In order to accuse someone of being wrong in their belief that the Bible is inerrant you have to take *their* definition of inerrancy.
Not if they redefine inerrant to mean something exactly the opposite of inerrant.
"Inerrant" means "incapable of being wrong." When I am arguing that the Bible is not "inerrant," I mean it is not incapable of being wrong. If you're trying to redefine "inerrant" to mean "true in the sense that the basic gist is something we can agree with," then that's not what inerrant means.
Likewise, if the author is writing a poetic account of creation (which by all accounts I've read, Genesis is) the statement being made is not a scientific statement with regards to how God created the world, it is a statement that he did.
No, it is a statement as to how God created the world. If it states that God created the world in this manner, it is a statement on how God created the world. If it says, "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created," it means just that.
Never mind the linguistic impossibility of him creating the earth in a time period defined by the length of time it takes for the earth to rotate 360 degrees.
Actually, God had already created the Earth. God created the Heavens and the Earth first, then he created light, and only afterward were there days.
The statement of "days" cannot be literally true, any more than I can draw a circle with four sides in euclidean space.
Of course they're literally true. "And there was evening and there was morning." That's what a Hebrew day is. Evening and then morning. They start their days at evening. Evening then morning is defined as a day. Even your Catholic link agreed that it describes literal days.
And here's the other thing: if we were to say those "days" weren't days and were ages, Genesis would still be wrong. The order would still be completely off in both creation stories.
This is all setting aside the stance that the first chapter is teaching creation of the world and the second chapter is teaching the creation of the Garden.
Nope! You've got to reread the passages bLatch.
Genesis 1-2:3's order of creation:
Day One: God creates the Heavens and the Earth, God creates light
Day Two: God separates the waters from waters by creating a dome (the sky). Note that this means water should be outside the sky instead of space. Note how this is not scientifically true, and lest you say they're metaphorical waters (which doesn't make sense; metaphors for what, exactly?), these are the waters that God allows in when he floods the world.
Day Three: God creates dry land, and "plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it."
Day Four: God creates the sun and moon and stars.
Day Five: God creates all birds and all things in the water.
Day Six: God creates all land animals, and afterward man and woman.
This is Genesis 2:4-25's order of creation (Note that this all happens in ONE day):
1. God creates the Earth and the Heavens.
2. God creates man.
3. God creates the Garden of Eden, and in it "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food"
4. God creates rivers to water Eden? Maybe they were already there. Not clear.
5. God forms "every animal of the field and every bird of the air," the man gives them names
6. God creates woman
They're separate creation stories, bLatch, and they don't match.
TL;DR You can't prove that my belief that the Bible is inerrant wrong by using a definition of inerrancy other than my definition of inerrancy.
I don't have to if you're going to define inerrant as something other than "incapable of being wrong."
Words mean things, bLatch. I don't get to say that the Bible was written by space aliens and, when someone calls me out on it, respond with, "Oh, by 'written by space aliens,' I actually mean 'is the color brown.' You're in error because you're arguing against a definition that is not my own." No, that would be me using words improperly.
Likewise, inerrant has a definition. It is "incapable of being wrong." It is not "mostly correct." It is not "correct in the important aspects." It is not "correct in ways that bLatch feels necessary to be correct in." It means "incapable of being wrong." So when you say the Bible gets stuff wrong, it cannot be inerrant, because you have demonstrated it gets stuff wrong.
Now, if you want to discuss whether the Bible gets a bunch wrong but still ultimately says a bunch of true things, fine by me.
But if you want to discuss whether the Bible is infallible, which is what the word "inerrant" means, then you've got a problem, because I've demonstrated that this is false.
Just to get the issue straight we are not talking about printing errors are we because there has been some famous cases of Bible errata that no Christian I know would find contentious?
Just to get the issue straight we are not talking about printing errors are we because there has been some famous cases of Bible errata that no Christian I know would find contentious?
Elaborate on what you mean by that?
And to get the ball rolling, I went specifically with the two Genesis passages in the original post.
I like how you started Genesis 2 with verse 4, forgetting that the chapter is not a separate writing from Genesis 1.
If you would read the first three verses of Genesis 2, then you would see that it's not a separate story, but a continuation of Genesis 1. As is the standard with CHAPTERS in a BOOK.
Genesis 2:1 is particularly interesting as it states: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (KJV)
Now, if you were looking at this as two separate stories, then that might seem like a nice introduction.
But they are NOT separate stories, rather a continuation of the same story, as Verse 2 points out: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (KJV)
Now, if this were a separate story, why say that right at the beginning?
Verse 3 is God sanctifying the Seventh Day, as stated: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (KJV)
Now we get into what you are calling the "second creation story", except that as I have pointed out, this is still the same story: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, (KJV)
This sounds like the start of a second creation, except for these lovely passages from Genesis 1:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
He made Heaven and Earth on the first day, in one day. Not so much of a contradiction anymore, eh?
Then, Genesis 2:5 gives us this: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
Now, we get a little convoluted: why repeat this? Well, if we go to Genesis 1:27 it states: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Seems a bit repetitive, yes? why say essentially the same thing three times? Because he is trying to drive home a point. This is not a "second creation", this is a review of the FIRST creation, (reviews like this happen quite often in the Bible.) or if you want to get REALLY weird, the Physical Creation while the first "story" was a spiritual creation.
After all, everything existed Spiritually before Physically, yes? Why else would there be stories in Heaven that took place before Creation?
This is Genesis 2:4-25's order of creation (Note that this all happens in ONE day):
I don't think it does. The Hebrew word used here is translated as both "literal day" and "a period of time" at different places in the Bible, it does not always mean a literal 24 hour period.
ie Numbers 3:1 "In the day the Lord spoke with Moses on Mt. Sinai..", doesn't mean the Lord spoke with Moses over the course of only 24 hours and various English translations translate this passage as "At the time when the Lord spoke with Moses...".
Similarly here "In the day the Lord made the earth and heavens" means "at the time", not "in the specific 24 hours".
This is Genesis 2:4-25's order of creation (Note that this all happens in ONE day):
I don't think it does. The Hebrew word used here is translated as both "literal day" and "a period of time" at different places in the Bible, it does not always mean a literal 24 hour period.
ie Numbers 3:1 "In the day the Lord spoke with Moses on Mt. Sinai..", doesn't mean the Lord spoke with Moses over the course of only 24 hours and various English translations translate this passage as "At the time when the Lord spoke with Moses...".
Similarly here "In the day the Lord made the earth and heavens" means "at the time", not "in the specific 24 hours".
Do we have a reason for thinking it is not 24 hours?
I mean, I will grant that it doesn't present the same evening-morning cycle as Genesis 1-2:3, which asserts God creating the universe in six literal days, but what is our reason for thinking that this creation myth does not describe a literal day? Why take it as a metaphor instead of what is right on the page?
What I'm saying is, if we're altering our interpretation with Genesis 2:4-25 to try to make it fit with our modern-day understanding of evolution and cosmology, we're doing it wrong, because Genesis 2:4-25 would not fit with evolution and cosmology even if the "day" isn't meant to be taken as a literal day, but instead an age. The passage still depicts man being created before all other animals, man being created before all fruit-bearing trees, and the existence of woman being creating from man's rib after all other animals were created. Not reconcilable with science.
And if we're defining a day as an "age" to be more accommodating to the argument that the Bible is infallible, that still doesn't work because the passage still contradicts Genesis 1-2:3's story.
I like how you started Genesis 2 with verse 4, forgetting that the chapter is not a separate writing from Genesis 1.
But they are NOT separate stories, rather a continuation of the same story, as Verse 2 points out: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (KJV)
No, they are separate stories. I encourage you to read the passages in question, I even have them quoted in spoiler tags on the OP.
Genesis 1-2:3 describes God creating everything in six days.
Genesis 2:4-25 describes God again creating everything, but in one day, and in a completely different manner and order than Genesis 1-2:3.
They are indeed separate stories, and more importantly, contradictory stories.
Now we get into what you are calling the "second creation story", except that as I have pointed out, this is still the same story: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, (KJV)
Yes, and therein describes a completely different account of creation that does not match the first.
Now, we get a little convoluted: why repeat this? Well, if we go to Genesis 1:27 it states: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Right. Now reread that passage.
Now reread Genesis 2:4-25.
Do you notice how God doesn't create man and woman at the same time? That he instead creates man, then plants, then animals, and then woman? Do you notice that's entirely different from the order of creation Genesis 1-2:3 describes?
Seems a bit repetitive, yes? why say essentially the same thing three times? Because he is trying to drive home a point. This is not a "second creation", this is a review of the FIRST creation, (reviews like this happen quite often in the Bible.) or if you want to get REALLY weird, the Physical Creation while the first "story" was a spiritual creation.
You are deliberately ignoring the differences between the passages and then describing them as similar.
Notice how God creates things in an entirely different order in the second story from the first. They are not the same story. Please reread them again, and pay attention to the details.
The inerrant portion is not the minutia, it is the teachings. For the same reason that a typographical error, or a typesetting error does not render the bible no longer inerrant, utilization of metaphors and scientifically inaccurate statements within the context of a lesson does not render the lesson incorrect.
In other words, if something is loaded with errors and falsehoods, it can still be inerrant. I recently wrote a fantasy novel and since it has underlying messages and lessons, it is inerrant, according to what you just said. It would seem that the bible is no more inerrant than comic books and fantasy novels.
The bar you assign to inerrancy is orders of magnitude higher than what a typical Christian means when they claim the bible is inerrant, and really only fits with what hardcore evangelicals believe.
The bar you assign to inerrancy can make any work of literature inerrant, which renders the word useless.
In order to accuse someone of being wrong in their belief that the Bible is inerrant you have to take *their* definition of inerrancy.
Not if they redefine inerrant to mean something exactly the opposite of inerrant.
"Inerrant" means "incapable of being wrong." When I am arguing that the Bible is not "inerrant," I mean it is not incapable of being wrong. If you're trying to redefine "inerrant" to mean "true in the sense that the basic gist is something we can agree with," then that's not what inerrant means.
If you are unwilling to adopt someone else's definitions when arguing that their beliefs are incorrect, you are only succeeding in arguing against a strawman. It's the very definition of a straw man argument.
Likewise, if the author is writing a poetic account of creation (which by all accounts I've read, Genesis is) the statement being made is not a scientific statement with regards to how God created the world, it is a statement that he did.
No, it is a statement as to how God created the world. If it states that God created the world in this manner, it is a statement on how God created the world. If it says, "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created," it means just that.
Never mind the linguistic impossibility of him creating the earth in a time period defined by the length of time it takes for the earth to rotate 360 degrees.
Actually, God had already created the Earth. God created the Heavens and the Earth first, then he created light, and only afterward were there days.
The statement of "days" cannot be literally true, any more than I can draw a circle with four sides in euclidean space.
Of course they're literally true. "And there was evening and there was morning." That's what a Hebrew day is. Evening and then morning. They start their days at evening. Evening then morning is defined as a day. Even your Catholic link agreed that it describes literal days.
And here's the other thing: if we were to say those "days" weren't days and were ages, Genesis would still be wrong. The order would still be completely off in both creation stories.
