« …cuckoo

…theory in practise

Current Tunage: Thrice – Image of the Invisible
It’s kind of out-of-place of Vheissu, but I love it. For indeed, we are the image of the invisible! We are lost and we are found. No one can stop us or slow us down. We are the named and we are known. We know that we’ll never walk alone.

We’re more than carbon and chemicals… (we are the image of the invisible!)

My friend Joey and I have been getting places. I can’t name those places really, as I don’t know their names. But since I’ve put a few thousand words into our discussion of inerrancy and related topics the last few days, I thought it would be good to move some of them into a more public place than a comment thread.

This was my most recent comment. It took awhile to think my way through, and I’d encourage you to read the entire conversation for everything to fit, but I think this will stand on it’s own. Please feel free to comment.

Oh, and Steph’s all moved in. I’m looking forward to joining her in August with great anticipation, excitement and “fear and trembling”. God is good.

Joey,
We’ve found something here, I’m just not sure how to describe what it is.

Some thoughts:

For myself, if I understand God (philosophically at least) as “that being than which none greater can be concieved”, which in itself is essentially inconceivable… then I necessarily must admit that the only way I’ll learn anything about God is if He reveals himself (self-revelation). If God is knowable any other way, I really don’t think that whatever-that-is is God. If He is unlimited and infinite and holy, then I am screwed for understanding ANYTHING about Him from my limited, finite, unholy mind… unless He wants me to.

To me it seems that if the Bible is just a bunch of fallible dudes spouting off about their encounters with God, no matter how real, with nothing to hold it together… then I really can’t trust it. For this reason:

Maybe I want too much (I don’t think so), but I want the Unknowable to make Himself known to me. I am convinced that the only way which seems to makes sense for Him to do that – if He really wants me to know Him – is if He puts it in text that I can study and learn. Not to say He can’t hint at it other ways (in me, in nature, in the “becomings” of life, etc), but if He wants me to “know” Him, then He has to tell me what there is to know… and it’s gotta be direct. Random observations from dudes who lived 10,000 years before me really won’t cut it. Why should I trust them? Why should I believe them? What makes them qualified to tell me about the infinite and unlimited and holy when they themselves are just as messed up as I am?

What I’m getting at is this: I take the side of “inerrancy” (again, call it what you want) and say that God is the ultimate Author of Scripture – and everything that I believe must necessarily go along with that… because I really do believe that if He isn’t really behind the Bible, then the Bible really doesn’t have anything to offer me.

In practical terms: The Bible claims to be “breathed out” by God (2 Tim 3:16) and says that God doesn’t lie (Proverbs 30:5). If it’s just some dudes telling me those two things, from their human and very limited perspectives… I don’t care how much literary genius or good feelings they might give me – their words mean nothing unless God is actually (as is claimed) breathing His “word/self-revelation” through them. If they’re as limited as me, they probably got it wrong… unless He’s making sure they don’t.

I think God IS breathing His self-revelation through the writers of Scripture. I really do.

The transformative things that have happened in my heart and my mind and my life simply through reading and studying and appreciating the Bible are too cumulative and powerful a witness to ignore when I raise argument against them. I cannot escape my conviction that God is intimately involved in the Bible, to the extent that ultimately He is the author behind the authors. My heart and life and experience confirm that the Bible is “living and active” (Heb 4:12) – something it simply cannot be if it’s simply the product of a bunch of finite mortals. Nor can I escape the ultimate pinnacle of that chain of logic: Redemption through the Risen Christ. (Praise God!)

To clarify one point, I agree with you completely that the human writers of Scripture had very real encounters with God, passed down in oral (and literary) traditions, put into texts, and passed down and everything – indeed, a “very human process” as you say.

But, if I’ve come to the conclusion that God (THE God) is the ultimate author of the book by necessity, I think it only makes sense that He would oversee the process to ensure that ultimately, some screwball named “Jerry Bolton” of Peterborough Ontario Canada sometime in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries would come to know Him personally and directly through His living Word, the Bible – and the testimonies of men (ultimately, Testimony of God) it contains.

I won’t claim to have all the answers about how it all works, but my initial conclusions encourage reasonable assumptions which give me plenty of space to back off and give God the benefit of the doubt when I don’t understand and trust Him to take care of His self-revelations. After all, I’m the fallible and limited one, and as long as I am (as long as we are) everything will always be “complicated”.

Complicated like synthesis, says me. It’s too simple (and too humanly dangerous and destructive) to take the easy way and go “hyper-inerrant” (ignoring the humanity of the thing) or “non-inerrant” (ignoring the divinity of the thing)… the reason the Bible is complicated is because it is a beyond brilliant hypostatic union in text.

There’s a reason Jesus is called the “Word” in John 1: The Bible is just like Him: Fully Divine, and Fully Human. And no, that’s not supposed to make sense easily – it’s tough slugging.

Let’s press on!

…that’s my theory about the Bible.

This entry was posted by Jerry on March 16, 2008 at 12:38 AM, and is filed under Correspondence, Personal, Theology. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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#1 written by Joey 3 years ago

Hmmm…now you’re really pushing me to think. That’s good.

A word about revelation: I do think that God has revealed himself through the Bible, and we hope and pray that it will continue. I think the difference is that, for you, the Bible is equated with revelation, such that you can say the Bible is God’s revelation to humankind.

For me, the Bible is not revelation, but it can be (and has been) a conduit for that revelation. So that’s why I can talk about the Bible as a human, fallible document and yet still believe that God has revealed himself through it. Revelation is an action, not a static set of presuppositions that can be recorded in a book, which is why much of the NT is concerned with God revealing himself in the life, teaching, deeds and death of Jesus of Nazareth.

I think we’re beginning to clarify some stuff here. Thanks for being such a good dialogue partner on this.

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#2 written by Jer 3 years ago

I would say that the Bible is the ultimate self-revelation of God… for now. I wouldn’t argue that God’s revealing Himself through Scripture removes or eliminates other forms of revelation (I already mentioned nature and the “being of becoming” and still small voices, I’m sure there’s others).

What I would argue is this (you will have heard this before) – that the Scriptural revelation, as the primary text (in many senses), is what all other revelations are held up against. It’s what we determine their usefulness and truth by. It’s the standard.

This is precisely for some of the reasons already brought up: I’m just a dude, and so my experiences of God are fallible and limited and pretty feeble – how can I hold them higher than His revelation in text?

I love the image of Scripture as a “conduit” for revelation. I celebrate it’s humanity (much as I celebrate Christ’s). I concur totally that God’s revelation (especially) is not a static set of presuppositions. Where we don’t seem to agree is this: God is unchanging, and so ultimately if there were a scenario of infinite time (and there is: eternity) His self-revelations will all lead us to the same understanding of Him.

Scripture is too complex to be a static set of presuppositions – even those things that seem explicit must always be understood in light of other parts of His self-revelation… synthesized and incorporated into our understanding.

This is why so many take what seems “static” and screw it up and make it something that maligns Christ – they don’t approach Scripture as fully human. Similarly, many take what seems “fluid” and screw it up and make it something that maligns Christ – they don’t approach it as fully divine.

People screw up their idea of Jesus when they don’t understand him as 200% – 100% God, 100% human.

These things are (probably meant to be) mysteries… but that’s the beauty, it gives us a lifetime worth of material to delve into.

My question is this: Do you think that, through careful study, we can come to conclusions about God through His self-revelation – particularly in Scripture?

It seems to me the only way He could give us anything substantial to work with, to figure anything out definitively, is to give us a standard text through which all His other revelations are carefully understood.

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#3 written by Jer 3 years ago

(As a side, I say that “The Bible is the ultimate self-revelation of God… for now” because I think that if/when human beings meet Him in person, that will be His ultimate self-revelation. In a sense, this has already happened, and continues to happen when we encounter Jesus. In another, there will be a much more “final” sense in which this occurs if/when we reach Heaven.)

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#4 written by Joey 3 years ago

Jer,

I find it interesting that the language you use for the Bible is identical to the language the early Christians used for Jesus (“the ultimate self-revelation of God..”, “the Word of God” etc). It is perhaps ironic that the Bible makes no such claims for itself, but it does make such claims for Jesus.

I think there is such a thing as turning the Bible into an idol, and your language unfortunately seems to veer in that direction. I can remember going to a Brethren church awhile ago, and I was struck by the fact that one of their hymns was all about the Bible, and I can remember thinking that if I had just wandered in off the street I would wonder if the Bible was a sort of god for them.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not accusing you of idolatry. But I am highlighting that the kind of language you use is not far off from replacing Jesus with the Bible (or at least collapsing the two together so they are one inseparable entity). This is one of the errors of fundamentalism, that effectively God has been replaced with a book (worse yet, God has been replaced with a narrow and absolutist interpretation of a book).

