Unbelieving the unbelievable...

[_richardMdBorn]

Hi Huck,

Nice to have you on the MB.

Richard

[_Roger Morrison]

Hi Richard, i,m on the road heading North, explains my slow response, which i will do by UL:

Hi Roger,

My new comments are in bold.

Galileo believed that the Bible was inerrant; so did his opponents. What then is the historical efficacy of stating that

The "inerrant word of God" has, however, supported throughout history a wide variety of completely discredited practices. The Bible was quoted to claim that kings rule by divine right, that the earth is the center of the universe around which the sun rotates

And the Bible was quoted by Galileo. Clearly the opponents of Galileo had baptized the cosmology of Ptolemy.

In each of these cultural debates the Bible has lost!

Is Spong’s standard of truth whatever is currently fashionable? That’s a pretty weak standard. The Nazi’s disliked the Gospel of John because it states that, “salvation is of the Jews”. Does that make it untrue.

RM I'll try to work with what i see as your strong prejudices against Spong... "Truth" is ever expanding/evolving as new information changes past understandings. That one determines to "go-with-new" rather than "stay-with-old" should not be dispariged. We are not talking hair-styles here...

Spong They seemed not to be aware that this claim reflects both an almost total ignorance of biblical scholarship and has been the source of enormous human evil over the years of Christian history.

Richard Was B.B. Warfield ignorant of biblical scholarship? No. He was a leading scholar in his time (c 1851-1921). Rather, he had a most lower opinion than Spong of higher criticism. Face it Spong, there are great scholars who disagree with you.

RM: BBW: 1851-1921, Spong: 19??--still alive, thinking, and writing. What's your point? Should all "biblical scholarship" have stopped with Warfield?

Roger Richard, what do you question in Spong's assertions? And please substantiate where Spong is wrong... :-) With all due respect Rich, I don't see the relevance of your comments to the fact that folks have been saying, "Word of God" when in fact it isn't! Other than, that is how it was/is presented. Surely you do see that. Or, don't you?

IF not, please explain...

Richard Spong asserts that belief in inerrancy reflects an ignorance of biblical scholarship. [b]RM: I dare to say he's correct--in the Camps of those who testify of "Our inerrant Holy Word-of-God!" many will not consider errancy. I have friends in that Camp :-) Warfield knew modern (1851-1921;-) skeptical biblical scholarship well and rejected it as incorrect.[/b]

Roger Might be a better question. For starters: leading folks to belief in a dichotomous, wrathful, prejudiced "God" that does not exist. This is followed by the efforts of those folks to please such a nonexisting "God".

Richard And where is the proof of this?

RM: Opposite side of the fulcrum from your "proof".

Roger I think would depend on a "God" who is not influenced by rituals and subservience??? That "God" is consistant, and dependable up to the "law of probability" so to speak??? Science depends on that. As do we when we step aboard a "Jet Plane".

Richard Ah, a domesticated God.[b] RM: If that's how you want to describe "God" who/that shows no favouritism, loves/governs unconditionally, blesses according to natural laws, not whims or rituals... your choice. Remember that Aslan is good but he’s not tame.[/b] RM: I have no interest in "Aslan".

Roger Spong is not saying, "there is no "God"!" He is simply saying the ancient, traditional understanding of our Judeo-Christian "God", portrayed in the Bible, is faulty...

Why does that disturb You so? Warm regards, Roger

Richard Because Spong cries peace peace where there is not peace. RM: Please, PLEASE explain???

Spong says person A did X and believed in inerrancy; therefore, the belief in inerrancy caused the person to do X. Don't you see the problem with that approach?[/quote]

Well, i think belief does influence action/behaviour, sometimes, in some things--generally speaking. Don't you? IMSCO, THE problem with subscribers to "inerrancy" is their tendency to resist change of bible-based practices. A good example being, "Spare the rod and spoil the child!" I'm sure You can recite others...

DO You see Spong compromising in any way the, "Two New Commandments"?

