A+ A-  

Chapter 5.
How to Avoid the Inerrancy Trap

Out of our sincere religious needs to possess in some written form an infallible source of truth, we run the risk of reducing our treasured book to irrelevance. If the religiously alienated, which in some cases includes our own children, can ridicule our sacred tradition by an appeal to our own sacred Scriptures for which we have claimed too much, then we will have little to offer the world. If those elements of organized religion are allowed to claim for the Bible words as "inerrant," "infallible," "the literal Word of God," so that it is their limited understanding that becomes the only perception of Christianity in the public arena, then the Christian church, so heavily burdened, will not be able to speak with power to our own generation.
—Bishop John Shelby Spong

Episcopal Bishop Spong, from Newark, NJ, excites admiration in some and opposition in others. However, his comments here on inerrancy carry too much logic and truth to be cast aside. We have added emphasis to the quotation by underlining key words directly relevant to this chapter. His statement expresses great danger to the Christian cause from those who crusade for the inerrancy of the Bible.

As Bishop Spong implies, life would be simple if you could say with certainty that the Bible is without error from cover to cover, including the cover that reads Holy Bible. Unfortunately, life is not that simple. Neither is theology, nor faith. But literary analysis can avoid the simplicity that baits the trap of inerrancy. In order to discuss the subject, however, we must first clarify what we mean by inerrancy. Then we shall consider six of its flaws. And, finally, we shall show how a literary approach to the Bible can address these flaws.

What is Inerrancy?

The common meaning of the term "inerrant" is "being without error; or of not straying, roving, or wandering away from the truth; having no factual mistake." Fundamentalists—those on the extreme right wings of Christianity, Orthodox Judaism, or Islam—maintain that their sacred Scriptures are inerrant in this sense.

Fundamentalist Christians apply the inerrancy theory only to the original manuscripts. They claim that any errors or discrepancies that might exist are found only in translations and copied manuscripts, and were not in the original manuscripts.

Biblical inerrancy, then, basically teaches that the entire Bible was inspired, word for word (verbally), directly by God through the original writers. Therefore, the original manuscripts must all be true and completely free from error or discrepancy of any kind. According to this theory, the original manuscripts contained no historical, chronological, numerical, scientific, material, human, spiritual, moral, or theological errors. An original manuscript would, therefore, be the unquestionable word of God. But no original manuscript is known to exist.

So what now? Those who maintain the perfect-original-manuscript theory assert that today's copies and translations are sufficiently like the original manuscripts that we have no reason to worry about any significant differences. Or, in the words of the 1978 Chicago Conference on Inerrancy: "We affirm that … the autographic text of Scripture … can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original."

This explanation of the inerrancy doctrine satisfies many adherents. Grady Cauthen, a former university and seminary president, in a discussion of inerrancy, writes that "non-scholar inerrantists" see the Bible as absolutely accurate in all of its statements. "If it seems to contradict some known position of science or fact of history, or if the accounts of the same events do not coincide, explanation is sought in some 'scribal inadvertency' or miscopied text, or the problem is attributed to the understanding of the era of the writer" (What Happened to the Southern Baptist Convention? 128). Hence a fundamentalist reader can encounter an error without admitting that there is a problem.

A definition of inerrancy depends upon who is defining the term. As Cauthen says, there is no single view or definition of inerrancy that is acceptable to all inerrantists, not even to most of them. It seems that almost everyone has his own definition and description that fits himself alone. This makes the subject difficult to discuss.

In his paper on "What Is Biblical Inerrancy?" Clark H. Pinnock, at a special Conference on Inerrancy at Ridgecrest, NC, in 1987, said, "You ought to be aware, if you are not, how little agreement there is among inerrantists about what biblical inerrancy actually means in practice." At the same conference, Fisher Humphreys, then professor of theology at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, defined inerrancy as follows: "The word is negative; it means 'without error.' The meaning, however, is positive; it is an affirmation that everything that the Bible teaches is error free …. This includes its assertions in the fields of history and science as well as religion and spiritual matters."

David Dockery, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, defines inerrancy as follows: "Inerrancy means, when all the facts are known, the Bible (in its autographs) properly interpreted in light of which culture and communication means had developed by the time of its composition, will be shown to be completely true (and therefore not false) in all that it affirms to the degree of precision intended by the author's purpose, in all matters relating to God and his creation."

Let us now summarize in order to offer the most straightforward definition of inerrancy we feel we can produce from the facts we have gathered.

The doctrine of inerrancy is not an evil plot. It is not an apostate position of anti-religious people (and neither are its opponents apostate). But, as the following section explains, inerrancy is a seriously flawed concept of the Bible. We turn now to examine some of those flaws.

Six Flaws in the Inerrancy Approach

1. The Inerrancy Approach Refuses to Recognize Factual Error

In their zeal to protect the Bible from error, fundamentalists tend to "explain away" errors. Daniel Stevick shows keen perception in his discussion of how fundamentalists exempt biblical writings in their theology. He points out the fundamentalist assumption that "if God is to speak to his creatures, the divinity of his Word must somehow imply the infallibility of the vehicle" (Beyond Fundamentalism 168).

In other words: if God is perfect and infallible, and he is to speak to his people, then the vehicle through which he speaks (the Bible) must also be perfect and infallible. It would follow that the Bible teaches that God is perfect and infallible; therefore the Bible must be without error. And if the Bible is without error, all the facts and doctrines in it are free of imperfections and blemishes. This circular logic does not compute in the modern mind. The logical fallacy consists in assuming the truth of the proposition that one sets out to prove.

Furthermore, inspiration does not in itself require infallibility. Perhaps a verbal-dictation theory of inspiration might, but the dynamic theory does not (see the previous chapter on inspiration). Stevick asks whether inspiration must imply the exemption of the writers "from the common human shortcomings in piety, logic, histori- cal information, theological acuity, and neighborly charity" (Beyond Fundamentalism, 168). The answer to that question is, "No, the inspiration of the biblical writers does NOT imply that they must have been temporarily exempt from their human shortcom- ings." There is no compelling reason to believe that God at any time in the inspiration process "set aside the conditions of the humanity" of the writers, or "abridged their freedom to err," or ever treated them as tools.

2. The Inerrancy Hypothesis Rejects Human Questioning

This flaw is very disturbing to those who do not share the inerrancy view. The doctrine of inerrancy implies that the fundamentalists have a monopoly on the one correct opinion of the nature of the scriptures. The inerrancy chain of logic goes as follows:

(1) from the basic premise of the inerrancy of scripture
(2) to the assumption that there is a single, consistent theological system in the Bible;
(3) to the conclusion that fundamentalist exegesis has discovered this theological system; and, finally,
(4) to the claim that fundamentalist theology reproduces this system (Stevick, 172).

From that infirm chain comes the unsupported assertion that the inerrant theological system is "the true system," and that it alone is "God's system." Thus, we are told, that if we argue with the theory we are questioning God. This ignores the fact that the inerrancy theory is a human interpretation of Scripture, and not Scripture itself. In other words, inerrancy is a man-made hypothesis, and not a God-given revelation.

3. Inerrancy Leads to Exclusion of Genuine Biblical Investigation

Inerrancy leads to a rejection of biblical criticism, whether it be historical criticism or literary analysis. The inerrantist position is that if the Bible is verbally inspired and is to be literally interpreted; human tools and methods of criticism have nothing to offer in the process of investigation or interpretation. Some religious conservatives reluctantly accept lower criticism (textual criticism) as having some value, but not higher criticism In fact, they view higher criticism as dangerous.

As Stevick says, fundamentalists "have simply dropped out of the debate on critical matters" (184). They seem to have turned away from investigation or knowledge from any source except within their own circle. For a believer, all truth is God's truth, and if God is immanent in all of His creation, truth might possibly come from surprising sources; so we should remain open to this possibility.

So we ask the following questions about inerrancy. Does it make sense that God would choose fallible human beings and make them temporarily infallible just to write a book of the Bible, and then allow them to revert to their normal and imperfect condition? Why would God temporarily displace the humanity and personality of the writers, use them as his mouthpiece or stenographer, and, as Rod Evans and Irwin Berent write, dictate to them "exactly what they had to say and write"? (Fundamentalism: Hazards and Heartbreaks 30). When considering those questions, some fundamentalists or evangelicals might loudly protest saying, "Oh, no, that's not what we believe!" But that is the direction verbal inspiration theories lead, first toward inerrancy, then word-for-word dictation, then a closed mind.