This is all setting aside the stance that the first chapter is teaching creation of the world and the second chapter is teaching the creation of the Garden.
Nope! You've got to reread the passages bLatch.
Genesis 1-2:3's order of creation:
Day One: God creates the Heavens and the Earth, God creates light
Day Two: God separates the waters from waters by creating a dome (the sky). Note that this means water should be outside the sky instead of space. Note how this is not scientifically true, and lest you say they're metaphorical waters (which doesn't make sense; metaphors for what, exactly?), these are the waters that God allows in when he floods the world.
Day Three: God creates dry land, and "plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it."
Day Four: God creates the sun and moon and stars.
Day Five: God creates all birds and all things in the water.
Day Six: God creates all land animals, and afterward man and woman.
This is Genesis 2:4-25's order of creation (Note that this all happens in ONE day):
1. God creates the Earth and the Heavens.
2. God creates man.
3. God creates the Garden of Eden, and in it "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food"
4. God creates rivers to water Eden? Maybe they were already there. Not clear.
5. God forms "every animal of the field and every bird of the air," the man gives them names
6. God creates woman
They're separate creation stories, bLatch, and they don't match.
Lets try and reduce this wall of interspersed quotes to easier to read and discuss quotes. Would I be correct in stating that your arguments are as follows:
1) The bible cannot be inerrant because the Genesis stories contradict each other.
2) The Bible cannot be inerrant because the Genesis stories, even if consistent with each other, contradict our understanding of the evolution of lifeforms from the pre-historic state to their current state.
3) Arguing that the book of Genesis is a poetic account is a de facto admission that the Bible is fallible.
TL;DR You can't prove that my belief that the Bible is inerrant wrong by using a definition of inerrancy other than my definition of inerrancy.
I don't have to if you're going to define inerrant as something other than "incapable of being wrong."
Words mean things, bLatch. I don't get to say that the Bible was written by space aliens and, when someone calls me out on it, respond with, "Oh, by 'written by space aliens,' I actually mean 'is the color brown.' You're in error because you're arguing against a definition that is not my own." No, that would be me using words improperly.
Likewise, inerrant has a definition. It is "incapable of being wrong." It is not "mostly correct." It is not "correct in the important aspects." It is not "correct in ways that bLatch feels necessary to be correct in." It means "incapable of being wrong." So when you say the Bible gets stuff wrong, it cannot be inerrant, because you have demonstrated it gets stuff wrong.
Now, if you want to discuss whether the Bible gets a bunch wrong but still ultimately says a bunch of true things, fine by me.
But if you want to discuss whether the Bible is infallible, which is what the word "inerrant" means, then you've got a problem, because I've demonstrated that this is false.
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No, you can argue that my statement "the Bible is inerrant" is erroneous when provided absent other qualifiers. You cannot argue that my belief that the bible is inerrant is incorrect without addressing what I understand inerrant to mean. It's the difference between arguing semantics and arguing substance.
It's akin to arguing that the morning after pill doesn't actually cause abortion because its not an abortion until after implantation -- you may have made a linguistically correct statement, but it does not address the belief expressed by people who say they consider the prevention of implantation to be an abortion and to be wrong.
A further (minor) quibble -- inerrant doesn't mean incapable of being wrong, it means not wrong.
The inerrant portion is not the minutia, it is the teachings. For the same reason that a typographical error, or a typesetting error does not render the bible no longer inerrant, utilization of metaphors and scientifically inaccurate statements within the context of a lesson does not render the lesson incorrect.
In other words, if something is loaded with errors and falsehoods, it can still be inerrant. I recently wrote a fantasy novel and since it has underlying messages and lessons, it is inerrant, according to what you just said. It would seem that the bible is no more inerrant than comic books and fantasy novels.
Sure, if your fantasy novel has the level of complexity of a parable and includes no erroneous lessons it would be inerrant -- but, considering that the Bible is loaded with moral teachings and it would only take one of those moral teachings being wrong to render the Bible errant, the statement is much more significant when applied to the Bible than to your fantasy novel.
One has to look at the purpose or intent of each passage / section to understand what is being communicated. If the intent of the passage is not to communicate a literal biological truth, but rather to communicate what is Kosher then using a phrase "goeth on four legs" as a colloquialism for "walks on the ground" does not render the passage inerrant, even when discussing an insect such as a grasshopper. This is in spite of the fact that grasshoppers have six legs, not four.
As a general rule, if you are able to identify a quick one liner "gotcha" argument for why the Bible is errant, you are probably wrong -- the text has been around for centuries being analyzed. Someone has addressed it before, and someone has refuted it before. (That doesn't mean you have to accept the refutation as correct, but you *do* have to accept that a refutation has be provided).
Things get more complicated in more detailed arguments (such as the Genesis argument Highroller is making), but refutations still exist.
The bar you assign to inerrancy is orders of magnitude higher than what a typical Christian means when they claim the bible is inerrant, and really only fits with what hardcore evangelicals believe.
The bar you assign to inerrancy can make any work of literature inerrant, which renders the word useless. [/quote]
It does not render the word useless, it renders the weight of the word subjective to the document it is applied to. Applying the word to a fantasy novel whose only message is "don't go back in time and kill your father" would be relatively useless. Applying it to a a book that includes vast numbers of intermixed historical teachings and metaphorical moral teachings provides significantly more weight behind the word.
If you are unwilling to adopt someone else's definitions when arguing that their beliefs are incorrect, you are only succeeding in arguing against a strawman. It's the very definition of a straw man argument.
You said earlier that by "inerrant," you mean that which the Bible teaches is never false and always true, right? So, if something is inerrant, anything that it teaches much be true. And if that thing teaches false things, it cannot be inerrant.
Now the Bible teaches us many things. That God created the world in six days. That the Earth was created before the sun. That the Earth was created before light. That we are all descended from one man who came out of the ground. Except none of these are scientifically true. Therefore, the Bible cannot be inerrant. The idea that it is this Word of God, somehow infallible, is absurd.
But now you're trying to move the goalposts, trying to say, "Yes, all of that is false, but the underlying moral of the stories are true." You've gone from "Everything the Bible teaches to be true is true" to "The Bible is inerrant because we can ignore all of the parts in which it isn't." And what sort of argument is that?
I once again go back to Herman Melville's Moby Dick. If I say, "Moby Dick is the Word of God, and we know this because it is inerrant," and you — correctly — point out that Melville asserts that whales are fish, and this is false, can I then counter with, "Yes, a bunch of scientific stuff is in there that is not true, but the underlying moral of the story is true, and therefore everything the book teaches is true, and therefore we know the book to be infallible," have I made a sound argument?
Heck no! I don't just get to say, "Everything in this book is true if we ignore everything that isn't, therefore infallible." That's absurd. Melville may assert some really nice lessons about life and the human condition, but he also asserts stuff that's outright wrong, and we cannot ignore that when making a claim that everything in the book is inerrant.
Lets try and reduce this wall of interspersed quotes to easier to read and discuss quotes.
I dunno, seems like that would involve you ignoring a lot of specific problems and errors in Genesis, which I don't want to let you get away with.
Would I be correct in stating that your arguments are as follows:
1) The bible cannot be inerrant because the Genesis stories contradict each other.
2) The Bible cannot be inerrant because the Genesis stories, even if consistent with each other, contradict our understanding of the evolution of lifeforms from the pre-historic state to their current state.
3) Arguing that the book of Genesis is a poetic account is a de facto admission that the Bible is fallible.
1. Yes
2. AND cosmology, but yes.
3. Well, hang on. We have to clarify what is meant by poetic account. I'm pretty sure Genesis is written in verse, and we know it's an account, which would make it a poetic account by definition.
But if you're arguing that Genesis is not meant to be taken literally, but metaphorically, and that the ancients who composed this text didn't mean for it to be a literal account of Creation, then you're going to have to justify that, because there's no reason to think they took it metaphorically, and plenty of reason to think otherwise.
It's very clear that the Biblical accounts of Creation were taken literally. Indeed, look at the tradition of the Sabbath. The Sabbath does not take place on the seventh metaphorical day. It does not take place every seven ages. No, it takes place every seventh literal day, every seventh time evening turns into morning and morning to evening, which is what Genesis 1 defines as a day.
Then there's Adam and Eve. Very evident that Adam and Eve were not by any means metaphors for multiple people, or ape ancestors, or whatever. No, Adam and Eve were literal people, the progenitors of our entire species, one of whom literally came from the earth and the other of whom literally came from a rib. Take that away, you throw entire parts of the Bible in for a loop.
Then there are the waters Genesis 1 claim should be outside of the sky, which we know aren't there because those Apollo missions would have gotten a lot more problematic if they were. No, there's space outside of the sky, and we cannot say this is metaphorical water, whatever that would even mean, because later it's described that these waters are what God uses to flood the world, and it's pretty clear the Flood is not a metaphorical flood.
So I think it's pretty clear that the ancient Hebrews thought of these passages as literal. And why wouldn't they? All sorts of cultures made up creation stories and thought those described the means in which the universe was created, right? What makes these two separate, contradictory creation myths any different? Why can't they be things people made up? Why do the separate, contradictory creation myths necessarily have to somehow both agree and both convey the actual, scientific truth of events as they happened?
Now, maybe you can demonstrate that they do. That'd be freaking incredible. But I don't think you can, and I think there's a pretty obvious reason why people are arguing that these passages are meant to be interpreted metaphorically: because Genesis 1 and 2 clearly do not express what cosmology and evolution tell us about the origins of the universe as we know it. But this is not acceptable to someone who has been taught that the Bible being both infallible and the Word of God is what he is supposed to believe. To that person, the Bible's infallibility and divine authority are things that must be true, because he has been taught to believe they must be. Therefore, Genesis 1 and 2 must be true in some fashion, if not literally than metaphorically somehow, because otherwise the core beliefs that person was taught are false, and that is an unacceptable thought.
But that's not a proof. Not wanting to be false is not an argument at all.
Now, floor is open to you. You might have this great argument that will put me in my place and demonstrate conclusively the Bible's divine authority as both Word of God and beyond fallibility. In which case, I welcome you to present this argument. I created this thread precisely so someone who believes he has such an argument would come forward and present it.
No, you can argue that my statement "the Bible is inerrant" is erroneous when provided absent other qualifiers. You cannot argue that my belief that the bible is inerrant is incorrect without addressing what I understand inerrant to mean. It's the difference between arguing semantics and arguing substance.
Except those qualifiers are moving the goalposts to something that isn't what "inerrant" means.
It is one thing to say, "Everything the Bible teaches is true, therefore the Bible is inerrant."
It is another thing entirely to say, "Only the underlying moral messages behind the stories in the Bible are true, but it is still inerrant." That's a HUGE move of the goalposts, and not at all what inerrant means.
A further (minor) quibble -- inerrant doesn't mean incapable of being wrong, it means not wrong.
Looking it up, apparently it can mean both or either one depending on which dictionary you have.
