Here’s a little outline from the talk I did at Medical Christian Union at Sussex 2 weeks ago…

Isn’t the Bible full of errors?

The short answer is NO!

If the Bible is God’s word as it says (2 Tim 3:16), then it will be true.

That is a massive circular argument, BUT it has to be - just like the American Constitution!

God’s word must be ’self-authenticating’, but we can look to other evidence to expand this circle of argument.

Expanding the Circle

Textual Errors?

• Eyewitnesses still around when words are committed to paper
• Huge number of copies to compare with one another for errors (see manuscript table)

Factual Errors?

• Written when eyewitnesses were around, starting around 15 years after Christ
• Early Church and historians have no problems with so-called errors
• Eyewitnesses are named (Mark 15:21), 500 at one time (1 Cor 15)
• Secular history is not 100% accurate - see Hittite example where the Bible was right from the start
• If the Bible is fabricated then it’s a bad job - women witness the resurrection, first church leader denies Jesus, and the movement is based on a crucified leader

Social / Cultural Errors?

• Different cultures are offended by different bits of the Bible (see Mark 14, example from Tim Keller - Reason for God)
• We are arrogant when we assume our culture is more progressive than others!
• The Bible should contradict us (see Keller, ‘Stepford God’)

4 Main Points of Christianity

We shouldn’t ignore possible errors in the Bible, we need to think, discuss and research.

But we shouldn’t use possible errors to dismiss the Bible completely or to avoid addressing the central claims of the Bible…

1. We were created by God, for God
2. We’ve been happy to live in God’s creation, but without God, we deserve to die because of this rebellion
3. Jesus Christ, God-as-man, died. His death acts as a substitution, he dies where we should have died.
4. When we face God in judgement, we can take the punishment for our rebellion on ourselves or trust in Jesus that his death in our place restores a right relationship with God.

Tonight was the first in what will hopefully be a long-term series of cafe nights at BH. I was a bit frustrated with the cafe nights that happened in the past, because it was the same as a normal service, just with chairs set out differently and some nibbles… but tonight we got rid of songs, prayers, any kind of liturgy or service order and I ad libbed at the front.

Povey spoke on the subject of exclusive beliefs and absolute truth, essentially just a rip off of Keller… speaking of which, after a review by me I managed to flog some cut-price copies of Reason for God, I have two copies left if anyone is interested. You can get Povey’s talk here…

Unexpectedly, Father bought a copy of Keller’s book, came in the post today. So had a read of the introduction. Keller sets out to explain the situation we are at in our culture (a distrust between sceptics and believers) and why we should all honestly and carefully approach the big questions in life. Here’s some initial points…

• Relate to the American context… there’s a lot of talk about the social, political, religious issues in the USA. The UK is very different, but I think we can see our own issues of how the church relates to the culture, and how faith and society can engage.
• Believers and Sceptics need to move beyond the point of denouncing each other to the point of being able to disagree.
• Believers need to be honest about and wrestle with their doubts - “a person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if they have failed over the years to listen patiently to their own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection”
• Atheism is not believed by a consensus of society and is not empirically provable, therefore it takes just as much faith, and has just as many doubts as any other belief.
• Keller concludes the introduction with 3 stories about New Yorkers who came to faith having struggled with suffering, self-image, and the intellectual credibility of Christianity.

Keller seems intellectually robust, philosophically aware, and yet humble, personal and honest. Looks like it’ll be a good read if I get round to it! Having read Mere Christianity the other month, it does seem like the ‘modern’ version, with Keller writing to the next generation than Lewis was.

Here’s a video of Tim Keller on his book tour, giving a talk at a university. I didn’t really listen to the talk (I’d already listened to the individual ones on the Reason for God website) but was more interested in the Q&A afterwards, he’s very gracious in his answers and is clearly very well read - I’d have liked him to come and do a lunchbar at Sussex.