4. Inerrancy Prevents Solution of Serious Moral Problems in the Bible

A fourth flaw that grows out of the inerrancy theory is that it leads to an inability to resolve serious moral problems in the Bible. In certain places in the Bible, God is represented as vengeful and cruel. Yet those who try to maintain inerrancy in the face of these situations have a hard time convincing others that their "explanations" are consistent and valid. Those with an inerrancy bias avoid reading, studying, or considering other points of view that challenge their beliefs on the nature of Scripture. Consequently, they prevent themselves from finding logical explanations for the Bible's moral dilemmas.

5. Inerrancy Shuts the Door to Knowledge from Secular Sources

The inerrancy hypothesis tends to make its adherents hostile to other sources of knowledge. Such an anti-intellectual and unscientific philosophy of education is in direct contrast to a sound educational approach that should undergird every educational institution, university, or seminary.

Believers of any faith do themselves, their families, churches, synagogues, temples, and communities a disservice when they block their minds from every source of knowledge except a closed circle of people who think exactly like they do.

Those who embrace the inerrancy approach lose insight and knowledge from the full disciplines of theology and biblical studies. Moreover, they reject enlightenment from other fields of knowledge, even to ignoring tested and proven truths.

By doing this, they lose the full range of access to a better understanding of the Bible, its literature, languages, culture, history, sociology, background, and message. It is a tragic loss to cut oneself off from resources that can be such valuable and useful allies in our modern information age as we enter the twenty-first century.

Evans and Berent have made a strong and compelling appeal for people "in their search for the messages of God or truth in anything" not to "limit themselves to one, fixed approach that supposedly reaches 'the truth,' while it denies the possibility of many other avenues to, and forms of, truth." They continue: "People may have found truth in the Bible by studying it as history, as literature, as myth, as symbol, or even as science or literal truth; but whichever path they have taken, they can try to be honest, sensitive, and thoughtful as they can" (31). We agree with Evans and Berent that, although we would speak kindly of those who sincerely believe in inerrancy, this doctrine remains "an intellectually incomplete approach to truth."

Inerrancy is unable to offer a credible explanation of conflicts between the Bible and modern science. Stevick discusses the weakness of the position that if the Bible is without error and must not be criticized, then whenever a conflict appears between supposed Biblical truth and scientific truth, "this conflict must be decided in favor of the Bible" (170). This is not a satisfactory way to cope with serious difficulties, and it illustrates this glaring flaw in the inerrancy theory. If science is true, and the Bible, too, is true and without error, then a better effort must be developed for accommodating this secular knowledge with spiritual truth, or else the inerrantists must change their flawed view of scripture.

6. Inerrancy Confuses God with a Book

Those who advocate the inerrancy theory confuse the source of ultimate authority as vacillating between (1) Jesus Christ as the Living Word of God, and (2) the written scriptures, a materialistic book, as the verbally inspired and perfect Word of God. The traditional viewpoint of Christianity through the centuries has been that Jesus Christ, as expressed in John 1:1-14, is the incarnate (God in the flesh) and perfect Word of God. Yet relatively modern fundamentalists substitute for this a doctrine of the inerrant Word, the written and translated book, as the ultimate authority for the Christian and the Church to follow. In holding such an unrealistic view of the nature of the Bible, they come very near to equating the Bible with God.

They tend to ignore the Bible's many obvious narrative inconsistencies, errors in facts and numbers, incredible statements on a literal level, unethical events presented as having divine approval, scribal and editorial errors, and obscure and untranslatable passages. Anyone who reads today's Bible and sees such errors and says, "Oh, they don't count!" is out of touch with reality in the modern intellectual world.

This kind of thinking leads to circular thinking that prevent intellectual progress. Because they accepted the inerrancy premise, inerrantists are trapped into being compelled to defend their insecure faith by a distorted use of the words of the Bible. In the process they become unable to discern error from truth, human mistakes from infallibility, and discrepancies from perfection.

Facing the Inerrancy Flaws with a Literary Approach to the Bible

In this section, as throughout the book, we contend neither for nor against any sectarian dogma, but, rather, for the use of a literary approach to the Bible, regardless of denominational doctrinal positions. However, in many cases a literary approach might help decide which theological option would provide a better understanding of the Bible. Therein lies the practical value and utility of this method.

The following questions provide the key elements of the literary approach. Anybody can use them for any part of the Bible, just by asking themselves the relevant questions and finding the answers.

Note that some of the questions asked about biblical poetry apply also to prose, and some qualities of narrative fiction also apply to poetry. Moreover, some qualities are found in all kinds of poetry, prose, and other literary genre, whether sacred or secular. It is not necessary to ask all of the above questions about every biblical passage or book every time you begin to read it. But asking some questions like these can be very helpful.

