Biblical Inerrancy

Biblical Inerrancy

A topic that comes up in conversation for me with some frequency is that of Biblical inerrancy. It is something that sneaks itself into various conversations on a wide range of issues and seems to be surrounded by all kinds of assumptions that I feel are simply not true. To that end, I have decided to write out my thoughts on the topic of Biblical inerrancy.

Before I begin, I feel that a disclaimer is in order. It must be said at the very beginning that I do not identify myself as one who subscribes to Biblical inerrancy (precisely for the reasons outlined below), but I would like to encourage, as much as I can, for anyone who reads this to do so knowing that this is in no way intended to be an anti-Bible essay. I believe the Bible to be remarkably important, it is truly the sole source and norm for our faith and practice and that it is an irreplaceable witness to what God has done that is vitally important for us to take very seriously and to submit ourselves to the radical critiques that it makes on our lives. Reading the Bible has had an absolutely transforming effect on my life. I continue to read and study the Bible and I continue to use it as the basis of my preaching as a pastor. It should also be noted at the beginning that, though I do not subscribe to Biblical inerrancy, neither do I identify myself as a theological Liberal. To me the Liberal tradition is just as deeply problematic. In fact, a large portion of my critique, though at a tacit level, is that Biblical inerrancy has Liberal roots, inasmuch as it is, in its modern form, just another way of dealing with the challenge of Liberalism and so bears its stamp.

A distinction must be made here between Biblical inerrancy and Biblical infallibility. From one point of view, the words inerrant and infallible are synonyms; from another, infallible is actually a stronger term because while inerrancy implies that there are no errors, infallible implies that there can be no errors. However, in spite of how the words might be used elsewhere in discourse, within the context of this issue, they have become technical terms. Specifically, inerrancy is a stronger term than infallibility. Biblical infallibility states that, in matters of faith and life that is, what we believe and how we live, the Bible is absolutely trustworthy and must be taken seriously. Biblical inerrancy asserts that every part of the Bible (down to the very words) is true in every sense of the word. The reason for this is because, if it were not true in any sense of the word, the whole authority of the Bible would collapse.

It should be noted that the mainstream of inerrancy, when pushed (or even just when clarifying their position), will qualify their position by saying that the Biblical texts are inerrant "in the autographs," which means the texts were inerrant when they were originally written. Now, why would someone feel it necessary to make that clarification? Why not just say the Bible is inerrant, especially since that is how it plays itself out in day-to-day Christian life? The reason is because even those who hold to inerrancy are not convinced that the copies we have today are really inerrant. The impulse for affirming that the autographs were inerrant is understandable because such a view needs to affirm that the text, at least as given by God, is perfect in every sense of the word, but it is my contention that such a qualification actually destroys the whole inerrancist position.

The point is made that the Bible must be affirmed to be true in every sense of the word because if any part is not true in any sense of the word, the authority of the Bible falls to the ground. The reason why this is the case is because, once you have made the argument that one part of the Bible may not be true, we are left with the question, "Why do we say that about this part and not about some other part?" Before long, a questioning of one part of the Bible becomes a questioning of the entire Bible. If we judge the text to be errant based on some extra-biblical criterion, why can't we apply that to the whole of the Bible? And yet, the admission that the Biblical texts are only inerrant in the original autographs brings the problem back in for this simple fact. We do not have access to the original autographs. It is true that the Bible is just as reliable, both from a literary and a historical point of view, as any other ancient text, but what we have is not identical to the original autographs. However, though we have a high degree of certainty that our copies are not the originals, we cannot be certain precisely which parts were in deviation from those autographs. After all, if we could, we could simply restore our copies to the original. However, if our copies are not identical with the autographs, and we can not point to precisely where those discrepancies are to be found, what can stop us from saying that any particular point is in deviation from the originals? Yes, there is an absolutely reliable source of doctrine, but if we have no access to it, we are back to square one.

Another interesting weakness to the inerrancist position is put forward by Donald G. Bloesch, a leading evangelical theologian who passed away just recently. In his Essentials of Evangelical Theology, he says this. "The rise of pseudo-Christian cults that champion biblical inerrancy has been a source of embarrassment to those who contend that this doctrine is the foundation stone and practical guarantee of orthodoxy." He names groups like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons in the endnote as concrete examples of this tendency. Clearly, Bloesch notes, inerrancy as such does not guarantee orthodoxy. It should be noted that, though the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons also have other authoritative texts outside the Old and New Testaments (or rely on a particular version of them), other groups such as Unitarian (Oneness) Pentecostals fall into the same boat.

