The other night, a friend and I reiterated our independent observations that, despite all nuances, what ultimately stands behind most of American Christianity’s implacable dedication to inerrancy is fear. Dr. Jim Kidder, in so many words, makes the same point. The following quote certainly rings familiar.
For many people, this is not a scientific issue, it is a moral one. Even when having conversations with my wife, it is not uncommon for her to say that she understands the evidence and accepts it but that the ramifications make her uncomfortable. Indeed, both the ID side and the new atheists write that “Darwinism” is dangerous. The reasons are similar but the motives are different. Both argue that it leads one away from faith.
This is where I’m so baffled. Have these people not encountered the risen Christ in a dynamic way? I assure you as one who’s come through this process, letting go of inerrancy is an act of faith in the One who should be standing behind our beliefs, whom we have encountered in some meaningful way. Why should acknowledging that even the ancient believers whose testaments to God’s work became our Bible might not have been omniscient nullify what most evangelicals claim as the heart of our faith, our relationship with God? From where I stand, slavish, ritualistic belief in a set of rigid propositions strikes me as much more a “religion” than a “relationship” (to evoke a phrase I have always despised).
Commenting on some remarks from a well-spoken non-inerrantist that sound very much in line with some of my beliefs on Scripture, Kidder says:
This is the start of the “slippery slope” argument that is soundly resisted by most purveyors of the YEC model—Genesis must be read literally or else there is no barometer for how we should read scripture at all.
If I had a dime for every time I’ve encountered this objection, I’d be one wealthy son of a gun. But in the end, it’s simply a fear-based, not a faith-based (much less an evidence-based) approach to the issue.
Is all truth not God’s truth? Which is scarier? Coming to terms with the fact that our neat and tidy theological suppositions are merely comfortable illusions, or living our lives and training our children in oblivion and careful isolation from the possibility that we’re wrong and that even those without faith in God might be right on some matters? Is it really so horrifying that Christianity might actually ought to be a religion based upon something other than a flawless paper idol?
Be sure to read Jim’s whole post.
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- When Christianity undervalues truth Using an analogy especially interesting to me as an historical linguist, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations reminds us of the power of understanding that the Christian...
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View Comments on “The place of fear in our bibliology”
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When one offers up the “slippery slope” argument, it is likely that they’ve failed to comprehend that it’s possible the truth lies at the bottom of the hill, not the top.
The abandonment of inerrancy was, for me, a step of faith toward the One with whom I’ve been in relationship my entire adult life. In doing so, I embraced the mystery of God’s presence in the affairs of mankind. Conversely, I let go of that which wasted so much precious time, that is, the defense of something that demonstrably does not exist.
.-= Mike Beidler´s last blog ..The Return of the Evolutionist? =-.
Posted on December 27, 2009 at 10:10 am.
“a flawless paper idol?”
Interesting you bring this up. I’ve been thinking about writing something about how people make the Bible an idol.
Anyway, great observations here Steve this is precisely the reason most people refuse to change their ideas on what they have been brought up to believe in the Bible.
.-= Travis Jacobs´s last blog ..The Parable of the Mountain =-.
Posted on December 27, 2009 at 10:15 am.
Is Inerrancy an Essential Christian Doctrine? | The Church of Jesus Christ says:
[...] You might be interested in this post as well. [...]
Posted on December 27, 2009 at 10:27 am.
I think that an improper use of inerrancy has led many to lose their faith. We insist on reading Gen. 1 as literal but ‘prophecy’ is up in the air? Of course, there are always the hyperliteralists.
For me, I am an inerrantist – just haven’t really figured out, yet, to what extent or what that means to me.
.-= Joel´s last blog ..Is Inerrancy an Essential Christian Doctrine? =-.
Posted on December 27, 2009 at 10:30 am.
I had quite a discussion with a Jewish lady in Prague four years ago about how she felt Christians mis-exegete Zechariah. What she could not understand is that it the experience of the Risen Lord in my life who makes me who I am – not whether one word in a minor prophet should be translated as pierced or not.
Maranatha
Posted on December 27, 2009 at 2:03 pm.
Travis,
Karl Barth is said to have made the observation that Protestants have traded the Catholic pontiff for a “paper pope”. That’s perhaps a little more accurate than “paper idol”, but since many Protestants are convinced that the office of pope somehow usurps God’s authority, “idol” is surely not far afield.
Joel,
You said, “I think that an improper use of inerrancy has led many to lose their faith.” I agree completely. However, I’m curious about why you find it necessary to affirm the inerrancy category, particularly when even you don’t seem to know why you do. It’s as if, although you recognize that this doctrine as defined by its formulators does not work, you feel like you’re supposed to claim “inerrancy” of some color. Have you written on this subject?
Craig,
Welcome, and thanks for your comment. I can imagine your exasperation with that conversation. Even leaving aside the issue of personal experience, there is much more to the Christian tradition than whole strings of verses correlated and intertwined into doctrines.