Now we shall apply this literary approach to the six flaws of inerrancy previously discussed. We shall see how it works with each problem. And we shall see how it helps resolve those flaws and difficulties.

1. Understanding Error

The first flaw we recognized in the theory of inerrancy is that it leads to a refusal to recognize error, to the inability to distinguish between truth (or accuracy) and error (inaccuracy or discrepancies) in the Bible. It is impossible to understand and correct error without first recognizing the error. It seems naive for fundamentalists to say that their (inerrancy) view of the Bible prevents them from criticizing it (meaning analyzing it carefully to see if there are errors). This is as unreasonable as it is to assume that any conflict between supposed biblical truth and scientific truth must always be decided in favor of the Bible.

Most believers would agree that the Bible is not a scientific textbook. However, it does sometimes discuss scientific subjects, and, in so doing, it reflects the pre-scientific assumptions of its time. Cosmology is a prime example.

The prevailing biblical view of cosmology (the study of the universe as an orderly system) was that the earth was the center of what we would call the universe and that the moon, sun, and stars moved around the earth. Under that concept, the people of the Old Testament were concerned less with the physical origin and operation of the universe than with how the central elements such as light, firmament, earth, seas, sun, moon, stars, animal and plant life, got their role and function in relation to man's life on the earth.

This concept of cosmology perhaps explains why the Hebrew Bible has no word for what we understand as the "universe." Ancient thinking on this subject, according to The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible was "mythopoeic [myth making] rather than intellectual, issuing more out of imaginative fancy than out of logical inference or disciplined inquiry." So when biblical writers spoke of what we think of as cosmology, they were often inaccurate concerning scientific facts proven by modern knowledge.

For example, Psalms 93:1 says that "the world is firmly established; it cannot be moved" (NIV); that is, the earth is stationary and does not move. This theory was so firmly embedded that in 1633 A.D. the Roman Catholic Church severely persecuted Galileo for supporting the Copernican theory that the earth does move. Even after his forced recantation Galileo insisted, "And still it moves." Today, of course, the space program has joined hands with science to prove absolutely that the earth both spins and moves around the sun. It would seem that any reasoning person would have to recognize the biblical error involved and make satisfactory allowance for it.

In another example, Genesis 7:11 says, "When Noah was six hundred years old … all the springs of the great deep burst out, the windows of the heavens were opened, and rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights," (REB). This reflects the ancient view that the earth was situated on top of a great sea of water. Additionally, the earth was supposed to be covered from above by a sea of water with holes in it through which the water poured when it rained down on the earth. And in Isaiah 14:9 we read, "Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come," (RSV). This is the pre-scientific assumption that beneath the earth, or inside it, is Sheol, where the shadowy dead go. To say that this portrayal of a three-storied universe is without error would be to dispute generations of validated science and knowledge.

A historical example of error is the length of the Israelites' stay in Egypt, which is not completely explainable within the inerrantist's frame of reference. Let's see what literary analysis can do about it.

In the Hebrew Bible, Exodus 12:40 gives the duration of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt, between the times of Joseph and of Moses, as 430 years. The Greek Septuagint translation commonly used by Christians and Greek-speaking Jews of the time of Christ and the early church reports it as 435 years, including the time in Egypt "and in Canaan." Here we have a problem. Was it 430 years in Egypt ("to the very day," —REB), or was it 435 years in both Egypt and Canaan? This would have been about half of that total number of years in Egypt alone. A fundamentalist might quickly give preference to the revered Hebrew Bible over the Septuagint translation, although the Septuagint seems to have been the preferred version for the New Testament writers and the early Christians.

Biblical genealogies and other biblical sources are quite inconsistent about this period of time. Gen. 15:13 gives the number for the Egyptian sojourn as 400 years, but Gen. 15:16 says it was to be in the fourth generation that the Jews would return to the land of Canaan from Egypt. Two New Testament references, Acts 7:6 and Galatians 3:17, report the period of time as 400 years, as does Genesis 15:13. Exodus 6:16-20 indicates four generations from Joseph to Moses. Other passages in Leviticus and Numbers imply four generations from Jacob to the exodus. But Numbers 26:28-34 names seven generations from Joseph to the daughters of Zelophehad who were permitted to inherit their father's portion of land in Israel upon the occupation of Canaan. Was it four generations or seven? Most Bible scholars, after studying all the relevant historical considerations and evidence, opt for an Egyptian sojourn of about 130 years, or four generations.

