Contours: The Beliefs That Shape

Our Faith Unit One: Knowing God

Session Five: The Inerrant Word of God

D. Lee Kemp

10.08.2014

Fort Mill Church of God

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I. Introduction: Brief Review

II. What is Inerrancy?

1. Opening Considerations: The Authority & Inspiration of Scripture.

1. The words of scripture are God’s words and carry divine authority. To disobey or

discount these words is to disobey or discount God Himself.

Psalms 12: 6 (ESV)

The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.

Proverbs 30: 5 (ESV)

Every word of God proves true; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.

2. The Bible teaches us that God cannot lie and always speaks truthfully.

2 Samuel 7: 28 (ESV)

And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your

servant.

Titus 1: 2 (ESV)

in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.

Hebrews 6: 18 (ESV)

18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might

have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.

3. The Bible claims that all the words of God are true and without error in any part.

God’s words are, in fact, the ultimate standard of truth.

John 17: 17 (ESV)

17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

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4. God’s words remain free from error even when spoken through sinful human beings

(i.e., The Holy Spirit’s role in the Inspiration of Scripture).

e.g., Balaam’s Prophecy in Numbers 23: 19

19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not

do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

5. Because it is inspired and carries the authority of God, we have confidence in the

divine nature of God’s word and trust what is recorded within.

2. Inerrancy Defined:

1. “Inerrancy is the doctrine that the Bible is fully truthful in all of its teachings

(Erickson, 246).”

2. “The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not

affirm anything that is contrary to fact (Grudem, 91).”

3. A simple definition: “The Bible always tells the truth and that it always tells the truth

concerning everything it talks about (Grudem).”

*Note: this was the universal position of the Church until the Enlightenment (17th

–early

19th

centuries) when some church scholars accepted the secular academies position of

human reason as the standard rather than revelation and reality.

3. Inerrancy Examined:

Inerrancy focuses on the truthfulness of scripture. Does the Bible report truthfully historical facts and teach

truthfully the theological lessons of the faith?

1. The Bible can be inerrant and allow for a variety of styles.

As discussed previously, the Bible was written by authors of various backgrounds

and education levels. John wrote in the simple style of a fisherman while Luke

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wrote with the sophistication of a doctor. Paul wrote with the logic of a

philosopher. All three recorded truthfully the words of scripture in their books.

Variation of style is entirely compatible with Inerrancy.

2. The Bible can be inerrant and have variety in details explaining the same event.

This can be seen in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) where the three

authors sometimes record the same events in different ways.

Remember, Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the NT was written in Greek. The

authors could have chosen to use slightly different Greek words to translate the

same incident and still meant the same thing (albeit with different words).

Biblical Example: Matthew & Mark record the crowd’s yelling “Hosanna”

during the triumphal entry (see Matt. 21:8; Mk 11:9) while Luke records “Glory

in the highest (Lk 19:38).” The reason for this was the intended audience.

‘Hosanna’ is a Hebrew word that would be familiar to Matthew & Mark’s

audience while Luke, writing to a predominately Gentile audience, chose to use

the phrase “Glory in the highest” to communicate the crowd’s meaning on that

day.

I Don’t have…Atheist Reference: Corroborating evidence verses verbatim

accounts shows greater degree of historicity and truthfulness (See 7. The New

Testament Writers Include Divergent Details, 284).

3. The Bible can be inerrant and use normal, everyday forms of speech.

This is especially true in “scientific” or “historical” descriptions of facts or events

(e.g., the sun “rising”). From the view point of the writer, these everyday

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expressions are truthful and are not meant to mislead. The writer is reporting how

things appear to the eye.

Modern Example: Meteorologists, with all the scientific equipment at their

fingertips, still talk about “sunrises” and “sunsets.”

Another example of this is with the use of approximation and estimation with

numbers. A reporter reports that 8,000 men were killed in a battle even though he

has not counted everyone. If roughly 8,000 died it would, of course, be wrong to

say that 16,000 died. But if 7,963 died or 8, 212 died we would not think the

report was a lie. **the limits of truthfulness would depend on the degree of

precision implied by the speaker and expected by his original hearers.**

(Grudem, 91).

Biblical Example: Numbers 25:9 states that 24,000 died by the plague and Paul

states in 1 Cor. 10:8 that 23,000 died. Both are approximations, and for the

purpose involved, both are adequate and therefore may be regarded as true

(Erickson, 261).

--these passages warn against the danger of sexual immorality// Baal of Peor.

