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Why do you accept the bible as inerrant historical fact?

A

AmbiguousGuy

Well-Known Member
InvestigateTruth said:
No, that is not the case.
The World of Creation may be divided into 5 creatures:

1. minerals
2. Plants
3. Animals
4. human
5. Prophets or Manifestations of God

This is the hierarchy in which each has more power in comparison to previous level. For example the plants have power of growth but minerals do not. The animals have power of senses such as sight and hearing, but plants do not. Human has power of discovery but the animals do not. The Prophets and Manifestations of God have access to the knowledge and Will of God and can reveal His Words and Attributes into the world and act as an 'intermediately' between God and mankind. The regular man cannot do this!
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I think you're mistaken. Prophets are not special people. In fact, if they really and truly believe they have a special pipeline to God, they may actually be people with mental issues. And those who believe in magic should not be leading us.
 
nazz

nazz

Doubting Thomas
Pegg said:
there are several reasons:

Jesus believed in the bible and referenced the characters in the bible such as Adam and Eve as real people. He believed in those accounts and people and events because he was originally a spirit person who witnessed all those events. So if he believed them, then Im 100% convinced that they must have been true events.
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But this is circular reasoning again as it rests on the idea that the Bible is giving us accurate information about what Jesus said. So the question would be why do you believe that? Now I personally have good reasons to think that when it comes to the words of Jesus we have a pretty good record of what he taught. But I would not claim we have an infallible record of his actual words because there is also good reason not to believe that.

Assuming then that what you bring up is true this does not prove that Jesus believed in these things as literal historic fact. It only shows that he used these stories to illustrate his teachings. As I have pointed out before an atheist can quote the Bible to make a point to those who do believe in it. That does not mean the atheist believes what s/he is quoting (not that I'm saying Jesus was an atheist but you get my point).

The bible prophecies which have been fulfilled prove Gods writership. No man can accurately foretell the future...but God makes the future, so he can tell us exactly whats going to happen.
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I think people do predict the future by various means and can be accurate. Just not 100% of the time. The Bible is not accurate in its prophecies 100% of the time either. Many prophecies are vague enough to be interpreted various ways to show fulfillment. That said I do believe the Bible contains bona fide divinely inspired prophecy.

Its counsel & wisdom is universal for all people and it actually works for our benefit when we apply it.
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That I can agree with it. But I don't see why that would mean we should accept it as inerrant historical fact. A story can still teach us truth without needing to be historically true.

Its not a writing based around a particular culture like other writings. The bible speaks a universal language and is applicable in all times and cultures, it applies to young and old, male or female and I think other writings tend to favour a 'particular' gender and become irrelevant as time goes on.
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Actually a lot of the bible is very culturally bound.

Also, the bible does not present the creation of the universe and earth as a myth where giants fell out of the sky and vomited something from their mouth which became the rivers and when they had the guts ripped out their entrails became something else. The bible doesnt say the earth is held up by elephants riding a tortoise riding somthing else....nor does the bible say the planets are lviing Gods like some other religious myths. The bible presents a very plausible and acceptable account of creation which is in harmony with science.
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Well I disagree it is fully in harmony with science but yeah it is less fanciful as some other similar myths in some respects.
 
nazz

nazz

Doubting Thomas
arcanum said:
Personally I no longer look at the bible as a historical book but as a spiritual one, which works for me. It can be read on many different levels depending on one's spiritual understanding and discernment.
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This is my approach as well.

But taking it literally is certainly a valid way of looking at it, provided one doesn't approach it through a modern left brained oriented lens, dissecting it in order to prove it's accuracy and historicity. Using this method may cause one some problems and make it hard to reconcile, better to just read it as is and don't think too hard about objectively trying to proving it.
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I see a lot of issues arise from taking it as inerrant historical fact.
 
nazz

nazz

Doubting Thomas
I'll just throw this out there too, Tumah. An argument I made back when I did accept the historicity of the Torah. If this history was totally fabricated out of whole cloth it seems quite bizarre to present detailed instructions for the construction of a mishkan that was never built. I find that one hard to believe.
 
nazz

nazz

Doubting Thomas
Hawkins said:
It is because this is the one way and only way for a human to reach a truth. To put it another way, if God is true then to believe what is said in the Bible is the one and only way to reach such a truth. There's no other way round.

