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Dear Raphjd ~

R: "Most christians {especially around here} insist and demand that the bible is the true word of god and not the word of man."

That's correct, in the sense that the Bible has divine authority; its authority is higher than the authority of any human being or group of human beings.

But if one imagines that in order to have divine authority, the Bible must have been produced by a mechanical process in which the writers sat down and fell into some sort of trance during which God completely overwhelmed their wills and swallowed up their personalities and muted their intellects -- no no no; that is not how the Bible was produced at all.

R: "I forget who posted it here that man is only a physical being that god used to put pen to paper and that man had no say in what god made their hand write."

It wasn't me.

R: However, you are saying that man wrote it of his own free will and that god had no part in what is written other than the men believed in god and Jesus.

No, Raphjd, that is not what I'm saying. I /am/ saying that the authors wrote deliberately. But I'm not saying that God had no part in the production of the text. I believe that God guided those who produced the Biblical text to produce exactly what He wanted them to produce, as a teaching-guide for His people. Since God is a God of truth, this implies that He prevented the production of an error in the original text. And since God is a God of love, this implies that the text is beneficial -- the sort of book which Second Timothy 3:15-17 describes. (Note: in that passage, Paul was alluding to the Old Testament Scriptures, not to the entire Bible).

R: "To paraphrase several posts from this site, "there is only one truth". So who is wrong?"

I'd say, considering how one can discern non-uniform vocabularies, thematic depth, selection of source-material, and personal observations in the text, that those who advocate a "dictation" mode of inspiration are incorrect. What do you think?

Btw, sorry if I sometimes abandon posts or let them sit for long periods before responding. I post here on a spare-time basis (generally), and have never said that I'd be prompt or punctual. This might be my last post ever; one never knows! At the moment I am juggling two other major spare-time projects as well! (One of which is the Quran commentary here at the SAB Board, which has been simmering for some time now.) Plus, I recently began to work through the SAB objections, one by one, and that is no small task, so the time available to me to carry on prolonged discussion is quite limited. May I suggest that if I fail to answer any questions, you could try a few Google searches about the text/topic your questions are about? There is quite a bit of Christian apologetics-writings online, and by consulting those resources you might be able to reach the same destination which a less efficient and longer path would have led you to.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock