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Is the Bible Inerrant?

When I first started studying the topic of biblical inerrancy, I stumbled upon Answers in Genesis, which is a website used primarily by Christians who believe in interpreting the Bible literally. This includes everything from confirming the Church's traditional position on marriage to supporting the ideas of youth-earth creationism. While it is probably obvious by now that I disagree with both of those ideas, for this book, I will only be focusing on the website's inerrancy argument, provided by Brian H. Edwards in his article, "Why Should We Believe in the Inerrancy of Scripture?"

First, Edwards introduces the passage that is wielded in every single conversation about biblical inerrancy ever: 2 Timothy 3:16, namely, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work."

He dives right in by talking about the original Greek of the passage. The Greek word translated as "inspired by God" or "God-breathed," namely theopneustos, is made up of theos (God) and pneustos (breath or wind). Edwards then argues that the word is used passively, so God didn't "breathe into" or merely inspire all Scripture, but that it was "breathed out" by God (and carried the human writers to the correct conclusions).

He quotes 2 Peter 1:21, which says that the "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." The Greek word translated as "moved," namely pherō, means "to bear" or "to carry," like a ship carried along by the wind. Edwards argues that the Holy Spirit made sure that only the God-breathed words were recorded. He claims that even though the authors wrote from their own experiences, were influenced by their individual cultures and languages, and expressed what was on their minds, God did not allow errors in their writing. Then he quotes Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:13: "These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches." This ties into his argument about Godly inspiration.

Edwards moves on to say, "Since God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18), He would cease to be God if He breathed out errors and contradictions, even in the smallest part." Once he explains the definitions of "plenary" (from the Latin plenus, "full," "whole") and "verbal" (from the Latin verbum, "word"), he continues: "Plenary and verbal inspiration means the Bible is God-given (and therefore without error) in every part (doctrine, history, geography, dates, names) and in every single word." Later, he clarifies, "Inerrancy doesn't mean apparent contradictions are not in the text, but these can be resolved."

Next, Edwards talks about what the Bible claims about itself. First, he talks about the prophets. He says that the Old Testament called them spokespeople for the Lord, and he argues that the New Testament writers agree that the Old Testament prophets spoke directly for God. He seems to think that this is enough to prove that the Bible claims itself to be inerrant, never mind the fact the Bible never says this.

But here is where things get shaky. Edwards admits that looking to the Bible to tell us whether it is without error is circular reasoning, as would be saying a prisoner is innocent because he says he is. However, Edwards moves on to argue that "since the Bible is God's word, we must listen to its own claims about itself." He argues that if we can't trust the inerrancy of the Bible, then we cannot be in confident in the truth of the Gospel or the authority of the Bible, have faith in the value of Christ, or know that God is trustworthy. He even claims that one should use Scripture to measure up "hasty" scientific theories.

Unfortunately, Edwards is operating under the assumption that if the Bible isn't inerrant, then everything falls apart. He argues that without the guarantee of biblical inerrancy, we can't trust anything in it, i.e. that if one word in the Bible is false, then the entire thing must be. However, as I've said before, this argument is flawed. Just because a mother is sometimes in wrong in how she teaches her child, it does not mean that she is lying when she says to look both ways before crossing the street. Furthermore, just because the Bible isn't inerrant doesn't mean that we should freak out and drop Christianity. It means that we have to put our faith in God, instead of being certain that we know all of the answers because we think we have an inerrant rule book in front of us.