Well?? How would YOU respond to these fellows??
This is what so many skeptics find so frustrating about Christians when discussing the Bible.
I can’t say I blame them if these are the responses they get.
What say ye, faithful Dojo readers?
How would you respond??
Please share some things you’d say or points you’d make in the comments section below!
JM
Categories: Biblical Theology, Blog, Hebrew Bible, Ministry, New Testament, Random/Funny, Theological issues
Here is what I would say:
The Bible is inspired, not infallible. There are passages in the Bible which represent a culture that may, (at times) seem morally repugnant to us. And there are at times, passages which ARE morally repugnant.
Some of the Bible RECOUNTS things that have happened, rather than God commanding them to happen.
But even allowing for that, there are many verses which are completely indefensible.
This is because the people that wrote the Bible, though they were inspired by God, still had free will. There is still bias in the Bible just as there is bias in the newspapers. Sometimes that bias can come through in a very, frankly, xenophobic or even racist way. When God commands people to kill legions of Amalekites, did God really inspire people to do that? Or did God simply tell the Israelites they could defend themselves, and they got a little carried away and justified it by claiming God told them to?
The moment a person enters the equation, so does bias. We are only humans and we are fallible humans. The moment we have a thought it is fallible.
Most people on both side of the aisle can’t hold in their mind the complex idea that God could have really sent a message to people on Earth and that humans could have transmitted it inaccurately, or could have introduced bias.
Either it’s 100% perfect, accurate and true in all things (say the fundamentalists) or it’s 100% useless and false (say the Atheists).
The reality is that, anyone, anywhere that is inspired, big or small, whether it’s Martin Luther King having a Dream or you buying a present for a needy child: all these thoughts are biased. All our actions are biased. They are not perfect.
The Bible is not perfect. The Bible is not God. Humans are not perfect, humans are not God.
We receive perfectly true messages: we transmit those messages. The source code is fine, it’s the transmission that’s not always perfect. But is an imperfect message better than no message at all? Of course it is.
All human communication is inaccurate, imperfect. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t talk to each other, and that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t inspire us.
by Chris Bowers on May 29, 2012 at 4:52 am