addressed Jews, specifically the letter to the Hebrews. I think he may have ditched the Gospel of Matthew (based on the tradition that it was written originally in Aramaic for the Jews by the Apostle Matthew) along with several others works. (Aside from Hebrews, I can’t give an accurate list off the top of my head and my references are at home.)

Once Marcinion had compiled his anti-canon and the Church had rejected his anti-Jewish preachings, various Church leaders began compiling their own lists of accepted works. As lists were collected, each commentator would make comments in which they challenged or confirmed the opinions of those who had compiled other lists. Finally, the issue of which books were truly inspired by God were brought to the attention of the various councils who prayed to God and made their choices.

In the case of the NT, the additional test (besides whether the works expressed the consensus of belief of the council) was whether a work had Apostolic Authority. This did not mean that they had to have an autographed copy from one of the Twelve, but that their information regarding that work must include the tradition that it was written by or written under the auspices of Paul or one of the Twelve.

Later literary criticism has cast doubt on a lot of the purported connections, but they used what they had.
Martin Luther later used the “consensus of belief” test to throw out several works that the Catholic Church had been acceptng as OT Scripture. He also cast a jaundiced eye on several of the NT works for the same reason. (Of course, he was acting as the final arbiter of the consensus). Ultimately, he chose to not remove any NT works.
Jewish Scripture was accumulated in the same basic manner, with the works chosen based on their adherence to the understanding of the faith–particularly as expressed in the Torah. In their case, the “additional test” imposed at the school or council of Jamnia around 100 CE, was a requirement that the books had existed for at least 500 years. Again, later literary criticism has suggested that several of the books were written subsequent to 400 BCE (failing the “500 years” test–although not the adherence to faith test), and, again, they were working with the tools available to them.

14

Would I be willing to defend the Bible in a debate? Sure.

Do I think the debate would be calm, non-judgemental, and open-minded? Nope.

Besides, I think the inerrancy of the Bible has been debated to death on this board and a great deal of the facts have already been laid out for one to either accept or dismiss(for both sides, by the way).

15

Tomndebb:

Very good explanation. To tell you the truth, I’d always imagined the approval process for each book of Holy Writ being the same as the approval process for filling the vacancy in the Apostles created by Judas killing himself: rolling dice.

But that’s just an opinion I’ve held since childhood.

16

Mahaloth:

Okay, instead of a debate, let me ask you a question. What do you think of the Documentary Hypothesis? If you oppose it, on what grounds? If you support it, how do you square it with the doctrine of inerrancy?

Actually, a search for “Documentary Hypothesis” turns up only 50 hits, mostly in tangentially related threads. Perhaps an open conversation in GD would be informative and entertaining.

17

Good post, Philosophocles. But…are you saying that God DIDN’T want the Isrealites to masscre the Dust Mites?!?

18

Seems to me that you can either believe that the Bible is inerrant, or you can pick and choose which parts of the Bible you wish to believe.

Choose the first alternative, and you’re left fumbling around trying to explain the contradictions and outright errors in the text.

Choose the second and you have to answer some questions: If you can pick and choose which parts of the Bible to believe, well then, does the book even have any credibility at all? How do you know you’re believing the right parts?

19

Well spoke, its like anything else. You don’t know you are believing the right parts, just like you don’t know anything else in life. The bible is just a history, therefore it will have parts that are right and parts that are wrong. The bible has credibility because it is like any other book. You can choose to believe that god creates everything for a reason, like Jesus says when he explains why imperfections like the blind man he healed to exist. Its like anything else, you decide based on logic. God is in every part of your life, not just the bible.

20

The same question can be asked about anything else. How do you know what parts in these boards are credible? You do your own research. You discard contradictions. You determine whether statements made are congruent with known facts. You decide whether statements are logical implications or mere non sequiturs.

In short, you do what Jesus calls “weeding out the chaff” and you avoid what Jesus calls “straining at gnats and swallowing camels”.