I don't imagine there are a lot of readers on this board who have spent more time reading the Bible than I have. It's a wonderful book, timeless wisdom written by bright men with great understanding about God and how he relates to us. But I don't worship the Bible. It's not Father, Son, Holy Ghost and Holy Scripture. The Bible was written by men who didn't have a modern understanding of science. If it had been written by God, he would have understood the earth's place in the solar system. So much of where I have a falling out with organized religion comes in places where I am supposed to believe the literal Bible. Look, for the Jewish scholars, writing Genesis was a tremendous literary and theological achievement. But Darwin and modern scholars aren't evil for taking our understanding of science to a higher level than was possible in the centuries before Christ. I think Paul's letters were masterful, scholarly and inspired by a relationship to the almighty. However, I don't think words he wrote to churches about having women in their place .... really good advice to reaching out to the people and cultures of the day ... should be used today to limit women's role in the church. In short, I love, admire and revere the Bible. I see it as God-inspired and amazingly authoritative and consistent in its translations and preservation through the centuries. I don't worship the Bible and believe it infallible. It tells us much about God, but it in no way limits who God is and what He can do.
God inspired a set of books full of folktales, false supposition, etc. Maybe. Or maybe He was not involved at all and they were written by a bunch of guys who had no idea what they were talking about but made really sincere guesses and were full of hope for what God had planned for them and their descendants. Or maybe none of the above and we don't have anything but guesses---like them. Maybe we never know but just suspect for as long as humans exist. My money is on the latter but I have no confidence I am right.
Every sacred text was created by man of course—the question always hinges on whether the claim of a supernatural muse has merit. And if it does I can’t help but think that we could likewise ascribe the works of Mozart, Michelangelo, Newton and Einstein to it as well. Humanity’s greatest creations and insights must come from a similar place. However we frame it I do think there is a great mystery playing out, and we are fortunate to participate in it.
Fellow Hornfans, I am too immature a Christian and too weak in my knowledge of theology and too inarticulate to debate or persuade using either the spoken or written word, but if you have time, go to this link, which is from a Christian radio ministry called "Grace to You" (pastored by John MacArthur). This particular series, titled "Making a Case for the Bible," is a 5-parter; though offered for $24 if one wanted to buy the CDs, you can stream online for free or download for free and listen to in iTunes, for example. Give it a listen and then tell me what ya think: Making a Case for the Bible
I didn't listen to all of it, but the introduction, stating that the Bible contains all that man needs to know and will ever need to know about God, is an eloquent statement from much of established religion. It's not what I believe. Certainly containing God in all of his manifestations would be very convenient for folks who want to study that book, become experts and have the answer for everything. It's a very appealing approach for those who want no ambiguity and bestows the Bible with divine status and even goes so far as to call it "complete." Maybe because I've seriously dabbled in writing myself, I just can't believe any man or group of men, no matter how connected and prayerful, can get any complicated story exactly right. If I thought the Bible contained God, I wouldn't be very enthusiastic about being Christian. God's presence and God's continuing works are what create passion and emotions in me. The sense of God I see in marvelous and loving people touching and connecting in other humans is how Christ is "real" to me. In my opinion the book of Acts should never have been concluded. I think every Christian should study about the lives of Saint Agustine and Saint Patrick, for example. Maybe it's the Methodist in me, but I think it regrettable that we have no sermons or Sunday School lessons on George Whitfield, John Wesley and William Wilberforce, who in their lives and works revealed much about God and furthered His positive influence on this earth.
