I am not a Biblical Idealist
A Biblical Idealist is a term I am using to represent those who believe the original biblical texts are all literally true. These people believe God inspired men to write everything exactly correct within the Bible, but through copying and translating some meaning and possibly numerical values have been lost. This opens up a significant hole in attempting to understand the Bible, as it is hard to know exactly what has been corrupted and what has not. But for the most part the Bible is generally taken literally as is.
I find this to be a weak attempt to explain that the Bible is the Word of God after viewing its discrepancies. This is really just a masked version of Biblical Essentialist (see Part 1C) attempting to keep the traditional view of the Biblical Literalist. Who is to say which parts are corrupted? You? Me? How about Mohammed? If you are a Muslim you may agree with this, but Evangelicals will not. It is the middle ground for the sake of middle ground, there is no good reason to believe this. Generally this view comes from people who were raised to be a Biblical Literalist, but soon realize there are likely errors in the Bible and need an explanation to justify their belief in the Bible being God’s literal word. It is convenient and practical, but it has little value for someone pursuing truth. With this kind of method of thinking, any religion can be defended. While generally it is used as a “peace maker” between the Biblical Literalists and the Biblical Essentialists, it stunts any valid means of seeking truth as a consequence. After all, how could you test this? What reason do you have for supposing this, other than to explain your belief? It is proposing a hypothesis in order to explain an older hypothesis, as opposed to the academic method of proposing a hypothesis in light of evidence or reason.
I find this to be a weak attempt to explain that the Bible is the Word of God after viewing its discrepancies. This is really just a masked version of Biblical Essentialist (see Part 1C) attempting to keep the traditional view of the Biblical Literalist. Who is to say which parts are corrupted? You? Me? How about Mohammed? If you are a Muslim you may agree with this, but Evangelicals will not. It is the middle ground for the sake of middle ground, there is no good reason to believe this. Generally this view comes from people who were raised to be a Biblical Literalist, but soon realize there are likely errors in the Bible and need an explanation to justify their belief in the Bible being God’s literal word. It is convenient and practical, but it has little value for someone pursuing truth. With this kind of method of thinking, any religion can be defended. While generally it is used as a “peace maker” between the Biblical Literalists and the Biblical Essentialists, it stunts any valid means of seeking truth as a consequence. After all, how could you test this? What reason do you have for supposing this, other than to explain your belief? It is proposing a hypothesis in order to explain an older hypothesis, as opposed to the academic method of proposing a hypothesis in light of evidence or reason.
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