Jesus, John the Baptist, and
the Reliability of Scripture

Comments

10 responses to “Jesus, John the Baptist, and
the Reliability of Scripture”

1. 

   2004-12-14

   LotharBot

   Considering your willingness and haste to cite the false dilemma between “the Bible is 100% accurate” and “the Bible is worthless”, I wonder why you have such a hard time recognizing the false dilemmas you yourself created in this post.
   For example:
   It’s possible that John the Baptist
   1) knew that Jesus was “destined for great things”
   2) knew that he (John) was to “go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him”, and
   3) wasn’t sure that Jesus was necessarily the Lord (ie, Jesus could’ve been destined for great things as another prophet also preparing the way for the Lord, who would come later)
   It’s also possible that John the Baptist
   1) knew (or was pretty sure) from an early age that Jesus was the Lord
   2) questioned that or wanted reassurance (wanted to be 100% sure) during the time he was in prison and under great stress
   It’s also possible that
   1) In the two whole sentences Luke devotes to Jesus’ baptism, he leaves out some details that show up in the longer coverage in John
   Your other post title is “troubling inconsistancies”. In order for them to be troubling, though, they have to actually post a challenge — which these do not. My wife has described it this way: challenging Biblical innerancy is like building a clamp. You have to build two strong arms to crush the innerantist between them. You have to build two points, both of which are strongly supported in their eyes, and trap them in between. You can’t crush someone with a clamp that has one steel arm and one jello arm. You can’t crush an inerrantist (at least not an intelligent one) by citing a solid, undisputable interpretation of one passage and then citing a really shaky interpretation of another passage. You can’t crush them with interpretations they don’t believe are correct.
   I’m sure you’ve seen those lists of hundreds of Biblical contradictions (since you link to the one on infidels.org in your earlier post.) Such lists make Atheists, Agnostics, and Christians who don’t believe in inerrancy pretty happy — but they rarely have any effect on inerrantists, because the vast majority of “contradictions” on those lists are clamps with at least one arm made out of toothpicks, gumdrops, jello, or vapor. There might be the occasional good challenge to the inerrantist, but after laughing off the first half-dozen entries in any given list, most will decide they have better things to do than look for the one or two good challenges.
   A good contradiction would be something like “John strongly believed Jesus was the Messiah” and “John strongly believed Jesus was not the Messiah”. The contradictions / inconsistancies you’ve posted, on the other hand, are pretty weak. It only takes a few minutes of thought to recognize that, whether or not you’re a Biblical Innerantist.

   Reply
2. 

   2004-12-14

   D. C.

   Thanks for the comment, LotharBot. I think you and I may have different views about what I was trying to say in this posting. I apologize if I wasn’t clear enough.
   I don’t try to pose an either-or dilemma. I don’t argue that it’s either A or B, and it can’t be B, therefore it has to be A.
   Humanity’s overwhelming experience, over thousands of years of recorded history, is that everything human is capable of error. It seems to me that if someone claims that a writing is incapable of error, then it’s incumbent on that person to demonstrate, beyond any reasonable doubt, the truth of his claim.
   The troubling inconsistencies that I point out here and in the linked posting are not intended to prove anything. They merely demonstrate that the scriptural inerrantists have not even come close to carrying their own burden of proof.
   (I will tell you that I cannot conceive of how anyone could carry that burden, for any writing.)
   I agree, some scripturalists claim that it’s up to their challengers to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bible isn’t inerrant. I don’t wish to be unkind, but such claims are idiotic.

   Reply
3. 

   2004-12-14

   D. C.

   Also, LotharBot, I guess you and I read the Gospels differently.
   In the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist greets Jesus effusively, hailing him as the Son of God. In Luke’s account, on the other hand, it’s pretty obvious that John the Baptist has no idea who Jesus is.
   The argument from silence is always tricky. But remember that the stated purpose of Luke’s Gospel is “so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:4) Also remember how much importance Luke placed on John the Baptist in chapter 1. If John the Baptist had in fact delivered the ringing endorsement that the Fourth Gospel claims, it seems inconceivable that Luke would have failed to mention it.
   Do I have a conclusive explanation? No. My point is merely, as I say in the original posting, that something’s not right here.

   Reply
4. 

