Inerrancy Of Scripture, Part 2

Continuing today to define what inerrancy of the Scriptures is. As most professors of the faith adamantly declare to be true, though are not adequately able to defend their belief, in part because they are only told that the Scriptures are inerrant and infallible and are not taught why Scriptures are or are not inerrant or infallible.

I had defined inerrancy last week but will provide another definition today. It is the view "that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences". - P. D. Feinberg

Just for reference, I mentioned last time the view of limit inerrancy to matters of faith and practice. That the Scriptures make no false or misleading statements about matters of faith and practice. 

It is admitted that inerrancy of the Scriptures is not presently demonstrable, nor that it ever will be! Is it any wonder that opponents to the inerrancy of Scripture are skeptical? Yet, many that proclaim the inerrancy and infallibility of their English Bibles don't even realize what the scholars admit!

This brings us to a logical question - why do Bible scholars make this admission? To start, we being the infallible, weak, ignorant and imperfect human beings that we are, are quite limited in two ways:

1) That because of our limited and sinful nature we are prone to misinterpret and come up with incorrect conclusions on all the information that we have gathered to date on the Scriptures; and

2) We do not possess all of the information needed to make the proper interpretation of certain inscriptions and texts. We do not have complete knowledge of the culture, language slang, etc that would aide us to a better understanding and interpretation of the Scriptures. Let me give a couple examples of this.

My first example is found in Isaiah 65:11.

In the KJV one will probably wonder what Isaiah means by "that prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto the number."

What troop and number is Isaiah referring to? Is it referring to worship of some foreign enemies army? If we look at the Hebrew words for troop (Gad), and number (Meni), we see that their English definition is good and some translations use the words Gad and Meni. Yet, thanks to archeological findings we gain a better understanding and interpretation of what Isaiah was probably saying. It has been discovered that these were the Babylonian and Syrian gods of fortune (Gad), and of destiny (Meni). 

Here we see that while the correct definition of the word is good, the correct understanding of the text was not.

My next example is a controversial passage in the Gospel account that have had many interpretations, some proven to be bogus thanks again to archeology. This passage is Matthew 19:24 - "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle".

The bogus story is that it was in reference to a gate in Jerusalem called "the eye of a needle", but to date no evidence of such a gate exist, therefore it is seen as bogus and story traced back around 300 years ago.

Another theory is that it is simply a writing error by the scribes. The Greek word for camel (kamelos), is very similar to the word for rope (kamilos) and it should read rope instead of camel. The word for rope at the time was in reference some believe to the rope used to anchor a ship, that was often braided and would likely have been of the thickest size of ropes. Which they believe makes sense since some of Jesus' disciples were fishermen. - Theodore R. Lorah 

Some have also suggested that it is an Aramaic wordplay between camel (gamal) and acts of charity (gemiluth).

The Babylonian Talmud has a similar expression, which some say Jesus had in mind, that says, "an elephant cannot pass through the eye of a needle".

So, which is it? Many believe it's hyperbolic language Jesus was employing and that seems reasonable with the context. 

Yet, here are just two of the numerous examples one can find as to why the inerrancy of Scripture cannot be fully demonstrated presently or possibly ever until the Lord's return. As in the first example through the passage of time, archeology was able to correct our understanding of a text and we are confident that others will continue to be unearthed until the Lord's return.

Hopefully this helps you to better understand the reasoning behind the definition I gave at the start - "that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences."

I hope you are able to glean a little from this. My hope is to continue on the topic next time. Until then, grace and peace to you.