The Bible - indications of divine inspiration

sephir0th

Has anyone ever encountered an argument that would remotely suggest the Bible wasn't written by various people in the middle east a few thousand years ago?

Galvasean

sephir0th wrote: »

Has anyone ever encountered an argument that would remotely suggest the Bible wasn't written by various people in the middle east a few thousand years ago?

I have not. There is nothing in it that appears representative of an intelligence unfitting of the people who lived at the time.

King Mob

Nope. And it contains stuff that it wouldn't contain if it was in fact the product of divine inspiration.
Examples such as the false claim of how hares chew cud, that pi is exactly 3, that birds and whales existed before land animals and that the sun existed before the other stars and the Earth came before the sun.

All of which we know are false, as would a supreme being, yet there they are.
Not once have I heard an explanation as to why these falsehoods are in the Bible, and the usual excuse of metaphor falls short.

sponsoredwalk

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"

The very first line is wrong ffs...

Sonics2k

Read it a good few years back.

It all comes across as various books compiled together over the course of hundreds of years, each one written by a man with their own personal views.

Not a single part of it reads like it was inspired by an all knowing, all loving, all powerful God.

In fact, not a single religious book does.

coffee_cake

King Mob wrote: »

Nope. And it contains stuff that it wouldn't contain if it was in fact the product of divine inspiration.
Examples such as the false claim of how hares chew cud,

http://pigroll.com/img/sharovipteryx.jpg


guys... guys... you know what else looks like it totally chews cud, hares, put that in, no seriously come on put it in there


I love this site that tries to tackle it

Fourth, and similarly, to the observer at the time, hares did chew cud. So the communication was directed at people who would understand the situation as an observer.

It's almost as if it was written by the "observer" who didn't know any better. :eek:
http://humblesmith.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/rabbits-dont-chew-cud-but-can-we-trust-the-bible/
lol

King Mob

bluewolf wrote: »

I love this site that tries to tackle it

It's almost as if it was written by the "observer" who didn't know any better. :eek:
http://humblesmith.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/rabbits-dont-chew-cud-but-can-we-trust-the-bible/
lol

I like how it tries to say that the bible didn't really say it, but the article somehow fails to explain that the hare is mentioned in the middle of a list of animals that actually do chew cud.

And then goes on about how taking the passage out of context is a bad idea...

RichieC

It says it is...I think.. Might not have even that going for it.

Eliot Rosewater

sephir0th wrote: »

Has anyone ever encountered an argument that would remotely suggest the Bible wasn't written by various people in the middle east a few thousand years ago?

Well no, I haven't, but that's because no one ever suggests that the Bible wasn't written by mortals. If you can produce an example of a worthwhile commentator suggesting that the Bible is the work of a divine being, then the thread would gain some motivation it currently lacks. As far as I know it's the consensus that the Bible was written by "normal people". Muslims insist that the Koran was written by a mortal, too.

King Mob wrote: »

Nope. And it contains stuff that it wouldn't contain if it was in fact the product of divine inspiration.
Examples such as the false claim of how hares chew cud, that pi is exactly 3, that birds and whales existed before land animals and that the sun existed before the other stars and the Earth came before the sun.

Worthwhile examples. The pi=3 one is nice, though the "crime" seems less worse when read in the context:

1 Kings 7:23 wrote:

He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.

That proves is that the author of Kings does not have a formally correct grasp of mathematics, which a God presumably would. But I'm not sure it easily follows that the Bible is illegitimate. The fact that the author is a human wholly accounts for the mistake, and Kings is a historical book so there is no implication that it is the divine word of God?

King Mob

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Worthwhile examples. The pi=3 one is nice, though the "crime" seems less worse when read in the context:



That proves is that the author of Kings does not have a formally correct grasp of mathematics, which a God presumably would. But I'm not sure it easily follows that the Bible is illegitimate. The fact that the author is a human wholly accounts for the mistake, and Kings is a historical book so there is no implication that it is the divine word of God?

