Biblical inerrancy is the doctrinal position that,
in its original form, the
Bible is totally
without error, and free from all contradiction; "referring to the
complete accuracy of Scripture, including the historical and
scientific parts."
History of the Doctrine of Inerrancy
According to an article in
Theology Today published in
1975, "There have been long periods in the history of the church
when biblical inerrancy has not been a critical question. It has in
fact been noted that only in the last two centuries can we
legitimately speak of a formal doctrine of inerrancy. The arguments
pro and con have filled many books, and almost anyone can join in
the debate."
In the '70s and '80s, however, the debate in theological circles,
which centered on the issue of whether or not the
Bible was
infallible or both infallible and
inerrant, came into the spotlight.
Some notable Christian seminaries, such as Princeton
Theological Seminary
and Fuller Theological Seminary
, were formally adopting the doctrine of
infallibility while rejecting the doctrine of
inerrancy.
The other side of this debate focused largely around the magazine
Christianity Today and
the book entitled
The Battle for the Bible by Harold
Lindsell. The author asserted that losing the doctrine of the
inerrancy of
Scripture was the thread that
would unravel the church.
Conservatives rallied behind this
idea, agreeing that once a man disregards the ultimate truthfulness
of the
Bible, then anything can become
justifiable.
Textual tradition of the New Testament
There are over 5,600 Greek
manuscripts
containing all or part of the
New
Testament, as well as over 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and
perhaps 500 other manuscripts of various other languages.
Additionally, there are the
Patristic
writings which contain copious quotes, across the early centuries,
of the scriptures.
Most of these manuscripts date to the
Middle
Ages. The oldest complete copy of the New Testament, the
Codex Sinaiticus, which includes
two other books not now included in the accepted NT canon, dates to
the 4th century. The earliest fragment of a New Testament book is
the
Rylands Library Papyrus
P52 which dates to the mid 2nd century and is the size of a
business card. Very early manuscripts are rare.
The average NT manuscript is about 200 pages, and in all, we have
about 1.3 million pages of text. No two manuscripts are identical,
except in the smallest fragments, and the many manuscripts which
preserve New Testament texts differ among themselves in many
respects, with some estimates of 200,000 to 300,000 differences
among the various manuscripts. According to
Ehrman,
In the 2008
Greer-Heard debate series, noted NT scholars
Bart Ehrman and
Daniel B. Wallace discussed these variances in
detail. Wallace mentioned that understanding the meaning of the
number of variances is not as simple as looking at the number of
variances, but one must consider also the number of manuscripts,
the types of errors, and among the more serious discrepancies, what
impact they do or do not have.
For hundreds of years, biblical and textual scholars have examined
the manuscripts extensively. Since the eighteenth century, they
have employed the techniques of
textual criticism to reconstruct how the
extant manuscripts of the New Testament texts might have descended,
and to recover earlier
recensions of the
texts. However,
King James Version -only
inerrantists often prefer the traditional texts (i.e.,
Textus Receptus which is the basis of KJV)
used in their churches to modern attempts of reconstruction (i.e.,
Nestle-Aland Greek Text
which is the basis of Modern Translations), arguing that the
Holy Spirit is just as active in the
preservation of the scriptures as in their creation. These
inerrantists are found particularly in non-Protestant churches, but
also a few Protestant groups hold such views.
KJV-only inerrantist Jack Moorman says that at least 356 doctrinal
passages are affected by the differences between the
Textus Receptus and the
Nestle-Aland Greek Text.
Some familiar examples of Gospel passages in the
Textus Receptus thought to have been added
by later interpolaters and omitted in the Nestle Aland Greek Text
include the
Pericope Adulteræ
(John 7:53 - 8:11), the
Comma
Johanneum (1 John 5:7–8), and the longer ending in
Mark 16 (Mark 16:9-20).
Many modern Bibles have footnotes to indicate areas where there is
disagreement between source documents. Bible commentaries offer
discussions of these.
