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Wednesday 1 September 2010
Implications of Inerrancy

I find it helpful to remember that contemporary Christians are not the first to acknowledge that the Bible has inconsistencies and errors. Many important Christian leaders in history acknowledged that the Bible is not inerrant. 

Take the great 16th century reformer Martin Luther, for instance.  Most would argue that Luther — who argued for “scripture alone” — had a high regard for the Bible.  Yet, he was quite critical of some of it. 

For instance, Luther argued …

(1) God’s prophets in the Old Testament were sometimes in error,

(2) the book of Kings is more reliable than the book of Chronicles,

(3) the book of Esther should have probably been left out of the Bible,

(4) not all the Gospels are of equal value,

(5) the writer of Hebrews erred when he said that there is no possibility of a second repentance,

(6) the author of James “mangles scripture” and the whole book should be burned like worthless straw,

(7) the book of Revelation reveals nothing. 

Luther does not stand alone in these criticisms.  Most well known Christian theologians from the past join him in at least some.

When confronted with this information and the information I presented in an earlier blog, some of my fundamentalist Christian brothers and sisters argue that the original manuscripts of the Bible are without error.  They admit that the Bibles we use today have errors. But they cling to the claim that the originals were inerrant. 

This, of course, is a claim that is impossible to verify.  As far as we know, the originals do not exist. 

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