There is one more methodological objection to Biblical inerrancy before I go into a concrete analysis of the shortcomings of the position and how I deal with the problems posed by the Biblical text. It is my greatest concern that, in point of fact, Biblical inerrancy ends up being an idolatrous position. My biggest concern is a theological one, not that it takes the Bible very seriously, allowing it supremacy over our culture and our own opinions, but because it also gives it supremacy over Christ himself and transforms him into nothing more than just one more of the doctrines that the Bible teaches and one we should affirm on the basis of that Biblical authority, rather than emphasizing that the Bible is the written witness to the living Word of God that actually encounters us.

An example is appropriate here. A local physician and leader in a nearby local church wrote an essay in defense of Biblical inerrancy which was made part of his church's official resources for its members. It is a fairly long treatment of the issue, but in my judgment only the first few paragraphs actually dealt with the issue of inerrancy and about the alleged difficulties that arise, merely from denying it. The overwhelming majority of the work was concerned with demonstrating the historical reliability of the Bible, especially as compared to other ancient writings. In this, I agree in every regard. There is a reason why, when archaeologists have wanted to locate an ancient city in the Ancient Near East, they go to the Bible first to try to find out where it may be located. There have been doubts about the existence of groups of people spoken of in the Bible that have been consistently cast aside by subsequent research. If we ignore the problem of induction (which plagues all science, not just historical science), there is much to compel us to conclude that any other parts of the Bible that are open to doubt will be vindicated eventually.

What is interesting is that, though this is a fairly common way to articulate and defend Biblical inerrancy, it actually undermines it and proves my point. The question is whether the position of Biblical inerrancy relies on justification from historical and archaeological science to stand. If it does not, it makes one wonder why so much effort is taken to demonstrate the Bible's historicity. If the Bible's authority is supreme, even over historical and archaeological science, why use the results of such science used as reasons one should believe in the inerrancy of the Bible? If the legitimacy of inerrancy does indeed depend on the findings of historical and archaeological science, it undermines the position altogether. After all, it implies that the Bible is, in point of fact, not of ultimate authority but rather that historical and archaeological science has the final word. It is my contention that, in this particular treatment of the issue, the amount of time and energy spent on defending the historical reliability of the Bible shows that inerrancy cannot stand on its own but must be bolstered by an outside authority.

I would like to move now to a concrete examination of how Biblical inerrancy plays itself out, but before I do so, I must make one more observation. The real problem that we are trying to overcome with a doctrine of biblical inerrancy is the problem of interpretation as opposed to looking at what the text actually says. Once we cross the gap from looking at what the words on the page say to what we say they must mean (that is, placing a particular interpretation on the words that cannot be reduced to the words themselves), we have given up inerrancy. Allow me to demonstrate.

1 Kings 7:23 is a relatively unexciting text. It lies merely in the account of the building of Solomon's Temple, specifically within the context of Hiram the bronzeworker making various items for it. It reads this way (NASB), "Now he made the sea of cast metal ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and its height was five cubits, and thirty cubits in circumference." The problem that arises here, that many have noticed, is that the text says that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of this circular object is 3:1, which is not true (that is to say, it is not true in the absolutely most strict sense of "true" which is what we are talking about when we are dealing with Biblical inerrancy), as the ratio is π:1. This is a more striking issue than even the evolution controversy, since we are not concerned here with a question of evidence, but the simple fact that such a ratio is not 3:1.

Now, many people have come up with explanations for this, most commonly by running to 2 Chronicles 4:2 where the same details are given and by pointing out that 2 Chronicles 4:5 names the thickness of the sea as a hand's breadth. The argument goes that, if we take into account the thickness of the brim and compare the inner diameter with the outer circumference, we get a result that is remarkably close to the value for Pi (though again, not exact, though we will not press this point). My concern is that this, first of all, does not deal with the text as it appears in 1 Kings but interprets it in light of another text altogether. At the very least, this technique demonstrates that all parts of the Bible are not evenly weighted, that 2 Chronicles 4:2, 5 is a more important text than 1 Kings 7:23 and the latter should be interpreted in light of the former and not the other way around. I think that this raises the question "Who decides which texts are more accurate and how can we determine which texts are clear and which are unclear?" but that is not the direction I plan to go with this.

The fact of the matter is that, in both texts, the diameter and circumference are mentioned in the same breath, without even so much as a hint that we are not dealing with two different circles. It certainly appears, based only on the text, that regardless of whether we are talking about the inner or the outer circumference, we are dealing with the same circle. To argue that we can use the diameter of one circle and the circumference of another requires that we make an argument that goes above and beyond the words on the page and stems from a preconceived notion of precisely how we must get the words on the page to work out. That is, the text does not stand on its own, but must be interpreted to bring it into line with mathematical observations, so it must be carefully interpreted to make it work out.

