Thinking to Believe

I have recently read some of the papers presented at the 2008 Urshan Graduate School of Theology Symposium.  Notable was David Norris’s response to Patrick Dotson’s paper arguing that the Oneness movement must move beyond the King James Version if we hope to reach our modern generation with the Word of God.  While others surely have done so, Norris is the first Apostolic minister I have encountered who has advocated for the use of other English translations, and made a case for the superiority of the Alexandrian text-type over the Byzantine text-type that undergirds the NT of the KJV.

This post has been updated to include additional content on 10/2

Some Christians believe that while the Bible is without error when it speaks to spiritual matters (God, salvation), there may be errors in those sections that speak to scientific and historical matters, which should not concern us.  This view of Biblical inspiration is often called limited inerrancy.

While it would be worthwhile to examine each of the purported scientific and historical errors in the Bible to determine if they are indeed errors, the notion of limited inerrancy can be evaluated in a more fundamental way.  Greg Koukl has observed that it makes little sense to believe what the Bible says in matters we cannot test (such as miracles, resurrection, incarnation), when the Bible is shown to be untrustworthy in those matters we can test.  That’s not to say the presence of errors would necessarily invalidate every truth claim the Bible makes, but it is to say that it would make it much more difficult to trust its spiritual claims.  If God was not able to ensure that the Biblical authors accurately transmitted matters of history and science—which were naturally more accessible to them—why think He was able to ensure that they accurately transmitted spiritual matters?  I see little reason to do so.

(The following content has been added as of 10/2)

It’s a credibility issue.  Credibility is earned.  It is gained by being right, and lost by being wrong.  Limited inerrantists are telling us that we should trust everything the Biblical authors tell us about spiritual matters, but we cannot trust everything they tell us about non-spiritual matters because they have proven themselves to be mistaken in various ways on such matters.  But if they have proven themselves to make mistakes in areas that we can test them on, why should we think they haven’t made any errors on matters that we can’t test them on?  The limited inerrantist can’t respond by saying God’s involvement ensures that they will not err on such matters, because God is involved in the whole process.  If He couldn’t keep the authors from erring on non-spiritual matters, there is no reason to think He could keep them from erring in spiritual matters. 

A limited inerrantist might respond that God was only involved in those sections of Scripture dealing with spiritual matters.  But this portrays an absurd picture of inspiration.  Scripture goes back and forth between non-spiritual and spiritual claims.  Surely God’s involvement was not iterant so that when the author writes a word about geography God checks out, but when he is about to write a few words on spiritual truth God checks back in!  Even if this were possible, what reason would God have for deciding to inspire only those words dealing with spiritual matters?  He knew that people would question the credibility of the religious claims if His authors flubbed up their facts on non-spiritual matters.  So why wouldn’t God, in the interest of giving more credibility to the spiritual claims, superintend what His authors wrote about all matters?

When someone asks you if you take the Bible literally, what they usually mean is do you take the Bible seriously? They want to know if you believe all that “crazy stuff” about talking snakes and resurrected messiahs.

Greg Koukl suggests that when someone asks if you take the Bible literally, do not respond with a simple “yes” answer. It is too ambiguous, and open to misinterpretation. Respond, “I take it in the sense the author intended it.” Then, you might expand a little bit to say, “If he meant it in a literal sense, I take it in a literal sense. If he meant it in a metaphorical sense, I interpret it accordingly, in an attempt to uncover the literal truth intended by the metaphor.” This is the same way we interpret all communication.

Ben Witherington III has a good video lesson on choosing a Bible translation. He gives some good, basic information on why there are so many translations, how they differ, what benefit each has, tips on how to choose the proper translation, and what to watch out for. Listening to the Australian paraphrase of Luke 1 is worth it alone!

Ben Witherington III has a good video lesson on choosing a Bible translation. He gives some good, basic information on why there are so many translations, how they differ, what benefit each has, tips on how to choose the proper translation, and what to watch out for. Listening to the Australian paraphrase of Luke 1 is worth it alone!

