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A fine concern--I made a thread on Biblical interpretations in this guild actually. You might have a peek at it if you find the time.

Now, some Christians find the Bible to be completely inerrant... Some Christians believe that there might be some human error, but the greater portion of it is divinely inspired and ultimately A-OK. It's up to you, and what you believe.

The Bible is basically a book of compiled scripts that are accepted as "canon." Now, depending on your tradition, you might omit a few, and add a few here 'n there...

Meh, in short because I... am so distracted right now, believe what you want, and let other Christians believe what they want about the Bible. There's no saying who's got it down better.

like Takai said, you can be a pretty solid Christian and not believe in a literal Seven Day Creation. granted, most conservative biblical scholars believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. i think the reason why is there is still a lack of conclusive evidence for the Big Bang or macroevolutionary (when used in the context of the beginning of life on Earth) theories. i think it's best not to be dogmatic either way, and say that either is wrong. currently i'm open to either interpretation, though i do sway a little more towards seven day creation, seeing as God's omnipotent and can make the universe through logos alone.

so i'd say that it's God's will that His dealings with man and revelation to humanity is available without serious error or confusion. any serious deviations from what has been mainstream Christian interpretation of scripture for the last 2000 years, such as universalism or the belief that Christ wasn't God is refuted by a good number of reputable scholars of the Bible. any differing views that aren't essential to salvation (i'm including the Calvinism v. Armenianism thing in this) are minor, since they don't matter this side of eternity. and as Pirate related one of the views in her topic was, (which i share), there is human error in some historical matters, such as statistics of battles and how many stables Solomon had. this does not change that it is still divinely inspired.


i'm curious as to what exactly you think is figurative.

there may be hope for you yet, Satsu! (Just kidding)
A prime example of a book not found in the bible is the Judas Gospel. It contains all sorts of things that the church would rather everyone not know. Such as (And keep in mind, I'm trying to remember stuff from a documentary I saw a few weeks ago; however, this is a real book): Jesus married Mary Magdeline and had a child (don't remember gender), How Jesus may not have been the kind, benevolent soul we take him for (he may have had fits of rage, and supposedly even killed), and the like.
And another thing. Jesus' birthday also isn't December 25. It's actually the holiday of a tribe in that area, who happen to have a winter festival at that time. It's actually closer to July than anything else.
The star the wise men followed? Wasn't a star. It was Jupiter. Not some other star.

lol
you do realize that the Judas Gospel was written much too late to be considered even remotely credible?


irrelevant. it never says in the Bible that Jesus was born on December 25th.
and some astronomers say that the star was Venus, Jupiter, and i believe another planet or some kind of celestial body.

i went to waaay many showings of "The Christmas Star" at the planetarium on field trips. sweatdrop
~wave of dismissal~
Minor detail.
And all I have is irrelevance... it's so much fun...

I see alot of the OT as parables. Psalms and Proverbs, for instance, not a historical reading, but uplifting song and lyric. How many of the books were passed on by tongue for how many centuries before being scribed? And how many different versions have we found?

Proverbs are Proverbs. there. Now I got them both
Best guess...did you ever do that circle thing in Elementary school, where all the class sat in a circle, the teacher would tell the first person something, then they'd pass it on down the circle, and by the time it got to the last person, it ended up being "purple Hippos Mambo" or something? That's kinda what I'm guessing it meant.

There's also another possibility, where remember how I mentioned I should be writing alot of what my Father-In-Law says? It's because I cannot remember it word for word. That's the problem with passing something on by word alone, things get left out or added over time. What I also meant, by different versions, we keep finding earlier copies of the letters and books used in the NT. They are different from what the ones we are currently using. How much of this had also happened to the OT, when it was only being passed on by word of mouth.

and you're probably going to take what meaning you want to from my words, so at the moment I don't see much reason to continue this discussion. Thanks for reminding me why I left Gaia the first time.