That’s good. IMV struggling is a good place to be.

The dominant Christian position in public discourse is that the Bible is primarily a source of propositional truth, and thus the debate is usually binary between “inspired and inerrant” vs “not inspired and errant.” I believe in inspired and errant, and that seems strange. There are actually quite a number of Christians who hold such a position, but they are not as vocal as the rest. Or at least so it seems to me . . .

I am still struggling – but perhaps a bit less hard

You are surely right to ignore the matter of literal truth. Some of Shakespeare’s plays have a fair amount of literal truth.

I like your approach to religion. I remember reading an article recently saying that what matters is not what religious people believe but what they do. You seem to be saying something closely related to that.

Mark Frank said:

I now struggle to see how your account of the role of the Bible differs from say the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

In most objective ways they don’t differ. I agree 100% on three of your four points. When you say “Neither are literally true,” however, there are portions of the Bible, albeit much smaller ones, that are actual historical accounts that would be literally true. Portions of Kings, along with Ezra and Nehemiah contain reasonably accurate historical reports. But that is just a technicality, since I would not regard the inspiration as consisting in being literally true. For example I would consider the story of Jonah to be more inspiring than the story of King Ahaz’s dealings with Assyria, but Ahaz’s dealings are much more likely to be literally true.

Also, I do believe that all gifts come from God, though I would add that we should give credit to the human. IOW, I don’t devalue Shakespeare because I believe his gifts come from God.

It’s interesting that you should bring this up, however, because I start my long essay Inspiration, Biblical Authority, and Inerrancy precisely with the issue that we generally regard Shakespeare as inspiring, though not inerrant, while people often wonder why I would bother to teach the Bible, even though I don’t regard it as inerrant.

Further, I’m not sure how one determines more and less sacred, so I need to adjust your final question before I answer it. There are things in the Bible itself that are less inspiring than others. I personally find reading genealogies to be pretty uninspiring, though they were of much more interest (obviously) to the folks who compiled the material.

The key issue for me is simply authority within a community. I don’t believe that the Bible records the only examples of people’s experience with God. I don’t believe that it can be objectively and consistently singled out simply as a piece of literature (though I do have a few individual portions to single out). It is simply what the Christian community has gathered from its literature as most authoritative and most widely accepted. I’m trying to resist making this comment as long as an ordinary post (and I do not find it easy to be brief), so let me just reference two other things I’ve written, first a post Inspiration and Canon and the pamphlet What is the Word of God?. The latter discusses what I see as the process of canonization.

I see this thread is a few days old – I hope it is still being monitored.

I am fascinated and impressed by what you write, but I now struggle to see how your account of the role of the Bible differs from say the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

* Both include some of the world’s greatest writing, at least in some translations of the Bible.

* They both include stories which inspire and educate.

* Neither are literally true.

* Neither provide a set of instructions on how to live your life morally.

If you are a Christian then I guess you believe that Shakespeare’s gift was given to him by God and his works are something we should thank God for.

So I am left wondering what makes the Bible more sacred than the Complete Works?

Cheers

I hope you will give a straightforward answer.

I have given you a straight answer. I repeat it. Your question is too flawed to be worth answering simply because I could never be convinced that God was ordering genocide. No matter how convincing the evidence, I would say that this could not be God.

It might be that an extremely powerful being could issue such a command and could also do everything I could conceive of to demonstrate his power. I would regard that being as an extremely intelligent evil being.

The point “how do we know whether it is really God talking” is simply a red herring. There will always be disturbed people who justify murder by claiming or even actually believe that God is talking to them. It’s irrelevant. The question is not “how can we be sure God is actually commanding us.” The question is, “if God issued those commands, what do we make of them?”

Arguing to absurdity such as “What about child sacrifice?” is also an evasion. Give me a break.

I guess I wish you would at least answer this question:

If God actually came to you and said: “I commanded the annihilation the Midianites. It was not Moses’ schizophrenia.” What would your response be? Would you say “Forgive me God; I never believed you could command such a thing, but I was wrong, and if you commanded it, it must be good.” Or, would you say, “Then you are an evil being.