Ok…to answer your questions. Yes, I think studying the Bible is worthwhile. Definitely. Will it guarantee that God will be revealed and understood? Not at all. But the best we can do is to keep reading in community, listening for wisdom and for life in the text, and act on our convictions.

I know you don’t like postmodernism, but I think one of the benefits of postmodernism is that it has rid us of the illusion that I (the lone interpreter) can stand in a unbiased place and access the “absolute truth” that is available in the Bible. The point is that all of our readings of the texts are, to some extent, subjective. This should be a cause for humility and a drive to read the text in community. No one reading is definitive. A Calvinist like yourself, with your heavy-duty notion of sin, should be well aware of this!

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#5 written by Jer 3 years ago

Agreed, both with your observations about my language and also with your assertions of the vital need for our own humility and the necessity of an “at arms length” sort of holding of our interpretations. I highly value the need for “reading in community” – both because I think Scripture itself calls for it, and because in many practical ways it’s our only defense against the “I, the lone interpreter” elitism which has done so much damage to the name of Christ.

In some ways, we might even see Scripture itself (the human side of it) as being a “reading in community” as the many writers share their varied perspectives on, and experiences with, God. To approach it alone, without the checks and balances afforded us by others, is folly.

I recognize the danger of the language I chose when I spoke of the Bible that way, but I did use it intentionally. Allow me to explain.

I am not convinced that this line of thinking must result in the elitism and modernist garbage that fundamentalists throw around. I think that the very human-ness of Scripture (as you point out) necessitates a critical, skeptical, “post-modern” approach involving community, careful synthesis, etc. The human-ness of Scripture must inform our hermeneutics just as much as the divine-ness of it ought to also. In other words, the human, troubled nature of the Bible as a text (which you’ve done a great job elucidating) balances out the very issues you just raised as being problematic with “my view”.

With that in mind:

When I speak of the Bible as being similar in nature to Christ, it is not to equate the two – the Bible is NOT God, is NOT Christ. However, although we must understand this to be true, the Bible is, I think, the regulative text by which we, among other things, come to really know Christ – it’s the most direct “conduit”, to borrow your term.

I’m not saying that reason trumps revelation, I don’t trust the human mind enough (I tend to distrust it a great deal, particularly my own)… and I’m not saying that the Bible is better than Jesus just we have it with us tangibly. Far from it.

Rather, what I’m fumbling around trying to get at is that just as I think that in our hermeneutics we must synthesize divine and human, extreme and extreme… we must also deal with a great tension in this area as well – a tension between the Ultimate self-revelation of God in Christ, and God’s self-relevatory book that we acquire it from.

Bear with me, English doesn’t really lend itself to this kind of grammatical construction well:

To err too much on either side is foolish: If we value the Bible too much we lose sight of the God who is breathing it out, and if we value God “too much” it can be easy to discard the book He gave us precisely so that we would have a body of work through which to meet Him and know Him. (Side note: There is no such thing as valuing God too much, I am setting up a comparative valuation here to explain the extremes and can’t come up with a better way to explain the binary than to call one side “Bible” and the other side “God”).

For me, what makes sense of all of this is John 1 – that Christ *is* the Word, the self-revelation of God. And he became flesh! Should it surprise us then that God also makes his word “flesh” in text? Gives it a human form and substance (letters and pages)? Says it in “our words”, so to speak?

When God made the world he spoke (said words) and His act of speaking was creative (that is, it *created* in an overarching sense). In Colossians 1 it talks about how it was in Christ that all things were/are created and in Him all things hold together.

Bottom line is this: Without God putting his word into flesh (both physical and textual), we would not know Him for who He is (and we still really don’t, we just see really dimly). Christ is God; is the physical and spiritual Word, the ultimate Word and Self-revelation… but we only know that through the textual word. The Bible isn’t greater than Christ, and yet we only know that because the Bible makes that clear. Why would we trust it to be right about Jesus being the “ultimate self-revelation”, the “Word of God” if it itself is simply a human document like this? I don’t see it if that’s the case.

In short, it’s difficult. But that’s ok.

Some asides:

1. This is gold:

“I think studying the Bible is worthwhile. Definitely. Will it guarantee that God will be revealed and understood? Not at all. But the best we can do is to keep reading in community, listening for wisdom and for life in the text, and act on our convictions.”

I’m arguing that the reason this is true is because of the twofold nature of Scripture (human and divine). If it’s not divine, studying it really isn’t worthwhile. If it’s not human, I think it’s quite reasonable to asser that we just wouldn’t “get” it at all. There’s method to the difficulty.

2. With regard to postmodernism, I appreciate it a great deal in this way: That it encourages us to challenge our beliefs and preconceptions and the like. It encourages us to refuse to stay in safe places where our views go unchallenged and where our doctrine and interpretations can go unchecked. So, with you, I rejoice that it rids us of lone interpreter syndrome.

3. Finally, with regard to your statement that all of our readings of Scripture are, to some extent, subjective… is true. However, don’t be too quick to remove the divine element present in us if we know Christ! We know from the Bible that if we are His, then He is present in us. It doesn’t remove our subjectivity nor our massive propensity to make mistakes (as you pointed out, heavy-duty notions of sin), but I do think that it means we can come to conclusions (heavy-duty notions of grace!). Conclusions… held in humility (loosely) and read through community, but nonetheless, conclusions upon which to build our lives… that we can stand on and stand by and find our stability in.

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#6 written by Joey 3 years ago

The more we discuss this the more it occurs to me that we might not be so far after all, even though we use very different language to talk about these things. There’s obviously a lot more nuance to your understanding of the Bible than I first imagined, and that’s a good thing.

I couldn’t agree more with this comment you made: “In some ways, we might even see Scripture itself…as being a ‘reading in community’ as the many writers share their varied perspectives on, and experiences with, God.” Precisely! Scripture is a conversation and it’s value lies in its multiple perspectives and love of the particular.

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#7 written by Jer 3 years ago

…and in its ultimate Author, the primary reason it is of any value at all.

We might have similar views in general, but I still think we diverge very much on that key point for which you stated you don’t know just how God is involved in the Bible… where I think I (though I’m not alone in this take, just perhaps some of the “nuances”) just might have something here that makes sense of it.

I’ve done my best to share my theories and reasoning, and though it’s never been my plan to try to convince you, I’ve learned a lot about what I myself think through talking about this.

My next thought is that not all conversations are valuable… I mean, look at Eve and the Serpent in Genesis 3 – definitely not a valuable thing, in a sense. Particularly amongst humans… sinners, conversation can breed sin – the Bible’s many cautions concerning the way we talk and what we talk about speak to this. My point is – the human side of scripture may be a conversation, but the divine side of scripture necessarily makes that conversation immune of anything contrary to fact. Otherwise the conversation will certainly be corrupt and ultimately meaningless. Humans lie and err and fabricate and falsify… God does none of the above – He is the definition of Truth in the most foundational sense.

To you, I’d submit the above (at this point in our discussion) as my argument for the necessity of inerrancy. To others, I might appeal to some other aspect (as Challies does in his articles), but I think we’ve distilled our differences down to this point; so there it is.

The conversation of Scripture is only worth bothering with if it’s got God directly behind it, breathing it out… anything less than that and (because of what humans are like) it’s going to be collectively inaccurate in its portrayal of Him, of His salvation, and of a multitude of other things.

Without inerrancy, the conversation isn’t worth any more than all the other man-trying-to-reach-God religious texts out there: there might be fragments of truth, but there’s no substance there to really frame and structure my life, so why bother?

If, by contrast, Jesus (and in turn the Bible) is God reaching out to us, instead of the other way around… that means that the human conversation of Scripture will necessarily (I think) be of divine origin and consequently divine perfection.

It’s mysterious, it’s difficult, it requires a lot more deliberation and tough slugging on my part, but in the end, so far at very least, I’ve found it satisfying.

All of the above… is why I start with “inerrancy” as one of the core components of my hermeneutics. It’s been a long journey to get there.

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#8 written by Joey 3 years ago

Yeah, we do diverge on the matter of inerrancy. But, truth be told, I don’t think you actually believe in inerrancy. Well, let me rephrase that: you interpret the Bible through a particular grid and you call that grid “inerrancy.” But, in a practical sense, I have serious doubts that you treat every part of the Bible as equally inspired and truthful. Does Leviticus and the Gospel of John have the same level of inspiration? Is God’s command to slaughter the Canaanites – every man, woman and child – as equally truthful as Jesus’ command to love our enemies? Of course not!

