Mr. Sola Scriptura weighs in on inerrancy

August 30th, 2010 | 5 Comments

Take the great 16th century reformer Martin Luther, for instance.  Most would argue that Luther — who argued for “scripture alone” — had a high regard for the Bible.  Yet, he was quite critical of some of it.

For instance, Luther argued …

(1) God’s prophets in the Old Testament were sometimes in error,

(2) the book of Kings is more reliable than the book of Chronicles,

(3) the book of Esther should have probably been left out of the Bible,

(4) not all the Gospels are of equal value,

(5) the writer of Hebrews erred when he said that there is no possibility of a second repentance,

(6) the author of James “mangles scripture” and the whole book should be burned like worthless straw,

(7) the book of Revelation reveals nothing.

From an interesting post on Nazarene theologian Thomas Jay Oord’s blog For The Love of Wisdom and The Wisdom of Love.

FacebookRedditGoogle ReaderDiggStumbleUponPrintFriendlyShare

Related posts:

  1. When inerrancy is truly evil Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. The...
  2. The Human Faces of God: why criticize inerrancy? Review: The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries to Hide It) Author: Thom Stark Wipf and...
  3. Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks,...
  4. Facing the music: genocide is just genocide Kenton Sparks contributes a humdinger of a post today, the second post in a seven-part series entitled “After Inerrancy: Evangelicals and the Bible in a...
  5. The lost art of humility: homosexuality and usury Most of the hullaballoo surrounding Knapp-gate seems to have blown over for the time being, but its implications and the probability of similar future incidents...

August 30th, 2010

Tags: , , , ,

  • http://thechurchofjesuschrist.us/ Joel

    no!!!!!!!!!!!! You will not do this to me! You will reveal to me that people have questioned inerrancy for more than the past decade.

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    The Protestant circles most attached to “orthodoxy” and uphold the
    fundamentals of Luther’s vision of Christianity as supreme, virtually
    as a divine revelation, and yet here he leaves out this supposed sine
    qua non plank of their platform. If the legitimacy of our belief is
    built logically upon the inerrancy of Scripture, as most in the
    conservative traditions insist, then how deficient Luther’s theology
    must have been!

    Apparently a Bible that’s inerrant per the Chicago Statement on
    Inerrancy is not the sole basis for our belief. Who knew?

  • Anonymous

    fun stuff!

  • Rich_gitsch

    Do you know where Luther stated these? They are believable, but I like to have statements like these sourced. Sounds like they may come from his Table Topics.

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    Hi Rich,

    Good question, but I do not know. I expect that Dr. Oord would point
    you in the general direction, though.