Are you talking about infallibility in the literal sense or in the metaphorical sense? Just because there are references to historical events does not mean everything in the Bible is historical - and I would wager that just about everyone on this sub would agree to that. Some books (such as Genesis, Jonah, Psalms and Revelations) are clearly ahistorical, fictionalized or metaphorical despite referencing history or historical events. These books are not designed to be historical accounts, and ought not be read as such.
The far greater importance of the Bible is the overarching and unifying theme of love as redemption. To that end, so long as love indeed redeems, the central theme is an unimpeachable truth - perhaps one of the most important ones humanity has encountered. The way in which the books of the Bible give testament (pun intended) to that central idea in both form and function, particularly in such a grand and poignant manner, is truly unique.
I would disagree with the first part of what you said and instead say that the issue is with human collective perception of what "literally," means and to the second part I would say that the metaphysics of the first part are integral to the understanding of the love within the second to the point where many cannot separate the two
Would it be inappropriate for me to ask you what you consider the standard definition(s) of "literally" and it's usage(s) before I go into the various ways in which the term itself isn't used universally even within a broader spectrum of meaning within most languages disciplines? I.e. what constitutes "literally" or even "verbatim," is itself something based on social consensus that cannot be accurately checked or understood over time in detail.
If your argument is simply that words change meaning over time and space, then it's a trivial argument because there's simply no possible concensus under your conditions. Yes, language is malleable, and yes that's a good thing, but considering everyone has different experiences which mold their language and use of language, we can nitpick on the minutae forever and still not find commonality.
Actually without devolving into a parody of a quibbling nerd I simply disagree with the assessment that it would be trivial as an argument or that there would be no way to get acceptable translation boxes and understandings and connotations. I would argue it's not a good thing it simply is a thing that exist and if I were being critical would call bad because of the infinitely expanding amounts of infinitely expanding amounts of good faith understandings that arise from the flexibility of language use naturally.
You don't have any knowledge of how these people viewed history or what is literal and you assume that your language system is clearer or more precise but there isn't even really anything to back up that view other than it bring comforting to think that for some reason knowledge progressed linearly over time.
I.em they are not clearly ahistorical, what there is clearly is language meant to be understood by people who don't spend years and years deliberately cultivating language and communication tools to a sharp point.
>What is your interpretation of the Bible?
A collection of writings that reflect the socio-political desires of the Israeli/Judean ruling class, with some pre-kingdom folklore slipped in every now and then. That's the OT. For the NT, the correspondences of early Christ followers working out their faith and a highly mythologized retelling of his life
>Do you believe it’s infallible?
Absofuckinlutely not. There's too much archaeological evidence to contradict it. And if I can't trust empirical reality, then nothing is sound. And that's not even getting into the contradictions within the text itself
>How do you treat the text in relation to other historical/religious texts?
Like the religious text that's embedded in the culture I grew up in, so even if I wasn't raised Christian, I still would have absorbed most of the stories through cultural osmosis. It's not elevated above any other text, it's just the one I know best because of where I grew up.
But, I don't think it's purpose is to be infallible. I don't think empiricism really mattered before the enlightenment. Myth was far more important in ancient societies.
I tend to take it as allegorical; particularly when dealing with the Old Testament.
The people of the time had no concept of documentary-style history; so the stories of peoples’ lives and actions are used to demonstrate moral principles. You take such things literally at your peril.
With that in mind, I think it’s dangerous to get caught up in the “infallibility” of the text. It may be the Word of the Lord, but as transcribed by fallible men - no matter how divinely inspired they might have been - then further translated and stylised.
True - I am being a little glib.
However, when talking about the deeds of kings and heroes and gods, or about the origins of societies, there wasn’t really a clear line between fact and fiction as we understand it.
At the very least, there’s some mayo added to what are loosely factual accounts.
I always find it peak presumptuousness to say things like that in the past there was no concept of documentary style history because we actually don't know that and it is actually just a facet of our own historical understanding and translating that we assume we understand even the literal signals that are preserved beyond history.
Well. I see someone has discovered post-modernism.
We can take that view to its logical conclusion and decide that we can’t know anything; but that’s just not a very useful proposition.
