A Word from Mr. Lim: Forwarded from CCBE

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> Matthew Bell

> Nothing like moving the goalposts!! CCBE don't need to show that it can

> only mean similar and not exactly in the passage, only that the meaning we

> have taking is possible. You would be wasting your time and effort if you

> took that line, indeed any line which does not counter the two Hebrew

> scholars who support out understanding of the meaning of 'ken'.

>


Achilles
Just where do you get the idea that all that is necessary to prove your case
is
to show that it is, in some remote way, *possible*? This is a common
fundamentalist position, and I confess even having been raised one I have
NEVER
seen any sense to it.
[snip]
Possible is a word that can be applied to any proposition which does not
contradict itself. Just because a proposition is *possible* does not mean
that
it is probable.

POOBAH
You stole my thunder with your excellent post. For any area of belief there
seems to be a basic axiom: believers only require a *possible* explanation,
skeptics require a *probable* explanation. The irony, of course, occurs when
one is a skeptic in one area but a believer in a very similar area, such as
being skeptical about an angel visiting Joseph Smith but not of one visiting
Mary...

I would argue that when it comes to biblical contradictions, it isn't even
enough for the literalists to prove that their explanation is *probable*,
they must prove that their explanations are the *only* reasonable
explanation.  Here's why:

I hear numbers bandied about such as there are 200 documented discrepancies
in the Bible - I think that's probably a low number. Take a look at Gleason
Archer's book and count his list of explanations for another number. Let's
use 200 as a conservative figure. Even if an apologist gives explanations
for each of the 200 discrepancies that are 99% probable (and I think most
reasonable people would agree that many of these "rational harmonizations"
are far less probable than that), the odds of *all* of them being true
(since that is what is required for inerrancy) are only 0.99^200 = 13.4% or
almost 7:1 against!

In other words, unless the literalist gives iron-clad, absolute
explanations - not possible, not probable -  for *every* discrepancy, the
odds still are that the Bible isn't inerrant. Every time an inerrantist
utters the word "possible," he erodes his position.

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