Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ 1 Samuel

[jimwalton]

> If God exists and wrote or in some other way made the book inerrant and wants us to read this book, but provides it in a language he knew would die out, with some words we would only find in that very book and won't provide a modern accurate translation himself then I'm not going to blame the translators.

You seem to be ignoring the necessary reality that life progresses, that people learn and change, and that there is ebb and flow to life. There is no such thing as life that doesn't process or progress. You can't have static history, static language, or static culture. Just look around us. Everything's in flux, and it always has been.

Back when computers were first being developed, new things were coming out every couple of months. A person wanting to buy a computer could buy today, or he could wait until January when the new models came out. But in January, he could buy then, or he could wait until March when the new software came out. He could buy then, or he could wait until summer when the new Intel chip came out. He could buy then, or he could wait until October when the new computer models came out. He could buy then, or...

You get the idea. Eventually have to jump in. So God jumped in, and you fault Him for it. If He didn't jump in, you'd no doubt fault Him for it. Or if He jumped in an froze time, like an Amish thing or something, I would guess you'd fault Him for it.

Instead, God jumped in where He did, and we have the intellect and tools to deal with it: to study, to learn, to translate, and to understand.

> If God can dictate the thing in its original language I don't think it's too much to think he could give ther translators a similar level of help.

He has. It's simply amazing the manuscripts and tools we have at our disposal, the linguistic experts, and the biblical scholars, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, etc. Our capabilities get us extremely close to everything we need to do translation well.

[Chip]

> You seem to be ignoring the necessary reality that life progresses, that people learn and change, and that there is ebb and flow to life. There is no such thing as life that doesn't process or progress. You can't have static history, static language, or static culture. Just look around us. Everything's in flux, and it always has been.

Not at all. In fact I'm not only drawing attention to this but also to the fact that God, if he exists, also knew this, yet choose to write ther book (or dictate to human authors, or "inspire" in a way that still makes them inerrant - I wish someone would clear this up for me) in a language that would change and die, but then after it did failed to provide translation and modern versions that are equally inerrant.

> So God jumped in, and you fault Him for it.

No I don't

> If He didn't jump in, you'd no doubt fault Him for it. Or if He jumped in an froze time, like an Amish thing or something, I would guess you'd fault Him for it.

Or he could to the actual thing I'm faulting him for not doing and dictate some inerrant translations to accompany his inerrant book.

> He has.

He has? Great! So which translation has he dictated that is as inerrant as the original?

[jimwalton]

> that God, if he exists, also knew this, yet choose to write ther book (or dictate to human authors, or "inspire" in a way that still makes them inerrant - I wish someone would clear this up for me) in a language that would change and die

First of all, all language changes. Between 800-1000 words are added to the English dictionary every year, for instance. Second, Hebrew isn't a dead language. It has waxed and waned through history, but it was always there (as opposed to Hittite, Sumerian, or Latin), and is one of the official languages of Israel today.

> but then after it did failed to provide translation and modern versions that are equally inerrant.

Translation is always a matter of compromises. Some terms don't have linguistic equivalents, and others can't be captured in a single word. You must know this. Translators must make decision between literal and functional equivalent. All of the translators have decisions to make about how to best represent one language in another. But you must know these things. They are unavoidable, whether the Bible was given in Akkadian (the lingua franca of its day), French (the lingua franca of its day), or English (the most global language of our day). But you must know this. The translations we have today are amazingly good and quite accurate.

> "So God jumped in, and you fault Him for it." No I don't

Well, that's good. It sure sounded like you did when you said, "If God exists and wrote or in some other way made the book inerrant and wants us to read this book, but provides it in a language he knew would die out, with some words we would only find in that very book and won't provide a modern accurate translation himself then I'm not going to blame the translators." It implies that you blame God (if he even exists, you add).

> Or he could to the actual thing I'm faulting him for not doing and dictate some inerrant translations to accompany his inerrant book.

The translations we have are very good. I guess rather than speaking in generalizations, we should discuss a particular verse or group of verses to find out where the translations are so horrendous to be deprecated as they are by you.

