Orthodox Christianity and the Original Manuscripts

Shane Pruit has been sharing his wisdom about out of context scripture use. It is a reasonably useful piece, although perhaps more helpful in critique than construction (but then the latter is always much harder to do). However he begins with a most extraordinary statement:

Orthodox Christianity believes that in the Scriptures in their original manuscripts are without error and fault.

Which just blows the mind. Clearly Shane is making a value statement here, "orthodox Christianity" is a judgement as to what Shane finds orthodox rather than a historical or sociological claim, but even so what are these original manuscripts he speaks of? Certainly, when dealing with a letter from Paul, e.g., we can posit at some point there was just one original version. But what do we do with Genesis, Job, Isaiah, or the Gospels all of which were composed over time, combining various sources, being edited and added to by different folk depending on the needs of the day and the Holy Spirit? What does it mean to speak of an original manuscript? At what point in the history of composition and editing do we say, "that's it, that is the original!"?

Even if we are comfortable positing the past existence of some final form of any particular Biblical book neither we, nor the historical church, have ever had access to such manuscripts. So how does any statement regarding their lack of error or fault help any discussion of anything? What would be much more helpful would be a statement about what the Bibles we actually have today are and what they can be relied on for.

Worse still, the doctrine of inerrancy encourages the sort of magic-book-from-the-sky thinking that is true of Mormonism or Islam. Instead orthodox Christianity recognises that God has spoken in many times and in many places through his prophets, and in these last days through his Son, and that his ongoing willingness to reveal himself through human beings and human processes (such as the formation of the canon) is far more wonderful, gracious and miraculous than any supernatural Kindle delivery could ever be.

The Doctrine of Errancy

Andrew Wilson throws down a bold and extraordinary challenge to the critics of inerrancy. As one such critic, I'm grateful for the provocation. I know there are more subtle, nuanced and persuasive views of inerrancy out there but Wilson gives a good grass roots sketch of the motivation for the doctrine. He starts like this,

There are a bunch of reasons for [holding to inerrancy]: theological (what would it say about God if his word was incorrect?), anthropological (isn’t the idea of the pot telling the potter that he got it wrong somewhat problematic?), even Christological (Scripture is affirmed as both divine and human, like Christ, and to use the latter to argue for the flawed nature of the former could pose substantial problems for our view of Jesus - which is evident when you find people saying that Jesus, in his humanity, made a mistake about the historicity of Adam).

To which I would rather briskly reply,

• it is not God's words that contain errors it is our Bibles (and yes we should distinguish between the two), 
• when I observe inaccuracies in the Bible I am not telling God he got it wrong but observing what is actually in the Bibles I have access to (rather than deciding before hand what the Bible looks like and then twisting it to fit) - these Bibles have all been through a long and imperfect human process of transmission, collation, translation, interpretation, and editing for marketing purposes
• and no the scriptures are not divine and human in the way that Christ is.  No orthodox theologian has ever suggested they are, Christ is unique in that respect.(Peter Enns has wondered if the two natures of Christ is a good analogy for scripture in his book Incarnation and Inspiriation, but it isn't a good idea, mainly because you can hardly use a theological mystery to analogically explain a literary reality, analogies are supposed to work from the known and understood to the unknown, not the other way round, and as Wilson rightly points out it also causes Christological problems downstream).

But Wilson's main point and challenge is this:

But inerrancy also matters because it rules out what I call “the option of errancy” when interpreting Scripture. Put simply, this is the idea that if you don’t believe Scripture is inerrant, then when faced with a biblical “difficulty” (whether a genuine challenge or, more commonly, something you as an interpreter don’t like), you can always say that the Bible is mistaken on that point. You may claim that you don’t want to use it - and that may be true - but if needed, you know the option of errancy is sitting in your back pocket, like a Presidential veto, as a last line of defence.

Wilson assumes that my reluctance to hold the doctrine of inerrancy is because without it I have a get out of jail free card on the Bible. Rubbish. If you need something to stop you from discounting portions of scripture you struggle with, it is not a doctrine of inerrancy you need it is a fuller submission to God. Signing the Chicago statement won't help you one bit. Believers in inerrancy are just as good and sometimes better than others at avoiding the bits of the Bible that don't suit them.