This is why I typically take a step away from sola scriptura, as I find it to be an annoying shell game. A comma here, a misplaced translation here. I find the Bible, and other works, to be a useful tool for divining emotional quandaries and the relational and historical approach relative to mythology. The Bible is a wonderful springboard for debate, philosophy, and creative works. Hence that the relational aspects towards the Bible can be extremely useful. Whenever the Bible becomes degenerate in that it has been altered, maintained, and swings in portrayals of God in the coming centuries. We also have to take into account such things as the competing religions around Israel during the time period.
Has anyone ever read the Baal Cycle or looked at who Baal actually was? The same with Asherak and the other Canaanite gods that competed with the cult of Ywwh.
Then we have this point of view within the archaeology about Asherah, there's some speculation that she was the wife of Ywwh and that the cult of Ywwh usurped the identity of other gods over time such as Elohim which became syncretic with Ywwh taking the name of another god as his identity within the canon.
This isn't even talking about the Gnostic and Manicheans who had their own cosmology built off of east-west dynamisms who were wiped out by the main Christian sect. We can consider also that Mormonism is within the tradition of splintering groups, considering that Christianity is spliced between three main branches; Catholic, Protestant, and the weakest branch Anabaptism.
And much of the Torah is built off of the work of the pharisees, and the struggle for Jewish identity under the domination of other powers over the centuries. Which is very integral to the entire growth of the Bible itself, along with the evolution of Islam. Then in order to analyze the Bible we have to look at competing religions and narratives, ranging from Christian sects to other, more ancient religions such as Zoroastrianism. The Bible didn't grow up in a bubble, rather it was influenced by different times and events.
I feel that the "best way to get to know God" is through having a relationship with God. Just like if you want to get to know anything else.
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but, considering that the Bible is loaded with moral teachings and it would only take one of those moral teachings being wrong to render the Bible errant, the statement is much more significant when applied to the Bible than to your fantasy novel.
If it was right about all of its moral teachings, then it would not be inerrant because it is not free from error.
As a general rule, if you are able to identify a quick one liner "gotcha" argument for why the Bible is errant, you are probably wrong -- the text has been around for centuries being analyzed. Someone has addressed it before, and someone has refuted it before.
The flat-earth society has refutations for "globe theory" too.
In summary, the bible is not inerrant because it is not free from error. If someone has a different definition from the commonly accepted usage of the word inerrant, then their argument is worthless. Using that reasoning, trees and rocks are the same thing (so long as you accept the definition of tree as a naturally occurring solid composed of one or more minerals). If you try to explain the errors away with metaphors, context, or other bizarre interpretations, then it is still inerrant because it has errors.
My favorite response to questioning inconsistencies in the Bible is citing that it's the word of God and then, when asked how they can trust it, they say, "Because the Bible says so!"
If I write, "THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD. MAKE ME A SANDWICH." on a sticky note and tell them that it's the word of God because it says so, they're not going to make me a sandwich. I don't understand the disconnect in the mindset there, but I guess it all boils down to "faith".
Anyway, excellent thread so far, gents - keep up the good work.
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The book IS actually infallable if anyone has ever tried to analyze it from a christian perspective, I'veread on here that Jesus is lying or something or other but really it's true. "I break my body" or something of other text is a message that states to them, I give my body to you and that means that he is symbolically giving his "body" to them. Whatever his body does is a fact of life. note that, a "fact" of "Life", that means that he is giving them something of a "divine" human being. Understand that and i see no fallacy behind it.
I bring that up and theorize that every literal part in the bible is creating a fallacy of some sorts for intellectual purposes. It isn't a how-to God; it is good words. I also need to note that Peters body is actually "the rock of Gibraltar" or however you spell it, because his body is literally the foundations of the VATICAN! HIS BODY IS UNDERNEATH THE FREAKING VATICAN!
Also, as much as God would love for all of his creation to be with him and be a human being with capable brains of Adam, Eve, and Jesus Christ I think it's safe to assume that all of us and everything else that reads a bible has to have an open mind. Toooo open.
The onus is not on me to prove why Genesis should be interpreted as a series of metaphors and symbolism.
Of course it is. Do you affirm that Genesis is correct? Therefore, demonstrate how Genesis can be correct. If you claim it is a metaphor, then please explain the metaphor. Proclaim to the world this veracity of Genesis.
But on you to explain why should we take Genesis so literally that we should use it as a series of scientific explanations against cosmology and evolution.
Because that's what it says on the page. It describes a six day creation, and then a one day creation.
Now, you yourself have said that this is obviously not true:
Anywayz, if you're arguing that one can't take the bible as literally true, I think that is more than self evident from the bible itself.
You're right, it is more than self-evident that Genesis 1 and 2 do not describe the literal truth, as they have creation stories that are clearly wrong, as they are contrary to both each other, and to science.
But you are also arguing against this proving that the Bible is fallible:
I don't think the Genesis creation story is very convincing to cite inaccuracies in the bible.
Ok, so demonstrate WHY you think this. How can you read a creation story in which everything is created in six days, and then read a creation story in which everything was created in a single day, and say, "No, this is not inaccurate," even though cosmology and biology clearly state otherwise?
How do you reconcile your belief that the Bible is infallible with the fact that Genesis 1 and 2 — at least at face value — are so at odds with reality and each other?
If you don't address this, then your argument is just weak because it doesn't address it's simplest counter. In fact, it seems more reasonable to me to not take Genesis literally.
But that's not a counter, because you haven't demonstrated how else to interpret the passage in a way it makes sense.
You've suggested it might be interpreted metaphorically/symbolically, but you haven't stated what those symbols are, or how they make any sense with the rest of the Bible.
The bible doesn't clearly state which parts are to be taken literally and which ones as symbolism.
Answer these two questions:
1. Do you believe the Great Flood was a literal Flood, or a symbolic Flood?
2. Do you believe that Adam and Eve were real people, or symbolic people?
Don't just tell me that Genesis should be interpreted literally and scientifically. How am I supposed to know that highroller's interpretation is the right one--which parts to see literally which ones are not to be asserted against cosmology and evolution. You might think its self evident which ones are to be construed in which way. But I don't.
Here's the deal: I don't see any reason to not interpret Genesis 1 and 2 literally. I think it's just fine to say they're meant to be taken literally, because I think that's the way the people from which those stories came would have interpreted it. To me, they were people telling creation stories just like any other people telling creation stories from any other ancient culture. Every culture has at least one story telling how the world was created, and none of the others were correct.
Therefore, I see no reason why this one has to be any different. Why can't the Hebrews thousands of years ago have just believed that the world was created in six days? Or one day? Why couldn't they just have made up stories to explain what they did not know? That's what every other culture did.
However, there are some people who believe that the Bible is infallible. If the Bible is infallible, then Genesis MUST be true, for it is a part of the Bible, and if the Bible is infallible, no part of it can be wrong. And since Genesis MUST be true, Genesis 1 and 2 MUST be true in turn.
Therefore, my question is very simple: HOW can Genesis be right? HOW can book that says God created the universe in six days, and then subsequently say God created the universe in one day be correct, when we know the universe was neither created in six days or one day?
If you believe Genesis to be true, please explain to me HOW it can be true. And don't say, "Well you've failed to consider the possibility of metaphor," because that's not an explanation. If you believe it to be symbolic, explain how it is symbolic. Explain your interpretation and justify why it is correct.
No see this is where you get me wrong. You are putting the burden on me to show that Genesis is infallible. I couldn't care less one way or another. This is not my argument to fight and I never brought it up.
I'm saying your argument doesn't address these objections, but that doesn't mean I now believe in the opposite side, and it most certainly doesn't mean I have to prove it, care about proving it. You are the OP. You are here to prove your position. I might refute your position. I might raise objections. But I am under absolutely no burden to prove now that Genesis is infallible. Do see you the distinction?
In fact I dont believe in biblical infallibility. But that doesn't mean I don't have objections to your rationale.
As for the six day creation, I will simply assert that it should be taken as a metaphor or allegory for spiritual concepts.
Your facial it says six days argument is not strong enough. Jesus calls himself the bread of life.
The text literally says Jesus is bread. In other words why should your interpretation prevail? Or in your mind is there only one way to interpret the bible?
How do I reconcile genesis? Because the whole thing sounds like a bad LSD trip!!! Talking snakes. Why on earth should I take such a thing literally? Why DO YOU? It defies reason for you to take something so literally.
Do you notice I have not challenged your assertion on biblical infallibility? I haven't said man Highroller is totally wrong there. But I am questioning why you are so insistent on your literal interpretation when you well know such literal interpretation is a very narrow one adopted by christian fundamentalist in America, but is not a worldwide majority way of interpreting the bible.
Why so insistent on YOUR interpretation?
Why so resistant on interpreting the Genesis as a book that is highly symbolic?
My favorite response to questioning inconsistencies in the Bible is citing that it's the word of God and then, when asked how they can trust it, they say, "Because the Bible says so!"
If I write, "THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD. MAKE ME A SANDWICH." on a sticky note and tell them that it's the word of God because it says so, they're not going to make me a sandwich. I don't understand the disconnect in the mindset there, but I guess it all boils down to "faith".
It's not faith, it's indoctrination. They were taught that the Bible is the Word of God and is infallible and thus they form a pattern of thinking around this idea being a fact, without really questioning or scrutinizing whether or not it makes sense.
No see this is where you get me wrong. You are putting the burden on me to show that Genesis is infallible. I couldn't care less one way or another.
Really? You couldn't care less if the Bible were the divine Word of God and infallibly perfect and correct in every way or not?
I'm saying your argument doesn't address these objections,
What objections?
You are the OP. You are here to prove your position. I might refute your position. I might raise objections. But I am under absolutely no burden to prove now that Genesis is infallible. Do see you the distinction?
I see someone shifting the burden of proof.
The OP was specifically made to ask those who believe Genesis 1 and 2 are not at odds with (A) science and (B) each other to demonstrate the validity of such a belief. Thusfar, no one has.
But that doesn't mean I don't have objections to your rationale.
Objections to what, exactly?
As for the six day creation, I will simply assert that it should be taken as a metaphor or allegory for spiritual concepts.
Yes, I know you've asserted that. And I will ask you yet again: metaphor or allegory for what, exactly? And which is it? Is it a metaphor or an allegory? There's a huge difference between the two.
Because you haven't stated what it's supposed to be a metaphor or an allegory for.
You have to justify what it's a metaphor for. You can't just say, "It's a metaphor" and not say what it's a metaphor for. In order for it to be a metaphor, it necessarily must mean something else.
Your facial it says six days argument is not strong enough. Jesus calls himself the bread of life.
Is Jesus a metaphor? Is Jesus to be taken as this symbol for something and not a real person?
Or should we try acknowledging that context matters and just proclaiming something as a metaphor willy-nilly makes no sense?
In other words why should your interpretation prevail?
I have given plenty of evidence for why it shouldn't be interpreted as a metaphor. Speaking of which, I can't help but notice how you didn't answer those two questions I asked you:
Quote from Highroller »
Answer these two questions:
1. Do you believe the Great Flood was a literal Flood, or a symbolic Flood?
2. Do you believe that Adam and Eve were real people, or symbolic people?
Would you care to answer them now?
Because if you believe that people in antiquity believed there was a literal Flood and a literal Adam — which they very clearly did — then it is evident that they believed the events of Genesis 1-2 were literally true.
