Yes, I accept the NT as a mix, but tell me what perfect belief in the NT you support and what convinces you of that, and I can respond as to whether I think your position is more convincing than mine.
Again. Psalm 110 is classically messianic son of David, but I’m lost on why you imply that it is citing or interpreting Isaiah 53’s martyred servant. Most Jews see them as two different figures.
(I’m not sure what you mean by perfect belief, but I’ll attempt a guess)
The short answer is, right now I’m not sure, but I’ll tell you how I see the options:
-
Inerrancy / Strong Infallibility
The old me would have said that every word of the Bible had a duality of origin - both from men and God simultaneously (kind of like Jesus’ two natures, in a way). It was 100% authoritative and you couldn’t disagree with anything it said, if you thought otherwise. I memorized the entire books of Romans, James, and Philippians word for word, because I wanted to “hide God’s word in my heart.”
–> This has the advantage of being consistent throughout and authoritative. It has the rather major disadvantage of… lacking much of a reason to think every word is infallible. -
Merely Human
Then, of course, there is the view that nothing in the Bible is infallible; it’s just a human book the same as any other. Might have some good, might have some bad; you can agree or disagree with it based on what you think.
–> This has the advantage of not needing any sort of special evidence - it’s the default state of belief for any book. But the disadvantage of “gutting” Christianity of any authoritative specifics. (Although if Christianity itself is not true, then it’s not much of a disadvantage) -
Human, but Weak Inspiration
Then there is a “weak inspiration” view that lies in between. Here we believe that God really did intervene at points in history, and the men of the Bible wrote down their experience of God’s actions. They might get things wrong - perhaps even quite a bit wrong, as humans are wont to do. But we can extract general ideas of what Jesus probably taught, for instance.
–> This has the advantage of not worrying about contradictions and mistakes in the Bible, and allows flexible readings (or even disagreement) of some “problematic” verses. It has the disadvantage of losing a lot of specific “oomph” in terms of doctrine. For any specific point, you have to wonder whether it was just that writer’s opinion or impression, but maybe he was mistaken, and it’s really hard to prove it one way or the other.
In the end, I’m not finding much evidence for #1 so far. If Christianity is true, #3 seems like my likely landing place. If Christianity is not true, then obviously #2 is where I’d end up.
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T - here’s a bit more on what I wrote above from Tom Wright. It is the overarching themes of the bible that are most important, but most of us cannot see the ‘forest for the trees’. We get caught up in whether it was an apple in the Garden, whether snakes can talk, like that - instead of seeing what God is teaching us when we trust the story - all of it - and see the genius of the bible.
Tom:
Dave, I like what Tom has to say in your post above. Although, I don’t know what he means by “nonhuman forces”. The problem I see with claiming the entire Bible as the infallible word of God is this: In many respects, Israel was held captive by their belief that the Lev. law was God’s infallible word. Many who believed differently were held captive as well, not because of their own belief, but by the beliefs of others who insisted upon infallibility. You were going to follow what they said or else because those who studied the Bible supposedly knew God better than all the rest. They never even considered the fact that the words could be wrong. Who or what we believe in can be a very powerful force.
Not quite sure WHY you’ve mentioned this as no one here, to my knowledge, has denied either resurrection or afterlife… I know you know I affirm both, so can only think you misperceive something else from something I’ve said; that’s certainly possible.
Again Paidion… Israel’s resurrection was promised of old, i.e., as the book of Acts references… “the hope of Israel”. When speaking resurrection in 1Cor 15 Paul uses the present tense in a number of verses showing the then present nature of the then occurring resurrection, that is… people were “being raised” to newness of life — a prominent theme with Paul; shedding the old imbibing the new etc.
So you ask where Paul teaches such in 1Cor 15, well consider the following and I’ll provide the present tense rendering…
1Cor 15:32, 35, 42-44 If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead are not being raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” … But someone will say, “How are the dead being raised up? And with what body are they coming?” … So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is being sown in corruption, it is being raised in incorruption. It is being sown in dishonor, it is being raised in glory. It is being sown in weakness, it is being raised in power. It is being sown a natural body, it is being raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
The body being sown was covenant and corporate Israel — it was the body in transition from old covenant to new covenant, from corruption to incorruption, from dishonour to glory, from weakness to power — from the natural body of the old covenant to the spiritual body of the new covenant.
Check out ALL those bolded sections and you’ll see they are definitely present tense and NOT future. This then helps determine the nature of the resurrection in view — it was a transition out of bondage to freedom, from law to grace… from the body of Moses to the body of Christ.