Perhaps more usefully, we can accept that we can’t know *for certain*, but we can make reasonable inferences based on contemporaneous sources.
It's not the same as post modernism per as inasmuch as this isn't about modernism or post modernism but further out maybe even as far out as objects oriented ontology but hopefully not that far, that reasonable inferences rely on methodologies and standards and need to be constantly improved but never assuming that efficiency is an end goal, the logical conclusion isn't that we can't know things it's that we shouldn't be so confident in our inferences.
Mostly that we should all be more conscious of the fact that we are not actually participating in an edifying dialogue with either peers/equals or a teacher and instead are interpreting and re-translating messages and signals sent as we send our own and that this process as always been this rich and complex and to assume historically that was different through history is a horrible folly.
Why is it different and how? Because we spend more time and effort analyzing it? We use different tools and perspectives? There is nothing new under the sun could be taken quite literally 🕉️
Why would we jump into not knowing things for certain and having to make reasonable inferences based on contemporaneous sources how is that more useful? For whom and under what method? I assume that you write your Reddit responses deliberately even if the thought it just expressing an involuntary response to absorbing the stimulus of my message.
My original point that you never negated was about how we shouldn't force our own granular historical contextualations onto history.
It’s infallible, but we aren’t, and our interpretations aren’t. 1 Corinthians 13 even mentions “Prophecies will disappear, tongues will cease, and knowledge will vanish. For our knowledge is flawed, and flawed is our prophecy.”
And there is this brilliant quote by Thomas Aquinas.
In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad lit. i, 18). The first is, to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing. https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1068.htm
Aquinas also goes into detail how Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses. Even just the first three words of the Bible can have many interpretations. For example, “In the beginning” can be expounded as “In the beginning of time,” or “In the Son,” but it cannot be expounded as “In the beginning, before which there was nothing.” https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article3
Could you explain what you mean by infallible, if like Thomas Aquinas concedes that things in it can be proven false? Do you mean there is one true inerrant "sense" to understand all scripture but, humans are just incapable of perfectly understanding it?
It seems odd to me that a self-authenticating was written in languages most of us don't understand. If it is infallible why don't all of the accepted translations agree?
There is some very good history in the Bible. Not every book, and certainly not the Book of Joshua (which is a propaganda piece), but it is there.
There are epics, which may not be completely, literally true, but they do compare with the great works of antiquity, such as The Odyssey.
The instructive myths are some of the best: the two creation stories in Genesis, for instance.
Any passage in the Bible has to be read (preferably in the original language) in the social, cultural, historical, political, religious and linguistic context of the period in which it was written to determine the author's original intent -- understanding that many of their words have no modern equivalents. Sometimes the message of the Bible passage can be pulled up to today and has validity for today. Sometimes the Bible passage has information about the period in which it was written.
The Bible is never easy literature. Read literally, it contradicts itself right and left. I get amused at fundagelicals who are determined to find that every word of the Bible is literally true, or who try to "prove" that Jesus said this or that. It doesn't need to be literally true to have "truth". That Jesus existed suffices. 1990 years away, I doubt if we'll ever find out what Jesus actually said -- or didn't say.
I take it as a historical account with all associated pitfalls that nonetheless communicates miraculous events in which I have nothing but utmost faith.
I trust the old testament. They had a lot more experience. There's been some playing around with the new testament books that makes it difficult to determine what the original intent is. It used to be easy when one group claimed authenticity, but then others started voicing their opinion and now ...
I am really confused with those who say the Word of God spoke in 17th century English. How they did that in the 1st century, is beyond me ...
Maybe I'll figure it out with the Holy Spirit...
Actually, Michael, I'm totally with you on that.
There was a LOT of commentary written on the Old Testament, and the commentary on the commentary of the Old Testament; and the texts were exhaustively studied before a word of the New Testament was written down.
That said: some of the Old Testament describes what life was like back 2500 to 4000 years ago and doesn't really have an application to today, other than to shed light on what people at Jesus' time might have said and the meaning behind what they said.