Inerrantist response
Evangelical inerrantists
Evangelical Christians
generally accept the findings of
textual criticism, and nearly all modern
translations, including the popular
New International Version, work
from a Greek New Testament based on modern textual criticism.
Since this means that the manuscript copies are not perfect,
inerrancy is only applied to the original autographs (the
manuscripts written by the original authors) rather than the
copies. For instance, the
Chicago Statement on
Biblical Inerrancy says,
We affirm that inspiration,
strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of
Scripture
Less commonly, more conservative views are held by some
groups:
King James Only inerrantists
A faction of those in the "The
King-James-Only Movement" rejects
the whole discipline of
textual
criticism and holds that the translators of the
King James Version English Bible were
guided by God, and that the KJV thus is to be taken as the
authoritative English Bible. However, those who hold this opinion
do not extend it to the KJV translation into English of the
Apocryphal books, which were
produced along with the rest of the Authorized Version. Modern
translations differ from the KJV on numerous points, sometimes
resulting from access to different early texts, largely as a result
of work in the field of
Textual
Criticism. Upholders of the KJV-only position nevertheless hold
that the
Protestant canon of KJV is
itself an inspired text and therefore remains authoritative. The
King-James-Only Movement
asserts that the KJV is the
sole English translation free from error.
Textus Receptus
Similar to the King James Only view is the view that
translations must be derived from the
Textus Receptus in order to be considered
inerrant. As the King James Version is an English translation, this
leaves speakers of other languages in a difficult position, hence
the belief in the Textus Receptus as the inerrant source text for
translations to modern languages. For example, in Spanish-speaking
cultures the commonly accepted "KJV-equivalent" is the
Reina-Valera 1909 revision (with different
groups accepting, in addition to the 1909 or in its place, the
revisions of 1862 or 1960). It should also be noted that the
New King James Version was
also translated from the Textus Receptus.
Logic for arriving at the doctrine of inerrancy
A number of reasons are offered by Christian theologians to justify
Biblical inerrancy.
Norman Geisler and
William Nix (1986) claim that scriptural
inerrancy is established by a number of observations and processes,
which include:
- * the historical accuracy of the Bible
- * the Bible's claims of its own inerrancy
- * church history and tradition
- * one's individual experience with God
Daniel B. Wallace, Professor of New Testament at
Dallas Theological
Seminary, divides the various evidences into two approaches -
deductive and inductive approaches.
Deductive Reasoning to arrive at Inerrancy
The first deductive justification is that the Bible claims to be
inspired by God (for instance "
All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness" (
2 Timothy 3:16
NIV), and because God is perfect, the Bible must
also be perfect, and hence free from error. For instance, the
statement of faith of the
Evangelical Theological
Society says, "
The Bible alone, and the Bible in its
entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in
the autographs."
A second reason offered is that
Jesus and the
apostles used the
Old Testament in a
way which assumes it is inerrant. For instance in Galatians 3:16,
Paul bases his argument on the fact
that the word "seed" in the Genesis reference to "Abraham and his
seed", is singular rather than plural. This (as claimed) sets a
precedent for inerrant interpretation down to the individual
letters of the words.
Similarly Jesus said that every minute detail of the Old Testament
Law must be fulfilled (Matthew 5:18), indicating (it is claimed)
that every detail must be correct.
Although in these verses Jesus and the apostles are only referring
to the
Old Testament, the argument
extends to the
New Testament writings,
because 2 Peter 3:16 accords the status of Scripture to New
Testament writings also: "
He (Paul) writes the same way in all
his letters... which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they
do the other Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:16,
NIV).
Another deductive argument would be the strength of falsifiability.
The argument is that Biblical inerrancy is a falsifiable stance (it
can be proven false), therefore if it were false it would be proven
false. If Biblical errors are proven, the Bible is false.
Inductive Reasoning to arrive at Inerrancy
Wallace describes the inductive approach by enlisting the
Presbyterian theologian
Benjamin Breckinridge
Warfield:
In his Inspiration and Authority of the Bible,
Warfield lays out an argument for inerrancy that has been virtually
ignored by today’s evangelicals.