Well no I don't think it's an example of the bible being illegitimate, it's just an example of a mistake that an all powerful, all knowing god would not make.
Pi is one of the most important concepts in mathematics, and not something
you'd get wrong.
We wouldn't need to see the exact measurement to the mircometer, nor would we need it in fractions. But there's a big difference between 30 cubits and 31 cubits and a half.
But for a bronze age king who wasn't writing it as the sole source of truth in the universe, 1.4 cubits isn't that important and since he wouldn't know it, he wouldn't care about Pi.

Galvasean

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Well no, I haven't, but that's because no one ever suggests that the Bible wasn't written by mortals. If you can produce an example of a worthwhile commentator suggesting that the Bible is the work of a divine being, then the thread would gain some motivation it currently lacks

What about all of those priests who read from the Bible and say, "This is the word of God?"

ShooterSF

Galvasean wrote: »

What about all of those priests who read from the Bible and say, "This is the word of God?"

metaphorically speaking...

krudler

King Mob wrote: »

Nope. And it contains stuff that it wouldn't contain if it was in fact the product of divine inspiration.
Examples such as the false claim of how hares chew cud, that pi is exactly 3, that birds and whales existed before land animals and that the sun existed before the other stars and the Earth came before the sun.

All of which we know are false, as would a supreme being, yet there they are.
Not once have I heard an explanation as to why these falsehoods are in the Bible, and the usual excuse of metaphor falls short.

the usual excuse is the bible isnt a book of science, and what we know now about the stars and mammals etc wouldnt apply as people back then didnt have the scientific knowledge to back up their claims.

that stuff about jewish zombies, water into wine, healing the sick, floods, and all the other jazz? gospel truth of course.

can anyone think of something written in the bronze age that mankind still clings to as some sort of truth? its amazing how a book that so flawed can still be claimed as being true. why hasnt god bothered updating us with new gospels? since we now have a better understanding of the universe and can chuck out all the wild claims made by middle eastern farmers. or did god decide that was his only divine inspiration period? must have been, cos anyone these days who came out and said god inspired them to write a new gospel for the bible would be seen as a nutter.

RichieC

Making bronze? :pac:

krudler

RichieC wrote: »

Making bronze? :pac:

Keeping Your Bronze Its Bronziest Looking: A Beginners Guide.
Bronze For Dummies.

thats about it :pac:

King Mob

krudler wrote: »

the usual excuse is the bible isnt a book of science, and what we know now about the stars and mammals etc wouldnt apply as people back then didnt have the scientific knowledge to back up their claims.

That is until we get to the bits that an accurate historical record because the bible is written as such :rolleyes:

Peregrinus

Galvasean wrote: »

What about all of those priests who read from the Bible and say, "This is the word of God?"

Well, have any of those priests ever said to you that this means that the Bible was not written by a variety of human authors over a period of a couple of thousand years?

In mainstream Christian (and Jewish) belief, “divine inspiration” does not mean “dictated word-for-word by God”. Nor does it mean “completely and infallibly accurate as a work of both history and science”.

Sceptics who point to scientific or historical errors in the biblical texts as refuting notions of divine inspiration are the sort of people who give scepticism a bad name. It seemingly has never occurred to them that what they are actually doing is refuting their own preconception of what “divine inspiration” means. Having no interest in critically engaging your own preconceptions is a pretty shoddy kind of scepticism.

Ellis Dee

sephir0th wrote: »

Has anyone ever encountered an argument that would remotely suggest the Bible wasn't written by various people in the middle east a few thousand years ago?

No, I have not. And I know I never will. Not a credible or rational argument in any event. But the true believers will continue to delude themselves and attempt to delude others. C'est la vie!:rolleyes::rolleyes:

The Bible texts were certainly not written by monkeys, so they must have been written by people, many people in different places and in different periods.:cool:

Some of the ideas in the texts may have originated in the imaginations of the authors, but most are probably based on oral tales passed down from generation to generation over the centuries, and evolving and changing in the process. In fact, there is very little original in the Bible, because virtually every idea and concept in it is derived from much older thinking in civilisations further to the East, especially Babylon, India and Persia. Look at the Hindu concept of a triad of deities, for example: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer and re-creator and compare that with the Christian Trinity. Also the idea of a god taking a mortal shape, as Christ is supposed to have done, is really only a steal of the much older idea of Vishnu doing the same thing many times, most famously as the avatar Krishna ...

