Yes, you can trust the Bible...

Michael Kruger is continuing his helpful series of posts entitled Does the Bible Ever Get it Wrong. These posts are in response to a series by Peter Enns denying the historical reliability and theological unity of the Bible. Dr. Kruger has assembled a team of world-class scholars to address various questions concerning the Bible's reliability.

Here they are so far:
Greg Beale  
Craig Blomberg 
Darrel Bock 

Unbelief is not a virtue

I really like Michael Kruger.

Dr. Krueger is a Professor of New Testament and President of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC. He is also author of the enormously helpful Canon Revisited and The Question of Canon. In addition he is proprietor of one of the best blogs going - Canon Fodder.

Recently, Dr. Kruger began a series of posts in response to Dr. Pete Enns' series over at Petheos. Dr. Enns, formerly of Westminster Seminary is now teaching at Eastern University (presumably more amenable to a lack of confidence in the Scriptures). It is a sad thing to see the devolution of a man's faith played out on social media. Appropriately, Dr. Enns entitled his corner at Patheos "Rethinking Biblical Christianity." Once you get past the stunning hubris of the title, it is clear that Dr. Enns' project is not merely to deny the inerrancy of Scripture but to change the way we think about Christianity itself. I suppose he deserves credit for understanding that once you throw out confidence in Scripture, a redefinition of Christianity becomes necessary.

I am thankful that men like Michael Kruger, Greg Beale, Darrell Bock, Andreas Kostenberger, and others are not content to sit back and yawn at a fellow scholar's zeal to popularize skepticism and unbelief among ill informed evangelicals.

Can you trust the Bible?

The following are some excellent resources addressing the doctrine of the Scripture's inerrancy:

Articles/Audio:
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics

The Inerrancy of Scripture part 1 (audio) - Wayne Grudem
The Inerrancy of Scripture part 2 (audio) - Wayne Grudem
The Inerrancy of Scripture part 3 (audio) - Wayne Grudem

Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy by John Woodbridge

Why We Believe The Bible (video/audio) from John Piper and Bethlehem Baptist Church

Books:
God Has Spoken by J.I. Packer
Taking The Bible At Its Word by Paul Wells
Inspiration And Authority of the Bible by B.B. Warfield
Thy Word Is Truth by E.J. Young
The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism by G.K. Beale
Christ And The Bible by John Wenham
Do Historical Matters Matter To Faith?  Hoffmeier & Magary (ed.)
Inerrancy and Worldview by Vern Poythress

Can I Trust The Bible?

The latest edition of the Mortification of Spin is up and running:

Todd and Carl interview Steve Nichols, author and professor of Christianity and Culture at Lancaster Bible College, and they respectfully dub their guest the "Peter Pan of reformed theology." While Steve may look young, he is certainly insightful when it comes to this episode's topics of discussion: the doctrine of Scripture and the current relevancy of church history. If you can put up with the hosts' frequent wise cracks, listen in to hear Steve raise what he calls the compelling question of the modern age.

Here are a few of Dr. Nichols excellent books:

The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World

Ancient Word, Changing Worlds

Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches us About Suffering and Salvation

J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought

The Constant Reader

P&R Publishing will soon be releasing a new title dealing with the trustworthiness of Scripture. It is entitled Did God Really Say? Affirming The Truthfulness and Trustworthiness of Scripture. The book is edited by Dr. David Garner who is also a contributor.

"Current discussion about the nature of Scripture circles around a plethora of topics, each of them painfully complicated. Here a handful of scholars tackles seven of them -- including the nature and development of the canon, the place of Warfield, God's relation to language, and the views of N. T. Wright. With firmness and fairness, not to say remarkable simplicity, these writers identify the fundamental issues and bring clarity to their joyful confessionalism.
- D. A. Carson

"Just when the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture seemed matters of agreement among conservative theologians, along comes a new day and calls everything into question again. Kudos, then, to David Garner and his panel of writers for addressing the doctrine of Scripture again. Did God Really Say clears away the rubble of contemporary error and prejudice making way for clear thinking and orthodox confession on an issue of vital importance. Nothing could be more vital for our times and we are in their debt.”
- Derek Thomas, Minister of Preaching and Teaching, First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, SC and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, RTS