How do I reconcile genesis? Because the whole thing sounds like a bad LSD trip!!! Talking snakes. Why on earth should I take such a thing literally? Why DO YOU? It defies reason for you to take something so literally.
No, it does not.
It defies reason for us, with our modern day understanding of scientific knowledge, to accept Genesis 1-2 as true. I, in fact, created this thread to express just that.
It does not, however, defy reason to believe that Genesis 1-2 was taken at face value by the society that composed the text, and by numerous peoples of antiquity afterward. For instance, Paul speaks at great length about the contrast between Adam and Jesus, and it's pretty clear that Paul believes Adam actually existed and was a real human being and not a metaphor (also that Jesus really existed and was not a metaphor).
Do you notice I have not challenged your assertion on biblical infallibility? I haven't said man Highroller is totally wrong there. But I am questioning why you are so insistent on your literal interpretation when you well know such literal interpretation is a very narrow one adopted by christian fundamentalist in America, but is not a worldwide majority way of interpreting the bible.
You have completely misrepresented my argument, to the point where it's clear you didn't read the OP.
I am not saying that the every verse in the Bible must be interpreted literally.
I am arguing that Genesis 1-2 were taken as literal truth by the people who composed them.
I am arguing that neither a literal nor metaphorical interpretation of Genesis 1-2 demonstrates Genesis 1-2 as infallible, because Genesis 1-2 contradict both observable reality and each other. Therefore, the Bible cannot be infallible.
And the proponents of Genesis 1-2 as metaphor have an additional problem because none of them seem to be able to say exactly what the metaphors are or how they are metaphors.
Why so resistant on interpreting the Genesis as a book that is highly symbolic?
I don't myself believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, but I do know some typical arguments in favor of inerrancy that are made by Christian apologists. Here's one I learned from William Lane Craig:
Ok, let's give this a whirl.
Premise 1: Whatever God says is true.
Premise 2: Jesus is (or at least speaks for) God.
Premise 3: Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God. (various scriptural citations here)
Conclusion: Therefore, it's true that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God.
I find this argument interesting, because its mere validity would mean that if you do find a falsehood in the Bible, then at least one of these three premises must be false.
And falsehoods are most certainly in the Bible.
Let’s focus on the argument behind that third premise:
Quote from ”6. The Bible: The Inerrant Word of God” »
Concerning the definition of inerrancy, Ryrie explains:
Definitions of inerrancy are not plentiful! Errantists equate inerrancy with infallibility and then limit its scope to matters of faith and practice or to revelational matters or to the message of salvation. An example of this: “The Bible is infallible, as I define that term, but not inerrant. That is, there are historical and scientific errors in the Bible, but I have found none on matters of faith and practice” (Stephen T. Davis, The Debate about the Bible [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977], p. 115). At least this is an honest distinction between infallibility and inerrancy.
What hypocrisy. The person criticizes others for creating multiple definitions for inerrancy, twisting the word’s definition, and then limiting the scope of what is inerrant to matters of faith and not to historical or scientific matters and the article proceeds to do the exact same thing.
Ryrie is correct, definitions of inerrancy are not plentiful. Inerrancy means one thing, infallible. Free from error. As quoted later:
“Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching.…”
Therefore, all teachings of the Bible MUST be infallible, free from any error or fault.
Now, I’ve already demonstrated several errors in the Bible’s teaching just in its first two books, but let’s go further with the problems in this article.
Inerrancy allows for variety in details in explaining the same event. This phenomenon is particularly observed in the synoptic gospels. It is important to remember that Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the writers of Scripture wrote their accounts in Greek, meaning they had to translate the original words into Greek. One writer would use slightly different words to describe the same incident, yet both would give the same meaning, albeit with different words. There is an additional reason for variety in details. One writer might have viewed the event from one standpoint while the other gospel writer viewed it from another standpoint. This would make the details appear different, yet both would be accurate.
Except there is a huge difference between describing different details of the same story and telling two separate stories.
I’ve already explained how Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 have two completely separate and contradictory creation myths.
But in the spirit of Christmas, let’s look at the birth narratives of Jesus in both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew (by the way, it should be clarified that the traditions that these are written by Luke and Matthew came later. The four canonical Gospels were all written anonymously in Greek, and both Luke and Matthew are believed to have been written in the second century AD.)
Here is the birth narrative of Matthew’s Gospel:
Quote from Matthew 1:18-2:23 »
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,
which means, ‘God is with us.’ When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’
Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’
Here is Luke’s birth narrative:
Quote from Luke 2:1-2:41, Oremus Bible Browser »
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’
And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.
Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover.
Now, it is true that two texts can be without error and can focus on different details of the same story. However, these texts are telling two completely different stories.
In Matthew, Mary and Joseph are living in Bethlehem from the start. Then, because Herod issues a decree to kill infant boys out of fear of a newborn king, Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt, and then they decided to settle in Galilee. So Joseph and Mary’s home was originally Bethlehem, but they decided to go to Galillee out of fear of Archelaus’ rule. That’s what Matthew says.
In Luke, a completely different narrative takes place. In Luke, Joseph is originally living in the Galilee, not Bethlehem, and instead Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is attributed to a census conducted by the Romans, which mandated Joseph’s return to his homeland. There is no mention of Joseph and Mary fleeing with the baby to Egypt, and in fact, they take the baby to Jerusalem, and are said to go back there every year to observe Passover. They then, after the baby Jesus is presented to the Lord in Jerusalem according to the Law of Moses, they proceed to return to their home in the Galilee.
These are not choosing different events to report on with regards to the same story taking place. These are two entirely separate stories.
And that’s me setting aside the historical problems, such as whether or not Jesus was born before or after Herod’s death (Herod I died in 4 BC, the census discussed in Luke was taken on 6 BC), or whether or not a census would have actually required Joseph to move from Galilee to Bethlehem, or whether or not the census even took place in the Galilee.
Inerrancy does not demand verbatim reporting of events. “In times of antiquity it was not the practice to give a verbatim repetition every time something was written out” (E. J. Young, Thy Word Is Truth, p. 119). A verbatim quote could not be demanded for several reasons. First, as already mentioned, the writer had to translate from Aramaic to Greek in recording Jesus’ words. Second, in making reference to Old Testament texts it would have been impossible to unroll the lengthy scrolls each time to produce a verbatim quote; furthermore, the scrolls were not readily available, hence, the freedom in Old Testament quotes (William R. Eichhorst, The Issue of Biblical Inerrancy: In Definition and Defence, Winnipeg, Man.: Winnipeg Bible College, n.d., p. 9).
See, I’m pretty sure if I went around quoting people as saying things they didn’t say, I wouldn’t be called inerrant. I’d be called inaccurate, something wholly the opposite of inerrant.
Remember when the article chastised people for complicating the definition of the word “inerrant”?
Inerrancy demands the account does not teach error or contradiction. In the statements of Scripture, whatever is written is in accord with things as they are.
Oh I completely agree. Which is why there’s a huge problem when there clearly are errors and contradictions.
Also, the chronology, geography, and history of the Bible are often woven together like strands of a basket with vital spiritual truths. As you cannot start pulling strands out of a woven basket without doing damage to the whole, so it is with the Bible.
While the Bible does have profound problems with its chronological, geographical, and historical claims, and many of these — such as the whole Genesis thing — have widespread implications for the rest of the Bible, I still regard this quote as a false dichotomy. The article basically trying to claim that if one thing isn’t true, then it must follow that nothing else can be true, and that’s ridiculous.
If the genealogy of Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are historically inaccurate,
Actually, they are. They contradict each other, and Matthew intentionally omits several generations.
then this raises questions about whether Jesus is the one anticipated as well as about the rest of His life.
Yeah, correct, it does.
Though, not really sure how, “This thing must be correct, because it if were incorrect, it would raise questions,” is anything resembling an argument.
If we can’t trust Scripture in things like geography, chronology, and history, then how can we be sure we can trust it in its message of salvation and sanctification?
Well, how are you sure about it in the first place? Where does this certainty you have come from, exactly?
It’s like the article’s only argument for its certainty that the Bible is true is if it weren’t true, that would mean we would have to be uncertain about things. While I do think this argument accurately expresses the mindset of Christians who believe the Bible to be inerrant, it is not an argument. Nor is it what “certainty” is.
A denial of inerrancy is a serious matter and will lead to the following kinds of problems doctrinally and practically:
When inerrancy is denied one may expect some serious fallout in both doctrinal and practical areas.
Yes, of course it would. But saying, “We assumed this is correct, and if it isn’t correct, that means other assumptions we made might be incorrect,” is not an argument for the thing being correct. That’s part and parcel of the endeavor of learning. Yes, you may be wrong about what is true. That’s something implicit to the human process of discovering truth.
It’s called acknowledging that you are fallible and do not know everything.
If you’re going to honestly commit to finding the truth, you have to acknowledge that you do not know everything. You cannot pretend that you know things you do not. Saying, “If this is true, then we are wrong,” is not a valid argument for saying that the thing is true.
It is correct to say that if the Bible is errant, then doctrines and assumptions based on the Bible being inerrant would be proven false. But why is that a problem? If we are to be honest about committing to the truth and finding out what is true, why would discarding doctrines we deem untrue ever be a problem? I don’t see a whole lot of Christians freaking out about the fact that they’re Christians and not Bel-worshipers, nor do I see anyone mourning the loss of the luminiferous aether. Why would discarding untrue doctrines be a bad thing or a thing to be feared? Isn’t that the point? Do you want to believe a thing that is untrue over a thing that is true?
Why fear the loss of assumptions that you have made being proven false in light of other truths if you truly wish to honor and affirm that which is true? Why protect assumptions from being scrutinized out of the fear that they might be wrong?
A study of what Jesus said about the Bible reveals not only His belief in its verbal, plenary inspiration, but that He also believed it was inerrant.
First of all, we don’t know what Jesus said. As I said before, the Gospels were written anonymously in Greek and only “Mark” is believed to have been written within the first century, around 70 AD. So none of the Gospels were first-hand accounts, and the closest sources we have to Jesus’ lifetime are Paul’s letters, and Paul was not an apostle during Jesus’ ministry.
Why is His testimony so important? Because God authenticated and proved Him to be His own divine Son by the resurrection (cf. Acts 2:22-36; 4:8-12; 17:30-31; Rom. 1:4). Christ not only clearly confirmed the authority of the Old Testament, but He specifically promised the New Testament.
But this is circular.
Scripture is proclaimed to be infallible because Jesus said so.
How do we know Jesus said so? Because Scripture tells us he did.
The article ends there. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but there was surprisingly no argument really for the Bible's inerrancy aside from, "Here's some parts where the Bible says it's inerrant," and "If the Bible weren't inerrant, then we'd have to rethink our assumptions." Almost the entirety of the article is spent trying to clarify the definition of "inerrancy" and then the "Support for Inerrancy from the Teachings of Christ" section is a mere two paragraphs.
Moving back to Craig argument:
Premise 1: Whatever God says is true.
Premise 2: Jesus is (or at least speaks for) God.
Premise 3: Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God. (various scriptural citations here)
Conclusion: Therefore, it's true that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God.
