Biblical inerrancy

Biblical inerrancy is the view that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and is in every detail infallible and without error in the original autographs. This view was ably expressed in 1978 in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, an interdenominational statement of evangelical scholars and leaders to defend biblical inerrancy against the trend toward neo-orthodox conceptions of scripture. It proclaims: "The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church." Article XII states: "We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit."

Postmodern Christianity and biblical inerrancy

Scholars such as Jean-Luc Marion (see Postmodern Christianity) would argue that the concept of inerrancy is easily misunderstood. One example is the idea that the translations of the Bible or the surviving ancient texts are inerrant. The Chicago Statement on biblical inerrancy says that the autographs of the Bible, that is, the actual parchment or papyrus on which the biblical authors wrote, accurately reflects the authors intent. This allows the possibility of errors in the surviving manuscripts and translations. But even if the autographs are lost, surviving manuscripts are found in such large numbers that the autographs may be reconstructed with more than 99 percent accuracy.

Related Topics:
Jean-Luc Marion - Postmodern Christianity - Autograph - Papyrus

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Another possible misunderstanding of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is to think that merely because the author's intent reflected in the original autographs is inerrant, that the author's intent necessarily satisfies all possible meanings of every passage. A difficulty with this misunderstanding is that prophecy may have a double fulfillment. Isaiah 7:14, for example, would be limited by only referring to the first fulfillment, as the prophet may not have known of the second fulfillment: in this case, the pregnancy of the Virgin Mary.

Related Topics:
Prophecy - Virgin Mary

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Postmodern Christianity (as understood here) emphasizes that the author's intent does not fully exhaust the meaning of the texts of the Bible. It could be argued that postmodern Christianity is compatible with biblical inerrancy, when the latter is understood to be referring to the complete fulfillment of the author's intent in the autographs, and allows for meanings not necessarily intended by the author but not incompatible with authorial intent.

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