Here are a few more titles dealing with the trustworthiness of Scripture:
Christ And The Bible by John Wenham
Jesus And The Eyewitnesses by Richard Baukham
The Historical Reliability Of The Gospels by Craig Blomberg
On The Reliability Of The Old Testament by K.A. Kitchen

More Helpful Books on the Doctrine of Scripture

Last week I posted a list of books dealing with the Scripture's inerrancy. Here are a few more titles that are quite helpful:

Understanding Scripture, Grudem, Collins, & Schreiner editors

How To Read The Bible Through The Jesus Lens by Michael Williams

Canon Revisited by Michael Kruger

Scripture and Truth, Carson & Woodbridge editors

Inerrancy And Worldview by Vern Poythress

The Constant Reader

This month, Eerdmans is set to release a book attacking the doctrine of the Scripture's inerrancy. It is surely well written and accessible to the well-read layman. If the author holds to the positions in his previous book and articles for Biologos (all of which attacked the trustworthiness of the Bible) then this new volume will cause unsuspecting readers to question and perhaps even reject the Bible as God's Word.

With that in mind I would like to recommend to you a selection of books which affirm the Bible's trustworthiness as the very Word of God.

The Doctrine Of The Word Of God by John Frame

The Inspiration And Authority Of The Bible by B. B. Warfield

Do Historical Matters Matter To Faith? Hoffmeier & Magary editors

Words Of Life by Timothy Ward

The Erosion Of Inerrancy by Greg Beale

The Infallible Word Stonehouse & Woolley editors

The God-Breathed Scriptures by E. J. Young

The Trustworthiness Of God Trueman & Helm editors

Beale and Trueman on Biblical Inerrancy

Thanks to Justin Taylor for posting these videos of the Q & A with Drs. Greg Beale and Carl Trueman from the 2011 Clarus Conference:

What is Inerrancy?

One of my favorite new sites on the web is CREDO. It is an on-line magazine, blog, media and book review site. The inaugural edition of Credo Magazine is dedicated to the doctrine of Scripture. In it, Matthew Barrett addresses the doctrine of the Scripture's inerrancy. In defining inerrancy, Barrett writes:

The inerrancy of Scripture simply means that all of the Bible, in its original manuscripts, never asserts anything that is contrary to fact or in error, but always speaks the truth on every matter it discusses. Scripture, and all of Scripture, is free from falsehood, fraud, and deceit. While the Bible does not inform us of every fact on any particular subject, nevertheless, in what it does address on any subject it is true and without fabrication (2 Pet 1:21). One of the best definitions of inerrancy comes from Paul Feinberg when he writes, “Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences” (Inerrancy, 294).

Unfortunately, many opponents of inerrancy grossly misunderstand its meaning. Feinberg, whose work dates back to 1980, outlines several misunderstandings of inerrancy (299). However, many, if not most, of these misunderstandings of inerrancy prevail today.

1. Inerrancy does not demand strict adherence to the rules of grammar.
2. Inerrancy does not exclude the use either of figures of speech or of a given literary genre.
3. Inerrancy does not demand historical or semantic precision.
4. Inerrancy does not demand the technical language of modern science.
5. Inerrancy does not require verbal exactness in the citation of the Old Testament by the New.
6. Inerrancy does not demand that the Logia Jesu (the sayings of Jesus) contain the ipsissima verba (the exact words) of Jesus, only the ipsissima vox (the exact voice).
7. Inerrancy does not guarantee the exhaustive comprehensiveness of any single account or of combined accounts where those are involved.
8. Inerrancy does not demand the infallibility or inerrancy of the noninspired sources used by biblical writers.

Each of these is worth further investigation, but for our purposes I only wish to highlight one, which crops its head up relentlessly in every generation. Inerrancy does not mean that there must always be semantic and historical precision. One can be truthful without being totally precise. If someone asks where I was born, I would likely answer California. Have I been untruthful since, to be precise, I was born in Southern California, and not just Southern California but Glendale, California, which is a city within Los Angeles, and not just in Glendale but in a hospital, room 452 to be exact? It should be obvious that my original answer was adequate, and therefore truthful in every way. No error was committed. Similarly, the Bible is not in error should it estimate, round up, give an average, or speak in generalities at times. The authors of Scripture are situated culturally and utilize simile, parables, hyperbole, metaphor, and many other forms of speech just as we do. None of these preclude the Bible’s ability to speak truthfully. Too often we impose our assumption that to be truthful there must be absolute technicality, when in reality we live in a world where reliability does not necessarily require meticulous exactitude. As The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy observes, “Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.”