The problem with 3 is that if the only explanation for the claim that "Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God" is "The Scriptures told us so," that is an inadequate explanation.
Premise 1: Whatever God says is true.
Premise 2: Jesus is (or at least speaks for) God.
Premise 3: Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God. (various scriptural citations here)
Conclusion: Therefore, it's true that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God.
The problem with 3 is that if the only explanation for the claim that "Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God" is "The Scriptures told us so," that is an inadequate explanation.
This argument as written is not actually circular. Premise 3 relies only on a few specific verses being true, yet from it you conclude that all of Scripture is true. The argument is actually "doing work." Someone on Craig's position doesn't need to assume full Scriptural inerrancy in order to conclude it -- he only needs the inerrancy of a few selected passages.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
The notion that the bible is inerrant or, indeed, entirely moral, is somewhat laughable (or would be if christians didn't both believe it and rule the world).
The bible is errant because the new testament both voids the old and doesn't. It's because it promotes slavery, and wife beating. Because it hates homosexuals.
Do you keep kosher? Because the bible is pretty clear that you should.
but, that all aside: One of the issues with the bible is the volume of things added later. You have issues like Mark 16:9-20 (which is where he mentions the meeting post-resurrection, which seems moderately noteworth) don't exist in any early versions of that gospel.
But I'm sure that is just a minor thing to have missed, it being the entire point of the religion and all.
This argument as written is not actually circular. Premise 3 relies only on a few specific verses being true, yet from it you conclude that all of Scripture is true. The argument is actually "doing work." Someone on Craig's position doesn't need to assume full Scriptural inerrancy in order to conclude it -- he only needs the inerrancy of a few selected passages.
But it's still a circular argument.
"The Bible says that Jesus said the Bible is inerrant, therefore the Bible is inerrant."
"How do you know that Jesus said so?" "The Bible tells us."
Circular.
EDIT: Actually wait, upon reading it again, it's not even a circular argument, it's just a bad one. This is actually what's being argued:
"The New Testament has Jesus saying that the Old Testament is inerrant, therefore the Old Testament is inerrant."
"How do you know that Jesus said so?" "Books in the New Testament tell us."
Then there's this:
Quote from "6. The Bible: The Inerrant Word of God" »
(2) Its historicity; He spoke of the Old Testament in terms of actual history. Adam and Eve were two human beings, created by God in the beginning, who lived and acted in certain ways (Matt. 19:3-5; Mark 10:6-8). He spoke of Jonah and his experience in the belly of the great fish as an historical event (Matt. 12:40). He also verified the events of the flood in Noah’s day along with the ark (Matt. 24:38-39; Luke 17:26-27). He verified God’s destruction of Sodom and the historicity of Lot and his wife (Matt. 10:15; Luke 17:28-29). These are only a few illustrations; many others exist.
While I'm really happy that he wrote this, because it's true that subsequent parts of Scripture regard Genesis 1 and 2 as historical fact, and I wish the people who keep saying that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are meant to be interpreted metaphorically would acknowledge this, we know for scientific and historical fact that the Adam and Eve story is false, and that neither creation story in Genesis 1 and 2 is historically accurate. We also know that it is illogical that they could both be correct because they both tell completely different stories.
The notion that the bible is inerrant or, indeed, entirely moral, is somewhat laughable (or would be if christians didn't both believe it and rule the world).
The bible is errant because the new testament both voids the old and doesn't. It's because it promotes slavery, and wife beating. Because it hates homosexuals.
Do you keep kosher? Because the bible is pretty clear that you should.
Actually, no, it's very clear that you shouldn't. Paul specifically states that Gentile Christians are not required to keep kosher and are not required to obey Mosaic law (unless they choose to become circumcised, which makes it really strange to me that Christians would circumcise their children. I guess maybe we could fudge it and say that just because you're circumcised doesn't mean you're under Judaic law because there's more to Jewish conversion than that, but with Paul constantly repeating that you shouldn't get circumcised, it really confuses me that people do it.)
Point is, Gentile Christians are not required to keep Kosher.
Though Paul does condone hating homosexuals and slavery.
but, that all aside: One of the issues with the bible is the volume of things added later. You have issues like Mark 16:9-20 (which is where he mentions the meeting post-resurrection, which seems moderately noteworth) don't exist in any early versions of that gospel.
But I'm sure that is just a minor thing to have missed, it being the entire point of the religion and all.
Yes, the Gospel ends with Jesus being resurrected, and everyone who found out not telling anyone. Which sort of invalidates the entire religion if taken strictly as is.
But the bigger issue is not so much the stuff that was added later, or how many different versions we have of the same texts (notice when you look at Biblical footnotes that you'll repeatedly see footnotes of how certain sources have verses in different orders, lack certain verses, or say different words); no, a much bigger issue than that is that sometimes Biblical Scriptures outright lie.
For instance, of the Pauline Epistles, we have some that are largely without dispute as being authored by Paul. But some are believed by a majority of scholars to not have been written by Paul, and instead by someone claiming to be Paul in order to piggyback on Paul's authority to support his own writings. This was a well-known practice called Pseudepigrapha (or Pseudopigraphia), and was common in the ancient world. There were numerous epistles and gospels running around, and numerous texts claiming the pedigree of having been written by special and important people. That was why there were, and are, so many debates on Biblical canon.
No it's not. It assumes less than it concludes -- from the inerrancy of a small subset of Scripture it derives the inerrancy of the whole of Scripture.
"The Bible says that Jesus said these things, therefore the Bible is inerrant."
"How do you know that Jesus said so?" "The Bible tells us."
Circular.
Someone could easily make this into a circular argument by assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible in the course of arguing for Premise 3. Then you would be assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible in the course of arguing for its inerrancy, which is circular.
But the argument as written is not circular. If someone found a way of arguing for premise 3 without assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible, then the argument would be doing real work and concluding more than it assumes.
While I'm really happy that he wrote this, because it's true that subsequent parts of Scripture regard Genesis 1 and 2 as historical fact, and I wish the people who keep saying that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are meant to be interpreted metaphorically would acknowledge this, we know for scientific and historical fact that the Adam and Eve story is false, and that neither creation story in Genesis 1 and 2 is historically accurate. We also know that it is illogical that they could both be correct because they both tell completely different stories.
So premise 3 must be discarded.
The difficulty you are pointing out is real, but we can solve it by discarding any of the premises. Why single out premise 3? For instance, we could throw out premise 2 and regard Jesus as merely an eccentric preacher; then there's no problem with him misunderstanding history. Or we could throw out premise 1, enabling God to lie; then there's no problem with Genesis and/or Christ's words just being a deception.
Your argument here rightly shows that some combination of those premises must be rejected, but why the specific combination you advocate rather than any other?
No it's not. It assumes less than it concludes -- from the inerrancy of a small subset of Scripture it derives the inerrancy of the whole of Scripture.
Someone could easily make this into a circular argument by assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible in the course of arguing for Premise 3. Then you would be assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible in the course of arguing for its inerrancy, which is circular.
But the argument as written is not circular. If someone found a way of arguing for premise 3 without assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible, then the argument would be doing real work and concluding more than it assumes.
I edited a later statement, perhaps while you were posting, retracting the circular comment. I agree, it's not a circular argument, just an unfounded one. It is trying to use parts of the New Testament in which Jesus affirms the truth of the Old Testament to conclude the Old Testament must be true, without justifying (A) why these parts of the New Testament should be deemed true, and (B) why any parts of the Bible that aren't the Old Testament should be deemed true.
Although I would say that the argument becomes circular if Part 6 is read as a whole. The author is saying that the whole of the Bible is infallible, and his argument for this is if it weren't infallible, then any part of it could be wrong (which is not a valid argument, but it is what he says). He then proceeds to say that these parts of the Bible say these parts of the Bible are correct, taking as a given that the Bible is deemed perfectly infallible when he hasn't actually demonstrated that it actually is.
So it still boils down to, "The Bible is correct because the Bible says it is." Whether it's exactly circular, I'll leave to you to determine, but it's certainly resting on unfounded assertions.
The difficulty you are pointing out is real, but we can solve it by discarding any of the premises. Why single out premise 3? For instance, we could throw out premise 2 and regard Jesus as merely an eccentric preacher; then there's no problem with him misunderstanding history. Or we could throw out premise 1, enabling God to lie; then there's no problem with Genesis and/or Christ's words just being a deception.
Your argument here rightly shows that some combination of those premises must be rejected, but why the specific combination you advocate rather than any other?
Premise 3 was the most relevant to a discussion based on Biblical infallibility or lack thereof.
It's also saliently problematic. Saying Jesus taught something just because it is in the Bible presumes that the Bible accurately reflects what Jesus actually said, which is not something we can simply presume. The Gospel of Mark was written in 70 AD, and the other Gospels were written in the second century. What's more, the gospels are not histories. They are gospels, a very different literary style. By which I mean they should not be treated as though they were histories, and certainly not treated as though stuff in them is automatically factual and not outright made up.
So premise 3 falls through regardless of whether the other two are sound, because just because Jesus the character in __ Gospel says something does not mean Jesus the person who actually existed said it.
In other words, we are instead left with:
Premise 1: Whatever God says is true.
Premise 2: Jesus is (or at least speaks for) God.
Premise 3: In the Bible, Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God. (various scriptural citations here)
Conclusion: Therefore, it's true that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God.
The conclusion falls through, because Premises 1-3 do not lead one to the conclusion proposed.
However, the question then becomes, "Would Jesus, the person who actually existed, have said that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God?" If the answer is yes, then we are left with the same issue.
People who believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God are wrong. That being said, I believe the Bible to be true. The Bible is not infallible; God is infallible. The Bible is the work of faithful men to encourage us to come closer to God. Now, in response to the OP, there are two different creation stories. This would be a problem except, as Walker Boh pointed out, all things existed spiritually before they existed physically. One source for this idea (the one I'm familiar with) is in Joseph Smith's translation of Genesis, which states, "And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. For I, the Lord God, had not caused it to rain upon the face of the earth. And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air" (Moses 3:5; this is analogous to Genesis 2:5; italics indicate additions).
This is why the two creation stories are different but similar, and both present. God essentially worked out the blueprints first (Genesis 1), then made it happen in a different order (Genesis 2). Now the OP also claims that these stories are at odds with scientific understanding, with the biggest offense being that the creation claims to have occurred in a matter of days. It has also been brought up that "days" might not refer to the 24-hour periods we call days, but then why shouldn't it? You may notice from the above quote that in Joseph Smith's translation, the story is told from God's perspective to His prophet, Moses. Thus I conclude: God was not referring to our 24 hour days, but a "day" from His planet. Sure, He was over here building the earth, but He was still referring to a different amount of time than what He assigned here. How long is a day on God's planet? A thousand of our years? A billion? Nobody knows. Time is also irrelevant to God, He being an Eternal Being, but He condescends to our need to know times.
It has also been claimed that the creation story is a metaphor instead of a literal, historical account. I do believe it to be an essentially historical account, but it is simultaneously a metaphor. God worked for six days, doing the hardest labor we can conceive. And then on the seventh day, He rested. This is an example of what we should do: Work hard for six days of the week, and then spend the seventh resting and contemplating His mysteries. It is far healthier for us to take a regular break than to work nonstop.
