And I talk to people who assume that the church has always taught that everything in the bible is a fact, and its only because of the corruption of the modern world that we don't believe that anymore. In fact, that's not what the church has always taught. Still, that view of the bible's inerrancy has taken a deep hold on our culture. Historians and theologians alike have suggested that the reason the inerrancy of the bible means so much to so many people is because of our human need to hang on to something, to have some certainties, to have, somewhere, some body of knowledge that is unchanging. I want something to hang on to, also.
Words are ambiguous.
They mean different things in different settings. I might tell you to watch the channel. Tone of voice has everything to do with what words mean, also. I want to set that on my car radio, so I can listen to it also. Tone and setting can mean everything when we try to understand what words mean.