Is the bible reliable?

There are three main areas of concern:

Matthew supposedly erred by leaving some names out. Here are the omissions:

Mt. 1:8 skips from Joram (=Jehoram) to Uzziah (=Azariah), but 1 Chronicles 3:11-12 adds the names Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah:

11 Jehoram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,
12 Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son,
The fact that Uzziah was another name for Azariah is shown by 2 Chronicles 26 , where Uzziah is also reported as the son of Amaziah and father of Jotham.

Mt. 1:11 skips from Josiah to Jeconiah (= Jehoiachin), but 2 Kings 23:34 and 2 Kings 24:6 show that Jehoiakim (name changed from Eliakim) was son of Josiah and father of Jeconiah.

But Matthew intentionally left a few names out, so it is not a mistake. It is also common in Scripture to use ?'son' to refer to ?'descendant', so Matthew was using perfectly acceptable language conventions of his day. In fact, the very first verse of Matthew's Gospel says ?'… Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.', which is another clue that Matthew was deliberately not presenting an exhaustive genealogy. And Mt. 1:17 makes it clear that he is selecting 3 groups of 14, possibly because the Hebrew letters in the name David add up to 14, or because 14 = 2x7 (the number ?'seven' often symbolizes completion, fulfilment or perfection in the Bible).

It is important to note that the clear indication that Matthew deliberately has gaps is no excuse for interpreters putting gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11. In Genesis, the grammar is very different and explicitly teaches a strict chronology. See my article Biblical chronogenealogies.

Luke 3:36 adds the name Cainan, which is missing from Genesis 11:12 (and 1 Chronicles 1:18). But the extra Cainan is probably one of the very few copyist's errors in manuscripts available today. However, given that Genesis 11 is a strict chronology, and that those who copied the Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts were much more careful than those who copied Greek New Testament manuscripts, it's most likely that Cainan was not in the original that Luke wrote. This is strongly supported by its absence in the earliest known manuscript of Luke, or in any commentaries by Jewish and Christian scholars before AD 220. For more information, see the discussion in Cainan: How do you explain the difference between Luke 3:36 and Genesis 11:12?

Sceptics claim that the genealogies of Matthew and Luke contradict, because they supposedly give different fathers for Joseph, the husband of Mary.

However, Luke is tracing Mary's line, showing that she was also a descendant of David, as implied in Luke 1:32. Conversely Matthew traced the legal line from Joseph to David, but this line was cursed because of Jeconiah (Jer. 22:17-30). This curse means that if Joseph had been Jesus's biological father, then Jesus would not have been eligible to sit on King David's throne. Here are some reasons that Luke should be understood as giving Mary's line:

Luke's nativity narrative mainly presents Mary's perspective, while Matthew presented Joseph's perspective. So readers of the original Greek would realize that the writers intended to present Mary's and Joseph's lines respectively.

The reason Luke didn't mention Mary explicitly is that rules for listing Jewish ancestry generally left out the mothers' names.

A clear pointer to the fact that the genealogy in Luke is Mary's line is that the Greek text has a definite article before all the names except Joseph's. Any Greek-speaker would have understood that Heli must have been the father of Joseph's wife, because the lack of an article would mean that he would insert Joseph into the parenthesis (as was supposed) in Luke 3:23. So he would read it not as ?'Jesus … being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli', but as ?'Jesus … being son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Heli' (NB: the original Greek had no punctuation or even spaces between words). Indeed, the Jewish Talmud, no friend of Christianity, dating from the first few centuries AD, calls Mary the ?'daughter of Heli', which could have come only from this understanding of what Luke meant.

More detail to offer? What you mean to say is that your source has excuses to make. If scripture were divinely inspired and inerrant, then Matthew would have left nothing out, and Luke would not have made the colossal blunder of voiding his own geneological pretense by making Hey-Zeus the son of god, rather than the son of Joseph, which shoots the whole "descended from King David" claptrap right in the ass.

