Inerrancy is Theological Flat-Earthism
I have just finished my first year teaching at Stonehill College, a liberal Catholic school in the Holy Cross tradition. I taught science-and-religion classes and most of my students came from traditional Catholic families. Prior to moving to Stonehill I taught similar courses at two evangelical colleges—Gordon and Eastern Nazarene.
In reflecting with friends on my first year at Stonehill—which I thoroughly enjoyed, thank you for asking!— I have found myself posing the following question: Would I rather have students that know almost nothing about the Bible, or who know a lot of stuff about the Bible that has no context, or is not even true?
Let me start with my experiences at Eastern Nazarene. The typical evangelical student there—and most were not Nazarene—was raised on the Bible. They were encouraged to read the Bible, which many of them did; they learned Bible stories in Sunday School class and how to locate any passage relatively quickly; many participated in some form of Bible quizzing; all were taught to think of the Bible as the “Word of God,” and for most of them this translated into an uncritical belief that God had “written” the Bible himself, using the nominal Biblical authors as secretaries taking dictation.
The belief that God had “written” the Bible turned it into a single-author book, which meant that passages from disparate sections could be combined to create arguments, just as Euclid’s axioms could be combined in different ways. Snippets from Daniel, Peter, and Revelation could be combined to argue that the United Nations was the power base from which the anti-Christ would emerge.
The belief that every statement in the Bible is, on its own, a “true proposition” creates enormous hassles for teaching any topic that even touched on the Bible. I recall an honors seminar where I was leading a discussion about Cartesian dualism and trying to help the students understand the reasons why a more monist view of the self has supplanted Descartes’ view. One of my honors students responded: “Monism can’t be true. Jesus told us to love God with our “hearts, souls and minds” so there must be more than just one aspect to our humanity.”
The concept of a “Biblical Worldview” has become a politically charged, highly influential and much-abused concept and people like the late D. James Kennedy, Brannon Howse, James Dobson, Tim LaHaye and others have created “packages” of ideas and presented them as “the” biblical (=Christian) approach to the problems of our time. The result is that many young people have a vague idea that the Republican platform comes from the Bible. Many of my first year evangelical students actually believed that universal healthcare, progressive tax structures, and social justice were unbiblical positions.
By far the greatest problem however relates to science. Biblical inerrancy is the primary reason most evangelicals reject mainstream scientific ideas like evolution and the Big Bang. Most of the students entered my classes at Eastern Nazarene believing that evolution was the devil’s lie. I had one honors seminar largely ruined by a student who felt compelled to clumsily defend biblical inerrancy at every turn, regardless of the topic. For more than two decades I had biblical inerrantists like Ken Ham condemning me to hell and trying to get me fired for leading college students astray. I spent many long painful hours in administrator’s offices dealing with these controversies, trying in vain to explain that a college education should disabuse one of the notion that the earth is 10,000 years old. Such is the legacy of biblical inerrancy, even at a denominational college with a faith statement that explicitly rejects it.
At Stonehill College my students know almost nothing about the Bible. They couldn’t find Jeremiah to save their lives; and none of them could tell me what happened to Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit. But not a one of them reject evolution and all of them learned somewhere along the way that Christians should promote social justice. None of them bring implausible biblical notions to class that interfere with the learning of new ideas.
These are largely practical concerns, some of which could be cleared up with better teaching. But the central concern is the inerrantist position and I don’t think that is salvageable. I was raised with this and defended it with great and obnoxious vigor as a college student. I have since come to view inerrancy as a sort of “theological flat-earthism”— a strange position that requires the rejection and distortion of so much generally accepted knowledge that embracing it forces one onto an ideological Fantasy Island.
Inerrancy strikes me as so thoroughly refuted that we need to be done with it. It has been crushed with a mountain of examples, small and large—and small ones, like getting the value of “pi” wrong, are just as troubling as large ones, like Matthew misquoting Isaiah.
