Raf

Okaaaaaay

You can always see it online

Wow. This show rocks.

Enjoy your celebration! I actually agree with you on that point. If you isolate my comment from other comments I've made on the same subject, it would cause confusion, but I agree: "Paul" was not writing about the very letter he was writing when he said "all scripture is given by inspiration of God" (and, it is important to note, I do not believe Paul wrote the epistles to Timothy). Unlike other holy books, the Bible is not aware of itself as ONE book. It has no statements about itself as a book. When the writers of the Bible speak of "His Word," they are not talking about the Bible. They are not talking about Psalms. They are being very literal: HIS WORD. Insofar as any scripture contains His Word, it is His Word that is exalted. My problem, of course, is that "His Word," as communicated in those books, doesn't strike me as anything all that enlightened (see the "Are you more moral than Yahweh" thread for exploration of this position). But in this, we are coming to the material from very different positions. Steve, I appreciate you placing this thread in "Questioning Faith," and I see your reasons for doing so, but I'm feeling strengthened in the position that this is a more general doctrinal question: What does "God-breathed" really mean? By placing it here, you're explicitly inviting atheist input and/or views that might challenge your faith in God (as opposed to the nature of the Bible). I don't think you're questioning faith here. I think you're challenging a doctrinal position. I'm inclined to leave the thread right here where you put it, but it might not be seen by people who avoid this particular subforum. Your call.

I think the bottom line, in my opinion, is that if you believe the Bible's testimony of itself that all scripture is God-breathed, then you must conclude that it can contain errors and contradictions and still be God-breathed. Because it DOES contain errors and contradictions. If you look at the stories myths and legends as LESSONS, you can glean something from them. But the moment you call those stories HISTORY, you run into trouble. Some of the stories are history. Many, many, many are not. That Jesus walked is probably history. That he walked on water is probably not. If you are going to tie your faith in the inspiration of the Bible to a belief that this book is an accurate telling of events that took place in history, without error or contradiction, then you are going to be walking on a very fragile faith. In my opinion.

I raised those two points to demonstrate that the contradictions are not matters of failing to recognize figurative language, nor can they be dismissed with passive accusations of demonic influence.

In Matthew, Jesus and his family don't come to live in Nazareth until after he is born, after the Magi visit (he's a toddler by then), after the flight to Egypt, Matthew 2:22. In Luke, Jesus' parents lived in Nazareth before he was born (unmentioned in Matthew). Jesus comes to Nazareth eight days after he's born. Now, it would make some sense if Matthew 2 wasn't so clear about the reason Joseph went to Nazareth. It wasn't a return to his hometown. It's a flat-out contradiction. But ok.

According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was born during the Quirinian Census. According to both Matthew and Luke, Herod was alive when Jesus was born. Herod was dead for a decade at the time of the Quirinian census. There was no overlap. There is no figurative language that will fix this error/contradiction. The Bible contradicts itself. A lot.

