My professor tells me that the bible is errant.  He says that the old
testiment has nothing to add to the new testament.  There are no
predictions of Christ. I am a Christian fundamentalist that believes
that if God wants to create a book for men to read, that he has the
ability to create it as perfectly as he is--without error.  How can I
respond to him, with certainty and with authority.  I'm not a good
debated, but obviously need to be.

Hi! Thanks for the question.

I understand your predicament and I hope that the following articles
will be of help in discussing the Bible with your professor.

Our first link provides Old Testament references that were fulfilled in Jesus.

?Are the New Testament themes found in the Old Testament??
http://www.carm.org/evidence/ot_nt_themes.htm 


The next links we will present here will show you some points on how
to defend the inerrancy of the Bible.
 
a.) ?The Christian Church as a whole claims that the Bible is inspired
and inerrant.  This means that God is the one who moved through the
writers to communicate to us the words which God wanted us to hear. 
This inspiration, however, is not a dictation, but a movement of God's
spirit through the writer, utilizing the personality and style of the
writer.  Inerrancy means that all that is written in the inspired
documents is without error.?

?The fact is that there are indeed copyist errors on the biblical
documents and they account for many alleged contradictions.  Remember,
it is the autographs (original writings) that are inspired and
inerrant, not the copies. The copies we have now are copies of
inspired documents.  The copies are not themselves "inspired"; that
is, they have no guarantee of being 100% textually pure.  Does this
then mean that we can't trust the Bible?  Not at all.  The copies are
so accurate that all of the biblical documents are 98.5% textually
pure.  The 1.5% that is in question is mainly nothing more than
spelling errors and occasional word omissions like the words  "the",
"but", etc. This reduces any serious textual issues to a fraction of
the 1.5%.?

?Inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible?
http://www.carm.org/evidence/inspiration.htm 


b.) ?The remarkable evidence of fulfilled prophecy is just one case in
point. Hundreds of Bible prophecies have been fulfilled, specifically
and meticulously, often long after the prophetic writer had passed
away.?

c.) ?The historical accuracy of the Scriptures is likewise in a class
by itself, far superior to the written records of Egypt, Assyria, and
other early nations. Archeological confirmations of the Biblical
record have been almost innumerable in the last century.?

d.) ?Another striking evidence of divine inspiration is found in the
fact that many of the principles of modern science were recorded as
facts of nature in the Bible long before scientist confirmed them
experimentally?

?How do we know the Bible is true??
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t003.html 


Here are some more links discussing the accuracy of the Bible. It can
help you with your discussion.

?When we say that the Bible is the Word of God, does that imply that
it is completely accurate, or does it contain insignificant
inaccuracies in details of history and science??
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-acb/acb-t001.html 

?Can the Bible be infallible if it is written by fallible humans? And
if not, how can we accept it as literal truth??
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-acb/acb-t002.html 

?Do the books of the Bible form a unified whole? Is this evidence of
its Divine inspiration??
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/biblecongruency.html 

?In what ways have the discoveries of archaeology verified the
reliability of the Bible??
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a008.html 


Searched the following websites:
Christian Answers: http://www.christiananswers.net/ 
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS & RESEARCH MINISTRY: http://www.carm.org/ 
 
I hope these links would help you in your research. Before rating this
answer, please ask for a clarification if you have a question or if
you would need further information.
                 
Thanks for visiting us.                
                 
Regards,                 
Easterangel-ga                 
Google Answers Researcher

dennis...

Try reading forward from here:
http://bible.cc/hebrews/8-8.htm

sublime1-ga

Well the bible has gone through countless revision over the last 2000
years and wasn't even compiled into it's present form until the 4th
century, i.e. 400 years after the event.  So it really depends what
facts in particular your concerned with.  Things like general lessons,
morals are pretty easy to defend, but specifics there is no way to
verify.  Even many of the landmarks mentioned in the bible have been
proven not to exist, but hey they don't call it faith for nothing.

You should take a look at
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.shtml

...and before you condemn me, take a look at the verses in your own
Bible.  By the way, I do not necessarily subscribe to the ideas put
forth by infidels.org (though I am a lapsed Catholic), but they were
the first to come up when I Googled "bible inconsistencies" and they
seem pretty thorough.

Best of luck in your faith and I'm sorry if the site troubles you.

Please take at look at the problems I'm having with my Ark:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=394403

For your information, I've decided not to take any animals along other
than Daisy, my dog.

For two thousand years, the Bible has been copied multiple times. And
the whole point of the message of the bible is to teach us how to give
God glory and to live together peaceably. Revelation 22;18 says if
anyone makes an addition or takes away from it, God will "add to him
the plagues" Also at Deuteronomy 4;2.."You must not add to the word
that I [God] am commanding you, neither must you take away from it".
The Bible gives a promise of a wonderful harm-free future[Rev.
21;3-5]and a history of punishments for doing the wrong thing,
especially relating to His [then] chosen people, the Jews. When the
Jews had Aaron make a golden calf to worship, God spoke to Moses, as
recorded at Exodus 32;33..Whoever has sinned against me, I shall wipe
him out of my book [the Book of Life]. When Moses came down with the
"Law" on the tablets, and found the people worshiping the calf, he had
them [3,000] put to death by the ones who stayed faithful [Exodus 32].
And is the Bible easy to understand. No, but if an effort is made to
study it, with faith in what it says, the scripture at Matthew 13;23
gives us encouragement. "As for the one sown upon fine soil, THIS IS
THE ONE HEARING THE WORD AND GETTING THE SENSE OF IT, who really does
bear fruit and produces, this one a hundredfold, that one sixty, the
other thirty". Second Timothy 3;14.."You, however, continue in the
things that you LEARNED, and were PERSUADED to BELIEVE, knowing from
what persons you learned them".