Read the entire issue HERE. Read it in PDF form HERE.

Hath God Said?

Many years have passed since the serpent deceived the woman. His work, however, continues. And, as you will notice, the deception often seems so plausible; so positive.

The following video is an exercise in how to completely undermine the Word of God while professing to love it.

"A High Sanctuary of Authority"

There are uninformed individuals who hold that the doctrine of the Bible's inerrancy is an invention of "Old Princeton" (Warfield and the Hodges); the fruit of modernist categories. This is simply not true, of course.

The following two statements are from Augustine, the 5th century Bishop of Hippo:

"I have learned to yield this [total] respect and honor only to the canonical books of Scripture. Of these alone do I most firmly believe that their authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me to be opposed to the truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it...Concerning which it would be wrong to doubt that they are free from error"

"It seems to me that most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books; that is to say, that the men by whom the Scriptures have been given to us and committed to writing did put down in these books anything false...For if you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement as made in the way of duty, there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to anyone difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally and under a sense of duty, the author declared what was not true."

What ever happened to inspiration?

That is what I wonder when I read Karl Giberson and the other folks at Biologos. The mission of Biologos is to help the church embrace theistic evolution. Part of that project is to reject the historicity of Adam and Eve, the fall, the flood and a great many other events recorded in the Bible. Of course, this cannot be done apart from a diminished view of the Bible's inspiration. To help this along, last year Biologos ran a series of articles by Kent Sparks savaging the doctrine of the Bible's inerrancy. The message is clear: "We love the Bible, but only the true bits. Those parts of the Bible that are intellectually unsatisfying for us must be rejected."

Al Mohler comments on a recent article by Dr. Giberson published by CNN's Belief Blog and a new book coauthored by Francis Collins and Giberson entitled The Language of Science and Faith.

In his new book, The Language of Science and Faith, written with Francis S. Collins, readers will find this strange paragraph:

Biblical interpretation falls short without an understanding of biblical inspiration, of course, as we do not suggest that the Bible is simply another book to be interpreted. But we do a great disservice to the concept and power of inspiration when we reduce it to mere factual accuracy, as though God’s role were nothing more than a divine fact checker, preventing the biblical authors from making mistakes. A dead and lifeless text, like the phone book, can be factually accurate. The inspiration of the Bible is dynamic and emerges through engagement with readers.

That paragraph is, quite simply, one of the most ridiculous statements concerning the Bible one might ever imagine. Who has ever argued that the divine inspirationof the Bible is reduced to “mere factual accuracy”? Giberson’s dismissive language about God as “nothing more than a divine fact checker” is sheer nonsense. Who has ever made such a proposal?

The conclusion of the paragraph is an embarrassing non sequitur. It is patently untrue that only a “dead and lifeless text, like a phone book” can be factually accurate. Giberson and Collins reveal their true understanding of biblicalinspiration when they locate it, not in the authorship of the text at all, but in the modern act of reading the text.

As they make their argument for theistic evolution, Giberson and Collins embrace a form of Open Theism and argue, quite consistently with arguments common to BioLogos, against the historicity of Adam and Eve.

They end the book with their own version of “The Grand Narrative of Creation.” This is their climactic conclusion of the narrative:

Eventually, the most advanced of the life forms on the planet, human beings, become deeply religious. Throughout the history of our species belief in God or gods has been close to universal. Abstractions like right and wrong, the meaning of life, the where everything came from have become critically important questions. The religious impulse developed into one of the deepest aspects of our complicated understanding of ourselves.

They conclude: “And God saw that it was good.”

Here is their own rendering of what it looks like when the “Book of Nature” trumps the Bible. Just compare their “Grand Narrative of Creation” with Genesis.