Furthermore, even dyed-in-the-wool fully pedigreed inerrantists can’t agree on what their inerrant Bible says. Here is a link to a remarkable program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network in which various inerrantists—Ken Ham, Hugh Ross, Ray Comfort—all argue with each other about how long the days of Genesis were and whether the Bible mentions the Big Bang. (http://www.creationconversations.com/video/ken-han-ray-comfort-hugh-ross-debate-on-tbn). Watching Ham and Ross trying to “out-inerrancy” each other would be hysterical if it were not such a problem for Christians.
Finally, inerrancy has a bewitching ambience as a “high” view of scripture. After all, what could be “higher” than the belief that God actually wrote the Bible? This puts scholars everywhere on the defensive, forced to explain how their non-inerrantist view of scripture is not the result of sliding down some slippery slope toward ever “lower” views of the Bible with smaller and smaller roles for God. Inerrancy is like a black hole that pulls everything nearby into its orbit and ultimately swallows it up. On countless occasions I have had people assure me they were not “inerrantists” but, when I asked them to point to an “error” in the Bible all they could do was mumble something about the limitations of human interpretation. (I note here that “not-inerrantist” should be synonymous with “errantist.”)
Very few evangelicals ascribe any meaningful human dimension to Scripture, in effect making it entirely divine—a view considered heretical when applied to Jesus but somehow appropriate when applied to scripture. Christian inerrantists seem to have a Muslim view of their own holy book.
Inerrancy has become a gigantic anchor holding Christians back, preventing them from finding sensible positions on so many topics. It’s time hauled up that anchor and learned to sail.
All very true and well stated. I would simply add (and you may agree) that both types of students are liable to be, at bottom, servants of self in fairly narcissistic and shallow ways. This problem is pervasive, and being "raised on the Bible" is hardly proof against it. The general descent of the culture has permeated all but the most sheltering and separatist religious communities.
Inerrancy as used by the average Evangelical ism as you indicate, frequently a way to assert a highly closed, individualistic notion of one's own authority to speak with or for God on any subject. Disrespect and deference to age, authority, and experience are all authorized by self-authorizing fundamentalism. The popularized idea of the "priesthood of all believers" makes a proud and authoritarian pope out of each person, and from millions of churches of one we tend to hear the common gospel of "moralistic therapeutic deism."
It is not always a matter of open arrogance. Sadly, sincere believers genuinely try to open themselves to the will of God by reading the Bible as a manual for human life in the manner of L. Ron Hubbard's gospel or the fundamentalist Islamic view of the Koran. Rather than leading to a mature exercise of freedom to live responsibly and gracefully, it frequently leads to a fear-based surrender of freedom and responsibility by looking to God and the Bible for clear rules and answers on every subject and mundane activity. For some this becomes a Luther-like ascesis of self-doubt, for others it's an invitation to self-righteousness, and it can also mean making God and the Bible say what one wants to hear. (For example, try surveying Evangelcal college students about "technical virginity" and you'll learn all about Clintonian technical compliance with the moral standards of St. Paul.)
Absent mature and thoughtful adults who challenge and guide others, especially the young, trying to generate authoritative guidance for oneself from personal readings of scripture is a losing proposition, and the rank quality of popular aids to the process certainly do not help.
All very true and well stated. I would simply add (and you may agree) that both types of students are liable to be, at bottom, servants of self in fairly narcissistic and shallow ways. This problem is pervasive, and being "raised on the Bible" is hardly proof against it. The general descent of the culture has permeated all but the most sheltering and separatist religious communities.
Inerrancy as used by the average Evangelical ism as you indicate, frequently a way to assert a highly closed, individualistic notion of one's own authority to speak with or for God on any subject. Disrespect and deference to age, authority, and experience are all authorized by self-authorizing fundamentalism. The popularized idea of the "priesthood of all believers" makes a proud and authoritarian pope out of each person, and from millions of churches of one we tend to hear the common gospel of "moralistic therapeutic deism."
It is not always a matter of open arrogance. Sadly, sincere believers genuinely try to open themselves to the will of God by reading the Bible as a manual for human life in the manner of L. Ron Hubbard's gospel or the fundamentalist Islamic view of the Koran. Rather than leading to a mature exercise of freedom to live responsibly and gracefully, it frequently leads to a fear-based surrender of freedom and responsibility by looking to God and the Bible for clear rules and answers on every subject and mundane activity. For some this becomes a Luther-like ascesis of self-doubt, for others it's an invitation to self-righteousness, and it can also mean making God and the Bible say what one wants to hear. (For example, try surveying Evangelcal college students about "technical virginity" and you'll learn all about Clintonian technical compliance with the moral standards of St. Paul.)
