How can a reasonable faith be placed in the Being that inspired the Bible if it is "inspired" but not "inerrant"?

Question

This question (and two related sub-questions) is directed towards those who believe that the Bible is inspired but not inerrant. I understand inerrant to simply mean "without error". "Inspired" tends to have more nuances in it's meaning and so a valid answer should include a short definitional statement describing "inspired" as well as one regarding "inerrant" if it is taken differently.

If the Bible is not inerrant, i.e. if it contains errors, and yet is inspired by God does this not mean that the errors are inspired?

1. How and why would God inspire error without being deceptive or fallible?

2. Without an inspired and inerrant listing of Biblical error, how can one reliably discern Biblical error and should one make the effort if the error is inspired?

Answer 1

I think this can be addressed in a similar way to how theists respond to the Problem of Evil objection against the existence of God: how can a perfectly loving, omnipotent and omniscient God allow evil to exist in His creation? One common response is that God has allowed evil to exist because He probably has good reasons for doing so. So, if God has good reasons for allowing evil to exist in His perfectly designed Creation, why wouldn't God also have good reasons for allowing errors to exist in His perfectly inspired Sacred Scriptures?

Now, responding to your specific requests and questions:

so a valid answer should include a short definitional statement describing "inspired" as well as one regarding "inerrant" if it is taken differently.

• Inspired: God intervenes in the universe by prompting one or more human beings to record statements for future generations to read. The prompting might or might not explicitly enforce the recording of very specific statements word by word, and similarly, the prompting might or might not allow some noise or errors to be introduced in the process.

• Inerrant: The entirety of Scripture contains 0% errors of any kind.

If the Bible is not inerrant, i.e. if it contains errors, and yet is inspired by God does this not mean that the errors are inspired?

Not necessarily, the errors might ultimately be traced back to a different cause. For example, if you believe in free will, it's possible that the errors are contingent upon mistakes freely made by human beings, thus interrupting the causal chain towards God. Why would God allow this? Perhaps for the same reasons that He has allowed evil to exist.

How and why would God inspire error without being deceptive or fallible?

This question presupposes that God inspired the error, which is not necessarily the case (see my answer above to your previous question). However, if we replace inspire with allow, the answer would be: in the same way and for the same reasons that God allows evil to exist in the world without that being an excuse for atheists to claim that God is "deceiving" them by supposedly "making them believe" that He doesn't exist. Christians assert that the Creation points toward the Creator (the teleological argument). Atheists claim that all the evil and suffering in the world points toward the inexistence of a loving Creator (the argument from evil). If God can allow evil and suffering without being deceptive (thus invalidating the atheist's complaints), why can't God allow error without being deceptive (thus invalidating the inerrantist's complaints)?

Without an inspired and inerrant listing of Biblical error, how can one reliably discern Biblical error and should one make the effort if the error is inspired?

Ignoring the fact that this question presupposes yet again a questionable "if the error is inspired" (see answers to specific questions above), I presume the most reliable method would be for God Himself to assist the believer in doing the discerning, or to directly guide the believer towards the right interpretation.

Note: Entertaining the idea of God inspiring errors is analogous to entertaining the idea of God causing people to sin. God doesn't force people to sin, and yet people might still sin. In a similar manner, God doesn't inspire errors, and yet errors might still occur. But it is true that God is overseeing the whole process in both cases, and only allowing them to happen within certain boundaries such that His purposes are still fulfilled.

Answer 2

The answer for me depends on how one thinks of God's omnipotence. If God is absolutely all-powerful then inspiration = inerrancy. However, if God limits his power to allow for human freedom, then inspiration allows for human error. In other words, God inspires the author of the text but does not verbally dictate it, nor does he directly control the transmission of the text or the attribution of biblical writings to specific authors.

This hypothesis allows for differences of theological perspective as well as factual anomalies and misattributions. Thus, for example, the Book of Job can tell us that God allows the terrible suffering of a man whom He has certified to be "blameless" (Job 1:8) while Proverbs 28:18 assures us that "Whoever walks blamelessly is safe." Copyist errors and insertions may also be included in the canon, and books traditionally attributed to an author such as Mark or Matthew may not have actually been written by them.

The question of pseudepigrapha is more difficult. Would God inspire the creation of biblical books supposedly written by specific authors who did not actually write them? For example many believe that David did not write some of the psalms attributed to him, or that Paul is not the author of the Pastoral Epistles, or that Moses did not actually write the Torah. To those who believe this but also affirm that the Bible is "God-breathed" the answer would be that God works in strange and mysterious ways. (Romans 11:33)

Short answers to the secondary questions.