Warm reards, Roger

[_rcrocket]

Richard,

I found the remarks posted by Sponge rather reasonable.

Do you believe the Bible is literal and innerrent in total? It seems to me that you are dodging the issues. Who cares, and how do you even know Galileo thought the Bible was innerrent? What bearign does this have on whether it really is or not.

Hi Jason.,

I believe that the original manuscripts were inerrant and the text that we have today is close. I believe in interpreting a biblical passage in a way which is consistent with its genre. Thus, wisdom literature is different from narrative.

Which issues am I dodging IYO.

Richard

It is too easy to prove the errancy of the Bible from any modern English version. I thnk Bart Erhman has done a good job with this task. The Comma Johanneum is one striking example of error.

[_Fortigurn]

The Comma Johanneum is one striking example of error.

Could you explain how the Comma proves the errancy of the Bible? It appears you have an odd understanding of what constitutes Biblical errancy. It does not mean that copies of the Bible subsequent to the autographs will not contain errors. It refers to the errancy of the content in the autographs. Since the Comma was not contained in the autographs, it is irrelevant to the issue of Biblical errancy.

[_rcrocket]

The Comma Johanneum is one striking example of error.

Could you explain how the Comma proves the errancy of the Bible? It appears you have an odd understanding of what constitutes Biblical errancy. It does not mean that copies of the Bible subsequent to the autographs will not contain errors. It refers to the errancy of the content in the autographs. Since the Comma was not contained in the autographs, it is irrelevant to the issue of Biblical errancy.

I pick up my Bible and it is there. It shouldn't be there. Why does it persist, if it is error? You're basically saying something is not error which the common man does not possess. What weight should I give your argument since 99.99% of Bible believers who have a Bible also have the Comma?

Since the autographs are not available, a claim of inerrancy is completely vacuous.



rcrocket

[_harmony]

It is too easy to prove the errancy of the Bible from any modern English version. I thnk Bart Erhman has done a good job with this task. The Comma Johanneum is one striking example of error.

For those of us who are not Biblical geniuses, not learned scholars, not even well-read amatuers... what is the Comma Johanneum?

[_richardMdBorn]

Roger I'll try to work with what I see as your strong prejudices against Spong... "Truth" is ever expanding/evolving as new information changes past understandings. That one determines to "go-with-new" rather than "stay-with-old" should not be dispariged. We are not talking hair-styles here...

Richard A similar argument occurred between Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man) and Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France' ) over the French Revolution. Burke foresaw the terror. Paine did not.. The fan of the old was right there.

Roger RM: BBW: 1851-1921, Spong: 19??--still alive, thinking, and writing. What's your point? Should all "biblical scholarship" have stopped with Warfield?

Richard Obviously, that’s not my point. Spong appears to assert that only ignoramuses disagree with higher criticism. That was not the case with Warfield nor is the case with folks like D.A. Carson

Roger Spong is not saying, "there is no "God"!" He is simply saying the ancient, traditional understanding of our Judeo-Christian "God", portrayed in the Bible, is faulty...

Richard And I think that’s Spong’s wrong.

Roger Well, I think belief does influence action/behaviour, sometimes, in some things--generally speaking. Don't you? IMSCO, THE problem with subscribers to "inerrancy" is their tendency to resist change of bible-based practices. A good example being, "Spare the rod and spoil the child!" I'm sure You can recite others...

Richard Yes, the problem in our society today is too tough discipline on the part of parents. Yea, right.

Roger "God" that does not exist.

Richard I asked you to prove this and you responded, “Opposite side of the fulcrum from your "proof".” Given that I have mentioned anything about proving the existence of God in this discussion, your comment is more than passing strange.

[_Fortigurn]

I pick up my Bible and it is there. It shouldn't be there.

If you pick up your Bible and it is there, I'm assuming you're not using a translation which was written within the last 100 years (translation, not version). You need to come to grips with the fact that not everyone in the world is several centuries behind the times.

What is bizarre is the fact that you seem to think that if it's in your Bible, it's in every other Bible. You may or may not be aware that the KJV is not the only translation of the Bible which exists.

