Logical Errors in the Bible? Show me!

Great Debates
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But this is the thing that I just cannot understand - if Christians can admit that there is no way of determining the divine origins of the Bible outside of the personal experience of someone who wants it to be true, then how is it that they can go around claiming that their revealed truth is more accurate, or “better” than anyone else’s? Why is Rodrigo’s Catholicism or vanilla’s protestanism or lynn73’s Church of Christ any more valid than Freyer’s paganism or my athei-agnosti-whatever-ism?

If all we’ve got to go on is “well I just believe it” - thats not much to go on!

<sigh>

pardon the mini rant.

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1.) “Q guys” don’t make any formal judgement one way or the other about divine authorship. Objective scholarship does not specifically reject supernatural hypotheses, it cannot accept those hypotheses with supporting evidence. The default position is “prove it.” If you’re going to propose a traditional “divine inspiration” hypothesis you need to provide a justification as to why that hypothesis deserves any more consideration than authorship by hypothetical leprechauns or ETs or, of course, The Invisible Purple Unicorn.

2.) We agree then. No empirical test can be proposed which would settle the question of divine authorship. That is why scholars do not assertively “deny” the possibility. It’s an issue which cannot be addressed by historical Biblical criticism and which is not attempted. That is an issue for theology and philosophy which are quite different disciplines.

3.) What do you say to those who feel the presence of Krishna or Isis just as keenly and sincerely as you feel Christ? Do you have a way to determine if your experience is more authentic or objectively “true” than that of a Wiccan or a South American shaman?

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Rodrigo: First, you have not addressed my question, but continued to make undocumented jabs at the Q theory – which, by the way, my own view is only tangentially related to. Second, the question of divine inspiration, with ancillary questions as to its kind and degree, is by your posts confuted with the question of the human authorshop of the Gospel narratives. The latter is in theory amenable to scholarly analysis without reference to the former. I will grant that some presuppositions may be brought to the issue which obviate, e.g., predictive prophecy as a possibility. I would think that a person inspired by an omniscient God might at least have the potential for predictive prophecy, which means that an alleged “proof” of a terminus ad quem date may not in fact be valid. After all, using their methodology, I could prove that someone purporting to be Robert A. Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land at least 14 years after his documented death, from the references to the disappearance of Nixon’s vice-president and the allusions to Nancy Reagan’s use of an astrologer.

I repeat: in the absence of Q, how do you resolve the questions posed as regards the Synoptic Problem?

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Well, I just wrote out an extremely objective and thorough analysis of the tempt issue and it got eaten by the evil hamsters. :frowning: Forget it.

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  1. The Invisble Purple Unicorn. Testy, aren’t we.
    If somebody proposes IPU as the author let him come forward. You “do” reject a priori.

  2. Most Biblical scholars who deny Divine Authorship say so vocally and with pride. They are Enlightened, we are dumb.

  3. That he’s on the right track. If you want to win the Super Bowl you don’t play with the San Antonio Spurs. Wiccans and Krishnas have what I consider a bad team but at least they’re on the NFL.

Nice dodging of my question about proving empiricism. If we both can’t prove, who’s to say who’s got the “baddest” theory? I was candid in my answer, I expect the same form you.

BTW, the question was “Can you prove empiricism?” of course without using empiricism.

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Fuel try opening a file (top left on your screen) click new file and type your responses there. Then just highlight & copy (right click) them back on your “reply”. Try that or just bold and copy your actual response from time to time as you are working on it. Then if the “damned evil hamsters” <insert irate smiley here> do eat your post you can just re-paste it.

Sorry guys…

Back to the OP

So, from my understanding of the NT Jesus was GOD’s one true and only son…correct?

Then explain the numerous passages in the OT regarding the Nephilim, God’s other sons.

and BTW I submitted this message originally several minutes ago but it didn’t post, so I right clicked and recopied it on the reply form. :wink:
(I hope it doesn’t double post)

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I’ve got a question for you, Fuel. According to the Gospels. the Sanhedrin convicted Jesus of blasphemy before turning him over to the Romans for execution. What, specifically, did Jesus say to the Sanhedrin that was blasphemous? I’ve examined the trial accounts carefully and at no time does Jesus say anything that was blasphemous under Jewish law.

As you can guess, I am going somewhere with this, but first, I’d like you to identify what you believe was the statement tht the Sanhedrin deemed blasphemous.

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Who are these mysterious people whom you continue to conflate with serious scholars? Can you name any? Can you name one? (Were you able to name any before I asked this question?)

