PROBLEMS WITH THE INSPIRATION AND INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE -
AN AXE LAID TO THE ROOT OF CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM
This essay forms Chapter Eight of a more extensive study of spiritual gifts which is available in full here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/ 14805101/AN-INTRODUCTION-TO-SPIRITUAL-GIFTS
I have looked at spiritual gifts from a framework adopted by fundamentalists, and Calvinists in particular, which Cohen describes as the most consistent with Biblical passages. (1) It is 'now important to stand back, and step outside this framework for a critical evaluation, and in do- ing so I shall look at the foundation of fundamentalism: Scripture. In do- ing so, we shall be looking at what fundamentalists consider to be the highest form of inspired revelation, and this has obvious implications for the gifts of inspired revelation. One of the main tenets of fundamentalist is that the Bible is inerrant and thus fully corresponds to reality. All pas- sages of Scripture are interpreted in the light of this position. In many re- spects, for fundamentalists, the Scriptures are second only to God and form the supreme TANGIBLE sacred reality, because within fundament- alism there is no emphasis on relics, ceremony, ritual or art. (2). A term which often links Calvinists with Pentecostals is the phrase conservative evangelicalism. By definition, conservative evangelicals accept older views from the reformation and puritan times, which they seek to pre- serve. Only occasionally is the word conservative used to indicate social and political views. In other words, there is an emphasis not only on the inerrancy of Scripture, but the need to maintain the purity of doctrines in Scripture, which are seen as largely drawn out of Scripture by the re- formers and other reformed orthodox leaders. There is then also a sense of tradition within fundamentalism, which goes right back to the early Christian fathers, but most overtly to the fathers of the protestant reform- ation. This tradition immediately frames the way in which fundamental- ists interpret Scripture and leads fundamentalists to emphasise certain passages and verses and de-emphasise others, despite a belief in the total inerrancy of Scripture. I will speak more of this in a moment, but I am concerned to emphasise now that fundamentalism has its own particular tradition of interpretation of Scripture.
There are within this fundamentalist scheme, themes of separation and alienation of believers from the surrounding world, from modern theo- logy and modern Bible study methods, which are seen as threats to the purity of the doctrines drawn out of Scripture by fundamentalists. (3). The Conservative Evangelical sees himself as a real Christian, because he upholds these views, which are considered as orthodox, plain truths from Scripture, whereas others, though they may be professing, Christi- ans, are seen as 'nominal' Christians because they do not subscribe to these views. More will be said later, in postscript, on the system of con- servative evangelicalism but the initial focus of this chapter is on these claims regarding Scripture. This is an important issue, since it forms the very foundation of this group and it's philosophy and so far has formed the basis of this study on spiritual gifts.
THE SCRIPTURES
First of all, I want to look at the Scriptures themselves. These are gen- erally defined as the books of the Old and New Testament, beginning with Genesis, and ending with Revelation, generally referred to as the Canon of Scripture. Inspired revelation is perceived by conservative evangelicals to have ceased with the book of Revelation. The word -can- on- refers to a rule, and thus this particular set of books is seen as being an authority and rule for faith. Though there may in some groups be an emphasis on tongues and prophecy, as inspired and revealed by the Holy Spirit for use today, these are generally not put on a par with Scrip- ture, though there is an underlying source of conflict and tension here. Nevertheless, they are not considered to be a rule and authority in the same way as Scripture is. It is important to realise that this canon has not been defined by God in the Scriptures themselves. Though the last verses of Revelation are sometimes quoted to refer to an end of the canon of Scripture, these verses only refer to the book of Revelation itself, since at the time of its writing, the canon had not been formed. Cohen argues (4) that the Scriptures as a whole assume an intellectual posture as to their own interpretation and that this resides in depreciation of whatever is exterior to the Bible. Now it is a fact that the various writings may hold this view, but the scriptures as a whole do not have a view of them- selves. These various writings were not gathered together fully until a few hundred years after they were written, so the writings never take a view of themselves as a whole assembled group. The exact process by which these books came to be known as authoritative is not known.
