The Myth Of Biblical Inerrancy

Perhaps it is a bad idea to write about something that one feels needs to begin with a defense, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Before I talk about why I think the idea of biblical inerrancy has limited the gift of scripture for us, I want to go on record as saying that I believe the Bible is Holy Scripture. I believe that the Bible speaks to me as an individual about how I am to live my life. I believe that the Bible is important for our faith communities as we seek to find our way in this world. I believe that the Bible points me to God, and I believe that it has the power to point others to God.

The Bible is the sacred book that I trust to point me to the Truth that saves my life every single day.

What is biblical inerrancy? Basically, people who say they believe that the Bible is inerrant believe that it is without error. Now, there are certainly all levels of belief around this particular doctrine.

Some claim that a particular translation is the inerrant version, while others would claim that only the original manuscripts are without error (never mind the fact that the original manuscripts do not exist). Whatever particulars one believes about biblical inerrancy, the basic doctrine leads us down a tricky path.

If we pay attention when we read scripture, we discover that there are some things that don’t always add up. Stories that are told more than once have different details. These details may seem inconsequential, but open the door for further questions.

If multiple versions on the same story disagree on what happened, how do we know which one is correct?

For example, in 2 Samuel 24:1, God incites David to take a census of the people of Israel, but when the story is retold in 1 Chronicle 21:1, Satan is the one who incites David. In 1 Samuel 17:50, we read the familiar story of David killing Goliath, but in 2 Samuel 21:19, we are told that a man named Elhanan killed Goliath.

As we look in the first two chapters of Genesis, we read two stories of creation. In the first one, humanity is the last piece of God’s creation, but in 2:4-25, we read that God created the man, then God made the trees, and plants, and animals. And finally, God created the woman.

There are certainly more examples, but you get the picture—there are stories in scripture that do not agree with one another, leaving us to wonder how to reconcile these inconsistencies.

Many of the differences do not change our fundamental understanding of God or the gospel message. However, if you are someone who holds tightly to the belief that creation happened as we read in Genesis 1, looking at Genesis 2 for what it is, another account of creation, can create cognitive dissonance.

In the end, why does this matter? Some people believe in inerrancy and others push against the idea. So what?

Often, the claim that the Bible is inerrant comes with a whole other host of ideas that are problematic. 

First, many who claim the Bible is inerrant will also claim that it is the Word of God. This belief is in direct contradiction to what we read in the Bible itself: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).

The Bible is not the Word of God; Jesus is the Word of God.

Second, claims that the Bible is inerrant also comes with belief that the Bible is the final word on God. However, in John 14:25, Jesus tells his disciples that he will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will continue to teach them and help them as they continue to grow and understand all that they have seen and experienced.

To claim that the Bible is the end all, be all, is to deny that the Holy Spirit will continue to work among us.

Finally, advocates of Biblical inerrancy tell us that if it’s not in the Bible, it is not of God. When we say this, we reduce the revelation of God to scripture, and in doing so, we create our own idol. It is not possible for us to fully receive the essence of any human being, much less God’s essence. Why would we believe that all of God’s essence can be captured in static words on a page?

We are not called to worship a book, we are called to worship God.

Ultimately, I believe that the claim of biblical inerrancy is made to make reading scripture easier. If there are no errors, then there is no reason to ask questions. When we don’t ask questions, we don’t face difficult answers or worse, questions that don’t have answers.

All of this means that we get to control how others read scripture, which means controlling how others understand God.

And since our understanding of who God is, is how we know God, then we ultimately are able to control God.

However, when we open ourselves to the idea that human beings wrote this book, and they may have used various forms of writing, including narrative, poetry, myth, and many more, to convey their understanding of God, we open ourselves up to hard questions about the text, and ultimately, hard questions about God and how God relates to us.

It’s kind of like the difference between looking at pictures of a lion in a book and seeing a lion out in the wild. In the picture, the lion is safe—it cannot hurt us. At the same time, we have no way of seeing how it really moves, and runs, and hunts, and interacts with other lions. Encountering a lion in the wild can certainly be a scary thing, dangerous even. At the same time, it will also allow us to understand more about the lion, when we can see how it moves, hunts, and lives.

Reducing God to words on a page makes God safe, but it also keeps us from seeing how God moves among us, interacting with our fellow human beings in new ways.

It may even keep us from seeing how God interacted with humans in scripture when we cling tightly to certain held beliefs.

If we claim that scripture is inerrant, and if we hold tightly to that belief and all the other ideas that come along with it, we end up worshipping the Bible rather than worshipping the God it points us too. And worse, we often end up worshipping our own set ideas of what scripture says rather than remaining open to the idea that it may be challenging us to move beyond those ideas.

For example, when we look in Acts, we find the early church struggling with one of its own long held religious and moral traditions—namely, circumcision. Church leaders had to decide if they were going to allow uncircumcised people into their community. 

It is hard for us to understand, but circumcision was a big deal, comparable to today’s issue of full inclusion of the LGBT community in our own churches.

By the leading of the spirit, the early church came to a different understanding of their own scriptures and changed something they had long been taught by scripture. They understood that while scripture reveals God to us, it is not God.

Opponents of the LGBT community also use scripture to further their cause, and their case makes sense when we approach the Bible from the perspective of biblical inerrancy. 

However, when we understand that the Bible sometimes speaks with more than one voice, and that sometimes there is even contradicting evidence to be found in scripture, it leaves room for us to have a conversation. 

Rethinking biblical inerrancy creates space for the movement of the Holy Spirit in Christian dialogue.

Perhaps, if we take scripture off the pedestal on which we place it, and if we simply allow it to be a book that points us to God, rather than a book that we treat as if it is God—then it will elevate us as human beings to a place in which we are nearer to what God intends for us.