IS YOUR BIBLE INERRANT?
by Jim Denison
Some things need to be inerrant. If things were right only 99.9% of the time, there would be: two unsafe landings every day at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport; 16,000 pieces of lost mail every hour; 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions every year; 500 incorrect surgeries every week; 50 babies dropped at birth every day; 32,000 missed heartbeats per person, per year; and 22,000 checks deducted from the wrong checking account every hour. Inerrancy matters!
But does it matter for the Bible? For some seventeen years, Southern Baptists have been told that it does. In fact, we’re told that if we will not call the Bible “inerrant,” our entire position on biblical authority is suspect.
The purpose of this series of articles is to respond to this assertion under the title, “What’s Wrong with Inerrancy?” We’ll begin this month with the threat which insisting on inerrancy poses to the Bible you read today. Inerrancy and the “autographs”
“Inerrancy” may be defined as the view that “1. when all the facts are known, 2. they will demonstrate that the Bible in its autographs 3. and correctly interpreted 4. is entirely true 5. in all that it affirms.”1 We will focus today on statement #2: that inerrancy applies only to the “autographs.”2
By “autographs” we mean the original documents of the Bible—what the authors actually wrote. However, we possess none of these documents, only copies made from these originals. And inerrancy is explicitly not extended to the copies we possess today. In fact, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy admits that the copies we have “are not entirely error-free.”3
Now, here’s the problem. If the Bible must be inerrant to be trustworthy, and if only the autographs are inerrant, then three damaging conclusions result:
1. The copies of the autographs which we possess cannot be inerrant;
2. Our Bibles, based on these copies, cannot be inerrant; and
3. The Bible you read today cannot by definition be trusted.
As a result, insisting on inerrancy defeats its own purpose. Rather than defending the trustworthiness of Scripture, it undermines it.
Inerrancy and the copies
The typical response of an inerrantist to this argument is based on this fact: our copies of the Bible possess “great accuracy.”4 One proponent of inerrancy claims that “there is no part of the autographs which affect doctrine where we do not know what the autograph said.”5
But this response is not enough. There are two significant questions we must ask.
How many “errors” are too many?
First, how many copying mistakes are too many for our Bibles to be inerrant? Logically, one. A single error in transmission from the originals to our copies logically contradicts the inerrancy of the only biblical manuscripts we have.
Why is this true? Because the inerrantist affirms that “the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration. We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts.”
6 It is clear that one cannot affirm the inerrancy of the autographs unless he or she affirms the inerrancy of their every word.
However, even the inerrantist admits that our copies “are not entirely error free’’ And this is the problem. The text must be inerrant to be trustworthy, but the copies we possess contain errors in transmission. By definition, then, the only manuscripts we have can be neither inerrant nor trustworthy.
Here’s the point: logically, it does not matter whether these “errors” “affect doctrine” or not. Neither does it matter how many such “errors” exist. If even one discrepancy between the originals and our copies exists, by the inerrantist’s logic the copies cannot possess the trustworthiness of the autographs.
The Bibles built on them cannot be inerrant. And the inerrancy argument defeats its purpose.
Who decides what “affects doctrine”?
Second, stating that “errors” in our copies of the autographs do not “affect doctrine” introduces a dangerous element of subjectivity into the inerrancy position. The proponent quoted above believes that the areas in question do not affect doctrine. What if I disagree? Who is to say which disputed texts affect doctrine and which do not?
For example, Mark 16:9-20 is not found in the best copies of Mark’s original manuscript, and few scholars would defend this text as part of Mark’s inspired writing.7 But can we say that these verses do not “affect doctrine?” Those who believe that baptism is essential to salvation have long quoted v. 16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” Advocates of “tongues” quote v. 17, “they will speak in new tongues.” And “snake-handling Baptists” base their entire practice on v. 18, “they will pick up snakes with their hands.”8 Surely this textual question has doctrinal implications! The writer who argues that copying issues do not “affect doctrine” also quotes W.A. Criswell’s statement that the “neo-orthodox” theologians “believe that some of the Bible is inspired by God and some of it isn’t, and they are inspired to tell the difference!”9 The inerrantist seems to say that some of the Bible affects doctrine and some doesn’t, and he is inspired to tell the difference.10 Again the inerrancy argument undermines the Bible it intends to defend.
My position
To summarize the threat which inerrancy poses to your Bible:
1. By this doctrine, the Bible must be inerrant to be trustworthy;
2. Only the original documents were inerrant;
3. The copies on which we base our Bibles today are therefore “not entirely error free;”
4. Our Bibles therefore cannot be inerrant, and by definition are thus untrustworthy.
Am I saying that the Bible I preach from each Sunday is not trustworthy?
Absolutely not. I believe that the Bible is God’s authoritative word. I am convinced that God inspired every word. Further, in opposition to the logical conclusion of the inerrancy position, I believe that my translation is still God’s word today. But I do not require “inerrancy” of the Bible to trust it. Neither should you.
l) J. Walter Carpenter, “Biblical Hermeneutics For Amateurs,” Texas Baptist, January 1995, 13. I utilize this author’s definition because of its distribution to Texas Baptists through the magazine cited. For a similar definition, see David S. Dockery, The Doctrine of the Bible (Nashville: Convention Press, 1991), 80.
2) The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, the most popular inerrancy document, says the same: “We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture” (Article X).
3) Chicago Statement, Exposition E.
4) Chicago Statement, Article X.
5) Carpenter, 13; emphasis mine. He cites F.F. Bruce as support; for Dr. Bruce’s full statement, see his The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 5th. ed. rev. (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1960), 19-20.
The Chicago Statement goes even further: “We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.” (Article X).
6) Chicago Statement, Article VI; emphasis mine.
7) Even the original Scofield Reference Bible notes that “The passage from verse 9 to the end is not found in the two most ancient manuscripts, the Sinaitic and the Vatican.” (C.I. Scofield, ed., The Scofield Reference Bible [New York: Oxford University Press, 1909], 1069). And the Ryrie Study Bible, long a favorite of “conservative” Baptists, notes that “The doubtful genuineness of verses 9-20 makes it unwise to build a doctrine or base an experience on them.” (Charles Caldwell Ryrie, The Ryrie Study Bible [Chicago: Moody Press, 1976], 1539).
8) All quotations are from the New International version.
9) Carpenter, 13.
l0) A.A. Hodge and B.B. Warfield, in a classic essay on inerrancy, make this same point in more precise language: since “no organism can be stronger than its weakest part, that if error be found in any one element, or in any class of statements, certainty as to any portion could rise no higher than belongs to that exercise of human reason to which it will be left to discriminate the infallible from the fallible” (“Inspiration,” Presbyterian Journal 2 (April 1881), 242.
April 1995