The Bible contains errors and contradictions, and it can therefore not be the word of God

Thanks, Pro, for this debate. I will defend the Bible as a religious book, but not as a textbook of cosmology or perfect chronology. I'll begin by pointing out that this resolution would only apply to those who take the Bible literally, word for word. However, most Christians do not take the Bible literally, and so we'll consider my other arguments in defense of scripture as being the word of God. I'll first note that the biblical authors were supposed to be inspired by God, which does does not mean that they are perfect beings who never made mistakes. No reasonable person is claiming that God Himself wrote the Bible, dictating every passage unto the ears of the authors. The details of what they wrote often came from their own memories or what they heard from other people. Remember that Christianity survived through oral translation for a very long time. Now consider a typical game of "Telephone." The point here is that some details will obviously become skewed or misinterpreted along the way. The great thing in the Bible's defense is that the errors Pro has pointed out are minor - such as an added or subtracted zero from the end of a number - and in the end don't negate anything of substance that the Bible offers as a moral or religious lesson. There certainly are occasions where the authors heard directly from God (Jesus), and then you could say that this information came directly from God (as Jesus was a physical manifestation of God); however, most of the Bible was not written down as a first hand account. Additionally, passages are contradictory only if there is no possible way for both passages to be true. One does not need to prove the truth of both passages in order to claim that they are not contradictions, but only to come up with a reasonable way that the two passages could both be true. Only if it is impossible for both passages to not be true do we have a contradiction. So, let's examine Pro's proposed contradictions and see if they hold up. a) First, Pro introduces one passage claiming that Solomon had 40,000 stalls for horses, and another claimed he had 4,000 stalls. Is this a contradiction? Not necessarily. If Solomon had 40,000 stalls, then he also had 4,000 stalls, meaning that both of these statements would be true. Plus, this is an extremely minor error which I will discuss later on in my evaluation. b) The next example is similar - was Ahaziah 22 or 42 years old when he ruled? Did Arah have 775 or 652 kids? Well, I could easily make a metaphorical semantics argument here, but I'll refrain. Instead, I'll attribute this contradiction to a minor error in translation, either from the authors or interpretations. The thing is, you don't know which one's at fault here. Plus, the probability of an error in translation is most likely. Even a bible literalist probably would not agree that one had around 700 children. Instead, "children" was probably a loose interpretation for a word that meant family, students, followers, etc. The point again here is that the moral and religious lesson of the Bible is not changed or deemed contradictory by this minor error. c) Next let's dissect this verse, "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also." Pro says that this is an error because the lesser light is referred to the moon, and the moon does give light, but it is not is own light, and a luminous body is one that gives its own light. First of all, luminous merely means radiant and does not necessarily imply that something luminous gives off its OWN light, but merely some light, making Pro's statement here false. Second, I fail to see any scientific problem with that verse at all. The moon DOES light the night... so what's your point? d) Next, Pro lists, "And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you." He says that this error occurs because hares do not chew cud. However, ignoring the fact that what's been interpreted as 'hare' and 'cud' are probably mistranslations, the fact of the matter is that Pro cannot prove that the hares were not chewing cud in this particular story. I mean, humans don't eat grass on a regular basis, but that doesn't mean if I retold a story about a human eating grass that it wasn't true. 3) In regard to the earth being conveyed as flat, I'll say this -- Simply saying "the four corners of the earth" doesn't imply that the earth is flat. Instead, it's a figure of speech that simply means spanning the entire world. I use this phrase all the time, i.e. "I would go to the four corners of the earth for you." Not to mention that the four corners of the earth probably referred to specific landmarks, but I digress. I'll move on to Pro's final cited example of this error when he notes, "Say among the heathen that the LORD reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously." He says that this is a flaw because the earth DOES move. However, the purpose of this passage wasn't to convey a scientific reality. Instead, as noted in the Kings James version of the Bible, the point of this message is to say that the Lord reigns over all, and that the earth (people) should stand firm in this regard. In conclusion, we must acknowledge that as the instigator, Pro has the burden of citing specific inconsistencies in the Bible that challenge the legitimacy of God's word -- not merely point out translation or typo errors. So far he has not challenged any of the lessons taught by the Bible, but merely pointed out minor errors that have nothing to do with the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. As I said, no sane person would argue that the Bible is perfect in terms of its syntax; it's the message that's important. The reason you should accept my theory about mistranslation is that the Bible is not considered to be perfect from human err, just God's err. In fact, many note the numerous misspellings in the Bible just as proof that if you can misplace words, you can easily misplace numbers as cited in Pro's examples. For instance, "Blessed are the place-makers (instead of "peacemakers"), Matthew 5:9 and "Printers (instead of "Princes") have persecuted me without a cause, Psalm 119:161. So ya see, since the flaws Pro has presented are minor typos, they do not hold any water in this debate. Moreover, as I said in the beginning, I am defending the Bible as a religious book - not a history or science book. Inevitably there are going to be some mistakes from the humans who wrote it, because they penned the good word at a time where science presumed certain things to be true (i.e. that the earth was flat). However, one most wonder if these mistakes really hinder the ultimate message that the story conveyed. Is noting "the four corners of the earth" is wrong because the earth has no corners really a legitimate argument negating God or the Bible? Nay. References: [1] http://www.kingdavid8.com... [2] http://www.religionnewsblog.com...