You are a fairly conservative Calvinist and your mistake is to assume that the whole Bible – when interpreted correctly – reinforces your theological perspective. So, convinced that the Bible backs up your theological outlook, you then assert that the Bible is inerrant. But, see, you’re not actually talking about the “real Bible” (of which large parts are not practically authoritative for you) but an edited, abridged, cleaned-up version of the Bible that alligns itself with conservative Calvinism.

Of course, I do this too, but in a different way (for instance, I don’t think I’m as concerned about upholding a consistent theology as you seem to be).

That’s my two cents. I just think it’s a mistake to assume that you actually believe the entire Bible is inerrant – perhaps you do “in theory” but no one in actual fact practices that consistently (don’t forget that the Jehovah’s Witness folks passionately believe in inerrancy too!)

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#9 written by Joey 3 years ago

Also, let me add one final thought before I head off to bed.

Inerrancy, as I see it, is a modern invention. Did Jesus believe in inerrancy when he quotes the Law and then corrects it (“You’ve heard it said…but I say)? Did James believe in inerrancy when he corrected Paul’s doctrine of justification? The very people who wrote and inspired the Bible seem pretty lax about the whole thing, don’t they?

The collection of writings that make up the Bible grew out of an oral culture. These writings were eventually written down and edited, in many cases, by multiple people, over many years. Were the oral traditions inerrant? Which versions of the written texts were inerrant? For example, the synoptic Gospels draw from a source that scholars call ‘Q’ – is ‘Q’ inerrant? Is the Bible inerrant only the original manuscripts (as so many statements of faith claim)? Or are the modern translations inerrant as well? Is it the very words of the Bible that are inerrant, and if so, in which language? Or is it the meaning of the Bible that is inerrant? If so, how is to one to be certain that he or she have gotten the correct meaning? Also, what does it mean to claim an inerrant text before the printing press was created and the majority of the population was illiterate? Who cares in the Bible is inerrant when no one has a Bible and even if they did they couldn’t read it?

My point is this: Inerrancy dies the death of a thousand qualifications.

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#10 written by Jer 3 years ago

There we go.

This is where we get into the really difficult stuff of scholarship and transmission and interpretation.

Which, incidentally, was where I got down to bedrock myself on this issue. I had already figured out (as we’ve discussed) why I think – philosophically or holistically or however we want to label it – that inerrancy is *necessary*… but not how it works practically, which is what you’re raising now.

Perhaps ironically, that’s where (of all things) the Bibliology course at KLBC stepped in, which was some rather good timing. I know you have some misgivings about the place, so bear with me.

My first year they had just revamped the Bibliology course to incorporate a great new book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.ca/Book-Die-Practical-Study-Guide/dp/1894667131/ref=sr_1_2/702-7111313-4996054?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205856184&sr=1-2

They even had the author come in to answer our questions.

My suggestion to you at this point would be that if you want to hear a detailed response to these questions and to the “thousand qualifications”, this book is the place to go. It may not change your mind, but it is what changed mine.

If you don’t feel like buying it, I’d gladly send mine up to you. Either way I think it’s something you should read, if at very least you want to understand why some people disagree with you so strongly on this point – because I do disagree with most of what you just said, both about me and about what I think inerrancy is.

I’d also suggest reading these posts by Tim Challies, which might clear up some of the confusion about what is and isn’t meant by “inerrancy” in my view:

1.
http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/scripture/are-there-errors-in-the-bible.php

2.
http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/scripture/what-does-inerrant-mean.php

3.
http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/scripture/errors-and-contradictions-in-the-bible.php

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#11 written by Joey 3 years ago

Jer,

I don’t have the time right now, but will read those articles and will try to track down a copy of that book.

I really do want to understand you and those who think like you, and will make an honest effort..

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#12 written by Jer 3 years ago

My fiancee had this to say, I think she captures some of the discrepancy between what is and isn’t meant by ‘inerrancy’ – at least to me:

Hey Joey & Jer,

Not sure I’m allowed to interject into this little two-way conversation, but I’ve been following it with interest and after reading the last comments, just wanted to add a little something, since it’s a topic I like to read about (and have a file of articles from both sides).

What does inerrancy mean? First of all, it doesn’t mean that we interpret a historical story as if it’s a command for our lives. So, when God commands the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites, we accept that as a historical fact. But we don’t go and do the same ourselves. There’s no command to us to do that! But when Jesus commands us to love our neighbours, that is a command for all times and all people. Seems pretty straightforward to me, and not an attack on inerrancy.

Inerrancy also doesn’t mean that one verse is going to plumb the depths of God or His ways. Your examples aren’t really challenges to inerrancy but challenges to our understanding of theology (which is the whole point of the Bible…to change us!) So, Paul and James are both needed to explain faith and works. Paul appeals to (and is best understood by) one group of people who need to hear an emphasis on faith. James is a help to those who have that down pat (or think they do) but their actions don’t line up, and they need to see the link between what we say we believe and what our actions already show. So, there’s no challenge to inerrancy there…only to our theology.

Jesus did the same thing. He wasn’t challenging the inerrancy of the Bible. (Interesting note, though- he did accept different translations and even a paraphrase of the Bible and quoted from these, which suggests that inerrancy is not related to a particular translation. More on that later.) Jesus didn’t disagree with the Law. He upheld it and its inerrancy. But, he took it one step further. The Law says, “Don’t kill. Don’t commit adultery.” But He explained that it means so much more. It means “Don’t have hateful thoughts. Don’t lust.” The people were wanting to be too literal (ie. I’m not bad because I don’t murder) and Jesus was saying “Wait a minute!!! The Law means more than just surface level hypocrisy.” Ouch.

As I said before, there is no one verse that can plumb the depths of God. So it’s only natural that the verses will need to build on each other. They might say different things, but that doesn’t mean they contradict. If our assumption is to give God the benefit of the doubt (ie. He’s a big God and revealing Himself in human words is not really that hard a job for Him), then we can allow Him show us how they fit together. It would be very hard for a bunch of humans over different time periods to write a library of 66 books about God that were completely accurate and still meshed with each other. But if you put God into the equation, everything changes. Suddenly it’s difficult for it to be inaccurate. Well, unless God is less than who He claims to be…..

K, back to inerrancy. No, it doesn’t mean every translation is inspired (ie. the New World Translation of the JWs where certain words are conveniently left out so Christ doesn’t seem to be deity). I wouldn’t assert that translators are inspired (and they don’t assert that either), although if they are a diligent scholar, gifted in languages and someone who loves the Lord, they are definitely going to do a better job than someone who is out to promote an agenda. Even with gifted scholars, there are revisions to translations as they find better ways to communicate what the manuscripts say (and also as our language evolves and we need to hear it differently). But there are thousands of manuscripts to work with. We don’t have the originals, but we have better basis for knowing what the original manuscripts said than any other scholars of any other ancient manuscripts can say about those works. (Check it out-the numbers tell the story!!) I’ve always found it interesting that NT Greek is a dead language which hasn’t changed since the time of its writing. If it was a living, evolving language, it would be very tricky to figure out what the words meant because languages change so much. (Imagine for example, that the NT was written originally in KJV English. Two thousand years later, no one would have a clue how to translate it because English changes so quickly.)

You might ask: if translations aren’t inspired, then how can we trust them? Well, ideally, it would be great to learn the original languages. That is still your best bet. A cool tool for this is: http://www.zhubert.com/bible You can explore and learn the Greek for yourself. But beyond that, again, I defer to those who are better trained in languages than I am. I’m comfortable using a good translation with a good reputation for accuracy from those who know better than I do. (Even if I learned Greek, I would still be miles behind these people….) You know, this issue doesn’t even come up in countries where they are just getting the Bible for the first time in their language. They are just so thankful for it. We pick the Bible apart piece by piece and they cry tears of joy because they finally have their own copy of God’s word and can actually read it for themselves. I think our perspective would change a whole lot if suddenly it became illegal or even rare to have our own copies of the Bible.

Was the Bible from an oral culture? Not so much. The Jewish culture was much more literate than many of the lands around it (and the Roman Empire only increased that)..they had plenty of writings (even beyond the Bible)…they were partly an oral culture, but let’s not make the assumption that it was like the jungles of colonial Africa where no one has ever heard of a book. (Or scroll, in those days.) Of course, no one but the priests/kings/scholars had them because they took so much time to copy (and hence were very expensive). But the people trusted what was read to them as being God’s word. It doesn’t really matter that they didn’t have their own copy. They trusted it. They took their turns to read in the temple (as Jesus did when it was his turn) so that suggests that at least the boys were literate. I’m guessing many girls learned to read as well. So it’s a false assumption to think that we are dealing with gullible, illiterate people. Most people in these days knew several languages…they were probably smarter than us, in many ways. We’re too quick to assume that our western 21st century society is the be-all and end-all.