   2004-12-15

   LotharBot

   So your position is that, because humans always produce things with errors in them, the burden of proof is on those who claim “no errors”. Their position is probably that, because God created the Bible and God protects the Bible and God doesn’t make mistakes, the burden of proof is on those who claim “it has errors”. In this sense, neither position is idiotic (but you’re probably talking past each other so you both think the other is idiotic.)
   Both of you have reasons to believe you have the default position, and the other guy should have to prove their position to you — because each of you is beginning with an outside piece of evidence (“humans produce things with errors” and “God doesn’t make mistakes”, respectively) that you require the other side to overcome in order to convince you. Both of you think the other guy has the burden of proof because both of you have a piece of evidence you’ve assumed has first priority. Both of you think the other guy has the burden of proof because your starting assumption has already colored your interpretation, but neither of you are willing to admit that your starting assumptions matter. In this sense, both positions are idiotic.
   Now, if you’re trying to convince someone else, you have the burden of proof, no matter how sensible your position is; in the specific case of arguing Bible contradictions, my “clamp” analogy demonstrates the level of burden of proof you have if you want to convince someone the Bible is actually contradictory. If you’re not trying to convince someone else, then deciding who has the burden of proof is really just deciding who gets to hold on to their starting assumptions — though really, everyone should put the burden of proof on both sides and treat their starting assumptions as additional evidence to be weighed and considered. What matters is what the evidence says at each point in history — what matters is the truth, and how certainly it can be known; “burden of proof” arguments only serve to obscure this, or to justify biases one side or the other carries into their interpretation.
   ————————-
   I’ve met a lot of people who claimed the Bible was inerrant in some form or another, though none who call themselves “scripturalists” — and most of them are far more sensible than the people you seem to be applying the term to. Perhaps you could explain more clearly what position you hold and what position you’re arguing against, in particular, with respect to this historical process:
   At some point a long time ago in the past, God and a human author combined somehow to put some words on the page (the “autograph”) that were meant for the people of Israel or the Church. Or, possibly, a human author put words on a page without God’s involvement in any way, shape, or form. In any case, those words were then transmitted through time, until the community of faith (Israel or the church) included them in their canon, showing they believed those were God’s words for them. The words were, again, transmitted through time, copied and re-copied by scribes, to make the ancient manuscripts we have today. Those manuscripts were translated from the original languages into English (and other languages) many different times. We then read those words in English (or perhaps other languages) and try to decipher their meaning through (hopefully resonsible) interpretation.
   So, the process of forming the Bible is:
   God/human author (inspiration) -> original “autograph” -> transmission 1 -> canonization -> transmission 2 -> translation from ancient “extant manuscripts” -> interpretation
   Question #1: At what steps of the way (if anywhere) do you think the text is perfect, where do you say it has errors, and how serious do you think the errors are at those points?
   Question #2: At what step do those you argue against (“scripturalists”) think the text is perfect, and where (if anywhere) do they say it has errors, and how serious do they say the errors are at those points?
   Bonus question #1: do the people you’re arguing against actually hold the view you say they do, for the most part, or is this a straw man?
   There are a lot of positions one can take regarding Biblical inerrancy. “It has errors” or “it doesn’t” apply every step of the way — not just with respect to the English-language Bible you have in front of you. Inerrancy is something that may or may not exist at each step of the way, and it’s up to us to look at the evidence at each step. (At the very least, I hope by now you’ve realized that you can’t just argue against “inerrancy”; you have to argue against the particular form of it you believe is false, and be careful not to argue against other forms of it you don’t think are false.)
   It’s only under a framework like this that we can really discuss inerrancy, because we need to be able to understand both what is being claimed as inerrant (Autographs? Canon? King James?) and what sort of errors we’re claiming exist at what stage of history. There’s a big difference between those who claim KJV is inerrant and those who claim God’s thoughts were inerrant; there’s also a big difference between those who claim certain extant manuscripts contain a few miswritten characters and small scribal inclusions and those who claim the canon and all extant manuscripts contain significant, historically false passages; finally, there’s a big difference between those who claim a particular error is certain based on substantial evidence and those who claim it might possibly exist based on tiny scraps of evidence. Clearly, a lot of claims can be made here that are “idiotic”, regardless of who is assumed to have the burden of proof — some positions (“King James is inspired, typos and all”) are simply nonsense. But there’s also a lot of room for sensible, balanced claims — where some give the false dilemma of “100% accurate” or “worthless”, there’s actually a whole spectrum of possible ways individual passages in the Bible can be trustworthy or untrustworthy, valuable or not, etc. The hope is that reasonable scholarship can lead us to solid understanding of this.
   Because it’s nearly 2 AM and I have to teach in the morning, I’ll leave the discussion here for now. Tomorrow, if I have the time (and the mental prowess after giving blood) I’ll look more closely at the specific examples you gave. In particular, I’ll look at what your examples say isn’t inerrant, how badly errant you say it is, and how strongly the evidence suggests those errors. I’ll also tell you where I’m coming from in a bit more detail (I hope it’s clear I’m not the KJV=inerrant type… though it’s amazing how often I get that accusation.)

