Many of the Bibles verses are either improperly linked, misleadingly linked to Scripture unrelated to the synthesis, or unlinked. I've tried to fix some of these as well as repair editor synthesis with paraphrases directly from Scripture. This article still needs a lot of work. FaithF (talk) 17:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hence the need for citations to 3rd party reliable sources. I note a lot of your work was done on the "Trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection Chart". This only appeared a month or so ago, and appears to be cut-and-pasted from a POV site. It should probably be deleted, or heavily revamped. Peter Ballard (talk) 00:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The chart is the worst of the lot with the most glaring errors, poorly drawn conclusions, lack of citation, and mangled links. FaithF (talk) 02:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Removal of Chart items
Luke's instructions
Moved from chart:
In Luke’s post-resurrection story (chapter 24), the women at the tomb are specifically instructed not to go to the Galilee, but to “Stay in Jerusalem!” (24:49 luke 24:49)
This is also the case in the Book of Acts, which was written by the author of Luke, where “He commanded them that they should not leave Jerusalem!” (1:4 acts 1:4)
Luke’s post-resurrection story does not allow for any of Jesus’ followers to leave Jerusalem because Luke must have the apostles stay in Jerusalem for the Pentecost. (2:1 acts 2:1)
I'm removing this misquoted scripture and incorrect synthesis; Direct quotes:
(24:13) And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.
(24:33) And they [the two from Emmaus] got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found gathered together the eleven and those who were with them,
(24:36) While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be to you."
(24:49) "And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."
(24:50) And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.
(24:52) And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy
This shows 24:49 does not take place at the tomb, the command was not given the women (or not just the women) who came to the tomb, and the circumstances are related to a different occasion. FaithF (talk) 19:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Swords
Another removal:
What was Jesus' advice on swords and violence during his arrest?
Jesus advises his disciple to get rid of swords because those who “live by the sword shall die by it.” (matt 26:52)
Jesus advises his disciples to buy swords (luke 22:36–38)
Reason for removal: The question is leading, assuming an answer not reflected in the text (Mark ref does not state "get rid of" the sword, but to put it away), and the examples are from different occasions (Luke ref took place at the Last Supper, related to different circumstances, not at the time of Jesus' arrest) unrelated to the question. FaithF (talk) 03:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is Mary permitted to touch Jesus after the resurrection? (this is a leading question, see below)
"... And they [the women at the tomb] came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him." (matthew 28:9)
Not mentioned in Mark
"And He said to them [the disciples], 'Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.' And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet." (mark 16:9–14)
"Jesus said to her, 'Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.'" (john 20:17)
Mary, who obviously "touched" Jesus before she received the rebuke, was told to stop clinging and do as she was told. This does not mean she wasn't permitted to touch Him, as the leading question suggests, but that she had instructions to follow and was clinging instead. I've removed this because I cannot think of a better question, feeling the entire row is compromised by inuendo rather than any real contradiction. FaithF (talk) 16:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2 Creation stories removal
Removing: "One of the best known examples is the two accounts of the creation of man and woman in the Book of Genesis. In Genesis 1:1 to 2:4, men and women are created at the same time and after the animals; in Genesis 2:4-25 man is made first, and woman is created from the man's rib. Most biblical scholars see these as two separately written accounts, the first from around the sixth century BC, and the second based on more primitive traditions dating to around the tenth century BC. [reference:]Ronald D. Witherup, Biblical Fundamentalism: What Every Catholic Should Know, Liturgical Press (2001), page 26.[/reference]" This section is written as a foregone conclusion (who are these "most biblical scholars"?), rather than the NPOV; furthermore, there is no mention or citation of the massive amounts of rebuttal to this hypothesis . If someone wants to reinsert, a major rewrite will need to take place first. Faith (talk) 17:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not delete cited content. As for "many scholars": well, the aritcle already links to Documentary Hypothesis. As for "massive amounts of rebuttal": how much of this would come from recognized Biblical scholars rather than apologists? --Robert Stevens (talk) 18:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Citation does not equal NPOV. Again, the paragraph is one-sided on this article, regardless of where it directs to a main page elsewhere. Therefore, it must be rewritten in a balanced, NPOV manner. If you would like to undertake that task, it could be reinserted at that point. Faith (talk) 18:43, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NPOV merely means that Wikipedia presents all notable perspectives from reliable sources, without engaging in the debate (we assign opinions to those presenting them): it doesn't mean "parity of presentation" (that would generally be a violation of WP:UNDUE in many cases). Also, WP:RS may become relevant here: specifically, the "Extremist and fringe sources" section. For instance, we shoudn't imply that mainstream scholarship is somehow equivalent to the views of inerrantist apologists (an extremist position). Ideally we should find mainstream sources which comment on their views. --Robert Stevens (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
However, extreme WP:UNDUE causes violation of WP:NPOV, as in this case. We are under an obligation to provide both viewpoints when they can be shown from mainstream scholarship to hold equal or almost equal weight. The fringe (not considering atheist opinions on unreliable sources) is the double creation viewpoint. This is most likely why only an outside, unlinked source to a 90-page pamphlet was the sole citation. Here is one answer page, with a list of 30-odd scholars giving the opposing view. There are many others.Faith (talk) 19:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
ChristianAnswers, ApologeticsPress and ChristianCourier are extremist sources (with inerrantist "statements of faith", articles promoting young-earth creationism etc). Multiple-source hypotheses still represent the mainstream of Biblical scholarship: most contemporary Bible experts accept some form of the documentary hypothesis (indeed, there's a reference for that on the Documentary Hypothesis article). --Robert Stevens (talk) 21:49, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Irrespective of each website's statements of faith or the content of the articles themselves, the listing of scholars, opposed to a single 90-page booklet, is substantial and refutes this unbalanced POV statement. Therefore, it must be rewritten to balance, or removed until such time someone undertakes the task. Faith (talk) 02:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Witherup citation
Witherup writes, in the cited material: "A good example is the approach to Genesis 1-2 in what most scholars view as two separate stories of creation written by different authors in different time periods. Most biblical scholars accept Genesis 1 as originating around the sixth century B.C. with a group of scribes who were concerned about the preservation of the liturgical traditions of the Jews (thus the concern for the seven-day schema of creation and the notion of the sabbath). Genesis 2, on the other hand, originates from an earlier, more primitive tradition dated to around the tenth century B.C. Fundamentalist, however, do not view the two stories as separate, the first one (Gen 1:1-2:4) being poetic and the second one (Gen 2:4-25) being more anthropomorphic, i.e., describing God in very human terms as a divine sculptor who forms the first human being out of dust. For fundamentalists, this is not a second story of creation but merely "further detail" about the story of creation. This makes the differences in the accounts only apparent rather than substantive." (transcribed)
This article does not identify the text as Witherup's opinions (Witherup provides no references or footnotes to support his opinions). They are presented in a manner which gives undue weight to his opinions as if they are general fact. The included citation only serves to show where the opinion was located.
Witherup's opinions have been reduced to one side of an argument, which is a synthesis by omission. Witherup's opinion provides two sides to the issue, even if he sides heavily toward one viewpoint.
This section, in general, sides with the DH through a synthesis of text, showing undue weight by failure to present both sides. This is necessary as neither are fringe accounts (as shown on the DH article, and through the scholars listed on the references I listed above, irrespective of the articles they were found on).
This is the difference between stating something under dispute as fact with a single supporting citation (of author opinion), a POV for DH, rather than presenting both sides in a "Show, don't tell" manner following NPOV. --Faith (talk) 17:59, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus
[3] I have reverted this removal as it not only contradicts the scripture (John:18:22 When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby struck him in the face. "Is this the way you answer the high priest?" he demanded.), it also contradicts our own article on Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, which states in the very first sentence, "The Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus is an event reported by all the Canonical Gospels of the Bible. (Mark 14:53–65, Matthew 26:57–68, Luke 22:63–71and John 18:12-24)". Faith (talk) 19:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This keeps getting removed without discussion. Starting in 11:47 john 11:47 we have the "Conspiracy to Kill Jesus" where "the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council"; this is the Sanhedrin. Later, "the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where He was, he was to report it, so that they might seize Him. Judas then, having received the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons", and "the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews, arrested Jesus and bound Him, and led Him to Annas". In 18:22, again, one of the [Sanhedrin] officers standing nearby struck Jesus..." and "Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest". They "led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover."—"They" were the Sanhedrin!—Then they respond to Pilate "They answered and said to him, "If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you." etc. Removing Sanhedrin is faulty, and since the editor won't even justify his actions in Talk, I'm replacing it. Faith (talk) 20:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The John account does not state explicitly that Jesus was taken before the Sanhedrin; only that he was sent to Caiaphas; the mention of the Sanhedrin in the description of the quote is therefore misleading, since anyone who reads the quote without checking will naturally assume that it is explicit. This interpretation ought to be stated in 'Responses', not in the description of the bible reference. Granted, there seems to be a fairly widespread view that the Sanhedrin is here implied, but that view is not universal. I have been trying to track down some citations for this, but have not yet found one I consider strong enough. In the meantime, I am prepared to let it stand. --Rbreen (talk) 21:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your response here. I've included two citations that show "they" are the Sanhedrin, but your Donald Senior citation also makes this case on p58. Your quote of Senior is mistaken. I don't know where you copied it from, but that "quote" isn't in the book. Senior actually explains why both were referred to as high priest: Perhaps because Annas had been deposed by the Romans, the Jews continued to respect Annas as the authentic high priest(58)... It is likely, for example, that Annas may have continued to play an influential role in the religious affairs of Judaism at this period. He may also have been popularly addressed as the "high priest" even though he did not formally hold that office. Annas' initial interrogation of the prisoner could have been useful to gain preliminary reading of Jesus' guilt or to help decide what strategy to use in presenting him to the Sanhedrin and ultimately to the Roman Governor (59) [Note Senior also supports John's reference to the Sanhedrin]. I am replacing the citation with the correct quotes (thank you for this reference). --Faith (talk) 02:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ehrman misquote removed
"The Gospel of John account does not narrate an actual trial before the Sanhedrin. Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium, (Oxford University Press, 1999), page 221." ==> This "quote" is part of a sentence which begins "In light of these difficulties, and the fact that..." and continues on to make a point not shown in this partial misquote taken out of context. Like the "quote" (indicated above) which was falsely attributed to Senior, it's being removed until the proper quote with context is placed instead. Perhaps the editor responsible should use the actual resources, rather than depending on misquotes from the Internet or wherever he picked them up. Faith (talk) 08:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
POV tag
Since this article leans far more toward internal INconsistency, rather than presenting WP:NPOV, I've placed a POV tag on it until it can be cleaned up with presentation of facts (WP:PEACOCK) rather than unsupported opinions being stated as fact and WP:OR with WP:UNDUE. I'm also noting some of the reported sources are being used in an untrustworthy manner (see above), showing need for rechecking against the sources. --Faith (talk) 18:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Edited example
"Scholarly debate exists over whether there are inconsistencies both among the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John, or whether harmonisation of the Gospel narratives is possible through the use of grammatico-historical exegesis." This statement presents three facts:
Debate exists among scholars (I doubt anyone will disagree with this summary)
The section deals with debate over the synoptics and the synoptics v John (again, I doubt anyone will disagree with the summary)
The other side of the debate is the possible harmonisation of the narratives through GH-exegesis (as stated in the citation)
These facts are summary of issues present in the citations which follow the summary, present no OR, and give a NPOV by showing there are different sides to the debate, rather than presenting one side as fact. My aim is to present the article in a balanced, neutral manner. Faith (talk) 18:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Leading questions
On 21 June 2006, User:Clinkophonist asked, "If the bible contains no discrepencies [sic] then tell me this, did Jesus come to bring peace or a sword?" I realise this was part of an old discussion, but it is indicative of a big problem existing in this article with misleading questions. The questions themselves presuppose an either/or option, creating a False dilemma, and in most cases, are found only on fringe websites and circulated Internet lists, yet are included here as if they are reliable. Even if the fallacy is shown on a WP:RS, the fallacy still exists. An avoided third option might be the answer "both", but the leading question itself precludes that answer. Therefore, we should focus on the error of the questions themselves, excluding or rewording them regardless of where they come from if they commit that fallacy. I've tried to edit some to neutrality, but it's increasingly difficult walk on the thin line of OR. While WP maintains verifiability over truth, fallacy should not be introduced simply because someone, somewhere, published it on their website or in their book. We have a responsibility in the verifiability to consider the weight of the argument (or in this case, the leading questions) as we edit. Faith (talk) 10:21, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the problem with the leading questions stems from the fact that many of the questions on the "Order of Events" chart come from Cline, Austin. "Trial of Jesus: Contradictions in the Gospel Accounts of Jesus' Arrest, Trials".Atheism.about.com. Cline's bio states, "Austin Cline is a Regional Director for the Council for Secular Humanism and a former Publicity Coordinator for the Campus Freethought Alliance. Austin has also lectured on religion, religious violence, science, and skepticism. Austin Cline holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts from Princeton University. He also studied for one year each at the University of Zurich and the Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich, Germany. In America, Germany, and Switzerland, Austin has studied both religion and philosophy." Is a secular humanist with no formal training in Theology a reliable source of Biblical scholarship? WP:RS states "Self-published sources may be used only in very limited circumstances" and further, "Wikipedia articles should strive to cover all major and significant-minority scholarly interpretations on topics for which scholarly sources exist, and all major and significant-minority views that have been published in other reliable sources, as appropriate." Inconsistencies are implied to be as old as the Bible itself, so we should surely be able to find scholarly interpretations on this topic, rather than unpublished opinions given voice on an Internet website that is not even dedicated to religious scholarship or similar. Faith (talk) 13:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cline is not self-published, he is published by about.com which is owned by the New York Times.About.com says this:What Makes About.com’s Guides Unique?
Individual Expertise: Guides are subject-area authorities that About.com selectively recruits. Editors qualify Guide-candidates based on education, professional experience and writing ability.
Supreme Dedication: About.com's exacting standards mean less than 15% of those who enter the Guide training program successfully complete it.
Highly Credentialed: Many about Guides are nationally recognized authors and professionally certified experts who are sought out—both online and offline—as opinion leaders on the subjects they write on every day.
Rigorously Trained: Each About.com Guide is given both the editorial guidance and tools needed to optimally maintain their subject area's content and accordingly, their audience's interest.
Award Winning: . Since 2000, 20 Guide-sites have been named Forbes “Best of Web,” with 3 Forbes “Favorites.” Many Guides have been recognized for their outstanding contributions to their industries
I don't see theology training as being a prerequisite. So, by all means if you can find a better source, do so, but I don't think you can disqualify this site as an unreliable source on the grounds you've put forwards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, you make a good point about it not being self-published (I've seen so many non-expert opinions on about.com (mostly link/spam farm pages) that I didn't check the About page.) So does it meet the other criteria for RS:
"reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"? - I can agree to disagree with this point because About.com implies they do.
"Sources should be appropriate to the claims made"? - this is a bit vague because claims from the source can be subjectively "appropriate" to the claim, but are they "appropriate" to the article? "The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context, which is a matter of common sense and editorial judgement." My judgement is it is not appropriate for reasons I state above and below (aside from self-published, which I've dropped).
Since this article needs sources that directly refer to the 'Internal Consistency of the Bible', a theological subject, sources should also fit under the "Scholarship" category of RS:
"Wikipedia articles should strive to cover all major and significant-minority scholarly interpretations on topics for which scholarly sources exist, and all major and significant-minority views that have been published in other reliable sources, as appropriate." - is a section on atheism.about.com a "major" or "significant-minority scholarly interpretation" of 'Internal Consistency of the Bible'? Is it:
"Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable"? - Vetted by the scholarly community? I don't think it has. It's certainly not Bible commentary or Wesley's writing or Thomas Paine which have stood the test of time.
"Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies"? - Not that has been brought forward as argument so far
In conclusion, even if a source is deemed reliable in general, is it a RS for every specific case? I don't believe so. RS for maths are not necessarily RS for anatomy, because anatomy isn't the mathematician's field. Training and experience must be a prerequisite for proper "scholarship" in any area. What it boils down to is Cline, a proclaimed expert in atheism by about.com, said to be an expert in Biblical criticism and/or a Biblical scholar? I don't see where it says he is, and I cannot see where his statements on a website that is not even dedicated to religious scholarship can be validly placed as RS. Finally, I question the scholarship of a list of leading questions, misquoted or out-of-context Scripture, and poor comparison between verses shown to be in juxtaposition. One really sorrowful point, for example, was a comparison of two events, one at the time of Jesus arrest and another at the Last Supper, coupled with a question about what was said at Jesus arrest. If someone can't get the basics down, like setting, it makes determination of scholarship very questionable. It may be a moot point if we remove the tables, anyway, because that's where some of his opinions were located (many appeared to be OR posts by WP editors, or at least unsourced additions). Faith (talk) 19:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Deuteronomic history removal
The following continues to remain unreferenced since Dec 2007, and appears to be a unverifiable synthesis of disjointed OR. Faith (talk) 12:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Within the Deuteronomic history, the Book of Joshua purports to present a campaign resulting in the incomplete conquest of Canaan. Judges is presented as the immediately following history of the area. However, in Judges it appears that the Canaanites' land was, in some cases, notably Shechem, purchased rather than conquered.
The Book of Judges also presents several peculiarities concerning the Israelite state, noticeably the Song of Deborah, widely held by textual criticism to be one of if not the oldest part of the entire bible. In this, some of the Tribes of Israel are called upon, but the tribes given do not include all of those given elsewhere in the Torah. In addition, Gilead and Machir are given equal status to the other tribes, but Manasseh is not listed at all, leading several scholars to posit that Machir and Gilead were originally tribes in their own right that were later swallowed up to become the half-tribe of Manasseh.
What is now the First book of Samuel, in the main, presents a positive account of King David, but the Second mostly presents a negative view. This abrupt change in attitude is merely glossed over in the text rather than being explained. The Book of Kings, which follows it, is regarded as more consistent, though the breaks between Kings are somewhat abrupt interruptions to the narrative.
In critical scholarship these features are viewed as the result of the Deuteronomist collecting together several different accounts of the same events, and joining them together with brief passages, and framing. The Book of Chronicles covers the same period in time but also lists some of its sources, and it is these sources which are often considered to have been those which were, more directly, copied into the Deuteronomic history. In particular, the peculiar features of the Deuteronomic history are viewed as a result of some of the underlying sources being recensions, redactions, and different political spins of others.
Jehoiakim section move
I'm moving this text to talk until such time as it can be rewritten with proper citation, and without the unsigned in-article discussion I found there ("No where in this verse does it state that Jehoiakim was carried off into captivity, nor in the first chapter of Daniel does it say that.")! I began adding scripture citations, but it needs more work to show it's not OR in its entirety. This topic is discussed on http://www.conservapedia.com/Jehoiakim, including references from reliable sources which can be used to assist with the rewrite. I have Ussher's "The Annals of the World", and double-checked the references, which are correct. --Faith (talk) 18:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Removed text
Jehoiakim contradictions
Daniel 1:1 states that Nebuchadnezzar carried off into captivity the Jewish king Jehoiakim in this king's third regnal year.
Daniel 1:1 states, "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the articles into the treasure house of his god." (NKJV). No where in this verse does it state that Jehoiakim was carried off into captivity, nor in the first chapter of Daniel does it say that.
The third year of Jehoiakim's reign would be 605 BCE at which time Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king of Babylon. It was on March 16, 597 BC that Jerusalem was captured by Nebuchadnezzar. This is in apparent conflict with 2 Kings 24:12 which states that the siege occurred during Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year(597 BC) and 2 Kings 23:36 which states that Jehoiakim reigned in Judah for eleven years, meaning he could have been defeated by Nebuchadnezzar only in his 11th year(597 BC). 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 agrees with 2 Kings in claiming that Jehoiakim ruled for 11 years before being taken prisoner to Babylon. Apologists have tried to resolve the conflicts by positing an additional, otherwise unmentioned, siege of Jerusalem in 605 BCE, shortly after the Battle of Carchemish. They claim that Jehoiakim was carried off into Babylon after this hypothetical siege of 605 BC, later returned to power, and was taken again in the siege of 597 BCE.[reference:]The Skeptical Review Online - Print Edition - 1990-2002[/reference] This however ignores the fact that Jehoiakim had died in 598 BCE before the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BCE (2 Kings 24:10), and it was his son King Jehoiachin who had ruled for only three months that was taken captive in the Babylonian siege of 597 BCE(2 Kings 24:6-12).
Other apparent inconsistencies concerning Jehoiakim include:
his successor as King. 2 Kings 24:6 says he was succeeded as king by his son Jehoiachin. Jeremiah 36:30 says he had no one to succeed him.
genealogy. 2 Kings 24:6 says Jehoiakim was the father of Jehoiachin/Jeconiah. Matthew 1 says Josiah is the father of Jehoiachin/Jeconiah. 1 Chronicles 3:15-16 says Josiah is father of Jehoiakim.
manner of his death. According to 2 Kgs 24:5-6, he died peacefully and slept with his fathers whereas Jeremiah prophesied(Jeremiah 22:18-19) that no one will lament for Jehoiakim, and that with the burial of an ass he shall be buried, dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
place of his death. 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 say he died in Babylon whereas Jeremiah 22:18-19 says he died near Jerusalem.
Beginning draft rewrite
According to Ussher (761), Necho deposed Shallum from the throne and made Eliakim king, changing his name to Jehoiakim in 610 BC (3394d AM, 4104 JP).[1]
Ussher(769), Nabopolassar sent an army under the command of Nebuchadnezzar, "who he first made viceroy in the kingdom" in 607 BC (3397b-3398a AM, 4107 JP).[1] Ussher(769) places this "toward the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth year" of Jehoiakim's reign.[1] Ussher(775) states "Nebuchadnezzar chained Jehoiakim to carry him away from Babylon. (chronicles 36:6 2Chronicles 36:6) Later, upon his submission and promises of subjection, he let him stay in his own house, where he lived as his servant for three years (kings 24:1 2Kings 24:1)".[1]
Nabopolassar died 605 BC (3399b AM, 4109 JP), after reigning for twenty-one years, and Nebuchadnezzar succeed to the throne (Ussher782).[1] In 604 BC (3401a AM, 4110 JP), Jehoiakim rebelled against his three year subjection to Nebuchadnezzar as reported in kings 24:1 2Kings 24:1 (Ussher785).[1]
Nebuchadnezzar came to besiege Jerusalem in 599 BC (3405d AM, 4115 JP) according to Ussher(797).[1][3]
^ abcdefgJames Ussher, The Annals of the World, Larry Pierce, ed., Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2003. ISBN 0890513600. (NB parenthetical numbers represent individual paragraph numbers).
^"In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god [or gods], and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god" (NASB).
^Note: 607 BC when Nebuchadnezzar was made viceroy (Ussher769) to 599 BC when he besieged Jerusalem (Ussher797) are the eight years referenced in kings 24:12 2Kings 24:12 per Ussher(797): "This happened in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign over Babylon".
sources
For Faith,
you are picking the most important subject in the whole world, imo. :)
You are also using exactly the right method, imo.
Beware of Ussher, Faith. He was a good man, but had limited resources. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Ussher. When I want a good, solid old conservative Christian commentary on the Bible or Theology, I start with John Calvin. Calvin wrote on almost every topic, and read almost everything in every language written before him (yes, I'm exaggerating, but not much, he may well be the smartest man ever to have lived, with one notable exception ;). If I want something older, I check to see if Augustine wrote on the topic. If Augustine wrote something worthwhile, Calvin will often mention him. Everything Calvin and Augustine wrote is online (CCEL -- Christian Classics Etherial Library). Rashi is roughly to Judaism what Augustine and Calvin are to Christianity. Eusebius of Caesarea is also an important source of history, but beware his theology. I imagine you'll discover that for yourself, I'm sure.
A lot of important issues came up during the 19th and 20th centuries. Calvin and Augustine can no longer tell us what they think about those things. There are excellent Theological Dictionaries and one volume Bible Commentaries that can put quality bibliographies in the palm of your hand (got to stop exaggerating). Many issues are resolved over the course of a few decades, a few take much longer, some are perennial. Contemporary conservative sources will nearly always be reliable for resolved debates and perennial issues. The church tends to decay. Progressives and conservatives probably go 50-50 in any current issue -- Luther was progressive, was he wrong? Wilberforce was progressive, was he wrong? Many heretics have great ideas they take too far. Understand the idea and the heresy, remove the heresy and keep the idea. This is a lot easier said than done, but is almost always worth the effort. It sometimes takes the church centuries to cool down enough to see past the heresy.
There are so many brilliant Bible scholars in the 20th century it is impossible to list names. Always read bibliographies of articles, the names you remember will be the names you should remember.
Ussher was a handy ref as I have a copy of Annals on my bookshelf by the computer (although I could have walked to my bookshelf across the room, or in the dining room, living room, stacks in the corner, ... you get the idea :)). CCEL is a good ref. My main worry for reference is not WP:V from a standpoint of following it, which isn't difficult, but from the editor's standpoint of 'can they get the material online?' WP is a great online resource, but it would be mostly useless to some people if every reference was hardcopy, especially to the casual learner who might not have access to a copy. If we can find classic scholars, available online, then add book refs as support to the points, wherever possible, we make it easier on this type of WP reader, IMO. Unfortunately, (and as I say this jaws drop) I wish there were a mechanism in place to allow "remove the heresy and keep the idea" type edits, etc. OR is a great rule, and one that must be followed (as this article clearly showed the result of it being thrown out the window), but sometimes it's a royal pain in the arse when you want to get very valid points across. Those have to remain being explored through personal education and debated hotly over pots and pots of coffee, I guess. Also, I honestly appreciate the higher quality of writing using the reference that you both are bringing into the article. I think it will be great once we get it off the ground and properly researched/resourced. --Faith (talk) 18:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Still needs cleanup and citations
It was on March 16, 597 BC that Jerusalem was captured by Nebuchadnezzar. This is in apparent conflict with kings 24:12 2Kings 24:12 which states that the siege occurred during Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year(597 BC) and (wrong and unsupported dates; see Ussher above)
2 Kings 23:36 which states that Jehoiakim reigned in Judah for eleven years, meaning he could have been defeated by Nebuchadnezzar only in his 11th year(597 BC). 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 agrees with 2 Kings in claiming that Jehoiakim ruled for 11 years before being taken prisoner to Babylon. Apologists have tried to resolve the conflicts by positing an additional, otherwise unmentioned, siege of Jerusalem in 605 BCE, shortly after the Battle of Carchemish. They claim that Jehoiakim was carried off into Babylon after this hypothetical siege of 605 BC, later returned to power, and was taken again in the siege of 597 BCE.[ref]The Skeptical Review Online - Print Edition - 1990-2002[/ref]1 This however ignores the fact that Jehoiakim had died in 598 BCE before the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BCE (kings 24:10 2Kings 24:10), and it was his son King Jehoiachin who had ruled for only three months that was taken captive in the Babylonian siege of 597 BCE (kings 24:6-12 2Kings 24:6–12).{{fact}}
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I don't understand the OR synthesis of "conflict" allowed here. Daniel 1:1-2 states when Jehoiakim was in the third year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiakim hostage. Jeremiah 46:2 refers to events around this time as "the fourth year of Jehoiakim" [NB: Nebuchadnezzar's first year of viceroy was during the end of the third, beginning of the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign per Ussher] 2 Chronicles 36:5-6 states "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against [Jehoiakim] and bound him with bronze chains to take him to Babylon". 2 King 24:1 states "During Jehoiakim's reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years." So Jehoiakim [made king in 610 BC per Ussher] reigned for three years into the fourth, and was captured by Nebuchadnezzar [607 BC per Ussher], bound in chains and brought to Babylon, then brought back and allowed to remain in his own home under submission and subjection, where he served as a vassal king for three years [607 to 604 BC per Ussher776] [also 2 Kings 24:1] [also Jehoiakim]. Three years later, Jehoiakim rebelled (2 Kings 24:1) [604 BC per Ussher785]. Jehoiakim finished out his reign as king for a total of 11 years [610 BC (Ussher761) to 599 BC (Ussher794)] while the fighting continued, and was killed [599 BC per Ussher(794)] by the Chaldeans, and Jehoiachin took his place [599 BC per Ussher795]. Jehoiachin ruled for three months and ten days in Jerusalem [599 BC per Ussher795] until Nebuchadnezzar came, and carried King Jehoiachin to Babylon [599 BC per Ussher797]. Furthermore, Josephus supports these points in Antiquities of the Jews - Book X, Chapter 6Faith (talk) 09:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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Other apparent inconsistencies concerning Jehoiakim include:
his successor as King. kings 24:1,6 2Kings 24:1,6 says he was succeeded as king by his son Jehoiachin. 36:30 Jeremiah 36:30 says he had no one to succeed himno one to sit on the throne of David (cf 2 Kings 24:12-15 & Jeremiah 22:30).
genealogy. kings 23:34, 24:6 2Kings 23:34,24:6 says Eliakim, renamed Jehoiakim, was the son of Josiah, and Jehoiakim was the father of Jehoiachin/Jeconiah. 1:11-12 Matthew 1:11–12 says Josiah isbecame the father of Jehoiachin/Jeconiah at the time of the deportation to Babylon. chronicles 3:15-16 1Chronicles 3:15–16 says Josiah is father of Jehoiakim and Jehoiakim's son was Jeconiah. (Therefore, no contradiction)
manner of his death. According to kings 24:1,6 2Kings 24:1,6, he died peacefully and [editor conclusion from facts not in evidence] slept with his fathers whereas Jeremiah prophesied in 22:18-19 Jeremiah 22:18–19 that no one will lament for Jehoiakim, and that with the burial of an ass he shall be buried, dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.
place of his death. chronicles 36:5-6,8 2Chronicles 36:5–6,8say he died in Babylon whereasdoes not mention where he died (instead verse 8 states "the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and the abominations which he did, and what was found against him, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah"); 22:18-19 Jeremiah 22:18–19 says he died near Jerusalem.
