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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Tue, 18 Aug 1992 09:30:48 EDT
From:         dave talaga x2752 <talaga@E5SB.OSDHW.SYR.GE.COM>
Subject:      Re: Is the Bible Absolute Truth?
X-To:         CHRISTIA@asuvm.inre.asu.edu

> Dave Talaga writes:
>
> >...If it is true that the scripture, the living word of God, is in error in
 one
> > place, then God himself is no longer perfect...
>

Brad Kaiser writes:

> Huh?  The Bible is a book.  It is translated, typeset, and printed by
> fallible human beings.  It is interpreted by fallible human beings
> (for the most part ... ahem! ;-) ).  For centuries, it was copied by
> hand, by fallible human beings.
>
> It was written by Divinely inspired authors, but those authors
> belonged to a different culture than ours.  They grew up with totally
> different experiences than ours, they spoke different languages than
> we did.  In many ways, their religious experiences were even different
> than ours!

The author of Hebrews writes:

For the word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword,
 it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow;  it judges
 the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  -- Heb 4:12

I have never heard of an attack on the inerrancy of scripture focus on the
 syntatical arrangement of the text; rather, it discredits the Word by picking
 apart the historic, scientific, miraculous, or medical accounts listed therein.
  Yet, the bible says what it says and seems to pay no heed to the potential
 critics who might say "that Red Sea stuff is a bit tough to swallow (I could
 have said "that Jonah thing," but...)."  Why does God insist on doing that?
 Not just once or twice, but over and over.

Brad, you say: "It was a different era.  They were different."  God says their
 struggle was the same as ours, "there is nothing new under the sun," " the
 heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"
 Jason and John say "it's a myth, an embelishment."  Yet, the biblical accounts
 confounds that argument:  a cloud seperated the two camps so darkness was on
 one side and light on the other, the Isrealites passed through the sea on "dry"
 land with a wall of water on either side, wheels fell off the chariots, the
 Egyptians hearts were hardened, and the walls of water collasped on them.
 Darren wants a set of equations that follow a narrow set of logical guidelines.
  God says "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the
 intelligent I will frustrate."  What logical progression could produce strength
 in weakness, riches in poverty, joy in sorrow, life in death?

Among other things, the scriptures are a witness, a testimony to the authority
 and power of God to change the heart made useless by sin.  Through this power
 we have Jesus the Christ, the instrument of that change.  Jesus is the Christ
 not by his death, but by his resurrection (of course I want to believe the sick
 were healed and the dead have been raised.  How else could I believe in a risen
 savior?) and the witness says the greatest miracle is healing the heart.

Now I wonder:  when God told Job to "brace yourself like a man (Job 38:3)," did
 He know what He was talking about, or was He just being cocky?

Dave Talaga
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