   Reply
5. 

   2004-12-15

   D. C.

   Great post, LotharBot. I really appreciate such thought-provoking comments; the challenge of responding to them helps me to refine my own thinking.
   You said: “neither of you are willing to admit that your starting assumptions matter. In this sense, both positions are idiotic.”
   I agree completely that starting assumptions matter. But assumptions must be warranted by something; they can’t be fabricated out of whole cloth. If one of my starting assumptions were that there exists a planet Moldar that orbits Alpha Centauri and is ruled by giant cats, you would rightly think me strange.
   So let’s look at my assumptions versus those of the inerrantists:

   • Two of my foundational assumptions are that humans don’t know everything, and that often enough, what we think we know turns out to be incomplete or flat-out wrong. I submit that these assumptions are not only warranted, they’re beyond reasonable dispute. If necessary I can adduce as many examples as desired to support them. But they ought to qualify for the equivalent of judicial notice, facts so well-established that they require no demonstration to be accepted as true.
   • On the other hand, as you say, many scriptural-inerrantists start from an assumption that “God doesn’t make mistakes.”
     • While we can, and I think must, take the existence of God as sufficiently well-established, the ipse dixit claim that God doesn’t make mistakes seems to be in the same category as that of cats ruling the planet Moldar. (There seems to be at least some “evidence” contradicting this assumption, by the way: A number of passages in the Hebrew Scriptures tell of God regretting things he has done, suggesting that perhaps he can indeed make mistakes.)
     • And even if God doesn’t make mistakes, it’s an unwarranted assumption to claim that God chose to intervene at each step in the human processes of writing, copying, translating, interpreting, and understanding the Bible’s various books, so as to guarantee the inerrancy of the resulting lessons we take from them.

   As to your question # 1 about manuscripts, I don’t claim that any of the scriptural texts are perfect; it’s not necessary for any part of my own faith. There is ample evidence to suggest that many scriptural texts are far from perfect; see my essay on Scripture: Manuscript Reliability, listed in the Favorite Postings at right, for more details.
   Concerning your question # 2 and your bonus question: It doesn’t really bother me when some people claim the Bible to be inerrant in some fashion or another. Standing alone, such a claim is merely an academic exercise. As long as no one is using that claim as a basis for a decision that harms others, such people are welcome to their opinion (even though I think it’s a deluded one).
   What does bother me is when such people go further, claiming that Scripture must therefore be the preemptive, incontrovertible authority in all decisions affecting matters of faith and morals. I don’t think we should rely on decisions made in that way, because people can be hurt for reasons that won’t necessarily be good reasons.
   (To respond to your question about nomenclature, the above is what I refer to when I talk about the “scripturalist” position. I should note that not all scripturalists are inerrantists, but my impression is that all inerrantists are scripturalists.)
   I may write more later, but I have to get to work. Thanks again for the thoughtful comment.

   Reply
6. 

