Quote:I am personally offended by the refusal to acknowledge and honor the human origins of biblical texts--and therefore, recognize the very human limitations of those texts, including their contradictions and inconsistences as though the divine inspiration somehow erased all trace of their humanity.
I do not believe that the writers of the books and letters, songs, etc that make up the Bible were somehow all in a trance when they wrote down what they did.
We can see that these were written from by humans. The Greek scriptures were written in common Greek, not in the high-brow Greek of the scholars. I do believe that as the Holy Spirit inspired them He used them, warts and all, to write what they did, as they did.
This does not take away from Divine inspiration one bit.
Great care was taken by the Jews to preserve their writings so that every copy made was an identicle copy of the original. Every time an error was made (down to the smallest piece of punctuation) the whole piece of text was buried and the scribe would have to begin from the beginning of that particular page of text.
The biggest problem that we have is not with the ancient texts, the biggest problem we have is one of "Translation", and then of "Interpretation".
There will be endless debates, and interminable arguments over interpretation. There are those that take a literalist view, others that take a more liberalist view. Those that accept the Genesis Account as historical and those who see it as a fable, to be seen as an allegory.
There are those that denigh the existence of Angellic manifestations, miracles, the incarnation, virgin birth, and those that accept these things.
This is down to that scary word for so many--FAITH!
The New Testament authors were at pains to point out that they weren't making up anything. The Apostles stated that they were eye-witnesses. Luke, who authored two of the Books declared: "As a number of attempts have been made to put together in order an account of those events which took place among us, As they were handed down to us by those who saw them from the first and were preachers of the word, It seemed good to me, having made observation, with great care, of the direction of events in their order, to put the facts in writing for you, most noble Theophilus; So that you might have certain knowledge of those things about which you were given teaching."
When writing to the believers in Corinth concerning the fact of the ressurrection of Jesus Christ Paul stated: "And he was seen by Cephas; then by the twelve; Then by more than five hundred brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living..." Any one of them would have been able to travel to Jerusalem and speak to those eyewitnesses that were still alive.
John goes even further: "That which was from the first, which has come to our ears, and which we have seen with our eyes, looking on it and touching it with our hands, about the Word of life (And the life was made clear to us, and we have seen it and are witnessing to it and giving you word of that eternal life which was with the Father and was seen by us); That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."
Here John is stating that not only were they eyewitnesses, but that they actually touched Jesus. It is this same John who we read about at the last seder that is recorded as reclining on Jesus' chest! This same John who witnessed Jesus' death, burial, ressurrection and even Ascension. This John that wrote down his visions whilst in exile on the isle of Patmos, who some even dare to accuse as being suffering from dementia!
I have complete faith in what is written in the Bible!