Posted on December 27, 2009 at 11:06 pm.
No, not yet, but I am formulating a post.
.-= Joel´s last blog ..I love bandwagons =-.
Posted on December 27, 2009 at 11:09 pm.
Mike responds to the “slippery slope” objection by suggesting that “it’s possible the truth lies at the bottom of the hill, not the top.”
My standard response is similar. I tell my friends that if Truth resides on the side of a slippery slope, than that’s where I’ll hang out. It will require much more of me to keep my footing on that slope, it will require faith and diligence, it will require paying careful attention to the One who leads us into all truth. Of course, it’s easier (and far safer) to stay up on top where we are offered the illusion of a more secure footing. And we’re back to where Steve began this discussion: people refuse to navigate the slippery slope out of fear.
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on December 28, 2009 at 9:56 pm.
The argument for inerrancy does not properly stem from the “slippery slope” argument. It comes from how we find Christ using the Scriptures. This is emphatically not making an idol of the Bible. As John Stott put it, “we bow to the authority of Scripture, because we bow to the authority of Christ.” My challenge would be to investigate carefully how we find Christ using the Scriptures. On what did he base his arguments? What was the final authority that Christ appealed to? Himself because he was God? Why did both Christ and the Pharisees agree that an appeal to the Scripture was the final appeal? What was Christ’s attitude towards the veracity of the text from both a spiritual reference and a historical reference. A proper argument for inerrancy is grounded in how we find Christ using the Scriptures.
An argument for basing one’s philosophical foundations on an encounter with “the risen Christ in a dynamic way,” no THAT would be a slippery slope. What does it mean? Is it a feeling? an emotion? Does my Mormon’s friend “witness of the spirit” to the truth of the Book of Mormon qualify? There is simply no possible way to ground that approach in anything like truth, it means whatever the person who says it wants it to mean.
Posted on December 29, 2009 at 12:54 pm.
Thanks for the comment, John — I can tell you’re a well-considered individual. If you’ll allow me, however, there are a couple serious flaws in your reasoning that stood out to me.
You said, “A proper argument for inerrancy is grounded in how we find Christ using the Scriptures.” This is hopelessly circular. It depends upon the assumption that the words and thoughts of Christ were perfectly represented in the Gospels. As far as holes in reasoning go this is pretty much a show-stopper, but it’s common to miss this because of the many assumptions prepackaged along with inerrantism of which many Christians aren’t aware.
Sure it qualifies for a faith assumption. It’s no more empirical on the face of it, but why should that be surprising when we’re dealing with the supernatural?
So typically, people want a belief system that not only is believable on its own terms but also refutes other competing beliefs. Like the “slippery slope” argument, it’s hardly a substantive criticism of my position to point out that it does not show Mormons to be delusional as much as an inerrant Bible would.
Do you really think that the amount of trust required for believing in the inerrancy of Scripture, in the very teeth of the evidence against it, is any less a leap of faith than mine is? Remember, I don’t throw the Bible out — I just recognize that while its authors testified to truth, it’s neither the whole truth nor nothing but the truth. You and I both use the same Bible as the primary source of our theological understanding; I just openly acknowledge that my faith must be placed in what/Whom the (sometimes historically/scientifically inaccurate and sometimes internally contradictory) words in an ancient book testify to rather than in the book itself. The Bible is the quintessential, indispensable reference for examining the interaction of God with humanity throughout human history.
The inerrantist will read all that and find it unsatisfactory. It doesn’t “seal the deal” and take every other explanation off the table. They need an inerrant Bible to do that: but if it is truly necessary to do that, they’re out of luck, since the Bible is demonstrably not inerrant. Although I don’t need a full refutation of non-belief, I do find that 1) the Bible’s historical value as a compilation of ancient literary documents testifying to God, 2) my relationship with God, and 3) the serendipitous effects of Christianity in the world are pointers that keep me convinced of my faith (which is not to say it’s been “proved”).
Posted on December 29, 2009 at 11:33 pm.
What if at the bottom of the slippery slope we find the truth that scripture is inerrant? What if that truth is waiting there? I think that people would scramble back up the slope away from the truth found at the bottom. For what they don’t want is an inerrant Bible. They are not above the fray, knowing the truth, but are determined to not have an inerrant Bible. If the Bible was inerrant, they wouldn’t want to know it. If it could be known that it is inerrant, they wouldn’t want to know it. They are religiously committed to what they call truth. Indeed, one truth they know for certain is that the Bible is not true. It is arrogance that says an inerrant Bible is neither at the bottom or the top of the slop. They are afraid that it would be true, for they fear what is in it. So fear is driving people away from Jesus and his word. Fear is driving them to reject the Word in Flesh and the Word in Text.
Posted on December 29, 2009 at 7:20 pm.
You’ve got to be kidding me. I was looking for proof of an inerrant Bible years ago when I concluded otherwise, and would have been quite content had I been able to conclude what I hoped I would when I set out.