Over time, the texts have been rearranged, compiled in various sequences and, no doubt, altered, edited, expunged and embellished to suit a variety of expediencies, not least political ones. And of course to gain control over people and their minds.

Some of the authors may have claimed to have spoken to or been spoken to by a deity of some kind - in a burning bush or whatever - but they deserve as much credence as the dozens of Irish people, some of the shitfaced drunk at the time, who claim to have seen statues moving back in 1985.

Improbable

Peregrinus wrote: »

Nor does it mean “completely and infallibly accurate as a work of both history and science”.

So for the contents where it has been proving wrong, we're not meant to take it seriously. But for all the stuff in it that hasn't been or cannot be proven wrong, we're supposed to take it seriously?

If it isn't accurate, then how can you use it as a guide for living your life?

MrPudding

Improbable wrote: »

So for the contents where it has been proving wrong, we're not meant to take it seriously. But for all the stuff in it that hasn't been or cannot be proven wrong, we're supposed to take it seriously?

If it isn't accurate, then how can you use it as a guide for living your life?

Seriously, you don't know? His blood pumping organ tells him its true. Everyone knows that when you really really need to know if something is true you don't listen to science, or reason, or logic or any of that silly stuff; no, you listen to your blood pumping organ.

MrP

Penn

The Bible was written by men. However, if these men were not told what to write by God or by a messenger sent by God, then stories such as the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, Abraham sacrificing his son etc could not possibly be true as written in the Bible.

So we're left with 4 scenarios:
1) God/Messenger told the men what to write, which means any inaccuracies in the Bible are God's/Messenger's fault, and as the Bible is referred to as the Word of God, there should never be any inaccuracies - Bible is unreliable
2) God/Messenger told the men what to write, then the men added some stuff of their own, meaning it is impossible to know what was God's words and what was the word of man - Bible is unreliable
3) The men wrote the Bible themselves without any intervention from God/Messenger, using what knowledge they had of what people believed already and what little they knew of science and faith at that time (which wasn't very accurate according to what we know now) - Bible is unreliable
4) The Bible is the literal Word of God and everything is completely accurate and any contradictions or scientific inaccuracies aren't actually there, but are rather due to our lack of understanding - Bible is reliable, but potentially everything we know about maths, language, science and anything else we generally perceive to be a basic truth of the world is wrong

Penn

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, have any of those priests ever said to you that this means that the Bible was not written by a variety of human authors over a period of a couple of thousand years?

In mainstream Christian (and Jewish) belief, “divine inspiration” does not mean “dictated word-for-word by God”. Nor does it mean “completely and infallibly accurate as a work of both history and science”.

Sceptics who point to scientific or historical errors in the biblical texts as refuting notions of divine inspiration are the sort of people who give scepticism a bad name. It seemingly has never occurred to them that what they are actually doing is refuting their own preconception of what “divine inspiration” means. Having no interest in critically engaging your own preconceptions is a pretty shoddy kind of scepticism.

But then how can anything in the Bible be taken as truth?

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. - Leviticus 18:22

Is this what God wanted in the Bible?
Was the author of this passage directed to write this by God?
Did the author write this because he thought it was what God wanted, but he wasn't actually directed to write it?
Or did the author write it because it was what he believed himself, and by putting it in the Bible and claiming it was God's word he could influence others to believe the same.

I don't want to discuss the Bible passage itself, as that's a completely different argument and I only chose it as a well known example. My point is, how do we know this is what God wants? How do we know God doesn't fully accept homosexuality?

Peregrinus

Improbable wrote: »

So for the contents where it has been proving wrong, we're not meant to take it seriously. But for all the stuff in it that hasn't been or cannot be proven wrong, we're supposed to take it seriously?

If it isn't accurate, then how can you use it as a guide for living your life?

I’m not sure that the bible is a “guide for living your life” - at least, not in the sense that you are using the term.