Discussion
1 Biblical scholars? Not many serious Biblical scholars would allow this sort of commentary on their website. I can't see where this is a reliable source of Biblical scholarship. Faith (talk)
You're probably not familiar with the history of Turkel/Holding's insults directed at Till (and anyone else who doesn't share Turkel/Holding's uninformed beliefs). --Robert Stevens (talk) 14:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I did see a lot of the back and forth silliness, but it doesn't refute my point. Do we see serious Biblical scholars like Henry, Wesley, Barclay, MacArthur, etc. publishing nonsense along either lines? Faith (talk) 14:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've recommended the big charts on this article for review on this noticeboard for several reasons, including a fundamental flaw in the foundation of the charts where they violate OR and SYN regardless of the changes to individual points to cited material. Faith (talk) 00:52, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The tables can now be found here for review, as I have been WP:BOLD and removed them for the reasons stated above after listing them on the noticeboard for review. My reasons for this removal is explained there as well. If there aren't any major complaints over the next few days regarding their removal, I'm going to recommend the table page for deletion for OR and SYN reasons. Faith (talk) 18:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"The Jewish view is that such issues may be reconciled by reference to other biblical verses or oral teachings"; what is "the" Jewish view? Aside from the fact the statement is unsourced, it pretends all Jewish view on the matter is the same. Can we get a better statement regard various Jewish views on inerrancy? Faith (talk) 18:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Christian view on the Bible
Looks very POV, as there are prominent Christians who don't think the Bible is consistent and argue that there are errors in it. Certainly in the UK I'd say most Christians don't believe in Adam and Eve, etc.--Doug Weller (talk) 19:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also I think this stuff belongs in the Biblical Inerrancy article. Wasn't it just added here in the last couple of days?. This article here is long enough as it stands, I think it should document and discuss (alleged) inconsistencies and leave the positions of different groups for the [Biblical Inerrancy]] article. Peter Ballard (talk) 00:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but if you'll note I'm working on the section (there was a commented out portion showing other POV, but I needed better wording and resources). I moved the larger explanations to the BI article already, but then I got stuck having to deal with a disruptive editor that I've now had to report for 3RR, and needed to go to bed before I could finish the edits. The section should now fairly represent NPOV. I was trying to make BI a brief section pointing to the specific article, because BI states adherents believe "the Bible is totally without error, and free from all contradiction", which relates back to this article. I think belief in errancy/inerrancy is important to briefly highlight here, without full discussion of history and decisions based on the the acceptance/rejection of same that would belong on the Biblical Inerrancy article. My apologies for the previous (interrupted) appearance of POV; it wasn't intended. Also, if anyone has quotes from offical sources regarding the Jewish and Muslim statements, currently unsourced, please add them so we have an accurate representation. I would prefer an official statement from each division of Jewish and Muslim faith, rather than the blanket statements currently in place. Faith (talk) 04:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
'Ezra and Nehemiah
I've edited this section to include both the perceived inconsistancy and the suggested solution made by the author from the source that was included in this article before I began editing it. My concern here, looking for feedback, is this a RS? I'm not familiar with the KJVO site. Faith (talk) 08:40, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to rewrite this section in the near future, using more learned and well-known scholars. I'll leave the current text for now as I have used cited material, but there is plenty from Adam Clarke Commentary and JBF on the matter to make a nice section. Faith (talk) 03:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Chronicles and the deuteronomic history review
The following appears to be WP:OR/WP:SYN, with only one reference citation (2 refs) for response by an apologist which I cannot verify. Faith (talk) 17:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Book of Chronicles and the Deuteronomic history both present an account of the same period of Israelite history, but contain what are apparently subtle discrepancies between them. In the Books of Kings, the basin built before the Temple has a volume of 2000 baths (a Hebrew measure, approximately 32 liters or 8 U.S. gallons), while the account in the Books of Chronicles cites a volume of 3000 baths.[citation needed]David's census yields a result of 800,000 people in Israel and 500,000 in Judah, according to the Books of Samuel, but 1,100,000 in Israel and 470,000 in Judah according to the Chronicler.[citation needed] (Apologists contend that the Samuel account was giving the number in "all Israel" capable of bearing arms, while the Chronicler deals with the number "in Israel" who actually did bear arms. Then, regarding the surplus in Judah in Samuel, it is proposed that these are the 30,000 men of 2 Samuel 6:1 who did not "draw the sword", but were still in the battle, as they were stationed at the frontier of Philistia and helped to carry away the Ark of the Lord.)[citation needed]
If one is willing to accept a small degree of inaccuracy in the text, there are a few easy solutions available; it is possible that the differences between the two accounts are related to the unofficial and incomplete nature of the census, or that the book of Samuel presents rounded numbers, particularly for Judah.[citation needed] Another solution, retaining a higher degree of biblical accuracy, is that one census included categories of men that the other had excluded, for example one could interpret "ready for battle" as a reference to being battle seasoned rather than simply to being of fighting age, and thus Samuel could be argued to refer only to those that had previously experienced battles. According to literalist Apologists, it would be reasonable to assume that there were an additional 300,000 men, almost half the size of the army again, in the reserves.<ref>Archer 1982:188-189 and Light of Life II 1992:189-190</ref>
Biblical criticism, in the main, views these, and other, discrepancies to be down to the two separate accounts being based on the same source, but subject to different political spins.[citation needed] There were two significant factions of the priesthood in pre-exilic Israel/Judah, namely those who claimed descent from Aaron and that only they could be priests, and those who opposed them. Chronicles is viewed as the pro-Aaronid response to the anti-Aaronid Deuteronomist, and, since in this view, Chronicles is over 100 years later, and updated its figures to take account of, for example, the population in its day.[citation needed]
Outdated and fringe scholarship
While it's good to see that this article now has extensive referencing for each point, the problem is that most of it has little to do with modern mainstream biblical scholarship. Most of the references seem to be lifted off obscure apologetic websites. Some, like Daryl Wingerd, Richard T. Ritenbaugh, and M W J Phelan, are not biblical scholars; there is no sign of their work in scholarly books or journals (Phelan's book is published by a small apologetic press and does not seem to be cited in any published scholarly work, a clear indication that this is a fringe view).
In addition, there are references which are ridiculously out of date, given how much biblical scholarship has moved on in the past century. The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary was published in 1871 and should only be cited here to provide a historical view - it cannot be used to sustain a modern interpretation.
The editor who has added these stated originally the intention of "showing there are different sides to the debate, rather than presenting one side as fact. My aim is to present the article in a balanced, neutral manner." Now the article is heavily biased towards a minority view, supported by fringe citations. This is certainly not balanced or neutral and is highly lacking in references from modern scholarly works. --Rbreen (talk) 12:23, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I, "the editor", have been adding all sorts of references from all viewpoints, including linking to our internal articles which provides more information from a biased toward critical viewpoint, while summarising those points here on an article named Internal Consistency of the Bible, not internal INconsistency, and the article is not merely about "modern interpretation", but about the consistency of the Bible itself, where JFB would be appropriate for use. I've tried to keep a balanced, NPOV while sticking to the subject of the article showing both perceived consistency issues and possible resolutions from reputable, published scholars. If you'd like to make another article that tells people of the errors and criticisms (or edit Criticism of the Bible), then you'll need to do that rather than trying to overwhelm this article with criticism. It's not the place for it. This article still needs much work because it's still not reflecting encyclopaedic content as a whole. The problem with removing those scholar's references is that we needed scholars who address both the criticism AND the possible resolutions, not uncited sources and SYN violations. Your removal of John Wesley is simply ridiculous, especially coupled with your re-adding in another place WP:SYN that is unsourced, a citation from a book published in 1943 ("ridiculously out of date", indeed), & a Henderson book which gets one hit on Google scholar other than for the book itself. Why? Ritenbaugh has six hits for his articles published by Forerunner magazine along with another citation on Google scholar, which is more than Henderson, and Wingerd has two citations on Google scholar which is also more than Henderson (Phelan I won't complain about because I can agree with that point). This appears to be a whitewash, replacing higher ranking scholars with lesser scholars who just happen to be critical of the issues. I don't mind if you add yours, if they are sourced, provided they are appropriately balanced. I do have a great issue with you removing sourced material you just happen to dislike, especially when it comes from great scholars like Wesley. I've reverted these (except for Phelan). You will need consensus for your removals, or you are welcome to file a RfC. Faith (talk) 13:34, 10 May 2008 (UTC) Edit: BTW, it is an inconsistent exclusion to complain about and remove Brown and JFB, while at the same time replace a reference citing JFB (#37) Faith (talk) 14:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC) Edit2: Also, I should point out I used Wingerd rather than the more widely published scholar Wallace in an effort to be more balanced toward both views. If the removal of Wingerd is forced, the substitution of Wallace's critical assessment of Ehrman's book will result in a far stronger statement. Faith (talk) 16:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC) Fixed thoughts 04:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since a second editor has "complained" via attempts to reduce Wingerd's statement as scholar v pastor, I've replaced Wingerd with Wallace, adding information re: debate between Wallace and Ehrman. --Faith (talk) 00:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Culpepper citations
The R. Alan Culpepper book "John, the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend (Studies on Personalities of the New Testament)" is cited as a reference in this article for pages 41-42 (the section of the book runs from 41-43), which can be found on Amazon's See Inside (search for "against me" and pages 41 and 42 will come up as links which can be clicked and the pages viewed). Would someone please point out the relevant parts of this which are being parphrased in this article? --Faith (talk) 15:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Even with a second look, the paraphrase doesn't seem to accurately represent the ref. Can someone also check this and show what relevant parts are being drawn on? Faith (talk) 03:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Henderson & Davies/Allison citations
"Ian H. Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, Brill (1996), pages 333-334; William David Davies, Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Continuum International Publishing (2004), page 333-334" Are both intended to reference the exact same pages? Or is this a possible error? Faith (talk) 15:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV?
Regarding the Acts section, how is this in anyone's mind neutral?
"supposedly written"
"glaring inconsistency"
"Surely if this is the Luke who knew Paul actually writing, he would have been able to confer with Paul which version is correct, and certainly if it is truly the "word of God", the correct answer would be clear."
Seriously? --Faith (talk) 17:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC) Hopefully that bit reads a bit better. I exchanged this seriously POV OR with scholarly resource material, as well as replacing Barker's synthesis of what an encyclopaedia stated with Archer's writings from an encyclopaedia. This is more scholarly, and it also allowed the entire segment to be written without resorting to WP:SYN because Archer covered the entire point, including mentioning the scripture verses. I'm open to suggestion if the Catholic encyclopaedia part of the opening statement isn't acceptable to anyone, but would prefer it to stay as it made the same point at the non-neutral OR, but cited to an expert resource, and without the hyperbole. Faith (talk) 18:25, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
biblical inconsistencies v biblical contradictions
There appears to be a mistaken belief on some fronts that Biblical consistency must leave open-ended Biblical contradictions for this article to show a balanced NPOV. However, as one of our references, "Bible Inconsistencies: Bible Contradictions?", points out "whereas a contradiction is necessarily an inconsistency, an inconsistency is not necessarily a contradiction". This article is not about contradictions, but about Internal Consistency of the Bible. To stay true to this article's title, and therefore theme, we must not balance perceived contradictions with explanations of contradictions, or worse compile a WP:SYN of heaps of WP:OR perceived contradictions with WP:OR replies (like in the now removed charts), but rather show scholarly documented perceived problems with consistency balanced with scholarly explanation(s) (again, not OR and/or SYS violations) who have discussed those perceptions toward the Internal Consistency of the Bible. Showing both sides, perception and (possible, probable, or definite) explanation, offers NPOV, allowing the reader to decide if the explanation clears the perceived inconsistency in his or her mind, if one exists. --Faith (talk) 18:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote in context
"These two sayings necessarily belong together as the two claims of Jesus Christ, the claim to exclusiveness and the claim to totality. The greater the exclusiveness, the greater the freedom. But in isolation the claim to exclusiveness leads to fanaticism and to slavery; and in isolation the claim to totality leads to the secularization and self-abandonment of the Church. The more exclusively we acknowledge and confess Christ as our Lord, the more fully the wide range of His dominion will be disclosed to us. It was not metaphysical speculation, it was not a theologumenon of the logos spermatikos, but it was the concrete suffering of injustice, of the organized lie, of hostility to mankind and of violence, it was the persecution of lawfulness, truth, humanity and freedom which impelled the men who held these values dear to seek the protection of Jesus Christ and therefore to become subject to His claim, and it was through this that the Church of Jesus Christ learnt of the wide extent of her responsibility. The relationship of the Church with the world today does not consist, as it did in the Middle Ages, in the calm and steady expansion of the power of the name of Christ, nor yet in an endeavour, such as was undertaken by the apologists of the first centuries of Christianity, to justify and publicize and embellish the name of Jesus Christ before the world by associating it with human names and values, but solely in the recognition of the origin which has been awakened and vouchsafed to men in this suffering, solely in the seeking of refuge from persecution in Christ. It is not Christ who must justify Himself before the world by acknowledgement of the values of justice, truth and freedom but it is these values which have come to need justification, and their justification can only be Jesus Christ. It is not that a "Christian culture" must make the name of Jesus Christ acceptable to the world; but the crucified Christ has become the refuge and the justification, the protection and the claim for higher values and their defenders that have fallen victim to suffering. It is with the Christ who is persecuted and who suffers in His Church that justice, truth, humanity and freedom now seek refuge; it is with the Christ who found no shelter in the world, the Christ who was cast out from the world, the Christ of the crib and of the cross, under whose protection they now seek sanctuary, and who thereby for the first time displays the full extent of His power. The cross of Christ makes both sayings true: "He that is not with me is against me" and "He that is not against us is for us." This is found on page 60-61 (not 58 as was in the text) and can be seen on Search "isolation"; link page 60. Note, only the bolded portion was originally inserted, making it seem like a slur on Christianity, while the full context shows it was nothing of the sort, especially in light of the final sentence, underlined here. Change has been made to reflect full context and correct page (as well as corrected reference). --Faith (talk) 12:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Page numbers vary between editions. Can we find an on-line edition to link to?
The current quotation is too long, too complex and too wordy for this article. I suggest reinstating a general intro to the contrasting Bible verses, then reducing DB's commentary to:
In Ethics, Dietrich Bonhoeffer called these two sayings "the claim to exclusiveness and the claim to totality". He argued that both are necessary and that "The cross of Christ makes both sayings true."
I didn't find an online edition, but you can see the pages from the link in the big paragraph above (not that I'm suggesting that be placed in the article; it was put here simply to show the complete context where someone used it in the opposite manner in which it was intended, a common problem I found in this article). I have no problem with it being shortened, as long as it reflects the accurate meaning. Your sentences seem to do the trick. Faith (talk) 23:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC) Edit: On second thought, is that too much of a simplification of Bonhoeffer's statement? Are we reducing his reasoning to the end result without showing why he makes that claim? Faith (talk) 00:37, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I want to clarify a point I made in the first paragraph, where I said "making it seem like a slur on Christianity", to which exception has been taken elsewhere by the inserting editor. I may not have made myself completely clear. I was not failing to AGF or trying to imply that the editor intended to use Bonhoeffer's quote as a slur, but that in presenting that phrase out-of-context from the surrounding point (the underlined last sentence especially), could be seen as a slur against Christianity, one Bonhoeffer did not intend. This is especially true in an article like this, where consistency is being discussed and examined by people from all walks of life, who might not know who Bonhoeffer was, why he wrote what he wrote, or where he was when he wrote it. Faith (talk) 01:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Moved OR from article
Moved from article; tagged unreferenced since Dec 2007, as it contains only OR. They will need more than just the addition of citations; they need to be completely rewritten to specific references. Faith (talk) 02:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus' cleansing of the Temple occurs during his final week in Jerusalem before the Crucifixion; in John, it occurs at the beginning of his ministry, several years before the crucifixion.
In the Synoptic Gospels, the Last Supper is a PassoverSeder, and Jesus is executed on the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread (15 Nisan); in John, the Last Supper is not a seder, and Jesus is executed on the day of preparation, when the lambs were slaughtered for the Passover feast (14 Nisan).
Several significant technical discrepancies arise in textual criticism of the Pauline epistles. Questions concerning writing style, vocabulary and the historic circumstances of the epistles have, for one reason or another, led to there only being seven which are regarded as genuine by a clear majority of scholars. Various shades of opinion cover the authenticity of the remainder, with the Pastoral epistles being seen as being pseudonymous by a large majority. The authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews has historically been questioned extensively, and since it is anonymous, even among most conservative religious groups, it is believed to have been written by someone other than Paul.
Some of the less technical and more obvious examples of these discrepancies involve significant questions of theology and content:
What is the main emphasis? (faith, in Romans and Galatians; however, proper behaviour, and works, appear to be more encouraged in the Pastorals) (Apologists often see these as complementary positions, and not contradictory. Apologists often assert that both faith and works are important, and the different letters are merely emphasizing one of them, but not to the exclusion of the other. See also Epistle of James.)