Read the entire post HERE.

The error of assuming error

B.B. Warfield the great biblical scholar and defender of the Bible's inerrancy challenged skeptics to give the New Testament the same benefit of the doubt that secular texts were given:

It is not enough to point to passages difficult to harmonize; they cannot militate against verbal inspiration unless it is not only impossible for us to harmonize them, but also unless they are of such a character that they are clearly contradictory, so that if one be true the other cannot by any possibility be true. No such case has as yet been pointed out. Why should the New Testament harmonics be dealt with on other principles than those which govern men in dealing with like cases among profane writers? There, it is a first principle of historical science that any solution which affords a possible method of harmonizing any two statements is preferable to the assumption of inaccuracy or error—whether those statements are found in the same or different writers. To act on any other basis, it is clearly acknowledged, is to assume, not prove, error. We ask only that this recognized principle be applied to the New Testament.

—B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (p 439).

Answering Ehrman

Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar who rejects most of the New Testament, is, ironically enough, a graduate of both Moody and Wheaton. He is also the go-to guy for the media when they are looking for a "Christian" to bash Christianity. Ehrman's books sell well and many nice church-going folks have seen their faith devestated by his arguments. Now, a helpful website has been established to answer Ehrman's charges.

Also, if you would like to go deeper, check out the outstanding The Heresy of Orthodoxy which dismantles Ehrman's foundational assumptions.

Full Confidence Follow-Up

A wonderful weekend was had at Church of the Saviour. The Full Confidence Conference was a blessing. The opening address by David Garner was a powerful warning against allowing skeptical views of God's Word to take root in the church and its institutions. He rightly pointed out that often times the skeptics are well meaning and decent people who truly believe they are helping the church by lowering its views of the trustworthiness of Scripture. However, when this well-meaning error is met with too charitable responses from the orthodox the results are always devastating. As Dr. Garner said, "Undiscerning charity waters the seeds of future heresy." He went on to say that "the health of the church in each generation corresponds directly to its view of God's Word." How often do we have to see the tragic results of a skeptical approach to Scripture before we will stop making a place at the table for those who challenge the trustworthiness of God's Word? Dr. Garner's exposition of 1 Peter 1:16ff was outstanding.

Carl Trueman's two addresses focused on the historical roots of the Scripture's authority, inerrancy, and clarity. Anyone who believes church history is a dry topic has not heard Carl Trueman lecture. Dr. Trueman first made a convincing case against the idea that inerrancy was an innovation of Old Princeton. He showed quite clearly that the idea of inerrancy existed in the post-apostolic Fathers. He unpacked the early Father's approach to the Bible's inscripturation, inspiration, and purpose. Through it all, it became quite clear that the Scripture's inerrancy was not an innovation of Warfield and Hodge. In his second address Dr. Trueman dealt with the Scripture's clarity as presented and defended by Martin Luther. Special focus was given to Luther's debate with Erasmus. While Erasmus believed that Scripture is fundamentally obscure, Luther believed quite rightly that the Scriptures are fundamentally clear. That is, the Bible is clear enough that the average Christian lay person can understand the fundamentals of doctrine as held forth in the Bible.

Lane Tipton gave a stirring address on the Christ-centeredness of the Bible. In his opening statement he connected the Scripture's inerrancy with the Gospel: "Inerrancy serves the Gospel." In other words, denying the Bible's inerrancy always seems to go hand-in-hand with denying its Christ-centerdness. Dr. Tipton dealt with an issue of which most laypersons are probably unaware. That is, within evangelical circles it is becoming more common to dismiss the intrinsic Christ-centeredness of Scripture. These scholars and pastors hold that the apostles read Christ back into the Old Testament; that as originally written the Old Testament does not directly speak of Christ. Of course this denies the very hermeneutic of Jesus who taught us that the law and the prophets speak of Him (Luke 24). Dr. Tipton's address/exposition was outstanding and I am hoping it will be available soon for more people to hear. His central assertion is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the message of his dying and rising) is "trans-testamental." "The Gospel is foundationally embedded in the Old Testament...The Old Testament sets forth the same Gospel as did Paul." Excellent.

