I deeply respect Scripture, but I am not an inerrantist. I have several reasons for this, but it comes down to two things:<\/p>\n
- \n
- The Bible as a whole (rather than a prooftext or two)\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0support inerrancy.<\/li>\n
- The history of Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Bible doesn\u2019t support inerrancy.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
I write quite a bit about the first point (see some blog posts here<\/a>). Some might say \u201ctoo much\u201d but you\u2019re not the boss of me. Jesus is and just this morning he told me personally<\/em> that I need to keep writing about it.<\/p>\n
The bottom line here is that the Bible is too diverse and contradictory for \u201cinerrancy\u201d to hold any explanatory power. To \u201chold on\u201d to the term would\u00a0mean either (1) ignoring the the biblical data, or (2) qualifying the term \u201cinerrancy\u201d beyond recognition.<\/p>\n
Neither posture contributes to spiritual growth, but stifles\u00a0it.<\/p>\n
Some choose to take\u00a0one or both of these approaches, thinking that too much is at stake if we \u201clet go\u201d of inerrancy. My response is that wishing it to be a central doctrine doesn\u2019t make it so, if in fact the Bible you are protecting doesn\u2019t support the theory.<\/p>\n
![\"What](\"https:\/\/peteenns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/what_is_the_bible.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOn the second point, the history of Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Bible is so diverse, that to expect to\u00a0mine through all that and find beneath all the chaos an inerrant Bible seems rather nonsensical to me\u2014unless one\u2019s\u00a0version of Christianity entails the belief that your tradition has\u00a0gotten the Bible entirely right and\u00a0others that disagree are wrong and need to be corrected. This leads to religious wars or at least rumbles at church softball games.<\/p>\n
Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Bible evinces diachronic<\/strong> and synchronic<\/strong> diversity<\/strong>, meaning diversity\u00a0through<\/em> time and diversity at any one<\/em> time.<\/h2>\n
The presence of these diversities is\u00a0simply a fact. You can look it up.<\/p>\n
A deep problem with inerrancy is that it presumes (or works best with) the notion that the Bible \u201cproperly\u201d\u00a0understood will yield one and only one authoritative meaning.<\/strong><\/p>\n
But the Bible is famously fraught with ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions that are part of the character of\u00a0<\/em>Scripture<\/i>, and the result of either\u00a0intentional internal debates by the authors or the\u00a0natural by-product of diverse authors writing at diverse times under diverse circumstances and for diverse reasons. Add to that the great distance between a book whose beginnings go back about 3000 years\u2014as far removed back<\/em> in time for us as the year 5000 is from us\u00a0ahead<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Simply put, the phenomenon of a Scripture that is\u00a0diverse and the inevitably diverse history of interpretation of such a diverse text\u00a0do\u00a0not sit well with the insistence that God would only produce an inerrant text.<\/p>\n
Good question, but I don\u2019t always like the way it\u2019s posed: \u201cWell, Enns, now that you\u2019ve taken inerrancy away from us, what are\u00a0we supposed to think of the Bible now, huh? HUH?!\u201d<\/p>\n
That way of phrasing things\u00a0assumes the normalcy of an inerrantist paradigm<\/em>.<\/p>\n
Another bad way of asking the question is, \u201cSo, I suppose that makes you an \u2018errantist.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
No, no, and no. That too presumes the normalcy of inerrancy\u2014that discussions of the nature of the Bible center\u00a0on whether or not there are errors, and everyone falls on one side of the divide or the other.<\/p>\n
What is the Bible? There are many other ways of thinking about the Bible. What is needed here is to broaden one\u2019s field of vision.<\/h2>\n
My\u00a0own answer to \u201cWhat is the Bible?\u201d, at least at this moment in my life, includes but is not limited to\u00a0the following:<\/p>\n
In the Bible, we read of encounters with God by ancient peoples, in their<\/span> times and places, asking their<\/span> questions, and expressed in language and ideas familiar to them<\/span>. Those encounters with God were, I believe, genuine, authentic, and real. . . .\u00a0All of us on a journey of faith encounter God from our point of view. . . \u00a0we meet God as people defined by our moment in the human drama, products of who, where, and when we are. We ask our<\/span> questions of God and encounter God in our<\/span> time and place in language and ideas familiar to us<\/span>, just like the ancient pilgrims of faith who gave us the Bible. . . .\u00a0This Bible, which preserves ancient journeys of faith, models for us our own journeys. We recognize something of ourselves in the struggles, joys, triumphs, confusions, and despairs expressed by the biblical writers. ~\u00a0<\/em>The Bible Tells Me So<\/a>, pp. 23-24<\/p>\n
No answer will be perfect, and\u00a0I think it is wise to\u00a0be willing to hold our\u00a0definitions loosely (as I try to). But\u00a0my point here is simple that an \u201cinerrantist model\u201d of the Bible creates unnecessary conflict with with\u00a0how\u00a0the Bible behaves and how it has been read for a very, very long time.<\/p>\n
And there are other, faithful, ways of answering the question, \u201cWhat is the Bible?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n