On Inerrancy

[maklelan]

In a thread now closed Hughes responded to a reply I posted online to the recent online publication of an older article by Rob Bowman on the Book of Mormon. Here I am posting my response to Hughes, and I would like to focus this thread on the notion of inerrancy. I provide some initial thoughts in the following response, but am interested in comments, as well as a well formulated definition of inerrancy, if one is available. Now on to the reply.

Inerrancy. The doctrine of inerrancy doesn

[maklelan]

You haven

[Rob Bowman]

maklelan,

We had a discussion going in an another thread about inerrancy before my trip to Uganda earlier this year. I still think my argument there is sound. Unfortunately, that thread is now locked.

You wrote here:

The next point is related. We don

[Vance]

Your claim that for the most part we don't know what the autographs say (i.e., said) is incorrect. Our knowledge of what the autographs said is actually good, "for the most part."

Without the autographs to support this statement, you must be accepting it on blind faith.

Which is fine by me, as long as you are willing to admit it to yourself and others.

[Vance]

If they did, wouldn't you simply dismiss it on the grounds that quoting the Bible to prove the Bible is circular?

Nice to see you willing to admit that they don't. Even if it is only implicitly. So then, where exactly does a "sola scripturist" get the doctrine of inerrancy?

[Rob Bowman]

Vance,

You are incorrect. I don't need access to the autographs to have good reason to think that the text of those autographs has come down to us substantially intact.

On this issue, see the book Reinventing Jesus, especially the chapters by Daniel Wallace (a leading scholar in New Testament textual criticism).

Without the autographs to support this statement, you must be accepting it on blind faith.

Which is fine by me, as long as you are willing to admit it to yourself and others.

[Rob Bowman]

Vance,

I admitted no such thing, not even implicitly. I was speaking hypothetically.

I get my doctrine of biblical inerrancy from Jesus Christ.

Nice to see you willing to admit that they don't. Even if it is only implicitly. So then, where exactly does a "sola scripturist" get the doctrine of inerrancy?

[Vance]

Vance,

I admitted no such thing, not even implicitly. I was speaking hypothetically.

I think it was a freudian slip.

I get my doctrine of biblical inerrancy from Jesus Christ.

CFR

Chapter and verse please.

[Bill Hamblin]

Scriptural inerrancy is utterly untenable.

[Bill Hamblin]

Vance,

You are incorrect. I don't need access to the autographs to have good reason to think that the text of those autographs has come down to us substantially intact.

Of course "substantially intact" is hardly inerrant. There are, in fact substantial variants between manuscript traditions in both NT and OT, and between the LXX and MT of the OT. And on Canon issues. Etc. Etc. Surely you are aware of these, Rob. If so, how can you make such a claim? If not, how can you make such a claim?

[maklelan]

maklelan,

We had a discussion going in an another thread about inerrancy before my trip to Uganda earlier this year. I still think my argument there is sound. Unfortunately, that thread is now locked.

I am happy to respond to those concerns here. I'll look through the thread and see what is there that hasn't been addressed already.

You wrote here:

Your claim that for the most part we don't know what the autographs say (i.e., said) is incorrect. Our knowledge of what the autographs said is actually good, "for the most part."

No, it's not that good. We have a pretty good idea about the shape of the texts as far back as we can reconstruct them, but the relationship of those texts to the originals is simply unknown. In fact, a significant debate going on right now in textual criticism focus on the notion of an Urtext. Are there individual texts behind the books of the Hebrew Bible or were there independently produced texts and traditions that were just conflated at different points and redacted into a semi-coherent whole? Was Deutero-Isaiah even written with Isaiah in mind? We have absolutely no idea. We know because of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint that almost 15% of MT Jeremiah was composed and conflated with the earlier text around the turn of the era. I've pointed out the various traditions behind Sennacherib's invasion. Those traditions obviously had currency previous to being incorporated into the 2 Kings text, but we have absolutely no idea what they originally looked like. Were they scripture/inspired in whatever form they existed prior to their interpolation into 2 Kings? The same can be said of the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob cycles, which were disparate traditions prior to being conflated in Genesis. The same can be said of the Priestly and Yahwist accounts of the creation accounts, patriarchal genealogies, and flood accounts. Their original forms are absolutely unknowable at this point. To insist otherwise is, to be blunt, naive.