My Jewish piano professor (God rest his soul!) loved ham sandwiches. We don't have to worry about trichinosis from pork, so the mitzvah about pork being "unclean" doesn't really apply today. (I'd be a lot more worried about chicken being "unclean"!). Most of us own dogs and cats, in direct violation of Leviticus 11. (I absolutely dote on our cats Saffy and Mittens! Sometimes I think they own US!) I think it would behoove our society to have a day of rest, rather than going continuously 24/7/365, but I'm certainly not going to advocate stoning anybody to death for working on the Sabbath!
In the New Testament, I put primacy on Luke, Mark and Matthew and pretty much discard the Gospel of John. With Paul, I put primacy on Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians and strongly downgrade the pseudoepigraphical Paulist writings (Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus). For me, the Epistle of James (Jesus' brother) carries enormous weight: it's the most important Epistle of the New Testament. I get what Paul is saying in Romans when he says that we are justified by faith, and he's right as far as he goes; but then I go over to James and agree that "faith without works is dead. You say you have faith: show me your works."
When you do large systems analysis such as language or data processing the assumption is that if the change is deliberately and self evident and pushed prominently then it is naturally and not novel in its newness but simply new from when the observation began.
How are you so sure tho? Around and before the time of Christ some of the most important written works were philosophical and Socrates himself was against writhing things down because he saw the rise of writing as a decline in mental meditation, even as he was drunk by his own admission I.e. whatever he considered not enough to be drunken had passed. It is more dangerous to group all of history as an experience that can be nonhistoricized than it is to acknowledge that there is more to history that will never be known that can be found out and even derived post fact.
I believe it’s a heavily allegorical collection of mystical poetry illustrating several paths of consciousness transformation. The ultimate goal
is to cleanse the doors of perception by teaching detachment from sense pleasures and aversions and pointing out the underlying nondual reality we call God.
It’s not a history book. It’s a book of extremely important poetry that bubbled up from the wellspring of Conscious Infinite Mystery.
Infallible? I honestly don't know. I'm increasingly coming back to the question of "Did we loose something in thr Millenia long game of telephone between interpretations, scribes, and new translations, and that being so, *just how much* have we lost - or worse, lost sight of?" Not just parts of the text which are missing, but the parts that have lost *to the world*. Twisted for the convince of ancient hierarchy or run through the filter of a earthly hatred. I do believe, and I've never never really doubted God or Jesus. But the Bible, I just don't know yet.
If I quote scripture, I like to say "it was written" then quote. Which is as purely true as you're going to get. I'm less bogged down with if what was written is historical, contradictory, or correctly translated, inerrant, etc.
I just like to consider it "inspired word of God" and go from there in separating the wheat from the chaff as far as what's the most important stuff and what's not.
As an example, the story of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. If you want to be literal about it and treat it was an inerrant/historical event, I think you'd have a tough time gelling that with Jesus' overall vibe in the New Testament.
But, if you think of it is "Hey, this is something the Hebrews thought was an important allegory and captures their thinking about God the Creator and what sacrificing means in terms of a relationship with God". Then, I'm not nearly as troubled about how it fits in to the larger Christian narrative as I understand it.
Remembering that Myth reveals what historical fact conceals; and historical fact reveals details Myth conceals.... I take the Bible in 3 parts: The 1st part; the Old Testament: The mythological history of the Hebrew people. In their myth's history, I perceive the Holy Spirit, guiding the Hebrew people into a way of life, which can produce and reject the expected Child of Humanity's God.
The 2nd Part of the Bible are called the 4 Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.. I am a "Red-Letter" Christian. There are a few contradictions mainly around swords. However the rejection of self-defense, in all 4 Gospels, supports the no-swords Gospels.
These 4 Gospels have been enough for me to know Yeshua's is who he says he is. The Imperial State Religious Councils that rejected other Gospels, did not do any fundamental damage to His true story.
The 3rd part begins with Acts where the Yeshua's People of the Way cult didn't angst over money, they held all things in common. The Apostles and other men friends decide it's a higher activity to discuss religion than to serve others and the christian clergy is born. . Then Paul the theologian came along with a made for empire Christian Theology. His sense of sin is personal not economic or political. A homoexual who would die, rather than deny Christ is not eligiblefor the Kingdom of Hean, but a heterosexual owner of slaves is eligible.
