The Fundamentals. Part 1: Inerrancy of the Bible.

[Elijah Craig]

Yeah, Ehrman overstates things (and has made a comfortable living at it) but I don't think the stuff he writes about is going away. He's just the guy who popularizes these ideas, anyway.

[Ricardo]

(11-09-2011 10:30 PM)Elijah Craig Wrote:  

(11-07-2011 01:01 PM)lucrezaborgia Wrote:  [Ricardo] is saying that spiritual experiences cannot be fully explained by rational logic so why put that standard on the bible?

When I think of inerrancy I think "no error whatsoever" and my experience with some people has led me to believe that is their belief too.

The title of the thread is "The Fundamentals, Part 1: Innerancy of the Bible." If Ricardo is going to criticize The Fundamentals then he needs to use words the same way The Fundamentals do. Otherwise he is beating a straw man.

Correct.

I started this thread because we were discussing -in another thread- who to accept submissions from, for another website we are building. The suggestion was made to “make sure they agree with the five fundamentals.” I disagree.

Discussions about Inerrancy are really about quality control. Ultimately, they are about CONTROL. Someone, who has decided that they have the TRUTH ™, is going to make sure it is not deviated from by anyone. It is a power trip. When I look back at the Christians I have known that I truly respect, look up to as models, not one is hung up on control of orthodoxy. Every single one has encouraged me to explore, push out, find my own way towards God. How to make sense of John 14:6 AND Rom 1:19-20.

As the chorus goes: “They will know we are Christians by our …” adherence to five fundamentals.

Thank you, DTHatcher, for elevating the level of this conversation.
Thank you Elijah and Lu for bringing it back down also.

It is a bible in my pocket, but I’m also happy to see you!

[Ricardo]

"Ehrman overstates..."

I was won over by Ehrman in his introduction, where he talks about graduating from Moody and being warned there that there were not too many Christians at Wheaton where he was headed, then warned again that there were not too many Christians at the Divinity School where he ended up.

I welcome ANY discussion of Ehrman's research and ideas. Unfortunately, at the church sermon level, all we hear are personal attacks.

I'm sure you have noticed that the title of his books are chosen by the book publisher to sell more books, rather than a description of the book contents.

As he says over and over, there is little or nothing in his books that is not taught in any self-respecting Divinity School.

Yes, he overstates. Most of his books are taylored for the general public. THey are not appropriate for detailed analysis of the evidence. He does have scholarly tomes also.

[lucrezaborgia]

(11-09-2011 10:41 PM)Elijah Craig Wrote:  But variants are still discussed in critical commentaries because individual variants do have an effect. However, in most cases the variants that would cause serious adjustments to doctrine are considered to be scribal errors and are not considered.

How do they make that determination though? Is there a clear record as to what copy the copy was copied from? (Say THAT 3 times!) What factors determine that something is scribal error?

Does it really matter as to what the majority of the copies say vs what the earliest copies say?

Is consensus really the way to look at biblical issues?

If an early copy was recently discovered and had drastically different doctrine than later copies, would it be tossed out as obviously being an error?

[Monipenny]

(11-10-2011 04:08 PM)lucrezaborgia Wrote:  

(11-09-2011 10:41 PM)Elijah Craig Wrote:  But variants are still discussed in critical commentaries because individual variants do have an effect. However, in most cases the variants that would cause serious adjustments to doctrine are considered to be scribal errors and are not considered.

How do they make that determination though? Is there a clear record as to what copy the copy was copied from? (Say THAT 3 times!) What factors determine that something is scribal error?

Does it really matter as to what the majority of the copies say vs what the earliest copies say?

Is consensus really the way to look at biblical issues?

If an early copy was recently discovered and had drastically different doctrine than later copies, would it be tossed out as obviously being an error?

Those are darn good questions and since you've asked an expert theologian, I can't wait to hear his good answers.

But I want to try at these.

1. How do they make that determination though?
a. The theologions in the ranks of the infallible church decides.

2. Is there a clear record as to what copy the copy was copied from?
a. hmm, well, that depends, I have the manual of "manuscript evidence" from a theological course that I took that has some sort of idea, though can't be sure it's based on actual records since this only supports the KJV from the textus receptus Greek text. I am sure the infallible vatican has the exact records in their library though who gave Wescott and Hort permission to study, review the copies of the earliest ones and wrote the Alexandrian Greek Text. Not sure they bothered to compare the other 5300 copies though, that appears to be the cause of the discrepencies between the 2 text and as well as the modern versions and the KJ.

3. What factors determine that something is scribal error?
a. Why the smart theologians I think of the infallible church determines that. You see God made mistakes through the original scribes but then cleared it all up through the infallible church.

4. Does it really matter as to what the majority of the copies say vs what the earliest copies say?
a. Absolutly, the earlier the copies, the closest to the actual rendering of the originals with scribal errors the better.

5. Is consensus really the way to look at biblical issues?
a. I'll leave this alone for the expert, because I don't agree with group think mentality.

6. If an early copy was recently discovered and had drastically different doctrine than later copies, would it be tossed out as obviously being an error?
a. Not as long as it supports the other early copies used for the Alexandrian text. But it would be "pie in your KJV face". Then again that would only be one more early copy compared to the 5300+ majority manuscripts and the KJO camp would shrug it off and still feel like the victor.

I hope this answers all of your questions, but I hope Elijah Craig will correct me anywhere I might be wrong.

[Monipenny]

(11-10-2011 07:31 PM)Donb123 Wrote:  

(11-10-2011 06:11 PM)Monipenny Wrote:  I hope this answers all of your questions, but I hope Elijah Craig will correct me anywhere I might be wrong.

Oh wait.. you forgot one other thing.

You forgot the massive conspiracy from different denominations, different people from different races, some not even Christian per se, from different continents, speaking different languages, who took all these disparate source documents and came up with translations in their native languages THAT SAY PRETTY MUCH THE SAME THING. I mean we're talking Catholics and KJV fundies and people who believe in baptismal regeneration and those who believe in sola fide, and the cessationists, and the tongues speakers....

This is huge! The Vatican couldn't have even pulled this off in the wildest Dan Brown novel.

Ah yes, lets not forget all the conspiracies from many of these protestant denominations of all race, language all over the world, wait...uh? I thought christianity was basically a western thing, ah those missionaries, okay. That would be like all of us here getting together to decide the scriptures....how the heck did they pull that off?

[Ricardo]

By the way, once you dig into the heavy duty scholarship it is truly impressive to see what these people have done.

Actually, for the scholars steeped in Textual Criticism it is pretty straight forward to catalog a manuscript into one of the known "families" of manuscripts, be it Bizantine, Alexandrian, or what have you. It is a bit harder to date it, or to find the proper order within families. The other languages are important, Arab (Peshita) Coptic, etc. As Donb123 mentions, these help not only to select a base Greek aparatus, but also help in our understanding of specific words that are not clear in Greek.

The more one reads about Tischendorf, Westcott, Hort, Nestle, Aland, Metzger, even Ehrlman and all the rest, the more respect one gets for their work and level of scholarship.

BUT, the way they have chosen passages from this and that manuscript, and the way they have chosen to follow their own rules sometimes but not others, has to be qualified as the "Eclectic" mode. I'm not complaining. I'm pretty sure I could not do any better than they have done. It is a superb effort of scholarship.

BUT, it cannot be used as basis for a claim of inerrancy.