quote:
Originally posted by Falsecut:
Books were selectively chosen, of this there is little doubt. Even now, some faiths include the Apocrypha or the book of Mormon. The Church created the New Testament in the 4th Century. Might I suggest the following link? http://www.geocities.com/christianbiblestudy/Exegesis/inerrancy.htm
Yes, Bible inerrancy was developed as a Protestant argument against the Roman Church's appeal to extrabiblical authority, as the article at the link says. The author claims that this fact of "Theology" or theological argument undoes the claim to biblical inerrancy.
The author says: "The Bible does not present itself as infallible or inerrant, but Christians have made these claims in order to advance their own interpretations of scripture." Tendentious insinuating claim here. The charitable view, and I believe the true one, is that the whole Protestant revolt was based on the recognition that the Bible was the only true authority as over against the corruptible traditional and human authorities of the Roman Church.
That is, they honestly intellectually and spiritually discerned the scripture to be claiming its own inspiration from God, though this author may be unhumbly incapable of that discernment himself and prefers to insinuate less worthy political motives in place of their judgment.
Inerrancy is not successfully challenged by "History" either: history shows at least that SOME biblical books were universally accepted as canonical, and the disputes about the others are not going to be resolved by the mere fact that there were disputes. One position may after all be the correct one. That there is some confusion only shows that people differ in degree of their own inspiration and ability to judge, it doesn't prove the position wrong that argues for the inerrancy of the current Protestant canon.
As I understand the selection of the canon in the early centuries of the church, it was based upon the usage of the churches themselves which judged them as inspired or not, rather than politically determined. Paul may have been unpopular in some churches, but was revered as inspired by the great majority.
"Translation" is hardly a challenge to the idea of inerrancy: you simply put the ideas into another language. The ideas are the same. Though nuances can be lost in translation, the main meaning of the text is clear enough, and even the nuances can be reclaimed through good researched preaching. If the text is not as true as it should be, then there are plenty of old manuscripts in a multiplicity of languages available by which to correct it.
The need for interpretation should not count as a challenge to the text itself, as the article says the various "Confessions" suggest it should. Even the Iliad and the Odyssey are subject to interpretation. The only requirement for Biblical integrity is that the text itself be consistent from one edition to another. What it means may always be a question, but what it actually says should not be. In any language it should always SEEM to say a certain recognizable inerrant something over which scholars and theologians then may argue. The interpretation has nothing to do with bibical inerrancy.
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