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When People Reject Inerrancy of Scripture...

Daisy

"Make sure of the more important things."
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What are the implications?

Scripture teaches us that God’s Word is God's Word - inerrant (Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).(1)

However, a growing number of people are rejecting this truth. They’ve decided the Bible contains God’s words, but is not God’s Word. They claim some parts were written by biased, culture-bound men.(2)

These people depend on their human understanding to judge the validity of every passage, even the words of Christ (Proverbs 3:5).

Popular teachers who hold this view often take difficult passages out of context to “prove” the Bible is not God’s Word (2 Peter 3:15-16). Some teach that Christ’s death was not required, and most of them reject unpopular moral commands (Romans 1:32).

In 45 years of Bible study, I’ve found a few passages difficult to understand, but careful study has eliminated most of my questions. I can trust God with the few insignificant questions that remain because His Word gives me confidence that He is trustworthy (1 Corinthians 13:12).

If we do not trust God’s Word, we become our own gods.
(1) See Believing God's Word is Inerrant.

(2) Please read Brian Zahnd: Denying the Inerrancy of Scripture. It addresses the false teachings of an incredibly popular pastor and author. I encourage you to read my response to his beliefs so you will know how to respond to others who claim the Bible is not inerrant.
https://biblelovenotes.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-people-reject-inerrancy-of.html
 
I find the bigger problem is when people accept the inerrancy of Scripture..

I mean, you put this two thousand year old book before me and say, "Is God, God wrote this, it is inerrant."
 

I don't believe the writers of the NT were considering that the letters they were writing was the sacred inerrent Word of God. They were simply letters. Inspired? Yes. In those letters they were referring to the Torah as God's Word, and other accepted books of that time as taught in the temple.

Can we trust those letters and books of the NT? Yes. Did God intend for us to receive those books in that form? Yes. in that sense, it' God's Word to us. That doesn't mean it doesn't contain errors, which doesn't even matter.

God's Word is written on our hearts. All the books and pages could be consumed by fire and we would still have God's Word.
 
What are the implications?

Timothy 3:17
so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Is one who follows God's word just thoroughly equipped for good work, or is he perfect in his good works?
 
Timothy 3:17



Is one who follows God's word just thoroughly equipped for good work, or is he perfect in his good works?
The purpose of comparing different translations is not to knit-pick the differences but to get a much fuller understanding of a scripture...God's Word can enable the reader to do both...be thoroughly equipped for good work and be perfect in his good works...
 
What are they saying then?


Hebrews 4:12 is how God knows you inside and out and will hold you accountable and you can't hide anything from him. No comment at all about the accuracy of scripture in general or the Bible in particular.

The 2 Timothy verses say that scripture is inspired and very useful in preparing God's servants but they don't go so far as saying the Bible is inerrant. They don't even say the Tanakh is inerrant, which would have been the scripture available to Paul when he wrote that epistle to Timothy.


Hebrews 4:11-13

Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.



2 Timothy 3:16, 17

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.








Notably there no promise in either passage that God would prevent politically-motivated or even well-intentioned compilers of the Bible from making errors in their compilations of old texts.
 
Notably there no promise in either verse that God would prevent politically-motivated or even well-intentioned compilers of the Bible from making errors in their compilations of old texts.
And yet God's Word is truth, regardless of how any man may twist it...the truth is still there, it's up to us to dig for it...it can be found...it is indeed inerrant...
 
And yet God's Word is truth, regardless of how any man may twist it...the truth is still there, it's up to us to dig for it...it can be found...it is indeed inerrant...



That is your belief. I wasn't addressing that.

My comment was specifically about the use of those two scriptural passages as evidence of scripture claiming itself to be inerrant.

"Scripture teaches us that God’s Word is God's Word - inerrant (Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).


Those citations have zero to do with inerrancy of scripture, and especially inerrancy of the Bible. The careless yet prominent way that those irrelevant scriptures were included as evidence of inerrancy gave me no interest in reading the rests of the blog.

I'm not dismissing those scriptures. I'm not dismissing your belief in errancy of scripture. I'm merely saying that the use of those fine scriptures to support a claim of Biblical inerrancy was bogus. It was a disservice to God, to reason, and to attempts to teach people to value what scripture actually says.
 
