On (04 Apr 98) Bob Eyer wrote to Karl Schneider...
 BE> -Even if you do believe every word in the Bible and accept it as
 BE> -the word of God, you should nonetheless know the difference
 BE> -between its strong points and its weak points.  The way you find
 BE> >As a philosophical point, why would a "divinely inspired" work
 BE> >have "weak points"?
 BE> I'm not sure what you mean by a "philosophical point".
 Mostly as a means of staying 'on topic', and also as in discussion
 of how and if *correct* knowledge (which I believe is an element of
 philosophy) might be derived from something which is claimed by
 many to be inerrant but has obvious internal inconsistencies.
 
 BE> However, there are at least two reasons why a work assumed to be
 BE> divinely inspired should also be judged by the person making
 BE> the assumption to be weaker in some of its parts than others:
 BE> (1) Some passages are found only in one place, whereas others are
 BE>     repeated.  The act of repetition must be assumed by the
 BE> person in question to be an indication from God that the passage
 BE> repeated was meant by God to be more important and stronger than
 BE> passages which occur only once.
 Even when it substantively differs from the other version?
 BE> This consideration bears even more weight when one considers that
 BE> the divinely inspired work in question--the New Testament--was
 BE> written by several persons, and these repeated passages are found
 BE> spread over their writings (e.g.  the Gospels).  God must have
 Which, when read horizontally and comparatively show marked
 differences in matters of stated 'fact'.
 BE> inspired them all to write those same passages.  But His
 BE> inspiration must have been weak, where a passage occurred only
 BE> once and in only one Gospel.  If God reached Mark, but not Matthew
 Ah..."Weak inspiration".  That's nice.  (My responses are rhetorical
 and not necessarily directed at you personally. ;>)
 
 BE> and Luke, His failure must have been deliberate.  He must have
 Sounds an awful lot like lying to me...
 BE> intended that Matthew and Luke not write the passage in question,
 BE> notwithstanding that all three authors were writing about the same
 BE> things.
 So the 'divine inspiration' wasn't good enough to make them consistent.
 I see.
 BE> The content of Mark 16.18 occurs only once in the Bible.  In
 Indeed.  There are various responses to this by inerrantists;  one
 of the most interesting of which is the contention that it doesn't
 really belong in the Bible at all.
 BE> Obviously, the passage at Mark 12.30-31 was MORE divinely inspired
 BE> than the one at Mark 16.18.  Mark 16.18 is therefore less divinely
 Now I see!  Some of it MORE divinely inspired!  That's how some parts
 can be 'trusted', and some ignored!  How wonderfully convenient!
 That does, however, cast more than a shadow of doubt on the 'omni-
 potence/omniscient' issue.
 BE> the divinely inspired Matthew and Luke did not repeat it is pretty
 BE> good evidence that God had second thoughts about Mark 16.18.
 Ah.  "Second thoughts".  Got it AFU the first time, eh?
 BE> Of course, none of this implies that God exists.  What we're
 Sure it IMPLIES it.  None of it is any *evidence*, though.
 BE> addressing here are the rational grounds on which the
 BE> Fundamentalist SHOULD believe that some passages of the Bible are
 BE> more reliable than others, notwithstanding that all of them are
 BE> assumed by him to be divinely inspired.
 Well, somewhere in the world, there may be someone with the insight
 and ability to tell what kind of neural misfiring takes place in
 the minds of fundamentalists, but I don't claim to be one of them.
 BE> How, therefore, should WE interpret such a fact?  My answer is
 BE> that the Fundamentalist position is in fact INTERNALLY incoherent,
 BE> i.e., where his assumptions about God and God's inspiration are
 BE> fully granted.  The fundamentalist wants to regard the Bible as
 BE> divinely inspired; at the same time, however, he ignores clear
 BE> signs in the Bible that God's inspiration was not all the same
 BE> through its texts.  That is to say, he ignores and rejects God's
 BE> inspiration.
 When it is convenient.  Absolutely.
 BE> His position is therefore apostasy in its own terms.
 Yes.  Good post.
... I love contradictions.  I hate contradictions.
--- PPoint 2.05
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