{"id":1927,"date":"2010-08-30T08:34:18","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T15:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/blog\/archives\/implications_of_inerrancy"},"modified":"2023-09-20T10:44:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T17:44:57","slug":"implications_of_inerrancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/blog\/archives\/implications_of_inerrancy","title":{"rendered":"Implications of Inerrancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In anticipation of the 2011 conference, The Bible Tells Me So<\/a>, I recently blogged about errors and inconsistencies I’ve discovered in the Bible. My main point was that the Bible doesn’t have to be in all ways inerrant for God to use it when offering us salvation.<\/p>\n

I appreciate the responses I’ve received to my earlier blog on biblical inerrancy<\/a>. They have pushed me to think in new ways.<\/p>\n

There is another reason Christian scholars are uncomfortable using the word “inerrant” regarding the Bible.  The Bibles we read today did not come directly from original manuscripts or autographs.<\/p>\n

As far as we know, those original copies no longer exist. The Bibles we today read have been translated from various bits and pieces of scripture. The oldest manuscripts available were printed centuries after the books were originally written.<\/p>\n

The issue of original biblical manuscripts gets a twist when we consider the books Christians generally call the “Old Testament.”  These books were written in Hebrew.  By the time of Jesus, however, Jews were no longer speaking Hebrew.  Instead, Jesus and others spoke Aramaic and Greek. <\/p>\n

Hebrew words of the original Old Testament writings did not have vowels.  It was not until centuries after Jesus was resurrected that a group of individuals called the Maserites invented and inserted a system of vowels in the Hebrew text.  The biblical Hebrew we have today is partly the result of their work. <\/p>\n

This means that the texts used to translate the books of the Old Testament were altered long ago.  And even if the “autographs” were miraculously found in some cave, knowing exactly how each word should be translated would be impossible.<\/p>\n

So… how have Christians dealt with these issues over the centuries?<\/p>\n

I find it helpful to remember that contemporary Christians are not the first to acknowledge that the Bible has inconsistencies and errors. Many important Christian leaders in history acknowledged that the Bible is not inerrant. <\/p>\n

Take the great 16th<\/sup> century reformer Martin Luther, for instance.  Most would argue that Luther — who argued for “scripture alone” — had a high regard for the Bible.  Yet, he was quite critical of some of it. <\/p>\n

For instance, Luther argued …<\/p>\n

(1) God’s prophets in the Old Testament were sometimes in error,<\/p>\n

(2) the book of Kings is more reliable than the book of Chronicles,<\/p>\n

(3) the book of Esther should have probably been left out of the Bible,<\/p>\n

(4) not all the Gospels are of equal value,<\/p>\n

(5) the writer of Hebrews erred when he said that there is no possibility of a second repentance,<\/p>\n

(6) the author of James “mangles scripture” and the whole book should be burned like worthless straw,<\/p>\n

(7) the book of Revelation reveals nothing. <\/p>\n

Luther does not stand alone in these criticisms.  Most well known Christian theologians from the past join him in at least some.<\/p>\n

When confronted with this information and the information I presented in an earlier blog, <\/a>some of my fundamentalist Christian brothers and sisters argue that the original<\/em> manuscripts of the Bible are without error.  They admit that the Bibles we use today have errors. But they cling to the claim that the originals were inerrant. <\/p>\n

This, of course, is a claim that is impossible to verify.  As far as we know, the originals do not exist.  <\/p>\n

Perhaps more importantly, it is ultimately a worthless<\/em> claim.  The Bibles we<\/em> use today were not directly derived from the original manuscripts. <\/p>\n

In other words, “inerrancy,” in this sense, does not describe our<\/em> Bibles — or, for that matter, the Bibles used by 99.9% or more Christians who have ever lived. Don’t we ultimately want to know how to best talk about and use the Bibles we have today?   <\/p>\n

Because some Christians point to original autographs we don’t<\/em> have, they fail to assert convincingly the authority of the biblical text we do<\/em> have.  We end up asking basic questions, “What authority does this<\/em> Bible have?” “Are our<\/em> Bibles inspired by God?” “What can we really mean by ‘inerrant’?” These are precisely the kind of questions we’ll be considering at The Bible Tells Me So conference.<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition, if God thought having an absolutely inerrant Bible was so important, why didn’t God take care to preserve the text from error?  Surely, the God who has the power to deliver a manuscript without the slightest error also has the power to ensure that no errors are inserted or the text changed! <\/a><\/p>\n

In my view, the word “inerrancy” directs our attention to the small difficulties in the Bible rather than to the salvation truths of its proclamation.<\/p>\n

God has been using Bibles with errors or inconsistencies to offer people throughout history the possibility of abundant life in Christ.  God uses the Bible – flaws and all – to inspire believers to attain a deeper relationship with their Creator.<\/p>\n

I think it’s important to consider the errors and inconsistencies and study biblical details. Biblical scholarship of this sort is very important. But I think it’s most important to discover the message of salvation God inspired the authors to write and the Church to proclaim.<\/p>\n

The message of salvation isn’t based upon and doesn’t require an inerrant book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In anticipation of the 2011 conference, The Bible Tells Me So<\/a>, I recently blogged about errors and inconsistencies I’ve discovered in the Bible. My main point was that the Bible doesn’t have to be in all ways inerrant for God to use it when offering us salvation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[606,607,613],"yst_prominent_words":[2264,2273,2272,2271,2270,2269,2268,2267,2266,2265,1121,2263,2262,2261,2260,2259,2258,1956,1909,1521],"class_list":["post-1927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john_wesley_holiness_and_the_church_of_the_nazarene","tag-inerrant","tag-inerrancy","tag-biblical-inerrancy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1927"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thomasjayoord.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}