But leave that aside. You might as well ask how any text, any narrative, any story can be useful in helping you to frame your values and take ethical decisions. Once you frame the question in those terms, you realize what a silly question it is. Are, say, the fables of Aesop historically and scientifically accurate? No, not remotely; they involve talking foxes, after all. But that tells us nothing about the moral and ethical lessons that they seek to communicate. Those moral lessons may be useful or valid, or they may not be. But noting that the fables involve talking foxes doesn’t really help us decide that.

Or you could ask whether the novels of, say, Jane Austen tell us anything useful or insightful about the human condition. The novels are false from beginning to end; nothing described in them ever happened, and the people in them never existed. But that doesn’t help us to answer the question.

Or the love letters that (I hope) you have received at various times in your life. Are they historically and scientifically accurate? Does the question matter? Does it even make any sense? And does the answer bear in any way on how you reacted to those letters, what you learned from them, and the life choices you made a result of them?

Historical errors tell us that the biblical texts are not completely reliable as history texts, and mutatis mutandis for scientific errors. They don’t tell us much, though, about the value or significance of the biblical texts as works of philosophy, or ethics, or reflection on the human condition, or as works of theology, or as an account of developing understanding on a variety of issues, or as poetry, or . . . well, as practically anything other than history texts and scientific treatises.

You need to understand that this generation is not the first to spot that the biblical texts contain historical and factual errors. It indicates, for example, that the earth has four corners, yet we have known since pre-Christian times that the earth is more of less spherical. And there are many similar examples. Indeed, you don’t need any scientific or historical knowledge at all to spot the many direct contradictions, large and small, which appear in the various biblical texts. Once we acknowledge all this, there are three possible reactions:

1. Every generation before the present consisted of driveling idiots who couldn’t spot the factual errors and internal contradictions and therefore didn’t see that the bible could not possibly be divinely inspired. Our own generation is uniquely gifted in this respect - and, even then, only some of us.

2. Every generation before the present has practiced a massive communal cognitive dissonance. Although they could spot the errors and contradictions, internal psychological mechanisms prevented them from admitting that the errors and contradictions preclude the possibility that the bible is divinely inspired. Our own generation is uniquely gifted in this respect - and, even then, only some of us.

3. “Divinely inspired” doesn’t mean what some people think it means.

I’m applying Occam’s razor, and coming up with option 3 as the front-runner. How about you?

Peregrinus

Penn wrote: »

But then how can anything in the Bible be taken as truth?

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. - Leviticus 18:22

. . . I don't want to discuss the Bible passage itself, as that's a completely different argument and I only chose it as a well known example. My point is, how do we know this is what God wants? How do we know God doesn't fully accept homosexuality?

We don’t know that. Or, at any rate, we don’t know it from this text. What we know from this text is that the writer(s) which produced it, and the (probably later) generations who came to regard it as inspired scripture, believed that God wasn’t OK with homosexual acts. Which raises the question, why did they believe that? What does this tell us about their understanding of God, and his relationship with his people? What does this tell us about their understanding of human sexuality? Of gender? How did this hang together with their other beliefs? What does it have to say to us, to our understanding of God, of the human condition, etc?

I know you don’t want to debate the particular subject of this text - wisely, since the discussion would inevitably be derailed into a completely different discussion which is already going on in (many) other threads. But you’ve picked an interesting example, because in those other threads that verse is often bracketed with Leviticus 19:19 - “do not wear clothing woven of two different kinds of material”. The point of the bracketing is to illustrate the inconsistency with which modern Christians receive and apply scripture. That’s a fair point to make, but it can be turned around. What it shows is that Christians don’t mechanically read and apply scripture; the notion that it is “divinely inspired” does not require that. They engage with it, by allowing it to raise questions of the kind I throw out above, and by addressing those questions. And that process results in them taking radically different views to the application of Leviticus 19:19 and, say, Leviticus 18:21 (“Do not give your children to be sacrificed to Molek”).

