*Inerrant = ‘without error’
Hear me out before you stone me!
This statement appears on Billygraham.org;
‘God’s Spirit exerted a superintending influence on the writers of Scripture so that God’s revelation has been recorded as He intended. Thus, the writings of the prophets and apostles carry the same authority and effect as if God Himself were speaking to us directly.’
As Con mused, “So the words are basically written by God right? What? I’m not so sure. And the other books they got rid of weren’t quite written by God. They had too much human in.”
So…
Did God think that the world was flat?
Did God make mistakes and then discover they were not true?
Did God change his mind on things?
Did God have bad grammar?
In many evangelical statements of faith (including that of Vineyard Churches UK & Ireland), will appear the phrase, “the inerrancy of scripture”. It may interest you know that, before the Reformation (500 years ago) no one called the Bible inerrant. The Scriptures were inspired.
Is this just semantics?
No. Because, if you say that something is inerrant you are claiming it to be completely and utterly unable to be wrong.
Woa! Are you saying that the Bible is wrong?
No I am most definitely not. I love the Bible and I love studying it and I believe that it is inspired by the very Spirit of the God who made all things.
But.
I do not think that it is inerrant, and I think that the claim that it is has led to a great deal of misunderstanding and a great deal of oppression.
I think that you cannot call poetry inerrant without treating it as something other than poetry, which leads to issues!
You cannot take prophetic imagery as inerrant – what would that even mean? Statues of Iron, Bronze and clay? Many headed beasts?
What about wisdom literature? Is wisdom female? Does she really call in the streets? Inerrant?
You cannot treat apocalyptic literature as inerrant because it is crazy, and no one really fully understands it today, when perhaps it made total sense to the hearers at the time. To do so leads to some of the most ridiculous and weird ideas that often verge on dangerous!
Context
The Bible was written by real people, in real situations, with real prejudices and real understandings of how things work. To tease out the meaning, can often mean that we need to have some understanding of that context in order to see. More than that, these people carried with them the assumptions of their day.
Women have been treated as subservient to men throughout history, in almost every culture in the world. The Bible was written in such cultures and so, within it we can see some of these assumptions.
We see Paul use phrases such as “unnatural” but we need to first understand what “unnatural” meant to first century culture – for example, any sex other than for the specific purpose of procreation was deemed “unnatural”, at the time. Paul had that assumption. Why wouldn’t he? Why would he question it? If we accept that as inerrant then we have to conclude that any form of contraception is wrong. Obviously, we do not (although many have done in the church through the ages) and so what are we saying about the Bible?
Is long hair on a man, really ‘unnatural’. I had long hair on my 20s (and you will never see the evidence! ) and it grew all on its own. I just didn’t get it cut. Isn’t that the definition of natural? Technically short hair is unnatural!
Flat Earth, Metal Sky
Let us look at the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament). At that time, in that region, the world was believed to be flat. The sky was believed to be a metal dome. The earth (ground) was held up by pillars that stopped it sinking into the sea which was below. All very logical to them. Genesis 1 describes the world to be like this. In fact, the word used for sky is literally “a hammered dome”.
Do we, then, see the inspired nature of the Genesis poem and the point of it – the poetic and wonderful, loving creation of the very image bearers of God in his incredible creation – or do we insist on it’s inerrancy and argue for a flat earth and seven-day creation, thus missing the entire point of the prose? We miss the power of it. We miss the incredible value of it and reduce it to a totally inaccurate science book!
But inerrancy means that this must be right. The worldview of the writers must have been right. The world must be flat. The sky must be a metal dome.
It does not allow for God speaking to them in a language and context that they could grasp at the time through the lenses through which they viewed the world.
Genocide
God is good.
Genocide is bad.
Jesus is absolutely non-violent.
Jesus is the very image of who the father is. If God is perfectly reflected in Jesus, who tells us to “love our enemies” and “treat others as we would have them treat us” (because that sums up the law and prophets), is it possible that this same God ordered genocide?
In a culture where one went to war in the name of one’s god, credited victories to them and rewrote everything to say that “they told us to do it” (so that you looked faithful), is it surprise that the Old Testament is full of these claims? It was just what you did! Writers wrote about the great victories their God gave them and their faithfulness in doing exactly what their Deity had told them. The Israelites seem to have done the same.
How is that inspired? Maybe, we have learned about how the people of God just did not get it and constantly defaulted to the ways of the cultures around them. Sound familiar? Does it show us how God’s people time and time again take things into their own hands and do things the way they expect they should be.
Sound familiar? Inspired.
The Destroyer
Throughout the Jewish Scriptures we see stories of God bringing violent judgement on people. Yet in the New Testament, Paul (a Jewish scholar) attributes these events to “the destroyer” and not to YHWH.
Who is wrong?
If the Bible is inerrant then someone is, and we need to choose who, and delete the relevant pages. If it is inspired, however, we can learn from this. Learn about misunderstanding the nature of YHWH. Learn that his people started assuming he was just the same as other gods and often didn’t unlearn that!