• "How and why would God inspire error without being deceptive or fallible?" Answer: God does not inspire error; he inspires authors who are vulnerable to mistakes and cultural prejudices.

• "How can one reliably discern Biblical error and should one make the effort if the error is inspired?" I don't say that errors are inspired. But in any case one has to pray for discernment and approach the scripture diligently guided by one's conscience.

Answer 3

The Bible can be both inspired and errant because it is impossible to separate the divine and human elements of the Biblical texts. Over the course of salvation history, God revealed himself to humanity, however, it is human authors who recorded these revelations in their own very human words and expressions for posterity. It is important to remember that God is not speaking to you from the text of the bible, rather human authors are speaking to you, as they believe that God has spoke to them; all of the shortcomings are the fault of the human author and not God. It is futile to argue that God should have, could have, or would have done better, because we are only left with the brute fact that God chose the method of revelation that he did, i.e. to transmit his message in a human fashion.

So, how can you be sure that you are getting the inspired message and not the errors? I will make some recommendations, but first I want to say that, scientifically, you can't be sure that what you are reading is not erroneous. Rather, it is a matter of faith that the sacred scriptures do not contain errors concerning faith or morals, that on these points alone you will not be lead astray. That is the mission of the Bible, to convey matters of faith and morals, not to provide infallible documentation of history, science, philosophy, politics, or other non-spiritual concerns. It is important to remember that the words of the Bible are not the words of God, they are the word of God as revealed to such and such author. In some respects, the promotion of the Sacred texts to inerrant status is an almost Muslim-like divinization of the Bible which I would think would be out of place in the Christian faith.

Inerrancy promotes the Bible to that which it is not. There are diverse forms of literature that make up the Bible as a whole, spanning whole cultures, geographies and time. As an example, consider that the New Testament is made up in it's bulk of the Paulinian epistles. The key word here is epistle, these ostensibly belong to the class of Hellenistic letters as to their literary form, and yet they are often interpreted as if they were theology manuals. How can it be that a one-sided letter (we only have Paul's end of the correspondence) possibly be the best way to convey Sacred teachings. Surely if Paul had known the destiny of his letters to various congregations in the larger Roman domain, he would have prepared a wonderful theology manual, perhaps with a table of contents and a glossary even. I am kidding on that last point, but the point is still well made, that mundane correspondence is an odd way for God to inspire all of Christendom as to His intended message.

Answer 4

Apart from the nature of Christ, there are few matters as divisive among Christians as the doctrine of Inspiration of the Bible. There are two questions that arise from the doctrine of inspiration: (1) How does divine inspiration work? And, (2) What is inspired?

How Does Inspiration Work?

Traditionally, there have been three broad views about how the Bible writers were inspired:

1. Verbal Inspiration: The Holy Spirit dictated the Bible, word for word.
2. Thought Inspiration: The Holy Spirit inspired men’s ideas; prophets then expressed these ideas in their own words.
3. The Bible contains the Word of God, that is, it records the experiences of great and Godly men and so has other material not necessarily inspired. That is, in the judgement of those who subscribe to this view, some parts of the Bible are not worthy of the sacred canon. This might be called “non-plenary”, “incomplete”, or “partial” inspiration.

We will ignore the third view as an example of “Cafeteria Theology” where one is free to decide what parts of the Bible to believe and what can be ignored. Let us assume immediately that the entire Bible, as we have it, is inspired, as declared in 2 Tim 3:16, 17, 2 Peter 1:19-21. See also 2 Sam 23:2, Neh 9:30, Eze 2:2, 11:5, 24, Micah 3:8, Zech 7:12, 2 Peter 1:19-21, Rom 1:2, 3:2, Heb 3:7, 5:12, 9:8, Mark 12:36, Acts 28:25, 1 Tim 4:1.

• Paul says that “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1 Cor 14:32) indicating that the prophet does not lose his/her personality in the process.

Lastly, if God had dictated the words of the Bible intending that they would be immutable and important, then God would have miraculously preserved the exact words as inspired and “dictated”. Even a casual glace at the history of the Bible text suggests that this was never the case – there are thousands of variations in the Bible text, but all preserve the ideas in the text. That is, while many “errors” and variations exist in the Bible text between manuscripts, none are significant for the message.

Thus, the Bible, God’s Word and its central message of God’s love and salvation, has been miraculously preserved but not necessarily the exact words that the Bible writers used. (It is possible that some Bible writers produced more than one version or revision themselves!?)

What is Inspired?

The question of what is inspired can be asked other ways:

• Might there be other books that have been omitted that should be either included in the canon of Scripture or at least considered inspired?
• Was the gift of prophecy closed with the canon of Scripture or could further prophets arise that, while not adding to Scripture, could still have relevant messages after the 1st century?