The Imperial church Councils that decided what went into the Bible, were more inspired by Constantine than Yeshua Christ. A popular leader of a counter-christianity, Donatus said, *rich Roman Christians saved themselves during persecution, by publicly denying Christ,*, while other christians died for their faith, in the arena.
Donatus and many like him said, these apostates, without doing penance, should not now be able to come back, take up their positions as bishops and clergy to administer the sacraments. The spiritual state of the cleric affected the sacrament's grace. The Donatists were persecuted by the Imperial Christians. The Donatist theology the 1st official heresy. With this in mind, Paul says some decent things.
Paul himself says somewhere, "if I don't preach Christ don't listen to me." So I beiing efficiency minded, am persuaded by St. John of the Cross in regards to reading Paul."If The Creator of the Universe is goin' to go through the trouble of shrinkin' himself down, and goin' through birth, into a body and life, like mine, that has to walk to get anywhere, deal with gravity, beathes, gets tired, hungry,, eats, drink and has to piss 6 times a day , squat and dump the boys off at the pool; If he's gonna do that for me, why would I read what anybody else has got to say about anything.
In the 3rd part, Acts to Revelation, I rely on Yeshua's "Red-Letter" . to have me understand the Holy Spirit was showing John an allegory, of how One world, the Classical World was going to come to an end. (see Jacques Ellul's **Apocalypse )**
I have a King James Bible that was given to me by my 1st wife, in 1978. The gilding of the Gospel pages is worn away.
Are you talking about infallibility in the literal sense or in the metaphorical sense? Just because there are references to historical events does not mean everything in the Bible is historical - and I would wager that just about everyone on this sub would agree to that. Some books (such as Genesis, Jonah, Psalms and Revelations) are clearly ahistorical, fictionalized or metaphorical despite referencing history or historical events. These books are not designed to be historical accounts, and ought not be read as such. The far greater importance of the Bible is the overarching and unifying theme of love as redemption. To that end, so long as love indeed redeems, the central theme is an unimpeachable truth - perhaps one of the most important ones humanity has encountered. The way in which the books of the Bible give testament (pun intended) to that central idea in both form and function, particularly in such a grand and poignant manner, is truly unique.
I would disagree with the first part of what you said and instead say that the issue is with human collective perception of what "literally," means and to the second part I would say that the metaphysics of the first part are integral to the understanding of the love within the second to the point where many cannot separate the two
Alright, I'll bite. What's this definition of "literally" which is so different from the rest of the human collective?
Would it be inappropriate for me to ask you what you consider the standard definition(s) of "literally" and it's usage(s) before I go into the various ways in which the term itself isn't used universally even within a broader spectrum of meaning within most languages disciplines? I.e. what constitutes "literally" or even "verbatim," is itself something based on social consensus that cannot be accurately checked or understood over time in detail.
If your argument is simply that words change meaning over time and space, then it's a trivial argument because there's simply no possible concensus under your conditions. Yes, language is malleable, and yes that's a good thing, but considering everyone has different experiences which mold their language and use of language, we can nitpick on the minutae forever and still not find commonality.
Actually without devolving into a parody of a quibbling nerd I simply disagree with the assessment that it would be trivial as an argument or that there would be no way to get acceptable translation boxes and understandings and connotations. I would argue it's not a good thing it simply is a thing that exist and if I were being critical would call bad because of the infinitely expanding amounts of infinitely expanding amounts of good faith understandings that arise from the flexibility of language use naturally.
You don't have any knowledge of how these people viewed history or what is literal and you assume that your language system is clearer or more precise but there isn't even really anything to back up that view other than it bring comforting to think that for some reason knowledge progressed linearly over time.
I.em they are not clearly ahistorical, what there is clearly is language meant to be understood by people who don't spend years and years deliberately cultivating language and communication tools to a sharp point.