Perhaps a definition is in order...and no, it is not just my belief but the belief of every true Christian...

An important tenet of the Christian faith is the belief that the Bible is God’s inerrant Word. See Hebrews 4:12 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

That means:

1. The Bible is completely reliable, accurate, and true.

2. It was written by human authors, but the words came from God’s Spirit. It’s not corrupted by human bias or error.(1)

It doesn't mean:

1. We take each passage literally.
The Bible contains some figurative language that isn't meant to be taken literally.(2)

2. All cultures will apply biblical principles identically.
The principles are universal, but they'll be applied differently by different cultures (e.g. modesty).

3. All translations are perfect.
Some translations are more accurate than others.(3)

4. We shouldn't study cultural and historical backgrounds.
Some Old Testament commands and situations are only understood in the context of history and culture. But history and culture do not negate New Testament commands and principles.

We may not understand every passage of the Bible, but we know it’s “God-breathed,” a poetic way to say 100% accurate.(4)

(1) 2 Peter 1:20-21: Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

This includes the Old Testament.
Romans 15:4: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

Also note that Peter refers to Paul's letters as Scripture in 2 Peter 3:14-16.

If you believe certain passages of Scripture are man's words, not God's, then everything in Scripture is suspect, including forgiveness, mercy, and salvation.

(2) Believing God’s Word is inerrant doesn’t mean we believe the earth is flat and trees clap their hands. See Recognizing Figurative Language in Scripture, How Can You Take the Bible Literally, and Flat Earth Lie.

(3) Please don’t be taken captive by arguments saying that there is only one God-approved English translation. See Is the King James Version the Best English Translation?

(4) Recently someone asked me why God approved of Lot offering his virgin daughters to be abused instead of the angels (Genesis 19:8). God didn’t approve. Just because something is included in Scripture does not mean it’s God-approved. Lot's actions were evil in this situation and in other situations as well. If men made up a religion, they’d “clean it up,” putting all of God’s people in a good light. But God honestly shared the history of His people including the sins of Abraham, David, and others.
https://biblelovenotes.blogspot.com/2019/09/believing-gods-word-is-inerrant.html
 
What are the implications?
Emotional and mental health issues.
I find the bigger problem is when people accept the inerrancy of Scripture..
Well, to admit the errors means god is fallible and that those who translate the texts are not connected to any god-thing or filled with the Holy Flatulence.

For 2,500 years, the Hebrew texts have been fraught with wholesale plagiarism, orthographic errors, spelling errors, incorrectly divided lines of text, omissions, and even worse, amendations by the translators who are not connected to any god-thing or filled with the Holy Flatulence.

For 2,500 years, a verse in one of the Psalms was incorrectly translated in the Masoretic Text as, "If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget."

For 500 years, the liars who translated the King Joke Vision were not connected to a god thing or filled with the Holy Flatulence, because they added the phrase "her cunning" so that the verse was rendered, "If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning."

With the discovery of an Ugaritic text, we learned the correct translation is, "If I forget you Ugarit, let my right hand wither."

The Hebrews plagiarized the text and replaced Ugarit with Jerusalem, and so the proper rendering in both the Hebrew text and King Joke Vision should be, "If I ignore you Jerusalem, let my right hand wither." The word "shrivel" would also be a correct rendering.

The translators of the Hebrew texts and King Joke Vision were too damn stupid to know that, and they weren't connected or guided by any god thing or filled with the Holy Flatulence.

Classical Biblical Hebrew (not the same as modern Hebrew) is the Ugaritic dialect of Aramaic -- proving the Hebrews never lived in Egypt and so no Exodus -- and all three are connotial languages. Words have connotations.

There are five verbs that mean "to forget" but each has different connotations. One means to forget connoting I do not/cannot recall/remember. Another means to forget connoting to ignore; another connoting to intentionally neglect as in withholding sustenance; another to unintentionally neglect; and so on.

"I forgot to feed my cat." See what I mean? You did not "forget" as in you cannot remember, but you did unintentionally neglect to feed it.