>>> If God can dictate the thing in its original language I don't think it's too much to think he could give ther translators a similar level of help.
>> He has
> So which translation has he dictated that is as inerrant as the original?

You've got this craw in your gut about inerrancy. Let's talk about that.

"Inerrancy" is not a useful term when it comes to the Bible.

"Inerrancy," as a term, has its problems and is inadequate to describe what we're after as we talk about honoring the authority of Scripture. We know for a fact that there are manuscript discrepancies in biblical transmission, so it is often said that original manuscripts (the "autographs") are what we consider to be "perfect," inerrant, or infallible. But if we have none of the autographs, the claim is somewhat of an illusion. Secondly, we know that the ancients had a different scientific understanding than we do, for instance, and that they were writing accurately to their own culture. So is the text inerrant or isn't it? "Inerrancy" just isn't the right term. In the same sense, the ancients' entire approach to historiography (the writing of history) is different from ours, and when we allow for those differences, "inerrancy" is just not a helpful term.

As was written in The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978): "We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage and purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations. These hermeneutical principles are designed to prevent us from demanding mathematical precision from the New Testament but rather historical and theological reliability in terms of the ordinary communication of daily life. This approach leaves some room for discretion while at the same time not calling into question the conviction that the New Testament is true in all that it affirms."

Theologically speaking, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to use a single term that provides an adequate box for us to put Scripture in. All of the words are too limited, and Scripture is too exalted. We use words like infallible, inerrant, and literal to try to declare our deep respect and honor for the authority and divine nature of the Scriptures, but these are man-made words used to refute accusations against the Bible. While we admire the reasons they were coined, further investigation shows us that they don't rise to the necessary height to capture the worthiness of God’s Word.

Our wisest course is to use words that the Bible itself uses to describe itself, and we can find safety and assurance in the adequacy of those terms. Even those words need to be interpreted, however. The first term comes from 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." Paul's points are several, not the least of which is that Scripture has God's authority because God is its source. And because God is its source, we can treat it as having the same attributes that God himself has: objective truth, authoritative information, and reliable guidance. It is to be believed and obeyed.

Being "God-breathed," the Scripture carries the very presence of God and life of God himself. These words have authority and truth, power and presence. "God-breathed" emphasizes a divine source rather than human truth. Is there a difference between human truth and God's truth? Not in a normal sense, since truth is truth, but yes in the sense that our truth is a derived truth, and God's truth is the original and the source of truth. Think of a pool table with billiard balls on it. When you hit the cue ball into another ball, the other ball is not moving on its own power. It's moving because something made it move. The energy it has is real energy, but it's different from the energy of the first ball. And it can't be as much as the original energy; at least some energy was lost on impact. We as humans deal in derived truth (the second ball), but God's Word is Source Truth, objective truth, absolute truth. God is not only the source of truth, He is truth, and the Scriptures are an authoritative revelation of himself. The truth I tell, by contrast, is derived truth. Something else made it true; I'm just passing it on.

Scripture being God-breathed puts it on a different level than anything I have to say, no matter how true it is. His truth, the Bible, carries more weight, more authority, and more authenticity.

In addition, 2 Peter 1.21 says, "For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." Here we see again that God is the sole source, but the authority of the text is vested in the human communicator, which is our only access to God's communication, which is our true source of authority. While the pen was in the hand of a human, the words had both divine source, initiative, authority and reliability.

John Walton and D. Brent Sandy, in their book "The Lost World of Scripture," counsel: (1) We should be competent readers of the text itself (the words, grammar, syntax, context, genre, etc.); (2) We should be ethical readers as we seek to follow what is written, following the path of the intended meaning of the text; and (3) We should be virtuous readers. The Bible is offering an encounter with God, and it expects the reader to be transformed as a result.

[Chip]

To be honest, I didn't read it all, but read some.

> Our wisest course is to use words that the Bible itself uses to describe itself, and we can find safety and assurance in the adequacy of those terms.

To me this seems quite circular, for instance:

2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."