The Bible’s assertions are fully true when judged in accordance with the

purpose for which they were written (Erickson).--

The same is true for measurements. For example, “We aren’t very far from Rock

Hill,” “It’s a little over a five miles to Rock Hill,” or “We are approximately 5.25

miles from Rock Hill.” All are truthful statements that accurately reflect the

viewpoint of the person speaking.

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For the Christian, there is no problem affirming the truthfulness of the Bible and

that the Bible uses ordinary language to describe natural phenomena or to give

approximations or round numbers when those are appropriate in the context.

4. The Bible can be inerrant, and depart from standard forms of English grammar.

It is wrong to force English rules of grammar upon the Bible because of the

differences between English and Koine Greek.

These grammatical irregularities often were a reflection of the authors and the

rough-hewn language of ordinary people.

A statement can be ungrammatical but still be entirely true.

For example: John 10:9, Jesus declares “I am the door.” Two verses later he says,

“I am the good shepherd (v.11).” In English this is considered mixing metaphors,

but this is not a problem to Greek grammar or Hebrew language. // Another

Example: John 14:26 Jesus refers to the Spirit (pneuma= neuter) and then refers

to the Spirit as “He” (ekeinos= masculine). This may raise an English

grammarian’s eyebrows, but it is not a problem of Greek grammar (Enns, 170).

5. The Bible can be inerrant, and still include loose or free quotations.

The method used to quote an individual varies from culture to culture. In the

USA and the UK, we quote a person’s exact statement when using quotation

marks. But when we don’t use quotation marks, we merely expect an accurate

report of the main gist or point of the statement.

In Biblical Greek, quotation marks did not exist, and the cultural expectation was

not a verbatim quotation.

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To accurately cite another person, the author simply needed to include only a

correct representation of the content of what the person said (Grudem, 92).

As a result, inerrancy allows the NT authors to loosely quote the OT or the words

of Jesus, for example, so long as the content is not false to what was originally

stated (Grudem). This would be expected by the original audience and accepted

as true.

Other practical considerations for why verbatim quotes were not expected

include: Translation from Aramaic to Greek made this impractical at times, the

scrolls that contained the OT were large and difficult to unroll and read each time

a quote was needed. Also, these scrolls were not readily available to the NT

writers who were spread out across the ancient world.

4. Current Challenges to Inerrancy

As mentioned above, the Enlightenment brought a new skepticism to the doctrine of

Inerrancy that has continued until today. Below are listed several challenges and how we

might respond to them.

1. The Bible Is Only Authoritative for “Faith & Practice.”

A common objection that states that the bible is only error-free in issues dealing

with religious faith and/or our ethical conduct.

This position allows for there to be errors in the bible on other topics including

scientific facts and historical details (since these areas aren’t really the purpose of

the Bible).

Biblical Response: The Bible clearly teaches that all of scripture is profitable for

us and “God-Breathed (2 Tim 3:16)”.

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Also, these designations of “Faith & Practice” are artificial categories. The Bible

itself does not restrict what kinds of subjects it speaks truthfully on.

NT examples of the writers believing all of scripture include:

o Paul (Acts 24:14) But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call

a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and

written in the Prophets…

o Paul (Rom. 15:4) For whatever was written in former days was written for our

instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we

might have hope.

o Jesus chides His disciples for not believing everything given to them by

the prophets (Lk 24:25): And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to

believe all that the prophets have spoken!”

These are just a few examples of NT writers demonstrating the belief they had in

all details of the OT. Many other examples could be given, but the point is made.

The NT writers were ready and willing to use all of the OT scriptures to teach and

instruct disciples of Jesus.

A Response from Science: Modern day science, especially in the areas of

Astronomy and Archeology, has consistently proved the details of the Bible to be

true.

o Examples: SURGE data corroborates what the Bible says about the

Universe and the Earth.

S- Second Law of Thermodynamics

U- Universe is Expanding

R- Radiation Afterglow (Remnant Heat from Big Bang)

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G- Great Galaxy Seeds (very precise temperature variations in the

Radiation Afterglow that allowed the galaxies to form in the early

universe).

E- Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity shows that Time, Space, and

Matter came into existence together.

o Archeological discoveries over the past 100 years have proven details

in the Bible to be true.

The unknown “Sargon” mentioned in Isaiah 20:1 has been identified through

archeological discoveries in the twentieth century (Erickson, 263).