Literary analysis would admit the problem and resolve it by simply concluding that the lack of unanimity and consistency is neither surprising nor critical. That conclusion would be justified by analyzing the evidence in the various passages for different styles and techniques of writing, different authorship sources, and indications of uneven human literary skills and attention to details. However, inerrantists attempt to deny the problem, or minimize it, or explain it by complex rationalizations. By accepting the literary approach to the Bible and reading it as literature as well as Scripture they could avoid serious embarrassment.

Those who read the Bible as literature only, as well as those who read it as literature plus, can read it for the aesthetic enjoyment and practical value they derive from it. Using the tools of literary analysis that they normally use in all their reading, a wide range of general readers can appreciate and benefit from reading the Bible. Modern readers understand how any writer, ancient or modern, inspired or not, must of necessity speak and write out of his or her own understanding and culture. The average twenty-first-century reader recognizes that finished written products reflect the historical conditioning of the writers. So it was with Shakespeare and with Milton. And so it is with the Bible.

2. Moderating Excessive Claims for Absolute Truth

The second flaw in the inerrancy position is the advocate's conviction that he has a monopoly on the one correct view of the nature of the scriptures. Those who read theology must admit that other views of the scriptures exist, because so many other viewpoints are ably advocated and defended. However, fundamentalists and evangelical extremists claim that all other viewpoints are wrong.

Yet they have no legitimacy for their claim, for they have mistaken the claim of inerrancy for the proof of inerrancy. And there is no proof, not even in the Bible itself. The Bible never claims that all the authors were protected from error in everything they wrote. Not one verse in the entire Bible claims that the whole Bible is inerrant in everything it says. No verse in the Bible asserts that every word in the Bible is verbally inspired by the Lord. Not one clear example in the whole Bible demonstrates a pattern that God inspired his chosen writers so that their personalities were superseded as they wrote. In no instance do we read that their vocabulary was dictated to the extent that they were miraculously protected from human error.

No literature professor would claim that Shakespeare can not speak meaningfully to our generation unless he is politically correct, socially correct, scientifically correct, and philosophically correct according to our current standards. Those who contend for the theory of inerrancy have set up a bogus strawman. For them the Bible must be totally correct and inerrant—or it can not be trustworthy. But there is no compelling reason why the Bible, though not 100% correct according to today's standards, cannot speak meaningfully to twenty-first-century readers.

To avoid the inerrancy trap, literary and religious readers must read the Bible with their aesthetic antennas up, their eyes wide open, and their memory and brain functioning at 100% capacity. Religious readers must not insist on an impossible standard of inerrancy just because infallible knowledge would make faith easy. As the New Testament says, "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, RSV). Faith is assurance and conviction, but not certainty.

3. Releasing Literary Criticism for Fuller Understanding of the Bible

The third flaw in the theory of inerrancy is that it leads to a rejection of biblical criticism. Before continuing, let's agree upon the meaning of the word "criticism." Many persons tend to link the word "critic" or "criticism," with the negative meaning of "finding fault with." However, the primary meaning of the verb "to criticize" is "to assess the merits and demerits" of something or someone. A "critic" is "a person skilled in forming opinions and giving a judgment, especially in a particular field of learning or endeavor." The word "kritikos," meaning "able to judge," appears in the Greek New Testament. It is related to the word "krino," meaning "to judge, decide, determine, consider, regard, think, prefer." Thus we see that the nature of criticism is essentially positive, not negative.

Some preachers, television evangelists, and professors resist biblical criticism and literary analysis. Perhaps they don't realize that the average Bible reader today stands on the shoulders of critics and scholars who enormously advanced biblical knowledge in the last two hundred years. Many pastors don't understand that today's parishioners and Bible readers demand the right to stay on those shoulders and continue to learn and to think for themselves. Today's readers will seek the very best tools available to understand the Bible better. This need for literary analysis can not be denied or reversed.

By using criticism readers learn many valuable lessons about interpreting any literary work. For example, the Greeks learned from Homer that the gods could no longer be thought of as formless spirits, but that they were humanized, with human passions, to be better comprehended. So is it that in the Bible we learn to understand certain "anthropomorphic" (attributing human or man-like form or character to God) expressions applied to God. We learn that legitimate issues like these provide valuable fruits of knowledge that are directly applicable to biblical studies.

