How We Got the Book
2
“Inerrancy”
Last time we looked at the Revelation and Inspiration of the Bible. Now this time we’re going to talk about Inerrancy.
Let’s begin with our key verse for this series:
2 Timothy 3:16 NASB “All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;”
“Inerrancy” is a term used to explain that the Bible is completely true and contains no errors in the original manuscripts.
The reason inerrancy has become a hotly debated issue is because some religious “scholars” believe that the scripture contains errors, yet they continue to claim they believe in God-breathed “inspiration.”
But actually they’re trying to redefine “inspiration” to include possible errors. So we need to understand that “inerrancy” means “without error.”
When inerrancy is denied, you’re headed down a “slippery slope.”
The denial of inerrancy often leads to the denial of other literal truths. Historical facts are taken as myths, stories, or fables—like fairy tales. It is often claimed for example that the creation of the world and mankind in Genesis 1-12 wasn’t meant to be taken literally.
Biblical viewpoints on issues such as homosexuality or women’s roles are easily denied when inerrancy is denied. For instance, one evangelical “errantist” admits that Paul said, “Wives submit to your husbands” but he feels that “Paul was wrong.”
It is one thing to interpret what a scripture means, but we don’t have the freedom to claim that a Bible author wrote something that was “wrong” or “in error.”
Theologian Dr. Norman Geisler defines Inerrancy this way:
A. The Bible is wholly true (in whole and in part) in all that it affirms. Since the Bible claims to be inspired by God, and God is always truthful and cannot lie, then the Bible is completely true (inerrant).
B. Since it is inerrant, then—What scripture says, God says.
Throughout the New Testament there are quotes of Old Testament writers that are explicitly attributed to God.
The fact that what scripture says is also what God says tells us that God’s truthfulness is bound up in Scripture’s truthfulness. To deny the total truthfulness of the Bible is to deny the total truthfulness of God.
So here’s a few Questions:
1. Why is it important that the original manuscript was flawless if our copies are not?
Answer: Because God produced the original and He cannot err.
2. Why didn’t God preserve the copies from all error?
Answer: He did preserve it from any significant, truth altering error. The minor differences in some passages never affect clear Biblical doctrine, truth, or historical narratives.
3. How accurate are our copies of the original Hebrew and Greek texts?
Answer: About 99% accurate. We have 100% of the truth we need. The main issues are disagreements about some minor, disputed words that are inconsequential to the Bible’s message.
The amazing fact is that we have thousands of existing manuscripts—each containing a variety of minor copying errors. But the fact that we have so many copies actually enables us to decide very closely what the original was.
Example: Let’s say you receive 3 telegrams, each containing an error. (PUT THIS ON THE SCREEN)
#OU HAVE WON $1,000.
Y#U HAVE WON $1,000.
YO# HAVE WON $1,000.
The truth is clear, even if the telegrams disagree on their errors–you have won $1,000!
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II. Inerrancy defended
Critics of inerrancy are quick to point out that there are supposedly contradictions in the Bible and that some statements in scripture are not literally or scientifically true.
So here are two principles to guide our thinking about inerrancy.
A. Apparent contradictions are not necessarily real contradictions.
So let’s clear up a few of the controversies surrounding the Bible.
1. Some Bible writers do not give all the truth about a certain event, but they do give only the truth. Parallel accounts may give different details. But they are not contradictory—merely complimentary.
For instance, how many angels were at Christ’s tomb? Matthew 28:1-7 refers to “an angel; Luke 24:4 speaks of two angels.
ANSWER: Two angels were at the tomb. Where there are two angels, there is also one angel.
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What was the inscription on the cross (Matthew 27:37 versus John 19:19)? If you read carefully you will see that in Matthew 27:37 it says “THEY put up over his head the ACCUSATION that had been written Him, “THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
Mark records that it said, “THE KING OF THE JEWS.” So clearly Mark recorded a shortened version of Matthew’s account.