Paul's points are several, not the least of which is that Scripture has God's authority because God is its source. And because God is its source, we can treat it as having the same attributes that God himself has: objective truth, authoritative information, and reliable guidance. It is to be believed and obeyed.

The scripture says it has God as its source. Because it has God as its source we can believe it. And we know it has God as the source because the scripture says it has God as its source. Circular.

Also if we accept that the bible can have errors (which you have) then it is also possible that this also statement is in error.

I'm glad you picked that particular quote actually as many doorstep preachers have said something similar but been difficult to pin down on what they mean so I'll ask the question here:

What does "God breathed" mean exactly?

Does it mean breathed like I would "breathe" the words that I speak? Does it mean heavily influenced, but that human authors got to choose some of the words? Or does it mean loosely inspired by (i.e. in the same way the screening noise coming from the shower room was "inspired" by Britney Spears)?

Please clarify this. Thank you.

Next, we can at most be justified in attributing to a text the same qualities as the person that is responsible text. If this is God, via direct dictation, then the text could be as objective, authoritative and reliable as God is. However humans are fallible and error prone at the best of times (including fallacy/logical errors as well as typing errors), and if the original authors were responsible for choosing the word or researching the stories we must acknowledge that those errors can make the text unobjective, unauthoritative and unreliable.

> Secondly, we know that the ancients had a different scientific understanding than we do, for instance, and that they were writing accurately to their own culture.

That is more of a journalistic understanding than scientific understanding, and if the scriptures aren't verifiably contemporary or not first hand then we should also allow memory failure and "Chinese whispers" to reasons to doubt their reliability.

> We know for a fact that there are manuscript discrepancies in biblical transmission, so it is often said that original manuscripts (the "autographs") are what we consider to be "perfect," inerrant, or infallible. But if we have none of the autographs, the claim is somewhat of an illusion.

And at this point the chain of trust is completely severed. We don't know who wrote the originals, which means we cannot speak to their journalistic awareness, their accuracy, their motives or the quality of their sources, or even say what or who their sources definitely were.

I thank you for your honesty, and for pointing out that Hebrew is still a spoken language (though not biblical Hebrew, which leads to the translation problems already mentioned). You have echoed some of the problems I have with the journalistic quality of the bible, and the supposed inerrancy of the originals, and with translation errors, but I don't see any solutions.

[jimwalton]

> To me this seems quite circular, for instance:

Not really. When a philosopher writes a book, we allow him to define the terms as he is using them. We cannot just assume he will use the words as others have. For instance, when David Hume writes about miracles, he defines what he means by a miracle for us. Defining terms and concepts is an important part of explaining oneself.

On the other hand, we have to have presuppositions or we can't go anywhere with a discussion. Any of us who believe in truth can only define it as, well, what is true, and we believe in it because without belief in it you can't believe in anything.

You can't verify your procedure without first having knowledge, but you can't get any knowledge without first verifying your procedure. Kant would say the only option is to pick one or the other and run with it (choose a procedure that you assume but cannot prove will yield true knowledge, like positivism does with science; or choose some tenets of knowledge that you assume are true even though you can't verify them, which is called foundationalism and is the process used in nearly all of philosophy). The way to verify (or contest) truth in a Kantian system isn't to verify (or contest) the first principles, but to test for coherence: a system based on faulty assumptions (or an inaccurate procedure) will eventually either contradict reality, or contradict itself. And so we are caught in a circle.

> Also if we accept that the bible can have errors (which you have) then it is also possible that this also statement is in error.

I didn't say the Bible has errors or can have errors. I said "inerrancy" is not negated by biblical literary devices or cultural practices lacking modern concepts of precision.

> What does "God breathed" mean exactly?

It means that Scripture has God as its source and was written at His initiative. It is both authoritative and relevant. We can have confidence in it as being the revelation of God to us and for us.

> Next, we can at most be justified in attributing to a text the same qualities as the person that is responsible text. If this is God, via direct dictation, then the text could be as objective, authoritative and reliable as God is.