Posted on December 29, 2009 at 11:38 pm.
Hi,
I came to this discussion from another blog where a similar conversation is going on. This blog was linked there.
Going along with what John Murphy said above, Jesus commented in John 10:35 that “Scripture cannot be broken.” I agree that it was the authority that He appealed to. He certainly held the Scripture in very high esteem.
Posted on December 29, 2009 at 11:19 pm.
cheryl u,
Welcome here from Parchment and Pen – I’ve seen you there a number of times.
My comment to John above addressed this obviously weak argument. You must presuppose (first of all) that the text has represented every thought of Jesus inerrantly in order for it to work. (The Fourth Gospel is hardly the one to quote to prove something with a direct quote from Jesus!
) Also, you don’t take into account that Jesus may have been rhetorically taking advantage of the Jewish leaders’ overconfidence in Scripture by referencing their beliefs about it; there’s also the possibility that he may have been flat out wrong. I’m sure that last will make your stomach lurch (as it does mine), but you’ve got to acknowledge that all those unprovable presuppositions underlie your belief.
By the way, if the Scripture cannot be broken, and if you can’t be bothered to allow Jesus a little rhetorical flourish and hyperbole, then what do you do with his actual point in that passage? He’s getting out of being stoned for claiming to be God by saying that Scripture says everyone’s a god! That’s bad exegesis on the part of Jesus, at least using the grammatico-historical hermeneutic that sees “elohim” in Psalm 82.6 as referring to the generic “mighty ones” (the overwrought excuse given in the NET Bible’s notes notwithstanding).
Posted on December 29, 2009 at 11:57 pm.
Steve,
I honestly don’t know how you can continue to use the Bible as your primary source of theological understanding when you obiviously don’t know if any of it is accurate or not! And if you say that the Holy Spirit has led you into the truth of what is and what isn’t true doesn’t seem to get you very far, IMO. I don’t know if you have used that argument yourself, Steve, but it is one I have heard used in this discussion several times elsewhere. The Mormon’s claim the same thing for the Book of Mormon, do they not? And it seems to me that they are just as convinced of the reality of their faith as Christians are of theirs. Why not just go out and pick one of the other many religions out there that others have said are true and go with it instead of Christianity? Would that be any more of a gamble in the dark than what you seem to be taking based upon your view of Scripture?
And if you can honestly say that Jesus might of been “flat out wrong” in what He said regarding Scripture, we are not on the same page at all–or even anywhere close!
By the way, if you can’t even trust that Jesus knew what He was talking about in His words recorded in the Bible, why are you willing to trust that Book at all for theological understanding? You are doing nothing but building your house upon the sand of a very uncertain foundation if that is the case.
Posted on December 30, 2009 at 11:03 am.
It’s not that I “don’t know if any of it is accurate”. When I say, “It’s got errors”, why do people jump to the conclusion that every bit of it is errant until proved accurate? That’s not the way historians work at all: they generally take ancient records at their word unless they see compelling reasons to doubt the veracity or objectivity of the author.
Here we go with the Mormons again. How is it a problem for my own beliefs if they can’t invalidate the Mormons’ beliefs? And the point I keep making but you’re apparently missing is that you can’t invalidate their beliefs, either, especially because you appeal to inerrancy in a book that is demonstrably not inerrant. I can’t pretend to disprove the Mormon’s explanation of his experiences, but I certainly don’t think they make sense of things as well as more classic Christianity does (our Scripture may not be inerrant, but it’s certainly not a demonstrable imaginative fiction written by a snake-oil salesman like Smith).
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 12:38 am.
Inerrancy is not Literalism and other thoughts on the matter | The Church of Jesus Christ says:
[...] around the biblioblogosphere, among other topics, so I thought I might take a moment to dialogue this post. In [...]
Posted on December 30, 2009 at 12:02 pm.
Just another thought here, Steve. If it is an unprovable assumption that Jesus couldn’t of been wrong in the statement that He made about Scripture and if Jesus was perhaps guilty of faulty exegesis, He’s starting to sound like a pretty imperfect God/man to me. Now let’s just take this whole thing one step further. You say that your relationship with God is one of the things that have convinced you of the reality of your faith. Your relationship with a God that can be flat out wrong and is maybe guilty of faulty exegsis of the words He claims He has inspried?? What kind of a God is that? And what makes you think your relationship with such a one is based on truth? Maybe what you are knowing of Him is “flat out wrong” too because He is coming across to you in a way that isn’t accurate. Ever wonder about that?
And please don’t tell me that it was only Jesus as a man and not as God that was flat out wrong or maybe didn’t know how to exegete His own word properly. That is certainly an unprovable assumption underlieing your belief, is it not??
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not setting out to totally destroy your faith here. I am simply trying to point out the natural consequences of where your beliefs and suppositions can lead you.
Posted on December 30, 2009 at 1:32 pm.