Why does it persist, if it is error?

It doesn't persist. It has been omitted from Christian Bibles for centuries. Certain Bibles have it, most do not. Those which do have it are simply reprints or new editions of Bibles translated over 100 year ago. I just checked 29 translations, and only five included it. Of those five, one was the KJV, three were versions which were based on the KJV, and another was about 100 years old.

What weight should I give your argument since 99.99% of Bible believers who have a Bible also have the Comma?

Do you have any idea what you're saying? Firstly you need to understand what Biblical errancy actually is (clearly you didn't). Secondly you cannot possibly tell me with a straight face that '99.99% of Bible believers who have a Bible also have the Comma', since that is palpably untrue.

Since the autographs are not available, a claim of inerrancy is completely vacuous.

I see you don't know much about textual criticism.

[_Fortigurn]

It is too easy to prove the errancy of the Bible from any modern English version. I thnk Bart Erhman has done a good job with this task. The Comma Johanneum is one striking example of error.

For those of us who are not Biblical geniuses, not learned scholars, not even well-read amatuers... what is the Comma Johanneum?

It refers to an interpolation in 1 John 5, at verse 7. It began as a scribal gloss in the margin of a Latin text, and was later incorporated into the body. It does not appear in any extant manuscript prior to the 10th century. I will quote here from Bruce Metzger's 'Commentary On The Greek New Testament':

5.7–8 μαρτυροῦντες, 8 τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα {A}

After μαρτυροῦντες the Textus Receptus adds the following: ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Πατήρ, ὁ Λόγος, καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οὗτοι οἱ τρεῖς ἔν εἰσι. (8) καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ. That these words are spurious and have no right to stand in the New Testament is certain in the light of the following considerations.

(A) External Evidence. (1) The passage is absent from every known Greek manuscript except eight, and these contain the passage in what appears to be a translation from a late recension of the Latin Vulgate. Four of the eight manuscripts contain the passage as a variant reading written in the margin as a later addition to the manuscript. The eight manuscripts are as follows:

61: codex Montfortianus, dating from the early sixteenth century.
88v.r.: a variant reading in a sixteenth century hand, added to the fourteenth-century codex Regius of Naples.
221v.r.: a variant reading added to a tenth-century manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
429v.r.: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Wolfenbüttel.
636v.r.: a variant reading added to a sixteenth-century manuscript at Naples.
918: a sixteenth-century manuscript at the Escorial, Spain.
2318: an eighteenth-century manuscript, influenced by the Clementine Vulgate, at Bucharest, Rumania.

(2) The passage is quoted by none of the Greek Fathers, who, had they known it, would most certainly have employed it in the Trinitarian controversies (Sabellian and Arian). Its first appearance in Greek is in a Greek version of the (Latin) Acts of the Lateran Council in 1215.

(3) The passage is absent from the manuscripts of all ancient versions (Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Slavonic), except the Latin; and it is not found (a) in the Old Latin in its early form (Tertullian Cyprian Augustine), or in the Vulgate (b) as issued by Jerome (codex Fuldensis [copied a.d. 541–46] and codex Amiatinus [copied before a.d. 716]) or (c) as revised by Alcuin (first hand of codex Vallicellianus [ninth century]).

The earliest instance of the passage being quoted as a part of the actual text of the Epistle is in a fourth century Latin treatise entitled Liber Apologeticus (chap. 4), attributed either to the Spanish heretic Priscillian (died about 385) or to his follower Bishop Instantius. Apparently the gloss arose when the original passage was understood to symbolize the Trinity (through the mention of three witnesses: the Spirit, the water, and the blood), an interpretation that may have been written first as a marginal note that afterwards found its way into the text. In the fifth century the gloss was quoted by Latin Fathers in North Africa and Italy as part of the text of the Epistle, and from the sixth century onwards it is found more and more frequently in manuscripts of the Old Latin and of the Vulgate. In these various witnesses the wording of the passage differs in several particulars. (For examples of other intrusions into the Latin text of 1 John, see 2.17; 4.3; 5.6, and 20.)