Pathetic . . .

More detail to offer? What you mean to say is that your source has excuses to make. If scripture were divinely inspired and inerrant, then Matthew would have left nothing out,

and Luke would not have made the colossal blunder of voiding his own geneological pretense by making Hey-Zeus the son of god, rather than the son of Joseph, which shoots the whole "descended from King David" claptrap ........

Is the bible reliable?

Neo, I'm sorry to bust in on your thread like this, but I have to ask a question that's buggin me... I know a lot of the regulars are posting here right now so I thought it might be a good place to ask.

Has anyone seen, heard from, or talked to CI?

Umm... if you don't know... carry on! Pretend I'm not even here! LOL

sozobe wrote:

Oh good grief.

It even says "Day", as opposed to "Night". What light differentiates day from night?

Perhaps Moses, who penned the text, understood that the luminaries were not discernable at the earlier time because of heavy water vapor in the expanse.

sozobe wrote:

Oh good grief.

It even says "Day", as opposed to "Night". What light differentiates day from night?

But it was not stated that there was a separation of day and night until the sun was created. Therefore implying a difference between the light that came when God said let "there be light" and the sun to separate the night from the day.

The whole point is that it is not God that is ambiguous. It is not the Word of God that is ambiguous. I don't know why Neo does not believe in (accept, whatever the word is) in hell or not. I have not had that discussion with him. I only know that he has a different understanding than I do.

The main message is the same no matter what. God is love. God loves us. God wants us to love Him. God wants us to love each other. I don't see what is so hard about understanding that BASIC message. :wink:

mesquite wrote:

Yes, that is what I said, that I take it seriously. I did not say that voting should be restricted to non believers.

Mesquite,

Then why are you so miffed about what my vote would be?

An assumption on your part, not evidence of any contradiction. 'If I was God and I wanted people to write the Bible, I woulda......'

Inspiration does not require the inclusion of any and every fact or detail. It only requires that the facts which are included are accurate.

Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness . . .

My take on this is the entire bible is a verifiably integrated whole. The OT agrees with the NT and letters of Paul agree with the Gospels.

I am somewhat surprised that many believers either disagree with this proposition or are unable to explain their belief. So I welcome volleys from both sides.

As MA once said, "Let's duke it out!"

...........Of course, i did not contend that the contradiction is based in the question of whether or not scripture is inerrant--that is not a proposition i advance........

If scripture were divinely inspired and inerrant, then Matthew would have left nothing out

hephzibah wrote:

sozobe wrote:

Oh good grief.

It even says "Day", as opposed to "Night". What light differentiates day from night?

But it was not stated that there was a separation of day and night until the sun was created. Therefore implying a difference between the light that came when God said let "there be light" and the sun to separate the night from the day.

Huh? I believe Soz was referring to this, right in the part about light being created on the first day:

Gen 1:3-5
3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

So, there were day and night after the first day, but only a sun after the fourth?

neologist wrote:

sozobe wrote:

Oh good grief.

It even says "Day", as opposed to "Night". What light differentiates day from night?

Perhaps Moses, who penned the text, understood that the luminaries were not discernable at the earlier time because of heavy water vapor in the expanse.

So basically, you state that "the entire bible is a verifiably integrated whole", that is, "the OT agrees with the NT and letters of Paul agree with the Gospels"; and to argue how this is so, when confronted with a contradiction in the texts, you "prove" how they are, still, consistent by making assumptions about what the author may have meant but did not specify.

Did I get that correct? Sounds pretty shaky to me ...

(Havent read beyond the above post yet)

Setanta wrote:

...........Of course, i did not contend that the contradiction is based in the question of whether or not scripture is inerrant--that is not a proposition i advance........

Really?

Setanta wrote:

If scripture were divinely inspired and inerrant, then Matthew would have left nothing out

When you make up your mind which way you want to argue it, then let me know.