B.S. Lewis

Hi all,

I'm a Christian, but for a long time now, no fundie. I am looking for recommendations as to a really good book arguing against innerancy. Ideally I'd like:

(1) Something written by a serious student of the bible (e.g. a seminarian or pastor)--not a polemic by a lifelong secularist

(2) Something that attempts to expose logical flaws that are inherent in the very idea of textual inerrancy--over and above attempts to show that the Bible itself contains specific internal contradictions (or contradictions with history, etc.). Specific contradictions can always be "explained away," but a deeper, more fundamental critique of the idea of innerancy hopefully could not.

Thanks for any help.

Chris Weimer

Not sure of books offhand, but Chris Heard deals a lot with that. He may be able to point you in the right direction.

judge

Hi, I can't recommend a good book,and since no one else has replied, I will put my 2 cents in. I think the whole premise of having to justify errancy is flawed.
It's not as if there is any reason to start off thinking the bible is inerrant and then have to prove otherwise.

Let's consider Luke 1:1-4

Now if we assume for the sake of argument that Luke's gospel is just what is says it is, even in this light, the above passage can only , at best, be said to argue that the author trieed to get the story right, not that it is without error.
And bear in mind this is one of the strongest, if not the strongest internal argument for the accuracy of part of the bible.

The idea that Luke is inerrant comes hundreds of years later.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that reading a book might be helpful, but if you think these things through on your own, you will probably come to a more confident perspective then adopting someone elses.

Johnny Skeptic

I do not have any references to post, but I have debated inerrancy extensively using my own arguments. Following are some of the arguments that I have used:

Even if the Bible is inerrant, so what? Copies of the New York Times are inerrant, but they are not inspired by God. In my opinion, the issue of divine inspiration of the originals is just as important as the issue of inerrancy. What evidence do inerrantists have that God inspired the originals? Why would God want to do that?

If God inspired the originals, there is a presumption that he intended that everyone have access to the originals, or to copies of the originals. Otherwise, why would he inspire the originals? Hundreds of millions of people died without hearing the Gospel message. The closer that a man lived to Palestine, the more likely it was that he would hear the Gospel message. It is quite odd that God showed people preferential treatment based upon their geographic proximity to Palestine. Gundulf's explanation was that God reveals himself only to people who he chooses to reveal himself to, and that he made sure that people who he wanted to reveal himself to lived closer to Palestine. However, if the universe is naturalistic (I am not saying that it is), the Gospel message would have been spread exactly like it has been spread, namely according to the entirely secular methods of communication, transportation, printing, and translation of a given time period.

No only does God discriminate based upon geography, but also upon family, race, ethnicity, gender and age. For instance, in the U.S., a much higher percentage of women become Christians than men. That is not surprising since women are generally more emotional than men are. A much smaller percentage of skeptics become Christians when they are elderly. Research has shown that when people become elderly, they change their worldviews much less frequently than younger people to. Again, if the universe is naturalistic, that is way that things would be. If the God of the Bible exists, for some odd reasons he has chosen to mimic a naturalistic universe.

Do inerrantists consider the spread of the Gospel message to be more important than the spead of a cure for cancer? If so, it is too bad that God doesn't.

Those arguments are not very scholarly, but I have retired a good number of inerrantists with them.

OneInFundieville

I suggest Craig Evans' Fabricating Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk).

He is an Evangelical bible scholar with experience in both OT and NT.

The book is mostly anti-Jesus Seminar and anti-Ehrman mild polemic with a weird anti-Dan Brown chapter throw-in maybe just because the publisher made him include it. Primarily focused on canonical and non-canonical gospel writings and why the Gospel of Thomas, etc. is less reliable than the canonical gospels but no mention of why the canonical gospels are reliable enough.

However, there are four or five key paragraphs on the topic of inerrancy.

Example:

The book should be a very digestable, if you will, read for most devout Christians. It's published by InterVarsity Press and sold at many Christian bookstores so conservative Christians should perceive it as one of their own writing who is not an inerrantist and a bit of why.

Though I wish Evans would write a book on the topic of inerrancy, I can imagine that finding a publisher and a market and even loyal friends in such a context might be challenging.