So again… Paul’s identifying “it” aka the body was Israel in transition, from death to life — a then happening reality in the gospel, as per Jesus’ words here…
Jn 5:25 Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.
Those responding were being raised… in AD30+. Those who refused were also razed… in AD70!
So this raises a question for me. If the Bible is NOT infallible, then what - if anything - is “infallible”? The Koran? Science? Human reason? President Trump? The Pope? The Christian visions of those seeing, the tribulation and Z-Hell (1, 2, 3)? Even if the Bible and other items aren’t “infallible”…the last item I mentioned - DEFINITELY is!
Well of course and that is a big reason why the Jews do not accept Jesus as Messiah and why the disciples had no expectation of a resurrection of Jesus although Isa 53 implies a resurrection “he shall know his offspring.”
If a different religion ends up being true, maybe its sacred writings are infallible. Certainly Islam claims this for itself.
If God exists (in any supernatural belief system), then he himself could be infallible, but there’s an important question of whether we have anything from him that is untarnished.
Then again, maybe nothing is infallible. My options #2 and #3 above are consistent with this possibility. I would say that there is no reason that something has to be infallible.
…
@Holy-Fool-P-Zombie I will say that one thing is quite possibly infallible though… and that is that you will shoehorn Z-Hell (1,2,3) into any comment where it even remotely makes the smallest amount of sense! 
tomatohorse,
Thanks! Your outline of 3 basic positions on the Bible displays your clear thinking. And of course, it’s the mediating position 3 that is nearest my own. If one does not see that it’s evident that God has clearly demonstrated that one book is the one that excludes all human vantage points and fallibility, nor that God then appears to have put a premium on cognitive doctrinal conformity, then one doesn’t conclude that not obtaining “a lot of specific oomph in terms of doctrine” is some kind of ultimate disaster.
Underneath most religious fundamentalists insistence that there has to be a perfect book is the assumption that knowing which external authority we must submit to is the essence of all vital knowing. If one comes to see that using various kinds of “internal” authority is inevitable for us, then one is more comfortable employing those kind of criteria when reading the Bible too. So I repeat what I said above:
"I do perceive that underneath this issue is whether we think final authority for us is essentially external (e.g. whatever our literature, leader or pope says), or whether we see that there is no way to avoid exercising internal authority, in the sense that we must exercise our own evaluation of what is true and resonates with truth and morality the best we are able to evaluate and discern it.
My impression is that without such inner evaluation, embracing the Bible as the only authority or even as infallible would just be arbitrary. How would someone decide to give it that credence if they are not able themselves to exercise some capacity to evaluate propositions as to whether they are valid?
Methodism’s founder, John Wesley said there are least four ways to discern what is true and right: Scripture, experience, reason, and tradition. I.e. perhaps as you imply, we don’t just prooftext the Bible, but look for patterns in what we can learn from, and apply various ways to evaluate one source by another. e.g.Paidion offered a practical example of where he’s quite willing to reason that particular statements in the Bible are quite plainly incorrect.
My perception is that even those who say that they just submit to the Bible as an external authority, show in the way they accentuate and interpret particular ideas and verses that they too are much guided by what internally and yes subjectively, resonates with them. For me, the themes of the Bible that I am most sure of are the ones that I already sense are true by such things as my experience, my conscience, my sense of what is most reasonably historical, and the internal Spirit’s witness that I have.
For me personally, despite seeing Bible writers as fallible, I find a treasure trove of wisdom in their effort to bear witness to their own experience and observation of history (especially being deeply impressed with the wisdom and way of Jesus). You may see less. But the neat thing about e.g. Wesley’s sense that there are multiple ways to evaluate claims to truth and wisdom, is that it allows you and I some common ground to compares notes on what we find most convincing."
Davo, I am surprised that a man of your intelligence should make such an argument. You indicate that because the present tense is used, that the resurrection was occurring in the present. However, even in English we use the present tense to indicate a future event. For example:“If you drink this poison, you will die.” No one whose first language is English will use the future tense, “If you will drink this poison you will die.”
Here is a clear example from Matthew in which the present tense is used in Greek to indicate a future event.
Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. So the demons begged Him, saying, “If you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine.” (Matthew 8:30,31)
The Greek word for “cast” (εκβαλλεις) is in the present tense, although the event of Jesus casting them out was yet future.
