Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mmh@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Matthew Huntbach) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Bible the word of God? Message-ID: Date: 16 Nov 90 08:05:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London, UK. Lines: 24 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >I've seen Biblical inerrancy defined by a Catholic author as the notion >that the Bible contains no mistakes in things pertaining to salvation. >The trouble with that is that as a criterion it is practically useless; It works in the context of Catholicism. The claim of the Catholic church is that as the body ordained by Christ to carry out His work it is in a position to decide which parts of the Bible pertain to salvation. As you rightly point out, if this is left entirely to individual conscience, the whole thing collapses. Your message seems to read to me that it is only possible to be a Protestant if one is prepared to make a huge effort and go to the extent of considering the original Greek and Hebrew versions. This is not too far from the Islamic insistence that the Koran be studied only in the original Arabic - in this way Islam maintains some sort of unity without a central organising structure. In practice, I guess that most Protestants are satisfied to rely on the interpretation given by their pastor. This is in itself dangerous since the pastor cannot claim any particular authority. Matthew Huntbach