Prior to the mid-twentieth century, the best available data suggested that the

region where Jericho was located was uninhabited from about 1600BC until

1200BC. This put the biblical account in doubt which placed the Walls of

Jericho account at roughly 1440BC. But excavations done in the 1950s and 60s

discovered thick layers of ash containing grain samples that, when carbon dated,

showed a burn date of…you guessed it, 1440BC (Driscoll, 63)!

These are just a few examples to illustrate that the Bible is truthful in all areas,

not just Faith and Practice, and can be trusted.

2. We have no inerrant manuscripts; therefore, talk about an inerrant bible is

misleading.

Those who use this argument make the point that the Originals were inerrant, but

we no longer have these (Autographs). Since that is the case, how can we say that

the Bible is inerrant?

Response: Through the science and study of textual criticism of ancient biblical

manuscripts, Bible scholars know exactly 99.5 percent of what the original copies

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said. Thus, we have been able to reconstruct the original manuscripts and can

authoritatively use them as the Word of God.

Note: the .5% in question does not affect a single doctrine of the Christian Faith.

An Example of the textual reconstruction process (Geisler, 228). Suppose we

have four different manuscripts that have four different variations in the same

verse, such as Philippians 4:13 (“I can do all things through Christ who gives me

strength.”).

Example A: I can do all t#ings through Christ who gives me strength.

Example B: I can do all th#ngs through Christ who gives me strength.

Example C: I can do all thi#gs through Christ who gives me strength.

Example D: I can do all thin#s through Christ who gives me strength.

Is there any doubt what the original said? Through the process of comparing and

cross-checking, the original manuscripts can be reconstructed with great accuracy.

The early dating and large number of manuscripts confirm the accuracy and

truthfulness of scripture.

o The Dead Sea Scrolls contain much of the OT and are dated to nearly 150BC.

The contents of the scrolls confirmed what the previously oldest manuscripts

(roughly 900 years old) with miniscule variation (mostly spelling differences

& grammatical variations). The Church’s confidence in the OT text was

confirmed (Driscoll, 64).

o Today we have 14,000 fragments and over 5,000 complete manuscript copies

of the NT. Some of these date back to as early as 25 years after the originals

were written (Geisler, 226-27).

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o This compares VERY favorably to other ancient writings where all have less

than 1000 manuscript copies surviving (many less than 25) with a gap of 500

yrs. (Homer) to 1400 yrs. (Demosthenes) between the original and the copies.

Therefore, the current published scholarly texts of the Hebrew Old Testament

and Greek New Testament are the same as the original manuscripts. Thus,

when we say that the original manuscripts were inerrant, we are also implying

that over 99 percent of the words in our present manuscripts are also inerrant,

for they are exact copies of the originals (Grudem, 96).

Well if the New Testament really is the Word of God, then why didn’t God

preserve the original? We can only speculate here, but one possibility is

because his word might be better protected through copies than through

original documents. How so? Because if the original were in someone’s

possession, that person could change it. But if there are copies spread all

over the ancient world, there’s no way one scribe or priest could alter the

Word of God. As we have seen, the process of reconstruction allows variants

and changes from copies to be indentified and corrected rather easily. So,

ironically, not having the originals may preserve God’s word better than

having them (Geisler, 229).

Side Note: Why So Many Translations? Are They Reliable?

Yes they are. If you have a modern translation of the Bible, then you have

almost exactly what the ancient authors wrote.

Bible translations allow more people to read God’s word (for centuries, only

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the clergy could read the Bible because the general populace didn’t

understand Greek [Eastern Orthodox] or Latin [Western Church].

One of the great results of the Reformation was returning the Bible to the

People.

At least part of the Bible has been translated into at least 2,454 languages, and

the full Bible is available in at least 453 languages (Driscoll, 70).

In the English language, there are three types of translations that you will find:

Word for Word Translations (i.e., formal equivalence translations):

these translations emphasize the patterns of the words and seek “as far

as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the

personal style of each Bible writer…thus it seeks to be transparent to

the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the

structure and meaning of the original (Driscoll). These translations

strive to translate exactly, word for word, what the Bible says.

Examples include, The King James Version (KJV), The English

Standard Version (ESV), the New King James Version (NKJV), and

The New American Standard Version (NASB).

Thought for Thought Translations (i.e., dynamic equivalence):

These translations attempt to convey the full nuance of each passage

by interpreting the Scripture’s entire meaning an dnot just the

individual words. Such versions seek to find the best modern cultural

equivalent that will have the same effect the original message had in

its ancient cultures. Popular examples include the New International

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From the 1978 Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy…

No translation is or can be perfect, and all translations are an additional step away

from the autograph. Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English-speaking

Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent

translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true Word of God

is within their reach. Indeed, in view of the frequent repetition in Scripture of the

main matters with which it deals and also of the Holy Spirit's constant witness to and

through the Word, no serious translation of Holy Scripture will so destroy its

meaning as to render it unable to make its reader "wise for salvation through faith in

Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15).