Who wrote these books and how were they preserved? For the conser- vative evangelical, these books were written by the declared authors:
Moses wrote the first five books. Matthew, Mark Luke and John wrote the gospels, and Paul wrote many of the New Testament letters along with Peter and John. Historians and scholars take different views. Ac- cording to LANE FOX (5) the earliest known authors are from the 8th Century B.C., known E (Elohist) from the northern kingdom of Israel, and later, J, (Yahwehist) from the southern kingdom. The actual earliest surviving documents are from about a century later and shortly after this, covenant ideas were added to J. Following the fall of the northern kingdom, the work of E was brought to the southern kingdom, and fol- lowing the collapse of the south, most of the Old Testament material was gathered together and/or written during the period of exile by D, (Deuteronomist). Following the return to Jerusalem after the captivity, another source was added, P (Priest) when the ceremonial and sacrificial laws were added. The other two divisions, the prophets and the writings were selected out of a larger body of literature, some of which is mentioned in the Old Testament itself: The book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21 v 14), the book of Jasher, (Joshua 10 vl3), the book of the Acts of Solomon, (I Kings 11 v 31), the book of Samuel the seer, the book of Nathan the prophet, the book of Gad the seer, (I Chronicles 29 v 29). Fifteen or more such books are mentioned in the Old Testament. LANE FOX argues (6), that some material was written as late as 160 B.C. He ar- gues that there was much forgery and a wide range of documents, but as such, no Old Testament canon. This suggests a different approach and understanding of the Scriptures by these Jews than that of fundamental- ists or conservative evangelicals today. The oldest surviving list of the Old Testament canon dates from A.D.170, from a Christian scholar, Melito of Sardis, who made a trip to Palestine in order to determine the order and content of the Hebrew Bible. Neither his order nor content agrees with our modern Bibles. LANE FOX also argues that there ap- pears to be a wide diversity of meanings and emphases between transla- tions and particular groups, of which we see evidence in various manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Proto Masoretic and Masoretic texts. He argues that the debate about just which texts were holy went on well into the end of the first century.
LANE FOX (7) argues that Jesus treated the Scriptures as other Jews: the Law was most important, other texts were important but we do not know which. At this time, there were lots of debates about gaps in Scrip- ture, and considerable freedom in their interpretation, much more freedom than the fundamentalist-s views held today. In fact, there were few if any principles of interpretation, and passages were some- times taken out of context. Acts 1 v 20 itself gives us an indication of no known modern principles of interpretation being used in the quoting of Old Testament texts and their fulfilment in the New Testament. Nevertheless, Jesus Himself accepted Jewish Scriptures as the Word of God. They supported His work and person via prophecy but did not control it absolutely. So, for example, there is no record of Jesus planning a New Testament, or instructing his disciples to write such a document. Neither did His communication of the gospel largely rely on Scripture, but rather on His own unique teachings, His parables and so on. So the idea that Scripture is our only guide for religion does not come from Jesus. Rather, it arises from a particular interpretation and tradition of viewing Scripture.
Paul received teaching from Christian followers within a year of Christ's death, and within twenty years, the Hebrew text became the Old Testament, though it took a while for a Christian interpretation of Eccle- siastes or Esther to be formed since they had no obvious relevance. Jude quotes books other than the Old Testament canon which we now use. The use of proof texts by Christians from the Hebrew texts widened, some of which were not considered authoritative, and it is perhaps for this reason that an Old Testament canon was formed. But the debate as to which was authoritative and which was not, continued into the 16th Century. (8).
Similarly, there is debate about the scope, authorship and writing or- der of our New Testament. Some have been and still are considered sus- pect, such as the letters to Timothy and the letters of Peter. The grounds for doubt arise from their sense of history, style of writing and doctrine. The earliest list containing only the books which we use appeared in A.D. 367, in a letter of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. Justin Martyr for example, argued for only the four gospels. Much discussion took place regarding the content of a canon in these early centuries. The books that we have are drawn from a larger collection of writings, such as another letter to the Corinthians, a letter to the Laodiceans, I & II Cle- ment, and the Teachings of the Apostles. At the same time, there were a number of fraudulent documents around. However, an ecumenical council, in Carthage in 397 A.D., appears to be the first undisputed de- cision as to what was canonical. But even here, there was no central au- thority to decide the canon. The Syriac, Ethiopian, Greek Orthodox and others all issued various canons, despite great care being taken in decid- ing which was of the canon and which was not. The Old Testament apo- crypha, a collection of thirteen books have at times been rejected and ac- cepted by various groups. The reformers rejected them, but Luther con- sidered them profitable. The Coverdale and Geneva Bibles included them, but the British and foreign Bible society, after much debate ex- cluded them from it's Bibles in 1827, the American branch soon follow- ing suit. (9). The point I am emphasising is that this has been a much-de- bated human decision. The final canon that we know is not absolutely, clearly defined by God for us. In the main, one of the criteria seemed to be that any document other than that from an Apostle, was rejected, the Apostles having been eyewitnesses to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Except of course Paul, who was one called out of time. For the fun- damentalist, this helps to give authority to these New Testament books, but again, it must be remembered that these were human beings, prone to sin and error, (Galatians 2 v 11-21, Acts 15 v 36-40), and that the au- thorship of some of these books is disputed. The assumption is, certainly by modern fundamentalists, (because Scripture does not declare it), that the Apostles were, in effect, like the modern Pope, infallible in doctrine, therefore, their writings are infallible.