   2004-12-15

   David Huff

   D.C. wrote:
   “And even if God doesn’t make mistakes, it’s an unwarranted assumption to claim that God chose to intervene at each step in the human processes of writing, copying, translating, interpreting, and understanding the Bible’s various books, so as to guarantee the inerrancy of the resulting lessons we take from them.”
   Indeed, and to claim so violates a well-known logical principle attributed to the mediæval philosopher William of Occam called Occam’s Razor, also known as the Principle of Parsimony. It is usually interpreted to mean something like “the simpler the explanation, the better” or more formally, “don’t multiply hypotheses unnecessarily.” In this case, the idea of direct meddling by God in the process above is unnecessary to explain how Scripture came to be as it is. In other words, direct intervention in a “supernatural theist” sense is an unnecessary hypothesis. Because of this, the burden of proof is on those who claim otherwise, not on the one who argues from a position backed by Principle of Parsimony.

   Reply
7. 

   2004-12-15

   Dove

   What is usually meant by “inerrancy” is that the original autograph is true and accurate, when interpreted with an eye toward discerning the author’s intent. (See articles IV, V, IX, X, and XVIII in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy). I will synonomously call a text “true”.
   What I mean by “consistancy” is that a text admits a reasonable interpretation which is free from self-contradiction. The word “reasonable” here is a subjective judgement which stands for a whole host of considerations. In essence, what I mean by it is that an interpretation of the text exists such that that interpretation has greater probability of corresponding to the author’s original intent than the probability that the author has made a mistake. This statement intentionally includes a dependency on the likelihood that the author makes mistakes.
   Note that consistency is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for inerrancy. True texts should also be consistent, but consistent texts do not have to be true.
   Note that consistency by no means requires any sort of divine intervention. Most good novels I read are consistent under my definition, though certainly not all of them are. All it really requires is that the author establish sufficient background material to work from, or where his background is lacking, that he be sufficiently vague. An author writing responsibly from a cohesive, consistent framework will tell a consistent story. It isn’t that hard. Inerrancy does not require divine intervention either. Most newspaper accounts are inerrant, though certainly not all of them are. Math textbooks are usually inerrant–they have typos, but usually what the author intended is provably true.
   Now, you have commented quite correctly that it is impossible to prove a text inerrant by enumerating and eliminating possible errors. But this seems to me an impossibly restrictive standard–why should one have to prove anything, and why should one use that exact method to argue? It is impossible to prove anything which relates to reality, and this does not bother most of us one bit. I can’t prove my husband exists, yet I am perfectly happy to go about my life believing that he does. Why should I have to prove the Bible does not contain errors in order to rationally believe it does not? That seems to me like the excuse of a skeptic, not the doubt of an honest scholar. I think it is perfecty reasonable to suppose something doesn’t exist, after I’ve looked reasonably hard and not found it. (Though how certain I am allowed to be of that depends on how hard I have looked.) Even if that were not the case, the argument might take a different form. The proof that there are no square circles hardly takes the form of opening every closet and confirming that there isn’t one in there. Though I commend your desire not to embrace inerrancy too quickly, it seems to me you swing too far in the other direction and discard it too easily.
   Here is one general argument. Inerrant text is not that hard for even humans to write. I find preposterous the assertion that the Bible must be overflowing with contradictions and errors if it has even the smallest bit of human influence. As a mathematician by training, I know consistent text is not that hard to write–all it takes is a little mental discipline. Most texts (e.g., this post) are consistent, or have at most a minor self-contradiction here or there. Inerrant text is not that hard either, so long as the author stays safely within his realm of expertise. If I write “My name is Catherine Darrow,” the statement is entirely true and inerrant. There is nothing difficult about that. Indeed, in general, text should be expected to be consistent and (where it is within the expertise of the author) inerrant. An error here and there is the expected product of human frailty, but a text overflowing with contradictions and errors is most likely the sign of a mistaken hermaneutic. Human authors–and especially the great ones–if fallible, are not sloppy or insane. This alone is a good reason to assume the Bible reasonably consistent and (where the authors speak with experience) inerrant.
   We don’t generally expect one author to be consistent with another–we don’t expect Tolkein’s fantasy world to at all correspond with C.S. Lewis’. Yet there are some cases in which we do expect that. One is when both authors are describing the same, objective reality (newspaper accounts, physics textbooks). Another is when the texts have gone through some process of canonization (from Star Wars novels and Star Trek episodes we expect some degree of consistency, even if the authors are not all the same.) Let me suggest that the Bible has remarkably high merit on both of these accounts. The history of Jesus’ life in the gospels is an objective reality which is being described by (in three cases) men who were there. Further investigation into how reliable they are as witnesses is in order, of course, but this is one place where we might reasonably expect consistency between multiple authors. An even stronger argument for consistency is the process of canonization undergone by the Bible. Two centuries of debate and intense study by a wide community is a much stricter process of canonization than anything else but the most famous scientific papers have undergone! That alone ought to be more than sufficient to guarantee the texts are free of all but the most minor and obscure errors.
   These arguments for consistency are entirely secular. I have not even begun to comment on the effects of divine inspiration or divine providence. Though I do not usually invoke them (I am used to arguing with atheists), these are not to be lightly discarded. It is a funny supposition you make, that God can make mistakes, and I suppose I’ll grant it to you provisionally (though I will comment that I certainly don’t agree with your use of the Hebrew text). But it seems downright outrageous to suppose that the God of the Bible–the God whose thoughts and plans soar so far above man’s that his plans span ages and his thoughts are incomprehensible–would routinely make the sort of mistake a reasonably clever human might catch with a light reading of the text over lunch. I mean, seriously. Come on. You’re ascribing to God a level of intelligence that reasonably decent human authors transcend.
   And that is the level of mistake you are describing here. Think about what you are saying. John the Baptist is introduced in the gospels as the forerunner of Jesus. He prophesies about him constantly and recognizes Jesus even from the womb. That is almost his entire role in the gospels. What author–even if embellishing history–would forget something that central, and later add in a little story where John the Baptist asks Jesus if he is the messiah? Are you supposing that the author here has completely forgotten the central defining characteristic of John’s role in the story?
   Just how secure are your assumptions here, that you would accept such a difficult conclusion? You must know an awful lot about John to know he could not have had a crisis of faith while in prison. You must know an awful lot about the human mind to know that people never doubt things they know to be true when confronted with difficult realities. You must think the authors of the gospels terribly incompetent authors, who cannot keep even the major details of their stories straight. It is only the central point upon which Christianity hangs that Jesus died and rose from the dead–it is only the largest event in all of the gospels–and yet these men somehow forgot about it when the wrote how the disciples lost faith at Jesus’ death. Astounding as it sounds, that must be the case–the only alternative is that the disciples in the story lost faith, and we know that people just don’t do that. However unlikely it seems, however stupid it makes these men who awed the world with their moral genius, however quickly it seems the early church would catch it, our final and only conclusion can be: the author must have made a mistake.
   It definitely is the case that “something’s not right” here. But when you are evaluating just what that “something” is, do not be slow to include your own assumptions about how human beings behave, about what certain authors intended, and about how different people record history. Authors do make mistakes, and though I think the Bible is inerrant, I will not pretend that I have proven to you that it is. But have a little respect for everyone’s intelligence when you go pointing out errors–screaming, whooping, hollering errors are more likely to be indications of a poor hermeneutic and bad naive assumptions than they are to be actual errors in the text.

