But if the Bible isn't the word of God then what is it worth? And if it is the word of God then how could there be an error?
If there is an error, wouldn't you need to take the book out of the Bible?
And if Genius is not a holy book, then why was it referencing Christ thousands of years before we was born?
He was born* im mean
@trump2020maga1 Independent of whether the Bible is the word of God or not, it still contains historical accounts/evidence that scholars still recognize. But my question was hypothetical. IF the Bible does contain mistakes and errors (but the gospel is still true), then how would that affect your Christian faith/beliefs? Would you renounce it?
Creationists and strict Bible believers: "Hypothetically, IF you found out that the earth truly is billions and not thousands of years old, and that there have been mega floods but no global flood, and that evolution and the Big Bang are true, and humans and chimps share a common ancestor, and/or IF you discovered that there truly are mistakes and errors in the Bible [but the gospel is still true], then how would that affect your Christian faith/beliefs? Would you renounce it?" I don't think one should. I don't think it would be necessary, and think it would be a case of throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. But that's just my take. I'm genuinely curious to know how others (like @Kjav and @TruthMuse) would respond to this hypothetical.
Well, i guess i would need to either concede that the Bibleor at least Genisus isn't the word of God OR i would need to look at the garden story as a allegory.
But i think science does not disprove creation or prove evolution
I wouldn’t be able to believe the Gospel if all I had to base it on was a flawed book.
John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
I haven’t neglected to answer your post #74 from the “Fine tuned” thread, I’ve attempted to respond twice and both times my phone glitched and kicked it off. It was a lot of typing (I’m using a phone) wasted both times. I’ll try again today or tomorrow.
Thanks for your responses @trump2020maga1 and @Kjvav (*Btw, is "Kjvav" short for "King James Version, Authorized Version"? If not or you don't wish to comment, no problem. Just curious.).
As far as the OP, would your answers change under a different scenario? Specifically, imagine for sake of argument that there was no Bible at all, but that we still had ancient documents, manuscripts and such that weren't divinely inspired in any way, but that still gave us historical accounts and evidence that supported the central gospel claims of Christianity the first Christians proclaimed and attested to in the first century. Would your answer change, and if so, how?
I wouldn’t be able to believe the Gospel if all I had to base it on was a flawed book.
John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
I haven’t neglected to answer your post #74 from the “Fine tuned” thread, I’ve attempted to respond twice and both times my phone glitched and kicked it off. It was a lot of typing (I’m using a phone) wasted both times. I’ll try again today or tomorrow.
For once, I think John has a point.
I wouldn’t be able to believe the Gospel if all I had to base it on was a flawed book.
John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?
I haven’t neglected to answer your post #74 from the “Fine tuned” thread, I’ve attempted to respond twice and both times my phone glitched and kicked it off. It was a lot of typing (I’m using a phone) wasted both times. I’ll try again today or tomorrow.
For once, I think John has a point.
But wouldn't you agree that a work need not be perfect and without error (i.e., inerrant) in order to contain historical data? Our own history texts today don't realize such flawless, perfect standards, yet this does not prevent or dissuade us from the general acceptance of such. While the New Testament is different and conforms to ancient--not modern--standards of historiography, modern scholarship can still recover a historical core that is relevant to the central claims of Christianity.
The answer is John 3:12. Why would I (or any man) accept by faith (and you have to) information about the hereafter from a book they is not accurate about the here and now, ot the past?
The answer is John 3:12. Why would I (or any man) accept by faith (and you have to) information about the hereafter from a book they is not accurate about the here and now, ot the past?
John 3:12 is not a reference to the Bible in any way, shape or form
How so? Please explain
If Jesus Christ is the Living Word of God, every thing said in the Bible (which is God breathed) is essentially His Word. There is no separating the two. If you don’t accept the written Word of God, you don’t accept it’s author, God (Jesus Christ). And if you don’t believe the physical claims of his Word, you have no basis for accepting his word on spiritual claims. Essentially you are kidding yourself when you assert that you are a believer. You can’t separate Christ from the Bible anymore than you can separate wet from water.
