Is the Bible inerrant?

ChubbyCherub said:

If all of the bible is potentially contextual, symbolic, situational, time specific, people specific or with error, than how did we get this far by using it as the foundation of our faith?

Surely, Jesus referred to 'writings' not to appeal only to the Pharisees (there were other people in the world) but as a way to show all that the scriptures were inerrant with regards to prophesying His presence, purpose and authority.

So, we all now dismiss it because ... ? We don't understand? We don't ask the right questions? It suits our narrative? It's overly complex? We seek answers elsewhere? We have failed, as a society, to keep teaching what we once knew? We [fill in the blank]?

Without scripture, how would we even know of the existence of Jesus? Would we just do a, 'trust me bro' moment?

I don't understand this line of thinking at all? What am I missing here?

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The Bible is written to a certain audience but also is relevant to me; it's written in certain culture(s) but its message transcends cultures, it's full of symbols but also contains historical and spiritual reality.

I trust the TNK/OT as it's sufficiently reliable still to get God's message, His instructions, His way of dealing with people and His people. And that's all despite the different nr of books in different traditions, the differences in wording between the LXX (Greek) and Hebrew (Masorete) texts ...

I trust the NT writings in the same way - I don't need inerrancy (in the 'Western/logical' way) - the collection as a whole tells me the story of Yeshua, the Apostles, the early churches in the middle of that 1st century AD and what God expects from me now.

Yet I don't have to panic when Biblical scholars point out to me the range of textual variations in the collection of manuscripts and copies we still have, or when they point out to me (with evidence) 2 Peter is highly unlikely to have been written by the Apostle Peter - assuming that to be a pseudo-graph doesn't change the Gospel. And that assumption also doesn't clash with any other part of the TNK/OT or NT writings.

E.g. the textual stability of the Quran since it was first written is much higher than that of the the Biblical books, but we shouldn't overlook the fact the Bible also is 10 times larger in volume. So it's harder to copy/transmit .. Despite that I prefer the Bible

Reluctant Theologian said:

E.g. the textual stability of the Quran since it was first written is much higher than that of the the Biblical books, but we shouldn't overlook the fact the Bible also is 10 times larger in volume. So it's harder to copy/transmit .. Despite that I prefer the Bible

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You had me until this point, as the textual stability is not really higher it's simply that critical scholarship carries much bigger risks. In reality there is excellent evidence that the Qu'ran was originally written in a dialect that has since been lost, and the text itself was not really standardized until the early 20th century. But since critical scholarship carries serious safety risks it generally isn't publicized and democratized the way Biblical scholarship is.

Fervent said:

You had me until this point, as the textual stability is not really higher it's simply that critical scholarship carries much bigger risks. In reality there is excellent evidence that the Qu'ran was originally written in a dialect that has since been lost, and the text itself was not really standardized until the early 20th century. But since critical scholarship carries serious safety risks it generally isn't publicized and democratized the way Biblical scholarship is.

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The Quran was standardised twice; by Utman (around 650 CE) when he ordered any other deviating copies around to be burned, and later again in 1924 in Egypt. After 650 CE vowel symbols and pronunciation markers were added in the 8th century CE; originally the Quran was written without those markers. The 1924 standardisation also mainly deals with these markers, not the actual words themselves.

Interestingly it's highly likely the Hebrew TNK/OT Masoretic text with the pronunciation/vowel markers was produced after they noticed how succesful the Quranic addition of pronunciation markers was ... so it seems the Masoretes copied the method from the Islamic world even though the meaning of the markers in the Hebrew text is different from those in the Quran.

But still . .when comparing the earliest versions of Quran manuscripts available with the latest texts - the stability is higher (but please feel free to correct/show me otherwise). Another interesting bit is that printing was used for the Bible from the 15th century CE, but for the Quran printing only started in the 18th century CE (!!) - that's a lot later. When manually copying, the Bible is just much harder to copy (2 different languages and 10 times the volume in characters) - so naturally the fault rate per whole volume is expected to be higher.