I do have a doctrine of errancy. I don't call it the doctrine of the errancy of scripture. It is the doctrine of the errancy of humanity, of the Bible's human authors, of the scribes and copyists and translators, of the church and of those who read, interpret, and preach the Bible; but that even despite all those errant human beings being part of the process the God of grace speaks to his people through that collection of scriptures known as the Bible in as fresh and liberating a way today as he ever did. It is a doctrine of the scriptures that are given not to tell us how many Israelites walked the wilderness or how many angels were at the tomb but teach us about God. Most of all it is a doctrine of the God of grace who reveals himself even through our broken and errant humanity and seems to delight in doing so. It is a doctrine of a the God who speaks, loud and clear, faithful and true, even into the errancy of our feeble minds and unfaithful hearts. 

Let me know what you think :-)

[You might also enjoy these older posts, 2 Reasons why Inerrancy is Meaningless and Beyond Inerrancy. For all Xenos posts on the issue click here. And if you still think you believe in inerrancy try this on for size.]

Food for thought

• Kim Fabricus challenges our understanding of what repentance really is.
• John Byron offers some pertinent thoughts on inerrancy
• Paul Windsor takes a look at the biographies of his dad and Don Carson's dad
• Richard Beck discusses Romans 1 and "nature"
• Scot McNight ponders the "Historical Jesus"
• And Roger Olsen makes an irenic plea for historic premillenialism

badgers, mushroom, and links

• Fighting the dehumanisation of the shopping queue, HT
• Luther on Innerancy, while Biologos starts a new series on literalism
• A wonderful meditation on eschatology and time travel
• The peer review/online review conversation continues, HT
• Someone asks if believing in God is evolutionarily advantageous?
• Kevin Vanhoozer lectures on the redramatisation of theology
• Tim Keller lectures on preaching Christ in Postmodernity

Quote of the Day: Olsen on Inerrancy

When I deny inerrancy I am not necessarily denying anything many inerrantists believe.  It may be, and I think is the case, that I am only denying that the word “inerrancy” is the most helpful or accurate term for what they and I believe in common.

 Go here for the full article, well worth a read, HT Chris T.

No, you don't just pick and choose

As I stated before this inerrancy discussion has plenty of legs left. Glenn responds to some criticism from Jeremy by asking why is a non-inerrantist more likley to allow personal preference to interfere in interpretation that someone who holds to inerrancy?  Glenn is quite right in pointing out that we all have to do the hard work of interpretation regardless of what our particular position is.  In fact I would go as far as to say that inerrantists have a harder time of it because of the need they feel to reconcile passages which (appear to) disagree in minor details.  For the non-inerrantist this is normally going to be a waste of time. 

But Jeremy seems to think that it is just a matter of opinion which "parts" of the of Bible are intended to teach truth and which parts are a result of the texts time and culture bound character.  Jeremy paints in his post a misleading charicature of those who do not hold to inerrancy.  No serious exegete that I know thinks you can just put a red biro around various parts of the Bible that you think might contain mistakes or errors or even just irrelevances.  Rather the whole text is inspired, and the whole text has a message.  The important thing is not to confuse the medium with the message.  The mistakes are not in the Bible (hence why I would never say the Bible is "errant" or contains errors - pace Glenn) but in the interpreters who think that the medium is part of the message. 

The clearest and most obvious example of this is Genesis chapter 1.  This passage clearly is teaching about God and the relationship of creation and humanity to God.  There is huge theological weight to every verse in Gen 1 and it is (in my belief) totally and utterly true in all that it teaches.  But there is no indication in the text that it intends to teach us about evoution (or lack of it) or the age of the planet (or lack of it).  Yes that is a hermeneutical decision you have to make, but you do not make those decisions based on preference, you make it based on the way the text demands to be read in its literary and historical context.  The poetic form, and seven days structure are the medium within which the message of God's creativity, sovereignty and grace are taught to us, not the message itself.

Jeremy also argues that because inerrancy now means almost anything given how widely it is qualified by different people that if you feel unable to affirm it then there must be something wrong with you.  My only answer to such a startling suggestion is that I don't believe we should just redefine words to suit us for the express purpose of fitting in with a certain group of people (in this case those who affirm inerrancy - regardless of what they actually mean by it!).  If anything he proves my earlier point that talk about inerrancy is just plain meaningless.