A prohibition on child sacrifice may seem like an ethical no-brainer to us, but that’s at least partly because we live in a world substantially formed by Judeo-Christian values. This text was produced by a society which was surrounded by societies which did practice human sacrifice and child sacrifice, and who (probably) had themselves practiced child sacrifice at an earlier stage in their history. Their determination that this was wrong, and their raising of this into an ethical principle, was a real step forward in ethical thinking.

So, in a short extract from Leviticus, we find an ethical principle with which secular society, and Christianity, would unhesitatingly agree, another which secular society and Christianity both reject out of hand and a third over which our society and, to a lesser extent, Christianity are still divided. (You think only religious people are homophobic? Think again!) The point is that the Leviticus text represents a particular stage in the development of Judeo-Christian moral thinking (and, through Christianity, western moral thinking generally). Christians and Jews believe that the Israelites did have an insight into God and his plan for the world, and that their moral thinking was a reaction to an encounter with divine revelation. Hence the memory of that encounter, as recorded in scripture, is of particular importance and is still something to be taken seriously. But they don’t believe that Leviticus represents what God wants; it represents what the people of the time thought that they discerned God to want. Hence it is something to be engaged with in the light of reason, experience, other parts of the same extended story, understanding, scientific insight, etc. Which explains why they can dispense with the commandment against mixing two fabrics, while still completely accepting and internalizing the commandment against child sacrifice.

I realize it would be a lot simpler if “divine inspiration” meant “this is exactly as it is; now shut up and do as you’re told”. And, from the atheist/sceptic/Dawkinsian perspective, this would be a lot more attractive, since refuting this view would be like shooting fish in a barrel. The awkward reality, however, is that this is not what Christians understand divine inspiration to mean.

There are those who find engaging with the gritty and nuanced reality a bit tiresome, and who prefer to pass their time pretending to shoot fish in a barrel. That’s fine, so long as they understand that they’re only pretending. Otherwise, they could be accused of being in the grip of their own particular God-delusion.

Improbable

Peregrinus wrote: »

I’m not sure that the bible is a “guide for living your life” - at least, not in the sense that you are using the term.

But leave that aside. You might as well ask how any text, any narrative, any story can be useful in helping you to frame your values and take ethical decisions. Once you frame the question in those terms, you realize what a silly question it is. Are, say, the fables of Aesop historically and scientifically accurate? No, not remotely; they involve talking foxes, after all. But that tells us nothing about the moral and ethical lessons that they seek to communicate. Those moral lessons may be useful or valid, or they may not be. But noting that the fables involve talking foxes doesn’t really help us decide that.

Or you could ask whether the novels of, say, Jane Austen tell us anything useful or insightful about the human condition. The novels are false from beginning to end; nothing described in them ever happened, and the people in them never existed. But that doesn’t help us to answer the question.

Or the love letters that (I hope) you have received at various times in your life. Are they historically and scientifically accurate? Does the question matter? Does it even make any sense? And does the answer bear in any way on how you reacted to those letters, what you learned from them, and the life choices you made a result of them?

Historical errors tell us that the biblical texts are not completely reliable as history texts, and mutatis mutandis for scientific errors. They don’t tell us much, though, about the value or significance of the biblical texts as works of philosophy, or ethics, or reflection on the human condition, or as works of theology, or as an account of developing understanding on a variety of issues, or as poetry, or . . . well, as practically anything other than history texts and scientific treatises.

You need to understand that this generation is not the first to spot that the biblical texts contain historical and factual errors. It indicates, for example, that the earth has four corners, yet we have known since pre-Christian times that the earth is more of less spherical. And there are many similar examples. Indeed, you don’t need any scientific or historical knowledge at all to spot the many direct contradictions, large and small, which appear in the various biblical texts. Once we acknowledge all this, there are three possible reactions:

1. Every generation before the present consisted of driveling idiots who couldn’t spot the factual errors and internal contradictions and therefore didn’t see that the bible could not possibly be divinely inspired. Our own generation is uniquely gifted in this respect - and, even then, only some of us.

2. Every generation before the present has practiced a massive communal cognitive dissonance. Although they could spot the errors and contradictions, internal psychological mechanisms prevented them from admitting that the errors and contradictions preclude the possibility that the bible is divinely inspired. Our own generation is uniquely gifted in this respect - and, even then, only some of us.