Yes, and no. God was the initiative and the source, but humans were the agency, language was the medium, and a particular culture was the context. The authority is therefore not in the locution but instead in the illocution. As Walton and Sandy write, "God accommodates human culture and limitations in the locutions that he inspired in the human communicator, but he does not accommodate erroneous illocution or meaning. The authority of Scripture is vested in the meaning intended by the human communicator and given to him by the Holy Spirit, which is guided by an understanding of his illocutions. These human illocutions have authority because they are the means by which God gives his illocutions. We need not be concerned that culturally limited locutions will diminish the Bible’s authority, but we dare not dismiss the illocutions and focused meaning as accommodating error. If meaning that carries authority is derived from the human communicator’s illocution, we dare not supply our own substitute illocutions and meanings derived from the human communicator’s locutions. Likewise, we will not be bothered by critics who present their evidences of error or untrustworthiness in specific passages when we recognize that they are targeting aspects related to locutions (e.g., genre conventions), not to the meanings that can be derived through the illocutions. … The authority and inerrancy of Scripture are not threatened by God’s use of accommodation or by the employment of comparative studies."

> That is more of a journalistic understanding than scientific understanding, and if the scriptures aren't verifiably contemporary or not first hand then we should also allow memory failure and "Chinese whispers" to reasons to doubt their reliability.

Not at all. We are safe to expect that if God's communication and revelation of Himself were to be understandable and meaningful, it would be in the language, figures, worldview, and paradigms of the culture to whom He was speaking. Any good communicator would do this. I was having a conversation with a man from Great Britain a few weeks ago, so the illustrations I used throughout the conversation were tuned to the receiver: the monarchy, the Beatles, Parliament, etc. I conformed my language to his cultural and linguistic context so that I could communicate effectively with him. God does the same thing.

It would be nonsense to expect God to talk to them in our scientific understanding (which will be false by the end of our century, anyway, because of our steep scientific learning curve). As such, we find no new scientific revelation in the Bible. No statements reach beyond their particular scientific understanding. Are they false? No, they are dead-on accurate to the time, place, culture, and language of their delivery. God accommodates His message to communicate clearly to His target audience.

> And at this point the chain of trust is completely severed.

This is a complete misunderstanding. Just because we don't have the autographs doesn't mean we don't have a reliable text. As a matter of fact, since we have 5800 manuscripts of portions of the New Testament, and about 20,000 others in various languages, and since less than 3% of the variant readings have any significance, and since less than 1% are even uncertain to any degree, we can reconstruct the original text with a high degree of probability.

> We don't know who wrote the originals

We have strong cases for the traditional authors in every instance (except maybe 2 Peter, though there's even a reasonable case for that). We pretty much do know who wrote the originals.

> I don't see any solution

The solution is to trust the texts we have. The source is God, human agency was guided for accuracy (Jn. 14.26; 2 Pet. 1.20-21), we have a chain of custody of the teachings, and the manuscript collection and evidence is stellar.

[Chip]

>> We don't know who wrote the originals
> We have strong cases for the traditional authors in every instance (except maybe 2 Peter, though there's even a reasonable case for that). We pretty much do know who wrote the originals.

Ok great, apart from Saul/Paul what could you tell me that has the consensus among historians about the names of one or two of them.

>> I don't see any solution
> The solution is to trust the texts we have. The source is God, human agency was guided for accuracy (Jn. 14.26; 2 Pet. 1.20-21),

Again this is circular. You're saying God is the source for the scripture because you trust the scripture, and you trust the scripture because you believe God is the source.

[jimwalton]

> Too Long, didn't read

You mean you're having a discussion with me without caring about anything I say or doing any research about it? That's not encouraging. Nor is it a way to take a position with any integrity.

> You're saying God is the source for the scripture because you trust the scripture, and you trust the scripture because you believe God is the source.

That's not what I said. I said that's the solution, given the evidence and the reasoning. So you can't just skip the evidence and the reasoning and claim all I said was "Because God said so."

We have a reliable text with historical accuracy, archaeological corroboration, manuscript evidence, cultural consistency, and textual reliability. That's why we trust the text. And because the text has so much credibility and authority, and because we have learned from both research and experience that the text has not only authority, but also truth, and on top of that life-changing power, we credit God as the source.

You don't seem to have read my quote from Kant. It's hard to have a discussion with someone who doesn't care to dialogue.

> what could you tell me that has the consensus among historians about the names of one or two of them.

Well, let's talk about Luke and John. Or maybe you're not going to read it. I dunno.

Luke

• The uniform and unanimous testimony of the early Church is that Luke was the author (Irenaeus, the Muratorian fregmanet, the Bodmer manuscript, Tertullian, Justin Martyr)
• There are numerous technical medical terms in the Gospel, consistent with Dr. Luke as the author.
• The Greek in Luke has a high quality consistent with a Gentile author.
• His sketchy knowledge of Palestinian geography would show he's not a Palestinian.
• He doesn't claim to be an eyewitness, but claims to be a good researcher and accurate historian, which is consistent with Luke as author.
• The author was educated, consistent with Luke as author.
• The title "According to Luke" is on the oldest extant manuscripts.

In other words, everything points to Luke as author. The case for Luke is substantially strong, and the case against is close to non-existent.

John

• Jn. 21.24 points to the Apostle John. John was also a son of Zebedee (Jn. 21.2)
• The writer knew Palestine and its culture well.
• The style of writing is that of a Palestinian Jew
• If it were a forgery, the author probably would have mentioned the name of John to bolster the credibility of the writing.
• Many passages in John have the touch of an eyewitness
• The author seems to write from Jesus's point of view
• The writer had good knowledge of the group of the apostles
• The uniform and unanimous testimony of the early Church is that John was the author (Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Polycarp, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Muratorian Fragment, Tertullian). There is no evidence that the authorship of John was ever in doubt.

That's a small bit of the evidence available.

[Chip]

>> Too long, didn't read
> You mean you're having a discussion with me without caring about anything I say or doing any research about it? That's not encouraging. Nor is it a way to take a position with any integrity.

You're reading to much into this.

This is an Internet forum, not some college degree class where I am under any obligation to do a mass of homework. I may skim a thousand page of the Encyclopedia Britannia, or check Wikipedia (with its flaws), or a quick web search, or I may do none of this. Any conversation we have has to fit in with the time I have available and as such I reserve the right to limit my reading.

> You don't seem to have read my quote from Kant. It's hard to have a discussion with someone who doesn't care to dialogue.

Ok it's clear you put a lot of care and attention into ther previous post, but it was far from succinct. There was even a long cut and paste text drop in there that could have been abbreviated or even just stated from your own point of view instead.

Now this is getting a little too long, so moving on:

> That's not what I said. I said that's the solution, given the evidence and the reasoning. So you can't just skip the evidence and the reasoning and claim all I said was "Because God said so."

I wasn't aiming to summerise your entire reasoning down to just this, but you did use that "God breathed" from scripture to justify belief in scripture as being from God, and that was circular.

Your points about Luke and John are well made, and in Luke's case have increased my layman's confidence that he is the author.

[jimwalton]

> Any conversation we have has to fit in with the time I have available and as such I reserve the right to limit my reading.

Yes, I understand that and agree. At the same time, I have found that when I give abbreviated answers, too much information is missing and then I am criticized for leaving things out. I guess there's no winning this came. I can't leave out information, but I can't write in complete answers either.

I understand about time limitations, but I guess I assume that when you enter a discussion, you want the real and thorough answers, not just sound bites. That's the assumption I work off of, anyway.

> Ok it's clear you put a lot of care and attention into ther previous post, but it was far from succinct.

Yeah, that's because I left stuff out to make it shorter. I don't claim to write like E.B. White.

> There was even a long cut and paste text drop in there that could have been abbreviated or even just stated from your own point of view instead.

It was my own point of view. It was a cut-and-paste from a previous answer to the same question. It was my own work. I didn't want to make it shorter for fear of leaving things out; I didn't want to make it longer for fear of writing a wall of text.

> Your points about Luke and John are well made, and in Luke's case have increased my layman's confidence that her (sic) is the author

Thanks.