Essentially, he makes a case for inerrancy on the basis
of inductive evidence, rather than deductive
reasoning.
Most evangelicals today follow E.
J.
Young’s deductive approach toward bibliology,
forgetting the great articulator of inerrancy.
But Warfield starts with the evidence that the Bible is
a historical document, rather than with the presupposition that it
is inspired.
In Lutheranism
Lutherans traditionally hold the Bible
as without error because of what they hold about its inspiration,
authority and sufficiency.
Inspiration
People who believe in inerrancy think that the Bible does not
merely contain the Word of God, but every word of it is, because of
verbal inspiration, the direct, immediate word of God. As Lutherans
confess in the
Nicene Creed, the Holy
Spirit "spoke through the prophets". The
Apology of the Augsburg
Confession identifies Holy Scripture with the Word of God and
calls the Holy Spirit the author of the Bible. Because of this,
Lutherans confess in the
Formula of
Concord, "we receive and embrace with our whole heart the
prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as
the pure, clear fountain of Israel." The apocryphal books were not
written by the prophets, by inspiration; they contain errors and
were never included in the Palestinian Canon that Jesus used, and
therefore are not a part of Holy Scripture. The prophetic and
apostolic Scriptures are authentic as written by the prophets and
apostles. A correct translation of their writings is God's Word
because it has the same meaning as the original Hebrew and Greek. A
mistranslation is not God's word, and no human authority can invest
it with divine authority.
Divine authority
For a believer in biblical inerrancy, Holy Scripture is the Word of
God, and carries the full authority of God. Every single statement
of the Bible calls for instant and unqualified acceptance. Every
doctrine of the Bible is the teaching of God and therefore requires
full agreement. Every promise of the Bible calls for unshakable
trust in its fulfillment. Every command of the Bible is the
directive of God himself and therefore demands willing
observance.
Sufficiency
According to some believers, the Bible contains everything that
they need to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a
Christian life, and there are no deficiencies in Scripture that
need to be filled with by
tradition, pronouncements of the Pope,
new
revelations, or present-day
development of doctrine.
Some Clarifications of the Doctrine of Inerrancy
Inerrancy as Accurate v. True
Harold Lindsell points out that it is a "gross distortion" to state
that people who believe in inerrancy suppose every statement made
in the Bible is true (as opposed to accurate). He indicates there
are expressly false statements in the Bible which are reported
accurately (for example, Satan is a liar whose lies are accurately
reported as to what he/she/it actually said).
Limitations of inerrancy
Many who believe in the
Inspiration of scripture teach
that it is
infallible but not inerrant.
Those who subscribe to infallibility believe that what the
scriptures say regarding matters of faith and Christian practice
are wholly useful and true. Some denominations that teach
infallibility hold that the historical or scientific details, which
may be irrelevant to matters of faith and Christian practice, may
contain errors. Those who believe in inerrancy hold that the
scientific, geographic, and historic details of the scriptural
texts in their original manuscripts are completely true and without
error, though the scientific claims of scripture must be
interpreted in the light of its
phenomenological nature, not just
with strict, clinical literality, which was foreign to historical
narratives.
Proponents of biblical inerrancy generally do not teach that the
Bible was dictated directly by God, but that God used the
"distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers" of
scripture and that
God's
inspiration guided them to flawlessly project his message
through their own language and personality.
Infallibility and inerrancy refer to the original texts of the
Bible. And while conservative scholars acknowledge the potential
for human error in transmission and translation, modern
translations are considered to "faithfully represent the
originals".
Criticisms of biblical inerrancy
Scientific and historical criticism
Biblical inerrancy has been criticized on the grounds that many
statements, including, but not exclusively,
history or
science that are
found in Scripture, if taken literally, rather than
phenomenologically, are untenable or contradictory.