Who was Jesus? (Some believe that the epistles range from docetic viewpoints, asserting that the flesh is dead, to views suggesting a concrete historic figure)
Is Jesus returning soon? (1 Corinthians 7:29, Romans 13:11-12 and 1 Thessalonians 4-5 seems to say yes; 2 Thessalonians 2:2 seems to say that it may not necessarily be so soon)
Are the leaders of the church important? (Some think Galatians seems to disparage church leaders; 1 Timothy appears to teach that bishops and deacons are important)
According to many commentators, God in the Old Testament is often vengeful, taking abrupt and often merciless action upon his enemies. In contrast, in this view, the New Testament God appears a much more compassionate deity. In the early days of Christianity, this view influenced the beliefs of the Gnostics and Marcion. On the other hand, most would consider the New Testament to teach a doctrine of eternal hell, which is not explicitly referred to in the Old Testament. However, passages such as Isaiah 66:24, Daniel 12:2 refer to eternal torment of the wicked, which many apologists have taken as referring to Hell.
Some Christians claim that, due to the stain of an original sin, mankind was prey to passion and instinct, angering God, until mankind learnt control — at which point God's mercy shone through resulting in Jesus, thus explaining the behaviour discrepancy. The vast majority of Christians do not see a complete rupture between the two parts of the Christian Bible, though many advocate some form of supersessionism.
Nonetheless, some aspects of God's attitude are the reverse of this apparent general trend. It is in the New Testament that Jesus talks about hell and how God gets angry regarding men's moral failings, whereas it is in the Old Testament that God is described as kind and merciful, slow to anger. This Old Testament claim about God's attitude is one that appears to conflict with the demonstrated behaviour, an apparent inconsistency that Jews address by stating that God is angered by sin and evil, even though he loves humanity and desires the good for them.
Old Testament section
I've re-written the Old Testament section. The original consisted largely of a discussion of points of detail - all about how X is an inconsistency but can be explained by Y, ad nauseum. A far better approach is to discuss why the inconsistencies are important. At the moment I can think of only two important areas, those in the Torah which led to the Documentary Hypothesis, and those between the Deuteronomistic History and Chronicler's which suggest the fundamental theological differences between these two major sections of the Hebrew Bible. I think this is a much more fruitful approach than simply listing and explaining away the many, many perceived inconsistencies in the text. But I am of course looking for the comments of other editors. PiCo (talk) 08:07, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that you've taken sourced information from this and the other section, and replaced them with OR. I'm going to revert them for the time being (you can retrieve from history, so I won't copy it here). I don't think it's a bad approach necessarily, but as the point was to get rid of OR, this is a backward step as it was applied. If you can find scholars who wrote similar synthesis along those lines, it might be able to be added as additional material. Keep in mind, however, that this isn't the documentary hypothesis article, and that is only an aspect of the whole. Faith (talk) 08:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PiCo, thanks for the invite to chip in and have the page and discussion on my watchlist. I am very hopeful that together we'll produce something really worthwhile here. There are two things I'd love Wiki to be able to offer readers here:
a list of alleged discrepencies in the Bible (this is easy to source); and
adequate discussions of all these discrepencies, some in this article, others in independent articles and yet others in articles requiring substantial treatment of the alleged discrepency.
A bit of philosophising from me...
If the Bible is to be offered as an absolutely trustworthy standard for faith (which, outside Wiki, I personally promote), part of this involves confidence it will stand up to the closest fair scrutiny that anyone could ever subject it to. Any well meaning defense of the Bible that involves silencing legitimate questioning can only lead impartial observers to conclude the censors do not really believe what they purport to believe. Such well intentioned silencing also robs the Bible of the chance to defend itself.
Let me confess something. Were I to design the ultimate tool to persuade people of the truth of the Bible, what I would do is set things up so that anyone in the world could criticise the Bible, but anyone in the world could respond, and anyone in the world could see the debate. Get discussion of the Bible out of the churches and colleges and onto the internet, but moderate it by drawing on the many quality sources already gathered in the publications of history.
You can see what I'm saying I'm sure. Wikipedia is a better forum for the Bible than Theopedia. At Theopedia, policy defends the Bible. At Wikipedia, the Bible has to fend for itself. That, imo, is how it should be, and my money is on the Bible to succeed in precisely what it is intended to achieve. (There is a passage in Isaiah about this and the interested reader can find my own translation of that at the Free Bible hosted by Wikisource, unless someone's changed it already, lol.)
My apologies for the above, but I hope it explains why I personally have no difficulty with criticisms of the Bible being raised at Wikipedia, despite being a passionate believer in the Bible. To me, the Bible is alive and invincible. Bring it on! And document the results!
But I am realistic too. There are some things we just don't know. There are other things we are satisfied with, only because we've not thought outside the box yet. Both the 19th and 20th centuries answered, but also raised, questions about the Bible. I anticipate it will be no different in the 21st.
...end of philosophising from me.
As we make progress here, I think we need to remember Wiki is full of empty space. That reduces a lot of conflict. Nothing coherent and reasonable needs to be left out, even wrong things and dead ends are part of the process of coming to understanding. The trick at Wiki is thinking through how to index it all for ease of reading and reference. As a rule of thumb, I think it's worth developing a thought in a parent article before floating it off.
There is a list of alleged discrepencies in the Bible somewhere isn't there? That and this article need to talk to one-another. There's some meta-edit involved here.
PiCo: Yes, that's the direction I would like to see the article move in. The mere fact that the Bible has inconsistencies (and historical errors etc) isn't controversial except among fundamentalists: but the stories behind the Bible's "evolution" are likely to be more interesting to more people, and would make a better article. It would be nice to bring in the polytheism/henotheism/monotheism transition somewhere, and the adaptations of ealier Sumerian material (though the latter might be harder to justify under the current title, as the treatment of the modified Sumerian cosmology seems pretty consistent throughout the Bible: however, as the title is consistency rather than inconsistency...) However, I doubt if I can help much with references, as most of my knowledge in this field was gleaned from discussion groups (inadmissible as references). --Robert Stevens (talk) 10:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A very quick comment here - it's not just about quoting sources; what we need, before getting into the details, is a well-worked-out consensus on some of the issues which are causing trouble; such as what exactly this article is about, what it's for, what sort of sources are appropriate, what represents the mainstream viewpoint, and so forth. (Robert, your help would certainly be useful there). We could avoid a great deal of conflict if we could resolve this before getting bogged down in details. --Rbreen (talk) 10:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(out dent) Nice to meet you Robert, and to hear more from you Ryan. I've commented on PiCo's text directly below and suggested how that specific issue might move forward. I'd like to respond to Ryan's comment by agreeing that we need aims and structure for the whole article. I can see two possible alternatives for a structure: a roughly chronological history of literature claiming inconsistencies in the Bible and any proposed solutions; or a books of the Bible based structure indexing issues related to particular sections, with global issues treated in an extra section.
Robert hints at an important issue which is that the article is actually about inconsistencies, not consistencies. He's quite right, under the current title, even reference to the documentary hypothesis is undue weight to a marginal issue. There is a huge literature on the themes of the Bible and none of deals with text-critical issues. Covenant, Redemption, Revelation, Fiat-Fulfilment, Worship, Love, Justice, Truth and so on are seen as the consistencies of the Bible. Bible scholars have always lived with multiple authors contributing to a common work. Consistency is about theme not authorship.
Speaking for myself, I'm more interested in Wiki articles on inconsistencies than the thematic ones. I can get monographs from theological colleges on any number of themes in the Bible. What is harder to obtain are coherent, comprehensive lists of perceived issues with the integrity of the Bible. The Bible shouts its themes, but the "cracks" require help to observe.
Given the history of the article, it would appear it is a history of perceived inconsistencies article, and so I think it should remain. We can't flip the title, because "perceived" wouldn't be appropriate, but nor would the "in" of inconsistencies. We need a positive word like Criticism of the Bible, what's the difference between that topic and this, and the material in that article and this? Alastair Haines (talk) 11:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is similar to what I was attempting to address in a different talk section. This is not Criticism of the Bible, or Biblical Contradictions. While I adore critical theological thinking, the title of this article is internal consistency, a theme I planned to continue addressing (e.g., Do scholars reason the Bible reveals God the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow in a consistent manner?, Rewriting Ezra and Nehemiah census to show what scholars believe, etc.). I feel it would be inappropriate to change everything here, and then rename it to fit the new material. I'm not trying to WP:OWN this article by any means, but after seeing the shape it was in before, and taking an enormous amount of my time bringing it back toward the direction that suits the title, it's distressing to have this discussion attempt to move it toward a completely different theme. Since WP:NOTPAPER, might I gently suggest this theme be addressed in a whole new fork article? (And "stories behind the Bible's 'evolution'" would fit nicely under Bible.) Otherwise, it appears to me to be thank you for all your hard work, here's a barnstar, now get lost while we undo the entire article and go in a completely different direction, which is very distressing, given the horrid shape it was in for so long before I began bringing any sort of reasonable coherence to it. Faith (talk) 11:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another point, that I forgot to address (and maybe you didn't intend it in this manner) was "The mere fact that the Bible has inconsistencies (and historical errors etc) isn't controversial except among fundamentalists"; this is rather dismissive sounding, as if anyone who places information as to why scholars believe this or that is actually consistent is obviously a dismissable "fundamentalist". There are some perceived inconsistencies which simply aren't inconsistent at all, but rather problematic only until the context, history, original language, etc. is understood. Showing a few examples of these would be appropriate, along with the scholarly reasoning why they aren't inconsistent (not mere handwaving, as was so popular on those now removed charts!). Far too often, there are drastic one-sided approaches to these "problems"; either the "helpful apologist wannabe" makes up anything that sounds reasonable to him, without taking everything else into consideration (to the complete annoyance of everyone who knows the correct answer, screaming "shuddup!!!!!11one1"), or the "hates-everything-about-gawd atheist" who manufactures these huge lists of non-issues and spreads them around (the sort that annoy educated sceptics for the muddying of the waters). Believing in the fundamentals, aka a Fundamentalist, isn't the same as being literalistic. We shouldn't cater to the fringe "everything in the Bible is literal" group, who ignore poetry, metaphoric revelation, etc. We should address that there are those who consider proper use of grammatico-historical exegesis as a way to realise we don't have the same cultural understanding in modern times as existed in Biblical times, and we shouldn't consider English the primary biblical language, as reason why the issues really aren't inconsistent after they are examined properly. --Faith (talk) 12:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PiCo's text
I think PiCos's text is exactly what he claimed it to be in his edit note and other descriptions. It does need sourcing, however I know many sources exist for each point claimed. It's only a matter of taking the time to provide them.
What is important to me is that it is extremely well phrased text. It is not only accurate (facts check), it is neutral, covers several perspectives (traditions and times), and is pitched at just about the right level -- not too simplistic, not too technical.
I think the way forward regarding this text is for Faith to take on trust that sources can and will be located to back it; and to use it as a framework into which existing sourced material can be placed.
Inconsistencies within the Torah (Greek Pentateuch - the first five books of the Hebrew bible/Christian Old Testament) were noted from the very earliest times. The first such inconsistency was not within the Torah itself, but between the Torah and the traditional Jewish and Christian belief that Moses was the author of the five books: both the midrashic rabbis and the early Fathers noted, for instance, that Deuteronomy ends with a description of Moses' death and burial, which is not consistent with his authorship of at least those verses. Later writers noticed that the Torah sometimes speaks of things which did not pertain at the time of Moses: for example, Genesis lists kings of Edom who reigned "before there were kings over Israel" - a statement which Moses, who lived before there were kings over Israel, could not have written. There were similar problems with the names of towns given twice, once by the name known to Moses, followed by the name from the 1st millennium. The rabbis, and more gradually the Church, eventually came to agree that while the bulk of the five books had been written by Moses, later editors had revised his words.
This consensus broke down in the 18th century, when philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza listed the hundreds of such inconsistencies that needed to be explained. In the face of such rationist scepticism, Jean Astruc set out to prove that Moses had indeed written the Pentateuch. Applying the methods of source criticism already in use for Greek and Latin literary texts, he set out his conclusion: Moses had written not one but two books of Genesis, parallel accounts of the same events, which later editors had combined into a single account, thus producing the inconsistencies noted by Hobbes and other sceptics.
Astruc had very little influence during his own lifetime - he was a distinguished physician, not a biblical scholar. But half a century later his methods were taken up by German scholars, who applied it to all five books of the Pentateuch. By the end of the 19th century these scholars had concluded that Astruc's methods led to quite different conclusions: the inconsistencies in the Pentateuch became entirely consistent if the five books were divided into four (not Astruc's two) narratives, each internally coherent, three of them telling three complete but parallel narratives running from Genesis to Numbers, the fourth confined to the book of Deuteronomy. This theory, known as the Documentary Hypothesis, was immensely influential in scholarly circles throughout the 19th century and the first three-quarters of the 20th, and even though it has been challenged by alternative theories since the 1970s, the five books are now universally seen by mainstream biblical scholars as the product of many authors and hundreds of years.
The Deuteronomistic History is the name given by biblical scholars to the series of books from Joshua to Kings, containing the history of Israel from the conquest of Canaan (told in Joshua and Judges), through the establishment of kingship under David and Solomon, to the final destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Babylonians in the early decades of the 6th century BC. The Chronicler's History is the name given to the Book of Chronicles (two books in the Christian tradition) plus Ezra-Nehemiah (also two books in the Christian tradition). The period and events covered by the two histories overlaps, although Chronicler's continues its history of Israel to a point a century and a half later then the end-point of the Deuteronomistic History.
There are many discrepancies between the two histories. Many concern matters of detail similar to those found in the Pentateuch, but the most important inconsistency is one of viewpoint: in the Deuteronomistic History, David is a fallible, human figure, capable of committing adultery and the defacto murder of rivals (the story of Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite), but in the Chronicler's History all such episodes are omitted and David emerges as a flawless figure; and in the Deuteronomistic History David overshadows the priesthood, bringing the Ark to Jerusalem and taking the role of High Priest, but in Chronicler's David defers to the priests, who are always in the lead in matters pertaining to the cult of Yahweh. Biblical scholars therefore see Chronicler's as a 5th century BC retelling of the 6th century Deuteronomistic History, edited to elevate both David and the priesthood.
I never said it wasn't eloquently written, or that it couldn't be a framework for a good line of thought. However, it should have beem sussed out before overwriting complete blocks of well-sourced material. This block, if well-sourced, would be appropriate for history of Documentary Hypothesis, with a small summary on this article linking back as "see also" or "main article". --Faith (talk) 12:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Existing articles
Criticism of the Bible "...is about criticisms which are made against the Bible as a source of information or ethical guidance."
Biblical criticism "...is about the academic treatment of the bible as a historical document."
Biblical inerrancy "...is the conservative evangelical doctrinal position that in its original form, the Bible is totally without error, and free from all contradiction; "referring to the complete accuracy of Scripture, including the historical and scientific parts."
Biblical infallibility "...is the theological term to describe the belief that the Bible is free from errors on issues of faith and practice, while minor possible contradictions in history (or geography, science etc.) can be overlooked as insignificant to its spiritual purpose. This stance is also known as Limited Inerrancy."
Biblical inerrancy has been criticized on the grounds that many statements about history or science that are found in Scripture, if taken literally, may be demonstrated to be untenable or contradictory. Inerrancy is argued to be a falsifiable proposition: if the Bible is found to contain any mistakes or contradictions, the proposition has been refuted. Many inerrantists have offered explanations of why these are not errors.
For more details on Biblical passages cited as errors, see Internal consistency of the Bible, Science and the Bible and The Bible and history.
This appears to be the mandate for the current article, "Bible passages cited as errors". Frankly, I think this would be a better name for the article, or even better List of Bible passages cited as errors.
There's a fair bit of basic work to be done here. If the main function of this page is to list Bible passages claimed to contradict the inerrantist position, then source and form criticism and the Documentary Hypothesis do not bear on the issue. As PiCo has accurately pointed out, Mosaic authorship is more of a traditional attribution than a claim of the Bible itself. Source and form criticism and the DH challenged the inerrancy of interpreters, not of the document they interpret. This is a point Luther, Calvin and others made against the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation.
