A Defense of Inerrancy

Sorry, but this post may be a little hard to follow. I’d still love comments from those who get through it though. :D

That the original manuscripts of the original authors of the Bible have been redacted/edited/tampered with (though that last one is misleading) - whatever you want to call it - is pretty well founded. The extent of the work of those later redactors can be questioned (and we must always temper it in the light of radical higher criticism) but it is difficult to demonstrate that redactors have not contributed to the final canonical form we have in our hands.

A quick example of redaction is when one looks at the “macro-structure” of the Old Testament (also known as “Canonical Redaction”). John Sailhamer (who is fervently Evangelical and advocate of inerrancy) argues that the original ending of the Pentateuch is Deut. 32:52 (see his “Introduction to Old Testament Theology, pp. 239-252). Deut. 33:1-34:12 would then be added by a later redactor; otherwise one has to believe Moses wrote about his death while at the same time ignoring much compositional evidence against that thesis. His arguments are indeed very compelling.

Sailhamer has also told my OT theo class about “Mr. Red-Fingers” who redacted the text. In fact, we can still discern the “seams” of his work today and come up with some conclusions. Apparently, these are a little difficult to determine because our canonical form is not what the Hebrews had. The following will presuppose this Hebrew canonical structure.

In any case, I’ve come up with an “Inerrancy Tetrad” to summarize what I’ve been thinking about for a long time. The way to picture the following four points is a triangle with a circle in the middle; the outside three points are Original Work, Affirmation, Canon (left, top, middle respectively) and the Redactor in the middle - all of them are connected to the other.

1) Revelation in acts and God’s revelation through the inspiration of human authors in the recording of those acts with a divine interpretation.

2) Affirmation by the spirit led community. Despite not knowing many of the real authors of many OT and NT books, that God’s community affirmed his writings as inspired and authoritative tells us much about the author. He may have already lived a life of genuine prophetic declarations through which the community was already “primed” to accept his writing.

3) Affirmation leading to the formation of the canon. The affirmation of those writings by the community led to the formation of the canon.

4) The work of the Redactor/Canonicler. Much of the work of the redactor and canonicler (who contributed to the final form of the canon) would have happened before the formation of the canon. That the community affirmed the redactor’s/canonicler’s work as inspired and authoritative tells us much about that person. That redactor/canonicler may have already lived a life of genuine prophetic declarations through which the community was already “primed” to accept his editing of the Word of God since he was inspired.

Thus, I propose two novel definitions of inerrancy that take into account the moderate higher criticism of the Bible that is accepted by most evangelical scholars. As of now, I favor the second but my whole thesis is very tentative in the first place.

1) Inerrancy - The Bible is true in all that it affirms, dependent on literary genre, as recorded in the original manuscripts prior to redaction of any sort (thus we have to “get back” to the original composition, which really is kind of impossible).

2) Inerrancy - The Bible is true in all that it affirms, dependent on literary genre, as recorded in the original manuscripts and the final canonical form simultaneously (thus there are two separate inspirations, in a sense, both of which are inerrant since God’s ability to reveal himself through human authors and language has not changed).

The presupposition here, as we all understand it, is then deduced from our understanding of the character of God who always speaks truth. He did not overpower the authors of the Bible so that they only wrote God’s words and not their own but adapted his revelation through human authors and human language, both of which he had prepared beforehand to reveal himself adequately. This modified definition of inerrancy seems to be the only way inerrancy can be reconciled with certain aspects of higher criticism in my mind.

Isn’t this all pretty circular though? Sort of, though it is not vicious if seen within the big picture. I’ve been considering many Christian arguments for inspiration, it seems a lot to me like the strict Presuppositionalism of Cornelius Van Til (unlike John Frame’s): impossible to falsify by definition. This does not seem a good approach to me because it also vindicates many other religions/worldviews. So in the case of “taking the Bible at its word” and conforming literary criticism to that, the argument can apply to the Qur’an, the Book of Mormon, the Vedas, etc. equally.

I think in the end, the only reason this all makes sense to me is because I take it as a cumulative case of other factors. Thus as Blomberg says, Christians go the way the bulk of the evidence was already pointing and do not fly against it. So we look at the ridiculous inaccuracies of the Book of Mormon and the Qur’an, many contradictions, etc., and compare it to the Bible’s explanatory force and accuracy and we are bewildered. Thus, within this framework and not taken on its own, inerrancy seems to be not only consistent but reasonable and probable.