Category Archives: Inerrancy of Bible

“Aha” moments that challenged beliefs about the Bible

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In 2014, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns began a series of posts in which he invited biblical scholars to share key moments when their inherited conservative view of the Bible was challenged, and subsequently modified.

Here’s the (very) distilled essence of each entry in the series:-

  1. Peter Enns – realised that Paul accepted, apparently without demur, the extra-biblical legend about a ‘moveable rock’ (1 Corinthians 10:4).
  2. John Byron – found that Jesus (or Mark) was mistaken about what 1 Samuel 21:1-9 says about David and his men eating the consecrated bread from the tabernacle.
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2 + 2 = 5?

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William Jennings Bryan is reported to have said: “I believe the whale swallowed Jonah because the Bible said it, and if the Bible said that Jonah swallowed the whale I would have believed it simply because the Bible said so.”

Much more recently Peter LaRuffa, who is on the staff of Grace Fellowship Church, Northern Kentucky, said:-

If, somewhere within the Bible, I were to find a passage that said 2+2=5, I would believe it, accept it as true and then do my best to work it out and understand it.
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The ‘heresy’ of inerrancy

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[Note: I’m using the word ‘heresy’ in the old-fashioned sense of ‘divisiveness’ as in Titus 3:10 (Authorised Version): ‘A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject.’]

When Mike Licona published his book on the resurrection, he ventured to suggest that some elements in the Gospel story might be symbolic in character, rather than strictly historical.  The passage which has received most attention is the one in Matthew 27:52f, about the raising to life of many dead saints.  …

Confessions of a virtual inerrantist

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Recent publication of a book exploring Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy has got me thinking again about this topic.

Readers of Walking With Giants will know that I do not subscribe to a formal doctrine of inerrancy.  I have outlined my reasons for this, and these include:-

Inerrancy is an inappropriate term.  It is not appropriate for the very different kinds of literature we find in the Bible.  It is easy to see what it would mean for a telephone directory to be regarded as ‘inerrant’, but not a psalm.…

Inerrancy as an evangelical ‘boundary marker’

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According to one commentator, when Matthew came to write his narrative of Jesus’ birth, he based it on Luke’s account.  Matthew, however, was writing for a different readership, and so changed Luke’s true story about the humble shepherds coming in from the fields to visit the baby Jesus into a fictitious one about some high-ranking Magi coming from the East to pay their respects, offering costly gifts.  Matthew re-told the story because he wanted to emphasise Jesus’ mission to the Gentiles. …

Inerrancy and infallibility

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Inerrancy and infallibility, writes Timothy Ward, are not to be thought of as the most important things that we say about Scripture.  Rather than being of central or foundational importance, they are implications of our belief in the trustworthiness of the Bible.

What follows is a summary of Ward’s views on this subject.  (I have set out my own views elsewhere).

‘Infallibility’ is often taken to mean that the Bible is entirely trustworthy is matters of faith and conduct.…

Calvin and the (in)errancy of Scripture

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It is clear to any reader of the works of John Calvin that he had a very high view of the truthfulness of Scripture.  There are a handful of passages, however, where some have detected hints that the great Reformer thought that the Bible might err in matters of detail.  These are categorised by J.I. Packer as follows:-

  1. Passages in which God accommodates himself to human forms of thought and expression.  Thus, Calvin did not think that we should look to Genesis 1 for scientific teaching on astronomy.
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Debating inerrancy

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I’ve been listening to one of Premier Radio’s Unbelievable podcasts.

This one was held on 14th June 2008 between Dr Alex McFarland, President of  Southern Evangelical Seminary in the US, and agnostic Stephen Pilcher.

The topic of discussion was ‘biblical inerrancy’.  I found it one of the less satisfying episodes of this normally excellent show.

Stephen came up with a typical selection of supposed ‘contradictions’ – was there one pair, or seven pairs, of animals in Noah’s ark? …

Problems with inerrancy

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I’m sorry that Michael Pahl is taking a rest from blogging at the moment.  But his blog is still worth visiting.

Particularly interesting are some of Michael’s thoughts on inerrancy.  I must emphasise that he affirms inerrancy.  As a kind of self-criticism, however, he notes the following:-

The first criticism of a doctrine of inerrancy as it is often formulated is its relevance or usefulness. How helpful is a doctrinal formulation which depends on elusive concepts such as “in the original autographs” (a past-focused elusion), “when correctly interpreted” (a present-focused elusion), or “when all the facts become known” (a future-focused elusion)?

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The Post-Evangelical – 8

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Chapter 8 of the The Post-Evangelical, by Dave Tomlinson, asks a ‘straightforward’ question: what is a post-evangelical view of the Bible?

First, Tomlinson feels that there is a need to ‘exorcise’ the ghost of inerrancy.  He finds it incredible that anyone thinks it even plausible to believe in such a thing.

Contrary to what proponents will tell us (says Tomlinson), the notion of inerrancy is a relatively modern one, arising out of the fundamentalist/modernist conflicts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. …