30 pieces of silver
Ray & Sandy Briggs brite1@inetworld.net
Thu, 31 Dec 1998 14:08:21 -0800 (PST) (00915163701, v01530500b2b08566454d@[207.167.115.70])
At 20:57 12/30/98, JAlw@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 98-12-30 16:01:52 EST, you write:
>
><< Subj: Re: 30 pieces of silver
> Date: 98-12-30 16:01:52 EST
> From: brite1@inetworld.net (Ray & Sandy Briggs)
> Sender: owner-errancy@infidels.org
> To: errancy@infidels.org
>
> Joe Alward wrote to Bach:
>
> I don't know how you could think that I don't know that God is supposed to
> have inspired all of the verses; I've made that point emphatically many times
> on this list, as recently as three days ago when I rebutted another member's
> contention that the only way for Mark to have known that the sun had risen
>was
> for him--or someone else--to have actually seen it come up over the horizon.
> I responded that since every word in the bible comes from the lips of God, it
> was obvious that God had told Mark that the sun had risen.
>
> Ray:
> I was the one you are referring to here. I think you misunderstood me
> however. I don't deny that inerrantists think the bible is inspired, but I
> don't think they believe every word was given to them.
>
> What that means in this case is God would not have permitted Matthew to
> make an error like saying a prophesy came from a book it did not come from
> - not that God would have dictated the sentence, at least that is my
> understanding of how this inerrancy thing operates.
>
> Regards, Ray
>================
>Joe Alward:
>
>
>Till insists that this list was set up to debate those inerrantists who
>believe the bible was verbally inspired, to one has the right to claim that
>Mark merely wrote down what God told him.
>
>When I attempted to harmonize a verse by invoking what was jokingly referred
>to as Alward's Inerrancy Doctrine, i.e., the notion that bible-writers did not
>always write down information received directly from god, that they sometimes
>wrote that which was commonly accepted as true, I almost started World War
>III. You may not have been with the list at that time, but my comments
>infuriated Farrell Till, who responded with five-part treatise on inerrancy.
>Till insists that true inerrantist MUST believe that every word in the bible
>came from God. This is what Till wrote:
>
>"In four previous postings entitled "Understanding Biblical Inerrancy," I
>showed that leading inerrancy spokesmen, past and present, have declared
>emphatically that the Bible was verbally inspired of God. As I noted, the term
>"verbal inspiration" denotes that God inspired not the thoughts or ideas in
>the Bible, but THE VERY WORDS THAT THE WRITERS USED." (emphasis mine)
>
Ray:
I think Farrell is right. Your concept doesn't guarantee inerrancy as the
authors could easily make (honest) errors in the re-telling of the story.
My concept (which I got from an inerrantist) guarantees inerrancy but it is
stupid.
I can see now that this inerrantist invented the concept because it makes
the ridiculous harmonizations that inerrantists make up look more
reasonable. He claimed that individual authors used their own information
and viewpoint in writing their stuff and God miraculously insured there
were no factual errors. But if God inspires them to say what he wants them
to generally and then corrects it as necessary to avoid errors, why not
inspire the whole thing? It just makes no sense the other way.
With this freedom of expression combined with miraculous avoidance of
errors technique, we see God looking at the conflicting stories and saying
"well it sure looks contradictory and doesn't make much sense but
considering the crazy way it happened you can't absolutely say they are
factually incorrect or contradictory so I'll let it stand". In other words,
God was the first harmonizer.
Regards, Ray