   Reply
8. 

   2004-12-15

   D. C.

   Many thanks, Dove / Catherine. I won’t try to respond to everything in your thoughtful posting, but I will try to hit a few points.
   1. I’m not sure I recognize your definition of inerrancy. The Google dictionary defines “inerrant” as “1. Incapable of erring; infallible. 2. Containing no errors.” I paraphrase your definition as being more limited, namely that the original manuscript is a faithful rendering of the author’s intent. Judging by your subsequent comments, you apparently are referring to the human authors of the scriptural texts. If in fact that’s the common meaning of the term “inerrant” in respect of the Bible, then I suppose I could be tilting at windmills. But somehow I don’t think so.
   2. You say: “I can’t prove my husband exists, yet I am perfectly happy to go about my life believing that he does. Why should I have to prove the Bible does not contain errors in order to rationally believe it does not?”
   You go about your life as if your husband exists because you have sufficient experience to warrant doing so. Likewise, we have sufficient experience with faith and morals to warrant looking to the Bible as a generally-reliable guide to such matters.
   But it’s an entirely different matter to believe that the Bible is to be elevated as the ultimate substantive authority in matters of faith and morals, trumping all others, and then to act on that belief (or demand that others do so). If some people want to hold that belief in the abstract, I suppose that’s OK; people believe all kinds of things. But if such people want the rest of us to act on their belief — especially in a way that can cause hurt to others, e.g., prohibiting same-sex marriages — then (i) they ought to be able to point to some foundation to warrant their belief; and (ii) the rest of us cannot properly ignore evidence that their belief might be wrong.
   In that regard, I submit, anyone who would govern his or her life as though the Bible contained no errors is simply not looking. A few of these errors — major, minor, and trivial — are catalogued in the “Scripture” postings listed in the right-hand column.
   3. You say: “Two centuries of debate and intense study by a wide community …. ought to be more than sufficient to guarantee the texts are free of all but the most minor and obscure errors.”
   Perhaps that ought indeed to be more than sufficient. But in the real world, things very often are not what we think they ought to be. It’s beyond dispute that the New Testament has a number of theologically-consequential inconsistencies, both in wording and in substance. See my previously-cited postings on troubling inconsistencies and manuscript differences, listed in the right-hand column,
   4. You say: “You must know an awful lot about John to know he could not have had a crisis of faith while in prison. You must know an awful lot about the human mind to know that people never doubt things they know to be true when confronted with difficult realities.”
   C’mon, Catherine, you’re disappointing a fellow mathematician — not really, but my undergraduate degree is in fact in math. You’re setting up straw men; I never asserted either of these things, and as with so many matters in the Bible, we will simply never know whether they happened.
   5. You say: “It definitely is the case that “something’s not right” here. … [D]o not be slow to include your own assumptions about how human beings behave, about what certain authors intended, and about how different people record history.
   I try. I don’t claim any kind of infallibility, but I do think I have a certain basis for my beliefs in the areas you mention. As I’ve mentioned in previous writings here and elsewhere, by background I’m a technology litigator. I have a good deal of experience in:

   • dealing with inconsistent and even contradictory written documents;
   • sorting out the different stories that various people can tell about the very same past event because of different perceptions and the various tricks that memory can play on us;
   • dealing with people who shade or spin their stories because they have an agenda to push, or an axe to grind, or a skeleton to keep hidden, or an interest to protect, or a score to settle.

   I have no reason to think people were any different in New Testament times — including both the scriptural authors and the folks on whose stories the authors relied.
   Again, many thanks for the comment; I appreciate your having taken the time, and the interesting challenges you posed.

   Reply
9. 

