Posted on 03/18/2016 9:19:10 AM PDT by Sam's Army
“The Bible is the Word of God, which errs.” From the advent of neoorthodox theology in the early twentieth century, this assertion has become a mantra among those who want to have a high view of Scripture while avoiding the academic liability of asserting biblical infallibility and inerrancy. But this statement represents the classic case of having one’s cake and eating it too. It is the quintessential oxymoron.
Let us look again at this untenable theological formula. If we eliminate the first part, “The Bible is,” we get “The Word of God, which errs.” If we parse it further and scratch out “the Word of” and “which,” we reach the bottom line:
“God errs.”
The idea that God errs in any way, in any place, or in any endeavor is repugnant to the mind as well as the soul. Here, biblical criticism reaches the nadir of biblical vandalism.
How could any sentient creature conceive of a formula that speaks of the Word of God as errant? It would seem obvious that if a book is the Word of God, it does not (indeed, cannot) err. If it errs, then it is not (indeed, cannot be) the Word of God.
To attribute to God any errancy or fallibility is dialectical theology with a vengeance.
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To attribute to God any errancy or fallibility is dialectical theology with a vengeance.
Perhaps we can resolve the antinomy by saying that the Bible originates with God’s divine revelation, which carries the mark of his infallible truth, but this revelation is mediated through human authors, who, by virtue of their humanity, taint and corrupt that original revelation by their penchant for error. Errare humanum est (“To err is human”), cried Karl Barth, insisting that by denying error, one is left with a docetic Bible—a Bible that merely “seems” to be human, but is in reality only a product of a phantom humanity.
Who would argue against the human proclivity for error? Indeed, that proclivity is the reason for the biblical concepts of inspiration and divine superintendence of Scripture. Classic orthodox theology has always maintained that the Holy Spirit overcomes human error in producing the biblical text.
Barth said the Bible is the “Word” (verbum) of God, but not the “words” (verba) of God. With this act of theological gymnastics, he hoped to solve the unsolvable dilemma of calling the Bible the Word of God, which errs. If the Bible is errant, then it is a book of human reflection on divine revelation—just another human volume of theology. It may have deep theological insight, but it is not the Word of God.
Critics of inerrancy argue that the doctrine is an invention of seventeenth-century Protestant scholasticism, where reason trumped revelation—which would mean it was not the doctrine of the magisterial Reformers. For example, they note that Martin Luther never used the term inerrancy. That’s correct. What he said was that the Scriptures never err. Neither did John Calvin use the term. He said that the Bible should be received as if we heard its words audibly from the mouth of God. The Reformers, though, not using the term inerrancy, clearly articulated the concept.
Irenaeus lived long before the seventeenth century, as did Augustine, Paul the apostle, and Jesus. These all, among others, clearly taught the absolute truthfulness of Scripture.
The church’s defense of inerrancy rests upon the church’s confidence in the view of Scripture held and taught by Jesus himself. We wish to have a view of Scripture that is neither higher nor lower than his view.
The full trustworthiness of sacred Scripture must be defended in every generation, against every criticism. That is the genius of The Inerrant Word: Biblical, Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspectives. We need to listen closely to this recent defense.
There are certainly many mistranslations in various versions of what is considered to the the collection of scriptural writings that make up the words of what we call the Bible.
There are also a number of writings identified as being contemporary with some of the authorship of the Bible, that were deliberately NOT included. Apocrypha are works, usually written works, that are of unknown authorship, or of doubtful authenticity, or spurious, or not considered to be within a particular interpretation or consistent with other documentation.
During the Twentieth Century Anno Domini (AD) mathematicians proved that there are ordinary truths within relatively simple logical and numerical systems that cannot be proven within those systems. Physicists observed that there were fundamental limits to the precision of simultaneously measuring related physical quantities. The inescapable conclusion is that it is impossible for us to discover a Universal Theory of Everything (UToE) by observing and reasoning about the observed universe.