“These writings were eventually written down and edited, in many cases, by multiple people, over many years.” Yes, many people were involved, but my understanding is that it was thought that these were the words of God, so there were very stringent rules about copying. (ie. One mistake and the whole scroll is tossed.) The word “edited” infers “changing”….hmmmm…..how would you prove this? I know that with the Koran, the way that they avoided dealing with all the mistakes and edits is to burn the rest of the copies and only keep one copy. We haven’t done that….we’ve kept all copies…even some that potentially were “mistakes” and were in the rubbish pile. But good scholarship allows the scholars to sort that out. If we can trust scholars to tell us what Socrates said, I guess we can trust them to tell us what the original biblical manuscripts said…..and the story of the Bible is a remarkable story of preservation and miracles.

Here’s one for the road: Have you ever heard the story of St. Patrick? He was an amazing man…kidnapped and sold to Ireland…escaped from there and later came back as a missionary. History tells us that he basically converted most of the island to Christianity (from druidism etc.) and as a result, their first mission was to build schools and centres for preserving books. Literacy has always followed Christianity because we make God’s word such a priority (or should). Guess what was going on in Europe??? The dark ages…..where the barbarians were burning all the libraries, destroying the Roman Empire and everything literary that went along with it. The Irish church stepped in and started preserving and protecting books. Not just the bible, but many historical texts. One book I read about this topic is called “How the Irish Saved Civilization”….amazing story of this. Anyway, my point is that you are undervaluing the abilities of scholars in the past…and especially of God in preserving the message He has. He is a lot bigger than we give Him credit for.

As you can tell, I’m pretty passionate about this topic. Whenever I get a chance, I do reading about it. I love languages and words and realize how one thought can be communicated in many ways. I’m glad God chose to communicate with us this way. As Jer has said before,the Bible gives us a foundation. It gives us something to test that “dream in the middle of the night” up against. Without it, I’m afraid we don’t have much to stand on.

Anyway, “endrant”.

Steph

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#13 written by Joey 3 years ago

Steph,

Thanks for jumping into the conversation here..

You’re right that historical narratives (like the conquest of Canaan) are not to taken as moral norms for all times. That was a weak argument I made and you’re right to correct me on it.

You brought up James and Paul: “So, Paul and James are both needed to explain faith and works. Paul appeals to (and is best understood by) one group of people who need to hear an emphasis on faith. James is a help to those who have that down pat (or think they do) but their actions don’t line up, and they need to see the link between what we say we believe and what our actions already show. So, there’s no challenge to inerrancy there…only to our theology.” I disagree. I think this is a challenge to inerrancy precisely because Paul and James disagree.

Paul (Romans 3:28): “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.”
James (James 2:24) – “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only”

There are a lot of attempts to harmonize these two views, but a plain reading of the texts suggest they stand in conflict with one another. This may not make me a good evangelical (or even a good Protestant, for that matter!), but I think that to take the Bible seriously means to take it on its own terms (even when – especially when! – it conflicts with our prior understandings).

I don’t think the textual transmission of the Bible is as accurate as your suggest (for example, no manuscripts completely agree with one another. Sure, they’re very close in many cases, but no two are exactly the same). Also, stories that Christians have treasured for centuries (like the story in John about Jesus, the adulterous woman and the men who want to stone her) are not in the earliest and best manuscripts. Like you, I have a lot of faith in the ability of scholarship to reconstruct a version of the New Testament that is very accurate, but it cannot be perfect simply because textual criticism is all about picking and choosing from conflicting manuscripts.

”Was the Bible from an oral culture? Not so much. The Jewish culture was much more literate than many of the lands around it (and the Roman Empire only increased that)”
I would dispute this. My understanding of 1st Century Jewish culture is that most people were illiterate (some scholars have even argued that Jesus was also illiterate). Yes, there was an educated, literate elite class but that doesn’t seem to be the norm. Of course, you can’t really make an argument about this simply using the New Testament – it requires a lot of reconstructing 1st Century culture using sources from outside the NT (something I’m not remotely qualified to do!). In any case, we do know that books were very rare (the invention of the printing press being still far off). It would be safe to assume that for the early Christians, “the Scriptures” were not thought of as a book per se, but as a collection of Scrolls. Also, they incorporated books into their Canon (such as “The Shepherd of Hermas”) that we do not consider canonical. The Bible, understood as a book with a beginning, a middle, and an ending was simply not the way they would have thought of it. All that being said, I never implied that early Christians and Jews were “gullible” simply because they cannot read (any more than Jesus was gullible in fact he couldn’t read).

You said “my understanding is that it was thought that these were the words of God.” My understanding of church tradition has been that the Bible has been called “the Word of God” which is quite different than “the words of God.” The first one is a metaphor, the second is very literal. The first suggests God inspiring human writers in mysterious ways, the second suggests God dictating or writing it himself. I think this is an important distinction, and I would argue that it is misguided to suggests that the words of Scripture are the very words of God.

I did read How the Irish Saved Civilization many years ago and really enjoyed it. What a wonderful story!

If you’ll permit me a final tangent (although I’m sure I’ve tried your patience already!). Forgive me for being blunt, but I don’t see why inerrancy is important or necessary when discussing whether the Bible is trustworthy or not. I think the Bible is trustworthy but I don’t for a second think it is inerrant. My wife is trustworthy but I don’t for a second think she’s inerrant either (and she would say that I’m definitely not inerrant!). The point is that life doesn’t work that way; we trust “errant” people and things every day of our lives and we don’t think for a second that we should distrust someone because they’ve made one mistake! I get the feeling that you (and others like you) are trying to turn the Bible into something it’s not, and the Bible is being belittled in the process. I love the Bible, and I hate to see fellow Christians trying to manipulate it.

At the end of the day, I just can’t buy inerrancy. It doesn’t satisfy me intellectual because there are too many holes, too many qualifications, too many attempts to explain away. It seems unlikely, and it’s been my experience that once one opens up to possibility that the Bible is not inerrant, then it becomes very clear that inerrancy was an (well-intentioned) illusion. But, most importantly of all, I just fail to see why it is worth defending, even if it were true. Even if the Bible were completely inerrant in every way, we still have to interpret it and history and present experience show that there are many, many interpretations of the Bible, and it is rarely clear which is the right one. An inerrant text with errant interpretations doesn’t seem worth defending.

Nah, I’ll take the messiness of actual human life, filled with uncertainly and differing perspectives.

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#14 written by Joey 3 years ago

I just re-read some of my comments here, and some of them sound a little harsh. Forgive me – I don’t intend to be harsh and am really not a harsh person (although I do get passionate about certain subjects). So let me state this clearly: My disagreements with your positions are just that, they are nothing personal at all…

I just thought it important that I add that. Thanks for taking the time to converse in depth with me (and thanks Jerry for giving a “heretic” like myself so much air time on your blog!).

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#15 written by Joey 3 years ago

Jer,

I read Tim Challies’ articles (the ones you recommended) and I’ll offer my impressions/thoughts:

He makes a very good point in saying that when discussing inerrancy terms need to be defined. Very important (and, unfortunately, something I too frequently neglect to do).

His definition of inerrancy is more nuanced than I expected: “when the Bible says that Jesus feed 5,000 people with just a few loaves and fish, He may have actually fed 4,998. Yet the Bible would still be inerrant when it says 5,000.” He then concludes that “Inerrancy speaks of truthfulness, not the degree of precision with which events are reported.” He also seems ever-so-slightly relaxed about the accuracy with which the Gospels record the sayings of the historical Jesus: “the Bible is inerrant if it accurately and truthfully describes the content of what a speaker said. Whether the actual words Jesus spoke are I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, or I am The Truth, the Way and the Life, the Bible is still inerrant in how it transcribed these words, for the content remains intact.” He is more concerned with meaning than specific details, which is good, because arguing over the inerrancy of specific details becomes tedious indeed.

I find his argument that the Bible claims inerrancy for itself to be ultimately unconvincing. It’s a very circular argument to say that the Bible is inerrant because it says it’s inerrant. Sure, that will reassure someone who already believes in it, but what about those of us who don’t? Also, Tim nowhere indicates where exactly the Bible claims inerrancy for itself (a rather strange omission given his argument). Surely quoting 2 Timothy 3:16 (“all Scriptures are God-breathed…”) does not settle this debate once and for all, because I see no reason to equate “God-breathed” with “inerrant.”

I’m far less impressed with his final section, where he asserts that when we deny inerrancy “we make God a liar.” He reasons: “If there are errors in the original manuscripts, manuscripts that testify they were breathed out by God, one of two things must be true: either God purposely lied or he mistakenly lied.” Ummm…or maybe Tim has misunderstood what inspiration means…surely that’s a possibility! He also suggests that to deny inerrancy is to “lose trust in God” and to “make our minds a higher standard of truth than the Bible.” Seriously, this is nothing more than finger-shaking, and seems very condescending (he’s saying, in effect, “Shame on you for not believing this! God is angry with you.”) He’s not actually making arguments – he stating his opinions, quoting people who agree with him and then condemning anyone who disagrees, laying on a heavy-duty dosage of guilt and shame too (which, in my experience, is something Calvinists do very well). This was all very frustrating indeed.