The Fundamentalists have made that claim, not God.
Sure, I wonder! That’s because I’m intellectually honest enough to acknowledge that my positions are not empirically derived. Something about the faith thing…
Christianity still makes the most sense to me, more sense than atheism, more sense than Mormonism, etc. I find it to be the best explanation of the facts and my experiences.
Yes, I can sense the appeal to consequence a mile away. It’s just not working for me anymore, Cheryl.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 12:44 am.
Cheryl U,
Let’s back the cart up just a tad and ask the question, “Why do you believe the Bible to be inerrant?” Secondly, “Do you in fact make daily decisions based on the words and publications of errant human beings?”
.-= Mike Beidler´s last blog ..The Return of the Evolutionist? =-.
Posted on December 30, 2009 at 1:39 pm.
Mike,
Quick answer. I have to meet my hubby in town in just a few minutes.
1. Because it is God’s word and God is inerrant and it says it is inspired by God.
2. Yes I do. However, they are not things that are of eternal significance nor are they things that claim to be inpsired by an infallible and perfect God. Big difference there, IMO.
Have to leave no.
Posted on December 30, 2009 at 1:47 pm.
I already gave a critique of your first point: I don’t think you have any biblical basis for claiming that the whole of Scripture is “God’s word”, “inerrant”, or even “inspired by God”. Nowhere does any writer of a book of Scripture refer to our canon of sixty-six books, since it took a few centuries for that list to be created. Any supposition that 2 Tim. 3.16-17′s reference to OT writings should somehow be extended to our canon is not “scriptural”, but a theological imposition on the text. This does not make it an invalid inference per se, but it certainly exposes your belief to be hardly less dependent on unprovable conjecture or less of an “uncertain foundation” than mine. I just acknowledge it.
But Cheryl, this is the problem: it doesn’t matter how important the question is, we’ll use what we’ve got in a pinch. If a doctor has to perform an emergency procedure she’s never been trained on and all she’s got to guide her is an out-of-date book that she knows has errors, she’s not going to quit the practice of medicine in disgust and leave the patient to die on the table just because she lacks an infallible guide. She’s going to use the errant book if need be. The notion that we should just pack it up and live in muddled agnosticism just because we admit that we can’t prove Christianity is an emotive, knee-jerk response that I have no use for.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 1:05 am.
Have to concur with Cheryl u here, Steve. You don’t seem so much to be talking about inerrancy as you seem to be talking about skepticism. If I read you correctly, you seem to be saying that nothing in the Bible can be proven to be reliable (this is a far different thing from arguing inerrancy). If nothing can be “proven” reliable in the
Bible, then what good is your relationship with God because it is only from the Bible that such a relationship can come (if you are talking about the Judeo-Christian God). Logically, it would follow from your own position that your relationship with God is based upon documents which may or may not be correct in their assertions about God so your “relationship” might be correct, or it might not be. You will never know. This takes an unusual measure of faith, it seems to me.
In essence you are doing the exact same thing that you are accusing the inerrant camp of doing (assuming something you cannot prove), with this crucial difference. The inerrant camp is at least measurable and verifiable, one can take the documents and compare them with history and archaeology and see if they speak accurately. Your position can neither be measured, nor verified, and certainly not disproven.
Posted on December 30, 2009 at 2:16 pm.
Can it be disproved? I’m not sure how important this is, at least in this endeavor: even if love is all explained as chemicals, can you disprove the love you feel for your mate? Why would you try? Yes, there are other explanations for everything I know and have experienced (none of which can be proved to be adequate, I might add), but I’m certainly not going to arbitrarily just reject my explanation in favor of another explanation just because it can be disproved, especially if it doesn’t answer my questions as well. Am I being at all clear?
You are correct that the inerrantist position is more empirically verifiable: the problem is that it’s failed! My viewpoint makes use of the data gleaned by those empirical tests and adjusts beliefs accordingly rather than being forced to explain every difficulty away because of a pre-determined conclusion. That this faith is still doggedly clung to by inerrantists is surely no less of an “unusual measure of faith” than is mine.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 1:18 am.
The inerrantists here (particularly Cheryl) object to the subjective nature of relying on the Holy Spirit to guide us to truth. But isn’t that what we all do? No inerrantist has ever answered the following question. None has even tried. Please, I really want to know! Here is the question:
John Piper holds a Bible which he readily admits contains “hundreds of discrepancies”. Karl Barth holds a Bible which he claims merely “contains the Word of God.” Because neither man claims to hold an error-free, perfect Bible, both men must do the same thing: Study it prayerfully asking the Holy Spirit to illumine its meaning to their hearts. How then is Piper’s interactions with an inerrant Bible any different from Barth’s interactions with an non-inerrant Bible?
