article

Biblical inerrancy is the personal belief and theological stance that the Bible is without error; "referring to the complete accuracy of Scripture, including the historical and scientific parts." Most adherants to biblical inerrency apply their view to the original texts, believing that the authors of these texts were inspired by God. Various sects also extend their views of inerrancy to various Bible translations and other extra biblical texts.

Basis of belief

The theological basis of the belief, in its simplest form, is that as God is infallible, the Bible, as the Word of God, must also be free from error. A more nuanced restatement of the same idea is that God inspired the authors of the Bible without marginalizing their personal concerns or personalities, and so preserved the texts from error. (See Biblical inspiration). Some Christians state infallibility and inerrancy refer to the original texts of the Bible, not to translations of it. Others extend inerrancy to translations as well (see discussion on the King James Only movement below).

Roman Catholic teaching holds that the resurrection of Christ affirms his divinity, and Christ in turn appointed the Pope, or the body of Bishops led by the Pope, guided by the Holy Spirit, to offer infallible guidance on questions of faith and morals whose answers are found within the Word of God, comprising both sacred tradition and sacred religious text. Pope Pius XII {http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/most/getchap.cfm?WorkNum=216&ChapNum=7} denounced those who held that the inerrancy was restricted (to matters of faith and morals) with "when certain Catholic authors, contrary to this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, in which authority of this kind is claimed which enjoys immunity from any error whatsoever, for these books 'whole and entire, with all their parts'-when these authors had dared to restrict the truth of Holy Scripture to matters of faith and morals ... our Predecessor of Immortal memory, Leo XIII, in an encyclical, Providentissimus Deus.... rightly and properly refuted those errors...."

The Eastern Orthodox Church also believes in unwritten tradition and the written scriptures, but it has rarely sought to clarify the relationship between them. Contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologians debate whether these are separate deposits of knowledge or different ways of understanding a single dogmatic reality. Father George Florovsky, for example, asserted that tradition is no more than "Scripture rightly understood." Others tend to place a body of beliefs beside scripture, although even then these theologians would argue that tradition is consonant with scripture and does not add any new dogmatic understanding of who God is in Trinity or the work of Jesus Christ. Because the Eastern Orthodox Church emphasizes the authority of councils, which belong to all the bishops, it stresses the canonical uses rather than inspiration of scripture. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, most Eastern Orthodox theologians also recognize the reception of councils by the body of the church as a final seal of authenticity or ecumenicity. Since the acceptance of the Septuagint and New Testament by leading regional bishops of the second century was predicated on those texts' faithfulness to the same apostolic teaching that supposedly is reflected in tradition; the Eastern Orthodox Church emphasizes that the scriptures can only be understood according to a normative rule of faith (the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, in short) and way of life historically continuous with Christ and the Apostles.

Evangelical churches, unlike Eastern and Roman churches, reject that there is an infallible authoritative tradition that is held over or on a par with scripture. Some Evangelicals hold that the Bible confirms its own authority, pointing out that Jesus frequently quotes scripture as his final "court of appeal". (See for example Matthew 4:4,6 & 10; 21:13; Mark 9:12) Protestants do not reject tradition, but as Lorraine Boettner comments, they "make judicious use of it in so far as it accords with Scripture and is founded on truth. We should for instance treat with respect and study the confessions and council pronouncements of the various Churches, particulary those of the ancient church, and of Reformation days... The history of the church at large shows all too clearly that church leaders and councils can and do make mistakes. Some of them serious... * use their traditions with one controlling caution: they continually ask if this or that aspect of belief and practice is true to the Bible." The reasoning is that if the Bible is assumed to be inerrant and the only form of God's Word, then inerrantists believe the bible to be fully reliable. Tradition on the other hand is seen to be subject to human memory, and multiple, even contradictory versions of the same events/truths.

A variation of this belief (King James Only) holds that the translators of the King James Version were guided by God and that the KJV thus is to be taken as authoritative. However, those who hold this opinion do not extend it to the KJV translations of the Deuterocanonical books, which were produced along with the rest of the Authorized Version. Modern translations differ from the KJV on numerous points, sometimes resulting from access to different early texts. Upholders of the KJV would nevertheless hold that the Protestant canon of KJV is itself an inspired text and therefore remains authoritative. The King James Only movement asserts that the KJV is the sole English translation free from error.

How inerrantists establish reliability

Adherents to Scriptural inerrancy base their claims on a number of observations and processes including the historical accuracy of the Bible, the Bible's claims on its own inerrancy, church history and tradition, and one's individual experience with God, etc. Geisler and Nix claim to be able to demonstrate a "variety of sources" that supports the claims of inerrancy. (Geisler & Nix 1986) "Prima Facie" refers to evidence and claims from the Bible itself. "The Witness of the Spirit" is cited as proof to the person to whom God speaks. The 'Transforming Ability" of Scripture is cited as yet another supernatural proof to an individual. The "Unity of the Scripture" despite its myriad of authors, cultures and topics, "The Historicity of the Bible" and how the archaeological record is interpreted to confirm the Bible, the "testimony of Christ", "fulfilled prophecies", "apparent indestructibility" of the scriptures, and "the integrity of it's authors" are all commonly taught as ways reliability is established.