3. “Divinely inspired” doesn’t mean what some people think it means.

I’m applying Occam’s razor, and coming up with option 3 as the front-runner. How about you?

I'm going to go with 4. Religion is losing its power to do whatever it feels like therefore can't get away with doing and claiming ridiculous things as well as it used to be able to, thus giving a larger proportion of people reason to doubt and the freedom to do so without fear of persecution.

Nobody ever claimed that Aesop's fables were divinely inspired or factual accounts. People DID claim that of the bible though. What exactly are you trying to say, that the bible is a collection of fairy tales?

P.S. Why is it that whenever I try to quote you, I get a ridiculous amount of colour, font and size tags in the quoted section?

sephir0th

Peregrinus wrote: »

In mainstream Christian (and Jewish) belief, “divine inspiration” does not mean “dictated word-for-word by God”. Nor does it mean “completely and infallibly accurate as a work of both history and science”.

I understand that, look at the OP.

Sceptics who point to scientific or historical errors in the biblical texts as refuting notions of divine inspiration are the sort of people who give scepticism a bad name. It seemingly has never occurred to them that what they are actually doing is refuting their own preconception of what “divine inspiration” means. Having no interest in critically engaging your own preconceptions is a pretty shoddy kind of scepticism.

Again, let's not drag this thread into the 'there are mistakes in the bible becuase god didn't directly write it' road.

My question was very simple, so allow me to rephrase:
Is there any text in the Bible to indicate that it is divinely inspired?

Any information that could simply have not have been known by man?
Any accurate predictions for the future that could not have been simply predicted by man alone?

Improbable

sephir0th wrote: »

My question was very simple, so allow me to rephrase:
Is there any text in the Bible to indicate that it is divinely inspired?

Any information that could simply have not have been known by man?
Any accurate predictions for the future that could not have been simply predicted by man alone?

No. No. No.

/thread

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

Sceptics who point to scientific or historical errors in the biblical texts as refuting notions of divine inspiration are the sort of people who give scepticism a bad name. It seemingly has never occurred to them that what they are actually doing is refuting their own preconception of what “divine inspiration” means.

In essence the meaning you are presenting of it however is meaningless. It is yet another method by which the religious say nothing at all, but use a lot of words to say it.

With the magic crackers of communion for example they say the crackers really do change but not in any noticeable way whatsoever... in essence saying "This is exactly the same in every way but it is different I swear".... and to me what we are talking about here is the linguistic equivalent of this.

Essentially calling something "divinely inspired" is to attribute a baseless, evidence devoid and unfalsifiable elevation to something that is perfectly explainable without it.

The cracker is a cracker is a cracker. Claiming it is changed in ways that are entirely baseless, evidence devoid and unfalsifiable adds nothing to the cracker.

Similarly the Bible is a book written by people. Claiming it was inspired by a source that is also entirely baseless, evidence devoid and unfalsifiable also adds nothing to the book.

It would appear to be nothing more than a tactic of packaging and advertising in order to sell the product, or the content of the product, better than other competitors. Is essence: it is just a linguistic trick.

Improbable wrote: »

P.S. Why is it that whenever I try to quote you, I get a ridiculous amount of colour, font and size tags in the quoted section?

Quite often it is a trick performed by people who do not want to be disagreed with / replied to so they make it as tiresome and irksome as possible in order that you will get bored and wander off, leaving them essentially unchallenged.

MrPudding

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Quite often it is a trick performed by people who do not want to be disagreed with / replied to so they make it as tiresome and irksome as possible in order that you will get bored and wander off, leaving them essentially unchallenged.

Or… He wrote the post in word. I often find the same thing happens to my posts after I wrote them in word and do a copy paste. Not intentional on my part.

MrP

nozzferrahhtoo

Hence my care to qualify it with "Quite often"

Dades

So far I've gathered:

The Bible is not divinely inspired, it's moral message changes over time, and it is very much open to interpretation.

So why is there one in every hotel room in the Western World?