Absent mature and thoughtful adults who challenge and guide others, especially the young, trying to generate authoritative guidance for oneself from personal readings of scripture is a losing proposition, and the rank quality of popular aids to the process certainly do not help.
All very true and well stated. I would simply add (and you may agree) that both types of students are liable to be, at bottom, servants of self in fairly narcissistic and shallow ways. This problem is pervasive, and being "raised on the Bible" is hardly proof against it. The general descent of the culture has permeated all but the most sheltering and separatist religious communities.
Inerrancy as used by the average Evangelical ism as you indicate, frequently a way to assert a highly closed, individualistic notion of one's own authority to speak with or for God on any subject. Disrespect and deference to age, authority, and experience are all authorized by self-authorizing fundamentalism. The popularized idea of the "priesthood of all believers" makes a proud and authoritarian pope out of each person, and from millions of churches of one we tend to hear the common gospel of "moralistic therapeutic deism."
It is not always a matter of open arrogance. Sadly, sincere believers genuinely try to open themselves to the will of God by reading the Bible as a manual for human life in the manner of L. Ron Hubbard's gospel or the fundamentalist Islamic view of the Koran. Rather than leading to a mature exercise of freedom to live responsibly and gracefully, it frequently leads to a fear-based surrender of freedom and responsibility by looking to God and the Bible for clear rules and answers on every subject and mundane activity. For some this becomes a Luther-like ascesis of self-doubt, for others it's an invitation to self-righteousness, and it can also mean making God and the Bible say what one wants to hear. (For example, try surveying Evangelcal college students about "technical virginity" and you'll learn all about Clintonian technical compliance with the moral standards of St. Paul.)
Absent mature and thoughtful adults who challenge and guide others, especially the young, trying to generate authoritative guidance for oneself from personal readings of scripture is a losing proposition, and the rank quality of popular aids to the process certainly do not help.
My objection to the strict inerrancy position is that it anachronistically imposes a concept of "perfect" or "inerrant" onto the text. Who decides what is error and isn’t? Should an ancient document be judged by modern standards? Who gets to set the standard of errancy?
God sovereignly ordained the Scriptures to be written in premodern times, long before the advent of modernism, the Enlightenment, and the supremacy of science. Paul, Isaiah, and Moses had different standards of error and definitions of precision than the team of scientists that flies people to the moon. This seems so obvious as to go without saying, and yet I see that people on both sides of the aisle–both skeptics and believers–are demanding that Scripture conform to the precision of modernity. Isn’t it more remarkable that the Bible was written over a period of 1500 years by dozens of different people in wildly divergent cultures and environments, all forming one cohesive story which explains life and all of history from beginning to end? Isn’t that so unfathomably amazing that whatever tiny errors of precision there may be (according to the standard of modern science) are absolutely inconsequential?
My objection to the strict inerrancy position is that it anachronistically imposes a concept of "perfect" or "inerrant" onto the text. Who decides what is error and isn’t? Should an ancient document be judged by modern standards? Who gets to set the standard of errancy?
God sovereignly ordained the Scriptures to be written in premodern times, long before the advent of modernism, the Enlightenment, and the supremacy of science. Paul, Isaiah, and Moses had different standards of error and definitions of precision than the team of scientists that flies people to the moon. This seems so obvious as to go without saying, and yet I see that people on both sides of the aisle–both skeptics and believers–are demanding that Scripture conform to the precision of modernity. Isn’t it more remarkable that the Bible was written over a period of 1500 years by dozens of different people in wildly divergent cultures and environments, all forming one cohesive story which explains life and all of history from beginning to end? Isn’t that so unfathomably amazing that whatever tiny errors of precision there may be (according to the standard of modern science) are absolutely inconsequential?