The only way that we, as human beings, can understand the universe, let alone our place in it, is to have the Creator of the Universe (CotU) tell us what we need to know. The premise of this document is that the CotU has given us what we need to know about His creation in the form of the Holy Scriptures of the Hebrews and the Christians. The fundamental plan is laid out in the Tanach (also known as (aka) the Old Testament), but this document contains some “mysteries”. The “mysteries” within the Tanach are revealed in the “Renewed Covenant” (aka New Testament) writings that make up the second part of the Christian Bible. The Renewed Covenant itself contains some things that are specifically not revealed, perhaps to remind us that we are incapable of knowing and understanding all things.
In a more mathematical sense, the Holy Scriptures are a projection (aka mapping) into our world of the CotU’s plan for the evolution of His creation from the beginning to the end. What is called “Bible Prophecy” does not come true because the CotU knows what is going to happen. “Bible Prophecy” comes true because it is a mapping from the actual plan (aka The Word) that makes things happen in the universe that we experience.
One of the first things one learns about all known physical theories, such as, equations of motion, or electromagnetic field equations, is that they are differential equations. This means that the equations specifies the rate of change of dependent quantities in response to the values of other independent quantities in the equation. In order to predict the evolution of the system one has to specify the initial or boundary conditions of the independent quantities. Only then can the future state or probable of the system be calculated.
In the search for the UToE one can get a somewhat decent handle of current conditions in a small area of study, unless one looks too closely, but things rapidly get very complex. It is possible to write down equations of motion for three bodies in a Newtonian Gravitational Field. If the initial positions and velocities, i.e., the boundary conditions, are known, then one can use the differential equations of motion to calculate future positions, but it is impossible to write down explicit equations for the orbits of the objects. We also know that Newton’s model for gravity is not as accurate as Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, which itself has limitations at very small scales.
And these are just little boundary conditions. The big boundary conditions are “Why are we here?”, “How did this all begin?” and “How will this all end?” Absent some revealed truth, these big questions are unanswerable.
Three chapters into the bible, God’s word deals with this issue:
3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
And men still want to change the correct response.
People make errors in reading the Bible all the time.
Of course because the Bible is accurately recorded.
So, when there is an error spoken by the person speaking, it is recorded. For example, if a Moses critic said, “You brought the Egyptians after us,” whether it’s true or not, that statement is truely recorded.
We certainly have man editing scripture to suit their bias.
“The Bible is the Word of God, which errs.”
If it errs, it’s not the Word of God, is it? God doesn’t err.
If took the Word of God, then changed it around to introduce errors, would it still be God’s Word? Or would it be MY word?
No. It can’t have errors. As the word of God, it is accurate.
People often fail to understand it correctly though.
The Word of YHWH also, literally, holds the world together.
Here is a doozy of an error . Matthew 1 is the genealogy of Joseph back to David. Luke 2:23 is the genealogy of Joseph from Joseph to David. They are glaringly and clearly different . But that is not the greatest error. Joseph was not the father of Jesus. Bad error. Don’t say it is Mary’s linage unless you find Mary’s name. It is “Joseph” who was not the father of Jesus and his meaningless genealogy.
Sorry !! Luke 3:23. My error!!
He was a linguistic genius who could grasp a new language very quickly.
He was living in Harar, Ethiopia, and decided the Koran needed to be rewritten due grammatically errors.
With pride he marched down his road promoting the newly improved Koran. He was soon surrounded by men with canes. The local Imam walked up to commotion and asked why they were belting a prostrate man.
"Blasphemy. He has rewritten the holy book."
"Well execute him," stated the Imam.
"The book forbids the execution of lunatics," answered the throng.
An error on scriptural error. :)
How about the “scriptures” left out by the Council of Laodicea 300 year after the resurrection when the Bible was assembled ? Are the “God Breathed”? What is a “scripture” ?
E squared
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