The Words in the Bible are Divine

C1.1) To begin with, if a prophecy is made in the Bible as well as fulfilled in the Bible, the prophecy is not untrue. Next, my opponent argued that Isaiah was written by at least two different people. However, there are many evidences that prove this false. For example: Isaiah 6 still talks about the fall of Babylon and the return of Israel in a prophecy that he could not possibly have known 150 years earlier. Also, different parts of Isaiah talk about the present as being before the exile. For example, 57:7 talks about child sacrifice, which had been ended by the captivity. Numerous passages from the new testament also all talk about Isaiah having been written by one author. Finally, there is not enough writing in Isaiah to be able to do the necessary style analysis to in any way prove that Isaiah has multiple authors. If you would like to read more, see this article by Jonathan Sarfati [1]. Also, my opponent makes the claim that the majority of biblical scholars agree that the latter part of Isaiah is written by a different person. It is true that his Wikipedia article says that some biblical scholars throughout history have had ideas that Isaiah was written by multiple people, it is most definitely not the current consensus. In conclusion of this contention, my opponent's argument against my argument about Cyrus was all bunked up with "evidence" from a Wikipedia article who's "evidence" was blown out of proportion. Also, the "evidence" he presented is not true because there is little evidence that says that Isaiah was written by multiple people, but there is massive amounts of real evidence that Isaiah was written by one author. C1.2) Now, this is part is a much more interesting debate. The Bible says that its words are "God-breathed." To understand this, we must look at what this means from a cultural perspective. Back in the day, there was a very noble profession called a scribe. These scribes, what they would do, is they would take notes for important people, much like we can take voice notes on our phones. Now, writing exactly what someone says, at the rate they are saying it, is quite hard. So, what they would do is they would shorten the text in many ways. These include, but are not limited to: using shorthand, leaving out useless words and phrases, and paraphrasing. These texts were not the exact, precise, to-the-letter words of the people the scribes were scribing for, but they were "breathed" by the people being scribed for. All ideas present are the ideas of the important person, but the specific words belong to the scribes. The Bible is much like this. The important parts of the Bible are the ideas, not the specific words, (especially of the translation). I am not saying that there are no words that came directly from God. Just as when you take notes, you write down important phrases because you have to get them right, the Biblical "scribes" had specific phrases put into their writings. [2] For example, there are specific words in the Bible necessary to give the exact meaning that they need to have. Generally, to unlock these meanings, someone has to be using a literal translation, a concordance, Strong's numbers, and a variety of study materials, simply because not everyone learning the Bible speaks both Ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew. You argue that the translations make them no longer the words of the living God. Different translations of the Bible may use slightly different wordings for the same passage, but the exact wording is not as important as the meaning of the words. C1.3) God could have punished the Amalekites like he did Sodom and Gomorrah, or to wipe them all out by a plague, or have foreign raiders destroy them and leave, but he decided to have the Jews punish them. Also, the worst argument anyone could possibly make against the Bible is an "I think" argument, which my opponent said "I would put forth that it is in fact still murder and the fat that God told them to do it does not make it any less murderous." The problem with these arguments is that, humans are flawed, and we use flawed logic and emotion. A person thinking that it is wrong for God to punish humanity with cancer is saying, "I, who am flawed, would make a better God than God, who is perfect," which by no means makes cancer wrong. Now, I'd love to answer every single contradiction on the website you posted, but, alas, I do not have the space to do so. I will, however answer the "contradiction" you put forth. First off, you need to look at the context of the passages, and have background knowledge about the people present and spoken of. The most basic answer I can give is that: The Holy Spirit is responsible for letting us repent. Earlier in those passages you mention, there are phrases about repentance. So, most basically, to be forgiven you must genuinely repent. If you tick off the Holy Spirit enough, he might just permanently harden your heart. If you have a permanently hardened heart, you will never repent of your sin, and therefore, you will not be forgiven of your sin. So, all sins are forgivable, but they are only forgiven when you genuinely repent. What makes blaspheming the Holy Spirit so unforgivable is that he can prevent you from repenting. For more information, see [3]. So, there are no contradictions in the Bible. All things that seem like contradictions are just the result of lack of research and taking passages out of context. C2.1) Let me put this in a corollary: I assume you know these two facts, that there are twelve disciples (including Barnabas, excluding Judas), and that twelve men were involved in the Watergate scandal. I am going to talk about the Watergate people first. Without a doubt, these people were professional liars (they were politicians). You would expect them to be able to hold a secret for at least some time. Except, within a couple weeks, they were already breaking down mentally, even though the investigation was not pointing towards them. They all ratted each other out so quickly that you couldn't tell who did it first. Now, lets look at the twelve disciples, who knew Jesus on a personal level. They knew everything he believed, everything he did, and everything he was. They knew this on such a great scale, that when put on the scale of, just tell us one time Jesus did SOMETHING wrong and if you don't you will die, every single one of them died. That goes against human nature in its entirety. If you look at human nature, you get the Watergate scandal. The people involved in the Watergate scandal simply wanted everyone else to go to prison. The disciples believed in Jesus so fiercely, that they were executed for it. Nobody is willing to die for a lie. Because nobody is willing to die for a lie, either: the disciples were insane, or Jesus really was the Christ. There were no advantages to die, and every advantage for living. They gained nothing by death and gained everything by life. Yet they chose death, because, in reality, nothing was to be gained by life, and everything was to be gained by death. C2.2) My argument is not that the Bible has had an impact, but that no book in the world has ever had or is having or will have an impact that is of the sheer magnitude the Bible has. A book can change the world, yes, but no earthly book can change the world in the ways the Bible did. C2.3) Actually, the argument is not based upon false information. Like I said, there are no real contradictions in the Bible, just those that seem to be contradictions as a result of lack of study or misinterpretation by the reader. There is literally a book on every single "contradiction" you could possibly find in the Bible. My opponent should do his homework before making this argument again. C2.4) Just like my previous argument, my opponent needs to do his homework. Find something you don't believe is historical fact in the Bible, and research it. Creation.com is a great resource that will almost definitely have an answer for almost every question anyone could ask, and if they don't, email them. They will get back to everyone with a viable answer. My opponent fails to realize that when something is mentioned in the Bible, it is there. There is no city, town, place, or anything that is not there when mentioned by the Bible (except for Sodom and Gomorrah, which were completely and utterly destroyed, and even those we know where they are (the Dead Sea)). In conclusion, my opponent has failed to present any evidence that unequivocally states that the Bible is not divine. He has made three arguments about this resolution: Prophecy, Translation, and Interpretation. [1] http://creation.com... [2] http://creation.com... [3] http://www.desiringgod.org...