Over at Ref21 Carlton Wynne and Liam Goligher have posted articles relevant to Full Confidence.

Inerrancy and Authority

Kevin DeYoung has posted several excellent articles on biblical inerrancy. His post from September 24 I found particularly helpful because he points out the link between the inerrancy of the Bible and its authority.

Here is the entire post:

Perhaps you’ve seen the conversation among Tim Keller, Alister McGrath, Brian McLaren, and Dempsey Rosales-Acosta on biblical authority from the Q conference a few months ago. I’m not sure it’s worth 38 minutes of your time, but I found Tim Keller’s remarks around the 5-minute mark to be especially helpful.

The first topic discussed by the panel was inerrancy–What does it mean?, Is it a helpful term?, Where did it come from?, etc.

McGrath’s response was disappointing. He explained that he doesn’t like the term because it sounds too self-assured, like we have everything figured out and our interpretations are all correct. He prefers to speak of the Bible as “reliable and trustworthy.”

McLaren’s remarks were frustratingly predictable and predictably frustrating. After asserting that many people in the room will get fired if they don’t affirm inerrancy, McLaren went on to talk about the atrocities Christians have committed by using an “inerrant” Bible (e.g., slavery, killing Native Americans).

When it came time for Keller to talk (around 5:20) the discussion had already moved passed inerrancy, but he deliberately brought the conversation back to the term.

Just for the record: I have no problem at all talking about inerrancy. As a pastor if I actually say to someone, any layperson–if I believe in the authority of the Bible but not the inerrancy of the Bible, they’re going to say, “what’s the difference?” And as soon as I begin to explain it, their eyes glaze over. And they’re going to think of it as a distinction without a difference. If I say it’s not authoritative in all its parts and it’s not inerrant, they understand that. And if I say it’s authoritative and inerrant, they understand that. But to say it’s authoritative and not inerrant, I’ve never in 35 years of working with people been able to get that.

Keller is absolutely right. Most people in the pew assume that when we say the Bible is trustworthy and authoritative we don’t also mean it makes some mistakes. For them, inerrancy, whether they know the term or now, goes hand in hand with a reliable, authoritative Bible.

I remember several years ago having a conversation with a deacon at another church. He was asking me why I chose one seminary over another. I tried to explain that the seminary he was asking about (the one I didn’t attend) did not believe in
inerrancy. This was a smart man, a lawyer in fact, but he had never heard of the term. So I explained that inerrancy simply means the Bible, in the original manuscripts, doesn’t make any mistakes in anything it affirms. I’ll never forget his response: “Isn’t that what all Christians believe?” He grew up in the church and heard his whole life that the Bible was true, reliable, and authoritative. He was not familiar with the term inerrancy and yet he assumed that’s exactly what all those other words implied.

Here’s the bottom line: if we try to parse some fine distinction between infallibility and inerrancy or between reliability and inerrancy, the average churchgoer will think we’re just trying to avoid a label for some reason or just trying to hide something. And very often they’ll be right on both accounts.

Here is the entire series of posts:

Did John Calvin believe in Inerrancy?

Does the Bible Teach Science?

Whose Afraid of Inerrancy?

An Argument Discredited

Clark Pinnock - A Modern Parable?

Clark Pinnock died on Sunday at the age of seventy-three. Dr. Pinnock was a theologian who stirred up no small amount of controversy during his life. Early in his career Pinnock was a conservative of the fundamentalist sort. A strong advocate for the Bible's inerrancy, Dr. Pinnock (a Canadian) was influential in warning Southern Baptists about their slide into theological liberalism. During his tenure at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary he taught young pastors to have confidence in the full trustworthiness of God's Word even writing an influential book A Defense of Biblical Infallibility (1967). He thus became instrumental in the conservative resurgence in the SBC.

However, Clark Pinnock ultimately retreated from almost every theological tenet he once contended for so valiantly. He retreated from his Calvinistic convictions and embraced Arminianism. He came to believe that if man were to be truly free then God must not be truly sovereign. In time, Pinnock became the unacknowledged leader of the "Openness of God" movement which teaches that God possesses no foreknowledge of future events. What is more, Openness theology, not surprisingly, holds that God has no sovereignty over those events that are yet to come. The future is...open.