Inerrancy is argued to be a
falsifiable proposition: if the Bible is found
to contain any mistakes or
contradictions, the
proposition of strict inerrancy has been refuted. Many inerrantists
have offered explanations of why these are not errors .
Theological criticisms
Theological criticisms refers to criticisms which are that
the Bible does not teach, or require, its own inerrancy.
Proponents of biblical inerrancy often prefer the translations of
that render it as "all scripture is given by inspiration of God,"
and they interpret this to mean that the whole Bible is inerrant.
However, critics of this doctrine think that the Bible makes no
direct claim to be inerrant or infallible.
C H
Dodd argues the same sentence can also be translated "Every
inspired scripture is also useful..." nor does the verse define the
Biblical canon. In context, this
passage refers only to the Old Testament writings understood to be
scripture at the time it was written. However there are indications
that Paul's writings were being considered, at least by the author
of the
Second Epistle of
Peter ( ), as comparable to the Old Testament.
The idea that the Bible contains no mistakes is mainly justified by
appeal to
prooftexts that refer to its
divine inspiration. However, this argument has been criticized as
circular reasoning, because these
statements only have to be accepted as true if the Bible is already
thought to be inerrant. None of these texts say that because a text
is inspired, it is therefore always correct in its historical
statements.
Meaning of "Word of God"
Much debate over the kind of authority that should be accorded
biblical texts centers on what is meant by the "Word of God". The
term can refer to
Christ himself as
well as to the proclamation of his ministry as
kerygma. However, biblical inerrancy differs from
this orthodoxy in viewing the Word of God to mean the entire text
of the Bible when interpreted didactically as God's teaching. The
idea of the Bible itself as Word of God, as being itself God's
revelation, is criticized in
neo-orthodoxy. Here the Bible is seen as a
unique witness to the people and deeds that do make up the Word of
God. However, it is a wholly human witness. All books of the Bible
were written by human beings. Thus, whether the Bible is - in whole
or in part - the Word of God is not clear. However, critics argue
that the Bible can still be construed as the "Word of
God" in the sense that these authors' statements may
have been representative of, and perhaps even directly influenced
by, God's own knowledge.
There is only one instance in the Bible where the phrase "the Word
of God" refers to something "written". The reference is to the
Decalogue. However, most of the
other references are to reported speech that is preserved in the
Bible. The New Testament also contains a number of statements which
refer to passages from the Old Testament as God's words, for
instance Romans 3:2 (which says that the Jews have been "entrusted
with the very words of God"), or the book of
Hebrews, which often prefaces Old
Testament quotations with words such as "God says." The Bible also
contains words spoken by human beings
about God, such as
Eliphaz (Job 42:7) and the prayers and
songs of the Psalter. That these are God's words addressed to us
was at the root of a lively mediaeval controversy. The idea of the
word of God is more that God is encountered in scripture, than that
every line of scripture is a statement made by God.
While the phrase "the Word of God" is never applied to the modern
Bible within the Bible itself, supporters of inerrancy argue that
that is simply because the Biblical canon was not closed.
In I
Thessalonians 2:13, the apostle Paul
wrote to the church in Thessalonica
"when you received the word of God which you heard
from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in
truth, the word of God."
Practical objections
Practical objections refers to arguments which do not seek
to disprove inerrancy
per se, but which attempt to
demonstrate that the Bible is irrelevant or meaningless.
Translation
Translation has given rise to a number of issues, as the original
languages are often quite different in grammar as well as word
meaning. While the
Chicago Statement on
Biblical Inerrancy states that inerrancy applies only to the
original
languages, some believers trust
their own translation to be the accurate one. One such group of
believers is known as the
King-James-Only Movement. For
readability, clarity, or other reasons, translators may choose
different wording or sentence structure, and some translations may
choose to paraphrase passages. Because some of the words in the
original language have ambiguous or difficult to translate
meanings, debates over the correct interpretation occur.
