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Debate Info

6
11
Pro Con
Debate Score:17
Arguments:13
Total Votes:22
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Argument Ratio

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 Pro (6)
 
 Con (6)

Debate Creator

JaxsonRaine(54) pic



Errors Invalidate the Bible

The resolution 'Errors Invalidate the Bible' is presented as a statement. If you agree that errors invalidate the Bible, you will take the Pro position. If you disagree, and think errors don't invalidate the Bible, you will take the Con position.

Pro

Side Score: 6
VS.

Con

Side Score: 11

Errors demonstrate that the Bible is not infallible. There are mistranslations that attribute to wrong context.

Side: Pro
1 point

I assert that errors don't necessarily invalidate the Bible. We all know that the Bible was hand-copied for hundreds and thousands of years, and we also know that men are prone to make mistakes. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that men would be able to hand-copy a book as large and complicated as the Bible for such a long period without making at least simple mistakes.

I pointed out the following error in the Bible as an example of its imperfection:

2 Kings 8:26

Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign.

2 Chronicles 22:2

Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign.

We know this to be an error, but a simple scribal error such as this doesn't necessarily mean the Bible wasn't inspired, it simply means that men were in charge of copying it.

If the errors in the Bible were shown to be unequivocally contradictory to other Biblical passages, then we would run into a more serious concern. Even then, however, the possibility of a scribal error would still exist, if the discrepancy could be resolved with a minor change(such as one character) of the original text.

It is important to note that the Bible doesn't make the claim of being perfect. The Bible wasn't written as a Bible, but as individual books and letters. It was man who took these books and letters, and combined them into one collection, and it could very well have been man who unknowingly put in any errors.

It is also important to note that this isn't a proof of the Bible's validity, but rather a proof that errors in the Bible don't necessarily invalidate it.

Side: Con
Calcifer(140) Disputed
0 points

Same comment as on the other page. Those are not errors, you have just made an error.

Side: Pro
1 point

The bible stating that plants came before the creation of the Sun seems as quite the error...

Side: Con
Calcifer(140) Disputed
1 point

Another error here. Go and check the Bible. Read the very first few parts in Genesis. First He created the Heavens and the Earth, so the whole Universe. Then, He said "Let there be light", and there was light. (AKA, the sun.) Plants came on the later days, while light came on the second. Make sure you check these things before you decide to post them.

Side: Pro
Facadeon(510) Disputed
2 points

How about you check them out before you post...

Gen 1:11-Then God said, "Let the land sprout with vegetation--every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came." And that is what happened.

Gen 1:12- The land produced vegetation--all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.

Gen 1:13- And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day. (How were there days before the sun?)

Gen 1:14- Then God said, "Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years.

And please do, replace that down vote.

Side: Con
1 point

Before one can give adequate thought to this "resolution", we must first be informed of the codicological history of these "errors". Is it that the errors are found only in translation? Perhaps the Vulgate contained mistranslations (for few Mediæval-æra writers were very well versed in Latin) over the hundreds of years that it was being copied? Going back even earlier, what we have of an "original" papyrus Greek Bible is itself not that as it was originally writ, but copied most likely from copies, and that most likely itself a copy of a copy, going on for "generations" of texts. The older the work, the more generations of the texts have existed, and the more likely for the occasional misprint or mistranslation to appear. For instance, with the Old Norse story of Heiðrek, we have three similar versions, each descended from an original MS, but with obvious differences.

Or is it that the original Greek and Hebrew had fewer, if any, errors, but a thousand years of misprints and, when it came to translating into Latin and English, mistranslations, we have what we view in English as having been errors? I may concede that there are mistakes in the real Bible only once my Hebrew is good enough for me to read it myself and see the mistake, and know that it really is a mistake, not some sort of metaphor or trope. But that shall not be for quite some time, for the Afro-Asiatic tongues are far down my list to study, and Hebrew shall not be learned by me at least until I'm already versed in Babylonian, Arabic, and Middle Egyptian.

Side: Con