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1.) A hypothesis has to be defended before it can be rejected. There is an infinite number of potential hypotheses. It’s not a question of a priori rejection, it’s a default position that any hypothesis requires empirical support. Can you give me a reason why divine inspiration is a more valid hypothesis than the IPU?

2.) Cite?

3.) And how do you know that they have a “bad team.” what special evidence or knowledge do you have that they don’t have? How do you know that you’re not on the wrong team?

Invoking Goedel doesn’t really help you the way you think it does. Anything beyond the ken of empirical method has no meaning either epistomologically or ontologically.

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  1. Can you tell me the name of a scholar who’s proposed IPU. Maybe IPU wrote Q. You’re playing with words

  2. Top of my head: a) most of the Jesus Seminar guys.
    b)Burton Mack:* The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins* : “The people of Q did not think of Jesus as a messiah, did not recognize a special group of trained disciples as their leaders…did not regard his death as an unusual divine event, and did not follow his teachings in order to be ‘saved’ or transformed people.”

  3. That’s another story, it’s a fight between believers. Sorry, once you join us, we’ll tell you our secrets.

As to the Goedel stuff: Yes it does, you have no answer. You say Anything beyond the ken of empirical method has no meaning either epistomologically or ontologically . Can you prove it?

So your position is “My position cannot be proven using the same standards I ask of you, but that doesn’t matter cuz I’m right and you ain’t.” Anyone said circular reasoning? If you can’t prove empiricism why should I try to prove to you anything. Maybe the IPU(with the help of Paul Bunyan) invented empiricism.

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And where has anyone from the Jesus Seminar claimed that they were “Enlightened” and anyone else was “dumb”? The challenge to your statement was not that there are, at the beginning of the 21st century, people studying Scripture who do not believe in the Divinity of Jesus or the inspired nature of the Gospels. You attributed to them a specific attitude that would appear to be part and parcel with your original egregiously overbroad claims regarding the acceptance of Q throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In other words, you continue to make unsubstantiated claims that, I suspect, you are simply repeating by rote from such “scholars” as Sam Gipp, David Daniels, and Gail Riplinger.

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1.) ]i]I’m* proposing that the IPU wrote Q. Now tell me why my hypothesis is less valid than divine inspiration.

2.) a.) Please provide a cite for anyone in the Jesus Seminar denying divine inspiration (most of the JS are Christians, btw).

 b.) Burton Mack is not in the mainstream of historical Jesus scholarship (nor is he in the Jesus Seminar). He is what is known as a "mythicist" in the field...that is he believes that Jesus never existed at all and is wholly a mythical character. He represents a minority view among scholars. I personally don't subscribe to the mythicist theory and I don't think Mack's arguments and conclusions are particularly sound. He is not representative of Biblical scholars.

Having said all that, though, Mack is talking about what is specifically addressed in the text of the Q gospel. Q is mostly a collection of sayings (with some narrative frameworks) presumably attributed to historical Jesus. The material specific to Q does not address such issues as the Messiahship of Jesus, the resurrection, Jesus as a personal saviour or apostolic authority. It mostly concerns the ethical teachings of Jesus as told through parables, the beatitudes, etc. Mack is asserting, then, that whoever wrote or compiled Q was not concerned with those issues. This is not the same as saying they still couldn’t have been divinely inspired. You are drawing unfounded conclusions about what material an inspired text must contain. It is theoretically possible that God inspired one person to compile a sayings Gospel with the full intention of inspiring Matthew and Luke to fill in additional theological details. Opining on the agendas and motives of the authors is not an ipso facto denial of divine inspiration since it is always possible that those agendas, themselves, were inspired by God.

3.) So you’re admitting that you don’t have any evidence. By your own standard, then, you must be stupid.

That’s not what I said at all. I’m telling you what happens when you subject the Bible to an empirical analysis. Whether the empirical universe is “true” in any absolute sense is irrelevant to the conversation. Even if empirical method is “wrong” on some meta-level, it doesn’t change the validity of the conclusions drawn within that system. Anything outside of empirical reality can, by definition, not be observed or interacted with on any level so it is, as I said, ontologically and epistomologically meaningless. By persisting in this line of attack you’re essentially just trying to avoid a debate by removing any conceivable axioms or predicates for argument.

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Excuse me, that should have been “the Nephilim were the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of man”.

As to Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, being God the Son, the following is written in the New Testament of the Bible:

"But about the Son (Jesus) he (God the Father) says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.”

