I'm using "poetic" in its broadest sense. Not just meter and rhyme and other poetic devices.coco wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:26 pmI have very little contact with Fundamentalists. I have much more with inerrantists in general. I don't identify myself in the former camp, though I would in the latter. In other words, I would say that Genesis 1-2 are free from error, etc. I do not pretend to have every answer for every question about this subject.Del wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:00 pmI don't know any of these guys' names. So perhaps I am criticizing a secular straw man image of a Fundamentalist, rather than the real thing.coco wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 4:46 pmWhile a Fundamentalist/inerrantist might want to add to this definition (like adding, perhaps, "free from error"), I can't imagine a Fundamentalist/inerrantist disagreeing with this definition. Can you provide an example of a Fundamentalist/inerrantist who does not agree with this definition? This should be an easy task, presuming that Fundamentalists/inerrantists distort language as often as Leftists.Del wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 10:47 amThe Fundamentalists are doing to biblical faith what the political Leftists are doing to culture and life: They are changing the definitions of words.
For example, gender used to mean "biologically male or female."
Likewise, inerrancy used to mean that the Sacred Scriptures are "truly inspired by God and faithfully handed down to us." We understood that Sacred Scripture is a collection of many genres -- books of history, mythology, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, and inspired songs.
All I know is that the Bible is inerrant... And that life, the universe, and everything were NOT created in a literal six days.
So the meaning of inerrant must be larger than the creationist's interpretation of it.
I know that there are problems if one wants to consider Genesis 1-2 as poetic in nature, including:
- There are zero examples of Hebrew poetic conventions in these chapters.
- These chapters contain numerous uses of the Hebrew vav consecutive, which signals the historical genre.
I also admit that there is a possibility that God might have treated time as a dependent variable rather than an independent one during the act of creation, such that time itself had a rate of change. He is certainly big enough to do so.
Consider Lord of the Rings. It is certainly written in the form of a historic novel, and the author even presses this by claiming that it is a translation from a "Red Book of Westmarch," a supposedly authentic copy of testimony and writings from historical Hobbits.
It's still the language of poetry, and should be enjoyed as such. The truths are much deeper than if it were a mere historical account.
Likewise, the writers and readers of Genesis 1 did not believe that they were recording scientific history. That "firm teaching" was invented in the early 20th century by a sect of American Christians with the radical dogma that inerrancy must mean literally.
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I firmly believe in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. [I got into a long feud about with a liberal Catholic feminist who got herself hired as our parish's chief catechist. I ended up getting her fired, sad to say. But she believed that a lot of the New Testament wasn't really accurate. "Do you believe that Jesus really said that?" I couldn't teach that to our kids.]
But we have run up against the fundamental dispute between Protestants and Apostolic Christians.
- Protestants insist that the Bible is sufficient, and a Church can be built up Scripture alone.
- Apostolic Christians see that the Bible was never intended to explain itself. It was written to be used within a Sacred Tradition --first within Judaism, and in the fullness of time, within the Church that Jesus established.
This fundamental divide must necessarily shade the way that the believer understands "inerrancy."