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From: glenn@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Glenn C. Scott)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Scriptural Authority. (Previously: ... Literalism)
Message-ID: <2256@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 14:58:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.2256
Posted: Thu Aug 15 14:58:33 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 22:31:12 EDT
References: <2194@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <1050@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2222@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <498@utastro.UUCP> <275@ihlpl.UUCP>
Reply-To: glenn@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Glenn C. Scott)
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 58


I'm replying to two messages in this note.
In article <498@utastro.UUCP> William H. Jefferys writes in response to my
message:

> I find both theories unconvincing.  Neither has any scriptural authority,
> and both are obvious attempts to get around the scriptural contradiction.
> To accept either one, you have to do violence to what is written.

> There is a third theory that is convincing to me: Scripture was written
> by men, and like all things written by men, it contains errors.  There,
> now, that wasn't so bad, was it?

  No, I don't suppose so.  Confusing though...  Would you prefer a more covert
attempt to get around the "contradiction" ?

  I don't understand your definition of "scriptural authority".  You use it to
dismiss the two theories I gave ((1), (2)) but you assert another theory (3)
that I can find no "scriptural authority" for either.

  Can you define scriptural authority and give an example of how the
definition prevents the derivation of both theories (1) and (2) but allows the
derivation of theory (3) ?


In article <526@utastro.UUCP> he also writes:

> I see.  So if I have a book, and it says clearly in this book that it
> was not written by men, then that proves that it was not written by
> men.  How could I have been so stupid?

  Be careful, you can make anything seem silly be reducing the number of
considerations.

  You have much more than just a book that asserts it was not written by men.
You have a book that is unique in its continuity, consistency, circulation,
translation, survival, teaching and its influence on surrounding literature
and culture.  Most of these things are not done well by men (persons).

  It was written over a time span of about 1,500 years and by all sorts of
authors.  These authors rarely collaborated and often they were separated by
time and distance -- yet the contents are consistent.  There is more
manuscript evidence for the Bible than for any other documents of antiquity.
The Bible has had more effect on literature, culture and individual lives
than any other written document. (Running close behind are the UNIX
Programmers Manuals)  All of this must mean something.  I suspect that it's
more than any of us can really fathom.

  I used to have the same sort of objections as you seem to have.  I'm at a
loss to describe to you what has changed my perspective.  All I can say with
certainty is that if anyone is interested, and they take the time to examine
the evidence they definitely will be surprised -- I certainly was.  If anyone
is not interested and they haven't examined any evidence then they really
don't have any business ranting or raving about something they don't really
care about.  Have you read what Pascal, who you quote in your .signature, has
to say on the subject ?  He was a Christian.

Glenn