04 What Does Inerrancy Mean?
What Does Inerrancy Mean?
Definitions of inerrancy are not plentiful! Many errantists equate inerrancy with infallibility, and then limit its scope to matters of faith and practice or to revelational matters or to the message of salvation.
“The Bible is infallible, as I define that term, but not inerrant. That is, there are historical and scientific errors in the Bible, but I have found none on matters of faith and practice” (Stephen T. Davis, The Debate about the Bible [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977], p. 115). At least that is an honest distinction between infallibility and inerrancy. The Lausanne Covenant declared the Bible to be “inerrant in all that it affirms.” The phrase is admittedly flexible, since it may allow for errors in areas like creation where, according to some interpreters, the Bible is not affirming historical facts. Both inerrantists and errantists could subscribe to that statement. The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy in its Chicago statement affirmed inerrancy in a brief statement that the “Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching.” Then followed nineteen articles to further describe and explain inerrancy. That brief statement, unlike the Lausanne declaration, would be unsatisfactory to errantists. If there were any doubt about that, certainly the nineteen-article elaboration would exclude errantists’ agreeing with it. The dictionary defines inerrancy as “being without error.” Most definitions of inerrancy share that negative description. The question raised then by that definition is, What is error? Can the Bible use approximations and still be without error? Can a New Testament writer quote freely from the Old Testament and claim that the resultant quotation is without error? Can a biblical writer use the language of appearances without communicating error? Can there exist different accounts of the same event without involving error?
Admittedly, the data of Scripture often includes approximations, free quotations, language of appearances, different accounts of the same occurrence. Can that data support a definition of inerrancy as “being without error?” Obviously, the data and the definition must harmonize if that is a correct definition of what the Bible teaches about its own inerrancy.
Perhaps the tension would be erased if we defined inerrancy positively-the inerrancy of the Bible means simply that the Bible tells the truth. Truth can and does include approximations, free quotations, language of appearances, and different accounts of the same event as long as those do not contradict. For example, if you were to report to me that a mutual friend had a hundred-thousand dollar income last year, I might well say (especially if I had never considered him to be a rich man), “Are you telling me the truth?” When you reply, “Yes,” that would be an inerrant reply, even though his income for reporting to the Internal Revenue Service was $100,537. That approximation would tell the truth. Or if I said, “Sunrise over the Grand Canyon is one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen.” And if you replied, “Really, is that so?” to which I said, “Yes, that’s true,” my statement with its own use of language of appearance would tell the truth, although the sun does not literally rise over the Grand Canyon. Does the Bible say not to lie? Yes, it says do not lie. Is that a true statement? Of course, though it is also true (but not more true) to say that the Bible says, “Lie not one to another.” But the free quotation tells the truth. Or again, my wife told me that when she saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, a soldier fainted and fell on the ground. But the newspaper reported that on the same day three men fainted. That was also a true report. If my wife had said that only one man fainted, her report would have been wrong. Actually three did, but she focused only on the one nearest to where she was standing. She may even have noticed that the others also fainted, but simply did not report that. Nevertheless, her statement was true.
If 1 Corinthians 10:8 says 23,000 died in one day and Numbers 25:9 records 24,000 but does not add the restriction “in one day,” we understand both to be telling the truth (and probably both figures are approximations of the number that died in one day and the number of additonal deaths later).
If a New Testament writer makes a free quotation from the Old Testament, since he was writing under the inspiration of the Spirit, that free quotation becomes part of the inspired, inerrant text. The Holy Spirit, the author of both Old and New Testaments, certainly has the right to quote Himself as He wishes and to use quotations with meanings we as uninspired interpreters might never have seen.
Using the language of appearances is a common way of communicating, sometimes even more vividly than scientific language could.
If Mark and Luke speak of only one blind man given sight at Jericho, whereas Matthew reports two, both statements are true as long as Mark and Luke do not say only one man.
Most debates over truth and error get off track when they become philosophical and not down to earth. Most people understand clearly and easily that approximations, and so forth, tell the truth. The Bible is inerrant in that it tells the truth, and it does so without error in all parts and with all its words.
If it were not so, then how could the Lord affirm that man lives on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), especially if all Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16)?