Polycarp

Quote:

Originally posted by SirMonkey: From p. 333 n. 6 of Blomberg's "The Historical Reliability of the New Testament," chapter six of William Lane Craig's "Reasonable Faith" (Wheaton: Crossways, 1994 Edition): "...the authors of this book are firm believers in biblical innerancy. I came to this conviction largely THROUGH my study of Scripture, not in spite of it. But some parts are easier to defend than others...."

I agree with you. However, as I’ve been saying, there is a wide range of views on “inerrancy”. People who identify themselves as “inerrantists” often mean radically different things by that label. Based on everything I’ve read from Blomberg (including the two writings mentioned in this thread, along with several others), I don’t think his view of “inerrancy” would mean the same thing as what a lot of people here would expect it to mean.

SirMonkey

Layman/Polycarp,

So do you guys maybe think that when Blomberg says, "inerrancy" (oops!--misspelled it earlier!), he actually means "infallibility," or the inability of the Bible to make theological errors? "Inerrancy" seems to be a stronger notion--the inability of the Bible to make errors of any kind.

I personally don't know where Blomberg stands, and really don't care all that much (it's much more important to me whether his arguments are coherent on given individual issues). I note that he does, however, try to offer solutions to some of the difficult historical problems in the NT, such as the Quirinius contradiction (p. 216 and 338 n. 80).

BTW, thanks for being welcoming and responding to my little post. I've been reading from these boards for awhile and I've liked a lot of what I've seen. I finally joined because I wanted to ask a few of my own questions and maybe add a few of my own observations to the threads around here (though nothing major--I am a student and I will be taking 22 units next quarter). So, thanx again and I hope this'll be fun and edifying!

Sir Monkey

Polycarp

Quote:

Originally posted by SirMonkey: So do you guys maybe think that when Blomberg says, "inerrancy" (oops!--misspelled it earlier!), he actually means "infallibility," or the inability of the Bible to make theological errors? "Inerrancy" seems to be a stronger notion--the inability of the Bible to make errors of any kind.

Well... I actually think he does mean "inerrancy", but he defines error in such a way that the Bible avoids being guilty of error. For example, he believes the standards under which ancient writers operated are different than our modern Western standards. Paraphrasing is not considered good form by today's standards; everyone wants verbatim transcripts of dialogue in order for something to be considered accurate (inerrant?) in the 21st century. However, ancient writers had no such concept. This isn't surprising considering that they had none of the various types of recording equipment that we now have. So what we would consider to be an error by today's standards would not have been so under the standards of the first-century Roman Empire. This is one of Blomberg's underlying principles.

Quote:

I personally don't know where Blomberg stands, and really don't care all that much (it's much more important to me whether his arguments are coherent on given individual issues). I note that he does, however, try to offer solutions to some of the difficult historical problems in the NT, such as the Quirinius contradiction (p. 216 and 338 n. 80).

I'm with you on this one in not caring about his view of inerrancy. It doesn't seem as if Blomberg would really care too much if there was an error in the Bible. I agree with many of his solutions, others are less than persuasive to me.

Quote:

BTW, thanks for being welcoming and responding to my little post. I've been reading from these boards for awhile and I've liked a lot of what I've seen. I finally joined because I wanted to ask a few of my own questions and maybe add a few of my own observations to the threads around here (though nothing major--I am a student and I will be taking 22 units next quarter). So, thanx again and I hope this'll be fun and edifying!

Nice to meet you, too. I'm also a student, and the only reason I'm around here now is because I have this week off before spring quarter starts next week. Fortunately for my sanity's sake, I'm not taking anything close to 22 credits. Good luck with your studies!

Layman

The issue can be confusing. I've heard of inerrantists complaining that infallibists have hijacked the meaning of that word.

I think that if Blomberg describes himself as an inerrantist he means something different than when McDowell calls himself an inerrantist.

I agree. His arguments rest on their own persuasiveness. Or at least they should.

Welcome aboard. I used to be much more active here than I am now. Polycarp was too. I'm not a student but I am a lawyer, so I'm a pretty busy fellow myself.

Feel free to email me anytime about anything.

[ March 22, 2002: Message edited by: Layman ]</p>