So it makes perfect grammatical sense to understand Paul’s words in 1 Cor 15:32 to refer to a future resurrection:
If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
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I took quite a bit of Koine Greek at Wheaton College, where I did my undergrad. My professor often emphasized that verb tenses in Greek are not to be understood always in a strictly time-based sense, as they often are in English.
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That’s cool. I know folks from Wheaton College, who have graduated. What did you major in?
Christian Education. I also audited a bunch of classes in psychology, philosophy, and music. Fond memories 
Sometimes I wish everyone could have that collegiate state of close community and perpetual learning for their whole lives. I almost went and joined Christian commune after I graduated.
I must say, I’m totally unsurprised you seek yet again to explain away the grammar of Koine Greek by imposing English grammar over the top to try and justify your position accordingly; but that won’t work… two different birds entirely. The fact is however… you are hoisted on your own petard. Consider…
1Cor 15:15 Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up —if in fact the dead do not rise. — again present tense
Paul was no false witness and neither was Jesus… BOTH proclaimed God “raises the dead” (present tense) — there is no hint of anything that smacks of soul sleep or any such variant of yours. Preferably however… always trust Paul AND a correct reading of the Greek: “If the dead are not being raised…” — the word ‘raised’ <ἐγείρονται> egeirontai is again in the present tense, an action as occurring at THAT TIME with no hint of one waiting eons in death. Further consider…
Mk 12:26-27 But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken.”
And in case you misread Jesus, his “He is not the God of the dead” is no contradiction but a clarification that the dead do indeed exist, thus are not non-existent. Plus Jesus’ “that they rise” is actually again in the present tense, i.e., an action in progress… thus suggesting their presence before Him upon death. This would also align with a standard reading of… “it is appointed for men to die once, and after this judgment” — NOT eons after this!
What Paul describes in 1Cor 15 is Israel’s national or corporate resurrection, the kind mooted in Ezek 37:1-14 i.e., “the hope of Israel” — read N.T. Wright for example who notes “individualistic” “getting to heaven” notions are more a product of western modernity. The covenantal raising of Israel was occurring in THEIR generation through Christ’s work and that of His firstfruit saints. Again Paul testifies…
According to the Greek text… “raises” is again rendered in the present tense and can properly be read… “Why should it be thought incredible by you that God is raising the dead?” — <ἐγείρει> egeirei. Through the gospel of the New Covenant many in Israel and then those beyond were rising in that day into the new covenant status as children or servants (depending on context) of God.
Again ALL present tense reality…
Lk 7:22 Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.
…and same Greek word Paul uses in Corinthians and NONE of it requires the likes of “will rise” futurism.
In citing Wright that Israel’s future hope was not individuals in heaven, but a new earth, etc, are you implying that Wright also supports reading 1 Cor 15’s “resurrection” as many Israelis already rising into new covenant status, rather than Paidion’s view of some future resurrection of the bodies of individuals?
If not, why do you think such a Greek tenses expert misses what you appear to take as obvious?
No, not so distinctly in terms as I further argue, BUT he does make those points I’ve attributed to him in contradistinction to the standard fundamentalist evangelical mindset etc, as has been shown in print and also on this site, for example, in a number of videos that Randy has put at various times which I know you’ve seen.
I can only think it is veiled translational bias… maybe not dissimilar to Wright’s forerunner Schweitzer who along with some of his contemporaries came to conclude that Jesus actually was a failed Jewish prophet BECAUSE his words failed to find fulfilment… at least according to their estimation — I wonder IF it is possible that their understanding as to THE NATURE of Jesus’ words might have been off?
Me thinks so.
Yes, it seems that your interpretation requires the understanding that almost all New Testament Greek scholars totally misread Paul’s Greek as expecting that Jewish hopes of a future resurrection of even dead martyrs was fulfilled in Jesus as its’ firstfruit, and will be fulfilled in a similar future bodily resurrection of Jews and Gentiles.
But like Paidion, I find rejecting Wright’s convincing reading a tall order.
You appear to simply assert that Greek’s present tense operates nothing like ours (and can’t simply mean that God raises the dead–without specifying when or who), even though Paidion offers an example (Mt 8:31) where it applies to a future event.
Very true. Sometimes the "experts’ have the same difficulty with language…as these two, “ordinary” chaps have! And they have an “alternative” view of “long distance”. And it’s right, in a certain perspective!
To me, the resurrection=awakening to the truth of God/ being born again in the Spirit/ becoming a “new man” or as you say here, becoming children of God. People were being resurrected since day one as portrayed in the story of Adam and Eve when their “eyes were opened”. It was and is always happening past, present and future.