In reply to _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Are you talking about George Whitfield the quarterback coach who is working with Jerrod Heard this spring? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ If Jerrod becomes an All-American I will suggest that to my pastor, though honestly I wouldn't be hopeful about hearing a sermon on any QB coach unless he has a positive impact on the SMU Mustangs. The George Whitfield of whom I reference is the one who energized English and American Christians with open air preaching on the Grace of Jesus Christ.The Link
As a second grader in Las Vegas NM I used to dig sea floor fossils from a shale hillside at Legion Park Elementary School. Some say I have to believe every word in the Bible to be a Christian -- basically accept a transparently false myth of a 6,000 year old world. Here I was a about a mile elevation above sea level several hundred miles from the nearest coast. Obviously with tectonic plates moving at the speed of fingernail growth, the fossil presence was not something that could happen in 6,000 or even 600,000 years. This is relevant because some would exclude the "Christian" label for anyone who believes what they see with their own eyes if it contradicts what it says in the Good Book. I'm making the case one can worship God and worship Christ, without accepting that the Bible is complete and inerrant.
Crockett, you might want to check out the website "Reasons to Believe" (link below). I haven't spent a whole lot of time there, but as I understand they are "old Earth" proponents, based on how they interpret parts of Genesis and also based on some clues in the the book of Job. "Where Science and Faith Converge"
Crockett, my question to you about how you see the Bible is how do you identify the places where the Bible is incorrect and where it is correct? What external objective framework do you use?
"how do you identify the places where the Bible is incorrect and where it is correct? What external objective framework do you use?" While I admire the time and effort that people put into just that topic, I don't think it's the point of the conversation. Christians are given pretty decent instructions about what to do with their lives. Nowhere in those instructions does it say to interpret the authenticity of mystical things that happened, like talking donkeys or Noah's Ark. Jesus wanted everyone to love God and love their neighbors, so getting into a deal about whether or not flawed people wrote holy books inspired by God is kind of beside the point.
Horns11, why would obey the instructions in the Bible if I think it is filled with made up fables? The only reason is because I may think an instruction just sounds good. But that goes against what religion is because then I would be following myself and my thoughts instead of God.
John Wesley, a lot more learned than I, came up with what we know as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral which judge Christian ideas with focus on Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience. It gives primary importance to scripture, but in cases -- like the model of planetary motion that caused prosecution of Galileo and the Church digging up and burning the bones of Copernicus subsequent to publication of his findings -- it allows room for tempering by reason, experience and tradition. I do rely on reason to formulate my values and am much less conservative and Biblical than was Wesley. Meeting gay people, knowing their circumstance and truly believing God made them the way they are gives me much more tolerance of their lifestyle than Biblical guidance would suggest. I put a lot more weight on the 10 Commandments and the word attributed to Jesus than I do on the letters in the New Testament or the books of the prophets. My views are not intellectually cohesive like those learned scholars to which Bevo Barry has provided much appreciated links in this thread. But it's an honest statement of what I believe. Instead of providing comprehensive illumination of a perfect and loving God, I see the Bible as kind of as powerful searchlight shining on few aspects of greatness we can comprehend more fully as we better understand ourselves and our world. I'll admit that as I read the Bible, I see the works of God commingled with church leaders ambitious to control and administer God's Grace and God's justice on this earth. I have incomplete trust in early church leaders. I distrust preachers who tell me I must believe every word of the Bible and who are only too willing to interpret for me what that is.
Crockett, I grew up in the Methodist Church, so I know a fair amount about John Wesley. I hadn't heard of the quadrilateral before though. I think I agree in principle with it. I would think reason, tradition, and experience would all be checks so that we don't interpret scripture in a vacuum. I can imagine that Wesley meant it for more than that though. I would be slow to judge religion or Christianity in general for what happened to Copernicus. First, it was a specific church and even a subset within that church that persecuted he and Galileo. Second, even if Galileo and Copernicus were wrong theologically or scientifically the people who persecuted them were not following scriptural instructions in doing so. Christianity is a group of the persecuted not persecutors. I would be interested to understand more about how you come to your conclusions in the second paragraph that the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable and that the 10 commandments and words of Jesus are more reliable than NT epistles and prophetical writings. That is what I am interested to learn, how much weight you give to which interpretational factors. I appreciate your honesty and understand your comments. My attempt is to get a layer deeper. Why are your views not intellectually cohesive? I actually expect that they are very cohesive once the foundation of your scriptural and theological decisions is better understood. Could you give an example from the Bible where God's works are commingled with the ambitions of church leaders?