I am concerned to show at the moment that human beings, perhaps sincere believers in the church, have created the canon of Scripture over a period of time, with much debate, and with disagreement even amongst reformers and modern Protestants, and that there is no God defined canon. This raises the possibility that our present canon almost certainly excludes some inspired revelation, and that it may also contain some non inspired works. For this latter, one need look no farther than the end of Mark's gospel, (16 v 9-20), which though previously accepted as canonical is now prefixed by the statement '(the most reliable ancient manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16 v 9-20)'.
As we look at the Reformers we find a much more flexible approach to Scripture than the identification of a hard and fast canon. Luther denied the canonicity of James, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Hebrews and Revelation, (10). It did not matter to him if some of the writings of the Old Testament have passed through revising hands. 'What would it matter if Moses did not write the Pentateuch?' (11). He called James 'a right strawny epistle'. (12). Calvin doubted the Petrine authorship of II Peter and excluded the book of Revelation (13). Calvin places Psalms 74 and 79 to the period of Antiochus Epiphanes, far later than usually acknowledged. (14) Calvin argues, 'it is not by David… it is probable that many Psalms were com- posed by different authors after the death of David. (15). The point that I want to make here is that it is clear that the reformers, or some of them were ready to make some critical literary judgements on Biblical texts. The fact that these were made at all suggests that with fuller evidence, they may have gone farther along this line.
The canon then is like a room with contents of furniture and decora- tion from different dates to which we have agreed not to add or take away. The contents DO add up to a new whole, but they do not lose their individual natures. However, by placing them in association we alter our perception of the individual items. Nevertheless, the individual items still retain their meaning. In Scripture, whether in our particular canon or another, the Song of Songs is still a collection of erotic poetry. (16). But, by lumping the texts together there is a high chance that the com- munity will misread them. (17) It adds another way of reading them which may quite often be wrong. Furthermore, as we have seen, scholars argue that the Bible documents are not in the main, primary sources. Rather they are an amalgam of previously written material, which are not necessarily accurate and later authors none of whom had a critical eye for accuracy or good method. They simply took earlier accounts as fact. (18)
THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE.
Now Scripture declares an inspiration of Scripture. 'All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and train- ing in righteousness.’ (11 Timothy 3 v 16), and 'for prophecy never had it's origin in the will of man, but ‘men spoke from God as they were car- ried along by the Holy Spirit.' (II Peter I v 21). But, as we have seen, when Scripture appears to look at itself, it does not in fact have the canon of Scripture in view as we know it. This canon, this rule of faith was not formed until some considerable tine after these writings had been circu- lated and the authors themselves had died. As such, the Bible has no view of itself as a complete entity. Any writers commenting upon Scrip- ture were referring to the Old Testament and possibly other documents.
The word for inspiration in the New Testament is Theopneustos, and means 'God breathed'. (19). Our question must be, what is the nature and decree of this inspiration? For example, does it extend to the very words, accents, vowels and punctuations? Some conservative evangelicals will insist that it does. They use a prophetic paradigm: As God inspired and breathed His Word into the mouths of the prophets such that they spoke God's Word without error, so in the same way. God inspired the Scrip- ture writers. But in fact there are linguistic problems here, since in the Hebrew language, in the case of some Old Testament books, the vowels were not added until a few hundred years later as the language changed, more importantly, such a view leads to a mechanistic view of inspiration. Here the writers are not even penmen in God's hands, but merely pens. Now it does seem apparent that in some cases, God did give commands and statements by audible voice and so on, and in some cases they were written or commanded to be written down. For example, Numbers 7 v 89, Daniel 4 v 31, Exodus 3 v 4. But such a view of inspiration cannot account for the diversity of styles and accounts from Scripture writer to writer. The individual authors' style and personality can be seen to vary from person to person in the various books of the Bible. Neither is this God's normal way of working as indicated in Scripture itself. God does not dictate and dominate the person so that they are a mere puppet or automaton. God uses the individual's gifts and abilities.