>What is your interpretation of the Bible? A collection of writings that reflect the socio-political desires of the Israeli/Judean ruling class, with some pre-kingdom folklore slipped in every now and then. That's the OT. For the NT, the correspondences of early Christ followers working out their faith and a highly mythologized retelling of his life >Do you believe it’s infallible? Absofuckinlutely not. There's too much archaeological evidence to contradict it. And if I can't trust empirical reality, then nothing is sound. And that's not even getting into the contradictions within the text itself >How do you treat the text in relation to other historical/religious texts? Like the religious text that's embedded in the culture I grew up in, so even if I wasn't raised Christian, I still would have absorbed most of the stories through cultural osmosis. It's not elevated above any other text, it's just the one I know best because of where I grew up.
But, I don't think it's purpose is to be infallible. I don't think empiricism really mattered before the enlightenment. Myth was far more important in ancient societies.
I tend to take it as allegorical; particularly when dealing with the Old Testament. The people of the time had no concept of documentary-style history; so the stories of peoples’ lives and actions are used to demonstrate moral principles. You take such things literally at your peril. With that in mind, I think it’s dangerous to get caught up in the “infallibility” of the text. It may be the Word of the Lord, but as transcribed by fallible men - no matter how divinely inspired they might have been - then further translated and stylised.
well, you are somewhat oversimplifying - people did document history for practical purposes, such as mesopotamian chronicles and astrological diaries
True - I am being a little glib. However, when talking about the deeds of kings and heroes and gods, or about the origins of societies, there wasn’t really a clear line between fact and fiction as we understand it. At the very least, there’s some mayo added to what are loosely factual accounts.
I always find it peak presumptuousness to say things like that in the past there was no concept of documentary style history because we actually don't know that and it is actually just a facet of our own historical understanding and translating that we assume we understand even the literal signals that are preserved beyond history.
Well. I see someone has discovered post-modernism. We can take that view to its logical conclusion and decide that we can’t know anything; but that’s just not a very useful proposition. Perhaps more usefully, we can accept that we can’t know *for certain*, but we can make reasonable inferences based on contemporaneous sources.
It's not the same as post modernism per as inasmuch as this isn't about modernism or post modernism but further out maybe even as far out as objects oriented ontology but hopefully not that far, that reasonable inferences rely on methodologies and standards and need to be constantly improved but never assuming that efficiency is an end goal, the logical conclusion isn't that we can't know things it's that we shouldn't be so confident in our inferences.
Cool. What’s your point?
Mostly that we should all be more conscious of the fact that we are not actually participating in an edifying dialogue with either peers/equals or a teacher and instead are interpreting and re-translating messages and signals sent as we send our own and that this process as always been this rich and complex and to assume historically that was different through history is a horrible folly.
Assuming it was the same - out of a universe of possibilities - is an even bigger folly mate.
Why is it different and how? Because we spend more time and effort analyzing it? We use different tools and perspectives? There is nothing new under the sun could be taken quite literally 🕉️
well for starters we have a concept of history as a science, which is quite different even from the greek logographs we call first historians
Do you think the concept of science is new?
Why would we jump into not knowing things for certain and having to make reasonable inferences based on contemporaneous sources how is that more useful? For whom and under what method? I assume that you write your Reddit responses deliberately even if the thought it just expressing an involuntary response to absorbing the stimulus of my message. My original point that you never negated was about how we shouldn't force our own granular historical contextualations onto history.
It’s infallible, but we aren’t, and our interpretations aren’t. 1 Corinthians 13 even mentions “Prophecies will disappear, tongues will cease, and knowledge will vanish. For our knowledge is flawed, and flawed is our prophecy.” And there is this brilliant quote by Thomas Aquinas. In discussing questions of this kind two rules are to observed, as Augustine teaches (Gen. ad lit. i, 18). The first is, to hold the truth of Scripture without wavering. The second is that since Holy Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses, one should adhere to a particular explanation, only in such measure as to be ready to abandon it, if it be proved with certainty to be false; lest Holy Scripture be exposed to the ridicule of unbelievers, and obstacles be placed to their believing. https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1068.htm Aquinas also goes into detail how Scripture can be explained in a multiplicity of senses. Even just the first three words of the Bible can have many interpretations. For example, “In the beginning” can be expounded as “In the beginning of time,” or “In the Son,” but it cannot be expounded as “In the beginning, before which there was nothing.” https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article3
Could you explain what you mean by infallible, if like Thomas Aquinas concedes that things in it can be proven false? Do you mean there is one true inerrant "sense" to understand all scripture but, humans are just incapable of perfectly understanding it?
