This question has been cause for much debate between both religious leaders and Biblical scholars. It is a divisive issue that often pits Christians against fellow Christians. It is a question that I have wrestled with time and again in my search for true faith.
If the Bible isn’t the inerrant, divinely inspired Word of God, then what purpose does it serve for those seeking truth, morality and the will of God? If the Bible does in fact contain errors, inconsistencies, discrepancies, then can we use it as our guide in navigating life? If the entire Bible isn’t absolutely, entirely infallible, then what parts are? Do we get to pick and choose which parts to heed and which to ignore? If this is the case, then what exactly is Christianity based on other than an arbitrary selected set of doctrines?
Yet the more I ponder it, the more I find myself doubting the inerrancy of the Bible.
It’s not that I doubt that the Bible is the Word of God. I do believe that He inspired the text and that the message of the Bible is the message of God. Nor do I doubt the historical accuracy of Bible. I’m aware that there are numerous corroborating texts from the time period which attest to its historicity.
But to say that the Bible is the absolute, unaltered, inerrant word of God is, for me, a bit of a logical stretch. Allow me to explain why:
The primary logical hurdle is the answer to the question: How do we know that the Bible is inerrant? I wish I knew my theology better, but the standard first response to this question (that I have heard) is that we know the Bible is inerrant because scripture, which is the divinely inspired word of God, attests to its inerrancy. Inerrancy proponents will then quote some piece of scripture, most likely 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.”
I’m sure you all see the circular reasoning and logical absurdity of this argument. The Bible is inerrant because it says it is? Put the God issue, along with personal attachments and beliefs, aside for one moment and look at the preposterousness of this logic with me. As a text free from religious attachments, this supporting evidence for inerrancy is less than paper thin. There is no other book in the world that Christianity believes to be true simply because it proclaims its own truthfulness.
Everything the Bible says is true. How do we know? Because the Bible says that everything the Bible says is true, and everything the Bible says is true. Huh?
To further illustrate, take a look at the following statement: Everything I say is a lie. Was that statement a lie? Of course. Everything I say is a lie. But if everything I say is a lie, then so was that statement, which means everything I say is true. So the truth is, everything I say is a lie. Confused yet? Yeah, me too.
Internal justification simply doesn’t work. If I made a movie and introduced it by stating that it was inerrant, would that make it so? Absolutely not. You’d have to be a madman (or woman. Zizzle-Zot doesn’t discriminate) to take me at my word. So why do so many so readily accept the inerrancy of the Bible?
Now things get dicey, because to answer that question we must bring the God issue back into the picture. To believe in God requires a certain degree of blind faith, and that means at times we are required to take God at His word. If God says something is truth it’s probably best not to question it.
But is the Bible the absolute, 100%, without a doubt Word of God? I don’t know if I can believe that either.
The Bible, as we know it, was first approved at the 3rd Council of Carthage in 397 AD (feel free to dispute the historical accuracy of this, if it’s wrong. It’s been a while since I took Introduction to the Bible). Though the 27 books of the New Testament had been read and distributed widely (give or take) by Christian groups for hundreds of years, the 3rd Council of Carthage was the first to officially canonize them.
So let’s take a step back and look at what we have here: A collection of letters and stories written by men and then compiled by men. Yes I believe that the canonizers were (or at least the majority were) holy, righteous men that were truly concerned with the spreading of God’s message and the welfare of the church. But do we not imagine that these men had even slightly differing perceptions of what God’s message was, or differing ideas of what was best for the church? They did, after all, rise to influence over 300 years after the life of Jesus and were, in effect, far removed from the context of His teachings.
Do we not imagine that there was a minority that would be motivated by personal ambition, self interest, and insidious ends? A minority that had come to a position of power and influence in the church and would do what it took to maintain that position, even if that meant including or excluding books, books that perhaps supported or refuted said minority’s specific teachings, from Christianity’s holiest text?
And if this 3rd Council of Carthage was truly anointed by God to assemble the text that would be the guiding light for Christianity, where were the women? Where was representation from other parts of the world? Research I have done indicates that the 3rd Council of Carthage was in fact a regional council consisting mostly of bishops in Africa. Are we to believe that God didn’t see fit to include a more diverse cross section of humanity in the canonization process?
To put it in a modern context, imagine assembling the most influential Christian leaders of today to canonize a new Bible. We’d probably have the Pope, Billy Graham, maybe Brennan Manning, Rick Warren, Jim Wallis, Desmond Tutu if we’re lucky, etc. But then I imagine James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (RIP) would show up for the conversation. With these last three on the list do you suppose we would end up with a Bible reflecting the inerrant voice of God? Me neither. We would be left with a bias catalogue of personal interests and pet doctrines. It really isn’t even fair to limit the fault to Dobson, Robertson and Falwell. Wallis, Warren and Manning have their specialized scriptural interpretations as well.
