I’ve actually got “Read all Tim Keller” as a to do for 2009. Thanks for sharing.

Richard,
Thanks, I’ll check that one out this weekend.

Hope you all have a relaxing one.

Ok, This tests brevity to breaking point. Sometimes big questions, particularly if they englobe a collection of other questions, simply don’t have short or simple answers, not without being trite or facile. I really would like to respond, but I have exams all next week, and will be in Lille (I live in Brussels at the moment) the weekend after next week. I’ve sketched a draft answer, and I’d really hope to get it out by Monday 19th. Until then, I hope you’ll excuse the delay and not lose interest in the conversation.

Ed

Yes, by inspired I meant more broadly, “Influence by one or more supernatural beings”.

Erm, none of this show, or even suggests that the Bible is inspired (which wasn’t quite what I asked, but let’s run with it for now). Much of what you’ve said is analogous to, “I believe X which makes it seem probable the Bible was inspired.”, “I believe Y…”.

If I said, “I believe the moon is made of cheese, therefore it is probable there’s a very large cow out there somewhere.”, would that lend any credence to the suggestion of the existence of a very large cow? It’s easy to uncritically accept such flawed arguments when you already happen to believe what they seek to prove.

Even if you don’t believe the NT is inspired, the fact that all the 1st century documentary evidence of Jesus’ ministry and the beliefs of the Christian movement, the fact that this was a conventional position in the day and any other position would have been certain to have drawn remark, and the fact that no such remark seems to exist anywhere render it very unlikely in my mind that he could have held any other position.

Ah, now we may be getting somewhere. I don’t think it’s really fair to use quotes from the Bible to show that Jesus thought the Bible was inspired, that seems quite circular. If the Bible wasn’t inspired then why believe what it says about itself?

You might as well say, “Well obviously God exists, because the Bible says he does, and since the Bible is the word of God and the Bible also says God never lies, then it must be true.”

But if you have external contemporary sources that quote Jesus, let’s hear them. They would lend support to your belief that Jesus thought the OT was inspired.

But even then we’re still falling into the “Some guy said it, I believe it, that settles it” line of reasoning.

Actually, rather than a narrow discussion of what you believe about the Bible, I was hoping for a general objective method by which we may tell if a book (any book) is inspired by supernatural influence. If we could do that, then perhaps you could show why some alleged holy books are not in fact inspired by supernatural influence, whereas another is?

Obviously if you say, “An inspired book must have a central character whose name begins with a J”, then I’ll be less than impressed! :-)

(hmm, this “issue with brevity” may be catching!)

cheers guys!