Biblical Inerrancy: New Testament Reliability II
The Internal Evidence Test
Aristotle stated that when considering a text, "the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself". We typically forget this dictum when considering Scripture (primarily due to our pride) when we say nonsensical things such as, "Well, I think that it really means" or, "I don't think that applies". Essentially, instead of assuming we are right and the document is wrong, we actually have to use facts and logic in the analysis of a document. Therefore, we must listen to the claims of the document and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies.
That is the test of internal evidence - is the document free of known contradictions, and does it contain factual inaccuracies? If the answer to both questions is "No", then we must give the document the benefit of the doubt as to its truthfulness in areas that we are not able to verify independently. Clearly, if the Bible is truly the infallible, inerrant word of God, then it must be free of contradictions and errors.
The challenges when approaching this topic is that the ignorant assume that there are contradictions in the Bible, the aware have seen claims of contradictions in the Bible, and the faithful are unaware of the explanations for these apparent discrepancies.
Here are 15 principles for understanding apparent discrepancies in the Bible, as outlined by Josh McDowell in "Evidence That Demands a Verdict":
1) The Unexplained is not necessarily unexplainable. Just because you don't understand how the Red Sea can be parted with dry ground left (and neither do I) doesn't mean it didn't happen.
2) Fallible interpretations do not mean fallible revelation. This is one of the ones that irk me. Just because some fools claiming to be Christians used Bible verses to justify slavery, opposing women's suffrage, the Inquisition, or persecuting John Wycliffe does not make those verses wrong, not any more than moron SCOTUS judges twisting the Constitution to justify limiting crop growth, taking your property for a developer or preventing an invocation at a school board meeting invalidate the Constitution.
3) Understand the context of the message. If you've visited team Hammer before, you've likely seen this come up - and that it means Biblical context, not cultural context. "Give to those who ask you" does not mean give a child a handgun if he asks, and "Resist not evil" is part of a context against seeking revenge.
4) Interpret difficult passages in light of clearer ones. The Bible is not a collection of random ideas, and should be considered on the holistic level it is meant to be. This leads to number five -
5) Don't base teaching on obscure passages. This is the case in the Mormon "church", where they choose a single passage and interpret it alone, and subsequently give it higher regard than key Christian doctrines (such as baptizing the dead, sacred underwear, and three levels of heaven).
6) The Bible is a human book with human characteristics. God used the human personalities to receive and communicate eternal truths, and knew the way they would be presented. To take expressions of speech (such as "hate your father and mother") and consider them literal and pit them against other Scriptures is, well, silly.
7) Just because a report is incomplete does not mean it is false. A frustrating criticism I hear is when some fool mentions that an account is not in all four gospels, then says that the Gospels must not then be true. No part of the Bible is intended to present an exhaustive account of any event. It is intended to communicate the message we are to receive.
8) The New Testament Citations of the Old Testament need not always be exact. They were written in different languages, so some words and phrases won't translate the same anyway.
9) The Bible does not necessarily approve of all it records. The Bible no more approves of Solomon's 300 wives than it does the lies of Satan. A sin recorded is not a sin approved of.
10) The Bible uses non-technical, everyday language. Just because it says that the sun rises instead of "the earth rotated about its axis until the light of the sun shone forth" doesn't make it invalid - it makes it readable.
11) The Bible may use exact numbers as well as round numbers. Round numbers are often used in ancient as well as modern literature. This should be a no-brainer.
12) Note when the Bible uses different literary devices. usual the text will dictate is a term should be taken literally or figuratively.
13) An error in a copy does not equate to an error in the original. There are plenty of copies of scriptures with slight errors in them. Those who put the Bible together were easily able to discern them, as they were different from the others. We can be confident that our Bible is true to the originals (see the last post).
14) General statements do not necessarily mean universal promises. An example is proverbs - they are general statements on life and living, and are meant to guide us to the right ways. Pointing to a Biblical event in which someone does right but is then wronged does not invalidate a generalized proverb!
15) Later revelations supersede previous revelation. UK John has claimed that God "changes his mind" when later revelation is presented that changes the landscape. Consider this: I let my toddler eat with his fingers now. When I push him to use his utensils only, have I contradicted myself? Have I changed my mind on what the plan was r even how to execute it? Of course not. I have progressively revealed to him the rules he is able to understand at the right time. God has done the same thing.
Considering these simple guidelines, which people would generally apply to any text that is NOT the Bible, we fail to find a single contradiction or error in the NT. A person who takes the Bible seriously, rather than trying to explain it away, may agree with Mark Twain when he said that it was not the parts of the Bible that he did not understand that bothered him, but those that he did!
Another test for internal evidence is if the writer use primary sources. The NT does, as evidenced in Luke 1:1-3, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:3, Acts 2:22, John 19:35, Luke 3:1, and Acts 26:24-26. One of the strongest cases for the veracity of the NT is that even hostile witnesses confirm its reliability.