Establishing the autograph

There are over 5,600 Greek manuscripts containing all or part of the New Testament. Most of these manuscripts date to the Middle Ages. The first complete copy of the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus, dates to the 4th century. The earliest fragment of a New Testament book is the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 which dates to the mid 2nd century and is the size of a business card. Very early manuscripts are rare. But because the church fathers cited the New Testament abundantly, it is possible to reconstruct most of the New Testament without even referencing the manuscripts. Including these quotations there are over 20,000 sources for the New Testament. Inerrantists believe that once all the manuscript evidence is compiled and compared, the errors in transmission become apparent and are easily eliminated. While this may be true for minor errors, such as misspellings, deletions, and word order errors, other differences are harder to account for or notice. Three common examples of text being inserted, which are commonly footnoted in bibles, are the Pericope Adulteræ (John 7:53 - 8:11), the Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7–8) and the longer ending in Mark 16 (Mark 16:9-20). For hundreds of years, biblical scholars have examined the manuscripts extensively, yet there is no consensus on what the original version may have looked like. On the other hand, inerrantists believe that the autograph is not only accessible, but existent in modern translations, although different inerrantists disagree on which version is the best. Inerrantists from non-Protestant churches often prefer the traditional texts used in their churches to modern attempts of reconstruction, arguing that the Holy Spirit is just as active in the preservation of the scriptures as he was in their creation.

Inerrantists point out that critics have no problem with accepting accuracy of transmission for the works of Homer (600 copies exist, the earliest over 500 years after the autograph) or Plato (only 7 manuscripts exist, 1,200 years after the autograph).

Literal or Figurative Interpretation?

While believing that every word is given by God through the authors of scripture, many inerrantists say that literal interpretation is not always appropriate, and that it is necessary sometimes to recognize figurative language in scripture. Statements such as "And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" (Isaiah 55:12) do not make literal sense and are impossible to understand correctly in their context without recognizing figurative language (in the example given, a poetic metaphor expressing joy). A literal interpretation would have Isaiah's trees sprouting hands and actually clapping them. Entire books have been devoted to understanding figures of speech in Scripture. An early example that is still used is E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1970; reprinted from the 1898 original).

The Protestant position

In 1978 a large gathering of Protestant churches, including representatives of the Conservative, Reformed and Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Baptist denominations, adopted the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. The Chicago Statement does not necessarily imply that any particular traditional interpretation of the Bible is without error. Instead, it gives primacy to seeking the intention of the author of each text, and commits itself to receiving the statement as fact depending on whether it can be determined or assumed that the author meant to communicate a statement of fact. Of course, knowing the intent of the original authors is impossible. Acknowledging that there are many kinds of literature in the Bible besides statements of fact, the Statement nevertheless reasserts the authenticity of the Bible in toto as the Word of God. The Chicago Statement is worried that accepting one error in the Bible leads one down a slippery slope that ends in rejecting that the Bible has any value greater than some other book. "The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church."

The Catholic position

The position of the Roman Catholic Church on the infallibility of the Bible is contained in Dei Verbum, one of the principal documents of the Second Vatican Council, promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 18, 1965. It states that "everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit" and that "they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He * wanted." (Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, n. 11).

Dei Verbum reaffirms a well-known and often-quoted statement by Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus (November 18, 1893), that "...all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely ... at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican." (Providentissimus Deus, n. 20).

Nevertheless, the Church does not adopt a literalist approach to inerrancy, but holds that, although every biblical passage is true and inerrant when correctly interpreted, the authority to decide correct interpretation rests with the Church through its magisterium.

Wesleyan View of Scripture

The Wesley Christian tradition accepts that the Bible is authoritative on matters concerning salvation. But it does not advocate that the Bible is inerrant, nor does it contend that the Bible is authoritative on all matters.

What is of central importance for the Wesleyan Christian tradition is the Bible as a tool that God uses to promote salvation. The Bible does not itself effect salvation; God initiates salvation and proper creaturely responses consummate salvation. One may be in danger of bibliolatry (worship of the Bible) if one claims that the Bible secures salvation.

With this focus on salvation, Wesleyans need not make claims about inerrancy in the original autographs, subsequent translations, or particular interpretations. And yet Wesleyans affirm the Bible to be principally authoritative for faith and practice, and the Bible is often a principle means for God to promote salvation in the world.

Notes

See also

References

External links

Biblical criticism | Christian fundamentalism

Fundamentalistische Exegese | Ineransi

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Biblical inerrancy".

Home Page • arts • business • computers • games • health • hospitals • home • kids & teens • news • physicians • recreation• reference • regional • science • shopping • society • sports • world