CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES What We Believe and Why

Challenges to Inerrancy No inerrant manuscripts extant Human authors “accommodated” their message for their audience

No Inerrant Manuscripts Inerrancy applies only to the original manuscripts Original manuscripts are lost, only copies of copies are available Emphasis on inerrancy is thus unwarranted and untenable

No Inerrant Manuscripts Reponses:  Scholars know what 99% of the original words were  Context plus copies indicate what other 1% of words were  Available copies number in the thousands over millennia

No Inerrant Manuscripts  Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) show that the copies contain the same text as copies made over 2,000 years later  DSS reveal God protected and preserved His Word

No Inerrant Manuscripts  Most textual variants (different words/letters in different copies) involve spelling or other minor differences  Thus, the scholarly texts contain the same words as the originals

No Inerrant Manuscripts  Greek: The Greek New Testament (UBS4)  Greek: Novum Testamentum Graece (NA28)  Hebrew: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (MT)

No Inerrant Manuscripts  Inerrancy never applied to copies made by men  Copies do contain errors made by men, not God, that can and must be corrected  If originals contained errors, then God made errors, and God never errs

Authors “Accommodated” Their purpose was to instruct on matters of faith and behavior (“faith and practice”) They included commonly accepted factual errors in order to make message acceptable The errors that exist are not significant or numerous

Authors “Accommodated” Responses:  This view diminishes the divine author, emphasizing the human author  May imply Scripture not “God- breathed”/inspired, but God merely motivated ideas  Implies that God permitted or intended errors in His Word

Authors “Accommodated”  Implies God acted contrary to His character by lying Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

Authors “Accommodated” Hebrews 6:18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

Authors “Accommodated”  Accommodation by human authors creates a moral dilemma  They teach us to be moral like God Leviticus 11:44a ‘For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.

Authors “Accommodated” Ephesians 4:24-25 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another.

Authors “Accommodated” Ephesians 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;  Yet they behaved immorally by promoting known lies