“Inerrancy is the view that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrines or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences.” [1]
Biblical inerrancy is foundational to evangelicalism. Which is why I suspect it is most often opposed. Sort of like removing all the guard rails, 
lane lines, and speed limit signs on the highway, and letting drivers decide on their own “rules” of the road. If the Bible is NOT “entirely true and never false in all it affirms,” then you’re pretty much free to make up your own rules.
Which is why many progressive Christians deny, at least question, biblical inerrancy.
Like this article at The American Jesus entitled The Bible Isn’t Perfect And It Says So, which illustrates why we should discard the idea of a “perfect” Bible in this way:
…my mom is a lot like the Bible. She’s not perfect, but I can still trust that what she says is true.
You see, it’s ok to believe that Noah’s ark was filled with all the animals on earth when you’re 5 years old, and then change your mind when you realize the physical impossibility of that when you’re adult, but still have faith in that story. Why? Because the truth of Noah’s ark is not found in zoological arrangements. It’s found in the message of a God who watches over and cares for His creation even in the midst of a storm.
These sorts of truths, the sorts of truths the Bible is concerned about conveying, are not contingent on their authors’ perfection or even on their authors getting all the facts right. These sorts of truth only require a truthful message. (emphasis mine)
Ah, the old Truth is Not Fact (or is it Fact is Not Truth) dilemma. Apparently the author, Zack Hunt, has discerned between “the sorts of truth the Bible is concerned about conveying” and… other truths. Or facts. So,
The Fact is that the color red can consist of several colors in the spectrum, including yellow.
The Truth is that the light at the intersection IS red and not yellow, and unless you stop, you will drive into cross traffic.
Or do I have that reversed? Either way, if you get Truth and Fact mixed up in that situation, you could get T-boned by reality. Mightn’t that be true about spiritual and moral reality as well?
Anyway.
Zack sums up his argument thus:
…the God-breathed Bible is just like the God-breathed people who wrote it. It isn’t perfect. And that’s ok because as is the case with our parents, we can still learn important truth from imperfect people.
At which point Mike asks, “Who determines what is ‘important truth’ and ‘not important truth’?” (Besides, if “the Bible isn’t perfect and it says so,” then why should I trust what it says about itself? Including its claim to not be perfect?)
If the Scripture — or should I say, the writers of Scripture — made mistakes here or there (after all, they’re only human), who’s to say where the here and there are?
- Feminists say the writers of Scripture were mistaken here.
- Naturalists say the writers of Scripture were mistaken there.
- Atheists say the writers of Scripture were all mistaken.
But that’s what happens when you remove the guardrails. You open hermeneutical Autobahn.
In this preface to The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the author notes the cultural context for why such a statement was deemed needed:
This was the statement that launched the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, an interdenominational joint effort by hundreds of evangelical scholars and leaders to defend biblical inerrancy against the trend toward liberal and neo-orthodox conceptions of Scripture. (emphasis mine)
So this statement on biblical inerrancy was a response to revisionists, deconstructionists, and cultural accomodationists (to use Ross Douthat’s term).
Albert Mohler, the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sums up the necessity of believing biblical inerrancy in this way:
The affirmation of biblical inerrancy is nothing more, and nothing less, than the affirmation of the Bible’s total truthfulness and trustworthiness. The assertion of the Bible’s inerrancy — that the Bible is “free from all falsehood or mistake” — is an essential safeguard for the Bible’s authority as the very Word of God in written form. The reason for this should be clear: to affirm anything short of inerrancy is to allow that the Bible does contain falsehoods or mistakes.
So biblical inerrancy is “an essential safeguard.” Remove it and you’re free to begin spinning.
Which I’m coming to believe is the main reasons progressive believers oppose biblical inerrancy. So they can interpret the Bible their way.
Peter Kreeft, in his Handbook of Christian Apologetics, suggests that Christians often employ the wrong order of argument for certain beliefs; in this case, he’s using the Divinity of Christ as an example.
- Scripture is infallible,
- therefore Christ is infallible,
- therefore Christ is divine
This is the “Because the Bible says so!” approach. In our case,
I believe in biblical inerrancy because the Bible says so!
Wrong.
Rather, Kreeft suggests the order of argument should look like this:
- Scripture is reliable as a historical record, as data,
- Christ’s claim to divinity are found in Scripture;
- then comes the arguments for the truths of His claims
Kreeft summarizes,
…for many years early Christian apologists and church fathers argued quite effectively for Christianity without even having the New Testament Scriptures as authoritatively defined, since the canon was not established until generations later. And down through the centuries many people have in fact been led to belief — at least belief in a Creator God and in the possibility of salvation — through rational arguments not based on Scripture.
…You don’t need to prove Scriptural infallibility first to confront someone with the claims of Christ.
I think a similar order can be applied. Before attempting to prove that Scripture is infallible, it must be proved to be a reliable historical record. From there, you can begin to show how the New Testament is the most authentic ancient historic document in the world, written by eyewitnesses, most of whom were martyred for their faith, how they testified of Christ, how Christ affirmed the authority of O.T. Scripture and numerous historical facts therein, how the writers claimed to be divinely moved, etc., etc.
Point being, we should reason towards inerrancy, not from it.
But this is exactly where the anti-inerrancy crowd goes off the rails. (Oh wait! Do they have any rails?) Those who deny biblical inerrancy also typically doubt whether the Bible is “a reliable historical record.” Which, I think, is why Zack Hunt is clear to make a distinction between “the sorts of truths the Bible is concerned about conveying” and the “facts” about certain historical things (like that pesky Noah and his silly Ark).
Of course, not all those who question biblical inerrancy do so to dismantle a biblical message. But I’m beginning to believe that’s the underlying reason why many do.
Great post, Mike! That’s what scares me about our culture–they want to fit the Bible into their world instead of fitting their world into the Bible, and so they tiptoe into deception and heresy without even realizing it. So sad and scary.
I believe that the Bible is completely truthful and accurate, 100% of it. But there are passages that get me to thinking. For instance, the Scripture where Paul says that women should cover their heads. I know practicing this is not dependent upon salvation (personally, I don’t do it), and those in our culture laugh at the idea of this being something we should do. They pick on passages like this to show that the Bible is old-fashioned and out-dated in places. I never know how to respond to these kind of arguments, other than to say that God understands that we live in a different culture, and these things are not dependent upon salvation.
I cover my head during worship in a church setting (which is the setting Paul is talking about in the passage), for the exact reasons Paul mentions — that my hair is my glory, that woman is the glory of man, and that in worship only God’s glory (as symbolically represented by the uncovered head of the man — which is NOT to say men are spiritually superior to women or more like God than women are, only that they hold that position as a symbol) should be revealed. I also remain silent during worship services, not because I believe I am unworthy to worship God, but because I believe it is my role as a woman to worship Him silently and directly rather than by representing the other believers vocally as men are called to do.
I don’t think we need to apologize for, rationalize or explain away the Bible, even the parts that seem to clash most obviously with the ways of our present culture. If Biblical principles are applied in a Biblical way (which in this case means women voluntarily covering their own heads as an act of submission to God’s will and order in the church, not doing so in ignorance because “it’s traditional” or being ordered by domineering men to cover their heads whether they want to or not), then they aren’t nearly as onerous, odious, or degrading as the skeptics of the world make them seem.
Okay, so your conclusion wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be. The idea of biblical inerrancy as a binary doctrine irritates me. There are parts of the Bible that must be considered inerrant because they are purported to be directly inspired by God (prophecies and commandments, for example). But, on the other hand, accepting something as a reliable historical account isn’t the same as believing that every word of the account was directly inspired by God. Much of the NT falls in the category of reliable historical account, but I really can’t say whether it was directly inspired. When Christ spoke of scripture, he spoke of what we know of as the law and the prophets. A Christian is on very shaky ground if he doesn’t accept what Christ accepted as scripture. So, although I don’t know if the entire Protestant Bible is word-for-word inerrant, some of it absolutely must be, and the rest is historically reliable (based off reasons you stated above).
Peter refers to Paul’s writings as Scripture in 2 Peter (which I think is one of the main reasons liberal theologians and skeptics are so quick to attack the authorship of 2 Peter), and warns that those who distort the meaning of Paul’s letters do so “to their own destruction”. I think that’s a pretty good argument for the bulk of the NT being every bit as “God-breathed” as the OT Scriptures. (Well, unless we argue that Peter had no authority to say such things despite being an apostle chosen by Christ himself for the very purpose of establishing his church. That seems a bit rash, though.)