Does Cheryl stone defiant children? Does she stone adulterers? Does she keep the Jewish Sabbath, which is clearly taught to be kept for all time? I’m sure she does none of these things. Yet she objects to Steve’s reading of the Bible by saying “… if you say that the Holy Spirit has led you into the truth of what is and what isn’t true doesn’t seem to get you very far, IMO.” Cheryl! You must surely do the same thing.
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 9:31 am.
Steve,
This is probably going to have to be my last post here simply because I do not have the time to carry this conversation any further at this point. I have been actively involved on too many blogs lately and just can’t keep it up.
I also realize that we are operating from such totally different paradigms that we are not likely to ever come to any form of agreement.
Just one last comment or clarification. You said to me, “It’s not that I “don’t know if any of it is accurate”. When I say, “It’s got errors”, why do people jump to the conclusion that every bit of it is errant until proved accurate? That’s not the way historians work at all: they generally take ancient records at their word unless they see compelling reasons to doubt the veracity or objectivity of the author.”
I said what I did because of the questions you raised, namely how do we know that what Jesus said was recorded correctly and how do we even know that He was not flat out wrong? If you can’t know those things about the Bible, how can you know that any other theological teaching it gives is recorded correctly or in fact is not just plain “flat out wrong”. Obviously, you can’t. And if the the God/man Jesus could be flat out wrong, certainly any human writing the Bible could be flat out wrong! If I can’t appeal to what Jesus said to make a point because of those two things, what ground do you have to appeal to anything in the Bible to make a point or to use it as a guide for any type of theology? If it doesn’t work for me, it can’t work for you either.
Cliff Martin,
I don’t object at all to the Holy Spirit leading us into all truth. Trouble is, if we don’t have something objective to go by besides that leading, we can certainly be sadly mistaken. And yes, here we go with the Mormons again. They fully believe they have been led into truth. But we don’t accept their truth as truth at all. And if you put fifteen different Christians in a room, you may get fifteen different takes on the “truth” they believe the Holy Spirit has led them into. That may be an exxageration, but I think you get my point. I have seen some of the most bizare examples in the last years of things that people believed were what the Holy Spirit was telling them.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 10:15 am.
Cheryl,
“I have seen some of the most bizare examples in the last years of things that people believed were what the Holy Spirit was telling them.”
Yeah. Me too. And many of those bizarre examples came from adherents to inerrancy. Which comes back to my Piper/Barth question, which once again no one has even tried to answer. You object to subjectivity, and keep bringing up the Mormons. My point is that we all must use subjectivity. Do you claim otherwise?
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 10:29 am.
Steve,
“That’s bad exegesis on the part of Jesus”
Going back to that discussion of John 10, isn’t it possible that Jesus’s tongue is in his cheek the entire time; that he is parroting back their own faulty exegesis, and adding their own “inerrancy” teaching when he says “and Scripture cannot be broken”. That is, “How can you stone me for claiming to be God when your own view of Psalm 84 is that we are all ‘gods’, and you yourselves say that the Scripture is inviolable?”
It is clear that Jesus believed in the authority of the O.T. Scriptures (so do I, so do you I think), and that he often quoted it regarding those quoted passages as representing the will and word of God (as I do, and I presume you do). To move from this handling of the O.T. by Jesus (common to inerrantists and non-inerrantists alike) to the view that he endorses 20th Century Fundamentalist views of the 66 books is a gigantic (and unnecessary) leap, IMO.
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 11:23 am.
I should have made it clear that the “bad exegesis” interpretation was what I see as the alternative to “allow[ing] Jesus a little rhetorical flourish and hyperbole,” which I agree with you is a preferable way of viewing the pericope as a whole. I should point out that the exegesis remark was referring specifically to Jesus’ counter-contextual translation of elohim (or theoi) as “gods” instead of “mighty ones”.
But the fact is, the proper rhetorical form for the “unbreakable Scripture” quote would have been something more like you paraphrased, or at least a first class condition (“if indeed the Scripture cannot be broken”); this leaves me somewhat more agnostic on whether Jesus himself was affirming this. (But then again, since I am less and less sure how many actual quotes from Jesus the Fourth Gospel contains, I’m not sure how far to push this anyway.)
This intrudes into the question of how omniscient Jesus was: the famous statement about the mustard seed being the smallest seed makes me wonder about that, in addition to his appeal to an apparent face-value, at least quasi-historiographic interpretation of Genesis 1.27. Do you see where I’m coming from here?
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 11:41 am.
Steve,
Yes, I do see what you are saying, and totally agree. Jesus claimed not to know some things (i.e. the time of his return). Those who claim omniscience for Jesus totally destroy the genius of his life … that he lived as a man, with no special divine advantages. He makes it clear, I think, that he received knowledge and understanding in precisely the same ways we do … by study, learning, and occasionally by special revelation (H.S. illumination). He calls us to live as he lived, and we get the same equipment.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 12:16 pm.
Cliff Martin said, “My point is that we all must use subjectivity. Do you claim otherwise?”
