Thanks for the response.
Sorry if I sound argumentative or snarky, don’t mean to, just passionate. I spent years going to church and being a good Christian. I finally couldn’t hold the pretense when I started studying and reading on my own.
First, I don’t think you can separate the claims of inerrancy from the question you asked about whether the bible gives ‘a generally accurate picture of the words and deeds’. The bible is not a history book as it were. It is a collection the was written and collected long after the events it purports to chronicle and has some staggeringly inaccurate historical statements. An example or these errors can be found right away in the first gospels. The whole thing about the census and the reign of the governor at that time are just plain wrong. I don’t see why I should put credence in extraordinary claims made by authors who got ordinary claims so wrong.
The attempts to pin things reportedly done by Jesus to old testament prophesy also strain the credibility. If you have a prophesy and a series of stories, it isn’t hard to make them fit for the believer. Just look at how Nostradamus has predicted everything that ever happened, after it happened. After all Jesus was named Jesus because the angel told them to name him Jesus and this was predicted by the prophet saying that he would be called Emmanuel. It always gets glossed over that the prophet didn’t say Jesus. (You can argue about word definitions, but the fact is, it doesn’t match).
You are technically right in the Paul thing, but this is the sort of argument that has always aggravated me about biblical scholarship. One account clearly stresses the he went ‘immediately’ into Arabia. The other one says he was in Damascus. OK, there are no dates and it could be argued that the second account simply ignores it, but if this is the ‘word of god’ why can’t the author, either by direct or inspired, writing make it clear? Why is it that one who is seen as creating the entire universe, can’t author a book that is beyond misinterpretation?
The lineage thing is simply this, if Jesus is importantly born of a virgin. As in Joseph is NOT his father, then Joseph’s lineage means nothing. Joseph, lineage is not Jesus’. It should be Mary’s lineage listed, not Joseph’s. I makes no sense for the genetic line of a man who supposedly contributed nothing to Jesus’ person to be listed. He cannot be called a son of the house of David based on the listed genealogy.
I will have to read the piece on Hume.

Firstly, Thor, great post. Well thought out.

I happened across this site by chance so I am not familiar with any of the participants. It strikes me that, as with most conversations of this sort, it devolves into the I believe because I believe camp and the show me the evidence camp. I don’t think that any amount of discussion will ever resolve that.

Neil asked “Does anyone have any specific issues that cause them problems?” Yes. We cannot remove from the issue the fundamental claim that the bible is the inerrant word of god and it chronicles true events. So how does one ignore such things as the claim of the virgin birth (which current scholarships says is based on a mistranslation of the Hebrew) vs. the lineage of Jesus being given through Joseph. Joseph’s lineage means nothing if he wasn’t the father.
What about the differing reports of Paul’s activities after his conversion. One says he went immediately into Arabia the other says he stayed in Damascus. Which is it? For the claim of inerrancy to stand, no error must exist.

As to the morals taught by the bible… one of the comments above stated that the morality Jesus taught was new and revolutionary. I cannot believe that being kind, not killing, respecting your neighbor’s marriage vows, and generally helping others was totally new. Civilization would never have risen above small family groups if this were the case. If you eliminate the common human ethics from Jesus’ teachings you are left with little more than the jealous threats of the old testament. There is constant threat of burning and cutting off and chopping down. I don’t see a lot of moral teaching in that.

As for the fact that 4 separate accounts written long after an event seem similar is no more miraculous than when Richard Dawkins makes a statement, similar sentiments appear on atheist blogs all over the net.

The subject of miracles was dealt with by David Hume quite handily. If you haven’t read his treatment of the subject I highly recommend it.

I suppose to more carefully state my point, Jesus may have said plenty of things that might make the non-believer want to label him a lunatic. But I don’t think that that sort of lunacy necessarily means that he wouldn’t be capable of possessing noteworthy, valuable moral positions and teachings.

Some of our best artists have been full on lunatics by most standards. Some of our greatest achievements in science and mathematics have come from individuals who were extremely eccentric and had a lot of trouble relating to the common man, etc.

You don’t always get the complete package when greatness in one aspect of an individual is demonstrated, and it seems that just the opposite correlation could perhaps exist.

To be honest, I feel like you’ve misunderstood the majority of what you’ve responded to.

Your first three paragraphs are dedicated to demonstrating why you believe the historical records of the life of Jesus of Nazareth are just as believable or more believable than other historical records from that era. That case can certainly be made, but as I stated in my introduction, whether or not there was a man named Jesus who said and did MOST of the things that are recorded about him is not really the part of this debate that makes it different than any other historical debate. It seems pretty clear to me that just about every historical record will have some omissions, inaccuracies, embellishments, etc. I’m not trying to make a case against the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth. That’s neither the focus of my attention nor something I claim to have studied much.

Next, you stated that you were “truly shocked” to read that I didn’t think there was anything extraordinary about the gospel stories without the miracles. Maybe you’re misunderstanding my point. I think that the thought and accomplishments attributed to Pythagoras, Einstein, etc. are very impressive and important, but I am not in any way shocked that someone had those thoughts or discoveries. I’ve studied math and science. I’ve made some discoveries for myself, although certainly nothing on that level. Both with and without the “amazing” parts of their stories, I’m not actually being asked to stretch my mind much at all to believe these stories. That’s no guarantee that these stories are true, but there’s nothing in these stories that registers anywhere NEAR the same level as Jesus’ claimed miracles on the skepticism meter. That’s why they are called miracles, right? TONS of people say they don’t believe in Jesus’ miracles because they seem too far fetched to overcome other explanations (like that they are just stories). You don’t tend to see that with Einstein or Pythagoras… ask yourself why.

So yes, I’m claiming that without the miracles, the story of Jesus is not miraculous. Was his moral teaching miraculous? You and many others may believe that, but recognize that, whether or not the Gospels specifically make this claim, we are essentially all presented these stories with the implied context that Jesus was super-human, capable of miracles, and the source of modern morality. It’s not as if any of us or the people you listed ever got to pick up the Bible as just another historical biography off the shelf at the library and evaluate it that way. I personally have NO problem believing that Jesus could have been a non-super human who held the moral opinions or even “discoveries” he is credited with. That’s not a miraculous story to me in the slightest.

As for my comments about my grandfather, I was not claiming that his claims were extraordinary or unusual as far as making them goes. Just that there are extraordinary implications if they are true. There are MANY (and often contradictory) experiential claims made all over the world every day that have HUGE implications if they are objectively real/true. I wasn’t suggesting in the slightest that modern brain chemistry disproves these experiences. What I was saying is that today we understand quite a bit about brain chemistry and how the brain stimuli and chemicals can give us very vivid experiences that we can be fairly certain are not objective reality (the LCD trip that tells us we’re a giant pick dragon, for instance.) All I was saying is that even with this new knowledge of the power of physical brain conditions and psychology over experience, and the fact that people today who have experiences like my grandfather presumably know some things about about this science, we STILL tend to be pretty accepting of these types of claims and experiences, even when they contradict our own worldviews — like you’re probably not shocked when you hear that someone in India believes they spoke to Vishnu or someone else thinks they spoke to Satan, even though you probably don’t believe that that’s objectively what happened.

And if we can excuse this type of misunderstood experience (whether or not you think may grandfather’s experience is real or the guy who spoke with Satan or Vishnu, you probably don’t think they were ALL objectively true, right?) in this modern context without dismissing people as crazy, then we should certainly be able to excuse Jesus’ misunderstood experiences and not dismiss him as a Lunatic incapable of moral insight, as the LLL argument suggests we must.

I hope that helps clarify my points a bit.

-Thor