Biblical Inerrancy and Interpretation

Some Christians, particularly evangelicals, believe in a concept known as biblical inerrancy. Take a look at any published writing on the matter, and you’ll quickly see the concept’s importance in today’s Christian culture: critic Rick Pidcock writes on baptistnews.com that “It has become a litmus test for orthodox belief”. Theologian Michael F. Bird’s adapted article on Zonderman Academic says “For many American evangelicals, inerrancy is kind of like your passport and residency visa within the evangelical tribe; without it you can expect to get deported.” Defendinginerrancy.com, a pro-inerrancy site, says “Inerrancy simply cannot be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.” But what does it mean?

Biblical inerrancy has a confusingly vague definition, further complicated by some people’s attempts to impose strict guidelines on what it can mean. In this post, we’ll explore what biblical inerrancy is, how it functions in the Church today, the ways it falls apart under scrutiny, and the tendency for evangelicals to cling to it tightly.

The Definition(s)

Taken at face value, the word inerrant literally means “without error.” So what constitutes an error in the Bible? And which Bible are we talking about? Well, it depends who you ask.

”The Chicago Statement On Biblical Inerrancy”, signed by ~300 evangelical Christians in 1978, is probably the most significant effort to reach a consensus on the definition of “biblical inerrancy”. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is also probably the most conservative version of this principle— meaning that it suggests a completely literalistic understanding of Scripture (e.g., Earth was literally created in 6 24-hour periods). Here’s a couple snippets:

2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.

…

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.

— The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

Many people have tried to define “biblical inerrancy” in different ways. Here’s a few more definitions:

So what I mean by the Bible being inerrant is that the biblical authors, with God as their guide, do not teach anything false or command as God’s will anything displeasing to God. Or to say it another way, What the authors intend for us to understand or obey, properly understood in its nearer and wider context, is true. It is not misleading. It is not errant. It is not false. It corresponds to the way things really are. It commends behaviors and attitudes that God really wills. And it raises many questions.

— John Piper, desiringgod.com

…inerrancy, simply means that the Bible is without error… This inerrancy isn’t just in passages that speak about salvation, but also applies to all historical and scientific statements as well. It is not only accurate in matters related to faith and practice, but it is accurate and without error regarding any statement, period…

— What Is Biblical Inerrancy? defendeninginerrancy.com

The doctrine of the authority and inerrancy of Scripture is that, as a corollary of the inspiration of Scripture, the God-breathed Scriptures are wholly true in all things that they assert in the original autographs and therefore function with the authority of God’s own words.

— Matthew Barrett, thegospelcoalition.org

Scripture, in the original manuscripts and when interpreted according to the intended sense, speaks truly in all that it affirms.

— Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The C.S. Lewis Institute, “The Inerrancy of Scripture”

Ask 100 different Christians what “biblical inerrancy” means, and you’ll get 100 different answers. But for the purposes of discussion, we can do better than that. From what I’ve found, most modern definitions of biblical inerrancy go something like this:

Salvific?

Before we move on, I think it’s important to point out that there are very few Christians who claim that biblical inerrancy is a salvific issue. Even the conservative Chicago Statement states the following:

Article XIX. WE AFFIRM that a confession of the full authority, infallibility, and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith. We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ. WE DENY that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.

A Shibboleth

If you wanted to know if someone was a Christian, what would you ask them?

Are you a Christian?

That might work for anthropologists, but if you’re applying to a seminary or pastor position, it doesn’t really cut it. As modern Western Christians, we like to structure our opinions into neat structures like denominations or statements of faith, and we need something more clear.

Do you believe in the Bible?

Ehh, it’s better, but still not really clear. You might get a “yes” from a Jesus-respecting atheist, or you may just get a huh? like, how? Because honestly, that question is not very clear.

Do you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture?

And there we have it. Finally, a question that will tell us if someone is really a Christian! Right?

At least, that’s how evangelicals use the question. If you want to attend Dallas Theological Seminary, you have to agree with “seven Christian essentials”, including:

7. the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.

A shibboleth is “a favorite saying of a sect or political group”, or “any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another” (Wikipedia). In an 2010 article on patheos.com, Roger Olsen writes:

In other words, “inerrancy” has become a shibboleth. So long as you affirm the word you can go on to define it however you want to and you’re still “in.”

After researching biblical inerrancy, I find myself agreeing more and more with Olsen’s words. You only have to look as far as basically any statement of faith or articles like Why biblical inerrancy should be a litmus test to see this in action.