Luke records that it said, “THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Again, clearly Luke omitted the name “Jesus” from Matthew’s account but it was essentially exactly the same.
Then in John 19:19 it says that, “Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross.” It said, “JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.”
So Pilate wrote something, and “they,” His crucifiers, wrote something! What does that tell us? Real men who were real witnesses gave us exactly the same account with a couple of words added or left out, but still the same thing.
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2. Another fact of the copies we have is that the errors are errors in copying. These do not discredit inerrancy which simply claims the originals are inerrant.
3. Some apparent contradictions are solved by facts we do not and cannot know. For instance:
*2 Samuel 24:24 says David paid 50 shekels of silver for the threshing floor property. 1 Chronicles 21:25 says 600 shekels. Perhaps the threshing floor was 50 shekels, and with the surrounding property, the total was 600. We simply don’t know.
*2 Samuel 21:19 says Elhanen killed Goliath. 1 Samuel 17:50 says David did. Maybe David had 2 names like Solomon did in2 Samuel 12:24;25 where he is called both Solomon and Jedidiah. Or maybe Elhanen killed Goliath’s brother (“the brother of” was maybe omitted by a copyist). Or maybe there is another legitimate explanation.
Let me give you a true current example. One man writes:
“Several years ago the mother of a friend of ours was killed. We first learned of the death through a trusted mutual friend who reported that the woman had been standing on the corner of the street, at a bus intersection, waiting for a bus and had been hit by another bus passing by, and was fatally hurt, dying a few minutes thereafter.
Shortly thereafter, we learned from the grandson of the dead woman that she had been involved in a collision, was thrown from the car in which she was riding and was killed instantly. The boy was quite clear; this was all the information he had.
His story was not only quite clear and positive, but he had secured his information directly from his mother. No further information was forthcoming from either source.
Now which would you believe? We trusted both our friends, but we certainly could not put the data together.
Much later, upon further inquiry, we learned that the woman had been waiting for a bus, was hit by another bus and was fatally hurt. She had been picked up by a passing car, dashed to the hospital, but in this haste, the car in which she was being transported to the hospital collided with another, she was thrown from the car and died instantly.”
So both accounts were true but partial. This is the case with some apparent contradictions in Scripture.
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A fourth thing to remember when Scripture is accused of being contradictory:
4. The Bible is innocent of error until proven guilty. Based on the Bible’s self-claim of inerrancy and the mass of evidence for inerrancy, we can assume there are good explanations for apparent contradictions. The burden of proof is on the critic. There are legitimate, plausible explanations for all so-called discrepancies.
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B. Inerrancy allows for other forms of truth besides technical, literal truth.
First, there are:
1. Approximations—In Acts 7:6, Stephen may be approximating when he says the Egyptians captivity was 400 years while Exodus 12:40 says it was 430 years. Legitimate approximations do not violate inerrancy. If I actually say, “My ancestors came to America 100 years ago,” in context it is a legitimately true statement whether it was actually 110, 101 or 110 years.
Then we have:
2. Figures of speech – Christ is obviously not literally a “door” (John 10:7). He is the “entrance” in eternal life, however. Scriptural truth involves many figures of speech and symbols. But all such truth is still literal in that even figures of speech convey literal truths.
3. Language of appearances – When the Bible says the “sun set,” it merely is using a language of appearances, as we do, to convey the literal truth that the day ended.
4. Popular, not scientific truth – In Matthew 13:32, Jesus referred to the mustard seed as the “smallest” of seeds. Botanists today know of many smaller seeds. But Jesus simply used the proverbial understanding of the mustard seed, which was considered smallest of the seeds, as popularly known in Palestine. This does not violate inerrancy.
All in all, our Bible is true! It is a beautiful unity of history, law, poetry, wisdom, prophecy, and teaching woven into 66 books over a 1,500 year time period, composed by some 40 authors, all guided by the Spirit of God to reveal the unfolding narrative of God’s plan of salvation for a fallen world culminating in the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son.
NEXT TIME: A brand new series exploring Cults and the Occult!