Likewise, six 24-hour days of creation is an interpretation of Genesis held mainly by some groups in America. The Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation and the many, many, many experiments in a host of disciplines that suggest time frames greater than such a period refute the interpretation such groups hold of Genesis, not Genesis itself, which has God saying to Adam, "in the day you eat of it you will surely die", but Adam doesn't die within 24 hours of eating.
Obviously I'm not a six-day type Christian, but I'm actually not personally sure about inerrant v infallible. I know the Bible itself claims infallibility (it will achieve its purpose). There is something like a claim for inerrancy (God-breathed and God doesn't lie). However, words like inerrant and infallible may or may not reflect what the Bible says about itself, depending on how they are defined.
For example, accusing the Bible of providing a value of π = 3.0 seems silly to me. To the nearest integer this is correct, and sufficient description in the Biblical context. How many decimal places must the Bible give to be inerrant? Me thinks this is an invalid challenge, it would actually be impossible for the Bible to adequately articulate π. However, should we document such claims? Do they belong in Science and the Bible?
Here are some more questions:
Is there an article or list to deal with putative counter-examples to an infallible Bible?
Is there an article or list to deal with putative counter-examples to an inerrant Bible?
Since the first may be a subset of the second, depending on definition, should an article deal with challenges to inerrancy that are not also challenges to infallibility?
Is there a list of Scientific errors in the Bible? Does the resurrection of Jesus count as a scientific error?
Ditto for Historical errors. Does the resurrection of Jesus count as a historical error?
I'm not going to be the first to have asked these questions. Where are they discussed? What was the consensus? How much progress has been made in implementing it?
I'm aware of hundreds of challenges to the Bible on various grounds, but I've not yet heard one that carries more weight than miracles don't happen, virgins don't have baby boys and dead men don't come back to life. There's lots to document here it's fascinating stuff, but it does need clear definitions and convenient, clear classification.
Yes, that, among others, another good reason for not razing the new tract housing, which replaced the falling tenement building, to build another glitzy shopping plaza when there is a plaza down the street which would benefit from improvement. (Accusing the Bible of providing a value of π = 3.0 is completely silly, since the Bible implies no such thing. The two figures are not part of the same equation because circumference is 30/pi, around the basin itself, while the 10 is the measurement from brim-to-brim, shaped like a cup/lily flower, as stated in kings 7:26 1Kings 7:26.) --Faith (talk) 00:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've been able to narrow the list down to non-talk pages and ignore redirects. Articles which link here, looking for discussion of consistency:
I'm not advocating the validity of use on any of these article. I'm just pointing out a decision to change direction will result in a need to rewrite/remove the references in each of these articles. Alastair, to answer two of your questions, Science and the Bible & The Bible and historyFaith (talk) 01:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Faith, this is becoming much clearer. It would appear that there are specific articles covering allegations of, respectively, scientific and historical errors in the Bible. Remaining classes of allegations are lumped in this article, whether they are proposed as defeators of inerrancy or of infallibility. That is a very large scope for this article! Subsections of this would appear to be, for example:
logical contradictions (or incoherence of the semantics of the text -- saved by faith alone Paul, not by faith alone James)
moral errors in the text (commanding genocide, condemning homosexuality, etc.)
errors in transmission -- reproduction and translation
uncertainty regarding precise wording of originals, were there ever originals?
challenges related to literalism
There are surely other classes. Some pertain only against inerrancy, others to infallibility also.
I need to remember to use lists more often; they are far more effective than long missives trying to explain my point. Faith (talk) 18:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yikes!!!
Just noticed the Religious Views section is out of wack. One Presbyterian minister's view is linked to, as if representative of that denomination. It's not clear to me that he is against inerrancy (though I suspect he is), however, Presbyterians actually have an official statement of their view on the internal consistency of the Bible -- [http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/ The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). There are actually many different Presbyterian denominations and I'm pretty sure they all subscribe to the WCF, at least officially, and most police this by requiring signatures at ordination. Likewise, the Church of England aka Anglicans aka Episcopalians also have an official statement of faith called the 39 Articles. I'm not quite up to date on this, but ten years ago I think these were still signed by ordinands also.
But the thing here is, there are more than 30,000 Christian denominations. They actually have a family tree (though I don't think this has been researched or published). Orthodox and Catholics officially split around the turn of the 1st millenium, Lutherans, Calvinist and Church in England denominations arose around specific leaders and communities, independently splitting from Catholicism. In the west, the non-Catholic denominations have been splitting continously ever since. Meanwhile, in the east, Orthodox communities were also splitting. It is frequently the case that various doctrinal issues, practical issues or both lead to splits. Sometimes a strong leader arises within a group and establishes a new branch, and the departure is so radical it isn't so much a split, but a new movement (Brethren). Sometimes charitable organizations or missions become self-sustaining denominations in their own right (Salvation Army). Nearly always, official statements of doctrine are drafted. Rarely, doctrinal statements are deliberately avoided. Often, existing doctrinal statements are readopted or borrowed.
Now, I think we need to do this properly. It would be my guess, having run interdenominational missions for more than 10 years, that almost every denomination of 30,000 would have a statement regarding the trustworthiness of the Bible. I would also guess that almost all of them would officially rate this trustworthiness extremely highly. By default, "Word of God" means infallible and inerrant.
If the question here is how many Christians outside the American denominations and their mission agencies literally use the word inerrant (or a translation of this) in an official statement, we're going to find the inerrantists outnumbered hundreds to one, especially if denominations rather than members are counted. But literalism is just a technique of avoiding thinking, the burden of proof falls on literalists, not on context-sensitivists.
Inerrancy is an extremely old idea (at least as old as the Bible, which claims it for itself), but as a term is really mainly used in recent American debate, with echoes in other countries. As I understand it, the American inerrancy debate is an attempt to recapture the sense of the Reformation doctrines in modern terminology.
What does all this mean for the article? Well, it seems we need to distinguish between denominations that have explicitly considered inerrancy, as defined in recent debate, and rejected it, as against those that reliable sources assess as holding official positions out of line with inerrancy (inerrantist sources would probably provide some of this for us).
One thing we cannot do is assume, "if they don't say they're for it, then they're against it." That's OR speculation of the worst sort.
We also need to work out how much to focus on recent American debate, and how much to focus on centuries old debate between Bible believers (aka Jews, Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Mandeans, Druze, Mormons, etc.) and Bible skeptics (aka theists, agnostics, atheists, Muslims, etc. and I mean to include Muslims in both lists). Personally, I think the latter is the harder but more appropriate course.
Anyway, apologies to PiCo, who is probably starting to regret inviting me here, but I'll have to edit the lead sections of the article quite radically at some point. It seems PiCo's text is one of the few things I like about the overall article. I guess it just shows Christians like me have been lazy and not bothered to share the sources we know about with others. I'm super-busy atm, so I can't see myself getting involved with this for a while. Also, I'm committed to helping Wikiproject Jainism sort itself out.
I hope people working on this article will see the sense in the things I'm mentioning and work it all out without me. One thing I might be able to do is create a List of Christian creeds or something. There are lots and lots of them, but some are more famous than others. I once read a book comparing something like 50 Protestant creeds from the 1600s and showing how similar they all were. The same thing could be produced today, only it would take more than one scholar to do it, and it would be out of date by the time it was complete.
Edit away. You seem to have stumbled across an interesting and under-researched subject, viz. the family tree of Christian communities (or whatever you like to call them). The Othodox/Catholic split was the big one, over the filioque clause, which today nobody can either recognise, pronounce or recite, but there were earlier splits - I remember reading about the very early splits in the East between Byzantium and the minor Eastern Churches over the nature of Christ - and the funny line to the effect that the Western branch of the Church didn't join in because they couldn't understand the arguments. Well worth an article. PiCo (talk) 15:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I was least pleased with that section, while still wanting to retain a bit of a summary statement linking to the main article's section (which is in dire need of revision, as you point out here). I apologise strongly for not specifying Presbyterian USA in the text and linking to the wrong Pressies; the statement is actually from that denomination's official website under "What Presbyterians Believe" - (This one is: "The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with denominational offices in Louisville, Kentucky, has approximately 2.3 million members, more than 10,000 congregations and 14,000 ordained and active ministers. Presbyterians trace their history to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. Our heritage, and much of what we believe, began with John Calvin (1509-1564), whose writings crystallized much of the Reformed thinking that came before him."). "There are also those who appear to lack any official statement" is not a statement for or against, just pointing out that some do not make a statement either way. It's not up to me to judge what they mean by inerrant; I simply reported what they said on their website under inerrant/inerrancy/whatwebelieve/etc. Faith (talk) 18:28, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remembering to add a point after I've hit savepage, I made a big change on the section of the main article on this point regarding the Lutherans, as that section previously made it sound like inerrancy was a fringe position only supported by "other smaller Luteran bodies", when in fact the major Lutheran groups—Lutheran Church of Australia (http://www.lca.org.au/lca/directory/districts.cfm Very large group by Aussie and Kiwi standards, where we don't have a church on every street corner), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ("With nearly 10,500 congregations across the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and nearly five million members")—had official statements for inerrancy. So it's not just which American division say which things, but there are divisions even within the denominations from one place to another. It could, as you point out, turn into an article of it's own. Faith (talk) 18:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(outdent) The attempt to suggest that "inerrancy" is a questionable doctrine among Christians is not relevant to this article and hard to demonstrate anyway. I think the subject of this article is the Bible, and discussion regarding it's consistency. Naturally that arises because the Bible's own claim is for consistency, and the mainstream branches of many religions accept this claim -- like Jews, Christians, Mendeans, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Druze, Mormon's, (maybe Seventh Day Adventists), who all have official statements affirming commitment to the consistency of those books of the Bible that they consider canonical (and usually any additional books, like the book of Mormon, also).
To attempt to suggest that denominations of a religion may believe their scriptures are not really scriptures seems like an exercise in futility. It must involve literalism and OR because it's so counter-intuitive. Of course, religions theoretically have high views of their scriptures. Of course, there is diversity concerning this over time. Of course, we might expect some attempt to "get back to basics" from time to time.
Actually it was more an attempt to clean up what was there from a position of believing some sort of summary statement should remain. Perhaps I should have abandoned that as a SYN of liberal v conservative positions. Like the images; it's starting to look more like a real article now. I'm just so tickled to see the garbage gone, that I'm almost ready to just sit back and let you two do your thing as I'm feeling a bit useless and worn out on the issue, really. --Faith (talk) 06:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think we need to define both "Bible" and "inconsistency." The word "bible" means different things to different people - a conflict between the Book of Chronicles and the Book of Tobit (purely hypothetical) would be a problem to Judaism, but not to a Southern Baptist. As for "inconsistency," we need to consider the various types thereof: arithmetical (like the two statements of how many people were carried off by the Babylonians), narrative (just how often did Moses go up Sinai?), theological (your earlier point about salvation by faith or not), chronological (the chronologies of the Old Testament are utterly irreconcilable), maybe others. It would be impossible to list each and every conflict in the text with its counter-argument (if you want to see it done, get hold of Gleason Archer's book on the topic - it goes on forever, and Mr A. knocks each one down, yet they live). Far better to note that inconsistency vs. infallibility (one side saying "errors" prove the Bible is not by God, the other out to deny the existence of such irreconcilable inconsistencies) is just one way of approaching the subject; far more fruitful has been the study of the fruitful has been the use of inconsistencies to reconstruct the world behind the text, from the DH and other investigations of the way the Bible was constructed, to ideas about ancient Israelite religion and the world of the early Christians. All this, of course, in something less than 2000 words :). 03:49, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
That might be the problem. It seems like it will take too long to discuss any of those with the attention they deserve. Perhaps this should continue to be a repository of the summary of those points, while forking specific article can be created to address the full particulars of each. Faith (talk) 06:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Major Religious Views
I re-wrote the section Major Religious Views. Faith, before you revert, please read it closely and consider my reasons: the existing section is very long, and attempts to enumerate all the doctrinal statements made by all the major religious denominations. This, frankly, is impossible - it's still not even remotely near reaching that goal, and never will. Far better, in my view, to categorise the range of possible views, which is from infallibility to inerrancy. I've taken, from all the footnotes on the old page, just two, representing one major proponent of each view, namely the Southern Baptist Convention and the Catholic Church. I've also added some interpretation of my own on what it all means in theological terms. Yes, this is OR in a sense,but if we don't have some glue to bind our paragraphs together then we don't really have an article. If you disagree with my "glue," please feel free to say so, but w'allahi, glue is necessary.PiCo (talk) 05:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like a fair summary to me, and a much better way forward than the "comparative religions" approach I was suggesting. It's a bit rough and ready in some ways -- often an issue in keeping complex things simple -- but you've address the key issues, and fairly. I'd quibble with "threaten" and recommend "challenge". I'd also consider framing the positions of groups as "sovereign responses" to a "universal issue", rather than competing attempts to unilaterally define the issue (if that makes sense). The last is important, if subtle and poorly worded on my part. Alastair Haines (talk) 05:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't mean to suggest that these two approaches were competing with each other - the idea I was meaning to express is that they lie at the two ends of a spectrum of possible approaches. Please feel free to re-write where you see fit. Now another point: You make the point above that there are also considerable consistencies in the bible, especially on matters of theology - God's progressive self-revelation, for one. One major advantage of pruning this paragraph is that it creates room for another paragraph on these consistencies. I don't feel competent to write such a thing, but I'd like to see what you can come up with. (And a final paragraph on the way textual critics have used inconsistencies to recover/construct such things as the history of the biblical text, the history of Israelite religion, etc etc, to finish off this section - and incidentally, Faith is quite right about one thing, there's no need to rehash the documentary hypothesis when we can simply make a wikilink to it). PiCo (talk) 05:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I came here to say well done. It basically covers sources, succinctness, and "seealso". Of the first three "glue" sentences, two are summary of the points to come based on what the refs state, so they would not, IMO, be OR. However "The idea that it might contain inconsistencies threatens this faith: God cannot be inconsistent" should probably be ref'd, but that shouldn't be at all difficult to do. You might even find something in the refs from the text you removed. (and I'd agree that challenge is better than threaten, but the source material might provide better wording). I'd like to see something more done with the introduction as well, but that might need to wait until we get to the bottom of what direction this article is taking. Sorry I haven't gotten the N v E census written out yet. My spare time got caught in another discussion, and now I'm beat from that ongoing drama. I'm going to have a wiki-break, then I'll get back to it. OT, could you both take a look at "Jehoiakim" above for me and see what I am missing in what the original wording is trying to say. I just am not getting the issue there. I'm beginning to wonder, especially as it was unsourced, if it was just poor SYN that is leading me to believe it needs more attention than it deserves. Faith (talk) 06:35, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this section needs to be resourced. Textual criticism of the New Testament has been outstandingly successful. All works known only from manuscripts are ultimately provided in critical editions. The word critical has a technical meaning, not a negative one. Text criticism is the process of documenting variation between manuscripts, with the aim of inferring the original -- it is a positive exercise. New Testament manuscripts are more numerous and less diverse (especially considering their number) than any other manuscript evidence, from antiquity or even from just prior to the advent of printing. This is uncontroversial among those who study such things.
The text we have in our article currently seems to suggest (to me at least) the following bizarre argument: there is a high count of variations between New Testament manuscripts, therefore we don't know the original text of the New Testament with any certainty.
If I have only two copies of quotations of Socrates that vary in only one word, what is the count of variations? One. If you have five thousand copies of an essay by Thomas Aquinas, several of which vary by whole sentences, what is the count of variations? It will be of the order of (length of essay) to the power of (number of copies). This will be a very large number.
According to the argument implied in the text of the current Wiki article, this methodology makes my knowledge of Socrates thousands, if not millions, of times more reliable than your knowledge of Aquinas. Methinks this is a joke. If we had only one copy of the New Testament, say Codex Vaticanus, the current Wiki argument would have us believe we knew the NT with 100% reliability because there was a variation count of precisely zero.