Most of the book of Proverbs was written by Solomon, but Proverbs 30 and 31 were authored by Agur and King Lemuel respectively. King Lemuel’s proverbs are said to reflect his mother’s teachings. When it comes to inspiration, when were these proverbs inspired: Was it when King Lemuel’s mother spoke it to Lemuel, when he wrote it down, or when the compiler(s) of the proverbs that became the canonical Book of Proverbs incorporated them into the book?

Psalm 72:20: “This collection of the prayers of David son of Jesse ends here.” Clearly these are the words of a later editor of the psalms, adding a structural marker to the Psalter. These are not the words of the inspired psalmist. Would you say this verse is the inspired word of God, or is it just an ancient editorial comment that is found in the Word of God?

Conservative Christians (such as myself) hold that the Bible is inspired by God. What we often do not think about, however, is how God inspired the Bible. We know God and man were involved in the final product, but what was the relationship between the two parties? I would venture to say that most conservative Christians picture the process of inspiration as some sort of mechanical dictation, in which God is telling the author precisely what to write, and the author writes it. Others hold to a conceptual model of inspiration in which God directs the author’s thoughts and concepts to reflect God’s intentions for the writing, but allows the author to clothe them with their own choice of words.

Can these models account for all we read in Scripture? It seems not. There are select passages of Scripture that seem to indicate that at least some of the authors were unaware that what they were writing was being inspired by the Spirit. Consider the following:

In I Corinthians 1:12-17 Paul addressed the issue of factions developing around certain high-profile Christian personalities. Some were claiming to be followers of Paul, while others claimed to follow Peter, and others Christ. To expose these factions as unchristian, Paul directed their attention back to their baptisms. Rhetorically, Paul asked if they had been baptized in his name. No. They were baptized in the name of Christ, and as such they must be followers of Christ, not Peter or Paul.

Not only were they not baptized in the name of Paul, but only a few of them were even baptized by Paul. Paul wrote, “I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name” (vs. 14-15). This completes Paul’s thought. In the next verse, however, Paul adds another name to the list: “And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other” (v. 16). While Paul was writing verses 14-15, he only recalled baptizing two Corinthians, but then remembers one more and pens verse 16. Is that all Paul? He wasn’t so sure, so added a disclaimer that he does not recall baptizing anyone else.

Did God direct Paul to forget (or write as if he forgot), then remember baptizing the household of Stephanas, and to add a disclaimer to cover himself lest there be someone else he baptized that the Spirit directed him to forget? Is this a case of a divinely directed slip-of-the-mind? Was Paul aware of what the Spirit was doing? On a mechanical dictation model the answer is yes. I find that far-fetched. It seems highly unlikely that mechanical dictation was the means by which Paul inspired Paul to write, and unlikely that Paul was aware of the Spirit’s inspiration as wrote the epistle. He had a genuine experience of momentary forgetfulness.

Even if Paul was aware that he was being inspired by God as he wrote, how do we incorporate I Corinthians 1:14-16 into our view of inspiration? If the Holy Spirit was inspiring Paul to write, why didn’t the Holy Spirit bring back to Paul’s memory all of the people he baptized in Corinth, prior to writing those verses? Why allow Paul to record his forgetfulness? Doesn’t that cast doubt on the Holy Spirit’s superintendence of the writing? Could this mean that divine inspiration is not enough to overcome the human weaknesses of the authors? Could there be other places in which the author’s memory did not serve him well, but he was not able to correct himself as did Paul? How would you respond to these questions?

Or consider II Timothy 4:13. In a very personal letter to Timothy, Paul asked Timothy to bring him his cloak, books, and parchments when he comes to visit. If Paul realized this letter was being inspired for God, would he have made such personal comments? This is not to say God did not inspire Paul to write this, but it is to say it seems unlikely that Paul knew God was inspiring him to write it. From Paul’s perspective, this was a personal request to a friend, in a personal letter. I highly doubt Paul knew this letter was being superintended by the Spirit, and would be collected into a corpus of writings to be used by Christians everywhere for millennia to come.

What do you think? How does this affect your view of inspiration?

For further reading on my view of Biblical inspiration, go here.