Out of the Biblical “trustworthiness” fights of the 18th and 19th centuries, in the 20th century, American evangelicals wanted to provide certainty about the Bible and came up with the concept of the Bible being inerrant. From Wikipedia, “Inerrancy has been much more of an issue in American evangelicalism than in British evangelicalism.[9] According to Stephen R. Holmes, it “plays almost no role in British evangelical life”.[“
One problem with this doctrine is that if you ask 15 people what they think is meant by “inerrancy of the Scriptures,” you are likely to get 15 very distinct answers.
Another problem with this doctrine is that it is the main weapon of the skeptic to reveal “clear errors and contradictions” in the Bible. Instead of increasing certainty, this doctrine has been the source of my friends and others abandoning King Jesus.
From Wikipedia, “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was formulated by more than 200 evangelical leaders at a conference convened by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy[1] and held in Chicago in October 1978. The statement was designed to defend the position of biblical inerrancy against a trend toward liberal conceptions of Scripture.”
In the article, Does the Bible Contain Errors?, on the Biologos web site, Dr. John Walton, says,
“Others, like me, use the word “inerrancy” to describe their belief. I am part of an Evangelical tradition heavily influenced by the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, which was written by a group of scholars in the 1970s to give Christians language to express their belief in the Bible’s truth. It has become a standard of reference, even for those who do not agree with it on all points. It is where the conversation begins, even if it is not where it ends. Here’s some of the key language the Statement’s introduction uses to define “inerrancy”:
From Article II: “Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.”
From Article IV: “Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.”
In these, inerrancy is qualified as a characteristic of all that the Bible affirms, in all of its teachings. Many people, Christian and not, seem to think that inerrancy means that anything they read in the Bible must be free of error, according to what it appears to say, at first glance. But to understand what the Bible affirms requires a careful process of interpretation. Inerrancy does not, by itself, tell us what the Bible is truly affirming. It only states that whatever the Bible is affirming is fully true, and free from error.”
I wonder if there is anyone who believes in “literal” inerrancy.
Again from John Walton (the bolding of the word “literally” is mine).
“For example, consider Psalm 16:7b, which literally translates to “my kidneys instruct me in the night.” All ancients believed that all cognitive processes took place in the heart, liver, kidneys, and other internal organs (they had no knowledge of the physiology of the brain). The Psalmist appears to have no advanced knowledge of how human cognition works, on a scientific level. Is the Bible in error? No, because this passage is not trying to make statements about how the human body works. It does not affirm a view of physiology. The Holy Spirit accommodated the divine message of God’s faithfulness to the cultural vocabulary of David’s time.
This is not an isolated example. Throughout the Bible, we find constant accommodation to the way that people thought in the ancient world. In the realm of science, the Bible makes no claims that transcend what someone in the ancient world would have thought and believed. They believed in a geocentric universe with a flat earth at the center, and the Bible speaks in those terms; but the Bible does not affirm this particular cosmic geography.”
When a doctrine is so rife with misunderstandings among American evangelicals, why is it pushed so hard as a “non-negotiable?” I think it is because of American evangelical’s pursuit of certainty over truth. I think it is because some people try to demonize others who do not hold as many “non-negotiables” as they do.
Some, like John Walton, want to affirm the doctrine of inerrancy. Until we have a common, clear understanding on what is meant by the doctrine of inerrancy of Scripture, I prefer to align myself with British evangelicalism.
Although I end up on this doctrine slightly different from John Walton, I highly recommend his, The Lost World Series of books. For more on this doctrine from John, you can read, The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority by John H. Walton and Brent Sandy.
First posted June 12, 2021
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