Scholar doubts Bible's inerrancy?
410921
I've always held the belief that the Bible has been changed to fit the beliefs of whoever commissioned the latest translation.  It's no surprise to me at all that some of the stories were tacked on later as some were removed when they didn't fit in with what was being taught at the time.  \n\nWhy is the Bible supposedly above scrutiny?  Why is it that when people question whether or not it was written and re-written by men, people freak out?  In this day and age, if somebody were to claim they were divinely inspired to write a holy book, we'd call them nuts.  But, we should just believe that this particular group of men really were divinely inspired?
820528
Making fun of a bald prophet...\n\nHey, it's in the book...\n\nIsn't it interesting that a Buddhist can recognize a Biblical allusion while several Christians cannot?
573172
Hmm kinda makes you wonder about that whole "bible" thing, huh? Is this the first inconsistency that you have run across?\n\nWatch out - they used to burn people at the stake who asked too many questions...
267681
Now, imagine a book... \n\nwritten by over 40 different authors \nwritten in 3 different languages \nwritten within very different cultures \nwritten on 3 different continents \nwritten over a 1,600-year period \nwritten by kings as well as peasants, philosophers & fishermen, prisoners & doctors \nwritten on hundreds of controversial issues \nWhat kind of book would we have? \n\nYou might think, “a mound of inconsistency so confusing as to produce an all time worst-seller.” But add one element — GOD overseeing all these authors — and what do we get? The Bible, the best-selling book of all time. \n\nThe Bible’s Claim \nThe Bible claims to be actual communication from God to humanity. Notice these biblical passages:\n\nAll Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 \n\nAbove all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:20-21 \n\nThe Bible claims to be the very Word of God (verbum Dei), indeed, the very words of God (verba Dei). But this claim often raises a number of objections. \n\nObjection #1: The Bibles we have today are nothing like the biblical books as they were originally written. \nThis is a real concern people have. The question of whether or not the Bible was God’s Word 2,000 years ago is irrelevant if the Bible we read today is substantially different from what was originally written. Until the invention of the printing press around 1450, all literature was hand-copied and scribes could make mistakes in copying. It’s hard to know if errors are present with many ancient works simply because few early hand-written copies exist. But this is not a major concern with the biblical documents: \n\n1. There are over 24,000 surviving partial or complete manuscripts of New Testament books today. By comparison, the next largest number is for Homer’s Iliad, with only 643 surviving manuscripts. We have only 7 copies of Pliny’s History and only 10 of Caesar’s Gallic Wars―but we don’t hesitate to trust them. \n\n2. Furthermore, the New Testament has unusually early manuscripts compared with other ancient literature. Our earliest copy of Pliny’s History dates to 750 years after Pliny’s death. A lot can happen in 750 years. And the earliest copy of Gallic Wars was copied 1,000 years after Caesar’s death. By contrast, some early New Testament fragments date to within 30 years of their first writing, as with the John Rylands papyrus found in Egypt. There simply wasn’t enough time between the original writing and our earliest manuscripts to allow for much corruption. \n\n3. There are over 84,000 quotations from the New Testament (mainly from sermons) dating to the early centuries of the Church. In fact, even if we didn’t have a single manuscript of the Bible today, we could reconstruct all but 11 verses of the entire New Testament from material within 150 to 200 years from the time of Christ. \n\n4. Similarly, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950s, we now have copies of the entire Old Testament from before the time of Christ―complete copies of every book except Esther.\n\nModern translations of the Bible (New International Version, New American Standard Bible, etc.) are translated directly from these earliest biblical manuscripts. \n\nObjection #2: The Bible is just a book of fairy-tales. Its account is not historically reliable. \nWhile there are letters and songs and laws and doctrinal teachings in the Bible, the most common genre within the Scripture is history. Observers point out that the Bible is an historical document in that it consistently gives accurate information on the geography, chronology, people, places, customs, nations and even
412701
thats nice... you also watched that!!!\n\nactually, there is alot of inconsistent details in the bible but nonetheless the same....\n\njudas' gospel was very compelling it contradicted the 4 gospels but i guess you wouldn't believe in that unless you have a strong faith towards jesus...\n\n\nnow, i'm having a hard time thinking.......
1168440
That's because parts of it seem contradictory or counter-intuitive if you take them literally, or out of historical or literal context.  After all, the Bible is a set of books written by different people in different languages thousands of years ago.  It is only reasonable that there would be something lost in the translation, especially given the ambiguity of the English language.  It may also require a great deal of research to resolve the issues you confront them with, and they satisfied themselves of what they believe and do not remember how to explain it to you.  Ignorance and laziness are also sometimes reasons, but there are some people who are able to explain those issues to you.  If you really want good answers to your questions, you should try a few apologetics websites.
375606
the bible is rewritten a lot\nit was changed a lot\n\nits now FALSE\nif you need evidences \njust contact
66282
Many Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that God authored the bible. They believe in the inerrantacy of the bible because it is claimed to be inspired by God himself. If the bible is inerrant, without error, then they reason that  the bible must be literally true. The problem for them then is to interpret the bible so any inconsistancies can be explained within the entire bible when read as a whole continuous work. The bible was written by 40 or more individuals over perhaps 1500 years. Reading it as a whole continuous work inspired by God, does not leave room for the evolution of religious thought not to mention the evolution of the Universe and Mankind. This is "Group Think' on a global scale. I am not saying that the bible is not inspired by God, but it should be read in literary form not literal form. In the area of ethics and morals I believe the bible is more literal in nature. God communicates directly with his creation through Science, there is no middle man. Scripture has man in the middle, communicating ideas with his own limited understanding of the world. When fundamentalists are confronted with the science of evolution, they just do not believe it. Some will try to find ways to expain the Universe so it is in agreement with the bible. Examples would be that radioisotope dating is wrong or the Universe was created to look billions of years old when it is less than 10,000 years old. It does seem ridiculous to reasonable people.
