I remember being in college and sharing the gospel with one of my dorm neighbors. He had grown up as a non-religious Jew and had some mild attraction to Buddhism at the time, but was definitely not interested in Biblical Christianity. As we talked he raised objection after objection to the Christian faith. We talked in circles about Darwinian evolution, the historicity of Jesus, etc. As we turned to discuss the Bible I remember distinctly what happened next. “The Bible is full of errors, her said.” “O, you think so?” I responded. “Yeah, they are all over the place.” I needed more information if I was going to adequately respond to him (which, honestly, I probably couldn’t have done at that point in my life). “What are some examples of Bible errors?” I probed. He thought for only a moment before brushing the question aside, “O, I don’t know off hand.” He then changed tactics. It’s not uncommon for people’s critiques of Scripture to be devoid of real content, and rather to show an actual ignorance. Such was the case with my friend. But there are real criticisms that people apply to the doctrine of Scripture, and particularly of the subject of Inerrancy. In this post I want to look at a few.
The first critique offered states that the Bible speaks without scientific accuracy. For example Psalm 104:22 speaks of the “sun rising,” of course we acknowledge that the sun does not actually rise. This is scientifically inaccurate, yet it is also the way we commonly speak. We talk of the sunrise and fall even while we know that it is the earth rotating which causes the appearance and disappearance of the sun. It is not necessary to explain the actual science behind these events for our communication to be real. Other examples include generalizations or vague comments which do not match the actual historical fact. Wayne Grudem, for example, points out that the authors of Scripture can speak of 8,000 people dying in battle without us assuming that he counted all the people and recorded the actual numbers. The truth is that it could have been 7,000 or 8001, but these generalizations are acceptable. We can speak with vague language and generalizations and so we ought to allow the authors of Scripture this freedom. Grudem says it this way, “The Bible can be inerrant and still speak in the ordinary language of everyday speech” (Systematic Theology, 91). It’s like saying that Ke$ha writes the worst lyrics ever recorded. We, of course, can’t speak with complete scientific and historical accuracy there unless we have examined every lyric ever written. It might be considered exaggeration, but in the case of Ke$ha I think it’s probably just broad generalizations of actual facts.
In similar vein is the criticisms that the Bible uses inaccurate quotations. The process of quoting others is not uniform across history or cultures. In the ancient world it was quite common to find loose or free quotations accepted as completely credible representations of what was said. While this might not fly in our current context, it is hardly an indictment of the Scriptures. As Grudem states, “The method by which one person quotes the words of another person is a procedure that in large part varies from culture to culture…Written Greek at the time of the New Testament had no quotation marks or equivalent kinds of punctuation, and an accurate citation of another person needed to include only a correct representation of the content of what the person said (rather like our indirect quotations): it was not expected to cite each word exactly” (92).
The last major criticism I want to interact with is one that rightly notes that our translations of the Bible today are just that: translations. Often arguments against inerrancy point out that we do not have any original manuscripts of either the Old or New Testament and what we are citing as the inerrant infallible Word of God are copies of copies. This is no doubt a major criticism and how we respond to it will be important, I want, therefore, to take some time in my next post and interact with this idea more fully.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 