Criticisms are also sometimes raised because of inconsistencies
arising between different English translations of the Hebrew or
Greek text. Some Christian interpretations are criticized for
reflecting specific doctrinal bias or a variant reading between the
Masoretic Hebrew and Septuagint Greek manuscripts often quoted in
the New Testament.
Translation of Almah as Virgin ': reads: "All
this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the
prophet: 'The virgin will be with child and will give
birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel'—which
means, 'God with us.' " From the earliest
days of Christianity, Jewish critics
have argued that Christians were mistaken in their reading of the
word almah ("עלמה") in
. Jewish translations of the verse from
Isaiah read: "Behold, the young woman is with child and
will bear a son and she will call his name
Immanuel." Moreover, it is claimed that
Christians have taken this verse out of context (see Immanuel for further
information).
The Greek text of uses the term "parthenos," which is the usual
Greek word for virgin:
However, the Hebrew text at uses the word
almah:
The Jewish translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek that was
in use during the first century, the
Septuagint, uses the word "parthenos" ("virgin")
in rather than the usual Greek word "neanis" for "young woman". The
Septuagint's Greek term (parthenos) is considered by many to be an
inexact rendering of the Hebrew word
`almah in the text of
Isaiah.
The use of the Hebrew word "almah" in the Hebrew
Masoretic Text of Isaiah has stirred debate
among translators and has resulted in variations between Bible
translations, with some translations using "young woman" as does
the
New English Translation
or NET Bible:
The text from the
Luther Bible uses the
German word "Jungfrau", which is composed literally of the words
"young" and "woman", although it is common to use this word for
"virgin". This ambiguity results in a similar reading to the
original Hebrew in the text of Jesaja (Isaiah) 7:14. "Darum wird
euch der HERR selbst ein Zeichen geben: Siehe, eine Jungfrau ist
schwanger und wird einen Sohn gebären, den wird sie nennen
Immanuel."
[38481] in English: "For this reason, the LORD himself
will give to you (plural) a sign: See, a virgin/young woman is
pregnant and will bear a son, whom she will name Immanuel."
Some scholars contend that debates over the precise meaning of
bethulah ("בתולה"-virgin) and
almah (young woman)
are misguided because no Hebrew word encapsulates the idea of
certain virginity.
Martin Luther also
argued that the debate was irrelevant, not because the words do not
clearly mean virgin, but because
almah and
bethulah were functional synonyms.
(For more information, see the articles on the
Virgin birth of Jesus and
Isaiah 7:14.)
The
Nazarene prophecy:
Another example is : "And he came and dwelt in a city called
Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'" The website for
Jews for Judaism claims that "Since
a Nazarene is a resident of the city of Nazareth and this city did
not exist during the time period of the Jewish Bible, it is
impossible to find this quotation in the Hebrew Scriptures. It was
fabricated." However, one common suggestion is that the New
Testament verse is based on a passage relating to
Nazirites, either because this was a
misunderstanding common at the time, or through deliberate
re-reading of the term by the early Christians. Another suggestion
is "that Matthew was playing on the similarity of the Hebrew word
nezer (translated 'Branch' or 'shoot' in and ) with the
Greek
nazoraios, here translated 'Nazarene.'" Christians
also suggest that by using an indirect quotation and the plural
term prophets, "Matthew was only saying that by living in Nazareth,
Jesus was fulfilling the many Old Testament prophecies that He
would be despised and rejected. The background for this is
illustrated by Philip's initial response in to the idea that Jesus
might be the Messiah: "Nazareth! Can anything good come from
there?"
See also
Notes
- The Epistle of Barnabas and The
Shepherd of Hermas
- See Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture
and the Faiths We Never Knew, p. 219
- See Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture
and the Faiths We Never Knew, p. 220
- The Textual Reliability of the New Testament
mp3 of debate
- Jack Moorman, Missing In Modern Bibles - Is the Full Story
Being Told?, Bible for Today, 1989, 83 pages
- My Take on Inerrancy, bible.org website
- About
the ETS, Evangelical Theological
Society web site
- "Bible, Inerrancy and Infallibility of", by P.D.Feinberg, in
Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker, 1984, Ed.
