It may be fashionable to say "Jesus is absolute truth, but not biblical statements about Jesus." Jesus is somehow set 'against' what the Bible says.
LT Jeyachandran of RZIM Spore would respond to such Christians this way, "What do you know of Jesus that is not in the Bible?" :) Ouch!
Sometimes, certain friends may send me a list of so-called contradictions in the Bible to 'prove' that there are mistakes.
It's not the type of question I enjoy answering bcos some of them are so trivial like how many horses are in Battle A, how many meters is length of the altar etc?
Even if there's a copyist error here, none of our Christian teachings or doctrines would be affected at all. I'd prefer to discuss big issues of life than these minute details.
To save time and to check if we have reason to think that the person is sincere and willing to dialogue, I'd usually ask a question like this:
"Would you change your mind if these 'contradictions' can be resolved?
Or would you be a Christian even if you got the answers?"
If he's willing, I'd make this invitation..
"Why dun you choose the top TWO 'mistakes' which you think is the hardest? Then we'd discuss"
(Due to time constraint, I wanna make it manageable as well as being fair to let him choose the most difficult examples)
After that, I'd have to do my homework to 'deliver the goods'.
Apparent contradictions can be resolved, even though sometimes, we need to wait for the relevant data to be available.
But here are some general ways we may approach it... (Thanks to Millard Erickson!)
Ask these questions: What is the intention of the author?
Is the list of numbers of chariots and horsemen supposed to have exact, scientific precision? 83,712 horses?
Or did the author mean to give us an idea of how big is the army i.e. in approximations? 80,000 horses?
Giving approximations is a common practice even in our own culture.
If I earn $2712.33 a month, it would be correct to round it up to $2700 if my purpose is just to give someone an idea of how much it is.
But if the purpose is to report it Jabatan Hasil Dalam Negeri, I'd have to be more exact!
We should not use anachronistic standards like exactness in quotation. The term ‘son’ could refer to a descendant (not necessarily immediate son)
Is this to be interpreted metaphorically or literally?
Some numbers are symbolic like the number 14 in Matthew's genealogy.
Quoting sources does not mean its canonical i.e. jude’s enoch and assumption of moses. Not all truth is in the bible, though the bible is truth.
Sometimes we speak of things as we see it. Like the sun will rise at 6 am. Now we know that actually the earth moves. But even scientists talk about the sunrise regularly, they do not take it literally but as how they see it.
These references are phenomenal, as they appear to human eye, approximations yet they are correct.
As alluded earlier, inerrancy applies to original autographs, and the copies are also Scripture in a derivative sense to the extent where it rightly represents the original.
Inerrancy applies to what is affirmed in the Bible rather than what is merely reported.
Lastly, sometimes, the bible reports statements made by ungodly persons. For example, the fool who says there is no God. It doesn’t mean these statements are true, inerrancy only guarantees that they are correctly reported.
When however something is taken by a biblical writer, from whatever source and incorporated in his message as an affirmation, not merely a report, then it must be judged truthful.
LT Jeyachandran of RZIM Spore would respond to such Christians this way, "What do you know of Jesus that is not in the Bible?" :) Ouch!
Sometimes, certain friends may send me a list of so-called contradictions in the Bible to 'prove' that there are mistakes.
It's not the type of question I enjoy answering bcos some of them are so trivial like how many horses are in Battle A, how many meters is length of the altar etc?
Even if there's a copyist error here, none of our Christian teachings or doctrines would be affected at all. I'd prefer to discuss big issues of life than these minute details.
To save time and to check if we have reason to think that the person is sincere and willing to dialogue, I'd usually ask a question like this:
"Would you change your mind if these 'contradictions' can be resolved?
Or would you be a Christian even if you got the answers?"
If he's willing, I'd make this invitation..
"Why dun you choose the top TWO 'mistakes' which you think is the hardest? Then we'd discuss"
(Due to time constraint, I wanna make it manageable as well as being fair to let him choose the most difficult examples)
After that, I'd have to do my homework to 'deliver the goods'.
Apparent contradictions can be resolved, even though sometimes, we need to wait for the relevant data to be available.
But here are some general ways we may approach it... (Thanks to Millard Erickson!)
Ask these questions: What is the intention of the author?
Is the list of numbers of chariots and horsemen supposed to have exact, scientific precision? 83,712 horses?
Or did the author mean to give us an idea of how big is the army i.e. in approximations? 80,000 horses?
Giving approximations is a common practice even in our own culture.
If I earn $2712.33 a month, it would be correct to round it up to $2700 if my purpose is just to give someone an idea of how much it is.
But if the purpose is to report it Jabatan Hasil Dalam Negeri, I'd have to be more exact!
We should not use anachronistic standards like exactness in quotation. The term ‘son’ could refer to a descendant (not necessarily immediate son)
Is this to be interpreted metaphorically or literally?
Some numbers are symbolic like the number 14 in Matthew's genealogy.
Quoting sources does not mean its canonical i.e. jude’s enoch and assumption of moses. Not all truth is in the bible, though the bible is truth.
Sometimes we speak of things as we see it. Like the sun will rise at 6 am. Now we know that actually the earth moves. But even scientists talk about the sunrise regularly, they do not take it literally but as how they see it.
These references are phenomenal, as they appear to human eye, approximations yet they are correct.
As alluded earlier, inerrancy applies to original autographs, and the copies are also Scripture in a derivative sense to the extent where it rightly represents the original.
Inerrancy applies to what is affirmed in the Bible rather than what is merely reported.
Lastly, sometimes, the bible reports statements made by ungodly persons. For example, the fool who says there is no God. It doesn’t mean these statements are true, inerrancy only guarantees that they are correctly reported.
When however something is taken by a biblical writer, from whatever source and incorporated in his message as an affirmation, not merely a report, then it must be judged truthful.
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