   2004-12-23

   LotharBot

   I’m about to head out for Christmas, but I wanted to get a response in here before I go. If you still have questions or want me to look at your response, send me an e-mail at tom [at] tomandcatherine [dot] com as a reminder for me, so I’ll know to look when I get back from break.
   A note on terminology
   Consider the word “compact”. In general usage, people might refer to compact (small) cars, compact (tightly compressed) soil, or a makeup compact, and the dictionary would tell you all of these things. But, in mathematics, it’s a technical term describing a set or space where every open cover has a finite subcover. The dictionary doesn’t tell you this, unless you happen to find a mathematics dictionary. The general term and the technical term are worlds apart, and it would be folly to use a dictionary definition of the general term in the technical context. So, too, with inerrancy. While the dictionary does have definitions for inerrancy, it has a precise technical meaning to theologians and Bible scholars, which Dove gave.
   This was the general thrust behind my previous post, especially Question #2 and Bonus #1. I was curious if you were aware of what inerrantists actually claim and were arguing against that, or if you were arguing against some other position that you’d misnamed. It’s become clear to me that it’s the latter, which means you would do well to take some time to read what actual inerrantists say, rather than assuming you know what they think. If nothing else, at least you’d be more clear on who *actually* holds views you disagree with, and what their views *actually* are.
   You have a very clear picture of your own position, and you have something very specific that you’re arguing against (which is a fairly fringe view among Christian scholars and theologians), but you’re using a technical term for a mainstream position to refer to the fringe view. If you take issue with the mainstream view, feel free to argue against it (after you’ve researched it) — but if you only take issue with the fringe view, please use terminology that will make that clear. Otherwise, your post will attract the wrong kind of audience, and we’ll all be confused, because much of what you’ve posted as challenges to inerrancy wouldn’t bother inerrantists (but would bother those who I will call KJV-ists.)
   A note on motivation
   Judging from your previous posts, it seems you’re arguing against inerrancy not because you think there’s something wrong with inerrancy itself (especially not the mainstream view of it), but because you’re really bothered by those who claim the Bible as the ultimate authority and impose their morals on others. That is, you’re bothered by behavior you think you could stop by challenging inerrancy. I think you’d do far better to directly argue about the Bible as ultimate authority and the imposition of morals, rather than arguing about inerrancy — first, because the actual error people usually make has nothing to do with inerrancy; second, because most of the people who cite the Bible as ultimate authority and use it to impose morals are also the sort who’ll see a discussion on inerrancy and think “that’s for scholars to figure out”.
   Here are two points that challenge those two positions — Bible as ultimate authority, and imposition of morals — that you might find useful in arguing against the people you really have a problem with.
   a) the weakest link in the historical process I posted above, by far, is interpretation. While there are some transmission errors, a good study Bible will point out textual uncertainties or places where there’s reason to believe the text was not properly preserved. And while there are translation errors, reading multiple translations and consulting other resources (commentaries, lexicons, etc.) can mostly eliminate those. The very process of canonization was such that significant errors would not be expected there — people simply did not accept documents as “the word of God” unless the whole community thought they were rock-solid. By far, the step at which most errors between the mind of God and the mind of the reader occur is in the interpretation step. So when someone claims Scripture as the “preemptive, incontrovertible authority” they have a strong burden on them to demonstrate that they’ve properly understood it. (Your recent post about “Questions Being Debated at The Salty Vicar” brings up some good questions about interpretation. If I have time after I’ve packed, I may respond to that, as well.)
   b) Even if scripture was the ultimate authority on morals AND we could trust our own interpretations of it… there is no reason to impose those morals on others. There’s nothing wrong with believing the Bible is the ultimate authority on your OWN behavior and acting on it — but nowhere does the Bible say “force others into following the morality given here”. The commands in the Bible were not given to unbelievers; they were given to two communities of faith (ancient Israel, and the church). If someone is not a part of either of these communities, we should not try to force them to behave as if they are — what good is there in creating what Jesus referred to as “whitewashed tombs”? We, as the church, should be all about following Jesus ourselves, and when we bring others into our community we should be all about helping them to transform from the inside. But we don’t have any reason to force people who are not followers of Jesus Christ to behave like they are!