You wrote:

If they did, wouldn't you simply dismiss it on the grounds that quoting the Bible to prove the Bible is circular?

No, but it would still have to be shown that the numerous demonstrable errors I've pointed out were not really errors. Irrespective, the simple fact is that there is no part of the Bible that asserts inerrancy of any kind. In fact, I've shown that, according to the Bible, God utilizes lies to further his purposes.

You tried this tactic in the earlier thread, when you argued that we can't know what Jesus taught about Scripture because we can't be sure the Gospels are giving us the correct information about his teaching.

We can approximate what he said in some cases, but no, we can't be absolutely sure.

The problem with that argumentative tactic should be obvious: in your zeal to jettison inerrancy, you jettison the reliability of any scripture to inform us on any doctrinal subject.

That reliability is something that must be shown, not presupposed. If it cannot be shown, but is flatly undermined at every turn, then there's even less reason to presuppose it.

[Vance]

You are incorrect. I don't need access to the autographs to have good reason to think that the text of those autographs has come down to us substantially intact.

Choosing the blind faith approach then.

[maklelan]

I get my doctrine of biblical inerrancy from Jesus Christ.

Jesus never suggested the scriptures were/are inerrant, much less the Bible.

[Rob Bowman]

Vance,

I wrote:

I get my doctrine of biblical inerrancy from Jesus Christ.

You replied:

CFR

Chapter and verse please.

See my opening post in the thread from earlier this year, cited above in my reply to maklelan.

[Rob Bowman]

maklelan,

You wrote, regarding the reliability of the biblical texts:

No, it's not that good. We have a pretty good idea about the shape of the texts as far back as we can reconstruct them, but the relationship of those texts to the originals is simply unknown. In fact, a significant debate going on right now in textual criticism focus on the notion of an Urtext. Are there individual texts behind the books of the Hebrew Bible or were there independently produced texts and traditions that were just conflated at different points and redacted into a semi-coherent whole? Was Deutero-Isaiah even written with Isaiah in mind? We have absolutely no idea. We know because of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint that almost 15% of MT Jeremiah was composed and conflated with the earlier text around the turn of the era. I've pointed out the various traditions behind Sennacherib's invasion. Those traditions obviously had currency previous to being incorporated into the 2 Kings text, but we have absolutely no idea what they originally looked like. Were they scripture/inspired in whatever form they existed prior to their interpolation into 2 Kings? The same can be said of the Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob cycles, which were disparate traditions prior to being conflated in Genesis. The same can be said of the Priestly and Yahwist accounts of the creation accounts, patriarchal genealogies, and flood accounts. Their original forms are absolutely unknowable at this point. To insist otherwise is, to be blunt, naive.

Most of what you bring up here blurs the distinction between textual criticism and literary source criticism.

[Rob Bowman]

maklelan,

You wrote:

Jesus never suggested the scriptures were/are inerrant, much less the Bible.

Um...how do you know that exactly?

[maklelan]

maklelan,

You wrote, regarding the reliability of the biblical texts:

Most of what you bring up here blurs the distinction between textual criticism and literary source criticism.

No, I'm not, you're misunderstanding the distinction. Textual criticism is the attempt to reconstruct the earliest recoverable shape of the text. When you talk about autographs, you're talking, for the vast majority of books, about texts that predate the oldest recoverable manuscripts we have by several centuries. You're not talking about textual criticism at that point, you're talking about source criticism and form criticism. Some questions, like the possibility of an Urtext, overlap with a few different disciplines. The notion that they are all mutually exclusive fields of study is unfounded.

[maklelan]

maklelan,

You wrote:

Um...how do you know that exactly?

Because I've read the entire Bible, much of it several times through in the original languages, and quite a bit of secondary literature on the topic, and so far no such text has ever been unearthed. Additionally, a closed canon precludes the possibility of such a text ever being discovered.

[David Bokovoy]

Of course "substantially intact" is hardly inerrant. There are, in fact substantial variants between manuscript traditions in both NT and OT, and between the LXX and MT of the OT. And on Canon issues. Etc. Etc. Surely you are aware of these, Rob. If so, how can you make such a claim? If not, how can you make such a claim?

Indeed, and the variants between manuscripts that I personally find most interesting are those that are clearly a case of theological exegesis regarding descriptions of God.

