Asked this on another forum, and thought I'd ask it here, too.
Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption? It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,' so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?
I ask this because as I'm exploring churches, their 'mission statement' is wrapped up in believing that the Bible has no errors. (errors of man)
What do you think?
Deidre,
This is an excellent point that there might be errors and corruption in the Bible. If the Bible is not inerrant, how do you know it is true to believe what you state here: the overall message, God's grace for a relationship with Christ, and experiencing the Holy Spirit. How do you know this is true information if the Bible cannot be trusted?
I consider that it is necessary to define which documents might contain 'errors' and 'corruption' (your language). The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy met in Chicago in October 1978 and issued the '
Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy'. Article 10 clarifies what is meant by inerrancy:
Article X.
WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text [i.e. original documents] of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.
WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.
Therefore, that which is without error is what was originally '
breathed out by God' (2 Tim 3:16 ESV) and the process happened according to
2 Peter 1:20-21 (ESV):
20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
The doctrine of inerrancy is critical as it would be a travesty of justice to conclude that the God of perfection created imperfect Scripture in the original documents.
WHAT THIS DOCTRINE DOES NOT TEACH is that translations since the original manuscripts are perfect. The copies of these MSS that I have seen (I read NT Greek) demonstrate variants (like typographical errors) that happen when one hand copies from one papyrus or vellum to another.
Even though we don't have access to the original MSS (we'd probably idolize them), scholars - by comparing MSS available and those that go back to the earliest church fathers - are confident that we have a Greek text of the NT that is pretty close to the originals (autographa).
Oz