What Do We Have Here?

Reconsidering the Nature of Scripture

I grew up in Protestant, usually Baptist, churches. I have heard the Bible preached nearly every Sunday of my life. And there I learned to cherish the Bible and read it. During this time I also observed the ongoing battle over the inerrancy (truthfulness) of the Bible. I find that this habit of reading my Bible created dissonance even between me those who vigorously defend the inerrancy of my Bible. Their methods distort the nature of the Bible. Over the past several years, I have discerned flaws within the methods of those defend the inerrancy of the Bible, and I seek to correct their methods.
I realize now that if I am to succeed I must do more than try to dismantle current methods of defending the truthfulness of the Bible, I must offer an alternative. These methods have been used for generations now. In the future I will attack those methods directly, but expounding on those can only be half of the process. I want to provide a positive statement about the nature of the Bible not based on the elaborate, unstable arguments in vogue.

Methods based on flawed extra-Biblical ideas (fighting “scientists” with science) degenerated into a shouting match long ago. Others based on flawed exegesis. Can you count the number of times that the hapax legomena, “God-breathed,” has been used to support a view of inspiration?
Were it not for the written Scriptures we would have little hope of knowing our Savior. We have no other trustworthy basis for our faith. I am interested in the foundation that we can lay down for defending the truthfulness of the Bible. Please participate with me in this. It is a task far too grand for one person.
Each comment is numbered, and as we progress I want us to reference previous comments by number as we extend our arguments. When you reference a comment hyperlink it, setting the URL to be #[Comment Number]. I will post a couple of comments to prime the discussion, and then we’ll see if this will work.

Using the Comment Headings indicate if you consider your contribution to be

1)   Direct observation

2)   Scripture
      One or more passages of Scripture with a brief interpretation.

3)   Deduction

4)   Refutation
      Someone says something off the wall (other than me), and you wish to pin them to the wall.

5)   Speculation
      Even wild speculation may bear fruit if someone else can substantiate it.

Other categories may be necessary, but here we go.

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