"Inerrant" means "incapable of being wrong." When I am arguing that the Bible is not "inerrant," I mean it is not incapable of being wrong. If you're trying to redefine "inerrant" to mean "true in the sense that the basic gist is something we can agree with," then that's not what inerrant means.
No, it is a statement as to how God created the world. If it states that God created the world in this manner, it is a statement on how God created the world. If it says, "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created," it means just that.
Actually, God had already created the Earth. God created the Heavens and the Earth first, then he created light, and only afterward were there days.
Of course they're literally true. "And there was evening and there was morning." That's what a Hebrew day is. Evening and then morning. They start their days at evening. Evening then morning is defined as a day. Even your Catholic link agreed that it describes literal days.
And here's the other thing: if we were to say those "days" weren't days and were ages, Genesis would still be wrong. The order would still be completely off in both creation stories.
Nope! You've got to reread the passages bLatch.
Genesis 1-2:3's order of creation:
Day One: God creates the Heavens and the Earth, God creates light
Day Two: God separates the waters from waters by creating a dome (the sky). Note that this means water should be outside the sky instead of space. Note how this is not scientifically true, and lest you say they're metaphorical waters (which doesn't make sense; metaphors for what, exactly?), these are the waters that God allows in when he floods the world.
Day Three: God creates dry land, and "plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it."
Day Four: God creates the sun and moon and stars.
Day Five: God creates all birds and all things in the water.
Day Six: God creates all land animals, and afterward man and woman.
This is Genesis 2:4-25's order of creation (Note that this all happens in ONE day):
1. God creates the Earth and the Heavens.
2. God creates man.
3. God creates the Garden of Eden, and in it "every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food"
4. God creates rivers to water Eden? Maybe they were already there. Not clear.
5. God forms "every animal of the field and every bird of the air," the man gives them names
6. God creates woman
They're separate creation stories, bLatch, and they don't match.
I don't have to if you're going to define inerrant as something other than "incapable of being wrong."
Words mean things, bLatch. I don't get to say that the Bible was written by space aliens and, when someone calls me out on it, respond with, "Oh, by 'written by space aliens,' I actually mean 'is the color brown.' You're in error because you're arguing against a definition that is not my own." No, that would be me using words improperly.
Likewise, inerrant has a definition. It is "incapable of being wrong." It is not "mostly correct." It is not "correct in the important aspects." It is not "correct in ways that bLatch feels necessary to be correct in." It means "incapable of being wrong." So when you say the Bible gets stuff wrong, it cannot be inerrant, because you have demonstrated it gets stuff wrong.
Now, if you want to discuss whether the Bible gets a bunch wrong but still ultimately says a bunch of true things, fine by me.
But if you want to discuss whether the Bible is infallible, which is what the word "inerrant" means, then you've got a problem, because I've demonstrated that this is false.
And to get the ball rolling, I went specifically with the two Genesis passages in the original post.
If you would read the first three verses of Genesis 2, then you would see that it's not a separate story, but a continuation of Genesis 1. As is the standard with CHAPTERS in a BOOK.
Genesis 2:1 is particularly interesting as it states: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (KJV)
Now, if you were looking at this as two separate stories, then that might seem like a nice introduction.
But they are NOT separate stories, rather a continuation of the same story, as Verse 2 points out: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. (KJV)
Now, if this were a separate story, why say that right at the beginning?
Verse 3 is God sanctifying the Seventh Day, as stated: And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (KJV)
Now we get into what you are calling the "second creation story", except that as I have pointed out, this is still the same story: These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, (KJV)
This sounds like the start of a second creation, except for these lovely passages from Genesis 1:
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
He made Heaven and Earth on the first day, in one day. Not so much of a contradiction anymore, eh?
Then, Genesis 2:5 gives us this: And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
Now, we get a little convoluted: why repeat this? Well, if we go to Genesis 1:27 it states: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Seems a bit repetitive, yes? why say essentially the same thing three times? Because he is trying to drive home a point. This is not a "second creation", this is a review of the FIRST creation, (reviews like this happen quite often in the Bible.) or if you want to get REALLY weird, the Physical Creation while the first "story" was a spiritual creation.
After all, everything existed Spiritually before Physically, yes? Why else would there be stories in Heaven that took place before Creation?
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
I don't think it does. The Hebrew word used here is translated as both "literal day" and "a period of time" at different places in the Bible, it does not always mean a literal 24 hour period.
ie Numbers 3:1 "In the day the Lord spoke with Moses on Mt. Sinai..", doesn't mean the Lord spoke with Moses over the course of only 24 hours and various English translations translate this passage as "At the time when the Lord spoke with Moses...".
Similarly here "In the day the Lord made the earth and heavens" means "at the time", not "in the specific 24 hours".
I mean, I will grant that it doesn't present the same evening-morning cycle as Genesis 1-2:3, which asserts God creating the universe in six literal days, but what is our reason for thinking that this creation myth does not describe a literal day? Why take it as a metaphor instead of what is right on the page?
What I'm saying is, if we're altering our interpretation with Genesis 2:4-25 to try to make it fit with our modern-day understanding of evolution and cosmology, we're doing it wrong, because Genesis 2:4-25 would not fit with evolution and cosmology even if the "day" isn't meant to be taken as a literal day, but instead an age. The passage still depicts man being created before all other animals, man being created before all fruit-bearing trees, and the existence of woman being creating from man's rib after all other animals were created. Not reconcilable with science.
And if we're defining a day as an "age" to be more accommodating to the argument that the Bible is infallible, that still doesn't work because the passage still contradicts Genesis 1-2:3's story.
No, they are separate stories. I encourage you to read the passages in question, I even have them quoted in spoiler tags on the OP.
Genesis 1-2:3 describes God creating everything in six days.
Genesis 2:4-25 describes God again creating everything, but in one day, and in a completely different manner and order than Genesis 1-2:3.
They are indeed separate stories, and more importantly, contradictory stories.
Yes, and therein describes a completely different account of creation that does not match the first.
Right. Now reread that passage.
Now reread Genesis 2:4-25.
Do you notice how God doesn't create man and woman at the same time? That he instead creates man, then plants, then animals, and then woman? Do you notice that's entirely different from the order of creation Genesis 1-2:3 describes?
You are deliberately ignoring the differences between the passages and then describing them as similar.
Notice how God creates things in an entirely different order in the second story from the first. They are not the same story. Please reread them again, and pay attention to the details.
The bar you assign to inerrancy can make any work of literature inerrant, which renders the word useless.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
If you are unwilling to adopt someone else's definitions when arguing that their beliefs are incorrect, you are only succeeding in arguing against a strawman. It's the very definition of a straw man argument.
Lets try and reduce this wall of interspersed quotes to easier to read and discuss quotes. Would I be correct in stating that your arguments are as follows:
1) The bible cannot be inerrant because the Genesis stories contradict each other.
2) The Bible cannot be inerrant because the Genesis stories, even if consistent with each other, contradict our understanding of the evolution of lifeforms from the pre-historic state to their current state.
3) Arguing that the book of Genesis is a poetic account is a de facto admission that the Bible is fallible.
[/quote]
No, you can argue that my statement "the Bible is inerrant" is erroneous when provided absent other qualifiers. You cannot argue that my belief that the bible is inerrant is incorrect without addressing what I understand inerrant to mean. It's the difference between arguing semantics and arguing substance.
It's akin to arguing that the morning after pill doesn't actually cause abortion because its not an abortion until after implantation -- you may have made a linguistically correct statement, but it does not address the belief expressed by people who say they consider the prevention of implantation to be an abortion and to be wrong.
A further (minor) quibble -- inerrant doesn't mean incapable of being wrong, it means not wrong.
Sure, if your fantasy novel has the level of complexity of a parable and includes no erroneous lessons it would be inerrant -- but, considering that the Bible is loaded with moral teachings and it would only take one of those moral teachings being wrong to render the Bible errant, the statement is much more significant when applied to the Bible than to your fantasy novel.
One has to look at the purpose or intent of each passage / section to understand what is being communicated. If the intent of the passage is not to communicate a literal biological truth, but rather to communicate what is Kosher then using a phrase "goeth on four legs" as a colloquialism for "walks on the ground" does not render the passage inerrant, even when discussing an insect such as a grasshopper. This is in spite of the fact that grasshoppers have six legs, not four.
As a general rule, if you are able to identify a quick one liner "gotcha" argument for why the Bible is errant, you are probably wrong -- the text has been around for centuries being analyzed. Someone has addressed it before, and someone has refuted it before. (That doesn't mean you have to accept the refutation as correct, but you *do* have to accept that a refutation has be provided).
Things get more complicated in more detailed arguments (such as the Genesis argument Highroller is making), but refutations still exist.
The bar you assign to inerrancy can make any work of literature inerrant, which renders the word useless. [/quote]
It does not render the word useless, it renders the weight of the word subjective to the document it is applied to. Applying the word to a fantasy novel whose only message is "don't go back in time and kill your father" would be relatively useless. Applying it to a a book that includes vast numbers of intermixed historical teachings and metaphorical moral teachings provides significantly more weight behind the word.
Now the Bible teaches us many things. That God created the world in six days. That the Earth was created before the sun. That the Earth was created before light. That we are all descended from one man who came out of the ground. Except none of these are scientifically true. Therefore, the Bible cannot be inerrant. The idea that it is this Word of God, somehow infallible, is absurd.
But now you're trying to move the goalposts, trying to say, "Yes, all of that is false, but the underlying moral of the stories are true." You've gone from "Everything the Bible teaches to be true is true" to "The Bible is inerrant because we can ignore all of the parts in which it isn't." And what sort of argument is that?
I once again go back to Herman Melville's Moby Dick. If I say, "Moby Dick is the Word of God, and we know this because it is inerrant," and you — correctly — point out that Melville asserts that whales are fish, and this is false, can I then counter with, "Yes, a bunch of scientific stuff is in there that is not true, but the underlying moral of the story is true, and therefore everything the book teaches is true, and therefore we know the book to be infallible," have I made a sound argument?
Heck no! I don't just get to say, "Everything in this book is true if we ignore everything that isn't, therefore infallible." That's absurd. Melville may assert some really nice lessons about life and the human condition, but he also asserts stuff that's outright wrong, and we cannot ignore that when making a claim that everything in the book is inerrant.
I dunno, seems like that would involve you ignoring a lot of specific problems and errors in Genesis, which I don't want to let you get away with.
1. Yes
2. AND cosmology, but yes.
3. Well, hang on. We have to clarify what is meant by poetic account. I'm pretty sure Genesis is written in verse, and we know it's an account, which would make it a poetic account by definition.
But if you're arguing that Genesis is not meant to be taken literally, but metaphorically, and that the ancients who composed this text didn't mean for it to be a literal account of Creation, then you're going to have to justify that, because there's no reason to think they took it metaphorically, and plenty of reason to think otherwise.
It's very clear that the Biblical accounts of Creation were taken literally. Indeed, look at the tradition of the Sabbath. The Sabbath does not take place on the seventh metaphorical day. It does not take place every seven ages. No, it takes place every seventh literal day, every seventh time evening turns into morning and morning to evening, which is what Genesis 1 defines as a day.