Literature reveals that all writers reflect the thinking of their times. Thus, Virgil in The Aeneid assumes that to maintain the Pax Romana the enemies of the state had to be piously killed, and that in the interests of civilization all the fighting and killing was justified. So the Israelites of the Old Testament assume with equal confidence that their fighting and killing of the Canaanites, Hittites, and others, to occupy the Holy Land in Old Testament times, was justified and divinely sanctioned. Naturally, the writers who describe these events reflect the thinking of their countrymen.

Of course, we might find certain misgivings in what appears to us as excessive nationalism. Likewise, many of us today have similar misgivings about the motivation for European colonialists in the New World after the time of Columbus. And some Americans entertain doubts about our country's use of "manifest destiny" as a rallying cry of our own westward expansion. In each of these cases, we may try to run the film backwards into time, but we can not change any of it. We can only learn from it, and we do that largely by investigation and analysis of written materials as compared with appropriate moral and ethical standards.

Literary criticism, provides some help in arriving at useful facts. For example, the Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf, is certainly not a true history of Denmark or Sweden in the period of about A.D. 500. It is a poem, not historical prose, and is filled with literary conventions of its time. But when interpreted metaphorically, it gives a picture of Scandinavian or Germanic tribal life in that time that is self-consistent and true in a literary sense. It may not all be true history, but it is true to history and to life.

The same can be said of much of the Bible. Although the Bible is not all poetry, and not all to be interpreted metaphorically, much of it is. We do violence to the text if we interpret literally those portions that are meant to be interpreted metaphorically or poetically. No great literary classic should be subjected to such a rigid, literal, interpretation. Bible readers who wish to understand this magnificent book should use the same principles of literary analysis that succeed with other literature.

4. Understanding Biblical Approval of Immoral Codes

A fourth flaw in the theory of inerrancy is its inability to deal with the serious moral problems in the Bible, including the way God himself is represented. The Bible contains many moral problems that inerrantists try to ignore. Events occur that would be abhorrent to any decent, sensitive person governed by common humane standards of ethics and morality.

After all, ancient Jewish people, from the time of Moses at least, had laws against stealing, lying, and killing. Yet, the Jews stole gold and other valuables from the Egyptians at the time of the exodus, and took them along as they left the country. The Jewish people killed thousands of Canaanites, Philistines, and other inhabitants upon their invasion and occupation of the land of Canaan. Masters legally beat their slaves unmercifully. Women were repeatedly put down and insulted.

What does a literary approach offer toward the solution of these moral problems? First, the literary approach tells us that we are not limited to a literal interpretation of the accounts in the Bible. There are other acceptable alternatives within the "dynamic" inspiration approach as we saw in Chapter 4.

Second, a literary approach to the Bible lets us freely admit that errors and immoral incidents are recounted on many pages of the Bible. It shows us that the immoral actions merely demonstrate a realistic portrayal of human nature. A literary approach reveals that the approving record of these unethical biblical incidents discloses the humanity of the writers and imperfect people who lived according to ancient moral codes no longer acceptable. Such a view of cruelty explains that the suggestion of God's condoning violent acts reflects the writers' limited understanding of God more than it reflects the true nature of God.

This idea of the revelation of God over time is not new. Almost all Christians believe in what is known as "the progressive revelation of God." That means that ancient people had an incomplete revelation of the nature of God and the requirements of a just and free society. Further revelation on these matters came gradually in later centuries. Our distant descendants in the thirty-first century will no doubt have insights that will make ours look quite primitive by comparison.

It takes literary and religious maturity to accept the Bible's contradictory, inconsistent immoral depictions. But after all, literary critics have long learned to be comfortable with similar immoral, unethical, and legendary elements in the Greek and Roman Classics, in Beowulf, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton and other great literary works. Familiarity with some of the principles of literary analysis can sensitize mature readers to understand such unpleasant aspects of parts of the Bible.

5. Expanding Knowledge Through Secular Sources

We pointed out that the fifth flaw in the theory of inerrancy is its tendency to make its adherents closed-minded to general knowledge from secular sources. This resistance of Christians, including evangelicals, to the available sources of knowledge has not always existed.