My objection to the strict inerrancy position is that it anachronistically imposes a concept of "perfect" or "inerrant" onto the text. Who decides what is error and isn’t? Should an ancient document be judged by modern standards? Who gets to set the standard of errancy?
God sovereignly ordained the Scriptures to be written in premodern times, long before the advent of modernism, the Enlightenment, and the supremacy of science. Paul, Isaiah, and Moses had different standards of error and definitions of precision than the team of scientists that flies people to the moon. This seems so obvious as to go without saying, and yet I see that people on both sides of the aisle–both skeptics and believers–are demanding that Scripture conform to the precision of modernity. Isn’t it more remarkable that the Bible was written over a period of 1500 years by dozens of different people in wildly divergent cultures and environments, all forming one cohesive story which explains life and all of history from beginning to end? Isn’t that so unfathomably amazing that whatever tiny errors of precision there may be (according to the standard of modern science) are absolutely inconsequential?
Hi Karl,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can I push back a little on what I read as your central reasons for rejecting the doctrine of inerrancy and then get your feedback?
The first part of your post is helpful for understanding your own experience of all manner of issues relating to the question of scriptural inerrancy. While this does a lot to give us readers context, it doesn’t seem to be the heart of your argument. After all, the fact that some evangelicals are raised to wield “inerrancy” in an obnoxious and unhelpful way (which I’ll certainly grant happens) doesn’t disprove the doctrine. Even the fact of varying applications of inerrancy (even by more well-known figures such as Ken Ham and Hugh Ross) doesn’t prove the doctrine untenable, since, as many of the other posts in this blog series have signaled, once/if the Bible is decided to be inerrant, much effort and study is still required to get at the meaning of the text. Let me know if I’ve missed something, but these objections seem simply to point to problematic applications of the doctrine of inerrancy, which, I’ll admit, is good reason to carefully consider the doctrine itself; however, such objections do not show the doctrine to be ultimately untenable.
I also read your objection about the “bewitching ambience” of the “high view of scripture” as a similar kind of argument, namely that, up until now the application of the doctrine of inerrancy has discouraged evangelical scholars from considering the human dimension to the writing of Scripture. I would simply suggest that, again, this problem is not inherently necessary to the doctrine of inerrancy, and, again, other posts in this blog series have suggested (even encouraged) different ways to examine honestly and faithfully the duality of the authorship of Scripture.
The real substance of your argument, as I read it, is that inerrancy has been “so thoroughly refuted that we need to be done with it.” I’m not familiar with your “small” example regarding the value of “pi”, but I do think your claim that Matthew misquoted Isaiah deserves a careful look. It would indeed be an error and thus a counterexample to the doctrine of inerrancy if Matthew quoted Isaiah in a way that distorted the meaning of what Isaiah says.
I assume you’re referencing at least Matthew’s attribution of Isaiah 40:3 to John the Baptist since this appears (at least to me) to be the most problematic usage of Isaiah. After all, Isaiah’s original proclamation seems to be made to the Israelites in exile, beckoning them to leave Babylon and go into the desert on their way back to Jerusalem. Thus the voice crying calls them to prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, for that is where the Lord is leading them. Matthew, however, suggests that John the Baptist applied the verse to himself saying that a voice [his own] cries out in the wilderness that the way of the Lord, here referencing to the literal and physical coming of the Messiah, should be prepared. It can seem that Matthew thus distorts the words of Isaiah to suit his own purpose. After all, the words of Isaiah 40:3 have nothing to do with John the Baptist; furthermore, John’s quoting of them even abuses the original structure of the sentence, applying “in the wilderness” to where John is crying as opposed to the place (the desert) where preparation need to be made, right?
However (and this is where I think you’ve erred), to read this (or other uses of Isaiah in Matthew) as a distortion is to assume that the fullness of the meaning of Isaiah is exhausted by its reference to Israel in exile. Isaiah 40, on this assumption, refers only to its historical setting. This is a fair and acceptable way of reading Isaiah, but it needs pointing out that a particular interpretive framework is employed to read Isaiah this way.