So, we are left with a few options if we hope to keep this text while still holding to the innerancist position. The first is to say that, whatever mathematicians have found, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of circles in general is actually 3:1. This falls to the ground unless we wish to subscribe to a wholesale rejection of mathematics, which would be, in my judgment, a foolish thing to do. A more moderate position is to say that, whatever might be the case with other circles, this circle has a ratio of 3:1. This, however, does not solve the problem, because now we have an example where the events and items spoken of in the Bible have no real connection to anything else in our world, which undermines its authority to speak to us.

A third option (which encompasses the standard solution just mentioned above) is to say something along these lines. "Look, if we look at the history of mathematics, we find that human beings have always known that the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle is a little more than 3:1, but they only began to get any kind of conceptual clarity around the issue until about 400AD. The text in question is describing events that took place around 1000BC, 1400 years earlier. Maybe, just maybe, God wasn't concerned with getting such minute issues exactly right, as they have no bearing on any aspect of life, and maybe when the text says 'circle' it means 'something pretty darn close to a circle.' In that case, what good would it have been for God to say 'Make it 10 cubits across and 31.4159265359... cubits around?' None at all. It would only have bewildered the people. What really mattered? Getting the thing built. What harm is there in saying that God simply said, 'Make it ten across and thirty around; it's close enough for jazz?'" This is a position that I wholeheartedly embrace, but there is a serious problem for Biblical inerrancy that only becomes clear when we play out its implications.

The fact of the matter is that I know of no Christian, inerrancist or otherwise, who would say that any aspect of Christian faith stands or falls depending on our interpretation of 1 Kings 7:23. But if we take this third option, we have made a tremendous step. We have said that the text as a text cannot stand on its own; we must interpret it based on what we know to be the case independently of the text itself (whether simply because of mathematical considerations or by saying it must be interpreted in light of another text and is inadequate on its own). We have made a significant leap away from the text as such into the world of interpretation. We have said, "The text might say that the ratio is three to one, but what the text means is that it is close enough or that there is some other explanation." Let us now move on and see what can become of this position.

What would happen if we were to turn to Genesis 1? What if we were to say, "The text might say that creation took place in six days (defined as the sun coming up and going down, implying a day of 24 hours), but what the text means is that creation took place in an orderly way that follows this general pattern but that the word 'day' must be interpreted as 'period of time.'" Not every Christian would object to this, but there are many that would. And yet, at the end of the day, the crucial distinction between what we did with 1 Kings 7:23 and what we have done here are not fundamentally different. We have taken a text and said that it cannot stand on its own but must be interpreted in light of something we know elsewhere. Nothing but a sheer force of will can make someone say, "We can take that step with 1 Kings 7:23 but we cannot take it with Genesis 1."

To take it a step further, let us look at the accounts of Christ's Resurrection from the dead. What if we were to say (as many have done), "The text might say that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead in glory, but what the text means is that, on Easter morning, the disciples had such a profound encounter with the spirit of Christ (not without parallel in the history of Hinduism) that it was as if he had been raised from the dead." This is where many (if not all) Christians, myself included, should stand up and say, "That is going too far." If there is one thing that is necessary to keep the New Testament documents from falling into unintelligibility, it is the physical, literal resurrection from the dead. The resurrection is not just another doctrine to believe, it forms the epistemological cornerstone of all our faith. If Christ was not really raised from the dead, as Paul says "We are of all people most to be pitied."

And yet, if we have made the leap into interpretation based on external insights back in 1 Kings 7:23 (or anywhere else, I might add), on what grounds can we stand and say that a purely metaphorical interpretation of the resurrection is unacceptable? I think that, ultimately, this gets at the heart of the whole impetus of the Biblical inerrancist position. Nobody thinks that the gospel stands or falls with the diameter of the sea in Solomon's Temple, but it certainly does with the resurrection of Christ. How can we be flexible (or even self-consciously non-literal) with the former and not with the latter? It is precisely because it is hard to find a way to do this within the interpretational worldview fostered by Western culture that we find ourselves pushed into an affirmation of inerrancy. We desperately want to defend the resurrection and the incarnation and the only way we can see to do this is to affirm inerrancy.

I think that the whole view of Biblical inerrancy is an inverting of how things ought to be and a simple observation from our most basic Christian experience should help to make it clear. Very few, if any, of us, became Christians because we had a high doctrine of the Bible first and then were convinced of the gospel because it was in the Bible. Most of us encountered the living Lord first and only after that were driven to the text. We do not believe in Jesus because the Bible teaches about him (as if the Bible was the supreme authority and Jesus was merely one of the many doctrines taught in it), but rather we read the Bible because we have been confronted by God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit and the Bible is the only place to turn for reliable information about Christ.