Although 2 Peter has been called into question since the time of Origen, I wouldn’t dare call any work of the Bible into question, even the one book I’m very uncomfortable with accepting as true historically (Esther). It would be overstepping my bounds of authority, and so I must accept on faith that 2 Peter is a book God wanted to preserve as historical record. On the other hand, Peter doesn’t call Paul’s letters “Scripture.” He says that people misunderstand Paul’s writing and pervert it in the same way they do the “remaining Scriptures” (transliteration). I know I’m putting a fine point on this, and it isn’t for any other reason than a reverence for what Christ himself considered to be Scripture, which encompassed the law and the prophets, all of which pointed to himself as Redeemer. I absolutely respect Paul’s writing. God wanted us to have the historical record of the early church for a reason. That doesn’t mean it rises to the level of commandment or prophecy. As far as I know, Moses and Jesus were the only lawgivers of Scripture. Do you understand the distinction I’m making? I’m not trying to be blasphemous or to disrespect my authorities, as God is the one who calls men to be authorities, not I. But I tread lightly when I use the term Scripture. The one NT book that must be considered prophecy is Revelation because, otherwise, it’s lunacy.
I’m a little confused by the distinction being made here. Peter writes that people distort Paul’s writings “as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction”, which seems to me to be saying quite clearly that a) Paul’s writings are the same level of importance and inspiration with what was commonly accepted as Scripture at that time (i.e. the Law and the Prophets); and b) to distort them will bring God’s judgment (suggesting that God Himself stands behind the words Paul wrote and will defend them as His revelation). That seems to me to make the Epistles a lot more weighty than “historical record” — and rightly so, as most of what Paul and the other apostles are writing isn’t history at all.
The Epistles contain lengthy expositions of important Christian doctrines, many of which the Lord Jesus only touched upon or hinted at in His earthly ministry, and those letters also include many commands to the early church about what they should and should not do as believers. If the bulk of the NT writings aren’t Scripture — that is, God-breathed writings given to His people to reveal His divine character and show them how to live in a way that pleases Him — and they don’t “rise to the level of commandments or prophecies” either, then what are they? If when Paul says, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” he’s only giving some general advice from his own life experience as a man, with no divine authority behind it and no obligation upon us as believers to obey it, why need we pay any attention to the Epistles at all?
I agree with you that the Law is a very specific thing, and so are the teachings of Christ, and both those things need to be respected in their proper contexts and not muddled up with other categories of Scripture. (We get into particular difficulties when we start acting as though the Law was given to anyone but the physical nation of Israel under a specific covenant with God, for instance, or when we think that we can save ourselves by keeping the Law. That ignores everything that Christ and the apostles taught about what the Law’s purpose was and to whom it was given.) But I don’t see any reason to believe that the prophecies of the OT and the epistles of the NT are on some lower level of inspiration because God worked through men to record them rather than handing them down on tablets of stone or speaking them directly through the mouth of His Son. Even the gospels were written down by men, and as John points out, they don’t record even a fraction of everything the Lord Jesus did and said while He was on earth.
Part of the distinction you just swept over. 2 Peter doesn’t call Paul’s writing Scriptures. He says that people distort Paul’s writing as they do the remaining Scriptures. The addition of the word “other” seems a little leading. I hesitate to call the letters and historical record of the early church Scripture because it wasn’t what Christ considered to be Scripture. It was what the early church, at some point, decided should be in the canon.
I’m not sure what makes the word “other” so misleading. In any case, I was quoting from the NIV:
“Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
You can substitute the word “remaining” for “other” in that last verse if you prefer, but I don’t see how it changes the implication that Paul’s writings are of the same order and importance as the writings that were already accepted as Scripture in Peter’s day.
I agree with you that the author’s distinction between “important truth” and other truth is a convenient way to deconstruct doctrines they don’t agree with. The Jesus Seminar was a total joke in this way. Those “scholars” went in with an agenda and just snipped out the verses they didn’t like.
Some heretics, like myself, see too many contradictions in the translations, which is why I’m glad you italicized “in its original autographs.” I can’t claim the Bible as inerrant when theologians can’t even agree on the same interpretation of words.
Except that its inerrancy exists outside of human interpretation. Just because flawed human’s interpret it differently based on their limited knowledge and bias doesn’t mean the text itself contains errors. It just means we can’t perfectly interpret God’s perfection.
We are in agreement on this, Jessica.
Where we may differ is that I don’t place my faith in the flawed humans’ interpretations. (Which would be neither here nor there, if it weren’t for numerous doctrines created from biased Scripture interpretations that some Christians insist are orthodoxy. The original languages are [hopefully] inerrant, but that’s not what we have in our Bibles today.)
That’s why it’s always a good idea to compare multiple translations when looking at disputed points of doctrine, to be sure. But I don’t think it negates the idea of the Bible being essentially reliable.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2011/07/05/believe-in-the-inerrancy-of-scripture This might help you all