Not equal to a chemical book; equal to a history book. The other day US
News and World Report had a cover story entitled "is the Bible True?" The
apparent surprise in the tone of this question is the implicit assumption
that the Bible wasn't historically true. They seem amazed that it might
have some historical validity.
>
>Incidentally, Matthew 19:8 is not the only teaching of Jesus that modern
>Evangelical theologians would rather throw out than incorporate into their
>view of Scripture. In Matthew 10:17-20 Jesus clearly taught that if a
>Christian were called to account before a council, there was no need to
worry
>about what to say for "it is _not you who speak_, but the Spirit of your
>Father who speaks in you." That is as strong a promise of divine verbal
>inspiration as has ever been made. In Acts 7, Stephen, a Christian "filled
>with the Holy Spirit" (which is virtually the same as saying inspired;cf.
>Acts 6:10, Luke 1:67) is called to account before a council (Acts 6:12); and
>in the process of his defense mixes up the OT history several times (See
most
>any scholarly commentary on Acts). Rather than admitting the obvious, that
>divine verbal inspiration does not guarantee historical reliability,
>evangelical theologians rationalize away the data, some even claiming that
>"maybe Stephen was not inspired" ,i.e, maybe Jesus does not keep his
promises!
The problem, Paul, is that you offer a self-supporting tautology. Believe
that Jesus is God and you don't have to worry about whether or not the
document that tells us of Jesus is true or not when it speaks of Jesus and
his divinity. It ignores the fact that this is not the only
metaphysical/religious position in the world, and that one must have some
means of determining which metaphysical/religious position is true.
Self-supporting tautologies can be very self-deceptive. I know, I was a
YEC once.
>
>With reference to both Matthew 19:8 and 10:17-20 you can see in Evangelical
>theology the placing of an autonomous a priori view of Scripture before
Jesus
>Christ.
>
>As to the resurrecton, Edwin Yamauchi in his usual thorough way addresses
>your question and more in his Easter: Myth, Hallucination or History? found
>at www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html
>George's answer is also very good; and I think also of the debate between
>Antony Flew and Gary Habermas.
>
Of the Yama article: I find his reasoning once again self-supporting rather
than externally supported. He asserts that because the parallels between
the other 'resurrection' religions aren't exact, then they can't be a
source for Christian ritual. The problem with this is that no two religions
have exact parallels. He says that Mithra couldn't have influenced
christianity because of its late spread to the west. However, in the same
paragraph he acknowledges that there are mitraic inscriptions between 69-34
BC in eastern asia minor. Asia minor is not very far from Palestine and 69
bc, even 34 bc is before the christian era. So what he has done is assume
away the problem he has. He has assumed that there can't be any influence
because he doesn't believe that there was. This is a self-supporting
tautology, not an externally supported position.
My point is not to say that the resurrection is wrong, it is just to say
that we can't assume it is true just because we beleive it.
>
>Glenn: And we no longer have these witnesses to talk to. They are all dead.
>Thus
>we must trust Paul to have told us the truth. This means that we trust this
>part of the Bible but not the rest to tell us historical truth? That seems
>oddly convenient. Is Paul more trustworthy than the Creator of the Universe?
>
>Paul: In my view all of the historical accounts in the Bible are contingent
>upon the human sources available. I see no biblical claim which supports
the
>view that God reveals or even corrects (indirect revelation) the history
qua
>history in the Bible. The question is then, What human sources did the
writer
>of Gen 1-11 have available? It looks very much like his sources for the
>history per se were few in number, Mesopotamian, and far removed from his
own
>day. Paul's sources were more numerous, Christian, and contemporary or at
>the worst only one generation removed. It is not convenience, but
>consistency that allows me to place more faith in Paul's history than in
that
>of Gen 1-11.
Then precisely where is the 'Divine' in the divine revelation? If all we
have is human sources producing, via human authors, a human book about a
God who won't correct even the most egregious errors in the account about
Him but who 'makes concessions' to the human's ignorance, what then is so
special about the Bible? It must be more than the fact that we were born in
a christian culture to christian families and we decided to believe what
our parents taught us.
>
>"Is Paul more trustworthy than the Creator of the Universe?" is begging the
>question. I don't see any evidence that the Creator of the Universe
revealed
>any history qua history in the Bible. I think that is the old paradigm; and
>that it is a priori, not biblical.
Then, what you are saying is that the Bible is not really divinely
inspired. God doesn't do anything in the creation of the Scripture. I mean,
if God doesn't reveal history, he doesn't reveal science, how do you know
he revealed any theology? Is it just because we beleive He did, that we can
have assurrance that God revealed his theology? This is self-supporting
tautology.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution