David777
Well-known Member
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This thread is for those looking for realistic ways to interpret The Bible, specifically Genesis, in this science and technology era. It also goes a ways towards understanding why modern Christianity has misinterpreted scripture and why.
Most Christian denominations, especially Protestant in the USA over recent decades, have been dealing with an accelerating loss of followers. One of the prime issues has been increasing doubts on the reliability of the Bible usually termed inerrancy or infallability. It is of dominant importance for anyone reading and trying to interpret the Bible. Until recently, most of the debate has not been among laity but rather in the background among religious authorities and scholars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible "is without error or fault in all its teaching" or, at least, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact"...
A formal statement in favor of biblical inerrancy [for many Protestant denominations] was published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in 1978...
According to H. Chaim Schimmel, Judaism had never promulgated a belief in the literal word of the Hebrew Bible, hence the co-existence of the Oral Torah...
By the time of the Reformation, there was still no official doctrine of inerrancy. For Martin Luther (1483–1546), for example, "inspiration did not insure inerrancy in all details. Luther recognizes mistakes and inconsistencies in Scripture and treated them with lofty indifference because they did not touch the heart of the Gospel...
Christian denominations increasingly embraced the inerrancy position after St Augustine wrote the following that shows this was about concern for interpretation of dogma.
In response, Augustine rebuked Jerome's interpretation and affirmed that the scriptures contained no mistakes in them, and that admitting a single mistake would shed doubt on the entire scripture.
It seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. . . . If you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement ... there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, . . . the author declared what was not true (Letters of St Augustine 28.3)...
That 1978 decree was fine until this modern science and Internet WWW era because much hidden scholar debate over centuries is now out in public online available to anyone web searching. There is no longer effective ways to hide from many overwhelming science truths. The below lecture by an acknowledged expert is a way for the rest of us to look at new ways of interpreting arguably the most attacked Old Testament book, Genesis, with much also valid for the rest of the Bible.
Origins Today: Genesis through Ancient Eyes with John Walton
Most Christian denominations, especially Protestant in the USA over recent decades, have been dealing with an accelerating loss of followers. One of the prime issues has been increasing doubts on the reliability of the Bible usually termed inerrancy or infallability. It is of dominant importance for anyone reading and trying to interpret the Bible. Until recently, most of the debate has not been among laity but rather in the background among religious authorities and scholars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy
Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible "is without error or fault in all its teaching" or, at least, that "Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact"...
A formal statement in favor of biblical inerrancy [for many Protestant denominations] was published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in 1978...
According to H. Chaim Schimmel, Judaism had never promulgated a belief in the literal word of the Hebrew Bible, hence the co-existence of the Oral Torah...
By the time of the Reformation, there was still no official doctrine of inerrancy. For Martin Luther (1483–1546), for example, "inspiration did not insure inerrancy in all details. Luther recognizes mistakes and inconsistencies in Scripture and treated them with lofty indifference because they did not touch the heart of the Gospel...
Christian denominations increasingly embraced the inerrancy position after St Augustine wrote the following that shows this was about concern for interpretation of dogma.
In response, Augustine rebuked Jerome's interpretation and affirmed that the scriptures contained no mistakes in them, and that admitting a single mistake would shed doubt on the entire scripture.
It seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. . . . If you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement ... there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, . . . the author declared what was not true (Letters of St Augustine 28.3)...
That 1978 decree was fine until this modern science and Internet WWW era because much hidden scholar debate over centuries is now out in public online available to anyone web searching. There is no longer effective ways to hide from many overwhelming science truths. The below lecture by an acknowledged expert is a way for the rest of us to look at new ways of interpreting arguably the most attacked Old Testament book, Genesis, with much also valid for the rest of the Bible.
Origins Today: Genesis through Ancient Eyes with John Walton