(Hebrews 1:8 NIV words in parenthesis are mine)

We see in the above verse God the Father calling His one and only son Jesus, God. In fact, the first chapter of the New Testament book of Hebrews speaks to the divinity of Christ Jesus. The same is true of the following verses (John 1:1-3; 1 John 1:1-2; Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:3, 8-12; Philippians 2:5-6).
Were the Nephilim also sons of God?
Genesis 6:1-4 (NAS95) 1* ¶ Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. 3* ¶ Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4* ¶ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

  1. The Hebrew word for “sons of God” is “bane-elohim”; it is found in only 5 places in the Old Testament:

Genesis 6:2, 4

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.

Job 2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.

Job 38:7 When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Forget it? allright, sounds like y’all would rather argue semantics or whatever else is going on.

Have fun :rolleyes:

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He seems to have no rebuttal to my rejoinder to his reply, so perhaps it’s felt that ignoring the tougher questions is better.

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Avoiding the tough questions certainly seems to be his strategy. Like I said, he’s not so much interested in learning whether the Bible is inerrant as he’s interested in being God’s Little Messenger.

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First of all, cool down. I write with a smile on my face.

  1. IPSE DIXIT, do you know the guy. OK, get 2000 years of history and of books said to be written by him, get anyone from the time Q was supposed to be written to claim so.

  2. I’ll do it tonight, I’m writing form work.

  3. I’m amazed with your inability to inetract with my posts, it must require a lot from you, I woldn’t be able to do it (maybe it is vekauze i am ztoopid and you are smart:) ). I didn’t say I had no evidence, I said I did have but that YOU wouldn’t accept it ( maybe I am stupid, but you’re the one arguing with me). You said that it is not important if the empricism is wrong, you said it is IRRELEVANT. How come? I’m quite happy with my (let’s call it like that) method of believing in God and within MY system, it works; too bad if it doesn’t work within YOURS, cuz it’s the same the other way around. Of course this doesn’t solve the problem it just makes my point in saying you can’t prove your method is better than mine, only that for you it works better.
    Ican’t believe you said you didn’t care if you were wrong, I do.

(check out my humorous paraphrase)
That’s not what I said at all. I’m telling you what happens when you subject the empirical method to an non-empirical analysis. Whether the non-empirical is “true” in any absolute sense is irrelevant to the conversation. Even if the non-empirical is “wrong” on some meta-level, it doesn’t change the validity of the conclusions drawn within that system. Anything outside of non-empirical reality can, by definition, not be observed or interacted with on any empirical level so it is, as I said, ontologically and epistomologically meaningless. By persisting in this line of attack you’re essentially just trying to avoid a debate by removing any conceivable axioms or predicates for argumen
(what would you have said if I’d answered this, you’d gone bonkers.)

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Rodrigo,

1.) ad populem arguments are fallacious.

2.) Good luck.

3.) Evidence that cannot be shared is not evidence.

4.) There is no such thing as non-empirical analysis.

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Let’s see.
Maybe it’s only me but most of the people who deny the spuernatural talk down to people like me who do. In my experience is a fact, because someone always goes ironic with “so prove Santa Claus or the tooth fairy or Marduk”. I used quotations to imply an attitude, not that they actually said “we’re bright you’re stupid”. (If you don’t believe they have that attitude we’ve read their papers in two completely different manners)
Don’t know who those guys are. I’m more of a Scott Hahn and Father Most kinda guy. Don’t try to read my mind or insult my intelligence, if I make you angry say so and I’ll go away, I have a life, my wife and three kids and my last desire is to make poeple angry or think I’m trying to insult them.

I’m not a scholar nor have I claimed so. I stand firm by my believe (which may be wrong) that Q has reached its limits (not an iota of proof aside from literary analysis, not one quote from anyone) and is going down, but I’m not about to write a book on Q, I’m just Joe Catholic who’s read a bit.

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  1. Yes ad populum are but this is history. You know what Julius Caesar did because guys on his time wrote it.

  2. In your system which can be wrong, yes; in mine no.

  3. But there is such a thing as not getting the joke. (Can you prove there is no non-empirical analysis?)

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Rodrigo:

1.) I asked you why divine inspiration is a more valid hypothesis for authorship of the gospels than the IPU. Your response is that your hypothesis is written down in books and that lots of people believe it. Neither of those things support your hypothesis. The fact that people have believed it for a long time does not support your hypothesis either. For thousands of years most people believed that the sun and the moon were gods. Does that make such a belief any more valid?

3.) Huh? What is your system, pray tell? What are its axioms?

4.) Analysis, by definition, means to break something down and study its individual componants, Study, by definition, requires observation. A “non-empirical” analysis would be one without observation. Analysis without observation cannot be analysis. QED.