   These two points deal directly with the two halves of the objection you had — those who (a) believe the Bible is the ultimate authority and (b) impose those beliefs on others — without touching the question of inerrancy. And if you stick with these points, you’ll have people like me and Dove arguing on your side, rather than against you 😉
   A note on starting assumptions
   I completely* agree that starting assumptions must be warranted. (*The word “completely”, here, is qualified. From an epistomological standpoint, we must make at least one starting assumption that stands on nothing — “I trust my senses” or “I think, therefore I am” or whatever. I’m assuming that by the time we get to interpreting the Bible, we already have enough of a framework for interpreting reality that we don’t need any more unwarranted assumptions.)
   I also agree that humans don’t know everything, that often we are completely wrong about things, and that we make a lot of mistakes. These assumptions are fairly useful for arguing against KJV-ists, but they have very little application when arguing against inerrantists… and really, you don’t even need to make these assumptions to argue against KJV-ists; all you have to do is point out actual errors in actual manuscripts like you can find listed in any study Bible. (Note that this also essentially proves God *didn’t* intervene at each step; that’s not an assumption inerrantists make.)
   The only place I disagree with you is in saying that “God doesn’t make mistakes” is an unwarranted assumption. While we could argue the specifics of the “God relented…” passages until we’re blue in the face, never saying anything the other person hasn’t already heard, that’s tangential enough as to not be worth arguing in this context. Let’s leave that for another time. Instead, let me submit an alternate, easily acceptable starting assumption for inerrantists: God is smart enough that He wouldn’t accidentally inspire the Biblical authors to write anything false, and He wouldn’t accidentally forget details He intended to include. In other words, whether or not God can make mistakes, He wouldn’t make the sort of mistakes that would lead to errors in inspired scriptural writings.
   A note on “theologically-consequential inconsistancies” and litigation
   You claim that “it’s beyond dispute” that there are a number of significant inconsistancies in the Bible. I claim that there are not. Having studied through scripture quite carefully, having read many “contradictions” lists, having debated many well-studied individuals from various religious backgrounds, and having discussed theology with some very wise individuals, I simply haven’t come across any inconsistancy that is the slightest bit troubling to me. I know of a number of textual errors (which make up a good portion of most contradictions lists) and I know of a number of difficult teachings (similarly…) but I have yet to encounter any inconsistancy that was of theological consequence for me. Perhaps this is due, in part, to my own theology — I suppose if I held that God perfectly preserved scripture throughout history, a single spelling error would be of theological consequence. The point is, though, it’s certainly not “beyond dispute”.
   Regarding your points about your background as a technology litigator: you’ve dealt with differing perspectives, spin, outright contradictory documents, etc. You’re used to discovering those inconsistancies… but remember, scripture has been around for a couple thousand years. In particular, the New Testament was heavily debated for the first few hundred years of its existance. Yes, back then there existed those who lied, those who spun their stories, etc. Back then, there *also* existed people like you, and like me, and like Dove (we are not the only 3 Christian scholars in history.) When various church councils decided to accept certain writings as scripture, they’d already gone through a couple centuries of debate, and they’d been studied by people as knowledgeable and intelligent as you and me and Dove. People back then were not shy about saying “yeah, this is a nice history about Jesus, but it’s not inspired and it’s not scripture.”
   Those who eventually assembled the scriptural canon in the 300’s or so knew there were two accounts of Jesus’ baptism (if these were added or changed later, there would be manuscript evidence, so we know they were there early on), and they knew they differed, and they were quite willing to treat books as “valuable but not inspired”. Yet we know, historically, that the four gospels were never in dispute. The most reasonable conclusion I can come to is that the two accounts of Jesus’ baptism didn’t bother people in the early church. It seems inconceivable to you that Luke would have failed to mention the ringing endorsement mentioned in John — but it seems inconceivable to me that the early church would’ve treated both Luke and John as scripture knowing that, if it was really such a glaring omission. The only reasonable conclusion I can come to is that it’s not so glaring an omission as you think it is.
   I wish I had time to answer a few other specifics, but I really need to get going… have fun over Christmas.

