Did God Really Say?: Affirming the Truthfulness and Trustworthiness of Scripture

Biblical inerrancy

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From these assumptions, inerrantists deduce that the Bible is without error. A second reason offered is that Jesus and the apostles used the Old Testament in a way that assumes it is inerrant. For instance, in Galatians 3: This as claimed sets a precedent for inerrant interpretation down to the individual letters of the words.

Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds", as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed", that is, Christ. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Although in these verses, Jesus and the apostles are only referring to the Old Testament , the argument is considered by some to extend to the New Testament writings, because 2 Peter 3: Wallace describes the inductive approach by enlisting the Presbyterian theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield:.

In his Inspiration and Authority of the Bible , [44] Warfield lays out an argument for inerrancy that has been virtually ignored by today's evangelicals. Essentially, he makes a case for inerrancy on the basis of inductive evidence, rather than deductive reasoning. Most evangelicals today follow E.

Young's deductive approach toward bibliology, forgetting the great articulator of inerrancy. But Warfield starts with the evidence that the Bible is a historical document, rather than with the presupposition that it is inspired. In the Nicene Creed Christians confess their belief that the Holy Spirit "has spoken through the prophets".

This creed has been normative for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and all mainline Protestant denominations except for those descended from the non-credal Stone-Campbell movement. As noted by Alister E. McGrath , "An important element in any discussion of the manner in which scripture is inspired, and the significance which is attached to this, is 2 Timothy 3: According to McGrath, "the reformers did not see the issue of inspiration as linked with the absolute historical reliability or factual inerrancy of the biblical texts".

He says, "The development of ideas of 'biblical infallibility' or 'inerrancy' within Protestantism can be traced to the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century". People who believe in inerrancy think that the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, but every word of it is, because of verbal inspiration, the direct, immediate word of God.

A correct translation of their writings is God's Word because it has the same meaning as the original Hebrew and Greek. However, the 19th century Anglican biblical scholar S. Driver held a contrary view, saying that, "as inspiration does not suppress the individuality of the biblical writers, so it does not altogether neutralise their human infirmities or confer upon them immunity from error". Mozley , an early 20th-century Anglican theologian has argued:. That the Bible is inspired is, indeed, a primary Christian conviction; it is from this that certain consequences have been drawn, such as infallibility and inerrancy, which retain their place in Christian thought because they are held to be bound up with the affirmation of inspiration.

But the deductions can be rejected without any ambiguity as to the fact of inspiration. Neither 'fundamentalists' nor sceptics are to be followed at this point For a believer in biblical inerrancy, Holy Scripture is the Word of God, and carries the full authority of God. Every single statement of the Bible calls for instant and unqualified acceptance. According to some believers, the Bible contains everything that they need to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life, [59] and there are no deficiencies in scripture that need to be filled with tradition , pronouncements of the Pope, new revelations , or present-day development of doctrine.

Harold Lindsell points out that it is a "gross distortion" to state that people who believe in inerrancy suppose every statement made in the Bible is true as opposed to accurate. Whether what he said was true or false is another matter. Christ stated that the devil is a liar". Many who believe in the inspiration of scripture teach that it is infallible but not inerrant.

Those who subscribe to infallibility believe that what the scriptures say regarding matters of faith and Christian practice are wholly useful and true. Some denominations that teach infallibility hold that the historical or scientific details, which may be irrelevant to matters of faith and Christian practice, may contain errors. Those who believe in inerrancy hold that the scientific, geographic, and historic details of the scriptural texts in their original manuscripts are completely true and without error, though the scientific claims of scripture must be interpreted in the light of its phenomenological nature, not just with strict, clinical literality, which was foreign to historical narratives.

Proponents of biblical inerrancy generally do not teach that the Bible was dictated directly by God, but that God used the "distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers" of scripture and that God's inspiration guided them to flawlessly project his message through their own language and personality. Infallibility and inerrancy refer to the original texts of the Bible. Scholars who are proponents of biblical inerrancy acknowledge the potential for human error in transmission and translation, and therefore only affirm as the Word of God translations that "faithfully represent the original".

Even if the bible is inerrant, it may need to be interpreted to distinguish between what statements are metaphorical and which are literally true. Jeffrey Russell writes that "Metaphor is a valid way to interpret reality. The 'literal' meaning of words — which I call the overt reading — is insufficient for understanding reality because it never exhausts reality. Originating in Evangelicalism, the Fundamentalists affirmed that the Bible is to be read "literally" or overtly, leading some to reject not only physicalist evolution but even evolution science and to deny that life developed over billions of years.