The second question is simpler than the first. There is nothing in the Bible suggesting that the gift of prophecy was to finish with John the Revelator. Quite the contrary; the list of spiritual gifts in the New Testament always includes the gift of prophecy.

There are numerous (some valid and some false) prophets who wrote or spoke material not included in the Bible. The NT's Agabus is a perfect example of a valid prophet whose various prophesies were not included in the Bible. The four daughters of Philip are another example.

This still leaves the question about what material was included in the Bible and why. Generally, material was included that was written by someone who had first-hand knowledge of what they were writing either by divine revelation or as a witness to the events as described. All forgeries were excluded by the early church fathers. When examining the many documents omitted from the New Testament, it becomes quite obvious why they were excluded.

Answer 5

This question begs the question of what the Bible is. Did "the Bible" as such exist at the time any of its constituent texts were written? No, not by a hundred years or more. There is not a single unanimously recognized version of it either. There are many versions and translations. It is apparent that Adam, Enoch, Noah and Abraham all kept records which Moses used as source materials to consolidate his account regarding the Creation, the Flood etc. which constitutes most of Genesis, but we do not have the original accounts, although they would be Scripture if we had them. This does not need to destroy our confidence, however. Is "the Bible" a collection of mostly-inspired abridgements, prophetic accounts and apostolic texts? Yes.

What is the degree of faithful preservation and translation of the original texts? This would be impossible to tell without revelation from God. Even if someone comes forward with a purported original manuscript of a Biblical text, it will be impossible to confirm its authenticity through purely secular means.

Inspired, assuming we are talking about the Holy Spirit, means that the Spirit of God was the driving force behind the creation of the text. On the whole the Bible is mostly inspired.

Ice cream can be delicious, good and pure and then have some toxic elements added to it. This does not mean that the ice cream itself is bad or that its origin is evil. The devil likes to do this to all good things to throw us off the scent of eternal life. Yes, the devil has tampered with the Bible, and translators' ignorant minds and hands have smudged its pages some. Evidences of this are abundant, for example, numerous passages saying that "it repented God..."/"God repented" (Genesis 6:6) while from other passages we know that God cannot repent because He does not sin (Numbers 23:19).

When we say "The Bible is inspired" we do not necessarily mean that everything put into some current compilation is of God, or that every translation or rendering of it is correct and accurate. Some translations are more accurate and honest than others. For one example, In Acts 7:48, the word "dwell" used in the KJV (Greek 2730) means "to house permanently, reside". In Revelation 7:15, the word "dwell" in the KJV as "dwell" more accurately means "to tent or encamp" (Greek 4637), showing divergent connotations becoming flattened and lost in translation. Without a more robust translation, this important distinction is lost, leading to potentially catastrophic misunderstandings, for example assuming that the word of God is self-contradictory when in fact the error is due to a lack of distinction from a translator. Such errors might also lead us erroneously to discard portions of God's true words. Therefore the existence of apparent contradictions by itself does not always allow us to determine whether it is a translation error or a deliberate pejoration of the text, without introducing additional errors of our own.

How and why would God inspire error without being deceptive or fallible?

God does not inspire error. It's that simple. If there are errors they are the mistakes or deliberate alterations of men. We can use a scalpel or a spoon to extricate mistakes and messes that have been dumped in and make corrections -- but only if we are inspired.

Without an inspired and inerrant listing of Biblical error, how can one reliably discern Biblical error and should one make the effort if the error is inspired?

Fortunately God knew we would have this problem and prepared a solution for it: He called a modern seer to provide an inspired revision and retranslation of the Bible, which corrects some of the most significant errors and redactions that have accumulated in the texts underlying the Bible. You can read it here and compare to the redacted and altered versions to see how it enhances your understanding of God's dealings with mankind from the beginning. It is even called the "Inspired Version" of the Bible:

Joseph Smith's Inspired Translation of the Bible

Answer 6

Suppose a school-child has an assignment to prepare a list of examples of mathematical equations. He writes down a few and then asks his parents if they know of any others, and then adds √n × √n = n and a few others to the list.

Those additions were inspired (and correct), but his list also contains 6 × 9 = 42 (uninspired and not inerrant).

Does that mean that:

• The incorrect item was inspired by the parents?
• One cannot have reasonable faith in the parents?

One could imagine a scripture's author being inspired by God, but also including a few incorrect facts of his own.
(I'm not claiming this did happen, only offering it as one way of looking at it.)