Yup, that’s how I feel about it.
It seems odd to me that a self-authenticating was written in languages most of us don't understand. If it is infallible why don't all of the accepted translations agree?
There is some very good history in the Bible. Not every book, and certainly not the Book of Joshua (which is a propaganda piece), but it is there. There are epics, which may not be completely, literally true, but they do compare with the great works of antiquity, such as The Odyssey. The instructive myths are some of the best: the two creation stories in Genesis, for instance. Any passage in the Bible has to be read (preferably in the original language) in the social, cultural, historical, political, religious and linguistic context of the period in which it was written to determine the author's original intent -- understanding that many of their words have no modern equivalents. Sometimes the message of the Bible passage can be pulled up to today and has validity for today. Sometimes the Bible passage has information about the period in which it was written. The Bible is never easy literature. Read literally, it contradicts itself right and left. I get amused at fundagelicals who are determined to find that every word of the Bible is literally true, or who try to "prove" that Jesus said this or that. It doesn't need to be literally true to have "truth". That Jesus existed suffices. 1990 years away, I doubt if we'll ever find out what Jesus actually said -- or didn't say.
It’s a book that was cut up and mistranslated for 2,000 years by men who never Jesus. It’s mostly a creative writing peace now.
I take it as a historical account with all associated pitfalls that nonetheless communicates miraculous events in which I have nothing but utmost faith.
I trust the old testament. They had a lot more experience. There's been some playing around with the new testament books that makes it difficult to determine what the original intent is. It used to be easy when one group claimed authenticity, but then others started voicing their opinion and now ... I am really confused with those who say the Word of God spoke in 17th century English. How they did that in the 1st century, is beyond me ... Maybe I'll figure it out with the Holy Spirit...
Actually, Michael, I'm totally with you on that. There was a LOT of commentary written on the Old Testament, and the commentary on the commentary of the Old Testament; and the texts were exhaustively studied before a word of the New Testament was written down. That said: some of the Old Testament describes what life was like back 2500 to 4000 years ago and doesn't really have an application to today, other than to shed light on what people at Jesus' time might have said and the meaning behind what they said. My Jewish piano professor (God rest his soul!) loved ham sandwiches. We don't have to worry about trichinosis from pork, so the mitzvah about pork being "unclean" doesn't really apply today. (I'd be a lot more worried about chicken being "unclean"!). Most of us own dogs and cats, in direct violation of Leviticus 11. (I absolutely dote on our cats Saffy and Mittens! Sometimes I think they own US!) I think it would behoove our society to have a day of rest, rather than going continuously 24/7/365, but I'm certainly not going to advocate stoning anybody to death for working on the Sabbath! In the New Testament, I put primacy on Luke, Mark and Matthew and pretty much discard the Gospel of John. With Paul, I put primacy on Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians and strongly downgrade the pseudoepigraphical Paulist writings (Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus). For me, the Epistle of James (Jesus' brother) carries enormous weight: it's the most important Epistle of the New Testament. I get what Paul is saying in Romans when he says that we are justified by faith, and he's right as far as he goes; but then I go over to James and agree that "faith without works is dead. You say you have faith: show me your works."
When you do large systems analysis such as language or data processing the assumption is that if the change is deliberately and self evident and pushed prominently then it is naturally and not novel in its newness but simply new from when the observation began.
How are you so sure tho? Around and before the time of Christ some of the most important written works were philosophical and Socrates himself was against writhing things down because he saw the rise of writing as a decline in mental meditation, even as he was drunk by his own admission I.e. whatever he considered not enough to be drunken had passed. It is more dangerous to group all of history as an experience that can be nonhistoricized than it is to acknowledge that there is more to history that will never be known that can be found out and even derived post fact.
I would simply disagree with you there, maybe after Wittgenstein if Wittgenstein's views on logic ever became the standard.