I think this framework is not sufficient, and here’s why: Luke’s post-resurrection account tells us that Jesus “opened their [the disciples’] minds to understand the Scriptures”, namely “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (24:44-45). Presumably Matthew himself was present to hear Jesus’ explanation so that he could understand the Scriptures (including Isaiah, one of the prophets). Thus, it is safe to assume that when Matthew wrote his gospel, he was relying on particular hermeneutic derived from Jesus himself. The meaning of Isaiah, then, if Luke’s account of the resurrected Jesus’ teachings is to be trusted, is not exhausted by its reference to exiled Israel, but in fact contains more meaning vis-à-vis Jesus’ coming. Thus Matthew’s “error” of distorting Isaiah is not in fact an error, since the meaning of Isaiah inherently regards Jesus.
Sorry this has taken so long. I realize that there are lots of other points made as counterexamples to the doctrine of inerrancy, but this one (specifically Matthew’s “misquoting” of Isaiah, and more broadly the NT’s use of the OT) is an important one that relies, I think, on a narrow reading of Isaiah that Jesus himself (at least as Luke presents him) would have rejected.
Thoughts?
Hi Karl,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can I push back a little on what I read as your central reasons for rejecting the doctrine of inerrancy and then get your feedback?
The first part of your post is helpful for understanding your own experience of all manner of issues relating to the question of scriptural inerrancy. While this does a lot to give us readers context, it doesn’t seem to be the heart of your argument. After all, the fact that some evangelicals are raised to wield “inerrancy” in an obnoxious and unhelpful way (which I’ll certainly grant happens) doesn’t disprove the doctrine. Even the fact of varying applications of inerrancy (even by more well-known figures such as Ken Ham and Hugh Ross) doesn’t prove the doctrine untenable, since, as many of the other posts in this blog series have signaled, once/if the Bible is decided to be inerrant, much effort and study is still required to get at the meaning of the text. Let me know if I’ve missed something, but these objections seem simply to point to problematic applications of the doctrine of inerrancy, which, I’ll admit, is good reason to carefully consider the doctrine itself; however, such objections do not show the doctrine to be ultimately untenable.
I also read your objection about the “bewitching ambience” of the “high view of scripture” as a similar kind of argument, namely that, up until now the application of the doctrine of inerrancy has discouraged evangelical scholars from considering the human dimension to the writing of Scripture. I would simply suggest that, again, this problem is not inherently necessary to the doctrine of inerrancy, and, again, other posts in this blog series have suggested (even encouraged) different ways to examine honestly and faithfully the duality of the authorship of Scripture.
The real substance of your argument, as I read it, is that inerrancy has been “so thoroughly refuted that we need to be done with it.” I’m not familiar with your “small” example regarding the value of “pi”, but I do think your claim that Matthew misquoted Isaiah deserves a careful look. It would indeed be an error and thus a counterexample to the doctrine of inerrancy if Matthew quoted Isaiah in a way that distorted the meaning of what Isaiah says.
I assume you’re referencing at least Matthew’s attribution of Isaiah 40:3 to John the Baptist since this appears (at least to me) to be the most problematic usage of Isaiah. After all, Isaiah’s original proclamation seems to be made to the Israelites in exile, beckoning them to leave Babylon and go into the desert on their way back to Jerusalem. Thus the voice crying calls them to prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, for that is where the Lord is leading them. Matthew, however, suggests that John the Baptist applied the verse to himself saying that a voice [his own] cries out in the wilderness that the way of the Lord, here referencing to the literal and physical coming of the Messiah, should be prepared. It can seem that Matthew thus distorts the words of Isaiah to suit his own purpose. After all, the words of Isaiah 40:3 have nothing to do with John the Baptist; furthermore, John’s quoting of them even abuses the original structure of the sentence, applying “in the wilderness” to where John is crying as opposed to the place (the desert) where preparation need to be made, right?
However (and this is where I think you’ve erred), to read this (or other uses of Isaiah in Matthew) as a distortion is to assume that the fullness of the meaning of Isaiah is exhausted by its reference to Israel in exile. Isaiah 40, on this assumption, refers only to its historical setting. This is a fair and acceptable way of reading Isaiah, but it needs pointing out that a particular interpretive framework is employed to read Isaiah this way.