(B) Internal Probabilities. (1) As regards transcriptional probability, if the passage were original, no good reason can be found to account for its omission, either accidentally or intentionally, by copyists of hundreds of Greek manuscripts, and by translators of ancient versions.

(2) As regards intrinsic probability, the passage makes an awkward break in the sense.

For the story of how the spurious words came to be included in the Textus Receptus, see any critical commentary on 1 John, or Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, pp. 101 f.; cf. also Ezra Abbot, “I. John v. 7 and Luther’s German Bible,” in The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel and Other Critical Essays (Boston, 1888), pp. 458–463.

Metzger, B. M., & United Bible Societies. (1994). A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition a companion volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) (647). London; New York: United Bible Societies.

[_Roger Morrison]

Rich, this time i'll do the bold thing ;-)

Roger I'll try to work with what I see as your strong prejudices against Spong... "Truth" is ever expanding/evolving as new information changes past understandings. That one determines to "go-with-new" rather than "stay-with-old" should not be dispariged. We are not talking hair-styles here...

Richard A similar argument occurred between Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man) and Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France' ) over the French Revolution. Burke foresaw the terror. Paine did not.. The fan of the old was right there. RM: Is this the exception that "proves the rule"?

Roger RM: BBW: 1851-1921, Spong: 19??--still alive, thinking, and writing. What's your point? Should all "biblical scholarship" have stopped with Warfield?

Richard Obviously, that’s not my point. RM: No it wasn't obvious--to me... Spong appears to assert that only ignoramuses disagree with higher criticism. That was not the case with Warfield nor is the case with folks like D.A. Carson
RM: Spong is not Warfield, nor Carson. What's your point comparing Spong with other?
Roger Spong is not saying, "there is no "God"!" He is simply saying the ancient, traditional understanding of our Judeo-Christian "God", portrayed in the Bible, is faulty...

Richard And I think that’s Spong’s wrong. RM: An opinion you are entitiled to. What do you think of Fortigurn's information re "marginal scribal gloss" in John? Seems to bring "inerrancy" into question...

Roger Well, I think belief does influence action/behaviour, sometimes, in some things--generally speaking. Don't you? IMSCO, THE problem with subscribers to "inerrancy" is their tendency to resist change of bible-based practices. A good example being, "Spare the rod and spoil the child!" I'm sure You can recite others...

Richard Yes, the problem in our society today is too tough discipline on the part of parents. Yea, right. RM: Surely this is another statement that is "obviously not (your) point."?? (Poor parenting has always been a contributing factor to our dysfuncioning society. Wouldn't you agree--a little ;-)

Roger "God" that does not exist.

Richard I asked you to prove this and you responded, “Opposite side of the fulcrum from your "proof".” Given that I have mentioned anything about proving the existence of God in this discussion, your comment is more than passing strange. RM: Sorry about that. I presumptuously thought "inerrancy" was the over-all umbrella that covered all biblical assertions as questionable by me & not questioned by you. Including "God" as seen "wrongly by Spong", and me...

Richard: You didn't answer my last two questions. "I" think Your answers are very important. So, here the questions again:

Richard Because Spong cries peace peace where there is not peace. RM: Please, PLEASE explain???

DO You see Spong compromising in any way the, "Two New Commandments"?

Watched an interview the other night of Tim Lahaye and Jerry Jenkins, coauthors of the series: "Left Behind". As well, ??? Rosenburg, a Christian Jew, took part. They are all literalists. Very interesting...

To me, what IS important is human behavior. It is not "who-said-what". I think you and me work/opin from different framing processes. Much as MLK.Jr and LB Johnson viewed "rioters".

I do not think the Bible is "The word of God"--inerrant--as you do. So be it. I take what fits my "framing". As do you, i respectfully suggest. Makes us rather normal, and equal in thr sight of "God"... Right? warm regards, Roger

[/quote]