Ex. 4:24: "And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him." (The Masoretic Text)

Ex. 4:24: "And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the angel of the Lord met him, and sought to kill him" (Septuagint)

Or how about:

Ex. 19:3: "And Moses went up to God" (The Masoretic Text)

Ex. 19:3: "And Moses went up to the mountain of God" (Septuagint)

Clearly these are not trivial discrepancies to a supposedly inerrant scriptural text. Anyone like to cast a vote as to actual words featured in the original autograph? And what about the various ancient biblical manuscripts that include midrashic additions? It's not just the Targumim that feature this sort of addition to the text, this type of exegesis is also found in the Septuagint and the Vulgate. The issue gets even more complicated in terms of New Testament textual criticism. Hence, I echo Bill's well-crafted sentiment, "Surely you are aware of these, Rob. If so, how can you make such a claim? If not, how can you make such a claim."

[David Bokovoy]

maklelan,

You wrote, regarding the reliability of the biblical texts:

Most of what you bring up here blurs the distinction between textual criticism and literary source criticism.

As the great textual critic Emanuel Tov explained when performed properly, textual criticism quite naturally leads to literary criticism. "Since most of the biblical books grew stage by stage throughout a period of several generations, even when a book seemed to have attained a completed state, it was often re-edited in a revised edition" Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, pg. 315-316. Like most all other Near Eastern texts, biblical texts grew, meaning changed with time. In an effort to understand these developments, the fields of textual and literary source criticism are quite frequently "blurred."

[Bill Hamblin]

Vance,

I wrote:

I get my doctrine of biblical inerrancy from Jesus Christ.

You replied:

See my opening post in the thread from earlier this year, cited above in my reply to maklelan.

So, for your first claim in that earlier text--that Jews in the age of Jesus believed in scriptural inerrancy--you in fact cite an article discussing later rabbinic theories of scriptural inerrancy. That, of course, shows Jewish views from several centuries after the time of Jesus.

We, in fact, have a wide range of evidence from the time of Jesus concerning how sacred texts were used, that runs strongly counter to your claim.

1- The Septuagint (LXX), which is radically different from the Masoretic text (MT) in a large number of ways.

2- The Targums, which are even more different from the MT than the LXX.

3- The DSS which are also different from the MT in a number of ways.

4- The way the Old Testament quotes itself--and other forms of OT intertextuality.

5- The way the New Testament quotes the Old.

What we find is that the way that scriptural exegesis is actually practiced in the century or two before and after Jesus is radically different from the hypothetical theories of Jewish scholars centuries after the the time of Jesus.

The result of examining how the biblical texts were actually treated at the time of Jesus indicates that there was no practical sense of inerrancy.

[Hughes]

First, I

[David Bokovoy]

So, for your first claim in that earlier text--that Jews in the age of Jesus believed in scriptural inerrancy--you in fact cite an article discussing later rabbinic theories of scriptural inerrancy. That, of course, shows Jewish views from several centuries after the time of Jesus.

We, in fact, have a wide range of evidence from the time of Jesus concerning how sacred texts were used, that runs strongly counter to your claim.

1- The Septuagint (LXX), which is radically different from the Masoretic text (MT) in a large number of ways.

2- The Targums, which are even more different from the MT than the LXX.

3- The DSS which are also different from the MT in a number of ways.

4- The way the Old Testament quotes itself--and other forms of OT intertextuality.

5- The way the New Testament quotes the Old.

What we find is that the way that scriptural exegesis is actually practiced in the century or two before and after Jesus is radically different from the hypothetical theories of Jewish scholars centuries after the the time of Jesus.

The result of examining how the biblical texts were actually treated at the time of Jesus indicates that there was no practical sense of inerrancy.

It seems to me that the crux of Rob

[Bill Hamblin]

Another issue that Rob should address is this:

1- Is there any clear explicit statement in the Bible affirming inerrancy?

(The fact that Rob is required to create a complex argument regarding Jewish beliefs and implications of Christ quoting scriptures to argue his claim surely indicates that there is not, in fact, any explicit scriptural statement on inerrancy.)

2-If belief in an inerrant Bible is a crucial Christian doctrine, why is it absent from the Bible?

[maklelan]

Maklelan, I'm sorry I'm not able to devote the time to this it deserves tonight. I figured you might be interested in another document though. So if interested:

http://ag.org/top/beliefs/position_papers/pp_downloads/pp_4175_inerrancy.pdf

Ah, thank you. I will prepare an analysis over the next few days.