![The World's Most Dangerous Book [Part 3] by Alan Watts](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ff86e38dd4cdc650b26083e/1611241838169-4LYB5IQWY64HTV8OXA9X/Bible+5.jpg)
The World's Most Dangerous Book [Part 3] by Alan Watts
[Part 3]
Likewise, the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, the Logos-Sopia, refers to the basic pattern or design of the Universe, ever emerging from the inconceivable mystery or the Father as the galaxies shine out of space. This is how the great philosophers of the Church have thought about the imagery of the Bible and as it appears to a modern student of the history and psychology of world religions. Call it intellectual snobbery if you will, but although the books of the Bible might have been "plain words for plain people" in the days of Isaiah and Jesus, an uneducated and uninformed person who reads them today, and takes them as the literal Word of God, will become a blind and confused bigot.
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"Belief in Inerrancy May Be Hazardous to Faith (PART 2) — Problems with Biblical Inerrancy" (from: Religious Tolerance.org)
Intentional translation errors: No Bible translation into English is free of bias. Essentially all versions of the Bible are the product of translators who come from a similar theological background. Being human, they sometimes produce versions of the Bible that tend to match their own belief systems. For example:
The original Hebrew and Greek texts contain a number of different concepts for the place where people will live after death: Sheol, Gehenna, and Hades. Some translations transliterate these place names, and so they appear in the English text in their original forms as "Sheol," "Gehenna," and "Hades." The reader is thus aware that they refer to different beliefs about life after death. But…
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"Belief in Inerrancy May Be Hazardous to Faith (PART 1) — Problems with Biblical Inerrancy" (from: Religious Tolerance.org)
Why belief in biblical inerrancy can be hazardous to one's faith:
When a person considers the Bible to be totally inerrant in its teaching of theology, morals, beliefs, geology, geography, history, etc., it may leave the person's faith vulnerable. Even one proven error could shatter their entire belief system and make the Bible seem useless.
Mark Mattison wrote:
"If in actual fact Caesar Augustus did not really order a census while Quirinius was governor of Syria [or] if it turns out there really was only one Gadarene demonaic rather than two, then the entire Bible becomes worthless and every tenet of Christian faith falls flat. If one single discrepancy emerges, it's all over. This makes Christian faith an easy target for skeptics, and drives believers to unimaginable lengths to 'defend' the Bible." 1
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"Letter to a Christian Teacher on Biblical Inerrancy" by Keith Basar
Dear Friend,
Often I think that our inescapable cultural baggage, meaning our fragile egos and the influence of all who've crossed our way, "make being certain a necessity." Clearly, this is a reality that can never be — thus an exclusive product of our own heads!
What I have questioned for decades is that the scriptures, beautiful and inspiring as they may be, are simply the product of a theologically divided church (367AD), and a power hungry Emperor Constantine (which Luther and those who followed him viewed with anathema) who sought to bring political stability and power to the western Roman world.
"Bishop John Shelby Spong On: The Resurrection"
The Christian Faith was born in the experience that we have come to call Easter. It was this Easter experience that invested Jesus with a sense of ultimacy. It caused his followers to regard his teaching as worthy of being preserved. It was the reason that Saint Paul could write, “if Christ has not been raised then your faith is in vain.” Clearly without Easter there would be no Christianity. That assertion hardly seems debatable. At this point I discover that I am at one with the most literal fundamentalists.
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