Answer 7

The question about Biblical errors hinges on the standard of judgment. If the Bible is judged by a modern scientific perspective that ignores its original literary and cultural context, this would be a misapplication of standards of testing for error. However, the presupposition that the Bible should be free from any kind of errors comes from a fundamentalist position (something that the Catholic Church has denounced, as well as some Evangelicals). Even by a proper and liberal study of the Bible, one must be allowed for possible errors, since the books were written by men. Removing the human authorship is bound to produce superstitious dogmas and superficial perception of "divine inspiration" given by men.

If one is to adjust his definition of inspiration, one just needs to rethink about the purpose behind ascribing a magical property to the Bible. The magical, superficial or supernatural property is ascribed to the Bible, and a certain list of books by men in history, which seems to be a protective layer of fence for their faith against criticism and questions. People desire to have a definite, absolute standards for their religious sources, be it a Church organization or the Bible version. Even those who defensively hold to the dogma of inerrancy, has largely limited it to the lost original manuscripts, implying that God was not interested in preserving "the definite", deductive, absolute infallible word.

The adherents of inerrancy would then incline to make their native Bible translation inerrant. Presumably, the KJV, however, there is no way to pick which among the hundreds of editions of that version and also among its authorised versions' editions should be considered the inerrant one. Those who want to ascribe that infallibility to Greek versions go for a particular Greek edition of the NT. The presuppositions doesn't change.

After flipping the burden of proof and reconsidering different characteristics and the scope of Bible, we can conclude and redefine inspiration which does not exclude possible minor errors of historical, scientific as well as theological details, since the books are written by men who are no more fallible than today's' believers. Thus, anything can be called divinely inspired since all good things belong to God, whatever is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Excellence of anything for the purpose of righteousness should be the standard for divine inspiration. In this way, we can ascribe divine inspiration to the great English missionaries and their Bible translations, such as Tyndale and KJV onwards, whatever contributed in growth of righteousness.

The test of errors varies based on perspective. For some, the scientific facts of evolution, and roundness of earth poses a threat to their dogmas. Thus, flat earth and science denial positions are preferred due to a weak level of knowledge. Majority of such believers already ascribe errors to certain politically incorrect inconvenient passages, such as the rules of position of women in the Church and culture, by twisting and ignoring the plain text. The affirmation of inerrancy does not absolve them from any disagreements with the Biblical words. The objective clearly seems to create an idol like physical source for their faith. Here, the Bible alone is created as the supreme source and authority, not the invisible God. Thus, any kind of error is inconceivable, just as any scratch or a broken organ from an idol is unacceptable for the devotees. The understanding of scripture was very different to the NT authors than it is to the modern believers. We should therefore not limit God's power to the insecurities and convenience of tradition of men.

Since God can reveal his message through fallible men, and there is no need for infallibility for the men to pass on divine truths, it is logical that there is no requirement to ascribe a special status and authority to the Bible. Most of the essential characterisation to those books, such as authorship and Canon list, are works of men anyway. It is also preposterous to ascribe "silence" to God by claiming that he had been silent or unable to reveal prophecies and revelations in this day. Treating the human authorship for the Bible results in a higher view of the scriptures, thus, leading to a greater range of understanding if when we treat them to be of human origin.

After realising the close correlation of inerrancy and inspiration, some scholars would tend to simply reject these dogmas, rather than trying to carve them according to their convenience. Thus, it is unnecessary to keep on redefining terms when the problem lies in reasoning (it is better to destroy the idol of inspiration). God does not inspire errors, however, the so-called errors of the men of God are hardly errors from a believer's perspective. For the unbeliever and weak-minded, everything is defiled because his conscience is weak (Titus 1:15). God's inspiration and guidance in our life can be understood with an inductive rather than deductive (something that requires absolute presuppositions or premises) reasoning.

We should give infallibility to God alone, and refrain from creating any idols. Naive Christians often object to Dr. Craig's argument that puts Jesus above the Bible.

Dr Craig writes in a QA on this topic. We Don’t Believe in Christ because We Believe in the Bible

So long as the New Testament documents are sufficiently reliable to establish the historicity of Jesus’ radical personal claims and the historicity of his crucifixion, burial, empty tomb, post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection, then you are warranted by the evidence in believing that Jesus rose from the dead and so was who he claimed to be. That suffices for a Christian commitment.

Even taken as ordinary, fallible human records, the New Testament documents have been shown to be reliable with respect to these facts. Too many Christians naively think that unless you presuppose biblical inspiration and inerrancy, the historicity of the life of Jesus goes down the drain. This attitude, far from showing confidence in the Bible, actually betrays a profound lack of confidence in its historical credibility. Without the theological assumptions of inspiration and inerrancy to hold it up, the Bible is implicitly taken to be untrustworthy on this view.

also see Grounds for Belief in Biblical Inspiration