Then there's Adam and Eve. Very evident that Adam and Eve were not by any means metaphors for multiple people, or ape ancestors, or whatever. No, Adam and Eve were literal people, the progenitors of our entire species, one of whom literally came from the earth and the other of whom literally came from a rib. Take that away, you throw entire parts of the Bible in for a loop.
Then there are the waters Genesis 1 claim should be outside of the sky, which we know aren't there because those Apollo missions would have gotten a lot more problematic if they were. No, there's space outside of the sky, and we cannot say this is metaphorical water, whatever that would even mean, because later it's described that these waters are what God uses to flood the world, and it's pretty clear the Flood is not a metaphorical flood.
So I think it's pretty clear that the ancient Hebrews thought of these passages as literal. And why wouldn't they? All sorts of cultures made up creation stories and thought those described the means in which the universe was created, right? What makes these two separate, contradictory creation myths any different? Why can't they be things people made up? Why do the separate, contradictory creation myths necessarily have to somehow both agree and both convey the actual, scientific truth of events as they happened?
Now, maybe you can demonstrate that they do. That'd be freaking incredible. But I don't think you can, and I think there's a pretty obvious reason why people are arguing that these passages are meant to be interpreted metaphorically: because Genesis 1 and 2 clearly do not express what cosmology and evolution tell us about the origins of the universe as we know it. But this is not acceptable to someone who has been taught that the Bible being both infallible and the Word of God is what he is supposed to believe. To that person, the Bible's infallibility and divine authority are things that must be true, because he has been taught to believe they must be. Therefore, Genesis 1 and 2 must be true in some fashion, if not literally than metaphorically somehow, because otherwise the core beliefs that person was taught are false, and that is an unacceptable thought.
But that's not a proof. Not wanting to be false is not an argument at all.
Now, floor is open to you. You might have this great argument that will put me in my place and demonstrate conclusively the Bible's divine authority as both Word of God and beyond fallibility. In which case, I welcome you to present this argument. I created this thread precisely so someone who believes he has such an argument would come forward and present it.
Except those qualifiers are moving the goalposts to something that isn't what "inerrant" means.
It is one thing to say, "Everything the Bible teaches is true, therefore the Bible is inerrant."
It is another thing entirely to say, "Only the underlying moral messages behind the stories in the Bible are true, but it is still inerrant." That's a HUGE move of the goalposts, and not at all what inerrant means.
Looking it up, apparently it can mean both or either one depending on which dictionary you have.
Has anyone ever read the Baal Cycle or looked at who Baal actually was? The same with Asherak and the other Canaanite gods that competed with the cult of Ywwh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal_Cycle
Then we have this point of view within the archaeology about Asherah, there's some speculation that she was the wife of Ywwh and that the cult of Ywwh usurped the identity of other gods over time such as Elohim which became syncretic with Ywwh taking the name of another god as his identity within the canon.
http://news.discovery.com/history/religion/god-wife-yahweh-asherah-110318.htm
This isn't even talking about the Gnostic and Manicheans who had their own cosmology built off of east-west dynamisms who were wiped out by the main Christian sect. We can consider also that Mormonism is within the tradition of splintering groups, considering that Christianity is spliced between three main branches; Catholic, Protestant, and the weakest branch Anabaptism.
And much of the Torah is built off of the work of the pharisees, and the struggle for Jewish identity under the domination of other powers over the centuries. Which is very integral to the entire growth of the Bible itself, along with the evolution of Islam. Then in order to analyze the Bible we have to look at competing religions and narratives, ranging from Christian sects to other, more ancient religions such as Zoroastrianism. The Bible didn't grow up in a bubble, rather it was influenced by different times and events.
I feel that the "best way to get to know God" is through having a relationship with God. Just like if you want to get to know anything else.
Modern
Commander
Cube
<a href="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-lists/588020-unpowered-themed-enchantment-an-enchanted-evening">An Enchanted Evening Cube </a>
The level of complexity is irrelevant.
If it was right about all of its moral teachings, then it would not be inerrant because it is not free from error.
And after you do that and you achieve a perfect understanding, you will know that the bible is not inerrant.
The flat-earth society has refutations for "globe theory" too.
In summary, the bible is not inerrant because it is not free from error. If someone has a different definition from the commonly accepted usage of the word inerrant, then their argument is worthless. Using that reasoning, trees and rocks are the same thing (so long as you accept the definition of tree as a naturally occurring solid composed of one or more minerals). If you try to explain the errors away with metaphors, context, or other bizarre interpretations, then it is still inerrant because it has errors.
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If I write, "THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD. MAKE ME A SANDWICH." on a sticky note and tell them that it's the word of God because it says so, they're not going to make me a sandwich. I don't understand the disconnect in the mindset there, but I guess it all boils down to "faith".
Anyway, excellent thread so far, gents - keep up the good work.
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I bring that up and theorize that every literal part in the bible is creating a fallacy of some sorts for intellectual purposes. It isn't a how-to God; it is good words. I also need to note that Peters body is actually "the rock of Gibraltar" or however you spell it, because his body is literally the foundations of the VATICAN! HIS BODY IS UNDERNEATH THE FREAKING VATICAN!
Also, as much as God would love for all of his creation to be with him and be a human being with capable brains of Adam, Eve, and Jesus Christ I think it's safe to assume that all of us and everything else that reads a bible has to have an open mind. Toooo open.
No see this is where you get me wrong. You are putting the burden on me to show that Genesis is infallible. I couldn't care less one way or another. This is not my argument to fight and I never brought it up.
I'm saying your argument doesn't address these objections, but that doesn't mean I now believe in the opposite side, and it most certainly doesn't mean I have to prove it, care about proving it. You are the OP. You are here to prove your position. I might refute your position. I might raise objections. But I am under absolutely no burden to prove now that Genesis is infallible. Do see you the distinction?
In fact I dont believe in biblical infallibility. But that doesn't mean I don't have objections to your rationale.
As for the six day creation, I will simply assert that it should be taken as a metaphor or allegory for spiritual concepts.
Your facial it says six days argument is not strong enough. Jesus calls himself the bread of life.
The text literally says Jesus is bread. In other words why should your interpretation prevail? Or in your mind is there only one way to interpret the bible?
How do I reconcile genesis? Because the whole thing sounds like a bad LSD trip!!! Talking snakes. Why on earth should I take such a thing literally? Why DO YOU? It defies reason for you to take something so literally.
Do you notice I have not challenged your assertion on biblical infallibility? I haven't said man Highroller is totally wrong there. But I am questioning why you are so insistent on your literal interpretation when you well know such literal interpretation is a very narrow one adopted by christian fundamentalist in America, but is not a worldwide majority way of interpreting the bible.
Why so insistent on YOUR interpretation?
Why so resistant on interpreting the Genesis as a book that is highly symbolic?
Really? You couldn't care less if the Bible were the divine Word of God and infallibly perfect and correct in every way or not?
What objections?
I see someone shifting the burden of proof.
The OP was specifically made to ask those who believe Genesis 1 and 2 are not at odds with (A) science and (B) each other to demonstrate the validity of such a belief. Thusfar, no one has.
Objections to what, exactly?
Yes, I know you've asserted that. And I will ask you yet again: metaphor or allegory for what, exactly? And which is it? Is it a metaphor or an allegory? There's a huge difference between the two.
Because you haven't stated what it's supposed to be a metaphor or an allegory for.
You have to justify what it's a metaphor for. You can't just say, "It's a metaphor" and not say what it's a metaphor for. In order for it to be a metaphor, it necessarily must mean something else.
Is Jesus a metaphor? Is Jesus to be taken as this symbol for something and not a real person?
Or should we try acknowledging that context matters and just proclaiming something as a metaphor willy-nilly makes no sense?
I have given plenty of evidence for why it shouldn't be interpreted as a metaphor. Speaking of which, I can't help but notice how you didn't answer those two questions I asked you:
Would you care to answer them now?
Because if you believe that people in antiquity believed there was a literal Flood and a literal Adam — which they very clearly did — then it is evident that they believed the events of Genesis 1-2 were literally true.
No, it does not.
It defies reason for us, with our modern day understanding of scientific knowledge, to accept Genesis 1-2 as true. I, in fact, created this thread to express just that.
It does not, however, defy reason to believe that Genesis 1-2 was taken at face value by the society that composed the text, and by numerous peoples of antiquity afterward. For instance, Paul speaks at great length about the contrast between Adam and Jesus, and it's pretty clear that Paul believes Adam actually existed and was a real human being and not a metaphor (also that Jesus really existed and was not a metaphor).
You have completely misrepresented my argument, to the point where it's clear you didn't read the OP.
I am not saying that the every verse in the Bible must be interpreted literally.
I am arguing that Genesis 1-2 were taken as literal truth by the people who composed them.
I am arguing that neither a literal nor metaphorical interpretation of Genesis 1-2 demonstrates Genesis 1-2 as infallible, because Genesis 1-2 contradict both observable reality and each other. Therefore, the Bible cannot be infallible.
And the proponents of Genesis 1-2 as metaphor have an additional problem because none of them seem to be able to say exactly what the metaphors are or how they are metaphors.
Highly symbolic of what?
And falsehoods are most certainly in the Bible.
Let’s focus on the argument behind that third premise:
What hypocrisy. The person criticizes others for creating multiple definitions for inerrancy, twisting the word’s definition, and then limiting the scope of what is inerrant to matters of faith and not to historical or scientific matters and the article proceeds to do the exact same thing.
Ryrie is correct, definitions of inerrancy are not plentiful. Inerrancy means one thing, infallible. Free from error. As quoted later:
Therefore, all teachings of the Bible MUST be infallible, free from any error or fault.
Now, I’ve already demonstrated several errors in the Bible’s teaching just in its first two books, but let’s go further with the problems in this article.
Except there is a huge difference between describing different details of the same story and telling two separate stories.
I’ve already explained how Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 have two completely separate and contradictory creation myths.
But in the spirit of Christmas, let’s look at the birth narratives of Jesus in both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew (by the way, it should be clarified that the traditions that these are written by Luke and Matthew came later. The four canonical Gospels were all written anonymously in Greek, and both Luke and Matthew are believed to have been written in the second century AD.)
Here is the birth narrative of Matthew’s Gospel:
Here is Luke’s birth narrative:
Now, it is true that two texts can be without error and can focus on different details of the same story. However, these texts are telling two completely different stories.
In Matthew, Mary and Joseph are living in Bethlehem from the start. Then, because Herod issues a decree to kill infant boys out of fear of a newborn king, Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt, and then they decided to settle in Galilee. So Joseph and Mary’s home was originally Bethlehem, but they decided to go to Galillee out of fear of Archelaus’ rule. That’s what Matthew says.
In Luke, a completely different narrative takes place. In Luke, Joseph is originally living in the Galilee, not Bethlehem, and instead Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is attributed to a census conducted by the Romans, which mandated Joseph’s return to his homeland. There is no mention of Joseph and Mary fleeing with the baby to Egypt, and in fact, they take the baby to Jerusalem, and are said to go back there every year to observe Passover. They then, after the baby Jesus is presented to the Lord in Jerusalem according to the Law of Moses, they proceed to return to their home in the Galilee.