The last section on NT reliability will address an issue that I am sure many are curious about - external evidence, or how the NT compares to archaeology and external historical accounts of the events contained within it.
Aristotle stated that when considering a text, "the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself". We typically forget this dictum when considering Scripture (primarily due to our pride) when we say nonsensical things such as, "Well, I think that it really means" or, "I don't think that applies". Essentially, instead of assuming we are right and the document is wrong, we actually have to use facts and logic in the analysis of a document. Therefore, we must listen to the claims of the document and not assume fraud or error unless the author disqualifies himself by contradictions or known factual inaccuracies.
That is the test of internal evidence - is the document free of known contradictions, and does it contain factual inaccuracies? If the answer to both questions is "No", then we must give the document the benefit of the doubt as to its truthfulness in areas that we are not able to verify independently. Clearly, if the Bible is truly the infallible, inerrant word of God, then it must be free of contradictions and errors.
The challenges when approaching this topic is that the ignorant assume that there are contradictions in the Bible, the aware have seen claims of contradictions in the Bible, and the faithful are unaware of the explanations for these apparent discrepancies.
Here are 15 principles for understanding apparent discrepancies in the Bible, as outlined by Josh McDowell in "Evidence That Demands a Verdict":
1) The Unexplained is not necessarily unexplainable. Just because you don't understand how the Red Sea can be parted with dry ground left (and neither do I) doesn't mean it didn't happen.
2) Fallible interpretations do not mean fallible revelation. This is one of the ones that irk me. Just because some fools claiming to be Christians used Bible verses to justify slavery, opposing women's suffrage, the Inquisition, or persecuting John Wycliffe does not make those verses wrong, not any more than moron SCOTUS judges twisting the Constitution to justify limiting crop growth, taking your property for a developer or preventing an invocation at a school board meeting invalidate the Constitution.
3) Understand the context of the message. If you've visited team Hammer before, you've likely seen this come up - and that it means Biblical context, not cultural context. "Give to those who ask you" does not mean give a child a handgun if he asks, and "Resist not evil" is part of a context against seeking revenge.
4) Interpret difficult passages in light of clearer ones. The Bible is not a collection of random ideas, and should be considered on the holistic level it is meant to be. This leads to number five -
5) Don't base teaching on obscure passages. This is the case in the Mormon "church", where they choose a single passage and interpret it alone, and subsequently give it higher regard than key Christian doctrines (such as baptizing the dead, sacred underwear, and three levels of heaven).
6) The Bible is a human book with human characteristics. God used the human personalities to receive and communicate eternal truths, and knew the way they would be presented. To take expressions of speech (such as "hate your father and mother") and consider them literal and pit them against other Scriptures is, well, silly.
7) Just because a report is incomplete does not mean it is false. A frustrating criticism I hear is when some fool mentions that an account is not in all four gospels, then says that the Gospels must not then be true. No part of the Bible is intended to present an exhaustive account of any event. It is intended to communicate the message we are to receive.
8) The New Testament Citations of the Old Testament need not always be exact. They were written in different languages, so some words and phrases won't translate the same anyway.
9) The Bible does not necessarily approve of all it records. The Bible no more approves of Solomon's 300 wives than it does the lies of Satan. A sin recorded is not a sin approved of.
10) The Bible uses non-technical, everyday language. Just because it says that the sun rises instead of "the earth rotated about its axis until the light of the sun shone forth" doesn't make it invalid - it makes it readable.
11) The Bible may use exact numbers as well as round numbers. Round numbers are often used in ancient as well as modern literature. This should be a no-brainer.
12) Note when the Bible uses different literary devices. usual the text will dictate is a term should be taken literally or figuratively.
13) An error in a copy does not equate to an error in the original. There are plenty of copies of scriptures with slight errors in them. Those who put the Bible together were easily able to discern them, as they were different from the others. We can be confident that our Bible is true to the originals (see the last post).
14) General statements do not necessarily mean universal promises. An example is proverbs - they are general statements on life and living, and are meant to guide us to the right ways. Pointing to a Biblical event in which someone does right but is then wronged does not invalidate a generalized proverb!
15) Later revelations supersede previous revelation. UK John has claimed that God "changes his mind" when later revelation is presented that changes the landscape. Consider this: I let my toddler eat with his fingers now. When I push him to use his utensils only, have I contradicted myself? Have I changed my mind on what the plan was r even how to execute it? Of course not. I have progressively revealed to him the rules he is able to understand at the right time. God has done the same thing.
Considering these simple guidelines, which people would generally apply to any text that is NOT the Bible, we fail to find a single contradiction or error in the NT. A person who takes the Bible seriously, rather than trying to explain it away, may agree with Mark Twain when he said that it was not the parts of the Bible that he did not understand that bothered him, but those that he did!
Another test for internal evidence is if the writer use primary sources. The NT does, as evidenced in Luke 1:1-3, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:3, Acts 2:22, John 19:35, Luke 3:1, and Acts 26:24-26. One of the strongest cases for the veracity of the NT is that even hostile witnesses confirm its reliability.