Evangelicals use biblical inerrancy as a shibboleth, and almost as a form of virtue signaling— it’s like saying, “hey, I believe in the Bible!” But despite its significance in the evangelical community, biblical inerrancy falls apart under scrutiny.

”Death by A Thousand Qualifications”

In the same article, Olsen argues that the principle of biblical inerrancy must be qualified with so many statements that the term loses almost all meaning. Let’s look at some of those qualifications. Here’s our definition again:

Only the Autographs

Inerrancy only applies to the autographs, or the original writings of the Bible, which we don’t have today. Roger Olsen points out the obvious contradiction this introduces:

The biggest qualification is that only the original autographs were inerrant…Then no Bible we have is inerrant and therefore no Bible we have is authoritative… You can’t make authority depend on inerrancy and then say no existing Bible is inerrant without calling every Bible’s authority into question.

— Roger Olsen, Why inerrancy doesn’t matter, patheos.com

When Interpreted Correctly

For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:6

Inerrancy only applies when the Bible is correctly interpreted. Ask any two Christians about 1 Peter 4:6, and ask for their interpretation— you’ll likely get two different answers. And since interpretation by definition takes place outside the Bible, it will always be a matter of opinion¹.

How we interpret scripture also defines an “error”— a literalistic biblical inerrantist would consider it an error if David’s army included anything other than exactly 30,000 men (2 Samuel 6:1), but a more relaxed reading of scripture accommodates many mathematical or even historical errors in the name of metaphorical meaning.

The trouble is, many inerrantists mix up inerrancy and interpretation. Take, for example, the famous Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:

Article XV. WE AFFIRM the necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its literal, or normal, sense. The literal sense is the grammatical-historical sense, that is, the meaning which the writer expressed. Interpretation according to the literal sense will take account of all figures of speech and literary forms found in the text. WE DENY the legitimacy of any approach to Scripture that attributes to it meaning which the literal sense does not support.

Methods of interpretation don’t belong in a definition of biblical inerrancy. You don’t get to say “the Bible is perfect, but only when you interpret it our way.”

Only the Correct Bible

”Biblical inerrancy”, of course, only applies to the Bible. But, which Bible?

Does the Old Testament contain 39 books, as the Protestants claim? Or 46, according to the Catholics? Or 52, according to Greek and Russian Orthodox churches? Or more? Just take a look at this table— Christians don’t agree on a correct Bible.

In all fairness, I think it’s important to point out that the New Testament canon has a much greater consensus: see this table. Though, the oldest complete New Testament wasn’t written until ~300-400 AD.

Inerrancy, or Interpretation?

I have to agree with Olsen: when you really scrutinize biblical inerrancy, you end up reducing its definition to something so vague, it loses all practical meaning. Two Christians with radically different beliefs— perhaps even considering each other heretical— might still agree on the concept of inerrancy, but only because it is so broadly defined.

Perhaps that’s the point— that despite our interpretive differences, Christians can agree on a common source of authority. But while biblical inerrancy might unite Christians in theory, it does little to resolve the theological debates that shape our beliefs and practices. Consider these questions:

• Should we ban women from braiding their hear and wearing jewelry (1 Timothy 2:9), or is that a metaphor for being modest?
• Do the deuterocanonical books (AKA the apocrypha) line up with other Old Testament claims, and belong in the canon?
• Was the universe created in 7 day/night cycles, as Genesis 1 claims? Or is it a metaphor for the power of God and the importance of a Sabbath?
• Are we to believe that Adam, Noah, and Abraham were real people? Or simply characters in a story meant to portray God’s relationship with man?
• Does God predestine us into choosing Him, or do we have the free will to choose for ourselves?
• If you pray for physical healing and expect it, will it occur (James 5)?

These are not questions of inerrancy, they’re questions of interpretation. Despite this, many Christians twist the term “inerrancy” to include a fair bit of interpretation; this is a tragedy. Tying your own interpretations into the definition of “biblical inerrancy” is more than just a tragic appeal to authority; it’s an attempt to use God to justify your own personal truths.

In a desperate quest for objective truth, evangelicals are clinging to biblical inerrancy. But inerrancy doesn’t provide the answers we need— and if your definition does, you can be certain it’s full of interpretations. And in the words of Pastor Andrew Wilson, when the Bible is interpreted incorrectly, there is no limit to the nonsense we can assume it teaches.

This is post 1 in a series on biblical inerrancy.