I don’t claim otherwise. I just claim that we need to have an objective standard to measure our subjectivity by. And you, if I understand you correctly, are basically saying that your subjectivity is the final standard. Maybe I am understanding you wrong, but that is what I have been getting from what you are saying.
And Steve, about the mustard seed being “the smallest of all seeds”. The NLT version translates it “one of the smallest of seeds”, God’s Word translation says the same thing, so does The Living Bible. In the Greek the word “smallest” is simply “micros” which of course would seem to mean simply small. Then the word “pas”– all– is used and finally “sperma”–seed. This is the way it is written in Greek in the KJV according to a Lexicon I use. So basically it says that the mustard seed is “small all seed”. Does that have to be translated the “smallest of all seeds”? It wouldn’t seem so to me. It would seem that it could just as easily be translated as “one of the smallest of seeds” like the three versions or paraphrases I quoted above render it. I don’t see any reason myself why that small has to be made to say “smallest”. If that should indeed be the case, that would wipe out the argument completely that says Jesus was wrong here.
In my mind at least, it certainly leaves a very big question–big enough that I would never be able to say that Jesus made a mistake in this instance.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 5:01 pm.
The Greek reads literally “smaller [Gk μικρότερος, comparative] than all the seeds on the earth”. Pretty emphatic. I ask you, is his point invalidated by this inaccuracy? I reject the false choice between “perfect” and “so deeply flawed as to be useless” that inerrantists (in lockstep with their rationalistic atheist critics) insist upon. At some point, inerrantists have to stop explaining things like this away and cramming square pegs in round holes in order to keep believing that their theology’s ok. Sometimes they’ll reject the whole bundle; not all of us see the need to demand perfect certainty, being content to live in mystery with the light we see, even if we can’t prove it.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 5:55 pm.
Steve,
That is not the Greek word that is used in the Lexicon that I checked. I know this is an older Lexicon, but it is the only one I have online that I can use so freely. See here: http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Mar&c=4&v=1&t=KJV#conc/31
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 6:26 pm.
I understand your confusion: BLB uses the “lemma” form, which is the uninflected form. If you click on “C” and look at the text of the Textus Receptus, you’ll see that it uses the comparative of μικρός, which is indeed μικρότερος.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 6:36 pm.
Cheryl,
You seem like a very serious student of the Bible. You are to be commended. But if you intend to use the Greek in your studies, bear in mind that most Lexicons will give the root word only. You are correct, the word is mikros. Steve is correct that the mikros in Mark 4:31 occurs as the comparative mikroteron. I am also surprised that you would use paraphrases like the Living Bible to get at the meaning of words in a verse. It may be fine to read those versions, but if you want to understand what the Greek is saying, stick with translations like the NASB, which in this case reads “though it is smaller than all the seeds …”
There is really no way around this difficulty. And it is one of many such errors (some minor, some major) all through our Scriptures. Folks like Steve and I are not jumping off the Fundamentalist wagon because we like to be called liberal. Intellectual honesty demands that we view the Bible as other than inerrant.
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 7:06 pm.
Here is the definition of the word used from another site. μικροτερος adjective – nominative singular masculine – comparative or contracted
mikros mik-ros’: small (in size, quantity, number or (figuratively) dignity) — least, less, little, small.
I don’t know, it still sounds to me like it could be used to just say little or small and not smallest. Evidently some took it that way in the versions I quoted above. Although I do notice that all of the translation listed on this page use “smallest”.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 7:06 pm.
Cheryl,
It is very telling, isn’t it, that all the serious translations agree: Jesus said the mustard seed is the smallest seed. But many of the paraphrases (in which the paraphrases subjectively choose what they think Jesus meant) try to take the sting out of the verse. Why do you suppose that is? I would suggest the obvious. They do it because they know that a straightforward reading of the text is not acceptable because it damages their view of Scripture. Would you agree?
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 7:14 pm.
Cheryl,
“Here is the definition of the word used from another site. μικροτερος adjective – nominative singular masculine – comparative or contracted
mikros mik-ros’: small (in size, quantity, number or (figuratively) dignity) — least, less, little, small.”
Again, this is giving the definition of the positive word mikros, not the comparative form mikroteros. As in our dictionary, the comparative and superlative are never defined in a lexicon; you must add “more/rather” or “most/very” yourself.
It’s laudable to dig in to the text yourself, but (not to sound snobby) you also have to recognize that there are rules of grammar that you will still not know unless you have studied them.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 8:03 pm.
Cheryl,
You wrote in response to my question “Why do you believe the Bible to be inerrant?”, “Because it is God’s word and God is inerrant and it says it is inspired by God.”
No disrespect intended, because I’ve been where you are, but that response is akin to a self-licking ice cream cone. You’re appealing to the argument of self-authentication, which, IMHO, doesn’t hold the water a sieve does. I want to challenge you to dig further. Dig objectively. Is there something about the Bible that demonstrates that it’s inerrant?
