"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God..."

- John 1:1

Pretty clear in my opinion.

This is just another individual trying to stretch God's instruction to suit his own intentions.

It's nice to know I'm in good company like Marcus. Yes, indeed, sometimes the Bible is wrong.

"God's instruction"? Where in scripture does God speak directly? It's all transcribed by human beings in the words and paradigms of their own time. To conflate one's own opinions (or the opinions of one's group) with God's sounds pretty much like idolatry.

@Ttollerton- ?
What does the eternal nature of Jesus have to do with saying that the bible is sometimes "wrong"? In fact, John 1:1 illustrates the point. Many people read that in English and assume that "Word" refers to scripture. "Word" just may be the wrong word to use there. Jesus is the Word referred to there. We should be digging into scripture and exploring this beautiful expression of relationship with God. Some of the stuff just didn't happen. Many stories were written to suit the intentions of the authors. Yet, faithful folks are following God, and doing good in the world inspired by the ongoing relationship with God that scripture calls us too, even if it is wrong sometimes.

John Mark Wiggers

@ Ttolerton - if you read the passage from which your quote comes carefully, you will see that the Word referred to in it is *not* the Bible, but Jesus. So it is really unclear to me what point you are trying to make.

It seems to me that all to often we end up worshiping the Bible instead of THE WORD. -Cullin R. Schooley

@Ttollerton, Your passage from John 1 ends at verse 14: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." In other words, the "Word" of John 1 is Jesus Christ. Because of that I'm not comfortable with saying that the Scriptures are the "Word of God" -- even if, in that context, the meaning is different. In fact, the multitude of translations is another reason not to go there. What I am comfortable with is this: the Scriptures set forth the Word of God.

It's always been a comfort to know that Erasmus in a letter to Martin Luther said Jerome was incorrect in translating logos as verbum. E said he actually had 7 alternatives, but his preference was sermo rather than verbum. In the beginning was the conversation. I like that better!

Actually, it was Borg that finally made me somewhat comfortable with saying "The Word of the Lord." Reading Borg made it possible for me to think of the Bible sacramentally--as a human product that is capable of putting us in touch with the Divine. Just as I can accept that the bread and wine of the Eucharist can spiritually be the Body and Blood of Christ without literally becoming flesh and blood, so I can accept that God can communicate to me through the human--and yes often flawed--words of scripture.

When there are so many blatant examples of words from even the 16th century not meaning then what they mean now, we don't even need to get into whether the original text was "wrong" to understand that interpretation of the bible by many people today is flawed.

"Sometimes the Bible is wrong."

"The Bible is the inerrant Word of God"

There you have the heads and tails of Protestantism-- every woman and man their own pope and magisterium with no reference to the Church Fathers or the Church's Tradition or the development of doctrine.

Cheers.

Bill Ledbetter

The issue really isn't whether the bible is wrong, but rather what you make of this. Really Anglicans need to get over this overreacting to Protestant inerrantists (since that's not our tradition anyway) and step up to the real question of why one believes or disbelieves any particular passage. Talking about Rob Bell's detractors is mostly a waste of time because they don't all believe one thing, and they thus don't all object to him along the same line. I read Rob Bell, and I can tell that he's reading liberal theologians because he repeats some of their trope, but he isn't up front about this. Borg says he says this or that passage is wrong, and well, OK, except I need to understand why he says so; and I'm going to come at that with a very confrontational attitude. What I've seen of Borg's stuff is that it's very Higher Crit and thus carries along a lot of Enlightenment prejudices which in turn arise out of a faith-hostile mindset. The problem of inerrantists I see is that are too facile about talking their way out of the problems the bible presents us; but the problem I see with Borg's approach is that, reliant upon the intellect as it is, it is insufficiently self-critical.

One can be conservative about this without being inerrantist. I personally set the bar for identifying error in the bible a lot higher than Borg does. I think one should start from the assumption that the bible isn't in error and work back along the supposed error first, and accept error if this doesn't pan out.

"Choosing not to choose IS to choose." [A phrase Google shows repeatedly, but doesn't want to give me an original citation for!]

Every man or woman IS "their own pope", Bill L, and was it ever thus [Metaphorically, saying "Don't eat from the Tree in the Center of the Garden" implied they had the choice, nez pas?]

If one CHOOSES to delegate all of one's Biblical discernment to the Bishop of Rome (for example), one is still the "pope" of that choice. [Though of course, plenty of Roman Catholics take back their choices, contravening the BofR, as it suits them! ;-/]

Individual human sovereignty is built into our DNA---it's HOW we are Imago Dei. God bless it! :-D

JC Fisher

NB: am ignoring the claim "no reference to the Church Fathers or the Church's Tradition or the development of doctrine", as in the case of TEC, it certainly does NOT apply.

Perhaps before modern fundamentalism this wouldn't have been as controversial. The German reformer Martin Luther wanted the whole book of Revelation left out of German translations of the Bible and had some choice words to say about it.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, edited the Prayer Book for the new Methodist churches in America in 1784. He deleted some of the psalms (such as number 137) because, he said, they were "...not fit for the mouths of a Christian congregation."

Those both seem relevant to this because at significant moments in Protestant history important church leaders admitted that sometimes the Bible can be wrong.

Dennis Roberts

I don't really understand this objection. The Bible can't be "wrong" or "right"; it's a book, and it just is. It's a collection of all sorts of oral and written history and culture - and what was understood as "revelation" - from a particular period in history.

It's stories and history and lists and songs and maxims and mysticism - and the opinions of people long dead. It rarely makes declarative statements - not ones that are directed to us, at any rate. It can't be "right" or "wrong" - at least, not in the way those words are being used in this article. It always requires interpretation.

The interpreters (i.e., individuals and/or the church), of course, can be wrong - and quite often have been. But that's not news; see Article 19 for more....

Dennis, we have modern fundamentalism precisely as a reaction to the tradition of biblical criticism out of which Borg writes.