Monahorn: you ask questions that require deeper thinking and more study than I'm prepared for. One thing I'd like to call attention to is that the very REASON Galileo and Copernicus felt the wrath of the church is because the scientific knowledge they uncovered was at odds with the scriptures on the placement of the earth and sun. Basically the church was defending the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy from a factual onslaught. Faith in God should require no strongarm tactics. Faith in the institutional church and it's doctrines that can't withstand reason and knowlege of the greater world is more problematic. I'm pretty confident that Galileo, Copernicus and Darwin reside in heaven among many less intellectually gifted who perhaps no longer are detractors. I'm seriously underqualified as a guide through the scriptures, but would certainly commend outside reading on Wesley and Wilberforce. They energized Christianity and made it a much more powerful force for good in this world. God is not just in the Good Book. He's everywhere. As far as my weighting the scriptures, it's entirely subjective, not objective. I read the words of Jesus they make sense and inform my world view. I read Jeremiah and my eyes glaze over after a chapter or two. Jesus was clearly God's messenger sent to earth to deliver an eternal message. Paul wrote letters to church's filled with great understanding of Jesus, wise guidance and profoundly inspiring evangelical messages. But I see him as what scholars would call a secondary source. As I worship Jesus, but not the Bible, I consider his words of lesser importance. I hope my divergent thinking does not discredit the Methodist Church, which I love for encouraging me to think. But as an institutional church it is much more conservative and mainstream than I. I can have faith discussions with Hindus or Unitarians and nobody becomes uncomfortable. Wesley or Whitefield would in similar circumstances be moved to save their souls.
Fair enough Crockett. You started the discussion so I was just trying to help it progress. Or were just wanting to state your viewpoint and leave it at that. From my perspective, the observations of Copernicus and Galileo didn't contradict anything the Bible says about the placement of the earth and sun. It contradicted 1) the scientific understanding of the day and 2) that understanding dogmatized into the church. I too believe that reason and knowledge can not be opposed to whatever is true about God. We all have parts of the Bible that we find more or less interesting as individuals, so I understand where you are coming from. Though I would caution you that your method for determining validity is destined for error due to its inconsistency. There are objective things within Jeremiah (as an example) that would point to equal validity to either the 10 commandments or Jesus words. Even what we know about Jesus' words are from other sources (eye witnesses). Jesus himself did not write anything down. I don't think of parts of the Bible as from a secondary source because of the role of the Holy Spirit in the authorship of the Bible. Whether it is Exodus, Psalms, John, or Romans the divine source is the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself tells the disciples in John 14 and 16 what kind of role the Spirit as in the writing of the Bible. Also check Acts 1 for the mission and authority Jesus gives to the apostles to communicate his teaching to the next generation. I think we all should think through these things on our own. Encouraging that trait shouldn't discredit any church.
For those interested, Jeremiah's commissioning by God in Jeremiah 1. "1 The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2 to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month. 4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 6 Then I said, “Alas, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, Because I am a youth.” 7 But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ Because everywhere I send you, you shall go, And all that I command you, you shall speak. 8 “Do not be afraid of them, For I am with you to deliver you,” declares the Lord. 9 Then the Lord stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. 10 “See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, To pluck up and to break down, To destroy and to overthrow, To build and to plant.” From John 14, Jesus own words give validity to the writings of the apostles specifically and its a principle that can be applied to all of scripture. "25 “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
I am pretty much as of the same thought as Crockett initially stated. i look as the Bible as a book of parables to tell us how we should live to serve Christ. i do not take a lot of it as literal. I do believe in Christ's virgin birth and resurrection though. I think that's fundamental to being a Christian. However, in Genesis everyone lives to like 800-900 years of age. I have a hard time believing that. The story of Noah an the Ark doesn't sound too believable either. Like I said, I take much of it as trying to teach lessons to Christians.
Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection are at the heart of being a Christian. I share your belief in the Bible's account of them and that they are foundational. When I think about the lifespan of people in Genesis and the global flood, I am not sure those things should be any harder to believe than a virgin birth or resurrection. Bodily resurrection from the dead is miraculous and counter to our normal experience as much as anything else. There is actually a geneticist who became a believer in Jesus through examining the lifespans in Genesis before and after the flood. He found that restricting the gene pool to 8 people as in the flood would understandably reduce lifespan of those born afterward due to the genetic decay he observed as a scientist. If you plot out the lifespans of people before and then after the flood you get an exponential decay curve that is observed in nature regularly. The lifespan we have today would be the new normal after greatly reduced genetic variety of our species.
The Bible doesn't state the lifespan of other animals in the preflood and immediately postflood days, so your statement about not seeing other species living 600 years is irrelevant. Still believe what you want. I'm not trying to be argumentative... or not too argumentative anyway. The exponential decay shaped curve is an interesting bit of evidence though. I don't see how it can be dismissed so easily for those inclined to believe in Jesus. I would think it would at least motivate some thought and further investigation. Regarding the frequency of miracles, the time frame of the Bible spans thousands of years. What you see is that there will be a cluster of miracles and then nothing for a long time. In some ways, I think we are in one of those gaps that will end when Jesus returns. Some people would tell you that miracles are still occurring all the time. I don't disagree with that either. Many times today and during Biblical times, miracles happen in private. We only know about them when someone writes about it or talks about it. There are those out there who have stories to tell if you are interested to hear.
Those are good questions. Ones I have asked too and some that I have answered for myself. About the human race starting from 2 and how there could be more genetic variety from then to now, there is no definite answer. There are several thoughts though. One thing is that I don't know that I described the scientists theory very well. I do know there are two things at work though. One is the idea of Adam and Eve before the fall having "perfect dna". In Genesis, the intention was not for people to die ever so the starting point would be immortality. Then after the fall, genetic decay would have started limiting human lifespan but still having them be longer that today due to where the starting point was. The other part is that an aspect genetic decay would be a loss of genetic variation. So taking the population from where ever it was before the flood and then reducing it to 8 people greatly reduces the available genetic variation thus further reducing lifespan. The fact that billions of people live on the earth today wouldn't mean that lifespans should increase because we are essentially limited to the variation that was available to the 8 who lived through the flood. Decay was happening through this whole time which is another contributing factor. Embedded in this explanation is a certain world view that you may have picked up on. The scientist I am referring to is John Sanford. I have been trying to summarize his theory so if you are interested it would be better to read from him directly.
After googling the question about the ages in Genesis, I stumbled upon the John Sanford's explanation or theory. And while I may not be convinced of his theory, I do see some logic within it. I goal is not to dispute the Bible, but I do have many questions that there may not be answers to right now. I guess faith answers the questions of most Christians. Another question I have regarding the Bible is, "How does the Bible reconcile alien life?" As we learn more about the Universe, most scientist tend to believe there is alien life in some form in many places within our universe. How does the Bible handle this regarding its teachings?
Aces, my only hope when discussing things like this is for each of us to see the other person as reasonable on some level. So that's cool. The Bible doesn't make a statement on alien life forms one way or another. I don't assume that to mean the Bible says they don't exist. It's all in the who knows category to me. I think CS Lewis had the best viewpoint on this subject actually and he wrote 3 books that demonstrate this viewpoint. They are fictional but very interesting reading. If interested they are called "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength".
Good thoughts and discussions on this thread. I have to admit that I've always been puzzled by people who would argue that the Bible is no more than a series of fables, but still believe the story of Jesus. I feel like if we're basically picking and choosing what we believe based on "well that just seems too much"... aren't we basically confining God to our own imagination and limitations? For example... a God who created a universe under ANY circumstances... whether you believe in six days or six billion years... how does that God not get a pass in terms of being able to accomplish things that are outside our frame of reference or natural law?