dennis,
these guys must really hate you! I'm afraid that pointing you towards
wads and wads of christian argument won't help you. A real
disbelieving academic will find most of this stuff rather lame and you
will have wasted lots of time to look silly. The one infidels
reference suggested is no better, being just a list of stuff with no
consideration for opposing arguments. PROVERBS 18:17, dennis! If you
really want what you say you want, you are embarking on a long road
with few quick answers, and you must look at and understand the best
material which you don't want to be true. Blanket accepting lists of
"why our religion is really great" isn't a great intellectual approach
in all those nasty false religions, and funny thing but it's not so
great in christianity either. Try finding real DEBATE

mrsilly, no one hates dennis, who asked the question. All that has
been done is present him with what the Bible says. It is the only book
in the world that goes anywhere near to explaining us, spiritually and
physically. Any other book is written by men and is only their ideas,
based on their own personal experiences over theit lifetime. Look at
how religion viewed the physical earth before the advent of
intelligent people who started to study the night sky with crude
telescopes. But even the Aztecs and Incas had a better knowledge of
astronomy than the clergy of the middle ages. All we really have to go
on is faith that God has promised us slowly increasing knowledge of
our circumstances over a period of time. A good example in the Bible
is God`s direction to us about his own book. Deuteronomy 4;2..."you
must not add to the word that I am commanding you; neither must you
take away from it...
A bit like a loving father telling his small child...You must not play
on the road...The father knows that the child may be run over, but the
child has no knowledge of the damage a speeding car can do.
Organised religion worldwide has added a lot of un-necessary
requirements for people to practice in their particular religion. If
those same people simply read what the Bible says, instead of
accepting blindly the directions from the religious leaders, their
life would be much simpler.
If you grant that the author of the Bible is God, writing it through
inspired human writers, and that God is PERFECT, then the Bible MUST
be infallible.
The reason that people say they find the Bible inconsistent is because
they tend to take specific scriptures in isolation and completely miss
the overall theme, from Genesis to Revelation. The legal proving of
the RIGHT of God to direct our lives, which includes the teaching
about and final expression of sacrifice. Fifteen hundred years of
animal sacrifice to teach and the final sacrifice, for us, of Jesus.
On the basis of Jesus being God`s ONLY begotten [ born of woman] son,
would any of you fathers out there sacrifice your only son for ANY
cause. I think not. But God did.
So the story of the Bible is not just a set of RULES, put there to
make us toe the line. It is totally for our benefit. And many people
will never understand it until the day they die.
An interesting scripture is found at Matthew 10;22, 23, which
indicates what persons doing right by the Bible will experience..22.
and you will be objects of hatred by all people

mrsilly, no one hates dennis, who asked the question. All that has
been done is present him with what the Bible says. It is the only book
in the world that goes anywhere near to explaining us, spiritually and
physically. Any other book is written by men and is only their ideas,
based on their own personal experiences over their lifetime. Look at
how religion viewed the physical earth before the advent of
intelligent people who started to study the night sky with crude
telescopes. But even the Aztecs and Incas had a better knowledge of
astronomy than the clergy of the middle ages. All we really have to go
on is faith that God has promised us slowly increasing knowledge of
our circumstances over a period of time. A good example in the Bible
is God`s direction to us about his own book. Deuteronomy 4;2..."you
must not add to the word that I am commanding you; neither must you
take away from it...
A bit like a loving father telling his small child...You must not play
on the road...The father knows that the child may be run over, but the
child has no knowledge of the damage a speeding car can do.
Organised religion worldwide has added a lot of un-necessary
requirements for people to practice in their particular religion. If
those same people simply read what the Bible says, instead of
accepting blindly the directions from the religious leaders, their
life would be much simpler.
If you grant that the author of the Bible is God, writing it through
inspired human writers, and that God is PERFECT, then the Bible MUST
be infallible.
The reason that people say they find the Bible inconsistent is because
they tend to take specific scriptures in isolation and completely miss
the overall theme, from Genesis to Revelation. The legal proving of
the RIGHT of God to direct our lives, which includes the teaching
about and final expression of sacrifice. Fifteen hundred years of
animal sacrifice to teach and the final sacrifice, for us, of Jesus.
On the basis of Jesus being God`s ONLY begotten [ born of woman] son,
would any of you fathers out there sacrifice your only son for ANY
cause. I think not. But God did.
So the story of the Bible is not just a set of RULES, put there to
make us toe the line. It is totally for our benefit. And many people
will never understand it until the day they die.
An interesting scripture is found at Matthew 10;22, 23, which
indicates what persons doing right by the Bible will experience..22.
and you will be objects of hatred by all people on account of my name.
So if people do not hate you because of your religious beliefs, you
are just one of the crowd and nor doing everything right.
23. When they persecute you in one city, flee to another, for truly I
say to you. You will by no means complete the circuit of the cities of
Israel [ nowdays the world] until the son of man [ Jesus] arrives.
When Jesus arrives is Armageddon, not yet here. So the scripture
indicates that not every person will have the opportunity to learn
about Jesus/ the Bible/ God`s purpose before , my words, " THE BIG
CLEANUP'
Yes, scriptures can be twisted, but only when you read them in
isolation. They must always be compatible with the rest of the Bible.