I do agree with him here though: “if we deny inerrancy, and indicate that small details are incorrect, we cannot consistently argue that all the doctrine the Bible contains is correct.” Right. Exactly. All the doctrine in the Bible is not correct. I believe that but fail to see how believing that means that “the Christian faith soon crumbles into a mess of subjectivity and personal preference.” Why? See, he never explains why. He just makes strong statements and lets them dangle there.

In short, I’m sure this kind of thing is terribly reassuring to those who already believe in inerrancy, but I have serious doubts that it will convince those who are skeptical. His arguments are not very strong, he doesn’t deal with objections in a very satisfactory way (to my mind anyway) and to be honest, R.C. Sproul, John Piper and John MacArthur just don’t carry a lot of authority for me, so quoting them doesn’t impress me much. Inerrancy is a matter of faith ultimately, and as such I’m convinced it cannot be “proven” only accepted on faith. And, at the end of the day, I just don’t have faith that it is true. The Bible is what it is, and I’m not impressed by attempts to turn it into something it’s not. Also, I can’t see why it is more virtuous or faithful to God to believe something (like inerrancy) that my intellect finds impossible to believe. I’m convinced that God wants me to use my mind, and I just can’t buy into this inerrancy business. I’m not being hard-hearted or unfaithful; I am being honest.

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#16 written by Jer 3 years ago

Hey Joey,

No worries about being too harsh. I know you well enough to know better than that. You’re being honest and stating your case, which is something both Jer and I respect, even if we don’t necessarily agree.

As far as faith and works go, I would argue that Paul and James aren’t arguing about what saves, if you read all the verses in context. Faith saves, and Paul explains that clearly. It isn’t enough to do the right thing on the outside and have a heart that disbelieves. But what is faith? Is it a happy little thought in our head? No, true faith is very active. If I say I believe that the power plant here is about to explode any minute, but I stick around, you know pretty quickly that I don’t believe what I am saying. So James is addressing people with a type of “faith” that isn’t really faith because what they say they believe isn’t matched by what they do. There is no contradiction in my mind. I really love the difference in emphasis. It prevents me from focusing on what I believe (ie. theology) so much that I don’t act on it, or allowing my actions to become hypocrisy because I don’t really believe in what I’m doing. The balance must be there in real, genuine faith.

Hmmm….I guess we could go back and forth on some of your points about scholarship and the like…I’m satisfied that while we may not have the original manuscripts (and therefore there are some discrepancies between those manuscripts we do have), we are very close to the words that were originally penned. There are so many steps between then and now….transcribing, compiling manuscripts, translation, and as you mentioned, interpretation. Even so, after thousands of years, each new finding seems to validate that we are VERY close. I realize it doesn’t satisfy you, but in my mind, after thousands of years, and thousands of people involved (some which probably weren’t even believers), this is amazing.

I have one question, however. If the Bible is not inerrant, how is it different from a book that is written by your favourite Christian author? (I’ll let you fill in the blanks with who that is…. ) You said “The Bible is what it is”….so what exactly is that? What sets it apart, and how do we know that it is set apart? (or is it?) You mentioned it being a conduit for revelation in earlier posts, but what makes it a better conduit than say, a book that i write? To me, the only thing that could make it a better conduit of revelation than other books is if it had God’s supernatural involvement in its creation…ie. when it was originally penned. Now, if God is supernaturally involved, would He do it in a way that was full of errors right from the get-go? Hmmm….I would suggest not. But I’m curious to know what you think and how you would distinguish between the Bible and other spiritual writings.

Nice to chat with you, Joey.

Steph

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#17 written by StephyJay 3 years ago

Ooops…the above post really was me (Steph), even though it says it was Jerry. That’s what happens when Jerry borrows my computer and forgets to log out!

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#18 written by Joey 3 years ago

Thanks for interacting with me on this Steph. You and Jer are both making me think hard about my own positions on these things, and that’s a good thing.

I’ll do my best to answer your questions, and keep in my mind that in many ways I’m still in transition on these things.

You asked some very good questions: “If the Bible is not inerrant, how is it different from a book that is written by your favourite Christian author? You said ‘The Bible is what it is’….so what exactly is that? What sets it apart, and how do we know that it is set apart? (or is it?) You mentioned it being a conduit for revelation in earlier posts, but what makes it a better conduit than say, a book that i write? … Now, if God is supernaturally involved, would He do it in a way that was full of errors right from the get-go?”

The Bible has challenged, inspired and encouraged people for centuries. Perhaps more than any other book, it has impacted the course of history. It bears witness to people who have encountered God in powerful ways. Even if God had nothing directly to do with it, I would say it is a pretty remarkable collection of writings!

But, of course, Christians have always believed it to be even more special than that because of the conviction that God speaks through these texts in a unique way. Part and parcel of being a Christian is that we have a special relationship with these writings. They are our foundational texts, and they form the basis of who we are as a people. We learn our identity as people of God through these writings, and we learn the teachings and stories that are central to our faith. So, in community, we Christians listen prayerfully for the voice of God in these texts and then act out the story of our faith. The Bible, as the Church’s book, is essential to a life of discipleship.

Notice I haven’t mentioned the word “inerrant” once. The reason is that I think inerrancy is a mere distraction from the important business of learning from and acting on these texts. But you raise a very good question: “Now, if God is supernaturally involved, would He do it in a way that was full of errors right from the get-go?” The answer I would give is to say that God honors human beings, and also that God loves the particulars. Personalities and different perspectives are allowed to shine through the Bible, tension is allowed to exist in the various writings, and (perhaps surprising of all) the writers are given the freedom to disagree with one another as they seek to understand the God they’ve encountered. So I would argue that if inerrancy were true, then the Bible would cease to be human.

I would love to hear your thoughts…you too Jer…

As a side note, how do you deal with the fact that many (most?) Christians do not believe in inerrancy? I would imagine that to be troubling for you, especially since you consider to be so central to the faith…

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#19 written by Jer 3 years ago

I’m semi-incoherent right now from the flu but I don’t want to let this dialogue slide or fade. I’ll do my best.

You say: “So I would argue that if inerrancy were true, then the Bible would cease to be human.”

To that, I would submit that my response has already been stated – that’s like saying that if Christ is God, he couldn’t also be human. I won’t claim to explain or even remotely grasp the whole totality of what the divinity and humanity of Christ (“hypostatic union”) mean or how it works, but I think that we do the Bible an injustice if we discount its humanity (which is what you fear) *as well as* if we discount its divinity (which is what I fear). We really can’t afford to lose either. I don’t know how it works, I just can’t shake the necessity of it. I’ve already explained my philosophical reasoning as to why I think it’s vital, and that a balanced / complementary / “hypostatic union” view is the only one that I feel adequately captures the radical nature of the Biblical text. At this point, I would just refer you back to earlier in our conversation.

We can’t allow the Bible to, as you say, “cease to be human”, because it IS! My counterargument is that neither can we allow it to “cease to be divine”.

In short, I think that the only adequate way to balance the utter human-ness of the Bible with “God speaking through these texts in a unique way” is to accept, in a sense, both. Kind of like we talked about earlier. Just as it seems to me that both “election” and “free-will” are present in the Biblical record and must be synthesized and brought together (rather than chosen between), I think that our hermeneutics need to be equally informed by the “hypostatic union” of the Bible. It’s fully divine, and fully human – its human-ness, just like Jesus – doesn’t interfere with its divinity, and vice versa. Its divinity means, yes, I think it is without factual error (and would, along with Challies, call it “inerrant” as a result, and I really do believe it to be).Its humanity means that it shares a variety of perspectives and is divulged in a variety of genres and voices which will of course be difficult to synthesize and bring together at times, but as far as I’ve seen so far, the satisfying explanations to those differences is not that they disagree, but rather that, because they are different perspectives they speak of the same thing.

In short, if it’s not human, it won’t really connect with us at all… and if it’s not divine, it has no more bearing than my blog. I can’t accept losing either without tossing the whole thing. The parallel is Christ – He came as a human being so that we could connect – he came in a form we could understand, that we could relate to, that we could see as an example and as a friend and a king and saviour. As far as I can understand, his humanity was totally necessary, but I find it very hard to suggest (by parallel) that in becoming human (ie. in becoming text/word/revelation) he lost any measure of his fullness of deity. He didn’t lose the power to tell a storm to be at peace in an instant, nor to defy the laws of physics and walk on water, nor to defy the laws of medicine and heal those born blind or lame… rather his divinity was shrouded for a time. Those who saw Him, saw Him dimly (except perhaps at the transfiguration). Similarly, when we read Scripture, we must understand that it is divine, without error as God is without error… but also that He knew in his divine wisdom and knowledge that in order for Him to reveal Himself to us in a way we could understand, His revelation would have to be cloaked in humanity.

