Subject: Don T Get Eaten up on the Internet

Subject: Inerrancy myths

Central Theme: Four myths about inerrancy

Objective/Rationale: Every Christian student can arrive at a defensible understanding of inerrancy by being aware of four MYTHS about the doctrine.

#1: Inspiration does not equal dictation

#2: We are not the standard

#3: Inerrancy does not mean covering every possible misinterpretation

#4 Inerrancy does not mean preserved copies Slide 1

Last week one of you raised the question of the infallibility of Scripture and how fallible men could possibly produce the Word of God, which we take to be inerrant. I decided that the best way to address this is to talk about what we mean when we say the Bible is infallible or inerrant, because what I find is that many, many people have misconceptions about the doctrine. And I also find that many people who say they have left Christianity give as one of their reasons, ideas about the Bible and inerrancy they had which were simply wrong. They came to the Bible with a false understanding of inerrancy, and when their expectations weren’t met, it hurt their faith. So tonight I want to give you a clear and reasonable picture of what inerrancy means, which in turn with answer the question of how fallible men can produce the Word of God. I think you’ll see after this that the answer is, “It wouldn’t be hard. All they had to do was write.”

So how will I go about this? Well, I have a model to use.

I don’t watch a lot of TV but when I do, the channel we keep on a lot is TDC. One of my faves on there is Dirty Jobs; who likes DJ? You do? I got one for you – you can mow my front yard.

How about Man vs Wild? (pause, look) You know what I’d like to see? I’d like to see Mike Rowe, the DJ guy, do as his job, “host of Man vs Wild”. I can see it like this: Bear’s down here the ground, night, “And now, we’re going to make a fire using only this tiny twig, and the back of this frog. Here, Mike, you do it.” (hands frog) And Mike Rowe is like, “Come on. There’s got to be a better way. This frog is covered with poo. You ever heard of matches? What’s that smell? Do jungles always smell like this?”

Then there’s Mythbusters -- this one is my favorite, because apologists like busting myths. Now, I invited Adam and Jamie to come here tonight, but they were kind of busy, so instead….

….I’ll make do with my versions. (toon site) Our stand ins are going to give us some help busting four myths about Biblical inerrancy. Now before I begin on those myths, I have to take care of something really boring which I have to say, because if I don’t, your youth pastor here is going to beat me up, okay?

How many people here have heard of the Chicago Statement? (react) This is the main doctrinal statement which is used to define inerrancy. Southern Baptist churches accept it, as do many other Christian groups. I’m going to be quoting parts of it tonight because sometimes people hear some of this stuff I say, and are like, “Where’d you get that from?” Well, all I will say here is in accord with TCS – you can be the judge.

#1: Inspiration equals dictation

You ask a lot of Christians, “how did God inspire people to write the Bible?” and the answer you get is some kind of dictation model. Now what is dictation? (answer) The picture these people have is of God standing over like, Luke’s shoulder and saying, “Now. Write the word ‘and’. Do it!” “And. A N D.” “Now, write the word ‘Jesus’. Do it!” “J E S E...” “No! No no no no no.” “Sorry! U…” And God is up here with a whip, or maybe he (grab hand) takes hold of Luke’s hand and does some of this….

There are a few places where this may have happened. Any place where an OT prophet declares, “Thus says the Lord” for example may have been done with a sort of dictation. But most of the Bible is not that way, and what is left is not held to have been authored by dictation. Article 7 of the Chicago Statement says this:

We affirm that inspiration was the work in which God by His Spirit, through human writers, gave us His Word. The origin of Scripture is divine. The mode of divine inspiration remains largely a mystery to us.

It also says that inspiration is not just human insight, nor is it a heightened state of consciousness. So what is it?

There are a few theories about how exactly inspiration did work, and the CS leaves it pretty much open. Based on my research, and what the word “inspiration” meant to the people who lived in the time of the Bible, I think it’s very close to the sort of inspiration you might get when you write a story or paint a picture – except that God is the one who gives you the idea so that the final result is what God wants. The technical term for this, which you don’t have to remember is, concursive operation. We’ll see how that works out and fits with the CS in the next three myths. But let’s make this clear.