Evangelicals tended to believe in the "inerrancy" of the Bible though they defined that term variously , a view that sometimes could unhelpfully turn the Bible into an authority on science and history. Also, figures such as Scot McKnight have argued that the Bible clearly transcends multiple genres and Hebrew prose poems cannot be evaluated by a reader the same as a science textbook.

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Proponents of biblical inerrancy often cite 2 Timothy 3: For this argument, they prefer translations which render the verse as "all scripture is given by inspiration of God", and they interpret this to mean that the whole Bible must therefore be inerrant. However, critics of this doctrine think that the Bible makes no direct claim to be inerrant or infallible. Dodd argues the same sentence can also be translated "Every inspired scripture is also useful In addition, Michael T.

Griffith , the Mormon apologist, writes. Nowhere within its pages does the Bible teach or logically imply the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. It says nothing about scripture being "perfect," or "inerrant," or "infallible," or "all-sufficient. What it does say is that scripture is useful, profitable, for the needs Of the pastoral ministry. The only "holy scriptures" Timothy could have known from childhood were the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. And yet, would any Christian assert that in Paul's view the Old Testament was the final and complete word of God to man?

In any event, verse 15 makes it clear that in speaking of "all scripture" Paul was referring to the Jewish scriptures and perhaps to some of his own epistles. The New Testament as we know it simply did not exist yet. Furthermore, it is fairly certain that Paul's canon included some Jewish scriptures which are no longer found in the Old Testament, such as the book of Enoch.

The Catholic New Jerusalem Bible also has a note that this passage refers only to the Old Testament writings understood to be scripture at the time it was written. Moreover, the four purposes to teach, correct, etc. After all, Paul is addressing one of his new bishops the "man of God". Not a word addresses the use of scripture by the laity. The view that biblical inerrancy can be justified by an appeal to prooftexts that refer to its divine inspiration has been criticized as circular reasoning , because these statements are only considered to be true if the Bible is already thought to be inerrant.

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The doctrine of biblical inerrancy seems inherently improbable, for two reasons. Firstly, the Scriptures contain what seem to be evident errors and contradictions although great ingenuity has been applied to explain these away. Secondly, the books of the Old and New Testaments did not gain their place within the "canon", or list of approved books, as soon as they were written. The Old Testament canon was not closed until late in the Apostolic age, and the New Testament canon was not finally closed until the fourth century.

If all the Bible's contents were inerrant, one would have thought that this would have become apparent within a much shorter period. Much debate over the kind of authority that should be accorded biblical texts centers on what is meant by the "Word of God". The term can refer to Christ himself as well as to the proclamation of his ministry as kerygma.

However, biblical inerrancy differs from this orthodoxy in viewing the Word of God to mean the entire text of the Bible when interpreted didactically as God's teaching. Here the Bible is seen as a unique witness to the people and deeds that do make up the Word of God. However, it is a wholly human witness. Thus, whether the Bible is—in whole or in part [75] —the Word of God is not clear. However, some argue that the Bible can still be construed as the "Word of God" in the sense that these authors' statements may have been representative of, and perhaps even directly influenced by, God's own knowledge.

There is only one instance in the Bible where the phrase "the Word of God" refers to something "written". To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Did God Really Say?

Did God Really Say?: Affirming the Truthfulness and Trustworthiness of Scripture

Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Aug 21, Ethan Harris rated it it was amazing. With contributions from a number of seminaries in the Protestant Reformed tradition, the book promises to defend the belief in the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Bible against the most coherent scholarly and other intellectual arguments that have been advanced.

I can say, with confidence, this is an excellently written, well-reasoned a David Garner is an author and editor for "Did God Really Say: I can say, with confidence, this is an excellently written, well-reasoned and precisely worded, introduction and defense of the Bible as the Word, dealing squarely with the topic of the clarity and accuracy of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

Scott Oliphant opens with a theological justification of the importance of the subject. His explanation of Principium Cognoscendi foundation of knowing; doctrine of Scripture and Principium Essendi foundation of Being; doctrine of God as the necessary beginning point of comprehending the Scriptures is clear and well-presented.

He delves into the idea of archetypal and ectypal knowledge to demonstrate how it is that we think God's thoughts after Him. We can comprehend only because God has articulated his truth. Our knowledge is finite and a mere reflection of perfect revelation and perfect authority.