From the time of Copernicus (1473-1543), Galileo (1564-1642), Kepler (1571-1630), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), and Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Christians endeavored to keep open-minded to the new scientific discoveries and sources of knowledge. The Church, especially Protestants, who had been favorable to the Humanists since the time of Erasmus (1469-1536), wanted to accept their knowledge of the universe, the nature of man, and the "Book of Nature." The Church wanted also to accept as much as they could of the New Philosophy, represented by Descartes (1596-1650), Pascal (1623-1662), John Locke 1632-1704), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The Church reacted first to these revolutionary breakthroughs that challenged many of its beliefs, not with shock and defensive maneuvers, but generally with an open attitude.

This was especially true in America, where many citizens of the colonies, including the Calvinists and evangelicals, accepted much of the philosophy of freedom and individualism espoused by John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Tom Paine. Thus the Calvinists and evangelicals were on the side of the Revolution and for the adoption of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. George Marsden points out that "Insofar as the Enlightenment represented an attitude toward rationality and scientific thinking, American evangelicals have been in many respects its champions" (Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism 127-28). The influx of modern scientific ideals from the classic Enlightenment outlook not only was welcomed but "it was closely allied with biblically conservative evangelicalism," Marsden writes, "for the first six or seven decades of the nineteenth century" (129).

Things began to change, however, after Darwin's publication of The Origin of the Species, in 1859. At first, many Christians sought to accommodate their views of creation with Darwin's views on evolution, but eventually the conservative evangelicals could no longer be satisfied. Around the turn of the century, they began publishing their "minimum fundamentals of the faith" (from which they became known as "Fundamentalists"), and a split became inevitable. The new fundamentalists insisted on the verbal inspiration and inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible.

Are errors fatal to Bible study? Not at all. When one considers the task of recording a people's history, philosophy, and religion, starting before the first word was ever written, and ending a few decades after the death of Jesus, such errors are unremarkable. In fact, the Bible has so few serious errors, compared to what it might have had, that this is almost miraculous. So believers in the Bible who hold a dynamic view of inspiration, rather than a position of verbal inspiration and literal interpretation, should be able to read the Bible with devotion and pleasure, without being disturbed by the errors.

Now at the dawn of yet another century, almost all fundamentalists and most orthodox evangelicals hold some variety of the verbal inspiration theory, along with a literal method of interpretation, and an inerrancy conception of the Bible. They are almost solidly opposed in principle to the methods of modern critical investigation and interpretation of the Bible, and they vigorously contend against "higher criticism" (historical criticism). And, unfortunately, most of them are not favorably disposed to the literary criticism of the Bible.

As a result, they enjoy the benefits of modern culture while protesting against modern culture. While objecting loudly to secularism in today's society, they disregard the fact that they are the ones who decades ago separated themselves from society and allowed it to drift toward secularism.

This cleavage is to the great loss of everyone. Fundamentalists and other evangelicals on the right wing could contribute immensely to religion and society, if they would work with other religious groups within the mainstream of the national constitution and culture. The churches, the whole society, and all of our national institutions can profit enormously when all are unified and working together. This can be done while retaining each religious group's diversity and autonomy, if all respect and defend each other's rights and freedoms as much as they treasure their own.

The kind of literary approach to the Bible offered in this book could be extremely helpful in bringing about such unity. An objective analysis of the Bible as literature, along with the sound principles of study and interpretation we discuss, present adequate opportunity for divergent views.

Literary scholars and critics develop and present their own ideas, publish them in the literary journals or books, and wait for peer response (of which there is certain to be plenty!). Then they review, discuss, and revise their methods and conclusions, and learn from one another and from their colleagues and readers. This is a wholesome, positive, and professional process that biblical scholars also can follow.

Even if fundamentalists as a group insist upon retaining their inerrancy position, that doesn't stop individual Bible readers from expanding their own knowledge through secular methods and sources. The basic ideas of literary analysis of the Bible displayed in this book are here to be used by all, with no need for rites of initiation, or ecclesiastical approval to try them out.

6. Restoring the Bible as Secondary to God

A sixth flaw of inerrancy is the implication that the ultimate source of authority for Christianity is more in the written Word of God (the literal Bible) than in the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, as the living Word of God. This is a theological issue, and it must be dealt with in theological terms as well as in literary terms.

Professor Morris Ashcraft, then Dean and Professor of Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC, in an illuminating article in Review and Expositor, in 1982, wrote that verbal inspiration and inerrancy "is the basic or foundational theology of Fundamentalism early and late. Everything else depends on it, hence its necessary defense regardless of the cost." He continues, "In this view, scripture is not a witness of God's revelation; it is revelation" (34). This conclusion is shared by James Barr, who also expresses the fact that "inerrancy is the constant factor in all fundamentalist interpretation … the principle of inerrancy is the overriding one … the inerrancy of the Bible, the entire Bible including the details, is indeed the constant principle of rationality within Fundamentalism" (Fundamentalism 55ff).

