I was pondering the above question with regard to those who reject inerrancy. If the Bible does contain errors (of which are documented as errors) then how does a person who rejects the Bible as the inerrant Word of God really read the Word of God? How do you decide which parts are inerrant and which parts are not? Do you reject all the miracles of the Bible or only some? For instance, since modern science holds that the universe is billions of years old and the Bible says that God made the world in six days, does that mean that you reject Genesis 1-2? If you hold to theistic evolution then do you reject the story of creation and the creation of man and the fall of man in Genesis 3? Do you skip over Genesis 1-11 and go directly to Genesis 12 and begin with Abram?
The issue of inerrancy and Bible reading is important. Bart Ehrman tells his students at the University of North Carolina to read the Bible as it is good reading and has impacted entire societies at large. While Ehrman rejects the Bible as the Word of God and he believes it was written and even plagiarized by fallible men, he does believe the Bible is a masterful work of literature. Yet Ehrman reads the Bible and then turns around and must reject nearly all of it because A) it has errors in it, B) it is not scientifically accurate, and C) it has numerous copies of which we cannot be sure that the copies we have are the original texts.
Now Ehrman does not claim to be a disciple of Jesus. In fact, I believe he claims to be an agnostic. He rejects Christianity as a man-made creation. But, those who reject inerrancy must side with Ehrman in that they cannot be sure that what they hold in their hands is the Word of God. Apart from a neo-Orthodox position that states that the Bible becomes the Word of God through divine illumination, the person reading the Bible who rejects inerrancy must assume that what they are reading perhaps is not actual Word of God.
As a disciple of Jesus, I strongly believe that the Holy Spirit inspired men (and perhaps a woman in Hebrews) to write the Bible. I believe that from Genesis to Revelation, we have the Word of God. It is accurate in all that it teaches. It is truthful in all that it says. The reason is that God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2) and the Holy Spirit moved upon men to write the Bible and He made sure that what they wrote is just what He wanted said (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:21). God, through His exhaustive foreknowledge, protected His Word from errors. As Daniel Wallace stated, “We have the Word of God in our hands especially in the footnotes.” Good point Dr. Wallace.
I praise God that the Bible that I have in my hands comes from the Hebrew and Greek texts that are inerrant in their original forms. While the ESV or the NIV are not perfect translations, they come from a perfect text written by the Spirit of God.
© 2011, Matt. All rights reserved.