The right hand is the hand of dominance, preeminence, power, authority etc etc etc. "My right-hand man." That's where that phrase comes from. In the military and diplomatic protocols, you walk to the right of a superior.

Yahweh sits on his throne and the Jesus-thing sits to his right. See how that works?

The idea the Ugarit writer was trying to convey was that if the god ignores Ugarit then the god should suffer some penalty for doing so.

There's also a Psalm where each verse begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence.

For 2,000 years, two verses were missing. The missing verses were discovered when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls.

For 2,500 years, a verse in another Psalm was incorrectly divided so that it was translated as "silver lips."

Upon finding the original Ugaritic text that the Hebrews stole, the error was discovered and not correctly translated as "like silver."
 
Can we trust those letters and books of the NT? Yes.

No.

Another attempt by the liars translating the King Joke Vision occurs in the gospels. There's an event described by Matthew and Mark, only Matthew says this event happened in a particular town, while Mark says it happened in a different town some distance away.

The x-tian things don't want anyone to question anything ever. They want you to accept without questioning and to dispel any contradictions, they deceitfully lied by re-writing the text so that this event occurs in a third town a great distance away from the two towns Matthew and Mark mention.

The four gospels also conflict about which day Jesus was actually crucified.

There are more than 1,000 errors, contradictions and incongruities between the four gospels, so their testimony is not credible.
 
No.

Another attempt by the liars translating the King Joke Vision occurs in the gospels. There's an event described by Matthew and Mark, only Matthew says this event happened in a particular town, while Mark says it happened in a different town some distance away.

The x-tian things don't want anyone to question anything ever. They want you to accept without questioning and to dispel any contradictions, they deceitfully lied by re-writing the text so that this event occurs in a third town a great distance away from the two towns Matthew and Mark mention.

The four gospels also conflict about which day Jesus was actually crucified.

There are more than 1,000 errors, contradictions and incongruities between the four gospels, so their testimony is not credible.

The town is irrelevant. Fog of war - they were being persecuted, and on the run. They wrote these letters years later.

That why I don't consider it to be "the inerrant word of God", but I do consider it to be trustworthy in regards to the recollection in general.

If you don't that's fine, God is going to save you too anyways, regardless of what you believe.
 
Where in the heck do you get that from?

It doesn't matter. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. God will not lose one single atom of His creation. It all belongs to Him. He is the redeemer. He will restore whole all that He has delighted in creating for His purposes.
 
It doesn't matter. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. God will not lose one single atom of His creation. It all belongs to Him. He is the redeemer. He will restore whole all that He has delighted in creating for His purposes.
That is because those who don't will be gone/destroyed, not saved...Psalm 37:9-11...
 
And yet God's Word is truth, regardless of how any man may twist it...the truth is still there, it's up to us to dig for it...it can be found...it is indeed inerrant...
So anyone might find justification in "god's word" for any action they might want to take, if they dig for it. Slavery. for example no particular digging needed.

Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” which is Paul instructing slaves to obey their master. Similar statements regarding obedient slaves can be found in Colossians 3:22-24, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, and Titus 2:9-10.
 
So anyone might find justification in "god's word" for any action they might want to take, if they dig for it. Slavery. for example no particular digging needed.

Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” which is Paul instructing slaves to obey their master. Similar statements regarding obedient slaves can be found in Colossians 3:22-24, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, and Titus 2:9-10.
Which could also be applied to the work environment...give your best to your employer...a day's work for a days wage...
 
Which could also be applied to the work environment...give your best to your employer...a day's work for a days wage...

We are not slaves to nor owned by our employers nor to we have to obey everything that they tell us to do. The quote is clearly about obedience, not "doing your best".
 
The purpose of comparing different translations is not to knit-pick the differences but to get a much fuller understanding of a scripture...God's Word can enable the reader to do both...be thoroughly equipped for good work and be perfect in his good works...

Each translation is incomplete? Is that not a form of errancy?
 
Each translation is incomplete? Is that not a form of errancy?
No, that is called imperfect man attempting to translate into other languages besides the original...
 
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