Bart Ehrman on Premier Christian Radio

[pw201]

Bart Ehrman recently turned up on Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable programme, talking to Peter Williams, Warden of Tyndale House. You can listen to the programme on Premier's site.

The subject of the programme was Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus (which, confusingly, is also available in the UK as Whose Word Is It?), a book which we've

Comments

Inerrancy

[anonymous]

Gosh, I'd never seen that Chicago thing. How wonderful. I rather liked We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration. This appears to say that they know the bible is inerrant, because it says so. Errm.

The Stoat.

Re: Inerrancy

[pw201]

Christians usually evade claims of circularity by saying that God told them they could trust the Bible, more or less. Not that they necessarily heard a voice from on high, or anything: when I was an inerrantist, I think I thought the Bible was inerrant because I just felt it was right (there's an old newsgroup posting where I say that, more or less, but Google Groups has lost it: perhaps I'll post my own archive at some point). This is what Christians refer to as the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. robhu and I discussed this the last time Ehrman came up here.

Inerrancy

[anonymous]

Oh, and while I'm here: there must be a nice list of well-graded biblical inconsistencies somewhere, and I'm sure you know where.

I'm pretty sure there are two, incompatible, genealogies of Jesus in there somewhere. I can't quite see how the Chicago folk explain that away, but I'm sure they can, somehow.

The Weasel.

Re: Inerrancy

[pw201]

The problem with many Internet lists of Biblical contradictions is that they end up taking the Bible more literally than even most evangelicals think they should, so evangelicals can brush them aside easily. For example, stuff about how the Bible implies pi = 3 is clearly just an example of rounding. In general even evangelicals don't interpret single verses of the Bible as free-standing propositional statements (or they're not supposed to, anyway, although some of them try it if they think no-one's looking).

That's not to say there aren't good examples. An old posting of mine got into some of them.

The differing genealogies in Matthew and Luke represent an internal contradiction (the Bible contradicts itself) where the standard explanation (one of the genealogies is via Mary) doesn't really hold up.

The contradiction I mentioned in that posting is an external contradiction, if you like (the Bible contradicts reality). Pretty much everyone you ask who's not an inerrantist (including Bart Ehrman, in his God's Problem, but also more

[stevencarrwork]

What is an error?

Luke says Jesus was 'about 30' Is that an error?

Jesus was born in say 4BC and the earliest he could have started to preach was 27 AD.

That makes him 31.

So is 'about 30' in error?

Obviously not.

What about 'about 31'?

Still not an error.

And 'about 32'. Still no error.

What about 'about 33'? Obviously if Jesus was 31, then 'about 33' is hardly an error?

If 'about 33' is inerrant, then 'about 34' can hardly be considered an error either.

In general, if it is not an error to say Jesus was 'about n', then it is not an error to say Jesus was 'about n + 1'.

One quick bit of mathematical induction later, and we can show the Bible would still be inerrant if it said Jesus was 'about 453' when he began to preach.

One reason the Bible is 'inerrant' is that human language is so imprecise and error can be hard to define.

[ex_robhu]

I found Williams' "You seem to prefer intelligent design over chance explanations" comment particularly funny.