Some more of other people's blogs

Marriage is under attack in the UK by those promoting adultery as entertainment, am I really a reactinoary old prude for thinking that should be stopped quickly?  Loren argues that Paul was converted rather than called which is interesting and I thiknk depends largely on how you understand conversion and religion.  Meanwhile the decade of the Atheists is over, but what will come next?  i would like a decade of really really good pie shops opening in my local neighbourhood.  Steve asks how true do we need the Bible to be?  But I wonder how much we can rely on history to make some of those decisions given how much of the data is still underground and how little survives in any form.  But in case it never occured to you, it didn't me, Goliath's helmet was an important historical clue.  And it should be noted that even the most happening lively active church can be lonely and we need to make the effort to spend time in each other's homes, but that would be hard if you go to "commuter" church.  Bon appetit!

Around the blogosphere

after the Christmas and New Year lull the blogosphere is heating up like crazy.

There's much more on innerrancy even Enns joins in!
NT Wright in this video has annoyed John Hobbins.
Big-Ears makes an appearance without Noddy
Glenn Peoples wants to change the world (in NZ at least)
Alan Knox warns about glossing.
James McGrath rebutts the slippery slope and dances on a volcano instead.
Tim Bulkely preaches against certainty.
I get a guest slot to talk about preaching here.
And Antony Billington reflects on how theology of scripture affects interpretation of scripture.

Enjoy!   :-)

If that's what you mean then ok!

A statement of innerrancy I could live with?

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.

The 1963 Baptist Faith and Message on the Scriptures cited by Ranger in the comments of yet another brilliant post on inerrancy by John Hobbins. 

Inerrancy: A Short Blogography and 2 Points

I started writing a further post on Beyond Inerrancy, but the next step is to expound a Christ centred hermeneutic, and that just seemed beyond me this weekend. See my essay on preaching the OT if you'd like to see the beginnings of my thinkings on the subject (BTW it's not my finest moment but it got the job done). So, in lieu, here are some of the blogs on the subject that I've enjoyed:

Chris Tilling has an extensive series of blogs on the subject, and he was the first guy to get me thinking about it. Well worth the time to read.

Then there is Kiwi Blogger Glenn's take and the equally Kiwi Thinking Matters response.

From a different angle Tim resists the urge to become an inerrantist for the cause of monogamy (by the way the conversation in the comments is where it gets really interesting). Tim's conversation partner in the last link, John Hobbins, lets loose here and cautions all who too easily cast aside their theological heritage here.

While Steve at Undeception has more posts on the subject than one can shake a stick at. And then of course there is Peter Enn's entire blog.

And if you follow those links they will take you to many, many more.

One observation is the way that someone's context radically affects the way people view these terms. Those who feel the bigger threat to the church's health is Bible denying liberals will want to champion inerrancy, while those who feel it is the proof-texting fundamentalists who are the bigger danger are more likely to want to brush it under the carpet. But then no surprise. As I've argued before, all Christian theology is contextual.

One clarification I feel I need to make is to point out that in my posts I have avoided saying "the Bible is not inerrant," not least because I would not be willing to say "the Bible is errant." This is why I didn't resonate with Glenn's approach, it seemed to be more about pointing out scripture's failure to meet the criteria than the unsuitability of the criteria itself. Again this could well be a contextual issue, it is quite possible that in different circumstances inerrancy would be much more meaningful to me, I just don't know what they are yet. :-D

Either way I think this conversation has got plenty of legs left.
Let me know what you think, :-)

Beyond Inerrancy: Towards a Meaningful Theology of Scripture

So if Inerrancy is meaningless (see previous post) how can we express a "high view" of scripture without it? Well I would suggest that the two things wrong with inerrancy need to be two things right with any other proposal, namely that the Bible we have now must be shown to be the word of God and that word must be guarded against the claims of any "authoritative interpreters."

The place I would start is Isaiah 55. This text affirms a number of things forcefully and beautifully.