Like Steve, I am not sure this topic is in the right place. There are two ways to approach the central question being asked: 1. It is possible for something to be God-breathed in the first place, which raises the question: How would we know? What qualities would a "God-breathed" writing have that distinguishes it from other writing? I'll give Wierwille credit for answering the question with qualities that are unequivocal and testable. But that doesn't make it Biblically accurate, because the Bible itself does not lay down any such qualities. The Bible never says that it is without error or contradiction. In fact, the Bible lacks the self-awareness it would take to define itself in any way. Paul did not know when he was writing Timothy (which he didn't, but that's another story) that his letters would be part of a collection that would later be referred to as "the Bible" and analyzed and dissected nearly 2,000 years later. The writer of Mark, who apparently was not terribly familiar with Palestinian geography, had no idea that three gospels would be written after his (in fact, many more were written, but only three others made the canon). Luke was aware that other accounts existed, and it's clear he had a copy of Mark's gospel with him when he plagiarized composed his account of the life of Jesus. But he had no idea the gospel of John was on its way. So it strikes me as unfair to hold the Bible to Wierwille's standard of what it means to be God-breathed. However, since Wierwille does offer us a definition of the qualities that a God-breathed work will exhibit, it is perfectly fair to hold his own writings to that standard. Thus, Actual Errors in PFAL is fair. Actual Errors in the Bible is fair only insofar as determining the accuracy of its claims. However, nothing proves the Bible is or is not God-breathed because no criteria are set forth in the Bible to determine such a conclusion. The best we have is, is it useful for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness? The answer to that, of course, is yes, BUT that doesn't make it God-breathed. Any work can be useful for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. In short, there is no way, Biblically, to determine that something is God-breathed, and no way, Biblically, to determine that it isn't. The best we can do is determine that sthe Bible meets some definition of God-breathed. It doesn't meet Wierwille's by a longshot. 2. This being "questioning faith," it is fair game in this forum (in any forum really, but in this one by design) to question whether God-breathed is possible in the first place. That is, there would have to be a God for anything to be God-breathed. I see nothing in the Bible that leads me to believe it was anything other than the product of its time. Certainly, as a moral guide, we are way, way ahead of the Bible in moral advancement (as I believe we have amply demonstrated in the morality thread). You can find lots of morality in the Bible, but there's lots of immorality as well, and that, to my way of thinking, argues strongly against the Bible as the God-breathed word according to any definition. Would a God-breathed word advocate for the death penalty for petty offenses? I would think not. Is picking up sticks on the Sabbath a petty offense? I would think so. Therefore... So as a strictly doctrinal question, without undermining faith, I would answer yes, the Bible can be God-breathed even though (there's no "if" about it) it contradicts itself. And as a question posed in "Questioning Faith," I would answer no, because the Bible fails to demonstrate that this God even exists outside the imagination of the writers and readers.

Technically, Ehrman prefers the term agnostic to atheist. But yeah.

I guess no one can accuse me of artificially keeping this thread moving. Questions I raised that were never answered: How was it ever moral to have a verse like Exodus 21: 2-6? This is not an employer-employee relationship. This is a hostage situation. It's extortion. You can gain your freedom, but I OWN YOUR WIFE AND CHILDREN. How is that moral? How was it ever moral to penalize a rapist by making him marry the woman he raped? Deuteronomy 22:28-29 Why does the girl's father get 50 pieces of silver. Isn't the victim the one who gets compensated for a crime? Of course it is. And that is what is happening here: The victim is being compensated. The victim of a rape is the woman's father. The girl who was raped is damaged property, so her dad, the victim, gets compensated. How is this moral? Wouldn't it have been more moral to say "If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father and become his servant for seven years. Then he must never touch or be alone with the young woman because he violated her. She is to be treated the same as any virgin. Her value as a daughter and a wife shall not be diminished." I mean, let's quibble about the first part of that, but the second: How is it less moral to demand the rapist keep his filthy paws off the girl than it is to order her to marry him! These are not Israel's laws. These are, as presented in the Bible, God's laws to Israel. That makes Him responsible for them. Romans 7:12 calls teh Old Testament Law "Holy, righteous and good." Is it? Can you honestly say these laws are holy, righteous and good?

If you realize the epistles were written first, some interesting patterns appear. I will not discuss them here, because it's doctrinal and off-topic. (That's a warning). What's interesting is that as an educated man (doctorate or no) with a background in theology, Wierwille knew or should have known a lot about "how we got the Bible," and it's nothing like what he shared in PFAL. But he used just enough of what he knew (manuscripts, transcription errors, etc) to undermine people's faith in the book and set himself up as the authoritative voice in restoring faith. He had to know, even in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, that the gospels were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. But he advanced that myth because it served his purpose. Remember how he said after he got out of seminary, he got to the point where he no longer believed the words "holy bible" on the cover? Couple that admission with what we know about his methods for forcing the Bible to fit like a hand in a blender. It's clear to me that he was selling a product -- not the accuracy of the Bible, but the consistency of his re-interpretation of it. As long as he could maintain the illusion of consistency, evidence to the contrary be damned, he could justify a following of like-minded believers (and the steady stream of income they provided).