W.Elwell)
- Bible, Inspiration of, by Nigel M. de S.
Cameron, in "Baker's Evanglical Dictionary of Biblical
Theology", Edited by Walter A. Elwell, Baker, 1996
- , , , , , , , , , ,
- "God's Word, or Holy Scripture" from the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article II, of
Original Sin
- "the Scripture of the Holy Ghost." Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Preface, 9
- The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord,
"Rule and Norm", 3.
- (Tobit 6, 71; 2 Macc. 12, 43 f.; 14, 411),
- See Bible, Canon in the Christian Cyclopedia
- , , , , , , , ,
- , , , , , , , , , , ,
- , , , , ,
- , , , , , ,
- , , , ,
- , , , ,
- Lindsell, Harold. "The Battle for the Bible", Zondervan
Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA (1976), pg. 38.
- Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,
Article VIII
- Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,
Article X
- C H Dodd, 'The Authority of the Bible' page 25, London,
1960.
- New Jerusalem Bible, study edition, page 1967, DLT 1994
- New Jerusalem Bible, page 2010, footnote (i) DLT 1985
- James Barr, 'Fundamentalism' p.72ff, SCM 1977.
- James Barr, 'Fundamentalism' pp.218-219 SCM 1977
- Exodus
claims of the Ethical Decalogue and Ritual Decalogue
that these are God's word.
- Uriel Simon, "Four Appraoches to the Book of Psalms" chap.
1
- Alexander Ryrie "Deliver Us From Evil" DLT 2004
- Jew for Judaism
- Dialogue of Justin Martyr, with Trypho, a Jew,
LXIII
- The NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon
- Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University
Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-10-280290-3), article Virgin Birth of
Christ
- Charles D. Isbell, Biblical Archaeological Review,
June 1977, "Does the Gospel of Matthew Proclaim Mary’s
Virginity?"
- Martin Luther, "That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew," in Luther's
Works, vol. 45: The Christian in Society II, ed. H. T. Lehmann
(Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1962).
- Jews
for Judaism website See also "Given the New Testament a Chance?" from the Messiah
Truth website
- David Sper, Managing Editor, "Questions Skeptics Ask About Messianic Prophecies,"
RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI, 1997
- See , ; , ; , , , ;
References
- Gleason Archer, 2001. New
Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties. ISBN 0-310-24146-4
- N. T.
Wright, The Last Word: Beyond Bible
Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture.
Harper-San Francisco, 2005. ISBN 0-06-081609-4
- Kathleen C. Boone: The Bible Tells Them So: The Discourse
of Protestant Fundamentalism, State Univ of New York Press
1989, ISBN 0-88706-895-2
- Ethelbert W.Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the
Bible Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1970.
- Bart D. Ehrman, 2003. Lost Christianities: The
Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford
University Press, Inc. ISBN 0-19-518249-9
- .
- Norman Geisler, ed. (1980).
Inerrancy. ISBN 0-310-39281-0.
- Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, (1999) When Critics Ask: A
Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties.
- Norman Geisler and William E. Nix., A General Introduction
to the Bible, Moody Publishers; Rev&Expndd edition (August
1986), ISBN 0-8024-2916-5
- .
- Walter C. Kaiser, Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce, Manfred T. Brauch. (1996). Hard
Sayings of the Bible
- Charles Caldwell Ryrie
(1981). What you should know about inerrancy. ISBN
0-8024-8785-8
- Sproul, R. C.. Hath God Said? ( video series).
- John Walvoord (1990). What We
Believe: Understanding and Applying the Basics of Christian
Life. ISBN 0-929239-31-8
- Warfield, B. B. (1977 reprint). Inspiration and
Authority of Bible, with a lengthy introductory essay by
Cornelius Van Til. ISBN
0-8010-9586-7.
- Dei Verbum Dogmatic Constitution on Divine
Revelation (1965)
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