Here's a great topic for conversation we've recently launched at Gathering - our Sunday lunch discussion venue at Christ Community Church. For the past month we've been looking at the historical reliability of the Bible ... the process by which the scriptures have come down through the ages ... the archeological evidence of the people and places mentioned in the Bible ... and the way history-telling worked in ancient times.

This next week at Gathering we're going to tackle the issue of inerrancy. Is the Bible free of errors that would make it inconsistent with itself, factually inaccurate and ultimately an unreliable guide to knowing and following God? To jumpstart our consideration, let me give you a sample of author Bart Ehrman's recent best seller "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why."

“Because the early Christian texts were not being copied by professional scribes, but simply by educated members of the Christian congregations... we can expect that in the earliest copies mistakes were commonly made in transcription." (p. 51)

"Even scribes who were competent, trained and alert sometimes made mistakes. Sometimes, though they changed the text because they thought it was supposed to be changed. This was not just for certain theological reasons, however. There were other reasons for scribes to make an intentional change – for example they came across a passage that appeared to embody a mistake that needed to be corrected, possibly a contradiction found in the text, or a mistaken geographical reference, or a misplaced scriptural allusion. Changes were made and the author’s original words, as a result, may have become altered and eventually lost." (pp. 55-56)

"One of the leading questions that textual critics must deal with is how to get back to the original text - the text as the author first wrote it... It is an enormous problem. In fact it is such an enormous problem that a number textual critics have started to claim that we may as well suspend any discussion of the "original" text because it is inaccessible to us.” (p.58)

Well, there we have it folks. Mistakes in the Bible. What do you think of Ehrman's assertions? If true, how much damage is done to the Christian claim that the Bible is infallible and authoritative? Send me your thoughts and reactions. Hit on the comment link below and give me your best shot. Or swat me a quick e-mail and we’ll dialogue some this week. To e-mail me directly send to:

timp@cccomaha.org

More from me and Bart as I hear back from you! Feel free to check out the web-page about The Gathering at:

http://www.cccomaha.org/venues/gathering.php

Labels: bible, controversies, errors, inerrancy, text criticism

Tim,

We had a great evening.

I told my neighbor, Donna about what we were planning on doing. She wanted to help. I said, "All we need is a fire pit". She said she had one we could use. Donna also joined us since her husband was out of town.

We brought the nice chairs from the back deck. We circled them around the fire pit. We had a table with hot chocolate and coffee with the favors.

For the kids, we had a duck pond. All the ducks had number on the bottom. The kids told us the number and we gave them there prizes. The prizes were pens, highlighters, sticks, candy and super-superballs. All the kids got glow sticks and candy and a spider ring as well. The kids had fun.

Conversations were flowing with the neighbors. Even if they didn't want coffee or hot chocolate, they still stopped to talk. Some stayed for a long time and we talked and laughed. It wasn't long until the neighbor on the other side of us joined us as well for the rest of the evening.

Saturday morning, another neighbor was walking by and started talking about the fun and hot chocolate that she heard we had at our house.

We were tired when if was all over, but it was worth it all.

In Christ,
Dianne and Mark

Labels: conversations, Fun, halloween, neighborhood, rubber duckies

Tim,

Since the summer we have enjoyed doing small gatherings with our neighbors. They have become our journey group. This Halloween our families had fun by doing a "Trunk-r-Treat" in our community.

Each family decorated their vehicles and lined them up in row. It was neat to see the kids go from trunk to trunk collecting trinkets and candy. We ordered some pizzas and enjoyed stories presented by our friend from Christ Community, Mike Carroll. Being the professional storyteller that he is, Mike held the kids captive for close to 30 minutes with some fun Halloween tales and closed the night by sharing the gospel with a pumpkin illustration.

An event like this is helping us to know how we can pray and serve each other in the neighborhood.

We have some photos that we will send in.

Andre

We went for the tripple whammy this Halloween - Chili, Curb-site Hot Chocolate, and Outdoor Theatre. Since the weather was outrageously unseasonable, we cashed in on as many strategies as we could imagine.

First of all we did the killer Chili for our neighbors - three pots of chile, chips and a crock pot of nacho cheese! About 20 of our neighbors swung by, checked out the fire pit and were amazed at my orange extension cord running out to the street!

A handful of International students came over for chili - they stuck around and helped us hand out candy to kids on our front porch so we could talk with adults over hot chocolate at the end of our sidewalk.

On a whim we decided to set up a back-yard theatre on our garage wall. Our teens hosted some of their friends for a movie night starting after the trick or treating wrapped up. Kids from school. Kids from youth group. Kids from the neighborhood. The back patio was knee deep in bodies. What a mess. We loved it!

Send me your e-mails on how Halloween shook out at your place and I'll post them right here on the blog.

Labels: halloween, hot chocolate, movie