Inerrancy and Canon
There are some things which you simply cannot assume that people know. Things like, for example, what Charlie Sheen might do next, or what’s in SPAM. For the church the subject of the formation of Scripture is one of those important topics that most have never even thought about, let alone are able to explain. How did we get the Bible? From God, yes, but how were the books gathered and compiled together to make up the canon that we have today? The answer must have some bearing on our topic of inerrancy and therefore warrants a more careful consideration. It at least warrants more thought than Charlie Sheen gives to his next words.
Contrary to much popular scholarship, and stupid scholarship (like Bart Ehrman), the books of the Bible were not arbitrarily selected by the church, nor did church leaders, motivated by politics, select the books that would keep them in power (because of course the minority and oppressed church had no power). In fact the truth is that the church didn’t sit down and select books and deny other books as some sort of formal committee. Books included in the canon were generally already accepted because of their authorship. The works of the apostles were all accepted without question, including the gospels of Matthew and John, and the letters of John, James, and Paul (including Hebrews which was generally believed to be written by Paul…I still believe this even if some good scholars do say otherwise). Of the books not written by an apostle Luke and Acts were quickly accepted because of the author’s relationship to Paul, and Mark was accepted because of the author’s relationship to Peter. Jude was the only one that was somewhat debated, and that simply because of his quotation of the apocryphal book of 1 Enoch. But ultimately because Jude was the brother of Jesus he was accepted.
The other books that bear the names of apostles, like the Gospel of Thomas and others, were not accepted for several reasons. First, they were not accepted because most of them came long after these apostles were actually alive and therefore were immediately discredited. Secondly, they all conflate the teachings of Jesus and the Old Testament with completely contrary worldviews and platonic notions not found in the other gospels. It’s important to note at this point that contrary to folks like Ehrman, the church did not pick books that would allow them to control the masses. This is so ludicrous I can’t even think of how it became a popular notion. The church is an oppressed minority, they have no power to speak of to safeguard. Secondly, they could not have passed off books that the church’s had not already agreed were acceptable. The Jewish canon was closed long before Jesus and there was no known debate over its content, and the New Testament canon was easy to accept on the basis of apostolic authorship or association.
Now in terms of the fact that all we posses today are copies of copies we must make an observation, for all of this has bearing on our understanding of the Scriptures to be without error. How can we, after all, know for sure that what we have to do is not some doctored up version of the Bible without having the original, inerrant copies, to compare it with? Here’s the short answer: we have more copies of the Bible (both Old and New Testaments) than we have of any other ancient document. No one questions the overall accuracy of translations of Homer’s works, and we have hundreds more copies of the Bible than we do of Homer. The copies all come from different times and locations and together present us with a complete picture of the Bible. There are a few discrepancies among the copies, but not a one calls into question major doctrinal matters of the faith. The fact that we only have copies of the original autographs in no way challenges the inerrancy issue. We can hold both that the Bible is the Word of God without error, and that it is a copy of a copy.
There is an associated point, however, which needs to be made here: is there one translation that is more inspired, more inerrant than another? Some answer yes, I will answer no. Check back next week for : Inerrancy and Translations.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 