Why do apologists use the car accident analogy if the Bible was inspired by an omniscient Holy Spirit?
By using the car accident analogy, they’re either contradicting their own assertion of divine inspiration or accusing God of having an imperfect memory. Witnesses to a car accident do not claim to be divinely inspired nor is a car accident a supernatural event with no physical evidence, therefore the burden of proof is much less. Besides the point made by critics isn’t whether the car accident actually occured, but whether several contradictory accounts can all be 100% accurate. Apologists say that errors in the bible are just differences in interpretation of oral tradition and therefore aren’t errors. However, it’s rather convenient to say that the bible writers were relying on their own interpretation when there are discrepencies, but relying on the Holy Spirit in other instances. Is the Bible the infallible word of God or were the writers relying on their own interpretation and choice? You can’t have it both ways, otherwise what you get is a diluted word of God mixed in with the
word of man or just the word of man alone, not the infallible word of God.
Discrepcencies such as John’s gospel being the only one where mary magdelene initially thought the body was stolen when she ran back to the disciples or having Jesus arrested BEFORE the passover. Also, Jesus ascends after one day in Luke while he stays for 40 days in Acts. These are just a few of the major "discrepencies", which is just a euphemism that apologists prefer to use for obvious contradictions. And if the bible isn’t inspired word for word, then you’re basically admitting that not every word is infallible.
These aren’t just trivial differences in wording, but mutually exclusive accounts.
Tagged with: analogy • apologists • assertion • bible writers • burden of proof • car accident • contradictions • disciples • discrepencies • divine inspiration • errors in the bible • holy spirit • infallible word • mary magdelene • oral tradition • passover • physical evidence • quot • supernatural event • word of god
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Your logic sounds right to me. It’s written by fallible humans. If 2 people say there was a car accident and one witness says the driver was white and the other one said the witness was black, then neither witness can be considered credible. The fact that they agree that there was a car accident does NOT verify that there was an accident. They could both be making it up.
On the other hand, if JK Rowling wrote that Harry saw a car accident, and Ron saw the car accident, and the Hermione saw the accident, does that mean there was an accident? No. It is a fictional account. Rowling could make the descriptions vary a bit because eyewitness testimony shouldn’t usually match exactly. But adding the variations doesn’t change the fictional nature of the entire story.
A lot of apologists will, for the sake of argument, dispense with the notion that the Bible is the infallible word of God and will, instead, treat the Bible as any other ancient text–applying historical methods of inquiry to it in order to discover what might be true. The car accident analogy is meant to illustrate the point that whenever several people give an account of something they saw, there are always the exact kind of differences in their accounts as critics claim we find in the gospels–especially the passion and resurrection narratives. Apologists aren’t granting that there are contradictions. Rather, they are basically saying that EVEN IF there are contradictions, as the critics say, it still doesn’t undermine the general historical reliability of the gospel accounts.
First off, Let’s talk about the differences. I’ll give you that there are about 70 differences between the Greek texts of the gospels. Whether that means wording of parables or what have you, that’s it. Oh, and none of those differences is salvific. Just because four eyewitnesses don’t use the exact same words doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. Do simple word changes mean that much to you? Does the fact that all of these gospels agree on the salvific facts of the gospel mean anything to you? When are they relying on the Holy Spirit? They were all eyewitnesses to the same things. It’s not as if they imagined this as a group and then went their own ways and tried to recall the same thing. Mark- That was Peter’s account. Luke got his gospel from various eyewitnesses. The other two were right there every step of the way. Either way- They all agree with each other when it comes to salvation. The fact that all but one of these men died for the sake of the gospel says a lot to me. The inspiration of the Holy Spirit comes in with the fact that all of these accounts match up the way that they do, You can try being a redaction critic all that you want and refer to the "Q" document, but where is this Q document? It’s nowhere to be found. By the way, what discrepencies specifically are you referring to? Edit or email me, I’ll try to respond the best way I can. I hope that this helps or that I can enter into a dialogue with you about this.