How (or how not) to defend biblical inspiration

There are many ways to defend the Bible. Are some of them counterproductive?

The beginning of the Gospel of John, in the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus manuscript.

Beginning in 1985, the Jesus Seminar assembled scholars to debate and vote on which of Jesus’ words and deeds as reported in the Gospels were historically authentic. According to the sponsoring institute’s website, the scholars voted yes on only 18 percent of Jesus’ reported words and 16 percent of his deeds.

When I heard about the Jesus Seminar, it reminded me of one of my first courses in graduate school, on the origins of Christianity. The course included almost daily questioning of the historical reliability of the Gospels and Acts.

I could never hope to investigate every objection to the New Testament’s reliability, especially since the New Testament was not my primary research focus. For me, the most compelling proof of biblical inspiration rested not in any claim to historical perfection but in the evidence of how commitment to the Christian faith, as mediated by Scripture, has transformed millions of hearts and even whole cultures. The Jesus Seminar has brought similar transformation to very few souls, if any.

The social context of my Christian conversion, reinforced by my own study of Scripture, caused me to connect most closely with the evangelical stream of Christianity, though I’ve learned much from other streams. Along the way, I’ve also learned how contentious the matter of defending biblical inspiration has become, even among evangelicals.

In 1982, Robert Gundry, while affirming biblical inerrancy, published a commentary on Matthew’s Gospel that his critics viewed as undermining the Bible’s reliability. (The hyperlink goes to a description of the revised 1994 edition.) Gundry contended that Matthew revised some of Jesus’ words and substituted some historical details to communicate more effectively with his audience. For example, Gundry suggested that in the story of Jesus’ birth, Matthew replaced shepherds in the fields with wise men from the East, so as to emphasize the Gospel’s relevance to non-Jews.

Gundry’s work provoked considerable strife in the Evangelical Theological Society, from which he resigned in 1983 before the ETS could vote to expel him.

Similar squabbles have gone on for a long time. As church historian Frank Hinkelmann has shown, cooperation among European and American evangelicals was hindered in the 1950s and beyond because various groups did not trust each other’s understanding of biblical inspiration.

More recently, some Korean critics of the World Evangelical Alliance have found the WEA insufficiently faithful to biblical truth because its statement of faith calls the Bible “infallible” rather than “inerrant.” For these Koreans, “‘Infallibility’ asserts that Scripture is without error in matters of faith and salvation, while ‘inerrancy’ claims it is without error in all respects.”

I do not wish to disturb the spiritual confidence of any sincere Christian believer, nor do I want anyone to challenge my (I think) good reputation in global evangelicalism. So if you think you may be vulnerable to either of those temptations, you may stop reading here. 😊

I value the positive contributions of all vigorous defenders of biblical inspiration, including the authors of the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Nevertheless, I don’t want us to make defending the faith harder than it needs to be. In that spirit, here are today’s gently provocative points.

Jesus cleanses the temple of animal sellers and moneychangers in all four Gospels, but only John places the story early in his Gospel. If your understanding of biblical inspiration rules out the possibility of a writer rearranging the order of events, you must conclude that Jesus overturned people’s tables twice, about three years apart. Some interpreters do indeed argue for two cleansings. But in view of Jesus’ reputation, wouldn’t the targets have taken evasive action when they saw him coming the second time?

God wonderfully preserved the Bible—we have far more ancient copies of it than of any other book, and they have very few substantive disagreements. Yet he chose to leave us debating, based on conflicting manuscripts, whether Mark’s Gospel originally ended at 16:8 or continued to 16:20. Sadly, this has become a life-and-death issue for some believers who have felt called to pick up snakes in obedience to 16:18.

Textual problems like Mark 16 have caused many to apply inerrancy to the original text of Scripture. This is hardly likely to impress a skeptic who asks to inspect the original documents and is told, “We don’t possess them.” (Article 10 of the Chicago Statement is more nuanced, stressing the evidence for the “great accuracy” of the manuscripts we do have.)

Even if Scripture is inerrant, our many conflicts over interpretation show that our capacity to discern its meaning is prone to error. Sometimes I think God put 1 Corinthians 11:3–16 in the Bible just to remind us that deciding how first-century messages apply to modern culture is not a trivial task.

Thankfully, the clarity of the Bible’s central message of salvation is unmistakable. Let us praise God for all who have embraced that message, even if their theory of biblical inspiration is not identical to ours.