The Christian Church has historically taught that the first task of theology is not to systematize the principles of the Bible. It should be, rather, as Ashcraft says, to study and declare the facts about God, not about the Bible: "The first article of faith should be about God, and the foundation of Christian faith is God's revelation in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the Word of God Incarnate. He is always the First and the Last. There is adequate opportunity for a high view of the inspiration of Scripture as a witness to him" (The Theology of Fundamentalism, 35, 42, 43).

The concept of biblical inerrancy is, in spite of the loud denials and protests of its adherents, still a particular, fallible, religious doctrine invented and developed late in church history by fallible and finite human beings. It is not found in the ancient creeds of the Church. The typical layman asks how, then, can one soberly claim universal validity and absolute certainty for such a human concept? It is common knowledge that nothing human can have this kind of universal legitimacy and certainty.

Consequently, another question arises: How can Christians, who claim to believe in Christ as the Lord of all, possibly substitute for Him an imperfect written book? Our response to this of course is, "Do not substitute. Restore God to primacy and the Bible to its proper place under God."

Conclusion

By asking questions like those suggested earlier in this chapter, and by searching out the answers, you will be more likely to achieve a better understanding of the books of the Bible than you will ever reach by using a "blind faith" process. If you open the volume at random, put your mind into neutral, and wait for a lightning bolt to strike, you are playing games with a magnificent book. The Bible contains the wisdom of the ages, and the Jews and the Church say it comes from God. But it comes through human beings, and you can use your human intelligence to read, analyze and understand it.

So how do you begin? All great literature has certain themes. One basic method of literary analysis is to identify the central and secondary themes in the subject book. If the genre is drama, you should quickly identify the protagonist and follow him throughout the work. Using these basic principles of study, you might agree that the central theme of the Old Testament is God's revelation of himself to Israel and the way he manifests his great works of creation, redemption, and providence through his chosen people to the other nations of the Near Eastern world. You might find the central theme and protagonist of the New Testament to be God's revelation of himself in and through the person of Jesus Christ as the Savior and Lord of a New Creation.

These, of course, are not comprehensive and final statements, for there is much more to be said. But even if you take these themes as starting points to develop your own analysis, you should find the exercise rewarding. By applying what you know—or can learn—about literature and so analyzing the biblical books, you will find other predominant themes speaking to you out of the pages of the Bible. Think of the themes as branches of a Christmas tree. Put them together and analyze all the other issues that interest you. Your tree will soon be filled with branches and overflowing with a glistening array of decorations, icicles, angel hair, and lights, and maybe even a brilliant five- or six-pointed star at the top. You will have escaped the inerrancy trap.

Notes

  1. Kathleen C. Boone, The Bible Tells them So (Albany, NY: State Univ. of NY Press, 1989), 33. Quoting Article X of the Chicago Statement.
  2. Clark H. Pinnock, "What is Biblical Inerrancy?", Proceedings of the Conference on Biblical Inerrancy (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1987), 75. Quoted by Grady Cauthen, What Happened?, 130. Some of Pinnock's earlier writings and statements were used by inerrancists to support their position and cause. Pinnock has since then expressed regret that this was so. He has recently moderated and explained his position so as to make it clear that he is not an unqualified supporter of the inerrancy theory.
  3. . Fisher Humphreys, Proceedings of the Conference on Inerrancy, 322-23. Quoted by Grady Cauthen, What Happened?, 130-31.
  4. David Dockery, Doctrine of the Bible (Nashville, TN: Convention Press, 1991), 89. Quoted by Grady Cauther, What Happened?, 131.
  5. T. H. Gastner, "Cosmogony," The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Abingdon, 1962), 702. "Mythopoeic" is derived from Greek and means "myth-making."
  6. A generation is the period of time from the birth of the parents to the birth of their children, commonly understood as about thirty to forty years. See Deuteronomy 2:14 for an example of a generation of 38 years.
  7. The common understanding of the "Book of Nature" was the world of nature conceived as another way God has of revealing knowledge of Himself and his will, as alongside the "Book of the Bible," another revelation of the nature, acts, and will of God.
  8. Morris Ashcraft, "The Theology of Fundamentalism," Review and Expositor 79, No. 1 (1982): 34.