The methodology employed here is called human witnessing. It is the same methodology leading to virtually any truth in human history. The nature of history, under most circumstance if not all, is that you have to rely on what have been written down by other humans to reach a truth. You have to deliver your faith, or else there's no truth for you. That is, you are unable to reach a truth unless you put faith in what have been written down by a small bunch of humans. Most likely, the more witnesses (historians) were writing about the same event/figure, it became more credible for humans to believe (multiple account witnessing).

If God is true, He will choose such a methodology to pass a truth as human witnessing, without man's own awareness, is the most fundamental way of conveying a truth. And that His Word must be accurate (inerrant) to a certain extent for humans along the timeline of history to reach the same God. The same accuracy is demanded if humans are to be judged. If the core information provided is not consistent, humans are not to be blamed when subject to God's judgment, as they received no consistent information.

If a God would like humans to reach Him, He needs a book accurately described about Him and His requirement for humans. Such a book will basically not change along time for humans in different times of history to read the same stuff to reach the same God with the same requirement for His judgment. He also needs to authenticate a human authority as a representative of His book, or else everyone may pop up to say that "my version of the book is the genuine one". The Jews were first assigned to be such a representative. When the Jews became unqualified, the authority was shifted to the Catholics then the Protestants. All of them are maintaining the same core (Canon) of the OT, with the Catholics and Protestants sharing the same NT.

By far, the only God who can achieve the above is the Christian God. And martyrdom is used as an enhancement for the multiple account witnessing. By the covenants man is bound to, He won't show up to all humans (or else humans cannot be saved by faith, there's no faith required if He shows up to everyone). He showed up only to His dedicated witnesses to allow them to write down the Bible for other humans to believe to reach the truth.


Isaiah 6:9
Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.
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Hmm, I need time to process this argument. Thanks for responding.
 
Ouroboros

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
nazz said:
I've asked this in other forums and never got a satisfactory answer. And please don't just quote II Timothy 3:16. That's problematic for several reasons but it's circular reasoning anyway. Or if you do you use it I would ask why you believe that to be true.
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I just started another thread about Genesis and its literal interpretation. I'm asking the same thing. Why take it literal or as a historical fact, when we know that it was written by humans and written to be understood by people at that time.
 
nazz

nazz

Doubting Thomas
Jayhawker Soule said:
What might those reasons be?
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Basically for the same reasons scholars believe that. Multiple and especially independent attestation. If one looks at only the words of Jesus there is amazing agreement in the four gospels. That is not the case with the narrative portion of those texts. Some of that agreement can be explained by Markan priority but not all of it. And the authors of Luke and Matthew did not always copy Mark verbatim. There is also independent attestation through the Gospel of Thomas.
 
nazz

nazz

Doubting Thomas
Ouroboros said:
I just started another thread about Genesis and its literal interpretation. I'm asking the same thing. Why take it literal or as a historical fact, when we know that it was written by humans and written to be understood by people at that time.
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Can you link me?
 
Terrywoodenpic

Terrywoodenpic

Oldest Heretic
Why do you accept the bible as inerrant historical fact?

I do not suppose that even the most ardent Bible only Christians fully believe that.

To do so would indicate a somewhat massive lack of personal enquiry and power of reasoning. This in no way denies the value of the Content, but places it in a religious context and interpretation, rather than an accurate Historical one.
 
outhouse

outhouse

Atheistically
Tumah said:
I look at it more as, since their opinions tend to change over time, I don't feel obligated to subscribe to their current opinion.



There is enough corroboration between the two,
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No there is not enough corroboration, there is none in many places.


To claim the bible does not contain mythology, told to teach morals and laws is to ruin the beauty of such epic pieces.



The bible is historically errant, to the point of being close to factual in many places. It is theology NOT history and it is not a science book.


Any attempt to use it as history or science is a pitiful waist of its beauty.
 
Ouroboros

Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
The declaration of faith in the cult-fashion church we used to belong to 15 years ago made it very clear that the Bible was to be taken, read, understood literally in every aspect.

It was the largest single congregation in Europe for many years. We had students from all over the world going to our Bible school (kind'a seminary). About 5-10,000 students.

So I know they're out there...
 
InvestigateTruth

InvestigateTruth

Well-Known Member
AmbiguousGuy said:
I think you're mistaken. Prophets are not special people. In fact, if they really and truly believe they have a special pipeline to God, they may actually be people with mental issues. And those who believe in magic should not be leading us.
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What you describe is 'false prophets'. How do you know true Prophets do not exist, and that those prophets like Jesus and Muhammad were false?
 
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