One of the most prominent contemporary theological debates among Christians who believe Scripture is the Authoritative word of God revolves around the inerrancy of Scripture. According to the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, the Bible is completely free of any errors on any topic, including science, history, and so forth (This is to be distinguished from the idea of the infallibility of Scripture, according to which the Bible is free of any theological error.). On the one side, there are Christians who insist that denying the inerrancy of Scripture inevitably leads down a slippery slope to denying the Authority of Scripture, and, eventually, denying the Christian Gospel. On the other side, there are Christians who believe the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is problematic and unnecessary.
Inerrancy and its Critics
The theological argument for biblical inerrancy is as follows: the Bible is the word of God. God cannot lie or make errors, so His word must be free of any error or falsehood. Therefore, the Bible must be free of any error or falsehood on any topic; in other words, it is inerrant. It is a simple argument that many Christians find persuasive.
One of the most common arguments critics of inerrancy make is that it illegitimately turns Christian faith into a “house of cards” in which, if a Christian becomes convinced of a single error in the Bible, they will end up denying the faith altogether. Note that this is not an argument against inerrancy per se; it is merely pointing out the potential consequences if someone becomes convinced that this doctrine is not true. In reality, any Christian doctrine could be a point of belief where a Christian has doubts that eventually lead to them denying the faith; this says nothing about the truthfulness or untruthfulness of these doctrines. Besides, it is quite possible for a Christian to hold to the doctrine of inerrancy with an open mind, believing it to be true without regarding it as absolutely essential.
Another common argument critics of inerrancy make is that it is a recently formulated doctrine that is articulated using modern, Western, post-Enlightenment terminology. In response, all important theological doctrines have been formulated in particular historical circumstances, in response to the issues the Church was dealing with at the time. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity was formulated in the fourth century in response to the heresy of Arianism. Similarly, the doctrine of inerrancy was formulated in the modern period in response to the new, modern issue of historical-critical scholarship calling into question the historical accuracy of Scripture.
The term “inerrancy” does show a modern Western Enlightenment emphasis on facts and errors. But criticizing the terminology of “inerrancy” on this account is not the same thing as showing that the idea behind the terminology (the complete truthfulness of Scripture) is false. The doctrine of the Trinity was articulated in the fourth century using the language of the ancient Greek metaphysical philosophy of the time, a philosophy which is generally not accepted by Christians today. Yet Christians today still affirm the idea behind this terminology, and are Trinitarians. Even though the term “inerrancy” is a recent one, the case can be made that most Christians throughout history have affirmed the idea that Scripture is completely truthful.
Biblical Errors?
The main argument critics of inerrancy make, though, is that there are, in fact, errors in Scripture. Careful scrutiny of the Scriptures reveals numerous apparent contradictions, for example, between parallel narratives of Kings and Chronicles, or between parallel narratives of the four Gospels. In addition, there are numerous points at which it is difficult to reconcile certain historical details of Biblical narratives with what we know from history and archaeology.
Many apparent Biblical contradictions can, upon closer inspection, be harmonized. Many other apparent errors can be explained to be not really errors, as long as we read and interpret the Scriptures according to their actual literary genre. For example, it is illegitimate and anachronistic to impose the standards and conventions of modern historiography on Biblical historical narratives. Biblical historical narratives are not attempting to be as precise as modern historiography or to give us enough information to reconstruct historical events as they “really happened,” “objectively”; their purpose is to give a theological interpretation of past events. Most alleged Biblical errors can, with a more nuanced and careful perspective, be shown to be only apparent errors.
Yet, there are at least some apparent Biblical contradictions that seem difficult to explain, even taking into account the literary genre. For example, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus sends out the Twelve and tells them to take only a walking stick (Mk 6:8-9), but in Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells the Twelve not to take a walking stick (Matt 10:9-10; Luke 9:3). There are a number of unresolved historical difficulties as well. For example, even if we explain the (impossibly large) census numbers of Israel recorded in Numbers as being symbolic, we still have an account of an entire people group wandering in Sinai for 40 years until all the adults died off. If this really occurred, we would expect to find some archaeological evidence of this event. But so far, we have not.
When faced with what seems to be an actual error in Scripture, inerrantists will argue that historians and archaeologists can be wrong, and that we should just trust that, once all the facts are in, and the Bible is interpreted correctly, the Bible will be shown to be completely free of error. It is certainly the case that further studies in history, archaeology, and Biblical studies may show that what seem to be errors are in fact nothing of the sort; this has, in fact, happened numerous times in the modern period. I do not think holding to Biblical inerrancy and trusting that all Biblical errors are only apparent is an unreasonable position. Yet, I think that we should adopt this position only if we have very good theological reasons for believing that inerrancy must be true. And do we?
The Bible as the “Word of God”
The Bible is the word of God, and God cannot make errors. However, the Bible is not the word of God in any direct, simplistic sense. The Bible is made up of a variety of texts of various literary genres, written by a variety of human authors. We cannot simply put quotation marks at the beginning of Genesis and the end of Revelation and then say, “God said this.” The Bible is more diverse and complex than this.
In the prophetic books of the Bible, God speaks through the prophets, who declare, “Thus says the LORD,” and then deliver God’s message. These prophecies can certainly be called the word of God in a direct sense. Arguably, we could say the same about the apostolic epistles. Yet even prophetic texts sometimes contain narratives about the prophet or back and forth dialogues between God and the prophet, which may be the “word of God” in a sense, but not in the same way that direct prophetic speech is.
In the Psalms, we do not encounter God speaking to human beings; instead, we encounter human beings speaking to God. The Psalms can be labeled the “word of God” only if we understand them to be God saying, “Here are some examples of things you can say to Me.” At the same time, it should be pointed out that both Jesus and Paul quote the Psalms as if they speak prophetically (Matt 22:41-46; Rom 3:10-18), so perhaps we cannot make a totally sharp distinction between the Psalms and the Prophets.
Much of the non-prophetic writings of Scripture are narratives, which, while they may be the inspired “word of God,” are not the word of God in the same way that prophetic speech is. They contain accounts of Divine actions, Divine speech, and prophecies, but are not themselves Divine speech in a direct sense. Christians may believe by faith that God’s Spirit led the human authors of these texts to communicate the message He wanted to communicate to His people, but it is clear that the human authors were fully involved in the crafting of these texts, both in gathering the information needed to write them and in writing them in their own particular style. Might it be possible that the human authors of these narratives may have made incidental errors regarding science or history, while still conveying the theological message God wanted them to communicate?
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16). It’s use/purpose is not to teach us about science and history. Certainly, God could have inspired the Scriptures such that they are completely free of error on any topic, but it is not clear that He had to do this.
Inerrantists criticize the idea that Scripture might be only theologically inerrant by pointing out that many of the basic theological beliefs of Christian faith are also historical events (e.g., the Exodus, Jesus’s Resurrection). This is an important point to make. We cannot separate history and theology. However, it is possible in practice to distinguish between historical events that are theologically significant and incidental historical details that have no theological significance.
Believing in Biblical inerrancy is not an unreasonable position to take. However, it is not clear that the Bible needs to be inerrant in order to be the Authoritative word of God. Given this, and given the fact that there are a number of unresolved questions about the accuracy of certain historical details in Scripture, it seems better to affirm the infallibility (theological inerrancy) of Scripture as a matter of Christian doctrine and confession of faith.