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by Teresa on November 28th, 2008

Teresa

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Does anyone else consider the Bible as a human expression of the divine--as an important theological/spiritual document, but fallible because it's human-made? Everyone I talk to either thinks the Bible is plain bunk or else literal perfect truth.

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  • by Captain4876 on May 17th, 2010

    Captain4876

    I've just posted this answer to another question, but it looked like it could be helpful to you:

    I've read many books on this topic, and have been researching it for some while- which has lead me to the conclusion that it's most logical to accept scripture as true. I wont give you all my arguments at once, but if you're interested- i'll tell you what i know.

    Some argue for a dictation theory when it comes to Scripture; that God somehow possessed the writers of Scripture and wrote down what was intended, while they had control over what was happening- but this is unrealistic. You'll note that writers often have their own personal style contained within their letters, which are often different from each other- these letters were definitely written by men.

    The doctrine of Inerrancy that is held by evangelical Christians argues that while the words of the Bible were written down by man, the end results of what they produced were the words that God intended to be said. This is supported by verses such as 2 Timothy 3:16 and 2 Peter 1:21-22, which describes scripture as not having its origin in the while of men, but men speaking from God as thy were "carried along" by the Holy Spirit. This is known as Plenary Verbal Inspiration Theory.

    As for your question about how the fallibility of man affects it; you need to understand that the reason man is fallible is because of the fall. Man was not originally fallible, like God we were perfect, mistakes and error were not part of original human nature. If man's true nature was inherently imperfect, there could have been no incarnation (the embodiment of Jesus into the flesh of man).

    Paul and the other biblical writers were, of course, sinful erroneous human beings- but this does not mean that they necessarily Had to make mistakes in scripture. The common mistake is to assume that because humanity is sinful, they could have no involvement in the creation of anything good- but this is logically flawed; there does not necessarily have to be error present because of man's involvement. If man had created the Bible without the guidance of God, I have no doubt that it would be filled with error; but from my previous 2 paragraphs we see that God was intricately involved throughout.

    Now that I've shown that it is Possible for Scripture to be inerrant, you might want to talk about the probability of scripture being inerrant. This post has gotten a bit long, so I'll talk about that in my next post; but here's a parting thought...

    If God exists, and was powerful enough to create Everything that exists- then surely he has the power to keep his word from being corrupted. However the argument is not whether God exists or not, thats something different entirely.

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