Pinnock would come to deny the necessity of faith in Christ if one was to be saved. He denied the imputed righteousness of Christ, the doctrine of Christ's substitutionary atonement, and the historic doctrine of hell and God's judgement. But it all began with denying the doctrine for which he once fought: the Bible's inerrancy. After abandoning inerrancy, Pinnock called upon evangelicals to not seek coalescence around inerrancy but instead to look to the doctrine of Jesus' atoning sacrifice as that which provides evangelical unity. Certainly, the doctrine of Christ's atoning work on the cross is central not only to our faith but our unity as well. But of course, if you follow the theological evolution of Clark Pinnock it was not long before he began to deny Christ's blood atonement. Once the inerrancy of God's Word is denied then it is usually not long before other doctrines are tossed into the dustbin. If inerrancy is abandoned for not being "intellectually satisfying" then can Christ's deity, virgin birth, atonement, and resurrection last long? For Clark Pinnock the answer was an unfortunate "no."

Certainly our condolences go to Dr. Pinnocks friends and family. He died of Alzheimer's which is a sad end for such an intelligent man or any man for that matter.

According to Dr. Pinnock's theology, God did not know that he would contract this terrible disease. What is more, God had no control over the circumstances. He could only watch and hope for the best along with Clark's friends and family. What a sad and pathetic god. But for Pinnock, Greg Boyd and the other advocates of Openness Theology, we can only be assured of God's goodness if He is completely unresponsible for the unpleasant things that come our way. It is as if they have said, "You can believe that God is good so long as you believe he is incompetent."

What a sad distortion of the God who reveals Himself in Scripture. He declares the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10). He is the God who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Eph 1:11). God is sovereign over the weather. He is sovereign over his enemies. He is sovereign over cancer cells and earthquakes. He is sovereign over the salvation of his people. And God is sovereign over the number of our days. What a comfort these truths could have been for Clark Pinnock in his later days.

You can read a wonderful article on Clark Pinnock by Russell Moore HERE.

Also, you can read a more sobering assessment of Pinnock by Scott Clark HERE.

Can the Bible be Trusted?

In an article posted today, Al Mohler observes that the battle over the Bible's inerrancy is heating up once again. Since 1995 and the publication of Inspiration and Incarnation by Pete Enns the new battle over inerrancy has moved well within the "big tent" of evangelicalism. Kenton Sparks' book God's Word in Human Words added fuel to the fire by accusing Scripture of not only historical and cosmological errors but theological and moral errors as well.

Mohler writes:

God’s Word in Human Words is an erudite book with a comprehensive argument. Kenton Sparks does not misunderstand the evangelical doctrine of biblical inerrancy — he understands it and sees it as intellectually disastrous. “So like any other book,” he asserts, “the Bible appears to be a historically and culturally contingent text and, because of that, it reflects the diverse viewpoints of different people who lived in different times and places.” But a contingent text bears all the errors of its contingent authors, and Sparks fully realizes this.

The serialized articles by Sparks appear at the BioLogos Web site, a site with one clear agenda — to move evangelicals toward a full embrace of evolutionary theory. In this context, Sparks understands that the affirmation of biblical inerrancy presents a huge obstacle to the embrace of evolution. The “evidential threshold” has been crossed, he insists, and the Bible has come up short. The biblical writers were simply trapped within the limits of their own ancient cosmology and observations.

But Sparks presses far beyond this argument, accusing the Bible of presenting immoral teachings, citing “biblical texts that strike us as down-right sinister or evil.” The Bible, he suggests, “exhibits all the telltale signs of having been written by finite, fallen human beings who erred in the ways that human beings usually err.”

When Peter Enns and Kenton Sparks argue for an incarnational model of inspiration and biblical authority, they are continuing an argument first made long ago — among evangelicals, at least as far back as the opening salvos of the battle over biblical inerrancy. Sparks, however, takes the argument further. He understands that the incarnational model implicates Jesus. He does not resist this. Jesus, he suggests, “was a finite person who grew up in Palestine.” While asserting that he affirms the historic Christian creeds and “traditional Christian orthodoxy,” Sparks proposes that Jesus made routine errors of fact.