The point is, the leaders of the church today would not be capable of abandoning their limited personal world views to truly recognize the Will and Word of God, so why do we imagine it was any different at the 3rd Council of Carthage in 397?
I’m going to stop there for today. I need some time to let my mind wrap around itself (weird, I know). I’ll be back tomorrow with whatever semblance of a conclusion I can come up with for this maze. Let me know your thoughts…
Thanks for reading.
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5 comments:
Where is the basketball post?
Wow, deep stuff. For me, since I haven't done the research and I am not going to take the time, I truly believe that what the Bible says is true and I am going to live by what it says. What am I going to live by if I don't, just make up my own version and say that must be right? I feel that God placed the people on the 3rd council of Carthage for a reason, men or women, they were there for a reason.
I have thought about his before, wondering if the Bible is true and if everything we are living for is true. It is a scary feeling, but like you said so much of it is faith and I have faith in the Bible as well. I know there are ways to dig into and play devils advocate questioning its accuracy, but there are too many positive things pointing toward the authenticity of the Bible that cause me to put my trust in it.
I don't know exactly how to respond to this post for a couple of reasons... First I think a whole can of worms has been opened that would take a lot of time to sort through (which is really hard to have good coversation through posting). Also I am a little removed as Gruber said from the specific facts, etc. of what happened with the canonizing. Finally with such a broad topic how to chose what to respond to.
With that said, what I will write about is this: I truly believe that you must take one of two viewpoints.
1) The Bible is the devine inspired inerrant word of God.
2) The Bible is a religious work created by sources close to Jesus and religious leaders of the early centuries which means the entire work is subject to errors and lies.
If you hold to the first view point you take 100% of the Bible as truth and every discrepancy is left to interpretation.
I believe that there is only 2 choices because in my mind I can't find any way to justify that some of the Bible is inspired and some isn't. So then the second choice is that it is all written and compiled by men and is therefore subject to mans inperfections.
I think it is impossible to hold that some of the Bible is inspired and some isn't because then how do you know what is and what isn't (I hold this because I feel the God I believe in wouldn't do anything to try and mislead us). At this point the human in us starts to pick and chose what parts are the inspired truth and what parts we can blame on mankind and therefore not hold to its truth. Do you see the problem here?
That is why I think you have to either be 100% on board or you have to consider the whole Bible could be errant which means any part could be misleading and not the true word of God (but then what is left to hold onto?)
Was C.S. Lewis "inspired" by God when he wrote Mere Christianity"? Was Augustine inspired by God when he wrote his "Confessions"? My point is that we need to understand and contemplate our definitions within the vocabulary we use to describe the Bible. I have no problem saying that the writers were inspired but possibly erroneous. For me it's not a case of what is and what is not innerrant. That is not my concern. I submit to you righteous dudes and possible dudettes (cassel don't discriminate either) that innerrancy is not our debate. Whichever side you take, you can still maintain historical and religious integrity of the text with either view. Why? If we look at the Bible with a story mindset we see the story of God and his people. We see how throughout the ages God and his people make covenant. People usually break it, and God then restores. The Bible to me is a very long story, one in which we begin to know, undestand and grasp the beauty of God through his ressurecting nature. It is not a story of just one ressurrection in Jesus Christ, but the story of ressurrection beginning with the fall. Sin brings death, God ressurects. Play that over hundreds of times, and in a number of situations, and you have the Bible. We must step back from reading mere verses, and begin to look at the Bible as a whole. This we call the metanarative. From this standpoint, whether or not there is some fallacy in the text is almost irrelevant.
I like theological posts Zot!
PS an understanding of why the Bible was canonized is rather enlightening. If anyone wants, I have some good yet short texts on this topic. Peace
Quick reply to Cassel Dassel...
I love your comment for understanding the Bible as a whole.
I run into a problem when I then ask the question okay, well then how should I live? That is where I believe the Bible has so many everyday truths even in one or two simple passages. If I am going to question and have to decifer which ones I think are truths and lies than it is a big waste of my time.
Cassel i too like your post about understanding the whole picture of the Bible, but my biggest question to wrestle with is this:
If the Bible isn't 100% truth, than how i can stand behind arguments such as Homosexuality, Sex befor marriage, Abortion, etc. If i can't back it with facts but rather opions on what "parts" of the Bible i believe to be true i think i would sound like a dumb ass.
So the debate on whether it is 100% true or not to me seems really important; otherwise we are just wasting our time having discussions on topics like the ones above.
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