From: PASAlist@aol.com
Date: Thu May 15 2003 - 23:58:57 EDT
In a message dated 05/14/2003 8:31:56 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu writes:
>
> On Mon, 12 May 2003 PASAlist@aol.com wrote:
>
> > Jesus did not believe biblical inspiration
> >guarantees absolute inerrancy (Matt 19:8), and neither should we---if we
> are
> >his followers.
>
>
> It appears that proponents and opponents of inerrancy often have different
> definitions of the term. Using what I assume that the leading proponents
> of inerrancy mean by the term, the above quote would suggest that in Matt.
> 19:8 Jesus said that Moses didn't have his facts straight. Actually, what
> He indicates is that the standards of the Mosaic Law were less strict than
> God's standards. There is a difference between pointing out shortcomings
> in the Law of Moses and saying that something is inaccurately reported.
I think you have understood Matt 19:8 correctly. You have well said, "The
standards of the Mosaic law are less strict than God's standards." How this
bears on the doctrine of absolute inerrancy (i.e., the Bible is inerrant in
its stated facts of history and science just as much as in its teachings
about faith and morals) is that this doctrine rests upon an assumption that
everything stated in the Bible must be factually true (accurately reported)
because it is God's word and God cannot say anything contrary to his nature
as truth. This assumption leaves no place for accommodation to the beliefs of
the Israelites. What Matt 19:8 shows is that God's inspired word can say
something that is accommodated to the beliefs of the Israelites even when
those beliefs are contrary to God's absolute standards, knowledge, character.
Hence it falsifies the basis upon which absolute inerrancy is standing, and
thereby the doctrine itself.
Paul
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