Does God know everything? Did He create us? Do you think He did a good job? Some Christians think of God as a micromanager who has to be personally moving every atom in the universe all the time – not to say He can’t. I just say He doesn’t. God is smart enough and competent enough to set up things so that want He wants to happen, happens naturally. Instead of controlling Luke’s hand or yelling at him, why not instead say, God saw in Luke someone who could do the job right? Or that God inspired Luke to learn the right vocabulary, and to have the kind of gentle spirit, needed to serve God’s purpose when Luke wrote his gospel? Dictation isn’t the way it was done. We’re not clear on all the details of how inspiration worked, any more than we understand all the details of how and why an artist is inspired. But we do know what inspiration isn’t.

#2: We are the standard

(Last week, told story; will tell it again with reference. Thomas Paine (left, reiterate) said this in Age of Reason, Joshua 5: 13. "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went unto bim and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" Verse 14, "And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship and said unto him, What saith my Lord unto his servant?" Verse 15, "And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Josbua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standeth is holy. And Joshua did so."

Paine: Either this story is broken off in the middle, or it is a story told by some Jewish humourist in ridicule of Joshua's pretended mission from God, and the compilers of the Bible, not perceiving the design of the story, have told it as a serious matter… this most important embassy from heaven ends in telling Joshua to pull off his shoe. It might as well have told him to pull up his breeches.

Paine missed one possibility: That he was a bigot who didn't understand the symbolic importance of removing the sandals to an ancient person. Think of the Japanese removing their shoes before entering a house, or Muslims removing footwear before entering a mosque. This was a token of respect, like bowing or kneeling, and Paine should have at least gotten the hint from the point that the ground was holy.

Article 8 of the Chicago Statement says:

We affirm that God in His work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared.

Another part of the CS, Article 13, expands in this and says:

We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of metrical, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.

And last, Article 18 says:

We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.

Paine’s example is just one of countless I have seen over the years where some critic judged the Bible by his standards of truth or error. On my website I have many, many other examples. We don’t have time to go over more examples tonight, but there are some general principles up here to be followed.

Do not assume your values on the text. That is what Paine did. To him, taking your shoes off was the same as pulling up your pants. In Japan (Taiwan) they do the same thing with taking off shoes in important places. Paine = ambassador to Japan, Taiwan?

Do not assume that just because you can’t make sense of a passage, that it is nonsense, or meaningless, etc. That again is what Paine did. He thought it was some kind of joke.

As I said last week, Bible und on many levels. Many people are happy to not understand passages like these. If you’re someone who needs to know – DO seek out qualified commentators or scholars who can explain the passages. Consult several and compare their writings. . I will tell you that most claims of error in the Bible – such as claims of discrepancies between the four gospels – are solved by understanding the way THEY looked at the text. There’s a ton of material out there. Here in Orlando alone, there are TWO major seminaries with huge libraries.

You may say, “Wow, that would be a lot of work, JP.” Yeah, it is, and I know because I did a lot of it already. But you know what?

Jesus called disciples. He didn’t call couch potatoes. If you have questions, then the least you can do is look for answers, and spend some time doing it and doing it right. Most of the atheists and critics I know, wouldn’t read a book on Bible interpretation unless you paid them, or they go rifling through it looking for quotes they can manipulate – which is what they also do with the Bible. Always look for reliable, qualified sources. That means, do NOT look for answers on:

Wikipedia – sorry, but this is one of my pet peeves. Slide 13

Break: MORON

#3: Inerrancy means covering every possible misinterpretation

I get a lot of complaints from atheists who say, “An omniscient God would have made the Bible a lot more clear so there weren’t so many people misinterpreting it.” Now mind you, I get this from atheists who can’t even “get it” when the text is perfectly clear. One of the leading atheists I deal with now used to be a pastor, and when he was a pastor, he committed adultery. So when he brings up this argument, “Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear?” I say to him, “John – what was unclear about the 7th commandment?”

