I found his statement to be utterly unremarkable. People are entitled to believe what they will and I am well aware that many Protestants believe the Bible is not only inerrant but literally true. I am aware that a not insignificant number of Protestants believe the King James Version is a divinely inspired translation. That Catholics and Protestants don’t believe all the same things should not be a huge shock to anyone.

It’s not accurate to label this as a ‘protestant / catholic’ issue. There are plenty of protestant denominations (probably more than not) who don’t think that every word in the bible is literally true. I doubt that there is polling data on this, but on an individual basis, I’m sure that the people who believe that all of the bible is literally true, comprise a pretty small part (20%?) of Americans who describe themselves as Christians.

I don’t think that biblical inerrancy is the same thing as bibilcal literalism. I’m not even sure that absolute biblical literalists even exist. I mean, does anyone think that the sun revolves around a stationary earth?

Yes.

http://theflatearthsociety.org/

The Bible doesn’t say that and the Galileo argument is a tired one which isn’t even historically accurate.

And yes, we read the Bible literally. However, one is to take into account the type of literature you are reading. Historical text is not the same as prose.

http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-literal.html

Your hermeneutics are terrible. This is basic stuff. The passage isn’t talking about the science of the earth’s rotation but the meaningless of life. We still talk about the sun setting and rising in those terms even though we all get a basic understanding of astronomy in grade school.

Good grief man. No wonder we are so messed up. People don’t even know basic rules of Biblical interpretation.

I saw the sun rise this morning and I saw the sun go down last night. What is your point?

Ummm….you applied the meaning that the sun revolves around the earth. The passage you mentioned does not literally say that does it? Just as it would be absurd to accuse modern day weather persons of geocentrism because they give us the time of sunrise and sunset, it is likewise absurd to claim this passage means the sun revolves around the earth.

Of course from our vantage point…it does. But I don’t want to get into a long discussion on relativity.

It’s arguments like this that reveal how actually Biblically illiterate some anti-Christian folks are.

Bible Old Testament 101, the old Testament is divided in to X main section: the Pentateuch, the Histories, Poetry, Major Prophets and Minor Prophets. These groupings are both thematically linked, and stylistically linked as well.

Ecclesiastes is a book of poetry, and a more modern classification would call it a poetic, philosophical treatise on the meaning of life. Nobody who argues in Biblical Inerrancy believes for a moment a poetic book is going to speak in anything other than poetic language, which is not going to be 100% accurate to the scientific way the world works.

As further evidence that the books of poetry are meant to be taken as poetic, rather than literal, is the Song of Solomon, which tradition holds was written by Solomon like Ecclesiastes. That is, unless you consider the Beloved to be some sort of strange chimera-like being.

Do you hold the poetry to rigorous scientific scrutiny when it’s describing the sunrise, or the life of a flower? Hardly. You also must take the context of the verse into account. Ecclesiastes 1 is about how life is meaningless, and repetitive. To put it into context, with just the verse before and after:

“4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.”

Yes… we are dealing with a very hard scientific statement there… one that MUST be evidence that the Bible can’t be accurate…

Sheesh…

There are no contradictions in the Bible. The Bible should be interpreted literally. Otherwise, what’s the point?

http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-literal.html

There is no error or contradiction. The apparent contradiction of the geneology of Jesus has been explained so many times I would be surprised if you had not encountered an explanation.
King Baasha is explained within the text since one text says the reign, which indicates a different time period.
Any good commentary would explain this.
There are no contradictions.

You forgot your ball.

You misunderstand the purpose of ancient and royal genealogy. Those genealogies are not meant to reflect every person in them but rather to make a larger point by who is included. The Matthew genealogy is grouped in sets of seven and fourteen to demonstrate completeness and that Christ came in the fulness of time. Matthew also include women like Ruth and Tamar to make a larger point about the inclusion of the Gentiles in the genealogy.

The genealogies certainly have a theological meaning when understood correctly. It is important to Matthew, writing to a Jewish audience, that Jesus is seen as the descendant of Abraham and David. It is important to Luke, writing to the Gentile world, that Jesus is seen as the descendant of the first Adam and thus the seed of woman promised in Genesis 3:15.

The gospels themselves are not straight chronological narratives but rather real events shaped to make a distinct point.

I read the discussion thread twice.

In your post to which I responded, you said: “Does any of this have any theological meaning? Not unless you believe the Bible doesn’t contain errors and contradictions.” By “this” I assume you meant the previous paragraph and thus included the genealogies of Matthew and Luke in your question about theological meaning. I simply pointed out the meaning. If you already knew that, then why did you ask the question?

One final question, how do you know the resurrection actually happened? Perhaps it was allegory or a parable to demonstrate man’s need for renewal. We do not have the original documents so how do you know the story of the resurrection has not been corrupted or added by later writers. Mark and Luke wrote their accounts based on oral traditions. How do we know those traditions were not corrupted?

There aren’t two “different” creation “stories.” And the OT does not contain a great deal of allegory. Most of the OT is historical text and was read by Jews as such.
That Catholics and Protestants don’t believe the same things shouldn’t be a huge shock, not because of the version of the Bible, but because even a rudimentary knowledge of history will tell you that the Reformation was all about theological differences.
All Protestants believe the KJV was divinely inspired. It is easy to see through the lens of history. What you are talking about is King James Onlyism, which says that the King James Version is the only divinely inspired English translation and thus, is the only version acceptable for use today. Very few Christians believe this and no Protestant denomination, that I know of, endorses this view. This view belongs strictly to a very small subset of independent Evangelical churches.

