Rob Bell – What Is the Bible?

I have just finished reading Rob Bell’s latest book, titled What Is the Bible?: How an Ancient Library of Poems, Letters, and Stories Can Transform the Way You Think and Feel About Everything. I really loved it and I think every evangelical should read it. The book does not say anything new, nor does the author claim to do so. It merely presents at a popular level what theologians and Bible scholars have said about it in the last hundred years.

You may ask, what is then so important about it? Here is my answer.

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The Errors of Inerrancy: #6 Inerrancy obscures Jesus with the Bible – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

[The Errors of Inerrancy: A ten-part series on why Biblical Inerrancy censors the Scriptures and divides Evangelicals.] 6. Inerrancy obscures Jesus with the Bible John Calvin said that the Bible is similar to eyeglasses that allow us to see Jesus. If the Bible may be compared to eyeglasses, then Biblical Inerrancy may be compared to smudges and scratches on these eyeglasses, or eyeglasses with bad prescriptions. In other words, Inerrancy does not allow us to see Jesus better, instead it cripples our vision of Jesus, and prevents us from seeing Jesus rightly. These metaphorical scratches and smudges on our eyeglasses (to follow Calvin’s analogy) cause us to obsess over the imperfections in our eyeglasses and distract us from seeing Jesus through them. Therefore, the sixth Error of Inerrancy is that Biblical Inerrancy obscures Jesus with the Bible.  Precisely how does Biblical Inerrancy obscure Jesus with the Bible? T.F. Torrance provides an excellent answer to “Protestant fundamentalism” in his book, Space, Time and Resurrection that answers this question. I’ve summarized and adapted T.F. Torrance’s answer in the following four points:  #1. Biblical Inerrancy does not make a proper distinction between the Bible and Jesus. #2. Inerrancy denies that the Bible is a witness to the life of Jesus. #3. Inerrancy  instead asserts that the Bible contains […]

Source: The Errors of Inerrancy: #6 Inerrancy obscures Jesus with the Bible – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The Errors of Inerrancy: #5 Inerrancy reduced the Biblical Authors into Ventriloquist Dummies – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The Errors of Inerrancy: #5 Inerrancy reduced the Biblical Authors into Ventriloquist Dummies

Source: The Errors of Inerrancy: #5 Inerrancy reduced the Biblical Authors into Ventriloquist Dummies – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The Errors of Inerrancy: #4 Inerrancy denies that the Bible contains scientific errors – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

In this fourth installment in the Errors of Inerrancy, the dangers of denying the Bible contains scientific errors has been explained. The example of the Phoenix as an emblem of our resurrection, demonstrates how we may rightly interpret the Bible in the way it was intended to be interpreted. And, the threefold error of denying the Bible contains scientific errors demonstrates that it is impossible to understand the Bible when its true context is rejected a priori by our modern biases. This error is multiplied when scientific errors in the Bible are used to censor and correct modern science.

Source: The Errors of Inerrancy: #4 Inerrancy denies that the Bible contains scientific errors – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The Errors of Inerrancy: #3 Inerrancy Censors the Bible’s Capacity for Error – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

In this post, I will explore how the Bible may have a capacity for error that even extends to its theological and religious claims, and why it is an Error of Inerrancy to deny that the Bible has a capacity for error, and to explain how this Error of Biblical Inerrancy censors the Bible.

Source: The Errors of Inerrancy: #3 Inerrancy Censors the Bible’s Capacity for Error – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The Errors of Inerrancy: #2 Inerrant Original Autographs are a Tautology of Biblical Inerrancy – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The hypothetical and so-called Inerrant Original Autographs are an unprovable tautology of Biblical Inerrancy, that do not inform of the historical nature of first sources of the Bible, but rather inform us what is the absolute minimum requirements that these first sources of the Bible must have been in order to affirm Biblical Inerrancy. So Inerrant Original Autographs are a result of Biblical Inerrancy, not a support for Biblical Inerrancy. And in the end, if the true sources of the Bible were absolutely dissimilar to Inerrant Biblical Autographs, then our Bibles would remain unchanged! So therefore as G.C. Berkouwer once said, the Inerrant Original Autographs are “foreign to the world of Scripture”, and may be safely disregarded in any orthodox doctrine of inspiration of the Bible.

Source: The Errors of Inerrancy: #2 Inerrant Original Autographs are a Tautology of Biblical Inerrancy – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The Errors of Inerrancy: #1 The Church has never possessed an inerrant Bible – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

The Errors of Inerrancy: A ten part series on why Biblical Inerrancy censors the Scriptures and divides Evangelicals

Source: The Errors of Inerrancy: #1 The Church has never possessed an inerrant Bible – The PostBarthianThe PostBarthian

In the Beginning, The Gospel: Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley

Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century

Source: In the Beginning, The Gospel: Al Mohler vs. Andy Stanley

There is trouble, again, in Southern Baptist ‘paradise’. Fundamentalist bully Al Mohler chastises Andy Stanley for putting Jesus before Scripture, and thus, undermining Mohler’s obsession, the dubious and confusing concept of innerancy. Well done, Andy!

inerrancy and the recent non-apocalyptic discussion at the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Baltimore

inerrancy and the recent non-apocalyptic discussion at the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Baltimore.

This is a very important discussion in the context of the blatant biblicism that dominates evangelicalism in general, and this ecclesial tradition in Romania, in particular.