These are not choosing different events to report on with regards to the same story taking place. These are two entirely separate stories.
And that’s me setting aside the historical problems, such as whether or not Jesus was born before or after Herod’s death (Herod I died in 4 BC, the census discussed in Luke was taken on 6 BC), or whether or not a census would have actually required Joseph to move from Galilee to Bethlehem, or whether or not the census even took place in the Galilee.
See, I’m pretty sure if I went around quoting people as saying things they didn’t say, I wouldn’t be called inerrant. I’d be called inaccurate, something wholly the opposite of inerrant.
Remember when the article chastised people for complicating the definition of the word “inerrant”?
Oh I completely agree. Which is why there’s a huge problem when there clearly are errors and contradictions.
While the Bible does have profound problems with its chronological, geographical, and historical claims, and many of these — such as the whole Genesis thing — have widespread implications for the rest of the Bible, I still regard this quote as a false dichotomy. The article basically trying to claim that if one thing isn’t true, then it must follow that nothing else can be true, and that’s ridiculous.
Actually, they are. They contradict each other, and Matthew intentionally omits several generations.
Yeah, correct, it does.
Though, not really sure how, “This thing must be correct, because it if were incorrect, it would raise questions,” is anything resembling an argument.
Well, how are you sure about it in the first place? Where does this certainty you have come from, exactly?
It’s like the article’s only argument for its certainty that the Bible is true is if it weren’t true, that would mean we would have to be uncertain about things. While I do think this argument accurately expresses the mindset of Christians who believe the Bible to be inerrant, it is not an argument. Nor is it what “certainty” is.
Yes, of course it would. But saying, “We assumed this is correct, and if it isn’t correct, that means other assumptions we made might be incorrect,” is not an argument for the thing being correct. That’s part and parcel of the endeavor of learning. Yes, you may be wrong about what is true. That’s something implicit to the human process of discovering truth.
It’s called acknowledging that you are fallible and do not know everything.
If you’re going to honestly commit to finding the truth, you have to acknowledge that you do not know everything. You cannot pretend that you know things you do not. Saying, “If this is true, then we are wrong,” is not a valid argument for saying that the thing is true.
It is correct to say that if the Bible is errant, then doctrines and assumptions based on the Bible being inerrant would be proven false. But why is that a problem? If we are to be honest about committing to the truth and finding out what is true, why would discarding doctrines we deem untrue ever be a problem? I don’t see a whole lot of Christians freaking out about the fact that they’re Christians and not Bel-worshipers, nor do I see anyone mourning the loss of the luminiferous aether. Why would discarding untrue doctrines be a bad thing or a thing to be feared? Isn’t that the point? Do you want to believe a thing that is untrue over a thing that is true?
Why fear the loss of assumptions that you have made being proven false in light of other truths if you truly wish to honor and affirm that which is true? Why protect assumptions from being scrutinized out of the fear that they might be wrong?
First of all, we don’t know what Jesus said. As I said before, the Gospels were written anonymously in Greek and only “Mark” is believed to have been written within the first century, around 70 AD. So none of the Gospels were first-hand accounts, and the closest sources we have to Jesus’ lifetime are Paul’s letters, and Paul was not an apostle during Jesus’ ministry.
But this is circular.
Scripture is proclaimed to be infallible because Jesus said so.
How do we know Jesus said so? Because Scripture tells us he did.
The article ends there. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but there was surprisingly no argument really for the Bible's inerrancy aside from, "Here's some parts where the Bible says it's inerrant," and "If the Bible weren't inerrant, then we'd have to rethink our assumptions." Almost the entirety of the article is spent trying to clarify the definition of "inerrancy" and then the "Support for Inerrancy from the Teachings of Christ" section is a mere two paragraphs.
Moving back to Craig argument:
The problem with 3 is that if the only explanation for the claim that "Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God" is "The Scriptures told us so," that is an inadequate explanation.
This argument as written is not actually circular. Premise 3 relies only on a few specific verses being true, yet from it you conclude that all of Scripture is true. The argument is actually "doing work." Someone on Craig's position doesn't need to assume full Scriptural inerrancy in order to conclude it -- he only needs the inerrancy of a few selected passages.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
The bible is errant because the new testament both voids the old and doesn't. It's because it promotes slavery, and wife beating. Because it hates homosexuals.
Do you keep kosher? Because the bible is pretty clear that you should.
but, that all aside: One of the issues with the bible is the volume of things added later. You have issues like Mark 16:9-20 (which is where he mentions the meeting post-resurrection, which seems moderately noteworth) don't exist in any early versions of that gospel.
But I'm sure that is just a minor thing to have missed, it being the entire point of the religion and all.
"The Bible says that Jesus said the Bible is inerrant, therefore the Bible is inerrant."
"How do you know that Jesus said so?" "The Bible tells us."
Circular.
EDIT: Actually wait, upon reading it again, it's not even a circular argument, it's just a bad one. This is actually what's being argued:
"The New Testament has Jesus saying that the Old Testament is inerrant, therefore the Old Testament is inerrant."
"How do you know that Jesus said so?" "Books in the New Testament tell us."
Then there's this:
While I'm really happy that he wrote this, because it's true that subsequent parts of Scripture regard Genesis 1 and 2 as historical fact, and I wish the people who keep saying that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are meant to be interpreted metaphorically would acknowledge this, we know for scientific and historical fact that the Adam and Eve story is false, and that neither creation story in Genesis 1 and 2 is historically accurate. We also know that it is illogical that they could both be correct because they both tell completely different stories.
So premise 3 must be discarded.
Actually, no, it's very clear that you shouldn't. Paul specifically states that Gentile Christians are not required to keep kosher and are not required to obey Mosaic law (unless they choose to become circumcised, which makes it really strange to me that Christians would circumcise their children. I guess maybe we could fudge it and say that just because you're circumcised doesn't mean you're under Judaic law because there's more to Jewish conversion than that, but with Paul constantly repeating that you shouldn't get circumcised, it really confuses me that people do it.)
Point is, Gentile Christians are not required to keep Kosher.
Though Paul does condone hating homosexuals and slavery.
Yes, the Gospel ends with Jesus being resurrected, and everyone who found out not telling anyone. Which sort of invalidates the entire religion if taken strictly as is.
But the bigger issue is not so much the stuff that was added later, or how many different versions we have of the same texts (notice when you look at Biblical footnotes that you'll repeatedly see footnotes of how certain sources have verses in different orders, lack certain verses, or say different words); no, a much bigger issue than that is that sometimes Biblical Scriptures outright lie.
For instance, of the Pauline Epistles, we have some that are largely without dispute as being authored by Paul. But some are believed by a majority of scholars to not have been written by Paul, and instead by someone claiming to be Paul in order to piggyback on Paul's authority to support his own writings. This was a well-known practice called Pseudepigrapha (or Pseudopigraphia), and was common in the ancient world. There were numerous epistles and gospels running around, and numerous texts claiming the pedigree of having been written by special and important people. That was why there were, and are, so many debates on Biblical canon.
No it's not. It assumes less than it concludes -- from the inerrancy of a small subset of Scripture it derives the inerrancy of the whole of Scripture.
Someone could easily make this into a circular argument by assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible in the course of arguing for Premise 3. Then you would be assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible in the course of arguing for its inerrancy, which is circular.
But the argument as written is not circular. If someone found a way of arguing for premise 3 without assuming the inerrancy of the whole Bible, then the argument would be doing real work and concluding more than it assumes.
The difficulty you are pointing out is real, but we can solve it by discarding any of the premises. Why single out premise 3? For instance, we could throw out premise 2 and regard Jesus as merely an eccentric preacher; then there's no problem with him misunderstanding history. Or we could throw out premise 1, enabling God to lie; then there's no problem with Genesis and/or Christ's words just being a deception.
Your argument here rightly shows that some combination of those premises must be rejected, but why the specific combination you advocate rather than any other?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
I edited a later statement, perhaps while you were posting, retracting the circular comment. I agree, it's not a circular argument, just an unfounded one. It is trying to use parts of the New Testament in which Jesus affirms the truth of the Old Testament to conclude the Old Testament must be true, without justifying (A) why these parts of the New Testament should be deemed true, and (B) why any parts of the Bible that aren't the Old Testament should be deemed true.
Although I would say that the argument becomes circular if Part 6 is read as a whole. The author is saying that the whole of the Bible is infallible, and his argument for this is if it weren't infallible, then any part of it could be wrong (which is not a valid argument, but it is what he says). He then proceeds to say that these parts of the Bible say these parts of the Bible are correct, taking as a given that the Bible is deemed perfectly infallible when he hasn't actually demonstrated that it actually is.
So it still boils down to, "The Bible is correct because the Bible says it is." Whether it's exactly circular, I'll leave to you to determine, but it's certainly resting on unfounded assertions.
Premise 3 was the most relevant to a discussion based on Biblical infallibility or lack thereof.
It's also saliently problematic. Saying Jesus taught something just because it is in the Bible presumes that the Bible accurately reflects what Jesus actually said, which is not something we can simply presume. The Gospel of Mark was written in 70 AD, and the other Gospels were written in the second century. What's more, the gospels are not histories. They are gospels, a very different literary style. By which I mean they should not be treated as though they were histories, and certainly not treated as though stuff in them is automatically factual and not outright made up.
So premise 3 falls through regardless of whether the other two are sound, because just because Jesus the character in __ Gospel says something does not mean Jesus the person who actually existed said it.
In other words, we are instead left with:
Premise 1: Whatever God says is true.
Premise 2: Jesus is (or at least speaks for) God.
Premise 3: In the Bible, Jesus teaches that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God. (various scriptural citations here)
Conclusion: Therefore, it's true that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God.
The conclusion falls through, because Premises 1-3 do not lead one to the conclusion proposed.
However, the question then becomes, "Would Jesus, the person who actually existed, have said that the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God?" If the answer is yes, then we are left with the same issue.
This is why the two creation stories are different but similar, and both present. God essentially worked out the blueprints first (Genesis 1), then made it happen in a different order (Genesis 2). Now the OP also claims that these stories are at odds with scientific understanding, with the biggest offense being that the creation claims to have occurred in a matter of days. It has also been brought up that "days" might not refer to the 24-hour periods we call days, but then why shouldn't it? You may notice from the above quote that in Joseph Smith's translation, the story is told from God's perspective to His prophet, Moses. Thus I conclude: God was not referring to our 24 hour days, but a "day" from His planet. Sure, He was over here building the earth, but He was still referring to a different amount of time than what He assigned here. How long is a day on God's planet? A thousand of our years? A billion? Nobody knows. Time is also irrelevant to God, He being an Eternal Being, but He condescends to our need to know times.
It has also been claimed that the creation story is a metaphor instead of a literal, historical account. I do believe it to be an essentially historical account, but it is simultaneously a metaphor. God worked for six days, doing the hardest labor we can conceive. And then on the seventh day, He rested. This is an example of what we should do: Work hard for six days of the week, and then spend the seventh resting and contemplating His mysteries. It is far healthier for us to take a regular break than to work nonstop.
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