In response to my question “Do you in fact make daily decisions based on the words and publications of errant human beings?” you wrote, “Yes I do. However, they are not things that are of eternal significance nor are they things that claim to be inspired by an infallible and perfect God. Big difference there, IMO.”
I beg to differ. You make decisions every single day regarding things that are of eternal significance. Every time you bring an unsaved friend through the threshold of your home, you rely on the engineering skills and expertise of errant, fallible people. Or do you pray to God every second that they take shelter under your roof that it won’t collapse before they accept Christ as their savior? Every time you give an unsaved friend a ride in your car, designed by errant, fallible people. Or do you pray to God every second that the engineering skills of General Motors’ employees are up to snuff and that their errant natures won’t rear their ugly heads and leave you on the side of the road with a smoking engine? Every time you step outside your home onto the concrete, you trust in the created. You trust in that which was brought into existence by proxy—for concrete was fashioned by errant human beings and their limited knowledge of the laws of nature (which I believe God set into motion)—to hold your weight and not collapse, sending you spinning into the cold reaches of the cosmos. Or do you live in fear that every breath you take, every move you make, is destined to a roll of the dice?
Dig deep, Cheryl, and you’ll find that when it comes down to it, your choice to believe the Bible is inerrant is just as subjective as the Mormon’s belief that the book “translated” by Joseph Smith was supernaturally given to him. You have no leg to stand on.
.-= Mike Beidler´s last blog ..The Return of the Evolutionist? =-.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 5:43 pm.
“In response to my question “Do you in fact make daily decisions based on the words and publications of errant human beings?” you wrote, “Yes I do. However, they are not things that are of eternal significance nor are they things that claim to be inspired by an infallible and perfect God. Big difference there, IMO”
Guess I need to clarify. I don’t base my beleifs on where I will spend eternity and why on what any errant and fallible human being writes. I base it on what I still believe is the Word of God.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 6:29 pm.
Cheryl, I understand that you believe the truth of God is the objective picture of reality, the afterlife, and the nature of God (I agree). What I’m saying is that you don’t have anything but the most subjective reasons to believe that the sole and comprehensive source of this truth of God is the Bible, exhaustively and exclusively, cover to cover. You just believe that it is for no other reason than that you think you need such a source.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 7:02 pm.
You know, I started out the morning saying that I didn’t have time to continue this discussion, and look what I have done! I really must stop now. I honestly don’t believe you will ever convince me or I will convince you to change your minds.
I read the article, “Thinking Outside the Box about the Bible”, by you Cliff. And I noticed that you, Steve, said you agreed with his conclusions. We truly are on totally different pages on this whole issue–such quotes as these prove that beyond a doubt:
“What if the correct view of Scripture is that it is not the inerrant, verbally inspired “Word of God”? What if the orthodox, correct view, is that it is an accurate journal of an historic people of faith, written by human beings, subject to their errors and misconceptions, but recording for our benefit their quest to know the Living God? If that is the case, then we should expect to find within its pages a rich heritage of growing, developing understandings about God; but we should also expect to find mistakes, discrepancies, contradictions, and a variety of other inaccuracies. And this is exactly what we do find.”
And this one: “On the other hand, if we understand these stories to be of human origin, expressing the views of Moses and his contemporaries, we understand these misconceptions to reflect an understanding of God in its infancy; we can excuse Moses as a human being who was in the process of getting to know his Creator, and who was inspired to record what he was learning, complete with theological misconceptions and factual errors.”
From here: http://undeception.com/thinking-outside-the-box-about-the-bible/
So I am really bowing out of this conversation now.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 7:34 pm.
Interesting post. I am not sure what the point is. It is as if you want to have a relationship with the God of the Bible, and have, I am guessing here, the benefits of having that relationship, i.e. salvation, and the promises of God, but you do not want all the baggage of His Word. One has to accept things by faith, without faith it is impossible to please God. One cannot just choose what wants to believe and then throw out the rest. If one is to accept the relationship and salvation then one has to accept the rest.
God is not complicated and He is not the author of confusion. What it seems that your are advocating is some parts of the BIble to be accepted and others not. But based on what standard? What happens when other people accept different parts of the Bible and reject some of the ones that you have accepted? Would that not create confusion? Is God the author of confusion? I am sure you see where this leads to. Keep studying. Just because you have come to a more enlightened view does not mean that you have reach the sum total in Bibliology. Keep studying you might find that you will come back to an inerrant view of Scripture.
Posted on January 3, 2010 at 7:26 am.
Daniel,
Your defense is based on the reasoning:
1. God is the author of the Bible.
2. God is not the author of confusion.
3. Therefore, the Bible cannot be confusing.
This is manifestly not the case: as Cliff intimated, Christians the world over are confused about the Bible and disagree with one another about how to interpret it. I think the reasoning behind the above syllogism is sound enough — if God is the author of the Bible and is not the author of confusion, we should certainly expect that He should have been both not only able but willing to give us a perfect exposition of truth, set out in a series of propositions that couldn’t be confused. He obviously did not do that, so at least one of the first two presuppositions about what God authors is incorrect. For me, while God intended the Bible to be available to us, He did not directly author it, and so I do not blame Him for its tendency to confuse us any more than you do.
