Let's start with the definition (www.m-w.com):
1 : incapable of error : unerring
2 : not liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint : certain
3 : incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals
Okay, for starters I don't know how people can believe the Bible is incapable of error. There are numerous geographical and scientific errors. There are also numerous contradictory story elements, especially in the gospels. I'm not ashamed to label Biblical Inerrancy as a joke.
It's the last two that are tricky. Now, I'm sure you want to believe the Bible is not liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint, but I'm sorry, it does all three things. I wish it wasn't the case, but the Bible is not explicit enough.
If it really were to be infallible in that sense it would read more like a legal document, but even legal documents are open for interpretation. The funny thing about human language is that it is fluid, it means different things to different people in different contexts. So it sure would be great if the Bible was more clear, but as we all know the Bible is confusing.
In order to understand the Bible, one must interpret it. And interpretation takes a lot of work. There are a lot of factors working against you. Language, context, ancient cultures and customs, time, copies, etc.. Egads, it's a wonder we even have a somewhat united church these days.
Did you know the language primarily used in writing the Old Testament has no vowels? No vowels! Imagine trying to decipher what that means. Here's a sentence I made up for you.
G dwnstrs nd gt m th ct.
So if you knew the context you might be able to figure it out, but did I ask you to get me the cat, coat, or cot? Oh and did you know they also didn't have spaces between words?
gdwnstrsndgtmthct
Good luck.
Thankfully somewhere in time a bunch of people got together and put the vowels in and added spaces.
But did you know we have zero original manuscripts? That's not too surprising seeing as how they would be 2000+ yrs old. So there were lots of copies made. Lots and lots of copies. Over long periods of time.
So these copies are what was used to make our Bible. But did you know that last century some older copies were found? And did you know that those older copies were slightly different than the ones we had been using? Yeah, turns out some people either added or took away words as they copied the text. Perhaps they made an honest mistake or perhaps they purposefully altered the text. We'll never know. Still, for over a thousand years the church has been using Bibles that said different things than the originals.
Hey, did you know the church still doesn't agree what books should be in the Bible? Protestants have 66 books while the Catholics have more. The Greek and Russian Orthodox churches have more than the Catholics. The Eastern Orthodox church has more than them. The Syriac Orthodox church has even more. And finally the Ethiopian Orthodox church has a couple more as well.
Wait, so if the Bible is infallible, what is the Bible? How do we determine what the Bible should consist of? Good question.
You see, the developments of both the Old and New Testament canon took a long time. Different guys met a long time ago to decide which would stay and which would go. Many were canned, while others were questioned heavily.
Did you know the book of Esther and the book of Hebrews are just two of the books in the Protestant canon that were so close to getting turfed? Can you imagine what our faith would be like without these two books?
So yeah, some guys met and decided what the canon would be, but as I've already mentioned, even today the canon is not agreed upon.
And then of course, new books are found or rediscovered and everyone gets their panties in a knot. What about the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas?!? Woohoo...
So is the Bible infallible? How can we even answer that when we don't even have complete agreement on what the Bible is? Not to mention I'm sure if we could look back further to the original manuscripts we'd find even more discrepancies.
And even if by some miracle of God the Bible is in fact infallible, there's another slight problem...
The people who read and interpret the Bible are fallible. So even if it was without error, how do we know our interpretations are right?!? How can we know for certain?
It's not as black and white as you'd like it to be. The Bible is not as easy to understand as you claim it is.
So where am I going with all this? Am I saying the Bible is not credible? Is our faith a waste of time? Certainly not! Because you see, God is much bigger than the Bible, and the Spirit of God does in fact speak to us through the Scriptures (despite its failures).
Without the Bible we would have no direction for life. We need these writings to understand God and what he created us for. Sure the Bible may not be "perfect" in the sense we want it to be, but what is contained in the Bible added to the traditions passed down through the years added to the interpretations passed on from old plus plus plus the Holy Spirit connecting the dots for us in our world today equals a holy mystery that opens our eyes to the glory of God. The Bible cannot stand alone. It must be taken with all we know from history and with all the unwritten things passed down throughout the church's existence.
I love the Bible and am thankful everyday that God gave it to us the way he did. Without it we would be lost and aimless. I am thankful the Bible is organic and fluid like the Spirit who speaks through it.
3 comments:
I can't believe nobody commented on this yet. I thought there would be lots of outrage. I agree for the most part. I think it's important to find themes and consistancies and not to get lost in the details.
i agree with phil and am a bit frowny that no one comments much on the best of your posts (i only can when i have a computer that functions...like right now). i actually completely agree with this post, and i'd like to say thank you for writing it! it's relieving when people have the balls to say something like this, which could be condemned so severely by those i will refer to as "cheesy christians", while those of us who have brains we arent afraid to use(pardon me while i consider myself among them) realize that there are many inconsistencies, many things wrong with modern christianity and many hideous flaws within the church. though you didnt go that far.
yet.
i would say, thank you, Mr. Peters, for having a well-functioning brain! :D
ps--there's little birdies on my bird feeder... like, TINY, and you should start to like animals so you can be friends with them, too!
ha.
-a
I like this entry a lot. Thank you for writing it.
I feel like a lot of times people get so caught up in thinking that they've got it all figured out and that their belief system is perfect and the only correct one. I have always had a hard time believing that was true. I think the Bible is an inspiring book, and a beautiful book, but it is also a book that was, in the end, written and translated by humans. I find it very hard to believe that misunderstandings haven't wormed their way into the text over the centuries. Personally, when the Bible contradicts the evidence of my eyes and ears, I question it.
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