evaluation of views of bible as a source of authority

STRENGTH of inerrancy: canonisation

• BB Warfield

• argues that inspiration of scriptures includes process of recognising and gathering texts in the canon

• early church (under guidance of HS) was divinely directed in identifying authoritative texts that reflected god’s revelation

• canonisation process divinely orchestrated ensuring that the texts incl are true representations of god’s revelation

COUNTER to BB Warfield (inerrancy)

• Barr argues that scripture is the product of complex historical processes involving fallible human agents.

• Even if God inspired the authors, inspiration does not logically necessitate freedom from all error.

• Humans write within cultural, linguistic, and historical constraints.

• For example, the differing resurrection accounts in the Gospels (e.g., number of angels, order of events) suggest that the biblical texts contain discrepancies that resist harmonization.

• If one insists on inerrancy, these variations create theological tension; if inspiration allows for human mediation, these variations become understandable.

WEAKNESS of inerrancy: enlightenment

• During the enlightenment period, scientific, historical and literary methods of analysis were greatly improved and applied to the Bible itself.

• This led to evidence of scientific inaccuracies, historical inaccuracies, and literary evidence such as that the writers of the Bible had different styles which seemed to depend on their nationality, culture and age.

• They narrated the same events differently, appeared to have made efforts to gather information, and made grammatical mistakes.

• None of this looks like the words of an omniscient being.

• It became difficult to ignore the human influence in the scriptures

COUNTER to enlightenment

• however, many theories of biblical inspiration resulted from this challenge

• e.g. conservative/objective + liberal/ subjective

WEAKNESS of literalism: conflict w science

Denying science is a difficult position to maintain.

Science can clearly explain so much of the world around us that it can successfully manipulate it into ways no one in the past could have dreamed of.

That same science, when applied to biology and geology, tells us that we evolved and that the earth is billions of years old.

This makes plenary verb inspiration look like a more attractive theory of conservative objective inspiration.

WEAKNESS of literalism + pvi: contradictions

• E.g. the birth and resurrection narratives. This suggest a subjective view of inspiration.

• Bart Ehrman claims that it is “impossible” to reconcile the differences in the birth narratives.

• He points out that in Luke, Jesus is presented at the temple and the family then returns to Nazareth.

• However, in Matthew, the slaughter of the innocents causes the flight to Egypt until Herod dies in 4bc upon which the family returns to Nazareth.

• Ehrman concludes: “If Matthew is right that they fled to Egypt, how can Luke be right that they went back to Nazareth a month later? The chronology doesn’t work.”

COUNTER to literalist contradictions

• reza aslan

WEAKNESS of pvi

• The paradox of Plenary verb inspiration. Plenary verb inspiration insists that there is a “confluence”, meaning the Bible was authored by both humans and God.

• This seems to result in a paradox as to how that could possibly work. It seems the inspiration for the words of the Bible must have come from one mind, yet to acknowledge the human influence yet still insist on the divine authorship leads to this paradoxical view that it came from both.

• J. Newman admits that Bible is divinely inspired, but has characteristics of a book that was not divinely inspired.

• Newman reflected on this by simply admitting that this is a mystery: “In what way inspiration is compatible with that personal agency on the part of its instruments, which the composition of the Bible evidences, we know not”.

WEAKNESS of liberal inspiration

• The problem with liberal views of inspiration is that it’s difficult to see how it could grant authority to the Bible if it derives from human minds.

• Furthermore, it opens up the Bible to interpretation and every person will have their own interpretation.

• This cannot provide the kind of stable consistent theology that a religion needs for it to persist.

• This is why traditional Christians criticise liberal Christianity for allowing people too much freedom to believe whatever feels right to them and their opinion, which results in the disunified chaos of everyone believing in their own God and the interpretation of the Bible which suits them.

COUNTER to liberal subjectivism criticism

• Just because it leads to the “chaos” of everyone having their own interpretation, that doesn’t mean it’s a false view of biblical inspiration.

• Perhaps God wants everyone to have their own interpretation! Traditional Christians point to the chaotic theology of liberal Christianity where everyone believes their own interpretation as evidence against the subjective view of inspiration.

• Augustine says it would have “disastrous consequences”.

• However, this assumes that God wants the kind of Church where everyone is told to believe the same thing.

• Perhaps in ancient times people needed to all believe one thing so that society could hold together because society was in a more fragile state, but now that we have developed historical, literary and scientific criticism that suggests we have reached a stage where we no longer need to believe the same thing for society to function.