Michael Kruger introduces chapter three with a response to "recent challenges to the origins and authority of the New Testament writings. Kruger takes this argument to task by associating the words of the New Testament with a covenantal and, consequently, with a redemptive-historical purpose in the original compositions. Kruger highlights the Apostle Paul's assertion that he and his fellow Apostles were "ministers of a new covenant" with a perfect understanding that their authority and witness would form the basis of a new, inspired, unique, testamental corpus.

In another chapter, Vern Poythress lucidly demonstrates that the New Testament authorship is a reflection of the very human perspectives brought to the text by their unique writers. Every author of every book had their own particular "interpretation" although they were in fact conveying God-sanctioned truth.

God speaks through the content of eternal truths, clarifying Old Testament typology in a canonical context. The authors do not shy away from engaging critical concepts or scholars. NT Wright, for example, is cited for his reasoned statements, though at times he is taken to task with equal diligence. Additionally, the footnotes throughout this book are valuable and scholarly. I very much enjoyed the extra insight they provided. Overall, I don't believe this book fits in well with a general audience, although I would recommend it as a very good introduction from the perspective of someone who has already engaged the topic seriously.

The writing style is tight and nicely organized, flowing from one chapter to another, building, not detracting, from the theme of the book. The editor has obviously done a tremendous amount of work to bring the work to this level of accessibility.

Garner, David B.

I highly recommend this book to other students of the issue of Biblical authority and trustworthiness. Oct 11, Ray rated it it was amazing. Great book for its length. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As opposed to I was the God. Paul treats a quotation from the gospel of Luke as inspired citing Luke Revelation is adamant about its own inspiration. Paul at least was aware that he was writing with divine authority Cor.

There are about direct references or quotations in the NT from the OT. There is great liberty taken with these citations. For example compare the following:. The requirement is not verbal exactitude in citation, but truth without error. See Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, The same truth can be stated in a variety of forms while retaining the full veracity of the original. The scriptural authors were saturated with the OT concepts so they naturally employed these vocabulary and concepts in expressing the truth of the NT. A writer may only be giving and interpretation rather than a quotation of a particular passage.

Translations produce variations of expression. The dynamic flexible nature of language makes it impossible to render verbally exact equivalent translations. One ought not expect one for one verbal exactitude. We see this same phenomenon today in the plethora of Bible translations all based on the same Hebrew and Greek text of the Bible. Literary conventions for citation of material were different in the first century than they are in the twentieth. They did not have quote marks and they had never heard of Turabian style.

There are several places in Scripture where the descriptions of the same event given by different authors seem to be at odds with each other. Among the more likely:. It is likely the whole account was well known in Israel when this was composed and no problem was perceived. Three blind men came upon an elephant and set about to describe it. The second feeling the tall side of the animal said that the elephant was tall, like a wall.

The third, felt the tail and said that the elephant is like a tree with flexible branches. Each one described accurately his experience of the elephant, yet the experiences were so vastly different that someone who had never heard of an elephant would not be able to imagine that these three descriptions fit the same beast. The Bible describes things phenomenologically, i. For example the scripture speaks of the sun rising in the east. This is a phenomenological statement. The Earth turns on its axis while revolving around the sun. But even the Naval Almanac uses the term sunrise and no one would charge tie Naval Almanac with error.

The Scriptures have been understood throughout history in all cultures because it describes things the way they appear i. The point is Scripture is not a scientific text book, and it is not written to the standards of 20 th century scientific accuracy. But where it does touch on scientific matter, it does not impart misinformation.

This is the crux of the problem. Most contradictory statements are only superficially contradictory. The translation of the NASB and the context. Some contradictory statements are harmonized upon gaining more information. Several years ago I received word that the chaplain of the seminary I attended had died in an automobile accident. Later, I heard that he had died of a heart attack. I was confused, which was it? When more details became available I discovered that he had been driving one icy morning and at a traffic light had had an accident.

It was also discovered that concurrently he had suffered a fatal heart attack. It was never determined if the accident caused the heart attack or the heart attack caused the accident. There are a number of real difficulties in the text which without further information we are unable to answer fully. Dewey Beegle cites about a dozen, mostly dealing with the variant numbers between Kings and Chronicles.

Some difficulties still remain. To act on any other basis, it is clearly acknowledged, is to assume, not prove, error. Warfield, Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, p. The Divine and the human are not properly conceived of when one element is emphasized so that it excludes the other. The Divine and the human are not properly conceived of as opposing one another. Over a century ago, William Sanday observed: On this theory, every discovery of a human element in Scripture is a disproving of its divinity—ultimately then the entire Bible becomes human and the Divine is eliminated.

Every word is at once both Divine and human.

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