I certainly do not claim to have reached the “sum total in Bibliology” any more than the inerrantist, if by “bibliology” you mean “trying to understand what the Bible is and how to interpret it”, because inerrantists certainly claim to know of a surety what the Bible is: it’s the inspired, inerrant Word of God. If you’re talking more about the specifics of what it means, I certainly claim less absolute knowledge than most inerrantists I know who insist that they’ve got the precise corner on what the Bible means.
Posted on January 4, 2010 at 8:35 am.
Daniel,
If you are honest, and think about it a little, you will admit that you, too, pick which portions of Scripture to believe and act upon, and which to set aside. We all do. Those of us who have concluded that the Bible is not inerrant have done so for one very simple and indisputable fact: the Bible contains many errors. This does not mean we love it less, read it less, or benefit personally from it less. We do not use our theology to skirt Biblical injunctions we don’t like any more than you do. If you compared our lives to those of inerrantist Bible believers, I think you would find we are moral, obey the Bible, witness to the lost, love others, etc. etc.
What leads you to think we came to our understandings about the Bible so we could ignore it, reject it, or disregard its moral teachings?
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on January 3, 2010 at 11:50 am.
I am very sorry. I have acted as a fool, running into something without knowing exactly what you believe. I have assumed to know what you believe and therefore you know what that makes me. I believe that all of Scripture is inspired and without error in their original manuscript. God is without error and when He makes something He does so without error. Please help me understand your position. When you state that there are errors do you mean that there are translational errors, for example 2 Sam. 11:1 kings should be translated messengers. It is a pun. It should be the time when kings go but the king does not go and he sends messengers. And then the king sends a messenger to Bathseba and so forth. Is that the type of error you are talking about? Or are you talking about copying errors where wrong numbers where put? Or are you talking about errors in the sense that the Bible records lies, i.e. the lie of Satan in the garden?
I think that once I understand your position I would be better able to answer some of the questions you had for me. Once again please forgive me for just running into a context that I did not understand. Blessings and peace.
Daniel Darling
.-= Daniel Darling´s last blog ..Growth =-.
Posted on January 8, 2010 at 7:11 am.
Daniel,
Thank you for your reply, and the spirit in which it is offered. The ability to calmly address issues of such deep personal import is rare, it seems.
What Christian would disagree with your contention that “God is without error and when He makes something He does so without error.” Agreed! Certainly! Of course, your argument presupposes that God “made” the Scriptures in a certain way. Such a view is neither explicitly taught in the Scriptures, nor validated by the product we hold in our hands today.
Errors in the Bible? Yes, there are plenty. John Piper, perhaps the foremost proponent of your position (and a man I have deep respect and appreciation for!) famously counts “hundreds” of what he calls “discrepancies”. I could point out a few, but I think if you honestly search deeply enough, you can find them. I once held to the same position you espouse (“in their original manuscripts” etc.) but then I realized two things. 1) Many blatant contradictions and errors simply cannot be rationally explained away by “copyists errors”. 2) What does it matter if we say that the manuscripts were pure originally. We no longer have them. We have corrupted texts, and none of us know how many corruptions exists, or where they are. So we are left with a book riddled with discrepancies, and must rely upon Holy Spirit illumination to keep from being led into error. We all do this. We all must do this. Inerrantist and non-inerrantist alike. So I came to see that inerrancy makes little practical difference (see my question in comment #16 above).
Being free to honestly consider other approaches to the Bible that are more in keeping with the book we actually have led me to the view that it is a book of human writing, inspired, but not produced by God, recounting an amazing journey of faith through the ages. We should expect it to accurately journal the development of faith from its infancy. But we should not expect it to flawlessly chronicle earth or cosmic history, to be completely accurate in all its portrayals of God, to give us God’s perfectly communicated theology, etc. He has left us with a need to 1) use our rational minds, and 2) rely upon Holy Spirit illumination through our relationship with him. Of course, the Bible is a great help in the whole process.
I have written many articles on my blogsite relating to general and progressive revelation, a proper view of the Bible, etc. It is not my desire to tear down people’s faith. It is my desire to propagate a Christianity which is reality-based, vibrant and vital, able to withstand the (sometimes valid) objections of the skeptics today.
Is this helpful to your understanding?
.-= Cliff Martin´s last blog ..Our Default Setting? (Part Two) =-.
Posted on January 8, 2010 at 10:19 am.
Slippery Slope says:
[...] the writer of the blog Undeception, recently wrote a post about inerrancy, entitled “The Place of Fear in our Bibliology.” The gem that stood out to me in this [...]
Posted on January 4, 2010 at 6:43 pm.