Consequently, I believe that what this looks like is that we start all of our assumptions with God’s character and fullness (which includes, among other things, His truth, His governance and creatorship of the universe and consequently His ultimate knowledge of it and intricate ability to weave complicated texts together to a cohesive narrative – something I believe the Bible to be).

But, just as Jesus (the Word) shrouded His deity in humanity, so in a similar way God has chosen to reveal Himself to all men (not just those at the time of Christ) through humanity (the Bible). We start with God’s character, but when we approach the Bible we later on must also take into account the shrouds surrounding it.

It’s not an easy thing to explain, but I’m trying. You could say I believe in both inerrancy (God doesn’t make mistakes) and errancy (I make mistakes) as far as my hermeneutics go. And, best of all, I see a book, shrouded in mysteries that a human lifetime will never unpack, performing divine miracles in my heart each day. Jesus’ humanity didn’t interfere with His power, nor did it bring Him into sin – rather we read this about Jesus:

Hebrews 4:15 ESV
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Similarly, I believe that the Bible’s humanity doesn’t interfere with its power as God’s revelation, nor does it create factual error.

All throughout the Bible you see people being people, and making mistakes. It’s very human. I don’t see that the Bible’s humanity imposes error upon it though. Different perspectives; yes. Unique genres; yes. Etc. But not mistakes. A God who makes mistakes is no God of mine.

You say: “As a side note, how do you deal with the fact that many (most?) Christians do not believe in inerrancy? I would imagine that to be troubling for you, especially since you consider to be so central to the faith…”

Not really. I mostly think that they follow a very human pattern I see all the time in my philosophy classes – people don’t usually think of the implications of their beliefs. I certainly think that “inerrancy” gets mis-labelled and mis-defined a lot, but in terms of what I see and justly (I think) require of “God” (that He be perfect and without error)… it all seems to work when His character is injected into my understanding of Scripture.

In the end, I think we’ll all reach Heaven and discover we were wrong about some (if not most) of our “doctrine”. A few people will discover they had it all wrong, but most of us will just be mostly wrong about a lot of things. I really don’t mind of “many/most Christians” don’t believe in inerrancy because many/most Christians don’t believe a lot of important things (the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, Salvation by grace through faith evidenced in works, etc). I’m not concerned about the masses if it seems clear to me that the masses are (humanly) wrong. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m okay with that. But, in the end, I have a lot of reasons to very strongly affirm that I really can’t see a way to see the Bible as you describe it (without, as you’ve noted, saying “inerrancy”) without inerrancy being first assumed. In other words, I completely agree with this:

“The Bible has challenged, inspired and encouraged people for centuries. Perhaps more than any other book, it has impacted the course of history. It bears witness to people who have encountered God in powerful ways. Even if God had nothing directly to do with it, I would say it is a pretty remarkable collection of writings!

But, of course, Christians have always believed it to be even more special than that because of the conviction that God speaks through these texts in a unique way. Part and parcel of being a Christian is that we have a special relationship with these writings. They are our foundational texts, and they form the basis of who we are as a people. We learn our identity as people of God through these writings, and we learn the teachings and stories that are central to our faith. So, in community, we Christians listen prayerfully for the voice of God in these texts and then act out the story of our faith. The Bible, as the Church’s book, is essential to a life of discipleship.”

I’m saying it cannot be that if it’s in error. It cannot be what it claims to be, nor can we accept it as such if it is. There is no life of discipleship if our God is a fraud. There is no miraculous heart-rending changes if our God is not what He claims to be. Repeatedly He says of Himself that He does not lie, perhaps as strongly as it says of Christ that He was “without sin”.

Inerrancy is only a distraction when it has been tossed out, when we include it there is a beauty that permeates the ‘conflicts’ of the texts, and in seeing their synthesis take shape in careful, thorough, (yes, human) exegesis.

It’s complicated. Tossing it out is too easy. You say that “the writers are given the freedom to disagree with one another as they seek to understand the God they’ve encountered”, but if they encountered the same God, how could there be disagreement; is God broken? Split? Anything but One? Are the members of the Godhead different in any of their primary characteristics? Does one of them make mistakes?

If yes to any of the above, the Bible would cease to be divine; the self-revelation of the creator God of the universe. If so, I don’t need it.

Why would God allow errors that might cause us to misunderstand Him? We’re really good at that on our own, helping us would only seem to completely destroy any traces of who He really is.

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#20 written by StephyJay 3 years ago

Jerry, considering you have a fever, you are doing very well! I will second your thoughts and add something that I’ve been thinking about this weekend.

Thanks for the earlier thoughts, Joey…I woke up early this Easter Sunday morning with thoughts of this on my mind. So I read abit from each four accounts of the Easter story, and then it got me thinking more about inerrancy and this discussion. The Easter story is the perfect example of how much easier it would be to NOT believe in inerrancy. I remember doing a little project (self-imposed) where I tried to line up all the Easter accounts. It was alot of work…definitely would have been easier to have left them alone with the assumption that some of the authors got their stories wrong. But it was very rewarding to figure at least some of it out, and see how different authors can see things from different points of view or even focus on different events within the same story, but it can all be true.

I started to think about how there are really two options when we approach the Bible. Hardly anyone is going to say that it’s ALL lies….archaeology has shown that it’s just as reliable as any other source document we have from ancient civilizations (especially since we weren’t there so can’t rule out the possibility that the accounts are correct). So the options are that it’s partly true, or wholly true.

If I choose the “partly true” option, as you have, then I run into abit of a problem. How do I decide which parts are true and which are false? I could say “Ask the archaeologists!”, but their findings are always changing. One minute you hear that a part of the Bible could have never happened and then you hear that “oops, we found evidence that it did!” I could ask theologians to sort it out for me, but then I have to decide which ones to listen to, because they all disagree! I could buy a Bible that’s colour-coded according to probability of being accurate (yes, liberal scholars created one of these….), but again, I’m relying on very subjective evidence. How do they know? They weren’t there!!! In essence, by saying that some is untrue, I’m calling into question all of it, and never really knowing which parts of it I can trust. The upside of all of this is that any time I find a passage that I don’t like, I can just say that the author made a mistake. Hmm….that could come in handy! To me, it’s clear that these are some of the reasons that a good portion of the Christian church wouldn’t espouse inerrancy. It’s too much work (ie. studying things out to solve apparent contradictions), and it’s fairly inconvenient at times to accept it all as God’s truth (ie. now I need to change….). It’s much easier to keep it as a helpful document that may or may not reliable (and therefore is not authoritative in any real sense of the word).

If on the other hand, I choose to assume that God was supernaturally involved, I will actually have to study out the difficult passages and figure out how they line up, especially when things seem to contradict. Unfortunately, when a clear passage says something that I don’t like, I still have to accept it.

Jer’s right though….if we assume that God is a good God who isn’t trying to trick us, we should give Him the benefit of the doubt that He would be able to give us His word in an inerrant original state. It won’t always be easy to understand (because God and His ways aren’t…and I’m thankful for that), but with diligent study and a willingness to let God change us (through His Word), many mysteries would be unearthed.

I really prefer the second option. It’s messier and more difficult, but I think it fits with what we know about God. He rewards those who diligently seek Him. He also hides Himself from those who don’t really want to know anyway (think of Jesus talking about the purpose of parables and Isaiah’s mission in Is. 6). There are enough questions left in the Bible to stumble those who don’t want to believe anyway (ie. atheists) and enough challenges in the Bible to keep those of us who do believe “mining for gold” for at least a lifetime. I like that about it. No other book has the power to melt my heart with one verse. No other book can excite me with it’s intricacies. And it’s definitely the only book I would grab if my apartment was on fire. I would also die defending it, or at least, I hope I would have the courage if I was ever in that position. I wouldn’t have this response to a book merely written by humans. That’s why I’m convinced that it is much more.

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#21 written by Joey 3 years ago

Jer,

At the end of the day, I just can’t buy into your black and white reasoning (ie, either the Bible is completely without error or it is useless). It just doesn’t make sense to me to reason that way! But I can respect the way you hold to your conviction and seek to live out the implications of them.

Something is bothering me though about the language you use for the Bible. At times I have to remind myself that you’re talking about the Bible and not Jesus, as they seem to collapse into one entity for you (as in they are both “the Word of God”, both equally divine and human, a “hypostatic union”, etc). For all intents and purposes, it seems like the words “Bible” and “Jesus” can be often be used interchangably in the things you write.

