I am reviewing another superb book by Rod McQueen. I haven't finished it so the review will be postponed until I do. But I wanted to begin some discussion right away.
On page 4, Rod sets forth some foundational presuppositions in writing the book. I quote a small part here:
"...The inerrancy of Scripture. We take it for granted that all of the Bible (excluding the Apocrypha)is inspired by the One True God..."
I'm inviting Rod to respond to the following request:
Rod, please provide either a web site or physical address where we can view this book that you refer to as "the Bible." This way we can know about what you are making this claim, and on which you are basing your book.
It is my understanding that there is no such thing as "the Bible" in time and space and that "the Bible" is a mythical book (it does not exist) just as is the land of Oz.
So, where is this inerrant book you are making these high claims for?
Thanks,
Bill Ross
PS: I open this challenge to anyone who believes it is meaningful to refer to "the Bible."
4 comments:
Interesting challenge, Bill. Must confess I have never been asked such a question before. But I think that I'm talking about the same thing you list in your profile under "Interests".
Rod
Well it is a bit of a problem, isn't it? People claim that a miraculous, infallible book that they teach exists, but cannot say where! They have never so much as seen a picture of it. And in reality, it doesn't even exist! Daily! Around the whole world!
"The Bible is perfectly accurate."
?
"The Bible?"
"Yes, I have a translation of it right here and it is the Nearly Infallible Version."
"So where is the book that it translates?"
"It doesn't exist. Never has."
?????
Rod, can you appreciate the absurdity of this situation?
I mean, all of the "Bibles" I have ever owned are absurdly corrupt, but I am assured that THE Bible is perfect.
????
For example, the Protestant canon does not include the Apocrypha, but up until 1640, **every** "Bible" contained those books.
And none of the NT quotes match their alleged OT source! Because they weren't quoting the OT but rather a corrupt translation of it!
And then they build their arguments off of the corrupt translations!
And then the English "translators" ignore the Hebrew text that they are allegedly translating and superimpose the NT mistranslations onto the text to make the arguments of the NT writers make more sense!
Yeesh!
The apostles never authorized or considered a canon. "ALL writings are god-breathed and profitable..." wrote "Paul." And "letters are dead."
Until Jerome bemoaned that "there are as many Latin translations as there are Greek manuscripts!" Christianity had no canon. The infallible vicar of Christ, the Catholic Poppa, authorized Jerome's construct as the only text authorized for use in the Church - and it was a (now non-extant) **Latin** text that included the Apocrypha, some unknown Hebrew text and a whole bunch of Greek NT texts, one of which was "the letter of Paul to Laodicea" - which was excised 1100 years later.
So might any of these be the perfect "The Bible"? Maybe the Vulgate?
In selecting the books, all gospels but four were discarded (and we know that there were many) because "there are 4 corners of the planet."
On this "solid" foundation, what can be built? Rains of honest inquiry will reveal its sandy nature.
"The Bible" is a myth.
Now to see why this is important, in your excellent, fast paced book, you fail to notice that Paul's WHOLE ARGUMENT (which you faithfully expound) is based on the LXX **mistranslation** of the Hebrew of Genesis 12:7. Here is what the Net Bible footnote has to explain why they translate the key phrase this way:
NET ©
Because you have obeyed me, 1 all the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another 2 using the name of your descendants.’”
2 tn Traditionally the verb is taken as passive (“will be blessed”) here, as if Abraham’s descendants were going to be a channel or source of blessing to the nations. But the Hitpael is better understood here as reflexive/reciprocal, “will bless [i.e., pronounce blessings on] themselves/one another” (see also Gen 26:4). Elsewhere the Hitpael of the verb “to bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 12:2 predicts that Abram will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11. Earlier formulations of this promise (see Gen 12:2; 18:18) use the Niphal stem. (See also Gen 28:14.)
So, since your book is based on Paul's argument, and since his argument is based on a corrupt translation....... I think it behoves you to find that elusive "inerrant Bible" that does not seem to exist!
Can you see why, while I admire your brilliant exposition, I must turn around immediately and point out that it is ultimately a house of cards. It is built on the sinking sands of an elaborate hoax.
Did I miss anything?
Every thinking human being has to make a simple choice: to either believe or reject the notion that the God who made man has shared some of His thoughts with him. I for one cannot conceive that He would leave us entirely in the dark. Starting with that premise, the believer who seeks to find a record of God’s communication with man is faced with a relatively simple task. Yes, simple. Despite the enormous effort expended by skeptics to discredit biblical writings — using above all the tactic of ridiculing the process of canonization — the choice could barely be starker. Only the Koran and the books that are grouped together (always described as “cobbled together” by skeptics) under the English rubric, “Bible” even make the claim to have been “inspired” by God. So we are left having to make a choice between the two.
And the Koran? Well, don’t know about you, but I for one cannot take a book whose chief divisions are titled things like, “The Chapter of the Table”, “The Chapter of the Heifer”, “The Chapter of Cat-tle”, “The Chapter of Thunder”, “The Chapter of the Bee”, “The Chapter of the Cave”, “The Chapter of the Poets”, “The Chapter of the Ant” — need I go on? — as a serious communication from the One who created the universe. The mind that designed and created galaxies, planets, oceans and living things would never, as far as this author is concerned, demean His communication by employing such banalities.
The one reeks of nonsense, while the other comes across as rational, measured, profound. If the books we call the Bible do not constitute the vehicle of God’s communication with man, then we are left high and dry indeed. It’s Genesis-Revelation or it’s nothing at all.
The only alternative to the proposition that the Bible constitutes divine revelation is the proposition that it’s all “an elaborate hoax”. Stop and think. Even the skepticalest skeptic must acknowledge that the books of the Bible were written by numerous authors over the course of at least hundreds of years. A hoax requires that its perpetrators work in concert; dead men rarely talk with later generations, or vice versa. Stop and think again. What human being would ever come up with the idea that the Creator God Himself entered flesh, walked with and talked with human beings, and then voluntarily gave his own life in atonement for human sinfulness? It’s not on, it’s just not on.
How can anybody read the gospel accounts and seriously reject them as fictitious? The words as-cribed to Jesus Christ are full of… well… sublime power. Nobody will ever convince this bear of little brain that a few practical jokers sat around a table giggling at the huge con job they would carry off. Which one came up with the “eat My flesh and drink My blood” passage? Show me an author alive today who could craft the rhetoric of Matthew 23. Surely no second century conman would have had the intimate knowledge of first century Pharisees and their thinking as evinced in that chapter. The personage depicted in the gospels comes across as plainly as can be as a convincing, authentic, integrated personality. Your favourite novelist could never create the Jesus story. I want to meet this Jesus. I tremble before the accounts given of Him. He is, well, utterly amazing.
For me… QED
Thanks for the reply, Rod. However, it does not address the question... **where is** "the Bible?"
Where in time and space does such a flawless book exist? In which country?
To philosophize that such a book *must* exist (as a corollary to the idea that "God" must exist) is one thing, but I say that it clearly does not exist in reality.
Can you point me to *the* Bible, to which so many people appeal?
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