Version (NIV), New Living Translation (NLT), and the Contemporary

English Version (CEV).

Paraphrased translation: these translations put the emphasis on

readability in English. Therefore, they pay even less attention to

specific word patterns in an attempt to capture the poetic or narrative

essence of a passage. Examples include The Message (MSG) and the

Living Bible (TLB) (Driscoll, 71).

Final Thoughts on Translations:

All faithful translations strive to find a balance between four

elements: 1) Accuracy to the original text, 2) Beauty of language, 3)

Clarity of Meaning, 4) Dignity of Style.

All translations have various strengths and weaknesses and students of

scripture benefit from reading various translations.

Finally, instead of fighting over the different translations, we should

instead thank God for every good translation and trust the Holy Spirit

to use them to transform our lives.

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3. There are clear errors in the Bible.

Inevitably, those who deny the inerrancy of scripture will make this claim.

The first response should be to ask the person making the claim to identify an

error in scripture.

Many who claim the Bible is filled with errors cannot locate even one.

Since we believe the Bible to be inerrant we should not fear such claims, but

should welcome the opportunity to examine the scriptures when these claims are

made.

Note: Difficult passages in scripture (e.g., the .5 percent mentioned above) does

not mean that the Bible is not inspired or inerrant.

In these instances we wait for all the remaining data to be made available,

confident that if we had all the data, the problems could be resolved.

As mentioned above, modern science has helped fill in many of the gaps

in the data and reassured the modern reader that what the Bible says is the

inspired Word of God.

Some problem passages may never be resolved this side of eternity (the

needed data is lost to history), but this does not shake our confidence in

scripture knowing the overwhelming pattern points to God’s word being

reliable and truthful.

Finally, A historical perspective on inerrancy is helpful. There are no

“new” problems with God’s Word. The Complete Bible is over 1900

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years old and the “problem texts,” have been there all along (Grudem, 99).

For centuries scholars have examined the text and walked away with the

same conclusion: The Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God that

we can build our lives upon.

5. Why Inerrancy Matters

1. Theologically: If we deny inerrancy, we are saying that God is not truthful, or

He can lie about the minor things when needed. If God is who the Bible says He,

this cannot be.

i. If we deny inerrancy, we place human reason above divine revelation

and make our judgments a higher standard of truth than God’s word.

2. Historically: Since its birth, the historic Christian church has held the Bible to be

inerrant and the inspired word of God. Denying inerrancy moves a person onto

dangerous ground where all beliefs are questioned.

i. History has shown that when a person, movement, or denomination

moves away from this belief, their belief in other core doctrines of the

faith slowly erode away (e.g., the doctrine of the incarnation & virgin

birth, the Deity of Christ).

ii. If the bible proves to be in error in those areas that we can check

(history, science, etc.), then why should the reader believe in those

areas that cannot be checked?

III. Conclusion: Final Thoughts on how we know God through Revelation and

Scripture:

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1. God can be known & wants you to know Him. You can trust Him to faithfully reveal

Himself to you.

2. If you are Christian, the importance of the Bible cannot be overstated. The author

lives inside of you and will make the truth of scripture come alive (illumination). “In

a world with many different voices, the Bible is a trustworthy guide. For when

correctly interpreted, it can be fully relied on in all that it teaches. It is a sure,

dependable, and trustworthy guide (Erickson, 265).”

3. We must remember that those who have not accepted Christ still have a darkened

view of God. With grace and patience we must look for opportunities to obediently

tell them the good news of Christ.

Bibliography

Arrington, French L. Christian Doctrine: A Pentecostal Perspective. Vol. 1. Cleveland, TN.

Pathway Press, 1992.

Driscoll, Mark and Gerry Breshears. Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe. Wheaton, IL.

Crossway, 2010.

Enns, Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology. Revised and exp. ed. Chicago: Moody

Publishers, 2008.

Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1998.

Freedman, David Noel. Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: William B.

Eerdmans Publishing, 2000.

Geiser, Norman L. and Frank Turek. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Publishing, 2004.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI:

Zondervan, 1994.

Seamands, Stephen. Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service.

Downers Grove, IL. InterVarsity Press, 2005.

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Williams, J. Rodman. Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective.

Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996.