I would lastly remind you that biblical inerrancy is not central to the catholic faith, as defined by the ancient creeds. So I would caution you in making too much about this matter, as if it’s a litmus test to distinguish orthodoxy from heresy. It isn’t, and only the fundamentalist of recent history has (unfortunately) made it so.

Well, I’m off to bed. Hope you start feeling better…

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#22 written by Joey 3 years ago

I’ll respond to Steph’s comment:

“I remember doing a little project (self-imposed) where I tried to line up all the Easter accounts. It was alot of work…definitely would have been easier to have left them alone with the assumption that some of the authors got their stories wrong. But it was very rewarding to figure at least some of it out, and see how different authors can see things from different points of view or even focus on different events within the same story, but it can all be true.”

But, you see, in this case all the stories are not true. In fact, the story you’ve constructed in the “true” one, and ironically in the interest of preserving the inerrancy of the Bible, you’ve neglected what the authors have actually said in favor of a synthesis of the four accounts. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John don’t have authority anymore because they can’t speak on their own terms! Pardon my bluntness, but this is doing violence to the text, because you’ve decided that no single account tells the truth, only youe harmonized version tells the truth. You are the ultimate authority here, not the Gospels.

You’ve talked a lot about “true” and “false” (or “wrong”), and have indicated that I have no way to distinguish between the two. Let me turn the question on you: What do you mean by “true”? Is truth the same thing as historical fact/accuracy? Can something be true without being historically factual? I think you have very modernistic assumptions about truth that have very little to do with Bible (if you’ll pardon my bluntness again!). In the Bible truth has more to do with “truthful living” than “correct ideas” or “historical accuracy.” That’s very important, I think.

I mentioned something briefly in my reply to Jer that I’ll elaborate on here: Inerrancy is a modern phenomenon. It was birthed primarily out of the last hundred and fifty years or so, as fundamentalists and liberals were involved in heated debates about the nature of the Bible, the ontological status of Christian doctrine and so on. The liberals argued that the Bible was a purely human product and merely reflected the religious experiences of long ago. The believed that they were scientists and, as such, they could discard much of the Bible and sort out once and for all what in the Bible is factual and what isn’t. The fundamentalists replied that they could prove the Bible is true using the same “scientific” techniques the liberals used, and so some truly embarrassing ideas were born (such as 7-day creationism). The point is this: Both liberals and fundamentalists are the flip side of the same coin. Both equate “truth” with “historical fact.” Both believe they can determine the truth/factuality of the Bible with scientific precision. Both ultimately give authority to modernistic/rationalistic ways of knowing. They reach different conclusions, but they use the same basic method.

A third way, and this is what I buy into, is that we do not submit the Bible to the criteria of modernistic rationalism. Yes, we can study the Bible critically like any other book, but the truth of the Bible is not determined by rationalistic notions of what we deem “factual” or “historical accurate.” You’re right to point out that the opinions of archaeologists, historians and biblical scholars are constantly changing – which is precisely why the authority of the Bible is not subject to them, however important and/or enlightening they’re work is. But the Bible does not need to submit to modern rationalism as if it were the be-all and end-all. No, Christians can be unashamed about giving authority to the narrative of Scripture. And by authority I don’t mean that we argue with the scientists that the Bible is right and they’re wrong. What a waste of time! By authority I mean to say that we read the narrative as our own, and we seek to live out that narrative and follow the way of Jesus. We don’t need to defend our convictions according to the criteria set by modernity; our only “defense” is the truthful witness of our lives. I would submit the truthfulness of the Bible is determined by the kind of lives it produces. The question is: does it produce/inspire lives of compassion, joy and self-sacrifice? The question is NOT: is in accurate in its account of history or cosmology? That is a complete waste of time, in my opinion.

Since I’ve been blunt thus far, let me continue. I think the notion of inerrancy is not only wrong, but harmful, because if you’re asking people to choose between the Bible and science, then science will win. You’re making it very easy for people to discredit the Bible. Several years ago I came perilously close to abandoning my faith, because I was taught that inerrancy is the cornerstone of the faith, and if it is called into question the whole structure collapses. So when doubts crept in, I repressed them. Then finally I could deny them no longer and the whole thing began to crumble. It was a very tough time, and so my concern with inerrancy is ultimately a pastoral one; I don’t want people discrediting Jesus because of a wrong-headed and narrow understanding of the Bible.

I’ll leave that for now. I’d really better be going to bed…

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#23 written by Jer 3 years ago

I’ve been talking to my mom about this, and she recommended a book to me/us:

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Father-Abraham-Jewish-Christian/dp/0802804233

She said that a lot of the problem comes out of our Western, Greek-philosophy based Platonic logic thinking… (perhaps what you’ve called “modernistic rationalism”) and that some of the demands we place on Scripture (as you’ve pointed out) are simply moot and aimless when we change our standard from Greek logic to Hebrew “block logic”, which is quite possibly a better starting place for making sense of all this.

I’m going to look into it more. For now, I guess, rest in this: I like your third option. I’m going to explore. My reasonings so far still make sense to me, but as we’ve discovered a few times so far, we may not be that different apart from our terms and labels.

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#24 written by StephyJay 3 years ago

There’s no doubt that as we learn about how the ancient people thought, it definitely resolves some conflicts. For example, when it says Jesus rose after three days, that doesn’t appear to make sense, since he died on a Friday afternoon and was alive by early Sunday morning (which is less than two full days). But we now know that the people of the day counted any part of a day as being a day, so Friday-Sunday equals three days by their method of counting. Not three full days, but three days. So, I’m sure there’s something to be learned from Hebrew block logic etc. Keep us posted on what you learn, Jer!

I don’t think it does any injustice to the gospel authors when I attempt to synchronize their Easter stories. In a court of law, many witness will testify. They all saw things from different vantage points so it follows that they didn’t see exactly the same things. Maybe one guy saw two men run away from the crime. Another guy only saw one man run by because he was farther down the road and the second criminal had escaped down a side street by then. Neither of them are wrong….there were two guys!! Because their stories are different, it doesn’t mean that one of them is necessarily wrong. In fact, putting the stories together fills in the gaps, and creates a fuller story. It’s a more complete truth. So too, with the Easter story, there are definite gaps in each gospel’s account…intentional gaps when the authors chose to focus on certain things (and by necessity, leave out other details). It’s not a contradiction…they complement each other. I think it’s very cool to put it all together. Of course, I am definitely capable of doing it wrong. But I think I am in a safer position to assume that they all fit together (with some effort on my part to see how that works) than to assume that some are wrong, and take the liberty of deciding which parts are true and which are not. The second response is much more dangerous ground to walk on, I would say.

You never really answered my question….how do you decide when you read a passage if it is true or not? I accept what you are saying….it doesn’t NEED to be historically or scientifically accurate to be authoritative and true in a spiritual sense. It’s still a shaky ground to stand on (I think), but it is POSSIBLE that God only inspired in matters of “faith and doctrine” and He just let the authors blunder abit when it came to other details such as science or history. (Strange way of inspiring, but God is entitled to do things in whichever way He chooses.) But you have actually said that the authors disagree with each other and contradict even in theological areas. So, how do you decide when to say “this is authoritative” and “this is a blatant contradiction and I don’t need to listen to it?” For example, Paul and James…I see two complementary points of view. But you still see that as a contradiction. So how do you decide which one is right? Or are they both wrong? To make this decision, I think you have to put yourself in a position above the writers of Scripture and assume that you know better than they do about what God really thinks. That’s tricky stuff. Jesus was very quick to quote Scripture and use it as His final authority. I don’t know…I’m still much more comfortable assuming that I’m wrong and the authors of Scripture (under God’s inspiration) are correct. Both of us are making judgment calls, but I’d rather err on the side of truthfulness, especially since truth is one of the key parts of God’s character. I know we have differing views of what truth is, but essentially I see it as that which matches reality. I may not be able to understand all of God’s truth in the Scriptures (and therefore struggle with things like the tension between our free will and God’s sovereignty), but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t both true.

So you think that when pitting Science and Scripture, the Bible will always lose? Well, maybe right now. I’m not so sure that will be the case in 100 years. The more we discover about how complex the universe is, the less evolution holds up. It was a lot more believable in the 1800’s before electron microscopes could see the intricacies of a cell or huge telescopes could see how big the universe and beyond really was. We can argue whether it’s literal 6-day creation till we’re blue in the face…but the reality is that either way, evolution is a sinking ship. Over 150 years later and even the most basic proofs for evolution on a macro level (ie. from one species to the next) are pretty ridiculous. I’m really not concerned about proving that the Bible is right on those levels. But I think that the Bible will redeem itself in the end both in terms of Science and History.

