Are there any good reasons for doubting the inspiration of the Holy Bible?

Answer 1

Answer

Yes there are many reasons for doubting the inspiration of the Holy Bible.

AnswerHistorical Context:

Since the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, society seems to be concerned with factual credibility, the authenticity of something. We are not content with mere belief, we need evidence in order to believe. However, back during the time the Bible was written, this was not the guide for historians. History was meant to show the inner nature of events, rather than depend heavily on facts. Another aspect is that when we look at old texts of the Bible, we can see there are always subtle changes as they are recopied and recopied. Many would take this as a sign that the Bible was not divinely inspired, but an amalgamation of texts over a period of time that have the same inaccuracies as oral history. However, rather than look at it in such a modern way, it is best to look at it as how the Jews did at the time; the meaning is what counts.

Answer

Firstly, what is the Bible? The answer seems self-evident especially to those of us who grew up with the Protestant canon, classically represented by the 66 books of the King James Version (KJV). However, at minimum, there is the alternative canon represented by the inclusion of the Apocrypha and other additions in the Roman Catholic canon. The Ethiopian Christians recognize other ancient writings as scripture. Going further, there is the scholarly enterprise of establishing the most ancient original text--for the Old Testament there are the alternatives to the Masoretic Text (MT) and the alternatives of the Textus Receptus for the New Testament. The biblical manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls gave support some of the alternatives to the Masoretic Text.

Secondly, what do we mean by the "inspiration" of the Bible? If we mean by inspiration that the Bible is without error, than I think there are hundreds if not thousands of reasons to doubt that the Bible is inspired. The Bible cannot be used as a guide to science, history or any number of intellectual endeavors. Indeed, I question if the Bible provides a framework for ethics or morals.

Do I therefore think the Bible is useless? Not at all. It is a very important cultural document, maybe the most important document for Western culture. It is very interesting reading (at least in part). It provides many passages that can stimulate profound thought. I guess, that I am not sure that it is Holy.

Answer

No from archaeology. This continues to produce more and more support for the inspiration of the Bible as more discoveries are made.

No from out of context and mis-understood scriptures. To set up a straw-man by misrepresentation and mis-quoting does not touch the solid rock of inspiration one bit. It doesn't even scratch it because it is dealing with a view not held by the Bible but only in the minds of its opponents.

No from supposedly un-fulfilled prophecies. When looked at in context and properly understood these provide encouragement and not doubt.

Answer

One good reason to doubt [doubt does not imply dismissing an idea out of hand] is our will-- our freedom of choice, given to us by God, according to believers. If a person's faith in divine inspiration is shaken by inquiry, then that person's faith is of no account. If a person must have evidence in order to have faith, that person's faith is of no account. Because you are wired to do so, you must question, learn and conclude. If you are a person of faith, your dilemma will be that the need for proofkills faith. Grasping after 'proof of divine inspiration' with much learning, many verses, and scraps of logic, will amount to a pile of rubble for you.

The corroboration of scriptural materials by archeology neither supports nor refutes divine inspiration, which is the key concept of the question. No one would conclude that any ancient writing that makes accurate reference to an archeological find is inspired by God.

There should be no need to critique the argument that there is no room to doubt the divine inspiration of scripture, because scripture is inspired by God. There is every reason to doubt (not necessarily to dismiss).

Answer

The prose is terrible. One would assume that a divine entity would be capable of producing divine prose.

Answer

There really is no evidence for the Bible not being divinely inspired. It is a non-falsifiable statement. It is impossible to even come up with an idea for what evidence could be found to prove the statement false. For instance if I found another book by one of the authors of the bible where the author claims they just randomly made up their part of the bible it could still be argued that the author was just unaware that they were divinely inspired. This does not mean that the bible is divinely inspired however. As although there is no evidence it is not divinely inspired there is also no evidence that it is. For instance there is also no evidence that Harry Potter, the koran, the Book of Mormon, or the Origin of the Species are not divinely inspired.

I can not provide any evidence of the Bible not being divinely inspired. I can say however that the chances of it being divinely inspired are about the same as that of any other religions text being divinely inspired or for that matter as probably as an invisible being controlling everything.

Answer

There's no reason to doubt that the writers of the Bible were inspired by God. Any inspired person can write any subject depending on his inspiration. A love-struck person can write an inspired poem, an environmentalist can write inspired notes about global warning, A religious person can write an inspired thesis on how his god intends his believers to live, etc. But, will what they write the truth?

Another Answer:

Is there any good reason FOR believing in the inspiration of the Bible?

Sure, somebody may have told you it is inspired. But why do they believe it is?

Its teachings are certainly not the only ones with the power to change people's affiliations or values.

The evidence regarding fulfilled prophecies is lacking; good luck if that's the question you should choose to investigate, however. Don't forget that there are alleged fulfilled prophecies and other miracles around the world.

If what you're looking for is a moral authority to tell you how to live your life, look to the discipline of philosophy. Go read Aristotle's /Nicomachean Ethics/ (or commentaries on it), or go read Bernard Gert's /Common Morality/ (and don't just stop with those).

If you're looking for eternal truths about God, don't be a sucker for mythologies in such a way that you'd be convinced by any mythology you grew up around. Why would you need to know such eternal truths anyway? If you think you need to be saved from some sort of sinful nature, go think about what that sinful nature might be, and don't blindly accept that you have it without looking carefully at the evidence for and against your having it.

Another View:

ANY religious text is no more than the beliefs and opinions of its author(s) in his/their own time and society. That does not necessarily mean they were insincere - unless the passage looks pretty much like mere propaganda - but if you want to be inspired by their writings you have to take for yourself, not the actual text but the writers' underlying belief.

You also need to remember two other things.

The first is that there is no such thing as any or "the" one true religion. Any religion ever invented since time immemorial was or is true only for its own believers. Since each sect's or at least religion's followers cling fervently to claiming that for their own, clearly they can't all be right.

The second, a corollary really, is that the existence of a statement in a scripture proposed as if fact by its author, is not true merely because it is in some "holy" book. Even if the statement was true at least to the extent of honest belief, or even a historical fact, none of these books have any real, independent corroboration.

Nor is there any proof or even evidence whatsoever for the existence or indeed non-existentence of an omnipotent deity - though notice that what logically would be a nebulous, non-corporeal entity of no sex, is described as male by the three Abrahamic religions?

To explain "to the extent of honest belief" take a story like Noah's flood. We know that no such world-wide flood is possible (maximum possible sea-level is about 150m above present, if I recall rightly, but that last occurred very long before Man appeared), but the unknown author did not have that knowledge. To him the world was uniform, so any major catastrophe in his region was clearly world-wide. To be fair to him the myth has unkown but widespread versions so he may have been combining two or more legends into one.

Analogously, Mediaeval depictions of the Nativity dress the characters in Mediaeval NW European styles and show the stable built in similarly NW European ways.

To sum up, there are plenty of good reasons for not being inspired by any religious text, but that does not answer the point that many people crave belief in the unknowable and improveable. Nor does it preclude thinking the Bible inspiring simply as literature without necessarily believing in deities invented by Man (especially "man" i.e. male human).