Reluctant Theologian said:

The Quran was standardised twice; by Utman (around 650 CE) when he ordered any other deviating copies around to be burned, and later again in 1924 in Egypt. After 650 CE vowel symbols and pronunciation markers were added in the 8th century CE; originally the Quran was written without those markers. The 1924 standardisation also mainly deals with these markers, not the actual words themselves.

Interestingly it's highly likely the Hebrew TNK/OT Masoretic text with the pronunciation/vowel markers was produced after they noticed how succesful the Quranic addition of pronunciation markers was ... so it seems the Masoretes copied the method from the Islamic world even though the meaning of the markers in the Hebrew text is different from those in the Quran.

But still . .when comparing the earliest versions of Quran manuscripts available with the latest texts - the stability is higher (but please feel free to correct/show me otherwise). Another interesting bit is that printing was used for the Bible from the 15th century CE, but for the Quran printing only started in the 18th century CE (!!) - that's a lot later. When manually copying, the Bible is just much harder to copy (2 different languages and 10 times the volume in characters) - so naturally the fault rate per whole volume is expected to be higher.

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Perhaps in a sense there is a higher fidelity, though that is at least a product of survivorship bias given the penchant for destruction of variants. But as far as I am aware, there isn't as open of a process for critical scholarship regarding the manuscripts that do exist. Also, there is the issue of what constitutes a variant given the dialect variance that exists within the manuscripts and the tolerance for at least seven distinct Arabic dialects or "readings". And in addition to the issues you mentioned, there is the unity of the text that is also in play given the relatively late collection into a single codex for the Bible compared to the Qu'ran. My minor quibble with what you had said was simply because it appeared to express a confidence in the Qu'ranic texts that the comparitive interest in critical scholarship creates a slight bias. There is also the issue of the oldest extant manuscript displaying a massive amount of variance from the later standardized texts from chapter order, number, and variant readings beyond the recognized "acceptable" variations.

Fervent said:

Perhaps in a sense there is a higher fidelity, though that is at least a product of survivorship bias given the penchant for destruction of variants. But as far as I am aware, there isn't as open of a process for critical scholarship regarding the manuscripts that do exist. Also, there is the issue of what constitutes a variant given the dialect variance that exists within the manuscripts and the tolerance for at least seven distinct Arabic dialects or "readings". And in addition to the issues you mentioned, there is the unity of the text that is also in play given the relatively late collection into a single codex for the Bible compared to the Qu'ran. My minor quibble with what you had said was simply because it appeared to express a confidence in the Qu'ranic texts that the comparitive interest in critical scholarship creates a slight bias. There is also the issue of the oldest extant manuscript displaying a massive amount of variance from the later standardized texts from chapter order, number, and variant readings beyond the recognized "acceptable" variations.

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Yes, I get that ... I think it's fair to say that from Uthman (650 CE) until now the Quranic textual stability is indeed higher than that of the NT writings over that time-frame; yet it's also true the earliest Quran manuscripts we have definitely show variance going back to pre-Uthmanic era. And those variants sometimes indeed changed the meaning of a verse.

The small size of the Quran, the very early (within 20 years of Mohammed) standardisation and the tradition of memorising/reciting the Quran (facilitated by its smaller size), all helped to maintain that textual stability.

It's true Quranic textual criticism is underdeveloped relatively to the Jewish/Christian ones. And indeed in the Islamic world it's common to exaggerate the Quranic stability and claim perfect preservation (which those earliest manuscripts show is not true). But in Christian traditional circles you will find the same exaggerated claim and even plain rejection of any textual criticism.

NT variants sometimes are plain copying errors, sometimes obvious 'corrections/additions' to facilitate the theology/understanding of the copyist. So all together I still would maintain the textual stability (from original author to now) of the NT is worse than that of the Quran, but that does not mean the Quranic 'revelation' is more believable or true that the NT. I believe Yeshua is the Son of God (YHWH) who died for our sins - something the Quran explicitly denies.

For mission and personal witness to Muslims - even as friends - I need to know the Quran, otherwise I can't make any comparative claims about it relative to the Bible. I need to know about the life of Mohammed in order to make comparative claims relative to Yeshua.

Be blessed!