I think this framework is not sufficient, and here’s why: Luke’s post-resurrection account tells us that Jesus “opened their [the disciples’] minds to understand the Scriptures”, namely “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (24:44-45). Presumably Matthew himself was present to hear Jesus’ explanation so that he could understand the Scriptures (including Isaiah, one of the prophets). Thus, it is safe to assume that when Matthew wrote his gospel, he was relying on particular hermeneutic derived from Jesus himself. The meaning of Isaiah, then, if Luke’s account of the resurrected Jesus’ teachings is to be trusted, is not exhausted by its reference to exiled Israel, but in fact contains more meaning vis-à-vis Jesus’ coming. Thus Matthew’s “error” of distorting Isaiah is not in fact an error, since the meaning of Isaiah inherently regards Jesus.
Sorry this has taken so long. I realize that there are lots of other points made as counterexamples to the doctrine of inerrancy, but this one (specifically Matthew’s “misquoting” of Isaiah, and more broadly the NT’s use of the OT) is an important one that relies, I think, on a narrow reading of Isaiah that Jesus himself (at least as Luke presents him) would have rejected.
Thoughts?
Hi Karl,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can I push back a little on what I read as your central reasons for rejecting the doctrine of inerrancy and then get your feedback?
The first part of your post is helpful for understanding your own experience of all manner of issues relating to the question of scriptural inerrancy. While this does a lot to give us readers context, it doesn’t seem to be the heart of your argument. After all, the fact that some evangelicals are raised to wield “inerrancy” in an obnoxious and unhelpful way (which I’ll certainly grant happens) doesn’t disprove the doctrine. Even the fact of varying applications of inerrancy (even by more well-known figures such as Ken Ham and Hugh Ross) doesn’t prove the doctrine untenable, since, as many of the other posts in this blog series have signaled, once/if the Bible is decided to be inerrant, much effort and study is still required to get at the meaning of the text. Let me know if I’ve missed something, but these objections seem simply to point to problematic applications of the doctrine of inerrancy, which, I’ll admit, is good reason to carefully consider the doctrine itself; however, such objections do not show the doctrine to be ultimately untenable.
I also read your objection about the “bewitching ambience” of the “high view of scripture” as a similar kind of argument, namely that, up until now the application of the doctrine of inerrancy has discouraged evangelical scholars from considering the human dimension to the writing of Scripture. I would simply suggest that, again, this problem is not inherently necessary to the doctrine of inerrancy, and, again, other posts in this blog series have suggested (even encouraged) different ways to examine honestly and faithfully the duality of the authorship of Scripture.
The real substance of your argument, as I read it, is that inerrancy has been “so thoroughly refuted that we need to be done with it.” I’m not familiar with your “small” example regarding the value of “pi”, but I do think your claim that Matthew misquoted Isaiah deserves a careful look. It would indeed be an error and thus a counterexample to the doctrine of inerrancy if Matthew quoted Isaiah in a way that distorted the meaning of what Isaiah says.
I assume you’re referencing at least Matthew’s attribution of Isaiah 40:3 to John the Baptist since this appears (at least to me) to be the most problematic usage of Isaiah. After all, Isaiah’s original proclamation seems to be made to the Israelites in exile, beckoning them to leave Babylon and go into the desert on their way back to Jerusalem. Thus the voice crying calls them to prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, for that is where the Lord is leading them. Matthew, however, suggests that John the Baptist applied the verse to himself saying that a voice [his own] cries out in the wilderness that the way of the Lord, here referencing to the literal and physical coming of the Messiah, should be prepared. It can seem that Matthew thus distorts the words of Isaiah to suit his own purpose. After all, the words of Isaiah 40:3 have nothing to do with John the Baptist; furthermore, John’s quoting of them even abuses the original structure of the sentence, applying “in the wilderness” to where John is crying as opposed to the place (the desert) where preparation need to be made, right?
However (and this is where I think you’ve erred), to read this (or other uses of Isaiah in Matthew) as a distortion is to assume that the fullness of the meaning of Isaiah is exhausted by its reference to Israel in exile. Isaiah 40, on this assumption, refers only to its historical setting. This is a fair and acceptable way of reading Isaiah, but it needs pointing out that a particular interpretive framework is employed to read Isaiah this way.