STRONG, (20) outlines various views of inspiration. Some argue that it is a heightened sense of man’s natural powers, knowledge and insight. The fundamentalist will argue that, while it is true that man can aspire to nobler powers and insights, as regards religion, such insights are often corrupted by mistaken affections arising from his own corrupt nature. It is especially as regards God and righteousness before Him that the Scripture speaks of our corruption. Also there is a contradiction, since by such inspiration, men are supposed to have written the Bible, the Koran and other religious works. Since these books contradict one another on basic ideas, then one man has been inspired to utter what a second man has been inspired to pronounce false. Thus, they argue, we enter a realm of subjectivism, and the end result is that there is no objective reality independent of men’s opinions concerning these things. Ultimately, they argue, such a view of inspiration denies God, and elevates man to the highest intelligence. Another view, similar to the one above, argues that the religious perceptions of the believing writers were intensified and elevated by the Holy Spirit. Here, the writers, not the writings were in- spired, and no objective truth beyond the believing writers ability to conceive and understand were communicated. Certainly, the fundamentalist will argue, there may be instances where the writers were illuminated in this way, but such a view is not sufficient to account for the revelation of new truths in the evolving nature of Scripture. The giving of a new truth by revelation is different not only in degree but also in kind.
If we are to propose a theory of inspiration at all, we must move to a more dynamic and interactive theory. I will suggest that firstly, we must hold that inspiration is not merely natural but a supernatural act, an immediate work of a personal God in or on a person or persons. This of course assumes the existence of such a God. Because of the way that Scripture is written, it is not as simple as God inspiring a single Scripture writer, but also those who compiled and selected the various works at various times. Secondly, the inspiration extends not only to the writers, but also to their writings. The degree and extent to which this takes place is not known. The writers themselves were sinners, and further corruptions nave entered over time and through copying and translation, but taken together, if we are insisting on an idea of inspiration, such writings would constitute a more trustworthy and sufficient record of divine rev- elation than mere human speculation. One analogy is that Jesus is both God and man. He is not a composite, or superhuman but both God and man. If we could have physically examined Christ we would have found nothing extra in his body to make Him more than a man, yet He was also God. His divinity exists alongside His Humanity. So too, we look at Scripture and find them written by ordinary, sinful men, and it is in many ways no more than an ordinary book, yet it is inspired. It has all the weakness and variability of a human work, yet it is the Word of God through which He communicates to us. In such a work, we would ex- pect to find a broad and main unity and agreement be they in the canon or not. Thirdly, such writings would contain a human as well as a Divine element, such that the revealed truth is shaped and adapted to ordinary human minds, customs and cultures of the time. To describe such writings .is the Word of God then, is in some ways a misnomer. Rather, it is a joint work, of man and God, which would contain in some places, the literal words of God, as spoken by Him, audibly. The Bible could be seen as a collection of such writing, gathered together after much debate by various people, handed down, changed and sometimes uncertain in origin, being neither solely the work of God, nor solely the work of man, but a joint work. This view takes into account the Divine side of the Scriptures and the human side, and the customs, culture, limited know- ledge and traditions of this human side in both the formulation and writing of Scripture together with the sinful nature of the writers. But this leads us on to our next theme, the inerrancy of Scripture.
THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE
The over emphasis of the God ward side of Scripture by fundamentalists, to the point where it is regarded as the ‘Word of God’ has led to a conclusion that the Scriptures are inerrant or totally without mistake. In fact, many who believe the Bible to be inerrant have never fully read it. Rather, it is a matter of faith, and logical argument based on presupposition. This logical argument goes something like this: -
It begins with the assumption that God is perfect, infallible and true. The idea that because God has inspired books they too must be perfect is essentially an idea of Greek origin, an idea that presents perfection as the essence of God. However, in Scripture, God is represented as personal and active. He can change his mind, regret what he has done, be argued out of positions chat he has already taken up and operates in a narrative sequence and not out of static perfection. (21). But this idea of perfection is an assumption for the fundamentalist, since it's basis is also implied from Scripture itself. For the fundamentalist, God is the Author of the Bible as a whole, that is, He is the author of the canonical books by the third person of the trinity of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. The conclusion from these two assumptions is that therefore, the Bible is perfect, infallible and true. This makes no allowance for the human element in Scripture writing, and has to be a mechanistic view of inspiration. But, it is a problem, with such detailed inspiration as inerrancy demands, to ex- plain the variations of linguistic style of the writers, and the substantial variation between different manuscripts. For confirmation of this view however, the fundamentalist enters a circular argument: - the Bible says that God is perfect, infallible and true. If God is infallible and He in- spired the Bible, then it must therefore be infallible also, and we know that this is true because the Bible says that God is infallible.
