Zeal For Truth

Inerrancy, as believed by most Evangelicals, means that the bible, in the original manuscripts, is free from error and completely truthful in all that it addresses. The Chicago Statement has a detailed explanation of the doctrine. It is my contention that this doctrine is of little or no practical use.

We do not have the original manuscripts of the bible. It is true that we can reconstruct 98 to 99 percent of it with a very high degree of confidence and that few issues of any importance are contained in the areas most in dispute. Nevertheless, this leaves us in the position that, even if inerrancy in the original manuscripts was accepted, in which we do not have an inerrant bible today.

Another major problem is the issue of canon, or just what should be considered to be a part of the bible. Famously, Protestants and Roman Catholics have a different canon. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Coptic Church, the Ethiopian Church, and the various Oriental Churches, also have slightly different canons.

This is important because a major benefit of having an inerrant bible is to have a 100% accurate highest authority. But of course, the bible did not fall to us from the sky a complete, single entity. Any “highest” authority must make a circular argument for itself, that is, it must say that it is the highest authority. The bible fails a crucial element of this task in that it contains no list of what should be included in itself. That is, the bible does not say which works should be in the bible. So, should Tobit be considered inerrant? Heck, what about Jude? And if Jude, why not the Book of Enoch? Where is the inerrant source that decides?

There are other issues, but I think the two above are enough to show why the doctrine of inerrancy has little practical use.

The doctrine forces people to defend a position that is not provable, as well as forcing focus on a verse-by-verse defense of apparently mistaken or inconsistent passages and textually uncertainties. Instead the focus should be on just how well preserved the biblical texts are and it’s amazing contents

All and all, I’d say we need a better way to express our view of the bible.