His conclusion: “If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, [and/or] John wrote Scripture without error.”

That is a breath-taking assumption, to say the very least. But, even in its shocking audacity, it serves to reveal the clear logic of the new battle-lines over biblical inerrancy. We now confront open calls to accept and affirm that there are indeed errors in the Bible. It is demanded that we accept the fact that the human authors of the Bible often erred because of their limited knowledge and erroneous assumptions about reality. We must, it is argued, abandon the claim that the Bible is a consistent whole. Rather, we are told to accept the claims that the human authors of Scripture were just plain wrong in some texts — even in texts that define God and his ways. We are told that some texts are just “down-right sinister or evil.”

And, note clearly, we are told that we must do this in order to save Evangelicalism from an intellectual disaster.

Of course, accepting this demand amounts to a theological disaster of incalculable magnitude. Rarely has this been more apparent and undeniable. The rejection of the Bible’s inerrancy will please the evangelical revisionists, but it will rob the church of its secure knowledge that the Bible is indeed true, trustworthy and fully authoritative.

Kenton Sparks and the new evangelical revisionists are now making some of the very arguments that earlier opponents of inerrancy attempted to deny. In this sense, they offer great clarity to the current debate. Their logic is clear. They argue that the human authors of the Bible were not protected from error, and their errors are not inconsequential. We are talking about nothing less than whether the Bible truthfully reveals to us the nature, character, acts, and purposes of God.

Read the entire article HERE.

In September Church of the Saviour will be hosting an important event. It is called Full Confidence and will be held on September 24 and 25. You can register HERE for only $15.

Where rejection of biblical orthodoxy ultimately leads

Michael Dowd is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a graduate of Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is also enthusiastic about the rise of the new atheists. A self-proclaimed "evangelist" for evolution, Rev. Dowd's words seem eerily similar to some of the postings at Biologos about God, evolution, and inerrancy. I point this out because many of Dowd's views would, at this point anyway, be rejected (I suppose) by some of the scholars who post at Biologos. My question is "why?" Once the criteria for whether or not I will accept what the Bible says is my own moral sensibilities or what happens to be "intellectually satisfying" to me then everything in the Bible is up for grabs.

One of Dowd's recent comments was indistinguishable for some recent comments from an Old Testament scholar at Biologos. Dowd rejects God as He is revealed in the Bible as "brutal, cruel, vindictive, and genocidal." It seems inevitable. Let a man reject the full trustworthiness of the Bible as God's Word and he will then make a god in his own image; a god that will be satisfying to his intellectually autonomous self.

Al Mohler has written an article commenting on some of Dowd's recent pronouncements.

Michael Dowd argues that Christians should thank God for the New Atheists. A self-styled “evangelist” for evolution, Dowd recently preached a sermon in Oklahoma City in which he called for nothing less than a rejection of biblical Christianity and the embrace of a spirituality rooted in an embrace of evolution and a rejection of the supernatural.

A few weeks ago, a reporter called me for comment after Dowd had made a similar argument on his Web site, “ThankGodforEvolution.com.” In more recent days, Dowd has responded directly to my comments. Without doubt, his argument deserves a closer look.

In his 2007 book, Thank God for Evolution, Dowd recounts that he, along with his wife, Connie Barlow, decided in 2002 to go on the road as “evolutionary evangelists.” As he explains, “We offer a view of our collective evolutionary journey that frees the imagination, touches the heart, and leaves people wanting more.” An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Theological Seminary), Dowd now finds his passion in spreading his message of “the epic of evolution” or “the Great Story.”

Read the entire article HERE.

What Jesus said about the Scriptures

The latest issue of The White Horse Inn focuses on what Jesus said about the Scriptures. You will notice that Jesus' opinion of the Scripture's reliability is far different from that of the bloggers at Biologos.

Having established in previous programs that the New Testament documents are the most reliable texts of ancient history, the hosts in this program discuss the way Jesus throughout these texts speaks of the Old Testament Scriptures. Are these a collection of myths and fables with helpful moral lessons? Is one interpretation just as good as the next? Since Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, his view of Scripture may be worth considering above all others (originally broadcast April 29, 2007).

Check it out HERE.