So, as I said at the beginning of this essay, I do not subscribe to Biblical inerrancy. For what it is worth, most inerrancists whom I have taken through this whole line of thought have said that they don't take as rigid a position as I portray. My response is that, in point of fact, whatever term they may use, they are not inerrancists in the classical sense, but are likely infalliblists, which is based on weaker claims (weaker in the sense that they do not claim as much, not that they are weak arguments). One might ask me, "If you reject Biblical inerrancy, do you affirm that the Bible is inspired?" My answer is that yes, I do indeed believe the Bible is inspired. My understanding, however, is that biblical inspiration is much more complex and dynamic that most people think.

As is clear by my argument so far, I do not think that the Bible is primarily inspired in its writing, that is, I do not think that God is the only author of the Bible in the sense that the words are merely a transcript of God's words to the human who actually put pen to paper. Some strands of inerrancy argue that the Bible is even a transcript of the very thoughts of God (a view that is not the mainstream and has disastrous consequences for our doctrine of God). I used to think that this view was a fairly recent one, that it only arose in protest of theological Liberalism. I have been convinced since then by Karl Barth that this has been present in at least a few thinkers throughout the whole history of the church (Barth's argument and historical survey is long, but culminates in his Church Dogmatics I.2, pg. 529-30).

I commented at the beginning that, though I am not an inerrancist, I am also not even close to what many would call a theological Liberal. I believe in a literal incarnation, virgin birth, resurrection, and miracles. In light of this, it should come as no surprise that I do not believe that the Bible is primarily inspired in its reading. That is, though I believe that God actually does speak anew to us as we read the Bible, I do not think that we can reduce all the inspiration of the Bible to the activity of the Spirit as we read the text. After all, if it were nothing more than the Spirit moving and the text is not involved, why should we expect God to speak through the Bible and not other works of literature (such as Huckleberry Finn, as a professor of mine suggested)? I think that, though we cannot reduce the inspiration of the Bible to the text on the page, it must involve it or else we will end up with a view that is even less satisfying than inerrancy.

My understanding of inspiration flows more or less directly from my doctrine of Christ. It is my contention that Christ is, in the final analysis, the real foundation of the Christian faith, that it is not on the inerrancy of the Bible but on the living Person of Christ with which the gospel stands or falls. This manifests itself in dialogue with some Christians as a need to place Sola Christus above Sola Scriptura or even Sola Fidei. It manifests itself in dialogue with others by modifying the statement, "God will never reveal anything to you through his Spirit that is contrary to what is written in the Bible," with "God will never reveal anything to you through his Spirit that is contrary to what he has revealed of himself through Christ." It is given tremendously clear expression in the words of T. F. Torrance. "Now if we think of Jesus Christ in this way as the Truth in his own Person, our statements about him, biblical or theological statements, cannot be true in the same sense as Jesus Christ is true, for they do not have their truth in themselves but in their reference to him away from themselves, and they are true insofar as that reference is truthful and appropriate" (Reality and Evangelical Theology, 124).

My understanding of the role of the Bible is also deeply connected to the Christian doctrine of the ascension of Christ. In Christ, God himself came among us in a particular place and at a particular time. During that time, he taught, he lived and he formed a community of redeemed sinners to take the good news out to the whole world. And then, after he was raised from the dead and met with his disciples for forty days, he ascended to heaven. There is not only a particular location in space-time where God came to meet with us, there is also a particular location in space-time where God departed from being physically present. By doing so, God has marked off the years of Christ's earthly life and ministry to be the covenanted place where he can be met; he has subordinated all theological activity, all pretended claims to inspiration to those concrete years and that concrete revelation of himself in our midst.

It is because of this, because of these Christological considerations, that we cannot do away with the radically important place of the Bible in our Christian lives. To try to avoid the Bible as the source and norm of our Christian knowledge is to try to avoid the centrality of Christ and to look elsewhere to find God, that is, to search for God where God cannot be found. Not only this (as one might claim that the argument so far only sanctions the use of the gospels), but the fact that God did not become incarnate in a cultural vacuum but did so in Israel as a Jew, "born of a woman, born under the law," we must take the Old Testament seriously for without it, we cannot rightly understand the revelation of God in Christ. Additionally, because Christ did not simply come and go, but specifically commissioned the apostles to go and proclaim, their post-resurrection activities and pastoral correspondence is of incredible importance and cannot be jettisoned without tremendous disaster (not to mention the arrogance of assuming that we can understand Christ from our foreign culture and language better than those who lived with him for years). Unless one can find another collection of texts that so comprehensively bears witness, not just to Christ, but to the whole historical context, both before and the generation after Christ, we are not free to dispose of Biblical revelation.

I do not expect that everyone will agree with these arguments, and some may even become angry with me as I have come from a decidedly Evangelical background and am self-consciously departing from orthodoxy as defined by that community. I only stress once again that my doing so is not rooted in any way, shape or form in a rejection of the Bible, but in absolutely radical devotion to Christ as the Lord and center, not only of my life, but of all.