Is the Bible the Actual Word of God?

If it ain’t 1611, you ain’t goin to Heaven.

I used to hear that a lot. I grew up being taught that the King James Version of the Bible was the only version of the Bible that was the actual word of God. If you read the NIV, the NASV, or probably even the original Greek and Hebrew, you were reading a fallible version written by men.

Of course, now, my questions go deeper than, is the King James Version of the Bible the actual word of God. This ancient book that causes so much controversy, from the divinity of Jesus to the ten commandments, has been such an issue in my life. I went through a period when I thought I should be Catholic. One very difficult time was when I thought I should be (or at least thought I should disprove) the existance of the “gifts of the spirit” (in the charismatic sense).

These were all questions that dealt with the Bible with the presupposition that it was the word of God. That I didn’t really need to question its reliability. One book that changed my view on this is a book called Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman.

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar who became an agnostic, but not from his studies of the Bible. He clearly states in Misquoting Jesus that he lost his faith for different reasons than the innacuracy of the New Testament. However, his findings did effect me and my view of the Bible. I’m not saying it convinced me, I’m saying it allowed me to look at things from a different perspective. I realize Ehrman has his bias. I also realize, the information he gives is not new, or false, when it comes to textual criticism or biblical scholarship.

This question isn’t about Ehrman, however, though his books are usually about the question I am posing. While my question is coming from the perspective of a person looking for honest answers, a person searching for truth and admitting that I absolutely don’t have all the answers, I was reading some blogs and found a similar question.

But for all of you Born Again… Againers, here’s your question:

Is the Bible the actual word of God? And if so, how and why?

Is There an Objective Morality?

Hey. Welcome to Born Again… Again where we know all the answers and you’ll always be proven wrong. Not really. Just saying, we’re actually coming from a place where all we want is to pose questions we have doubt about and engage in a helpful discussion about them and try to come to the best possible answer. They’re tough, but, that’s why we want to ask them.

To learn a little bit more about me and why I started this site, read the about section.

One question I’ve had for quite some time has to do with morality. One of the big issues when you hear debates between atheists and theists is where morality comes from. Did it evolve over time? Is there an objective standard we all innately adhere to? Is that objective standard transcendent?

It seems to me,  in my experience, that a lot of morality is relative. I agree that there are moral situations where one thing will always be wrong, but sometimes it not always so black and white. Sometimes you have to choose what’s best even if both options seem wrong. So, our first question birthed from doubt:

Is there an objective morality?