Reply to Why do you not believe that the Bible is divinely inspired?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Take a class on the historical/critical analysis of the NT and you will see why. You can easily see where the authors copied each other and copied ideas from other sources. You can also see where they inserted their own perspective. Using what we know about the period as a whole from contemporary sources, you can begin to piece together why they might have done that. Still, that doesn't mean it doesn't offer anything worthwhile. It just takes the supernatural element out of it.[/quote]

I've taken such a class, and it was fascinating. I disagree it takes the supernatural out of it, though, but obviously that's a personal response. Instead, it's sort of like any event that involves witnesses, where some witnesses are going to remember different things, or are going to remember the same things differently. This happens every day with witnesses in courts. I take your point that some of the gospel authors did their own editing, but the larger consistencies among the accounts witness to an underlying truth, IMO.[/quote]

the historical-critical method is absolutely non- supernatural.  Historians do not study things which there is no evidence -- like the supernatural.  They can report on what people say, but do not make historical determination of events for which there can be no historical evidence. [/quote]

Historical and literature-type approaches have a lot to add to faith, IMO. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to faith (the supernatural, if you will). Short of proving the whole thing is a complete fabrication, which neither approach has done to date, you still come back to the issue of faith (supernatural, if you prefer). Even accepting the various OT or NT books as a historical record compiled by witnesses or people who talked to witnesses, vs. a complete fabrication by some patriarchy, is a matter of faith. So you look at the historical evidence, and then you add faith, or you don't. [/quote]

That's a very neat rationale for discounting factual information that could be applied to anything.  Don't like the outcome of a scientific experiment?  No problem -- accept the empirical evidence and add faith to get the preferred result.

Don't like the fact that you've found  your spouse in bed with another?  Just add faith (the supernatural if you will) and all's well.

"add faith"  becomes an excuse to believe what feels good, instead of what common sense tells you.  It's a way to deny reality that sounds like you're doing something noble and good -- and that could get you to heaven.

I hate to think that intelligent people are  accepting this kind of thinking -- and maybe learning it in church from people who should know better.[/quote]

You missed the point. Whichever historical hypothesis you find convincing, almost all of the historical hypotheses are still consistent with faith.

Your example of finding your spouse in bed w/ someone else is not a good analogy, nor is your science example, because in both cases the facts there are incontrovertible (except for the creationists, but you know full well that these people are fringy).

A better example is saying, my cat was out last night and I found a dead bird on the porch this morning. I don't know for sure what happened. There are (1) the facts, the dead bird, and some of these facts may have different historical roots (or was it a mouse, maybe it's hard to tell). And then there are (2) the interpretations/beliefs. Two different things. So I can believe my cat was the killer, but you're free to believe it was the neighbor's cat.

Similarly, sure, there was a big flood thousands of years ago, and maybe different cultures had traditions about it. But that doesn't mean Noah never existed. And so on. (Except for the historical "hypotheses" that said the OT and NT were made up, but in fact historians have found evidence for many/most of the events in the Bible.) [/quote]

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