Hi @alison, thank you for raising this important question. I think it is a great way to become familiar with the issues surrounding the topic of inerrancy, which sometimes keep people from trusting in Jesus. As someone who came to a faith in Christ from Hinduism by reading the Bible, I can experientially say that there is power in God’s word to change lives just as Hebrews 4:12 claims. According to 2 Peter 1:21, I believe that the Holy Spirit guided the writing of scripture, I believe in the divine authority of God’s word that can stand against the enemy (Ephesians 6:17, Matthew 4: 4, 7, 10), I believe the Bible is all true (John 17:17, Psalm 119:160), that it is necessary for our sanctification (2 Timothy 3:16), that the word of God will not pass away (Matthew 24:35, Matthew 5:18) and we need the Lord’s guidance to understand the Word ( 2 Timothy 2:7). If our spiritual growth and salvation is entirely dependent on the trustworthiness and truthfulness of the Bible, I don’t think I can encourage the possibility of errors (things that don’t correspond to reality) in the Bible. If the Bible did contain error, what would be the basis of separating truth from error and who would be the authority? If it contained error, could we still proclaim Sola Scriptura ? If it did contain error on the natural sciences, how could we have confidence in what it says about spiritual matters? If it contained error, would it change our approach to reading the Bible and make it difficult for us to submit to it impeding our spiritual growth? If it contained error, would it also reflect badly on God who is not able to stay true to His word and accomplish it? There seems to be a lot at stake if we allowed the possibility of error in the Bible.
Yet there are several issues that need to be understood and engaged with while we ascribe to inerrancy of the Bible and we need to be careful with what we include under that term. I think there may be some things which we may not fully understand but may be progressively revealed with time just as Christ revealed things to the apostles that the prophets of past longed to understand (Luke 10:24).
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In my own experience I have seen the doctrine of inerrancy used to mean inerrancy of a particular interpretation. For ex. Literal reading of Genesis 1. If there was evening and morning before the sun and moon were created, I sometimes wonder if the first day was twenty four hours long. Is the story of eating the forbidden fruit to be understood symbolically or literally? So there needs to be room for considering alternative explanations without sacrificing the foundational truths required for explaining the gospel and salvation. I feel more comfortable with the idea of inerrancy of a message after proper consideration of genre, context, and other literary elements. Yet, I wonder if we fallible humans will ever know the intended inerrant message in all of the Bible.
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Are all the words in the Bible inspired by the Holy Spirit? Or are there places where we must see more of a human role toward the purposes inspired by God in these biblical authors? One example that comes to mind is 1 Corinthians 7:12, where Paul says he is stating his opinion not the Lord’s, OR in 2 Corinthians 12:2, where Paul confessed that he didn’t know how a man was caught up in heaven. I personally am more inclined to think that all information in scripture was intended to be there by God, with some parts of scripture being direct revelatory words from the Lord and some parts being personal accounts with limitations of human language and knowledge but truthful.
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How are we to understand the discrepancies in some gospel accounts on minor details? (Healing of blind man - Matthew 20: 29-34, Mark 10: 46-52, Luke 18: 35-43). In my view, God may have intended for those discrepancies to be there to lend more credibility to the narrative of different eyewitness accounts. I don’t think we need to view these contradictions as errors.
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Jesus makes statements in the New Testament that confirm the stories of the Old Testament such as the story of Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood and the story of Jonah. Its difficult to make sense of these stories scientifically but with God miracles are possible. I hope one day things will become clearer but considering the rest of the truth that Jesus shared, I trust that we will gain understanding on these with time.
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The doctrine of inerrancy states that it only applies to the original autographs of the authors of the Bible. If God made a promise to preserve His Word, I don’t understand why He would allow textual variants in the manuscripts we now have. So to me this suggests that inerrancy may need to be applied mainly to the overall message but not every word of the Bible. As none of us describe the same event in exactly the same words every time, I dont think we need to expect that of biblical authors.
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Some people claim mythical stories of the ancient near east play a role in the description of historical accounts in the Bible. I can understand God using culture and language of the audience to communicate truths to people, but God using pagan stories to communicate His story seems unlikely. Usually the counterfiets borrow from the true story rather than the other way around.
Some of such issues and more are covered in the book “Five views on biblical inerrancy” which I have yet to read fully. Its all a new area for me but I have just written down some points that I too have wrestled with as I read on this topic online. I am sure my understanding on this topic will continue to evolve as I learn more. I think the most important thing however is not what we just say about inerrancy but how careful we are in our interpretations. When people make the Bible say more than it actually does even on unclear topics, even inerrantists end up binding our conscience in areas where the Lord has given freedom, which can be devastating to our spiritual growth. Thanks again for the question. I feel I have learnt something new thinking about it.