Biblical inerrancy: Difference between revisions

According to Coleman (1975), "There[t]here have been long periods in the history of the church when biblical inerrancy has not been a critical question. It has in fact been noted that only in the last two centuries can we legitimately speak of a formal doctrine of inerrancy."<ref name="infallible">{{cite journal|last1=Coleman|journal=Theology Today| volume = 31|issue = 4|year=1975|title=Biblical Inerrancy: Are We Going Anywhere?|doi=10.1177/004057367503100404|first1=R. J.|pages=295–303|s2cid=170389190}}</ref> The first formulations of the doctrine of inerrancy were not established according to the authority of a council, creed, or church, until the post-[[Reformation]] period.<ref name="hendel">Hendel, Ronald. "The Dream of a Perfect Text: Textual Criticism and Biblical Inerrancy in Early Modern Europe," in e.d. Collins, J.J., ''Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy'', Brill, 2017, 517-541, esp. 524-531. On pg. 529, Hendel writes "The doctrine of uniform inerrancy in the literal sense across all details is an innovation of the Catholic-Protestant polemics after [[Council of Trent|Trent]]."</ref>

[[Origen of Alexandria]] thought there were minor discrepancies between the accounts of the Gospels but dismissed them due to their lack of theological importance, writing "let these four [Gospels] agree with each other concerning certain things revealed to them by the Spirit and let them disagree a little concerning other things" (''Commentary on John'' 10.4).

Later, [[John Chrysostom]] was also unconcerned with the notion that the scriptures were in congruence with all matters of history unimportant to matters of faith.:

<blockquote>{{quote|But if there be anything touching time or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of what they have said …{{nbsp}[...] [but those things] which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little (|''Homily on Matthew'' 1.6)</blockquote>}}

In his ''Commentary on Galatians'', [[Jerome]] also argued that Paul's rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2:11-1411–14<ref>{{bibleverse|Galatians|2:11–14}}</ref> for acting like a Jew around the Jewish faction of the early Church was an insincere "white lie" as Paul himself had done the same thing.<ref>Cohen, Shaye J. D. ''The beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, varieties, uncertainties. Vol. 31.'' University of California Press, 1999, 368.</ref> In response, [[Augustine]] rebuked Jerome's interpretation and affirmed that the scriptures contained no mistakes in them, and that admitting a single mistake would shed doubt on the entire scripture.:<ref name="wood">Woodbridge, John. “Evangelical"Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy", in ''Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday'', Crossway, 2011, 111.</ref>

<blockquote>{{quote|It seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. {{nbsp}}[. . .] If you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement {{nbsp}}[...] there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, {{nbsp}}[. . .] the author declared what was not true (|''Letters of St Augustine'' 28.3).</blockquote>}}

For [[Martin Luther]] (1483&ndash;1546), for example, "inspiration did not insure inerrancy in all details. Luther recognizes mistakes and inconsistencies in Scripture and treated them with lofty indifference because they did not touch the heart of the Gospel."<ref name="cambible">Bainton, "The Bible in the Reformation," in e.d. Greenslade, S.L., ''The Cambridge History of the Bible Vol 3: The West from the Reformation to the Present'', Cambridge University Press 1963, 12-13.</ref> When Matthew appears to confuse [[Book of Jeremiah|Jeremiah]] with [[Book of Zechariah|Zechariah]] in Matt.Matthew 27:9,<ref>{{bibleverse|Matthew|27:9}}</ref> Luther wrote that "Such points do not bother me particularly."<ref name="cambible" />

The [[Christian humanism|Christian humanist]] and one of the leading scholars of the [[northern Renaissance]], [[Erasmus]] (1466&ndash;1536), was also unconcerned with minor errors not impacting theology, and at one point, thought that Matthew mistook one word for another. In a letter to [[Johannes Eck]], Erasmus wrote that “Nor"Nor, in my view, would the authority of the whole of Scripture be instantly imperiled, as you suggest, if an evangelist by a slip of memory did put one name for another, Isaiah for instance instead of Jeremiah, for this is not a point on which anything turns.”"<ref name="wood" />

The same point of view held true for [[John Calvin]] (1509&ndash;1564), who wrote that "It is well known that the Evangelists were not very concerned with observing the time sequences."<ref name="hendel" />

The doctrine of inerrancy, however, began to develop as a response to these Protestant attitudes. Whereas the [[Council of Trent]] only held that the Bible's authority was "in matters of faith and morales", [[Jesuit]] [[Cardinal (Catholic Church)|cardinal]] [[Robert Bellarmine]] (1542&ndash;1621) argued in his 1586 ''{{lang|la|De verbo Dei''}}, the first volume of his multi-volume ''{{lang|la|Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei adversus hujus temporis haereticos''}} that "There can be no error in Scripture, whether it deals with faith or whether it deals with morals/mores, or whether it states something general and common to the whole Church, or something particular and pertaining to only one person." Bellarmine's views were extremely important in his condemnation of Galileo and in Catholic-Protestant debate, as the Protestant response was to also affirm his heightened understanding of inerrancy.<ref name="hendel" />