I think this framework is not sufficient, and here’s why: Luke’s post-resurrection account tells us that Jesus “opened their [the disciples’] minds to understand the Scriptures”, namely “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (24:44-45). Presumably Matthew himself was present to hear Jesus’ explanation so that he could understand the Scriptures (including Isaiah, one of the prophets). Thus, it is safe to assume that when Matthew wrote his gospel, he was relying on particular hermeneutic derived from Jesus himself. The meaning of Isaiah, then, if Luke’s account of the resurrected Jesus’ teachings is to be trusted, is not exhausted by its reference to exiled Israel, but in fact contains more meaning vis-à-vis Jesus’ coming. Thus Matthew’s “error” of distorting Isaiah is not in fact an error, since the meaning of Isaiah inherently regards Jesus.
Sorry this has taken so long. I realize that there are lots of other points made as counterexamples to the doctrine of inerrancy, but this one (specifically Matthew’s “misquoting” of Isaiah, and more broadly the NT’s use of the OT) is an important one that relies, I think, on a narrow reading of Isaiah that Jesus himself (at least as Luke presents him) would have rejected.
Thoughts?
Brad:
Your point about whether the problems of inerrancy mitigate against its veracity as a theological concept are good ones. By analogy with the philosophy science–lakatos model– I would say that the "hypothesis" of inerrancy has proven to be "degenerate" because it is too difficult to apply, leads nowhere helpful, has to propped up with all sorts of ad hoc additional assumptions–like creative hermeneutical approaches to the Hebrew Scriptures by the NT writers–and so on. Inerrancy has been around for a couple centuries now and has been, I think, a largely, unhelpful theological concept that, far more often than not, turns out to lead to error. As for Matthew misquoting Isaiah I was thinking of his turning the Hebrew term for "young woman" into "virgin." But, as Pete Enns and others have shown–and you have indicated in your post–there are many similar examples. I would respond specifically by saying that we must assume that even Jesus rejected inerrancy, by intentionally changing the meaning of the Hebrew scriptures!
Brad:
Your point about whether the problems of inerrancy mitigate against its veracity as a theological concept are good ones. By analogy with the philosophy science–lakatos model– I would say that the "hypothesis" of inerrancy has proven to be "degenerate" because it is too difficult to apply, leads nowhere helpful, has to propped up with all sorts of ad hoc additional assumptions–like creative hermeneutical approaches to the Hebrew Scriptures by the NT writers–and so on. Inerrancy has been around for a couple centuries now and has been, I think, a largely, unhelpful theological concept that, far more often than not, turns out to lead to error. As for Matthew misquoting Isaiah I was thinking of his turning the Hebrew term for "young woman" into "virgin." But, as Pete Enns and others have shown–and you have indicated in your post–there are many similar examples. I would respond specifically by saying that we must assume that even Jesus rejected inerrancy, by intentionally changing the meaning of the Hebrew scriptures!
Brad:
Your point about whether the problems of inerrancy mitigate against its veracity as a theological concept are good ones. By analogy with the philosophy science–lakatos model– I would say that the "hypothesis" of inerrancy has proven to be "degenerate" because it is too difficult to apply, leads nowhere helpful, has to propped up with all sorts of ad hoc additional assumptions–like creative hermeneutical approaches to the Hebrew Scriptures by the NT writers–and so on. Inerrancy has been around for a couple centuries now and has been, I think, a largely, unhelpful theological concept that, far more often than not, turns out to lead to error. As for Matthew misquoting Isaiah I was thinking of his turning the Hebrew term for "young woman" into "virgin." But, as Pete Enns and others have shown–and you have indicated in your post–there are many similar examples. I would respond specifically by saying that we must assume that even Jesus rejected inerrancy, by intentionally changing the meaning of the Hebrew scriptures!
Karl,
I don’t think you’ve done appropriate justice to the NT interpretation of the OT. If I understand you correctly, then the OT texts (e.g., Isaiah) are errant, and therefore Jesus had to distort them to suit his own purposes? I don’t buy it, and I don’t think it’s honest to the NT claims.