It is not that the Bible is not clear. The problem is that people who want to use the Bible to justify their own views either don’t want to look into the meaning, or when they find that it doesn’t mean what they want it to, they pretend it doesn’t. And you can never satisfy people like that. Let me give you an extreme example.

1 Kings 9:26 says, And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-Geber, which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Well I know of an atheist who has argued that this verse contains a mistake because although in Solomon’s time, Ezion-geber’s site was right on the Red Sea, since that time, the Red Sea’s shoreline has changed, so now, the site of Ezion-geber is more inland. According to this atheist, this is an error in the Bible because an omniscient God should have made the Bible perfect for all times. Now that EG is not on the shore of the RS, this is an error. So IOW, this is what he wants:

1 Kings 9:26 (Picky Atheist Version) And king Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion- Geber, which is beside Eloth, which was on the shore of the Red sea, in the land of Edom, at the time I wrote this. In the year which will be numbered 2008 (according to a system to be invented by some people called Romans) Ezion-geber will not be by the Red sea any more because the water will recede.

Do you know how big the Bible would be if God covered every possible misinterpretation that people came up with? You’d have to move it in a fleet of vans. Better idea: People like that atheist need to get over themselves and their interpretations and be honest with the text. Slide 17

#4 Inerrancy means inerrant copies

Who has their Bible? Do we believe or teach that this Bible he is holding up in inerrant? We do not, but many people think we do. Article 10 of the CS says, “[Inspiration] applies only to the autographic text of Scripture…” Means what Matthew or Luke or Paul wrote when they put pen to paper is thought to have been inerrant.

Now this has led to another question that I have heard posed from atheists: God is omnipotent. He could have kept all the copies inerrant. Why didn’t He? Would have saved us a lot of trouble.

You can see a pattern here. Always it’s, why didn’t God do this or that so I wouldn’t have to work so hard? But taking the question seriously, why didn’t God preserve the copies without error, or make sure (his/her) copy was perfect like the originals?

The first reason is because it would cause widespread bibliolatry – what do I mean by that? I mean worship of the Bible – as opposed to worship of God. Has anyone ever heard of relics? Back in the medieval age, "relics" were alleged to be pieces of Christian history that the common believer could buy and in exchange, get some kind of favor from God.

These relics could be anything from a piece of the cross of Jesus to stuff like an apostle’s toenail clippings – or maybe even the whole toe of the apostle. They were kept in containers called reliquaries, like the ones in the slide. The one on the right was supposed to be to hold the arm of one of the dead saints.

Relics were a corrupt business – there were a lot of fake relics and a lot of wrong ideas about salvation associated with it. So many pieces of the cross of Jesus that one guy said you could build a ship out of them. Another said that there were so many parts of the apostles around that it was obvious that each apostle had more than four bodies.

Now if this is how allegedly authentic pieces of Christian history were regarded, how would inerrant copies of Scripture have been received?

Related to that, let’s say that all our copies were inerrant. Based on what I told you about relics, what do you think would happen to people having their own Bibles? Today you can walk into any bookstore and buy up to 100 different versions to suit your tastes, like the King James Version, or the New English Bible, or Text Messaging Bible, or whatever. If all the copies came out touched by God, you wouldn’t be able to buy your own Bible any more. The people with all the power would horde all the copies About 20 years ago, we went to see a traveling exhibit featuring the original Declaration of Independence, ever seen that? Visitors were carefully searched before they entered; a maze of pathways led you to center stage; and there, at the very heart of the exhibit -- inside a glass-topped case that emerged from a secure area below the observation level.

If this is the type of concern we show for our Declaration of Independence, what would we do with inerrant copies of the Bible? If you think I’m making up a problem, you ought to know that in the Middle Ages, many people in the church said that "the common people" had no right or need to have their own copies, and that they’d just be putting their soiled hands on the Holy Word of God.

Questions?