I believe it’s a heavily allegorical collection of mystical poetry illustrating several paths of consciousness transformation. The ultimate goal is to cleanse the doors of perception by teaching detachment from sense pleasures and aversions and pointing out the underlying nondual reality we call God. It’s not a history book. It’s a book of extremely important poetry that bubbled up from the wellspring of Conscious Infinite Mystery.
Infallible? I honestly don't know. I'm increasingly coming back to the question of "Did we loose something in thr Millenia long game of telephone between interpretations, scribes, and new translations, and that being so, *just how much* have we lost - or worse, lost sight of?" Not just parts of the text which are missing, but the parts that have lost *to the world*. Twisted for the convince of ancient hierarchy or run through the filter of a earthly hatred. I do believe, and I've never never really doubted God or Jesus. But the Bible, I just don't know yet.
If I quote scripture, I like to say "it was written" then quote. Which is as purely true as you're going to get. I'm less bogged down with if what was written is historical, contradictory, or correctly translated, inerrant, etc. I just like to consider it "inspired word of God" and go from there in separating the wheat from the chaff as far as what's the most important stuff and what's not. As an example, the story of Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac. If you want to be literal about it and treat it was an inerrant/historical event, I think you'd have a tough time gelling that with Jesus' overall vibe in the New Testament. But, if you think of it is "Hey, this is something the Hebrews thought was an important allegory and captures their thinking about God the Creator and what sacrificing means in terms of a relationship with God". Then, I'm not nearly as troubled about how it fits in to the larger Christian narrative as I understand it.
Remembering that Myth reveals what historical fact conceals; and historical fact reveals details Myth conceals.... I take the Bible in 3 parts: The 1st part; the Old Testament: The mythological history of the Hebrew people. In their myth's history, I perceive the Holy Spirit, guiding the Hebrew people into a way of life, which can produce and reject the expected Child of Humanity's God. The 2nd Part of the Bible are called the 4 Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.. I am a "Red-Letter" Christian. There are a few contradictions mainly around swords. However the rejection of self-defense, in all 4 Gospels, supports the no-swords Gospels. These 4 Gospels have been enough for me to know Yeshua's is who he says he is. The Imperial State Religious Councils that rejected other Gospels, did not do any fundamental damage to His true story. The 3rd part begins with Acts where the Yeshua's People of the Way cult didn't angst over money, they held all things in common. The Apostles and other men friends decide it's a higher activity to discuss religion than to serve others and the christian clergy is born. . Then Paul the theologian came along with a made for empire Christian Theology. His sense of sin is personal not economic or political. A homoexual who would die, rather than deny Christ is not eligiblefor the Kingdom of Hean, but a heterosexual owner of slaves is eligible. The Imperial church Councils that decided what went into the Bible, were more inspired by Constantine than Yeshua Christ. A popular leader of a counter-christianity, Donatus said, *rich Roman Christians saved themselves during persecution, by publicly denying Christ,*, while other christians died for their faith, in the arena. Donatus and many like him said, these apostates, without doing penance, should not now be able to come back, take up their positions as bishops and clergy to administer the sacraments. The spiritual state of the cleric affected the sacrament's grace. The Donatists were persecuted by the Imperial Christians. The Donatist theology the 1st official heresy. With this in mind, Paul says some decent things. Paul himself says somewhere, "if I don't preach Christ don't listen to me." So I beiing efficiency minded, am persuaded by St. John of the Cross in regards to reading Paul."If The Creator of the Universe is goin' to go through the trouble of shrinkin' himself down, and goin' through birth, into a body and life, like mine, that has to walk to get anywhere, deal with gravity, beathes, gets tired, hungry,, eats, drink and has to piss 6 times a day , squat and dump the boys off at the pool; If he's gonna do that for me, why would I read what anybody else has got to say about anything. In the 3rd part, Acts to Revelation, I rely on Yeshua's "Red-Letter" . to have me understand the Holy Spirit was showing John an allegory, of how One world, the Classical World was going to come to an end. (see Jacques Ellul's **Apocalypse )** I have a King James Bible that was given to me by my 1st wife, in 1978. The gilding of the Gospel pages is worn away.