683362
That's a pretty tenuous interpretation ripped out of context.\n\nAnd it is generally agreed by scholars that Peter did not write that letter.
988142
No. There has been too much lost in the numerous translations. And I would question your statement about the book being in existence for 'thousands' of years. The new testament and the gospels were not instantly assembled upon the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The old testament was passed on by word of mouth long before the books were written.  Compound these necessary flaws with the council of cardinals who decided which books were going to be part of the bible and which books were not, and the church's practice of censoring anything that did not agree with doctrine, and you have a less than perfect product.
268068
Nope,it's one of those passages that I disagree with.What you quoted was one of many unethical verses in the bible.I don't believe or follow everything I read.
35391
I am not sure if he was, but our current bible is missing several books.  Each of the 11 disciples wrote a book (all but Judas), but we only have 4.  Also, bear in mind that the Catholic Bible and Protestant Bible have different books.  However, although I am sure he probably wrote "something" about Christ, I can not say for sure it was a "book," and that his book was rejected.
984437
There IS supporting evidence that proves that is was indeed written at the time it should have been. Christians refuse to believe in anything to do with it, simply because it would shred a major part of the Christ myth. It's amazing - even with the knowlegde they have of how the bible was constructed, and even knowing that many books were taken out of the bible as being heresy, they refuse to admit it might possibly be true. Why is it so hard to believe?  It was Judas' destiny to do it! And Jesus must have known that, too! If Judas was, as the text says, Jesus' favorite, and the one chosen, why is that bad? Jesus knew he had to die, he even knew where and how. All Judas did was help the prophecy be fulfilled. And to say his family wrote it to clear Judas' name is just stupid. Be open minded, people! You say you're enlightened by the Word - then you should be able to look at this with open minds.
88610
One passage deserves consideration. Second Peter 1:21 [KJV/NIV] states that the Old Testament writers spoke "as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." In its context this verse suggests the uniqueness of Scriptures when compared to humanly inspired statements. The men who wrote the Scriptures were moved, or carried along, by the Holy Ghost. The uniform witness of the Scriptures themselves is clear: God spoke the concept (revelation) to the mind of the writer; the Holy Spirit guided the transmission (inspiration) of that concept into the objective form of words; and, through the continual guidance of the Holy Spirit (illumination), we receive the original revelation as we read the Scriptures.\nFirst, the science of textual criticism has assured us, by the estimates of competent scholars, that our present texts (Greek and Hebrew) are without errors of significance. The text we work with is therefore trustworthy and deserving of the most careful and detailed study.Second, to reject the doctrine of inerrancy transfers the question of truth from the objective into the realm of the subjective. Who is to decide what part of the Scripture is true and what part of it is false? What part is trustworthy and what part is untrustworthy? The Scriptures' claim to divine authority is lost when we subject them to the rationalistic, subjective appraisals of men.
384087
The Scripture is inspired by God, and this not any street inspiration but one of divine origin. "God-breathed" says it all about the divine nature of the Scripture. However, when we speak of the inerrancy and infallibility of the Scripture, it is only referring to the original writings of the biblical authors, and is not extended to those translations that we have in our hands today. Once we understand that inspiration relates to the original writings, we would be able to better appreciate the transmission and translation issues. \n\nFirstly, transmission issues relates to the copying of the manuscripts or how well the original writings are preserved down the ages by the hands of scribes. At this point, please bear in mind that those duplicates of the original writings are not considered to be God-breathed, only the original writings are. In a sense, the duplicates are "God-breathed" only to the extent of how well the original writings are preserved intact via copying word for word and not adding nor subtracting a letter. But obviously, some mistakes during the copying process are inevitable and discrepancies may arise among the different manuscripts or duplicates. Nevertheless, where there are variances between the different manuscripts, none of them hinge on a major doctrine, and we can safely conclude that we are able to know the message of the original writings without distortion. Even when there are discrepancies, they are usually of relatively minor issue such as grammatical structure which doesn't affect any relatively major doctrine. \n\nSecondly, we have the translation issue which relates to how well we translate the duplicates from one language to another. And how well a translation is, depends on the translators' capability to translate accurately and the translators' understanding of the manuscripts. Some may argue that one might never know what the manuscripts say, but the fact is that we do have able translators on the translation task. Moreover, whether the manuscripts should be translated word-for-word or thought-for-thought or somewhere in between is something the translators have to deal with too. A side note is that different translations may be based on different textual choice such as the critical text or majority text, which will explain why there is no uniformity between some translations. \n\nTo recap, we can say that God has amazingly preserved His Word down through the ages from distortion and we can understand His will through His Word by His Spirit. And as a concluding remark, it is my opinion that there is no perfect translation (because inerrancy and infallibility belongs to the original writings and not the translations) and therefore would prefer to use the variety of existing translations instead on relying on some only.
620911
Being an historian I will reserve judgement until I see the evidence personally.  I've NEVER read from a credible source that scientists have stated that the Bible to be one of the most accurate books ever written.\n\n\nShow ME the source and I will decide for myself.
412409
The Bible has a lot to say agains those who teach God's Word falsely.