In vs1-3, God calls us to come to him and listen to him for our salvation, but in vs6-7 we are told to call on God and seek him. Thus the word of God is shown to be dialogical. It both represents God's word to us and calls us into conversation with God and searching for God through that word. Then in vs8-10 the nature of God word to us is expounded. It is both alien and beyond us (vs8-9) but also purposeful, dynamic, and effective (v10).

We could then heuristically apply this as framework for our own understanding of scripture. This might have the following results:

1. Because God's word is a dynamic communication it is not stored in static historical documents no longer extant, but comes to us through the various traditions of scripture including the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text, the KJV, the Luther Bible and the Paipera Tapu (to name but a few). The changing and varied nature of these traditions are evidence of God's dynamic communication with the world, not the second best option to having the "original manuscripts."

2. Because God's word is beyond human thought no human is permitted to set themselves above the text to give an authoritative interpretation. Instead we are all called into humble searching dialogue with the text, confident that God will achieve what he wills through it (perhaps provided we "give ear" and "hear" (v3) rather than come to the text with our own assumptions) but conscious that any ultimate grasp of it is beyond our reach.

Let me know what you think :-)

P.S. This approach might also spare us from needing to talk about the "preservation of scripture" (which makes it sound like a fossil) and the "perspecuity of scripture" (which is another strong tower for those who use the Bible to beat others over the head).

2 Reasons Why Inerrancy is Meaningless

Over at Thinking Matters there is a discussion about the doctrine of Inerrancy, the teaching that the Bible is without error. This is given its fullest and most recent form in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

The first reason this statement is meaningless is that it carefully specifies which Bible it refers to, and it is not the NJV, or the NIV or even Nestle and Aland 4th Edition, but the "autographic text of Scripture." Which is just nonsense. While some of the books of the Bible, especially the NT epistles could be said to have had autographic texts, many are the product of sustained development and/or combined traditions. Were these traditions or earlier forms inerrant also? And at what point did the scriptures cease to be inerrant, i.e. the diverse traditions that we have now? More to the point, even if at some stage the "original manuscripts" did exist at some time in some pristine inerrant form, it does us no good whatsoever as they are no longer extant. In Article 10 the authors of the statement preempt my objection.

We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original. We deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.

That final denial changes nothing. The doctrine of Inerrancy given here is about a set of documents that no longer exists and never existed as a set. Not only that but because we don't have the originals to compare we can never be sure which copies and translations are the word of God (according to this statement). This doctrine actually takes the Bible away from us as God's word, instead of reasuring us of its character as divine revelation.

The second reason Inerrancy is meaningless is that even if we had before us a pristine inerrant text (which we don't) it would still require an inerrant authoritative interpretation for its inerrancy to be any good for us. As I understand it, the root of this sort of inerrancy talk is actually found in the Roman Catholic church during the Reformation, for exactly this reason. They wanted to hedge the Bible in from the reformers and so argued that only the church could give an authoritative interpretation of the inerrant document. How this control freak tendency manifests itself now is painfully apparent over at the Thinking Matters website where the authoritative interpretation is appears to be in the hands of whoever is asserting inerrancy most vehemently. In the comments of his post Bnon is able to appeal to the "clear" sensus plenior* (comment at 3:47 on 20Nov) and also use his clearly limited (not to mention inaccurate) understanding of Koine Greek to browbeat an opponent without actually explaining what he means** (comment at 11:31 on 20Nov). The fact that he feels able to do this is presumably the result of understanding himself as that authoritative interpreter of the inerrant documents. At least I can't think of any other good reason.

Don't get me wrong, I have a high view of Scripture, high enough to have devoted the last 10 years of my life to teaching and studying it. But talk of inerrancy doesn't do the Bible any favours, it's just power games and nonsense.

Let me know what you think :-)


* The Sensus Plenior is characterised by it being something beyond the literal meaning of the text and therefore something not at all "clear."
** In Koine Greek, as in modern English, it is perfectly possible to refer to the same thing with two different words, e.g. "My running-shoes are on my feet, yes my trainers." Which is beside the point as both Heb 4:12 and John 1:1 use logos. (Of course that doesn't mean Heb 4:12 and John 1:1 are referring to the same object, only that they are not necessarily not doing so on the basis of the words used.)