This then leads to two further conclusions: if an idea is consistent with the Bible, then the idea is true. If an idea is not consistent with the Bible, then the idea is false, because the Bible is perfect, infallible and true. But this connection between inspiration and inerrancy is a philosophical rather than a Biblical argument. Thus the Bible as inerrant frames the fundamentalist believer’s worldview. It is a global, underlying philosophy that underpins their outlook. That which is outside the framework is mistaken, false, corrupt or not particularly relevant. But, there is a sense in which the framework is not complete. Because there are vagaries, and because there are areas not covered by Scripture, the framework is extended. It is extended by common sense, by self-interest, by personal philosophies and worldviews outside the scope of Scripture and so on. In the area of guidance and worship, spiritual gifts may supplement or even contradict the Biblical framework, ' especially for those with a low tolerance of ambiguity. Nevertheless, it is felt by many that if one side of this triangle of perfection, truth and inerrancy with regard to Scripture fails, then all fails, therefore, there is much attention given to interpretation and harmonisation of Scripture. Theologically however, it is a closed system. Anything which threatens this view is either avoided or attacked.
How else then it is argued that Scripture in inerrant? There are further approaches: - One is an ascending argument which states that the historical accuracy of Scripture is so great that the theology must be true. Another is a descending argument which states that the theology is so marvellous and convincing that we can be sure it contains no error of any sort. Also, important people in Scripture testified that it was so. Jesus and the Apostles said it was so. If it is not, if the Bible contains error, then these people were wrong or not trustworthy. Here, personal loyalty is used to force people into a fundamentalist position. But, if a professor of mathematics gives mistaken directions, his professorship or sincerity is not in doubt; rather he has made an error. The fundamentalist will argue that it is different when we are talking about the Son of God, and re- assert the infallibility of Jesus as a person and the Apostles when it comes to doctrine. In the case of Jesus, his manhood and his context of talking to a particular generation is ignored. But the fundamentalist believes the Bible anyway: these verses merely formulate his existing belief which he comes to through the personal and moral pressure of the fundamentalist community, and through a pressure to come to terms with and develop a framework for dealing with such existential issues such as death, finiteness and meaning.
Conservative evangelical attempts to prove inerrancy make little or no contact with Biblical or textual criticism. In these approaches, texts are studied to look for differences which indicate different authors, functions and traditions. Criticisms slay be raised such as those raised by Calvin on the Psalms, and questions relating to myth, function, formulation, customs, history, discrepancy and error are asked. It is through this sort of approach that the last verses of Mark are now suspect. The basic difference is that fundamentalists see Scripture as a unified whole, to be harmonised, whereas the critics see the writings as separate texts, with the differences being of interest. Our model of -inspiration puts us between these two views… the Bible is more than human, it has an element of unity because it assumes that a single person, God, inspired it, but, because of the profusion of documents, copies and the human authors and context in which they were written, we should be carefully critical, not only of which books we include in the canon, but of the con- tent of those books. To move from the dogmatic position to maximal conservatism where say, MOST of Deuteronomy can be attributed to Moses or the date of an apparently Davidic psalm is 'near' to David's time is LESS satisfactory, because it is less honest and more prejudiced. The dogmatic position may merely become a concealed norm and evidence may be slanted in favour of those concealed norms.
THE HISTORY OF THE FUMDAMENTALIST VIEW OF INERRANCY
Where has this particular fundamentalist view of inerrancy come from? What is its history? The establishment in the reformation of ‘Scripture only’ effectively cut off any philosophical theology or philo- sophical dialogue with the world, and it was this that made way for the birth of full fundamentalism. (22) Indeed, within this framework, people have believed that the Bible is true for many reasons, as illustrated in the Westminster Confession. Such reasons include the testimony of the Church, the heavenliness of the themes, the effectiveness of the doctrines, the majesty of the style, its harmony and scope, and the way in which reveals the way of salvation. But the Hodges and B. B. Warfield in Princeton in the nineteenth century were maintaining a high Calvinist view against a background of rising Biblical criticism. Hodge took what the Bible said about inspiration to be a doctrine. When faced with the question, 'How do we know it is true?’ Hodge declared this to be beyond theology, and anything purporting to be a theology should accent this without question. However, he did not insist that inspiration was congruent with inerrancy. But Warfield did not allow this relaxed approach to stand, possibly because of perceived threats from Biblical criticism. Warfield argued that it was inerrant because it was inspired. This was a doctrine designed to prevent those who were already fundamentalists from abandoning that position. It was worked out by and for the conservative evangelical position. It does not give reasons to the non conservative why Biblical inspiration should be essential, apart from the fact that the Bible says so, which is a proof only for those who already hold the fundamentalist position. It is a circular argument because it is meant to be. The outside