1. There are not two accounts of creation in Genesis, but the entire explanation is simply too long to post, so here’s a link. https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/162-critical-theory-attacks-genesis-1-and-2

And from https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1292-is-the-language-of-genesis-1-merely-metaphorical:

Edward J. Young (1907-68) was a world-renowned Old Testament scholar who taught for more than 20 years at Westminster Theological Seminary. In his book, Studies in Genesis One, professor Young wrote:

“Genesis one is not poetry or saga or myth, but straight-forward
history, and, inasmuch as it is a divine revelation, accurately records
those matters of which it speaks” (105).

Dr. Young then introduced three arguments to support the claim of the literal, versus a figurative, nature of the document. (1) Chapter one is the foundation for the rest of the book — which clearly reflects literal history. (2) The recognizable traits of Hebrew poetry are conspicuously absent. For a poetic account, see Job 38:4ff. (3) The New Testament documents (including the testimony of Christ) regard Moses’ creation account as having taken place literally.
Christ grounds the legitimacy of the marriage covenant upon the creation record. He further argued that the creation of Adam and Eve was at “the beginning of the creation” — not billions of years later (Matthew 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-22).

2. A response to the literal vs figurative.

Words must be interpreted literally unless the sense implies an impossibility.

Words must be interpreted literally unless the sense implies a contradiction.

Words must be interpreted literally unless the sense implies an absurdity.

The nature of a biblical book may provide a clue, suggesting that the student is to watch for an abundance of figures of speech.

See further explanation at https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/694-how-do-i-distinguish-the-literal-from-the-figurative.

3. The American Standard of 1901 version of the Bible, my preference, is meticulously precise in its word for word translation.

And that is the point. If your faith relies on the Bible being literally true, your faith is both shallow and brittle.

The Bible, in my view, is inerrant and infallible insofar as it spells out my relationship with God and with my fellow man. It is not infallible or inerrant on genealogies, the length of lives, the order of kings. It is not a history or science text.

Here, here.

I’m not even sure what you are saying. It takes no faith at all to believe in something you can see, like the Bible. It, as Christ tells Thomas, takes immense faith to believe in what you have not seen.

Our faith never requires us to check our reason at the door.

I’m not following you at all. You are actually making my point in the first part and as to excluding Satan based on reason I am totally baffled. Faith and reason work in different spheres. I thought I made my belief clear on that. I believe Satan exists because Christ believed Satan existed.

no I am not. But nice strawman and you burned it very competently.

I

Yet, Christ also taught of Adam and Noah. In fact, Christ clearly accepted the Jewish Scriptures as valid.

I’m not sure what this means.

As Christ told St. Thomas:

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The literal truth of the Old Testament has no bearing on my faith one way or the other.

Please read what I’ve written. My point is that the OT is not a history or science text. To the extent that it describes history or science it is subject to error. The relationship it sets out between God and man is different.

I have no idea what you mean by the “teachings” being invalidated.

There is quite a lot of history in the Bible, and archaeologists, much to their chagrin, keep finding corroborating evidence.

John 1:1 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John was speaking of Christ. The N.T. teaches that pre-incarnate Christ was a key figure in the creation. John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2

The Holy Spirit is part of the who else as well.

Divine inspiration.

Moses did not have to understand what he wrote at the behest of God. Many in the Old Testament and even some of the New Testament writers did not fully understand what they were writing.

Yeah, well, I’m too polite to say what I think you’re making yourself look like at the moment. RMJ asked a question. I gave a Biblical answer.

Further, God spoke directly to his people during O.T. times and told them what they needed to know. They recorded at least part of that for our learning and to provide the messianic prophecies which are abundant in other books besides Isaiah.

Say whatever else you want and pile on the name calling as well. I’m done with this discussion, and I’ve requested that my account be closed.

It does not matter when the theology was settled. The earth did not start to revolve around the sun when the concept of a heliocentric universe was decided.

God as in three persons – a clear reference to the Trinity.

wcp, I’ve always been puzzled by those who claim to believe that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth on one hand, yet they cannot grasp that God, in his infinite wisdom, chose to reboot via the flood after the world turned wicked (or that any number of other events in the Bible are not true). Is our creator all powerful or not? I say yes and that there is plenty of evidence to prove it.

See http://www.apologeticspress.org/ for more on topics such as Creation vs. Evolution, Existence of God, and Inspiration of the Bible.

this is a non sequitur. The issue is not whether God can do anything. He can. The issue is whether He did what is described. Quite honestly, I don’t need to believe much of the Old Testament to believe in Jesus Christ. Indeed, Isaiah is about all I need.

Where do you get God abused Job? God simply knew the heart and faith of Job and allowed Satan to try to break that faith with certain limitations. As the Bible states, he gave him the strength to stand against it, and in the end, he richly rewarded Job for his faith. Big difference between God abusing and allowing hard times and testing via Satan’s persecution.

Must be hard to get on that high horse. NO one said you had to believe anything, nor is your reading comprehension any better than the rest of us. But to state that God abused Job shows maybe you should reread the text and worry more about your own reading than mine.

And since putting words in your mouth has always been a big deal to you, how about you not do it to me. Never said losing his kids, wife, animals, money, health, etc was not of consequence, so not sure where you found the reason to go off onto that tangent. It is a huge issue and would affect anyone deeply. But it still has nothing to do with God “abusing” him or being in a “contest.”

And by the way, you must think God to be pretty small and powerless since you think someone had to be there to record the conversation. It is mentioned many times in the Bible that God himself inspired the Bible and led the men to put the words down that they did. So considering the power of God, one can safely assume that if he wanted us to know what was said, he would give it to us via divine inspiration, same as we get end times prophecy and so many of the other truths in the BIble.