   Reply
10. 

    2005-01-03

    D. C.

    Thanks, LotharBot, and thanks for the pointer in the later posting. I can’t address all your points today, but let me tackle a couple of what I think are the most important.
    1. You write: “While the dictionary does have definitions for inerrancy, it has a precise technical meaning to theologians and Bible scholars, which Dove gave.”
    If we were to accept your premise for the sake of argument, I would argue that it is extraordinarily reckless for theologians to redefine words that lay people are likely to encounter. Theologians’ primary responsibility, I submit, is to help the rest of us in our search for truth. It would be highly counterproductive for the professional elite to start using words as a secret code among themselves and thereby confusing the rest of us — or even leading us astray.
    But I don’t think we can accept your premise. I looked at the Chicago Statement that Dove referenced in her comment of December 15 (5:17 pm). I don’t see how y’all can conclude that “inerrancy” means only that a text faithfully expresses an author’s intent, even if you’re arguing that the author is God. Consider these excerpts from the Short Summary contained in the Chicago Statement:

    2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms, obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises. * * *
    4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.

    That seems to me to be much closer to the ordinary dictionary meaning of “inerrancy” than what you and Dove are postulating.
    2. Your comments about the canonization of (the documents we call) the New Testament seem to assume that the canonizers proceeded from spotless motivations. I’m not at all ready to make that assumption.
    In its early years, the church was rife with theological and christological controversy. Controversy can breed:

    • spin;
    • forgery — I forget which of Paul’s epistles complains that others were forging letters in his name to assert doctrines he rejected;
    • suppression of contrary views;

    all supposedly in the name of the greater good. You don’t have to completely buy into Elaine Pagels’ thesis in The Gnostic Gospels or Beyond Belief to recognize what a problem this is — just read some of the early patristic documents, or Eusebius’s history of the early church.
    We can and must take into account the fathers’ experiences and insights. But, I submit, we can’t rely on the canonizers to have gotten it right for the ages.
    Thanks again for the thoughtful comment. Happy New Year, and Happy Epiphany.

    Reply