I would agree with you that the term inerrancy is a fairly new one. It’s about as new as Martin Luther, the Gutenberg press and the Reformation. Up till that point, the Pope told people what the Scriptures meant and his word was supposed to be infallible. There was no reason for people to argue about if the Scriptures had mistakes because they didn’t have their own copies to study. You mentioned that earlier, and you’re absolutely right. That doesn’t bring us to a conclusion that inerrancy didn’t exist though. That’s like saying that until the discovering of DNA, it didn’t exist. It would have been somewhat useless to talk about the concept 300 years ago, but it was still there. So, I would argue that the Scriptures have always been inerrant in their original form. No one really had to deal with the issue (after the canon of Scripture was initially decided, that is) until recently. And so the debate continues….. ☺

Fun stuff. I enjoy.

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#25 written by Joey 3 years ago

This thread has gone a lot of different directions, and I think some valuable stuff has come out of it. But before we dig back into our differences, I want to highlights some things we share in common…

- We are all committed to the belief that God speaks through the Bible. In this way the Bible is revelatory, and it is in this book that we hear God’s voice.

- Whether we affirm inerrancy or not, we believe that we ought to work hard to understand what the Bible means. Our interpretations are never final, but must be tested in a community of fellow believers.

- We all affirm the centrality of Jesus, and that to read the Bible as Christians we need to start with him.

Beyond that it gets complicated. But I would say those are some pretty significant agreements.

Ok, now to respond to both of you…

Jer – Yes, I think your mother is on to something. Jewish ways of reading and interpreting are different than that of Hellenistic philosophy (which is sort of what I was getting at with “modernistic rationalism”).

Steph – I think the key issue for both of us is interpretation. Setting aside the inerrancy issue for a moment, we are dealing ultimately with different interpretations. Your commit to inerrancy leads you to interpret in certain ways, and my own commitments leads me to interpret certains ways (our interpretations of James and Paul are a prime example). So who’s right? Well, I say that we continue to test our interpretations against Scripture itself (especially the teachings of Jesus – see below), against the tradition of the church, and of course within a community of believers.

You raised a question that I failed to answer: “how do you decide when you read a passage if it is true or not?” It depends. I don’t worry too much about historical accuracy…I’m for the most part pretty relaxed about that (with some exceptions, of course. For example, I adamantly believe that Jesus was an historical person, whereas I don’t really care if Job was). When it comes to choosing between the Bible and science (like the other “evolution versus creation” question) I just think the whole discussion is wrong from the start. The point of Genesis is to do with theology, not cosmology, and to suggest otherwise is to distort it and miss the point. As far as determining theological truth, I measure it against the teaching of Jesus (since I’m a Christian this only makes sense). So, for example, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, but Joshua describes God commanding his people to kill their enemies. I go with Jesus on that one. So the life and teachings of Jesus Christ are central, and everything in Scripture has to be tested against that.

Does that clarify things at all?

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#26 written by Joey 3 years ago

Steph,

I thought I should add one more thing. You seem to be caught up in the idea of the Bible having contradictions in it, so let me approach it from another angle: I would say that the Bible is a conversation. Like any conversation it has multiple voices contributing, and certain parts of the conversation are more insightful and productive than others. Nonetheless, it is a true dialogue, not a monologue. So we need not think of the Bible as being filled with propositions which we must either consider “true” or “false”; rather I would suggest that reading the Bible is more like entering into a conversation that has been happening for a long, long time. And I would suggest that its brilliance and value is owed, in large part, to the conversation within its pages.

Does that help at all?

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#27 written by StephyJay 3 years ago

I appreciate both of your posts…not just the words but the tone behind them, because you have a way of disagreeing without being disagreeable. You are right about the Bible being a conversation..if I’m hearing you right, you would see it as a conversation about God that is very valuable, but needs to be taken with a grain of salt, and I would see it as a conversation that is meant to tell me God’s words in a more authoritative way (but still requiring interpretation which complicates things)….either way, we’re aren’t as far apart as it might initially appear. I guess sometimes when we make certain types of statements (ie. the Bible being a conversation), it can be so vague that it’s hard to figure out how that plays out in real life. Regardless of how we look at the Bible, we still have make some sort of judgment call when we read a hardline statement in the Bible. I’m thankful that God is bigger than all of our mistakes and wrong judgment calls. It’s pretty cool that we can see the Bible in two somewhat different ways, but God is still going to use it to touch us and change us.

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#28 written by Jer 3 years ago

I suppose I’ll just echo Steph. This has been a really valuable discussion for me – I’ve been saying for awhile now that my take on the Emerging church is that their critiques of the post-modern church should inform our approach to theology and the Bible, but not reform it. So, to that end, this trialogue has definitely got me thinking down some lines I’d never really explored before, and challenged a few of my mostly-unchallenged assumptions about things… and that’s great.

I’m wary of rocking what I see philosophically to be completely necessary (in this case, “inerrancy” – or at least the version of it I’ve shared here), but in light of my fallibility, I’m prepared to ease back on it if I can see something that adequately coheres with the rest of what I see in the world and in the Bible. At this point I still just see too many foundational reasons why it seems necessary to default, to assume the Bible to be without error as our starting point. I’m generally a pretty big proponent of what gets called “Fallibilism” – that there are no metaphysical guarantees against the need to revise a belief. I simply modify and limit/dissalow it in the areas of coherent foundational beliefs – beliefs that fit together but also serve as the foundation for all other beliefs. In this case, that would be God’s character, and particularly his perfection and errorlessness… the fact that He is the ultimate standard of Truth and Existence.

Otherwise, it seems we agree on most everything else. For that I am glad – it was certainly difficult to tell sometimes how much or how little we hold in common, but it seems to be most. That’s very useful, particularly for future discussion.

…which perhaps might be about this: Lately I’ve been studying a bit of Neo-Pragmatism and found a lot of parallels between what it does in the field of Philosophy and what Emerging church (ie. NT Wright, Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, et al.) has been doing in the field of Theology. I’d characterize them as similar disruptions or destabilizations, albeit in different fields, if you will. I’ve also found that my critiques of the two are essentially the same: Good basic ideas (human fallibility, anti-skepticism, practise is primary, etc) which get taken too far.

I don’t know if you’re much of a philosopher, but I’d be interested in a more Theological sense to hear your thoughts on the Emerging church movement – what works and doesn’t work, what you like and don’t like. Then again, I don’t know how involved you are with it beyond the Emergent Village sticker you had/have on your blog, so maybe I’m out of place. After all, this whole discussion has reinforced that we’re not that different, so I’m really not sure how your present ‘church’ situation plays out. Fill me in if you like.

Thanks again for some great thoughts and dialogue.

Jer

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#29 written by Joey 3 years ago

Jer,

Yes, a big thank-you to you and Steph as well. You are both immensely gracious and patient (much more than I am!) and it was helpful to dialogue. Here’s a few closing reflections from my end:

- You two have rightly reminded me that I have failed to pay sufficient attention to the divine side of Scripture. I talk a lot about the human element, but there is surely much more than that going on in the Bible, and I should give more thought to developing a more positive understanding of inspiration and authority. And I will.

- I still remain unconvinced that inerrancy is logically necessary, but I do understand where you’re coming from, I think.

- I fear that I may have come across as too critical and too interested in tearing apart the Bible. So let me say this: I love the Bible. I trust the Bible. I believe that God speaks to us through it. I truly believe it is of God.

I’ll let that sit for now.

About Emergent: I have no formal connection to it. I listen regularly to their podcast and have read some books associated with the movement (McLaren, Tony Jones and the like). It’s a relatively diverse movement, so nailing down a definitive “statement of faith” is difficult. But, on the whole, I think some very good things are happening in the “emergent conversation.” I also think that there are a lot of stereotypes and misunderstandings perpetuated, and because of that dialogue between Emergent and the more conversative wing of the church has been very strained. Also, Emergent is largely made up of disaffected evangelicals, so it seems they are a lot harder on evangelicals and fundamentalists than on Roman Catholics and liberals, for example.

But, yeah, I’m game to talk about it. I’ll give you my two cents, and I’d like to hear your take on it. We can talk on here or we can move it to Facebook. It’s up to you.

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#30 written by StephyJay 3 years ago

I’ve enjoyed the dialogue, too. I think it has been worthwhile and helpful for all three of us…Jer and I have chatted about the topic a fair bit as well! Sorry it took so long to reply…I got really sick for awhile and it’s taken me awhile to get back on track with everything else in life..but feeling much better now!!

I think it would be cool to dialogue about Emergent stuff…although perhaps Jer will say this particular post is long enough….:) I guess we could always start a new one…or use Facebook or whatever…I’m up for it too.

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