Textual criticism is an exacting science, that has produced quality results. It is cited here contrary both to its methods and to its results. Textual criticism does not count variations, it weighs them. It documents, classifies, examines and then infers the original that explains the variations. The Alands point out that after all the modern analysis is done, the result agrees with previous, cruder attempts in about 2/3 of cases. As they note, this says something about the consistency of the material -- it is so homogenous that even bumbling efforts produce the right answer in the majority of cases.
Modern textual Christism is Christianity's answer to questions regarding the integrity of the text, and the access we have to the original. It is the foundation that makes an article like the current one meaningful and not merely speculative. Alastair Haines (talk) 03:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Right on. But what you say applies to the entire bible, not just the NT - there are plenty of manuscript families for the OT - the LXX, the MT, the SP, the DSS, to name just the major divisions. Then there are variations within those divisions. It's fascinating, for example, to compare the differing versions of David's fight with Goliath, or the various biblical chronologies. But what the article currently lacks entirely is any discussion of what these inconsistencies tell us about the growth and meaning of the bible. Instead, it goes on and on in an attempt to prove that the inconsistencies aren't really there at all. Inconsistencies are undeniably present - but so are consistencies. (Have you read Jan-Wim Wesselius? A 'bible-has-one-author' man, but from a very odd perspective. One author, of course, should tend towards consistency). PiCo (talk) 06:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No I haven't read Wesselius, I'll look him up at MTC library next Monday.
I'm personally open to all sorts of theories of progressive composition myself. What text criticism tells us, though, is that the text became "frozen" at some point. There were all sorts of errors in transmission from that point, but not so many that the "frozen" point has been erased beyond retracing, quite the opposite.
But the point here is that scribes didn't change the text anywhere like as much as has been proposed editors may have massaged earlier sources.
This poses all sorts of interesting questions. If progressive composition was almost a norm for some of the OT books (and some of them cite sources), why and when did this stop? How was the "frozen" text selected out of prior texts? If, say Moses selected Genesis 1 from a particular "transcendent" tradition and Genesis 2 from another "imminence" tradition, what would that say to various theories? Could Mosaic editing and earlier sources ultimately be compatible? Could Moses have made a mistake in overlooking some incompatibility between his sources? Could this have been serendipitous? The New Testament attributes truth to Caiaphas' "It is expedient that one man die for the people."
There is a famous joke in Greek classical scholarship: "of course, we now know Homer didn't write the Iliad, it was another writer with the same name." There are limits to the bounds of reasonable scepticism.
Of course, the epistles of the NT claim specific authorship and appear to fit into a historical chronology. Inconsistency in these would not easily be "explained away".
I'm completely with you on this I think PiCo. Neither those who wish to sweep away any scrutiny of textual composition and transmission, nor those who wish to rush to dismissal of the Bible because there was no independent auditing body involved in the process, neither of these groups should be allowed to squeeze genuine questions and serious answers out of this article. There are many things that are not known which leave space for divergent views. However, there is a lot known that rules out many simplistic arguments either way.
I'm happy for cited conservative Christian commentary to be removed if is dogmatic rather than explanatory. But likewise sources that make weak cases against the Bible are better cited in so far as they raise questions, rather than as serious considerations of all the evidence.
I found this excellent diagram describing the textual history of Philo. Obviously, the text of the Bible is much, much more complex, but not beyond laying out nicely and clearly in a Wiki article. Alastair Haines (talk) 07:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The "high count" was a more recent addition, and it was a misrepresentation of the original thought, which I cleared up here and other articles it was placed on. The quote from the authors is poignant, though, and I think it should be retained. I thought "Inerrancy and the Text of the New Testament: Assessing the Logic of the Agnostic View" by Daniel B. Wallace (Executive Director, Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts) was interesting, and it provides "sound bites" which might be helpful, including a ref'd source for other ancient classics (Homer, etc.) vs. the MSS. It can be found in PDF here: http://www.4truth.net/atf/cf/%7B0AA41589-FF9B-4057-8DD8-4C34D14E6387%7D/NTTCinerrancyNAMB.pdf --Faith (talk) 08:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a look at the article and it is good standard stuff and bang on topic. Does the link to it give any indication of the journal or book it was published in? Wallace is very well known.
The thing about this is that the reliability of the text makes inerrancy vulnerable to criticism, which is very helpful indeed. If the autographs were hopelessly lost, inerrancy could never be challenged. If the Bible were proved wrong on some point. They could simply retreat back on a trump-card, saying, "Ah yes, quite, our copies of the Bible are in error here, but the originals would have been correct, of course." Discussion degenerates into assertions of prefered speculation. "We are certain the originals are perfect" v "We are certain the originals are nonsense, just like what we have now." The latter case would be stronger, because it would at least have evidence ... the copies.
That the text of the Bible has been reliably transmitted is essential to the critic of the Bible, not to the dogmatic inerrantist. The only thing more foolish than dogmatic speculation about inerrant but unavailable originals is arguing "the Bible is all nonsense, just look at it ... and what's more, we can't even be sure this is what it said in the first place." The latter crazy argument shoots itself in the foot. Fine for anonymous Wiki editors to make this argument, but it'd be death for any self respecting academic attempting to criticise the Bible.
No, no, what we need to do is explain exactly why Bible defenders are backed into a corner here, we've pretty much got the text the same as it ever was, so let the criticisms come in on the basis of that text. Having said that though, there are a few cases where textual criticism can be a small issue. The pericope of the adulteress and the long ending of Mark appear to contain historical inaccuracies and other inconsistencies, however, they are also not in the earliest Greek manuscripts. Alastair Haines (talk) 10:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"This result is quite amazing, demonstrating a far greater agreement among the Greek texts of the New Testament during the past century than textual scholars would have suspected" was the quote I was meaning; nice, and reliably referenced (and it can be verified accurate through Amazon look inside for the book). --Faith (talk) 13:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Faith, it's a quality source as you say. Not only that, there are many other sources that say the same. Additionally, Wallace is working from thousands of sources that can also be verified. You have found a great summary statement of all the evidence. Alastair Haines (talk) 22:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wallace
"The data are growing; every decade, and virtually every year, new manuscripts (MSS) are discovered. Currently, the number of Greek NT MSS is approaching 5700—far more than any other ancient literary text. The average classical author’s writings, in fact, are found in about twenty extant MSS. The NT—in the Greek MSS alone—beats this by almost 300 times! Besides the Greek MSS, there are Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Arabic, and many other versions of the NT. The Latin MSS alone number almost 10,000. All told, the NT is represented by approximately 1000 times as many MSS as the average classical author’s writings. And even the extraordinary authors—such as Homer or Herodotus—simply can’t compare to the quantity of copies that the NT enjoys. Homer in fact is a distant second in terms of copies, yet there are there are fewer than 2500 copies of Homer extant today." Wallace, Daniel B., professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Seminary and Executive Director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (csntm.org). "Inerrancy and the Text of the New Testament: Assessing the Logic of the Agnostic View" PDF --Faith (talk) 13:58, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed a sentence which mentioned that Ehrman and Wallace have debated. Big whoop. What does that have to do with "Internal consistency of the Bible"? I also removed a quote from Wallace which is aiming general criticism at Ehrman. It is poisoning the well. If Ehrman is not a reliable source, we should not use him. Wallace is not criticizing the specific claims we are citing. On top of that, the info we are getting from Ehrman isn't controversial. I think it is problematic that we are citing Ehrman's popular work "Misquoting Jesus". We should be citing one of his more scholarly works intead (unless there are arguments to be made that we shouldn't be citing Ehrman at all due to WP:RS concerns.) Also, I'm not fond of having so much quoted material (specifically the Ehrman paragraph, and the Aland paragraph above). It is not encyclopedic. We should write prose in our own words summarizing the sources. -Andrew c[talk]00:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've reverted your removal and qualified the statement with a further direct quote from Wallace. Also, Wallace and Ehrman directly debated on this subject matter, so it's not "big whoop". The Ehrman quote added by another editor states one thing, and Wallace's quote balances that statement with reasons why Ehrman overstated the case. Two editors complained about a "softer" statement because it came from a pastor. Wallace is a scholar of equal footing as Ehrman, so that was substituted. Both are RS.
The quotes are slowly being rewritten by an editor who is working on it as he has time. In the meantime, the quotes replace huge amounts of unsourced editor opinion that existed in the article before. Since they come from very large pieces of work, the quotes represent a reasonble amount under Fair Use. --Faith (talk) 01:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The quote you just added (thought I still oppose using so much quoted text in this manner) is much more appropriate because it is in direct reply to things Ehrman said. That said, I believe the quote is too long, and it isn't appropriate to allow Wallace to characterize Ehrman's view. On top of that, the second quote simply should not be in this article. Bart’s black and white mentality as a fundamentalist has hardly been affected as he slogged through the years and trials of life and learning, even when he came out on the other side of the theological spectrum. He still sees things without sufficient nuancing, he overstates his case, and he is entrenched in the security that his own views are right. Bart Ehrman is one of the most brilliant and creative textual critics I’ve ever known, and yet his biases are so strong that, at times, he cannot even acknowledge them It is general criticism aimed at Ehrman. It is well poisoning. Ehrman cannot respond to it, and it has no bearing on the internal consistency of the Bible.
I think the direction this whole section is going is very poor. We should come out and explain the basic facts that are not controversial. If we want to, we could discuss some of the controversial details. However, the quoted material from Ehrman is not a good example of controversial material, so it seems like we are taking up space going on a tangent for material that isn't that big of a deal. It seems like what we have here is someone who doesn't like Ehrman and is trying to get the last word in regarding Ehrman, even though we haven't even presented any of the controversial/disputed stuff Ehrman has said. Where I think this is going is that we need a section which discusses the dispute regarding "how sure are we that today's bibles represent the words of the original authors?" which is a valid question, and the answer is disputed. I have mixed feeling on how that topic actually relates to the topic of "Internal consistency of the Bible". Part of me feels like that discussion is off topic and belongs elsewhere. It isn't so much internal consistency of the bible, but simply consistency between manuscripts of the bible. IMO, not the same thing. I think if we are going to discuss that, we should definitely cite Metzger (IIRC) who is vocal about being 95-99% certain that the text of the New Testament represents the autographs.
These are bigger scope topics that we should discuss before moving forward so that we are all on the same page. As it stands, I'm OK with the Ehrman quote, and the first Wallace quote (maybe without the last sentence) being in the article, with the expressed view that the section needs a complete re-write, and we shouldn't pair quote after quote after quote against each other as a writing style. The second Wallace quote needs to go.-Andrew c[talk]01:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the quotes in general are necessary at this point, as no one else has volunteered to accurately paraphrase the quoted authors. The article, as it stood before the changes in the last three weeks, was a massive dump of editor OR. This is not perfect, but it's a vast improvement.
Now that it's being discussed properly, I'd agree to the removal of the second quote as the first outlines Wallace's problems with Ehrman's statement directly, while I agree the second quote is (completely relevant, but) less specific. The debate is an interesting sidenote which may not be completely necessary, but provides insight to this being an ongoing debate between the two on these issues, indicting they still do not agree as of April 2008.
I object to you personalising this as dislike of Ehrman. Please leave personal judgments out of the discussion. The Wallace addition was a change from a softer criticism that was objected to by two editors, the first who removed himself from the discussion (conclusion drawn after a week of no response and no further changes, implying agreement per wiki guidelines), and the second more recent complaint along the same lines. Ehrman was added as a one-sided POV by another editor; Wallace responded to that directly concerning both the source and the material and was added as a counterpoint to allow the reader to reach their own conclusion. The relevance, I assume, judged by the inserting editor, was Ehrman is stating there are mass amount of variants (i.e., inconsistent material), where Wallace is saying Ehrman overstates the case.
Acceptable proposal of quote from Wallace, "Elsewhere [Ehrman] states that the number of variants is as high as 400,000. That is true enough, but by itself is misleading. Anyone who teaches NT textual criticism knows that this fact is only part of the picture and that, if left dangling in front of the reader without explanation, is a distorted view. Once it is revealed that the great majority of these variants are inconsequential—involving spelling differences that cannot even be translated, articles with proper nouns, word order changes, and the like—and that only a very small minority of the variants alter the meaning of the text, the whole picture begins to come into focus. Indeed, only about 1% of the textual variants are both meaningful and viable." I agree the last sentence can go, but this counterpoint needs to stay as it directly responds to the Ehrman quote. --Faith (talk) 01:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, I have not absented myself from this - I have been very busy with other things and haven't had he opportunity to take part here with the sort of depth this discussion needs, so have not commented. For what it's worth, I agree with Andrew c's comments. This part of the article is essentially a simplistic, "Ehrman says this, someone else points out that he's wrong" approach. There seems to be a basic assumption here that the point of the article is to examine alleged inconsistencies and answer them. I hope to have time to pitch in more fully next week.--Rbreen (talk) 10:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While we are on the topic, the Roy A. Harrisville quote needs to go as well. We haven't even presented the mainstream view of "Current Biblical Criticism", yet we are presenting a critique? Talk about undue weight. Maybe if we had a section describing mainstream biblical criticism, it would be appropriate to present the critiques and minority POV. But we don't even have that.-Andrew c[talk]01:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are misunderstanding the addition of that quotation. I agree things need to be rewritten, but the point was to add information about "taking its lead from a community of scholars outside the theological disciplines", showing where critical examination began using methods from the secular world, such as form and source criticism. --Faith (talk) 02:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I have now trimmed back both the Ehrman quote and the response. I think it's a lot clearer now - though actually I'm not sure the two are in substantive disagreement here. The main thing is we have got away from the rather pointless reference to the number of variants, to the bigger question of what difference, if any, they make. --Rbreen (talk) 12:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Rbreen. I think it's not just Ehrman and Wallace who are being quoted at cross purposes, i.e. there is no disagreement in the quotes of any relevance. Sadly, I also think all those editors commenting on the section are in broad agreement on relevant issues, yet may not feel this to be the case.
It's worth bearing in mind that the majority of textual criticism regarding the Bible is done by Christians, including many preachers each week. Textual criticism doesn't state what's wrong with the text, rather it critically examines the alternatives with the hope of discovering the original. That's something that aids everyone. It gives Christians something to believe, it gives others something to challenge.
The Metzger quote is excellent, though I'd like to see a reliable non-Christian source that claims otherwise (there are many in Islam alone). Although it seems everyone here would trust Metzger, this would not be true of readers in Pakistan, for example (or in Bankstown, Sydney, Australia, where I live -- a Muslim area). But I am complicating the issue ...
I agree with the suggestion that text criticism and related issues need to be dealt with in other articles (obviously text criticism itself). If that article doesn't already answer the questions raised in the current article, it needs to be expanded so that it does, or a new article needs to be drafted or stubbed to deal with it.