I get that and appreciate what you're saying. I just don't see how this specific verse in John 3:12 pertains to any of that. John 3:10-11 makes it clear that Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus as the representative leader/teacher of Israel, and then in verse 11 Jesus says to Nicodemus that "ye/you (people)"--it's in the plural, referring to Nicodemus and the Jews collectively--i.e., the Jews don't receive "our witness/testimony." Then Jesus continues speaking to Nicodemus in v. 12 and says to Nicodemus "If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" But the Jews already believed OT Scripture was divinely inspired and of divine origin. They didn't question or dispute that, nor is Nicodemus disputing that here in John 3:12, so I don't see how the "earthly things" that they (Nicodemus/the Jews) are not believing can be a reference to them rejecting or not believing in the Bible (or more specifically, the OT Scriptures).
It was specifically said to Nicodemus in response to his unbelief. It is clear by Christ’s answer what Nicodemus meant when he said “How can these things be?”. He didn’t believe what Christ was saying and Jesus’ response made that clear. The fact remains, if you don’t believe the physical claims of the Bible, on what grounds do you stand in defending the spiritual? That is what Jesus said, in a nutshell.
I agree with you that Jesus' rebuke of Nicodemus for not believing what Jesus says about "earthly things" is referring to Nicodemus' earlier expressed unbelief/disbelief as you point out ("How can these things be?"). Nicodemus asks this after Jesus tries to explain being "born again" of "water and the Spirit" in earthly terms by comparing the Spirit to tangible, physical wind blowing on the earth (that one can see and feel the effects of). Jesus rebukes him for his disbelief (of "earthly things" that Jesus has just told him about in vv. 3-8), and questions how he could then believe in "heavenly things," which Jesus has not talked with Nicodemus about yet. Then, as the next verse makes clear (John 3:13) and continuing on, Jesus then proceeds to do that very thing and tells Nicodemus about "heavenly things"--specifically, that he is the one and only begotten Son of God, and the only one with authority who has actually descended from heaven and then will ascend (on the cross). This claim (about "heavenly things") would be much more difficult for Nicodemus (indeed, any Jew) to accept (and would be considered borderline if not outright blasphemy by many Jews, as we in fact later see in the gospels).
We understand that history books written by human beings might contain errors but still be generally reliable. We won't place 100% confidence in what they say, knowing that they might contain errors, but might place a high degree of confidence in them, knowing that they are written by people who have done a lot of checking of their purported facts and who have taken great care in writing them.
However, if you find one mistake, and then another, and then another, and then another--well, your degree of confidence in whatever else it says is going to go down, unless you've been able to corroborate a specific claim by checking against another source you consider highly reliable.
Similarly, if you find an error in the Bible, and then another, and then another, that is going to lower your degree of confidence in the rest of its claims.
That's first.
Second is that if one believes that the Bible comes from God--say, he supposedly inspired the authors, so that the authors, while writing Biblical text, wrote what God wanted them to--and if one believes that God only tells us the truth--then it's a problem if he finds an error in the Bible. In order not to give up his belief that the Bible comes from God, he'll have to deny that any apparent errors really are errors. Of course, that will be difficult to do if there are any *obvious* errors--but if he's really committed to his belief about the Bible's provenance, he'll have to deny that even the seemingly obvious errors really are errors. Even if the evidence for evolution were overwhelming, if he believed that the Bible stated (or implied) that evolution did not occur, he would have to go on denying evolution--as long as he remained committed to his belief about how the Bible was written.
As a scientist (who is also a Christian), one of my greatest concerns about young earth creationism and those who hold to strict biblical inerrancy (absolutely no errors of any kind in the Bible) is that I think they are needlessly setting themselves up for a fall by placing so much value on these issues to a level of importance almost equal (or somewhat less) than the gospel itself. You have turned these into all-or-nothing, do-or-die positions. You reason, if the Bible is wrong on one point, then how can it be trusted on anything. Yet, you would not write-off an entire history book as untrustworthy for having a single error. This puts great pressure on you. EVERYTHING MUST be true and accurate. NOT A SINGLE ERROR can exist. But what if one does? It still would not change existing evidence pertaining to the life, death, resurrection, and teachings of Jesus and the early first century church. So, here is my question to you:
Hypothetically, IF you found out that the earth truly is billions and not thousands of years old, and that there have been mega floods but no global flood, and that evolution and the Big Bang are true, and humans and chimps share a common ancestor, and/or IF you discovered that there truly are mistakes and errors in the Bible, then how would that affect your Christian faith/beliefs? Would you renounce it?