From:  (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Verbal Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 00:34:07 GMT

In <>,  (Ken Smith)
wrote:

>It would be more accurate, IMHO, to say that these people distort the
>obvious meaning, application and sense of various passages to try to
>get over what is, essentially, a trivial discrepancy between two
>independent accounts.

Hi, Ken.
You have correctly identified the problem we come up against all the
time on this newsgroup. It is very difficult to discuss Christianity
and the scriptures when every mention of a discrepancy or minor
deviation in the text is met with a barrage of "there are no
discrepancies", "why do you spend all your time looking for
discrepancies", etc. 

The recent trend on this newsgroup of responding to every mention of a
discrepancy with a cut-and-paste from one of what I like to call the
"save the Bible from itself" websites is amusing and easy to ignore,
but adds little of substance to the discussion at hand.

There is no question that a 'tabula rasa' reader will find
discrepancies in the scriptural accounts of historical events. The
birthplace, birdthdate and ancestry of Jesus, the manner of Judas'
death, the day and time of Jesus' death, the names of the 12 apostles,
and many others suggest themselves. 

If the reader is favourably disposed towards Christianity, there are
two possible responses - explain the discrepancies away, or live with
them. I have yet to see any example of the first that did not involve
tortuous logic and very selective (often mis-) quoting of academic
sources. It is preferable to live with the discrepancies,
acknowledging that the scriptures were written, authorised and
transmitted to us by fallible people, that they convey the word of God
without having to be perfect, inerrant, etc., and that their proper
place for proclamation and interpretation is the community of faith
from which they originated (ie the Church).

Cheers

N+

Nigel B. Mitchell

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