I think the appropriate place to deal with TC in this article is at the top-ish somewhere, refering the interested reader to detailed treatment of "recovering the words of the originals". Lectio dificilior, haplography, orthography, dittography, gloss, corrector, version and certain other ideas and annoyingly foreign terminology are standard prinicples that are fascinating and informing once the terminology is swallowed. If they are not currently in TC, they should be. Alastair Haines (talk) 12:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Scripture or scripture
I noticed Scripture was changed to scripture in the article. Per MoS: capital letters, it would seem to me that Scripture is correct, where Scripture is being used as a substitute for 'the Word of God', indicating it deserves the same respectful capitalisation as Bible. --Faith (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The standard in most theological journal style guides prefers biblical and lower case as much as possible. This is sometimes explained as a general tendency towards less capitalization. I have become used to it, and find older articles somewhat "pushy" with lots of capitalization. Titles of respect are dropped in reference to writers, I don't think this is discrimination, Faith. Bible, Septuagint, Codex Vaticanus are all proper nouns (more or less). Scripture is much more generic. There is a shade of grey between proper and common nouns. I like Scripture when used as a substitute for Bible, but I also like scripture. When I write, sometimes I mean the ideas conveyed by the Bible, or particular passages I don't specify. When used in this way, the lower case indicates I am speaking generically and aids comprehension, Scripture would actually be incorrect. If Scripture is being used as a synonym for Bible, forced because reference is to Tanakh, Old Testament–New Testament and Qur'an, then a generic capital is needed. When last I checked, the MoS wasn't sufficiently detailed to cover such usage. If the word scripture refers identically or generically to books that would be capitalized it should be capital, if it is to the concept of canonical religious works, or to parts of actual works then it should not be capitalized. Can't source this yet, and probably won't find time. Google Scholar "Scripture" search is the long slow way to research this. Different publishers will have different practice, "errors" will also escape detection, because it's such a subtle point. Alastair Haines (talk) 13:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. A good example that was changed would be, "Grammatico-historical exegesis is determining the meaning of scripture by understanding the author's environment outside the Bible, as well as the scripture itself". Scripture should be capitalised especially in the second case where the Scripture and Bible are in juxtaposition. Anyway, since you three (four) seem determined to take this article in a different direction now, I feel I am no longer useful here. Best of luck. (Just please keep those bloody ugly tables of OR and SYN out) --Faith (talk) 13:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, when I made my edit and said "per MoS", my memory failed me (for whatever reason I thought this was a specific example addressed in the MoS. And perhaps it was in a previous revision). That said, I still believe the spirit of the MoS supports lowercase. It generally says: Wikipedia follows a conservative usage style for capitalization (unnecessary capitalization is avoided). The main use of capitalization is for proper names, acronyms, and initialisms. The key words are conservative and unnecessary capitalization is avoided. Next, there is a part that says Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case. Scripture is traditionally capitalized within a faith, is it not? These two guiding principles lead me to believe we should err on the side of avoiding unnecessary capitalization. However, this topic is gray in that arguements could be made that "scripture" is a proper noun (though I don't think it is. scripture does not mean Bible, just like "road" does not mean "Hollywood Boulevard", "book" does not mean "Catcher in the Rye", and "hospital" does not mean "St. Mary's Medical Center".) But this is a very minor point, and if there is consensus against my change, I don't want to push this matter further. And I really do not want to discourage you from editing, especially based on a mundane style dispute. I'm also sorry you feel ganged up on. I really want to work with you, and your perspective is important, especially when it comes to balancing POVs and reaching talk page consensus. I hope you reconsider working with us. When there is a group of editors working together, a lot can be accomplished (though it may not always go smoothly). -Andrew c[talk]15:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I'm sorry I didn't express myself well enough here. I simply think Scripture when it's replacing Bible, for the same reason we capitalise Bible; and scripture if we are saying scripture analysis, etc. My bowing out has nothing at all to do with the MoS issue, but rather with the overall direction this article is now being taken. I don't think I'll be of much use as it heads down a completely different path, other than perhaps finding refs, because I'm not a literary genius; I'm just someone with a lot of books and a good eye for finding references online. --Faith (talk) 16:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm old enough to feel tempted to cling to 'Scripture', just like 'BC/AD'. However I think Alastair is right to say that the modern trend is towards lower case of such terms, and not just in theological journals. The MoS guidelines seem to suggest that specific works (Koran, Bible, etc) should be capitalised, but from what I can see it implies that 'the scripture' should not; by analogy, it suggests 'biblical' rather than 'Biblical'. Personally, I am comfortable with 'Scripture' as meaning 'the whole body of texts' but 'scripture' when referring to a specific text. However, given the diversity of Wikipedia I wonder if that's workable. Do we refer to Muslim and Buddhist texts, or the Tibetan Book of the Dead as 'Scripture'? --Rbreen (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Faith, you've made an enormously valuable contribution to this article, and it would be a pity to see you go. I'm sure you still have useful things to say! --Rbreen (talk) 16:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sitting in a hotel in Bangkok and it's raining like it never means to stop. We were on our way out for a post-dinner drink when it started pouring down, and since the streets turn to rivers and the sensation of wet clothing touching skin is inherently unpleasant, we satyed in. And so now here I am, sitting over a bottle of beer in the hotel cafe, a soccer game playing onn the tv, writing about the consistency of the bible. Such is life.
Anyway here are my thoughts on all the many areas in which consistency can be sought:
Between canons: There is no such thing as "the bible". There are instead multiple bibles. Canons differ. The standard Samaritan canon is the simplest: the Five Books only, with Joshua holding a special position but not quite holy writ. The standard Jewish canon naturally lacks the New Testament. The Christian canon is pretty close to the Jewish canon so far as the OT goes, but has the books in a different order - which is significant. The differences between the various Christian denominations are huge - the Ethiopian canon contains books you've never heard of, with very strange titles. So the point is, there's no consistency in what makes up the bible.
Between canons, part 2: I couldn't think of better way of expressing this that "between canons II", but I'm talking now about a different kind of consistency. Which is, that the actual contents of what should be identical books vary from one denomination to another. Most people know, for example, that the Samaritan canon says that Jerusalem is in the wrong place, and sacrifices should be being offered at Mount Gezerim (it's a hill in Samaria). Differences like this point up theological differences between different communities. (If you think my example is trivial - after all, there are only 600 Samaritan Jews in the world today - consider the difference between Jewish and Christian canons over the translation of the word "almah".)
Between manuscripts: This is too well-known to need much elaboration, but the important thing is what the differences mean: for example, the early LXX text has a shorter and very different version of the battle of David of Goliath, one in which David is a young man, not a boy. The fascinating thing about the LXX version is that it removes an inconsistency which exists in the Masoretic text which forms the story we're all familiar with, namely the puzzling fact that after David defeats Goliath, Saul asks him who he is, although a chapter or two earlier David has become his harpist. In the LXX Saul simply doesn't ask. This provides an important clue pointing towards the textual history of that part of Samuel - the Masoretic story adds an inconsistency to the larger story and therefore is probably an addition to the LXX original. The point is that inconsistencies between manuscripts can be very useful guides to reconstructing the history of the bible.
Consistencies: Now at last we move on to consistencies. There are some very considerable consistencies through the length of the bible(s). God is One. Covenant. Election. You know the stuff. We need to consider these too. They chang over time - Jews still don't accept that God changed his choice from the children of Israel to the faithful in Christ, and I believe there are some differences between Catholics and Orthodox (the filioque) and Catholic and Protestant (personally, I can't see any reason why God shouldn't replace the pope of Rome with Henry and his heirs, although I'm told that the Vatican hasn't yet come round to this interpretation of scripture). Anyway, the final point is that there are genuine consistencies which operate at a more profound level than the classes of inconsistencies I've noted above.
So, I think that a discussion along these lines should stand somewhere pretty near the head of the article, or else the reader won't understand the range of issues involved. PiCo (talk) 16:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I propose one consistency is the concept of canon itself. Another is theological or narrative themes that underlie arguments for what constitutes the canon (as you mention). Yet another is the textual uniformity that forms a backdrop for harmonizations, additions and, presumably, censorship of biblical/parabiblical mss. None of these is addressing the topic directly, nor even answering challenges, they just establish context, and so have a foundational place in this entry.
Inconsistencies that have documented discussion include variations on all the matters above. It could be argued that recognition of variation, and differences of opinion on their significance delineate major groupings of Bible-interested communities.
I haven't quite worked out how to explain the significance of interpretation to the article, but I think it is very substantial. Philo and Augustine considered Genesis 1 to be poetic rather than literal, but the reformers were very literal. There's an obvious inconsistency between the literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and experimental results from after the time of the reformation.
Christianity is a family tree of diverse opinions, many of which are interpretative differences. I can't quite pick how to categorize where issues are Bible inconsistencies or where they are Christian or interpretative inconsistencies. Perhaps this is case by case, with some kind of overlap.
By lectio difficilior the David stories strike me as likely originally having both stories, and in the awkward order. We're not the first to observe infelicities, some scribes harmonize by removing one, other or both in cases like this. I'd need to research this, but I don't find too difficult the idea of the face of a musical servant not registering on a King, out of context in a battle, nor a commander not recognizing even friends during a military campaign (I think there may be something like this during the seige of Troy.) Some parts of the Bible seem frustratingly non chronological, despite there being no clear reason for departing from such a natural way of presenting material. Interpretations of Revelation, for example, are notorious for all sorts of incompatible assumptions. Did Jesus have three years of itinerant ministry (John), or only one year (synoptic gospels)?
I wonder if this article is actually addressing "Difficulties in interpreting the Bible". Defining Bible is difficult, establishing text is difficult, reconstructing chronology is difficult ... in various places, and not so much in others. Where are the difficulties? What options have been considered?
I suspect the concept of this article is a reductio ad absurdum -- if we take the Bible at face-value, then this clashes with that, so the Bible can't be taken at face-value (at least in these places). But we need to know what we mean by Bible, and what we mean by face-value, and what constitutes a clash. These shouldn't be too hard to outline, but without doing the ground-work there's the risk text will be added without coherently addressing a logical structure. Alastair Haines (talk) 00:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Deleting a para on statistical analysis of Genesis
I just deleted this para:
Newsweek reported that Yehuda Radday, head of the Genesis project at Israel's Technion Institute, ("two computer experts and a biblical scholar"[2]) entered the text of Genesis into a computer programmed to make a "thorough linguistic analysis of words, phrases, and passages", and as a result, Radday deduced a single authorship of Genesis was "the most probable conclusion".[2][3] Their findings were published in Analecta Biblica 103, 1985[4] Portnoy and Petersen, evaluating the statistical data, came to the opposite conclusion.[5]
Reasons: (1) the connection with biblical consistency is extremely tenuous; (2) it's tendentious, in that it cites only one study, when there have been several, e.g. Houk, JSOT 2002, with results largely tending towards supporting multiple authorship; (3) computer analysis is not widely held in high regard. Plus I must, strongly, point out that the article needs to discuss consistency within a framework, not simply throw arguments around like stones into a pond. PiCo (talk) 17:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Framework sounds good to me, I think you're spot on. Can we work out specific questions we're seeking answers to. Is there terminology we need to establish in order to ask those questions? Does the literature on this topic presume certain background knowledge? What Wiki articles already provide that background knowledge? Alastair Haines (talk) 00:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the delete. I believe it was totally a "fringe" study. I doubt many commentaries, even conservative ones, would pay much attention to it. Peter Ballard (talk) 11:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Adding to Major Religious Views section
I just added a para to the Major Religious Views section regarding the issues surrounding canonicity - i.e., the impossibility of talking about the internal consistency of the bible without first noting that there is very little agreement over what the bible is. If you think this is going in the right direction, I'll add another para on manuscripts, and a final one on theological consistency. This last paragraph should be interesting - themes like covenant, sin, mercy, justice, etc run right through the bible, from first to last, and are really what make it a consistent theological document, despite its many inconsistencies. PiCo (talk) 14:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds fine to me, and I think it's more "miraculous" that theological themes should be consistent than many might imagine. In a typical western city one can find two churches only hundreds of meters apart, both based on the Bible and Christian tradition with quite diverse theology. I'm also inclined to think that inconsistencies within specific Biblical books are more inconsistencies with reasonable expectation than evidence of a corrupt text or confused authors, but I admit that these are open questions when reading the Bible at face-value, and that is reflected in the best scholarship, and should be at Wiki.
I really like the Origen material in the lead, seems like there's nothing new under the sun. Origen interests me for many reasons. He wrote more on the Song of Songs than anyone in history. He took commitment to purity to the ultimate extreme; and he produced a wonderful polyglot Bible. I disagree with his mind on many points, but I love his heart. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 04:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Origen thought highly of consistency, and so also did the authors of the LXX: the traditional story is that when the 72 rabbis had finished their work, it was found that they had produced 72 identical Greek versions of the Torah, proof that God had guided their pens, and also that consistency matters. Unfortunately I can't find where I read this. I thought it was the Letter of Aristeus (if I've got the spelling right), but it's not, so it must have been mentioned in a later comment on the subject.
From Tevet: This was the second attempt to translate the Torah into Greek (there was an unsuccessful attempt 61 years earlier), the ruling Greek-Egyptian emperor Ptolemy according to legend, gathered 72 Torah sages, had them sequestered in 72 separate rooms, and ordered them to each produce a translation. On the 8th of Tevet of the Hebrew year 3515 (246 BCE) they produced 72 independent translations, including identical changes in 13 places (where they each felt that a literal translation would constitute a corruption of the Torah's true meaning). This Greek rendition became known as the Septuagint, "of the seventy" (though later versions that carry this name are not believed to be true to the originals). , also found here, or here. --Faith (talk) 17:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Faith, that is indeed the story. Apparently it originates with Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher and theologian living in Egypt about the time of Christ - the earlier version given in the Letter of Aristeas lacks the miraculous touches in Philo. From Philo it entered the Babylonian Talmud, and was also taken up by the Church, where the early Fathers held him in high esteem. This source that you gave us - from, I gather, an extreme Orthodox position - is really quite fascinating: the translation of the Torah is a disaster, as it allows "any misguided ignoramus, or any hothead with an agenda, [to] gaze at the Torah and find fault, or fabricate any interpretation they fanc[y]" Sounds like some criticism of Wikipedia I've read!PiCo (talk) 02:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It brings to mind the story of the Irish saint who sailed across the Irish Sea on a millstone: "This is all that is known to man of the life of Saint X, and possibly more than all, yet not so much as it known to God." PiCo (talk) 08:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've added 2 more paras to this section. Please feel free to comment very critically. I see the section as forming an overview of the article as a whole, setting out the basics of where consistency is to be found, i.e., in the theology of the bible rather than in the letter of the narrative. But this is very much a personal view, and so I'm loking for views - am I being too POV here? PiCo (talk) 07:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
new Aland & Aland ref
A recent addition to this article, "Of the 5745 manuscripts composing the NT surviving today, 94% date from the eighth century, 700 years after the originals were composed." is referenced to K. Aland and B. Aland, "The Text Of The New Testament: An Introduction To The Critical Editions & To The Theory & Practice Of Modern Text Criticism", Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (June 1995). ISBN 0802840981. op. cit., p. 81., but I'm not seeing that information on that page, or any of the surrounding pages. In fact, it appears to me that the chart on p. 81 actually points to 12th century, not 8th, but that's my OR from looking over the chart, not something stated in the text. The chart can be seen here (search for "century" then click page 81). --Faith (talk) 04:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The word of God
Jews certainly do not consider the entire Bible to be the word of God (and I thought Christians ascribed authorship of their bible to disciples and Paul). Jews ascribe authorship of some books to specific people e.g. Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes to Solomon. Many of the Psalms are ascribed to David. We could say "words about God" or "words for God" but the current text needs some modification. Slrubenstein | Talk15:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pentateuch (except Deuteronomy)- word of God, Prophets - message of God - words of the Prophets, Hagiographia (Ketuvim) - divinely inspired. Wolf2191 (talk) 19:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of this has already been discussed ijn other articles such as Mosaic authorship#The_Mosaic_tradition_in_the_modern_age. From the Jewish POV the most prominent thologian is R Mordechai Breuer. A good collection of English articles are available here - [4]. The original Hebrew articles are also available online at daat.ac.il. Should I transfer the pasage from the MA page, link to it or write a new one. Thats for Orthodox Judaism.
Reform Judaism accepts the findings of critical scholarship in toto and concentrates on ethical monotheism. I don't know of any theologians from their side to quote.
Conservative Judaism is the most challenging. Since the topic of this page is almost "the history of the movement". Abraham Joshua Heschel with his famous "minimum of revelation and maximum of derash", Mordechai Kaplan's civilization theory, Louis Jacobs - section We have reason to believe.