Inconsistencies
Genesis 1 says that humans were created after animals. Genesis 2 says we were created before animals. Which one is wrong? Inerrant or inspired? Do we delete one or do we begin to see that one passage is telling us about the nature of the creator in contrast to the violent gods around and their enslavement of humanity and that the other is telling us the nature of humanity as the very representation, on earth, of who God is, and of our role in partnering with him as he rules creation.
In 2 Samuel 24, we learn that God made David take a census of Israel, in 1 Chronicles 21, we learn that it was the Satan who made him do it. Inerrant or inspired? Delete one, or learn from both? Pagan deity or something entirely different? The evolving understanding of his people as to who he is.
Authority?
Ironically, Protestants have criticised the Catholics for having an authority that is human – the Pope – alongside the inerrant scriptures. The famous reformer, Luther insisted on “sola scriptura” (the scriptures alone), but here is the thing – who decided what went into the Bible? Humans!
The “Creed of Faith” was well established by the second century, and the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds evolved from this. The books of the New Testament were gathered together because these were the ones that were being used by the churches over the centuries since Christ and fit with the Creed of Faith. A number of (godly) men sat around and selected the books that would become the Canon!
Humans decided what was in the Bible. By whose authority? Inerrant or inspired?
Here is the real irony. Those who most aggressively guard the inerrancy of scripture today would, by their own definitions, be forced to label those who compiled it as heretical. Not a single person among those who put together the creeds or the scriptures could sign any evangelical statement of faith as they all contain theology that did not exist before the fifth century or the sixteenth century. Hmmm.
Where Does that Leave us?
I love the Bible. I have about 15 translations of it. I love studying the Greek. I love hearing teaching on it. I love teaching it. I love learning about our God and our Saviour.
This book (these 66 books) is/are the inspired words that our God would say to us, to teach us to live and love and grow and to invite us into this amazing story of his restoration of the cosmos.
There are stories of incredible faith and incredible stupidity. There are poems that paint vivid pictures that are so much clearer than any text book could. There are patterns stolen from other religions that contrast YHWH with the other gods. There are social activists challenging the very people who claim to be YHWH’s that they have missed the point. There are stories of our saviour and how he lived and taught and died and rose. There are letters to churches addressing some of the same (and some radically different) issues that we do today.
No other religious book contains so much about the failure of its heroes! The Bible is full of it. The Patriarchs. The Kings, the prophets, the Judges, the priests, the disciples, the Apostles…
What kind of religious book totally exposes its authors as failures?! Now that is inspired!
The Bible is like nothing else.
But it is not inerrant, because that means that all those who wrote and compiled it must have been (and we know they are not because the Bible tells us).
It is inspired though, because even in their prejudice or mistakes or assumptions we still find the gemstones that God put there for us.
God did not use human writers like we would use a word processor. He inspired human beings in real situations at a real time to write, even with their cultural assumptions and prejudices and, yes, errors. That does not make it any less true. In fact, arguably it gives more authenticity to it, because it is not a work of propaganda but a warts-and-all account which reveals the creator, and his plan for the salvation and restoration of all.
The Bible is incredible. It is the inspired words of the Living God! To treat it in a way that it was never meant for is to do it a grave disservice and to abuse it. The Bible is amazing. Read it as it should be read. Don’t try to squeeze it into a set of rules and data and miss the point.
Read your Bible.
Learn from it.
Live in accordance with the words of Jesus in it.
But never be afraid to ask questions of it!
Recommended Resources
“Genesis for Normal People”
The book is all about enabling us to read Genesis through ancient eyes. To understand the context, the history, the Ancient Near Eastern religions and thus equip us to read it sensibly, so we do not end up with ridiculous ideas about things. It is well written and easy to read as well as being very funny. I laughed out loud on several occasions. Do not be fooled by how easy it is to read and the fact that it is only 180 pages. This is not written by people who are just making it up.
“What is the Bible?” by Rob Bell
This book is so accessible and so easy to read. Short, independent chapters.
I would recommend this to anyone who is just starting out at digging deeper into the scriptures. I would also recommend to it anyone who is experienced at this.
There is nothing that I have found in here that I have not found support for in well-respected, academic writings, but this is mush easier to read than they are!
This is quite simply one of the best theological resources out there. The videos are short, brilliantly done and just full of great teaching. The podcasts are far more in-depth (hours worth of discussion that ends up as one ten minute video) and always really amazing.
5 Comments
Thanks Matt, good to hear and really interesting.
Dangerous.
Indeed.
But then for 1500 years that was what people believed (in fact, Paul himself refers to the [Hebrew] Scriptures as “God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16,17).
Only in the last 500 years did people say any differently. As I find myself asking repeatedly, did they all have it wrong before the Reformation? Have we only got it right now, 2000 years after Jesus?
Were all those who compiled the scriptures wrong? Which would be ironic, don’t you think?
Thanks Matt
Dangerous – in all the best ways 🙂
Excellent post, thank you.