From the beginning of Christianity, it was a vital to the church that Jesus in actuality fulfills the writings of the OT (see again Luke 24:44). He (and the early Christians) didn’t see himself as hijacking the ancient religion of the Jews and using it to propel himself in his own endeavors. He and his followers understood the writings of Moses and the Prophets, etc. actually to anticipate him—but you do have to know how to read the OT to see the anticipation. Jesus taught his disciples how to do so—how to interpret them correctly—that is, how to discern the actual/real/true meaning of the texts. We need to keep in mind that, if such readings seem to us like a distortion of the OT texts, we have our own hermeneutical principles at play—principles which may or may not be correct.
Again, I realize that you have lots of other objections to the doctrine of inerrancy, but I really think that understanding the NT’s use of the OT as “erroneous” (because it is a dishonest distortion of the true meaning of the OT) presupposes a certain hermeneutical approach that is foreign to the one delivered by Jesus and passed down through the disciples. It is clear, at least to me, that Jesus and his disciples did not *intentionally* change the meaning of the OT text. They really thought that the actual meaning of those texts referred to Jesus. The question that has to be asked is, Who has the right hermeneutic for reading the OT? Them, or us?
Brad
Karl,
I don’t think you’ve done appropriate justice to the NT interpretation of the OT. If I understand you correctly, then the OT texts (e.g., Isaiah) are errant, and therefore Jesus had to distort them to suit his own purposes? I don’t buy it, and I don’t think it’s honest to the NT claims.
From the beginning of Christianity, it was a vital to the church that Jesus in actuality fulfills the writings of the OT (see again Luke 24:44). He (and the early Christians) didn’t see himself as hijacking the ancient religion of the Jews and using it to propel himself in his own endeavors. He and his followers understood the writings of Moses and the Prophets, etc. actually to anticipate him—but you do have to know how to read the OT to see the anticipation. Jesus taught his disciples how to do so—how to interpret them correctly—that is, how to discern the actual/real/true meaning of the texts. We need to keep in mind that, if such readings seem to us like a distortion of the OT texts, we have our own hermeneutical principles at play—principles which may or may not be correct.
Again, I realize that you have lots of other objections to the doctrine of inerrancy, but I really think that understanding the NT’s use of the OT as “erroneous” (because it is a dishonest distortion of the true meaning of the OT) presupposes a certain hermeneutical approach that is foreign to the one delivered by Jesus and passed down through the disciples. It is clear, at least to me, that Jesus and his disciples did not *intentionally* change the meaning of the OT text. They really thought that the actual meaning of those texts referred to Jesus. The question that has to be asked is, Who has the right hermeneutic for reading the OT? Them, or us?
Brad
Karl,
I don’t think you’ve done appropriate justice to the NT interpretation of the OT. If I understand you correctly, then the OT texts (e.g., Isaiah) are errant, and therefore Jesus had to distort them to suit his own purposes? I don’t buy it, and I don’t think it’s honest to the NT claims.
From the beginning of Christianity, it was a vital to the church that Jesus in actuality fulfills the writings of the OT (see again Luke 24:44). He (and the early Christians) didn’t see himself as hijacking the ancient religion of the Jews and using it to propel himself in his own endeavors. He and his followers understood the writings of Moses and the Prophets, etc. actually to anticipate him—but you do have to know how to read the OT to see the anticipation. Jesus taught his disciples how to do so—how to interpret them correctly—that is, how to discern the actual/real/true meaning of the texts. We need to keep in mind that, if such readings seem to us like a distortion of the OT texts, we have our own hermeneutical principles at play—principles which may or may not be correct.
Again, I realize that you have lots of other objections to the doctrine of inerrancy, but I really think that understanding the NT’s use of the OT as “erroneous” (because it is a dishonest distortion of the true meaning of the OT) presupposes a certain hermeneutical approach that is foreign to the one delivered by Jesus and passed down through the disciples. It is clear, at least to me, that Jesus and his disciples did not *intentionally* change the meaning of the OT text. They really thought that the actual meaning of those texts referred to Jesus. The question that has to be asked is, Who has the right hermeneutic for reading the OT? Them, or us?
Brad