And without knocking Breuer, Heschel, or Kaplan, I think the most important Jewish (i.e. pre-Modern Orthodox) thinkers to cover are Maimonides and ibn Ezra.
Ibn Ezra (according to most scholars) did question the Mosaic Authorship of one or two statements of the Bible, but I don't know if he is important for the more genral subject of - Internal consistency.
My point is simply that Ibn Ezra reflects one very distinct way of dealing with apparent inconsistencies in the text (and he never goes as far as Spinoza went!) Slrubenstein | Talk09:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maimonides is a bit difficult. I assume you refer to the 8th and 9th principals of faith (best
source Commentary to Mishna Sanhedrin Ch. 11 although he also repeats them in Mishna Torah).
For modern movements, Jacob Petechowski and Eugene Borowitz for Reform, Norman Lamm too for Orthodox, I would add Robert Gordis for Conservative (since he was both a theologian and Professor of Bible).
No, but I do think he had a vision of the revealed word of God that was theological and in general a response to modern challenges. Slrubenstein | Talk09:35, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to restate my question. Since this is a very large subject that intertwines with other articles, How can we best fit in the many viewpoints - Jewish and Christian theologians, academic scholars, etc. while still staying within an acceptable lengthy.
We can simply refer (or create if necessary) to the proper sections of other pages such - See Louis Jacobs - We have reason, Mordechai Breuer, David Halivni - Chetu Yisroel, etc. but that wouldn't be very readable. Or we can choose three major theologians to represent each group ad briefly summarize their views? Any other ideas.
As far as the documentary critics. Shoudn't the various other forms besides the DH be mentioned - the fragmentary, and supplementary hypothesis, the Wiseman hypothesis, etc. also be mentioned? They are also ways of dealing with inconsistency. BestWolf2191 (talk) 22:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome Slrubenstein and Wolf, I always value your knowledge and (far, far greater than mine) and your collegiate approach to editing.
You've both pointed out some very real areas where the article can be improved. In particular, it apparently reflects a particularly Protestant Christian approach to the Bible as the word *of* God, rather than words *about* God. The Catholic Church, for all that successive popes have stressed the Divine inspiration of the complete Bible (meaning of course the Catholic Bible - poor old Enoch gets left out in the cold, together with the Samaritan version of the Torah), has normally left the door ajar to allow for human interpretation of those words in the process of transmission. That's the difference between the European churches and the Americans (I mean largely those derived from the Baptist tradition): the latter tend to say that every last word in the Bible (again, their bible) is literally the Word of God. Unfortunately, I don't know how common that view actually is, or whether we just hear more of it.
Anyway, your point is that the subject is vast. I think Wolf might have the right idea - we could have a section outlining just how complex the subject is (this could be developed from the current "Religious Views" section), and devote the rest to outlining the views of a number of theologians and scholars, arranged roughly chronologically (not by confession). What say you?PiCo (talk) 00:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very broadly speaking, Bible refers to books originally considered for being or containing God's words. This consideration arose from a natural question, the logic of which is below.
The Jewish perspective is very helpful in liberating us from the wording of inerrancy to the conception behind it. The logic of inerrancy is not original, only the wording (and the political context of the debate). The logic has always been part of the Christian tradition (which obviously goes back no further than the 1st C), since it is explicitly discussed in the NT canon (the boundary of which, btw, is effectively universally agreed). Anyway, the logic, if I'm not mistaken, is given in many sources and is as follows.
God rules everything => (P) God knows everything => (E) What God says is without error (inerrant)
God is good so => (Q) God does not lie => (F) What God says may be trusted (infallible)
Hence, people who believe in a good creator God are also interested in the question of what precisely did he say. The various canons that give concrete reference to Bible are, in fact, originally merely different answers to an identical question.
Additionally, there are actually only three main classes of answer: God has given specific books that are uniformly attributable to him (closed canon); there are specific books that include substantial sections more or less attributable to him (canon w/in canon); he speaks continuously, but some books are particularly exemplary of this (open canon).
This is only one dimension of three I can think of. Closed ←→ Open canon. Small ←→ Big canon. Inerrant ←→ Infallible. As far as I can see all issues are debated in all traditions with some being more internally diverse. The issues interact with one another -- the more one tends to inerrancy, the smaller the canon and more likely it is closed (and vice versa).
A further, fourth dimension seems important. Within nearly all traditions, over time there are people who come to value the tradition itself, without necessarily even believing in God. For various reasons, these "cultural adherents", need to be considered as part of the range of POVs attributable to any given tradition. Clearly, this dimension allows much freedom, and can produce views of closed canon, with neither inerrancy nor infallibility.
Personally, I think all this article needs is to address the dimensions not all their instances in particular faiths (which are just too diverse). In other words, we need text like "Religious views vary in four important and distinct regards."
There's a bigger question here. Should the article major on this sort of thing and so treat the subject in the abstract, or should it be a more practical article, where the theory sets context and questions? Should it be a list of anachronisms in Genesis, refer to the census of Quirinius etc.? How much of each has not really been decided to a consensus.
Perhaps having a conclusion in advance would help. The article should answer a question it proposes, that reflects as closely as possible what a reader might have in mind regarding the topic. I think our conclusion needs to be something like this. Bible, very simply and originally, means "God-given-words" (but is modified along various dimensions historically)
Some find parts of the Bible to be inconsistent, among these
some take this as undermining the very idea of God (or alternatively the value of religious traditions)
others instead modify their expectations of the Bible (or of God's willingness to speak decisively)
Others find the Bible to be essentially consistent in its historical context, among these
some take this as confirming their views of God (or alternatively the value of religious traditions)
others find it unsurprising of largely metaphysical material and suggesting nothing in particular about a God (or religious traditions), just of the writers (or later editors)
[insert name of scholar(s)] note that neither the perceived consistency nor perceived inconsistency of books considered by some to be of divine origin actually strictly implies anything about God, himself.
Thanks Alastair. Now I want to do some thinking out loud. I'm trying here to arrive at an outline for the article.
To begin, I think we can identify 4 possible types of consistency in the bible:
Canonical (agreement over which books make up the bible);
Manuscripts (substantial agreement between texts over the contents of the bible);
Narrative (narrative passages should be consistent, both intertextually - Jesus should not be crucified on different days of the week in different Gospels, and within single texts - there should not be two incidents both giving rise to the saying "Saul among the prophets");
Theological (Divinely given laws, moral teachings etc. should be consistent).
Demonstrably there is inconsistency within each of these categories. The question then becomes how to deal with inconsistency:
None of the bible is the word of God: inconsistency is a means for investigating the origin of the biblical texts and the history of the societies that produced them leading to the documentary hypothesis and other approaches);
Only some passages are the word of God, others are words about God, so that inconsistencies are open to scholarly and theological interpretation (this is the view Wolf says is the Jewish one; it's also the view of the Catholic Church - viz. the Church's handling over the centuries of the Comma J., first declaring it the word of God, but leaving enough room to later declare that it isn't after all);
Only one canon and manuscript is the Word of God, and that Bible is wholly the Word of God: inconsistencies must be reconciled and explained away (the position of the American Baptist tradition, with Gleason Archer as a famous exponent).
None of these views are distinctly modern - 1st century Judaism contained Saducees and Pharisees, the early Church condemned the followers of Marcion, and the Protestant protest was largely about the bible. Given this, I feel the best approach to our article is to state the ground plan somewhat along the outline I've given here (and which is begun in the existing "Religious Views" section), and then follow that with sections expanding on the three possible approaches to the lack of consistency.
I also want to say this: There is also consistency in the Bible. It's a work of theology. It's centre is a history of God's dealings with his chosen people. Everything that happens in that history is directed by a divine law: remain faithful God and be rewarded, disobey and be punished. The wisdom books and all the prophets are a riff on that central idea. It's not a static theme, it develops over time in the same pattern, whether you take the bible at face value and see it as beginning with Genesis, or whether you follow scholarly theories which see Genesis as later than the Deuteronomistic History. For the Hebrew Bible, the development is from the promise in Genesis to its realisation in Samuel/Kings followed by sin and exile and and ending with restoration in Chronicles. For the Christian OT/NT it runs from Genesis again through to Malachi (the last book of the Christian OT canon, a significant departure from the Hebrew one) and then to the story of the Messiah. There are conflicts, but the base story is the same one: Divine promise, human sin, and ultimate redemption. I'd like this also to be included, possibly as a final section. (I think it's not actually OR on my part, but reflects modern theological thinking.)PiCo (talk) 04:42, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll endorse you on that. I think you provide a good summary and application of relevant ideas, that are indeed consistent with academic consensus.
Although many (some?) Orthodox Jews may disagree, lots of Jews would say that Judaism is a non-creedal or dogmatic religion and that "theological consistency" was not the the point. There is no tractate of the Talmud that is specifically "theological" and although widely accepted now, when first formulated Maimonides 13 articles of faith were very controversial. I agree with Wolf that (for Judaism at least) this matter has been addressed elsewhere and I would rather see that elsewhere improved than have it partially repeated here. I continue to question the validity of this article. I do not question the merit of the topic, only the wisdom in dealing with it through one article. I think it should be handled by articles on Christian theology, Jewish theology, Midrash, Source Criticism, and articles on individual books of the Bible, the articles on Hebrew Bible, Christian Bible, and Bible (which would simply say that Jews consider the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament hopelessly inconsistent whereas Christians consider the latter the completion of the former or something like that). I do not think handling the topic in 7+ articles will lead to duplication, on the contrary, each article would provide a different context for this question and make different responses intelligible. Let's take advantage of hypertext and have links connecting all these articles rather than try to create a new article. My opinion for what it is worth. Slrubenstein | Talk09:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So a very short article canvassing the major issues and linking to other articles where they're discussed in detail? (That would be in accordance with Alastair's point above, that we shouldn't try to list and treat every perceived inconsistency - and also with my own point that narrative consistency is only one of several different headings under which the subject needs to be considered).PiCo (talk) 12:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are so many good points here, and so much agreement. I think Slrubenstein hits a key issue that aspects of consistency are handled differently by various traditions and need primary treatment within articles that specialise on those traditions. This leaves us free to consider logical classes of inconsistency as per PiCo's or my own proposals. On reflection, I prefer PiCo's categorisation to my own, with one modification.
Canon seems to be the logically prior category—how do we know what the Bible is without having a canon? That suits many topics, however, in this one I think it begs the question. One ground for canonicity is reliability. In other words, books have been canonized because their texts have been believed at some point to be authentic in some way.
It is very easy for people with little experience of biblical communities to overlook that canonicity is the product of critical questioning, selecting some texts out of a larger pool, and that this process actually becomes continuous from then onwards.
The inerrantist (or infalliblist) is actually only asserting endorsement of an earlier critical decision. It is very easily misheard as the prescriptive—"our received tradition of scripture is non-negotiable", when what is actually intended is the descriptive—"our community is formed of those who find our received tradition of scripture to be internally consistent". (Of course, it doesn't help that inerrancy often is cited in a prescriptive way by inerrantists.)
Interestingly, the different canons of various traditions express views about what is or is not consistent, as Slrubenstein points out regarding Tanakh and New Testament. Perhaps this suggests one good conclusion for the article. One answer regarding consistency of the Bible is to limit the canon to the consistent books, atheists include zero books, others include up to and including ... Some consider consistency not to be the key issue, but substantial "spiritual" or "practical" or "traditional" content.
I think manuscipts are the place to start. For example:
It is widely agreed that all texts that have been canonised have excellent transmission of a unique surviving recension. This makes them amenable to scrutiny. They are scrutinized by religious groups primarily for theological consistency, those that pass are considered canonical. They are also scrutinized by external parties (as well as the religious groups) primarily for narrative consistency, both internal to their texts, but also with various external forms of historical evidence (other texts, artifacts, and so on).
For more information regarding manuscripts see textual criticism and articles on several of the manuscripts themselves.
For arguments regarding theological consistency, each tradition has unique considerations that explain the grounds for their theological assessments, further details are available in articles related to those traditions.
There are a number of biblical passages infamously difficult to harmonize with one another or with historical evidence. Some of these are ...
Additionally, many passages of the Bible reflect the limitations of scientific understanding of their day. For example ...
Many Biblical passages also claim miraculous happenings. Some of these were scientifically inexplicable in their day, but may have a scientific explanation. Others are so extraordinary that harmonization with science seems unlikely to ever be possible. Examples of events considered miraculous by the Bible, but possibly explained by current science are ...
The following are generally proposed as being fundamentally incompatible with scientific explanation ...
I've split off the bottom half of the section "Religious Views of consistency" and used it to form a new section called "Types of consistency". This is following my own ideas rather than those outlines in our recent talk, and I'm quite prepared for you all to revert the whole effort. In fact I see that Slrubenstein's idea is to take and treat a number of representative scholars/theologians. Perhaps that's still the way to go - I certainly don't see us going into detailed analysis of individual inconsistencies. If we do go that way, who should we tag? Origen? Luther? Some of the modern Jewish scholars you mention? I'd be inclined to have a heavy bias towards 20th century figures. PiCo (talk) 16:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The subject internal consistency of the Bible brings to my mind (out of all the various categories that Pico set up above) mostly the issues of contradictions, doublets,etc. I would say that there are three primary schools of thought on this issue.
1 - Those who believe the Pentateuch divine with every word emanating straight from God. The Midrashic authors are the primary propenet of this view. They were well aware of the difficulties posed by later Biblical scholars and interpreted the contradictions as allusions to various new details of the story or law in question. (They deal for example with the famed contardictions between Genesis 1 and 2 by pointing to several stages in Adams development.) (Not all of their statements are meant to reflect the original intention of the text but unquestionably some are.) I think James Kugels The Bible as it was is an excellent source which discusses and compares the views of the Midrashic authors and that of the critics.
The classical commentaries are direct outgrowths of this position. (See the Elman article I cited above).
Of note is the Rabbis own Documentary hypothesis (See Yochanan Ben Nafcha quoted in Mosaic authorship which sees Moses as compiling various documents together written in the course of his travels accross the desert. Halivni's maculate text of the Torah might fit in this category as well,
Breuer is also directly in line with this view. He believes in the Divine authorship of the Torah and he believes that the various contradictions are meant to represent the many viewpoints that exist in this complex world even though ultimately Halacha follows one way. (See link to articles I cited that say it better).
(Side note - Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik in his Lonely Man of Faith is also trying to resolve the inconsistency of Genesis 1 and 2 in a manner similar to Breuer.)
As far as the other books of the Bible, Psalms is attributed to a variety of writers in Babva Batra. As is Isaiah, Kings, and several other books. I don't think inconsistency is much of an issue there.
2 - Those who believe that the Bible is of a single authorship but not divine. They put the contraditions and such down to literary devices, such as chiastic sequences, or the "Oriental" style of writing, etc, The only propenent of this view I know of is Benno Jacobs but R. E. Friedman polemics against this view sharply in Encyclopedia Judaica entry - the Pentateuch so there must be others.
3 - Those who accept a multiple authorship of the Bible - Some - the conservative theologians - see no contradiction between this and the divinity of the Torah - believing the Torah to be a record of revealation rather then the actual word of God (See Louis Jacobs, and Heschel as well). There are various forms to this hypothesis.
^ abCited by Larry F. Hodges, Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University, "Computers, Robotics, and The Church", 1983. Accessed 8 May 2008.
^"Y. T. Radday & H. Shore, Genesis: An Authorship Study in Computer-assisted Statistical Linguistics, Analecta Biblica 103, 1985, as found on catholicculture.org (cited above)
^Stephen R. Haynes, Steven L. McKenzie, "To Each Its Own Meaning", (Westminster John Knox Press, 1999), pg. 55, regarding and citing Portnoy, S. (June 1 1991). "Statistical Differences among Documentary Sources: Comments on 'Genesis: An Authorship Study'". Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. 16 (50). SAGE Publications: 3–14. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help).