Does pronunciation matter? Ooops. I was too late with my Frahnkensteen joke.

This one's for WordWolf: Stanley Tucci Big Night Tony Shalhoub

The whole idea of being biblically "correct" on an issue assumes the writers of the Bible were in complete agreement with each other, and that any apparent disagreements are in our understanding. When you realize the opposite is the case, it all makes a whole lot more sense. Paul and James were not writing from two sides of the same coin. They were writing from different currencies altogether. They were using the same words, but not meaning the same things when they used them. Naturally, they were coming to opposite conclusions. Why wouldn't they? How about Paul and Luke, who disagreed about who Paul met with following his conversion on the road to Damascus? This isn't an apparent contradiction. This is one writer calling the account put forth by another writer a lie. Oops!

I'll say it: She looks like she's never actually had a thought. Sorry. It had to be said.

Thousands. You realize he HAS to be counting people who have fled from him, CES, STFI, TTYL, LOL and whatever other acronyms they've conjured up since then, right? He's counting me. I'm an atheist now. He's probably counting Steve L. He's probably counting Tzaia. He's counting the thanks, and ignoring what happened later. You know, the results. In my view, the inability of TWI offshoots, all taught the same principles at the same time by the same people using the same source material, to cohere on doctrine after leaving TWI is evidence that the task itself is flawed. Either the principles are no good or the source material isn't. (Or both, as I see it). You can't cohere on doctrine after TWI anymore than hundreds of denominations had been able to before TWI. At some point you have to realize there IS no baby in the bathwater. Thousands. You realize he HAS to be counting people who have fled from him, CES, STFI, TTYL, LOL and whatever other acronyms they've conjured up since then, right? He's counting me. I'm an atheist now. He's probably counting Steve L. He's probably counting Tzaia. He's counting the thanks, and ignoring what happened later. You know, the results. In my view, the inability of TWI offshoots, all taught the same principles at the same time by the same people using the same source material, to cohere on doctrine after leaving TWI is evidence that the task itself is flawed. Either the principles are no good or the source material isn't. (Or both, as I see it). You can't cohere on doctrine after TWI anymore than hundreds of denominations had been able to before TWI. At some point you have to realize there IS no baby in the bathwater.

Thousands. You realize he HAS to be counting people who have fled from him, CES, STFI, TTYL, LOL and whatever other acronyms they've conjured up since then, right? He's counting me. I'm an atheist now. He's probably counting Steve L. He's probably counting Tzaia. He's counting the thanks, and ignoring what happened later. You know, the results. In my view, the inability of TWI offshoots, all taught the same principles at the same time by the same people using the same source material, to cohere on doctrine after leaving TWI is evidence that the task itself is flawed. Either the principles are no good or the source material isn't. (Or both, as I see it). You can't cohere on doctrine after TWI anymore than hundreds of denominations had been able to before TWI. At some point you have to realize there IS no baby in the bathwater.

Greta Scacchi Emma Alan Cumming [Note: You probably figured, but I've abandoned the game threads due to lack of time. This is the only one I'll come back to regularly, as it does not require me to check back in after contributing.]

I like how they're setting up Captain Cold to be a hero on Legends of Tomorrow. And always a treat to see Ham Tyler, I mean Michael Ironside, in action.

DWBH: Mind if I go into your post and add some paragraph breaks for easier reading?

Clash of the Titans. Sorry, couldn't resist. I once admired both these men for the same reasons (JALvis and DWBH), and seeing them interact this way is fascinating. I pass judgment on neither, on DWBH because there is none to pass, or on JALvis because my opinion is both irrelevant and altered by my newfound, profound worldview disagreement. Fascinating discussion and thread.

I'm glad to see the quality of the show has not diminished in the second season. Last week's premiere was on target, and the Flash of Two Worlds did not disappoint.

This sounds like 12 Monkeys

Mostly a guess.