The last section on NT reliability will address an issue that I am sure many are curious about - external evidence, or how the NT compares to archaeology and external historical accounts of the events contained within it.
posted by Hammertime at
7/15/2005 06:08:00 AM
28 Comments:
Generally, an excellent summary. However, I do have a few thoughts on this article.
Is "the faithful are unaware of the explanations for these apparent discrepancies" what you meant (perhaps "aware" rather than "unaware")?
On to the article itself! First, Aristotle's dictum applies only to logical texts - it can't be applied trivially to a narrative or poetical work. We must first do the work of extracting those elements to which Aristotle's dictum applies before we can work that way. In other words, when the Beloved in Song of Songs says that "my breasts are like towers", she doesn't mean that they are made of stone and cylindrical! When we look at those apparently contradictory texts, we cannot say "they don't contradict" - we explain the apparent contradiction, revealing the deeper truth. We cannot explain a contradiction by simply claiming that it does not exist; rather, we face it, examine it and find a solution. The texts still contradict - it's just that we now know why they do so, and which reading we should therefore take.
Second, as for "changing of mind", you have slightly misunderstood what I was saying. My main point is that, reading what the Bible actually says, we are presented not only with a great many occasions on which does God seem to have changed God's mind, but also with many on which God explicitly tells us that God has changed God's mind. That is the problem here. My secondary point was that setting this against the Biblical statements that God is unchanging leads to the conclusion that, although God's character is constant, God's mind need not be. I then went a step further, pointing out that if God reveals a decision to us ("I will destroy Ninevah") and we then act (by going to preach repentance at Ninevah, so that the people repent), God may make a different decision (not to destroy Ninevah). However, this isn't God being capricious or inconstant. Rather, God wanted all along for Ninevah to repent of its sin. The path God chose to follow was a declaration of judgement, knowing that this would lead to repentance. Thus, both decisions were real but the second decision (to spare the sinner) could not be made without the first (to condemn the sinner).
pax et bonum
By
Anonymous, at 7/15/2005 08:30:00 AM
Forgive me for jumping ahead of you here, Hammer, but I can’t resist.
John: The texts still contradict - it's just that we now know why they do so, and which reading we should therefore take.
I think that you’re using an inapt definition of contradict here. For if ANY passages of the Bible truly contradicted one another, at least one portion of the text would be unreliable. This simply is not the case.
liberpaul: From each gospel you get different answers to these same questions. Non-contradictory indeed!
Suppose that four people witness a car crash and are subsequently asked to give an account of the accident. Is it not typical that each individual with have a unique perception and recollection of the selfsame event? Slightly differing accounts of the scene would not render it a non-event…would it?
By
Robert, at 7/15/2005 08:57:00 PM
From the dictionary link you gave, "contradict" means:
"1 : to assert the contrary of : take issue with
2 : to imply the opposite or a denial of "
Both of those meanings apply to certain biblical passages on their face. For example, the OT says "hate your enemy", Jesus says "love your enemy". That is a contradiction. We need to understand how and why this arises and, once we do that, we see that Jesus was extending and fulfilling the message that the law had brought.
Some people seem to have a problem with "contradict" but, in its normal English usage, that is exactly the correct word. We need to be careful with implications and to spell those out carefully, but that doesn't mean that the passages don't contradict. They aren't incompatible, but they do say opposite things on their face.
pax et bonum
By
Anonymous, at 7/16/2005 03:22:00 AM
Great comments all!
John,
I typed this before I went back to your site and realized you were describing progressive revelation, which means (for others who may think "progressive" means "liberal") that God reveals things to us at the appropriate time. Our failure to see God's plan does not mean he changed his mind, but that we never knew it in the first place.
As an aside, God never said he'd destroy Nineveh...and he didn't. You'll have to work harder to find a contradiction. The two you've mentioned so far required an assumption not stated (Jonah) and an assertation that the word "and" was meant to be taken as a "then" (creation story). I also canot find "hate thine enemy" in the OT anywhere. Can you point me to it?
What you need is God saying, "I hate divorce" then later saying "Divorce is always cool". I would hold that such contradictions still do not exist.
I don't disagree with Aristotle's dictum being non-applicable to poetry. Hence, it is silly to take a poetical writing literally or try to compare it to a non-poetical writing. I'm not sure what you mean by "trivially". I don't understand why it is not to be applied to narrative - doesn't it make sense that an author should be trusted until proven untrustworthy?
Liberal Paul, thanks for stopping in! See rule #7, "Just because the report is incomplete does not mean that the report is false." The Gospels are not meant to be an exhaustive account. The resurrection events, once all four Gospels are read, would go like this:
Three women, Mary Magdelene,
Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome, start for the sepulchre, followed by other women bearing spices. The three find the stone roled away, and Mary Magdelene goes to tell the disciples. Mary (2) draws nearer to the tomb and sees the angel of the Lord. She goes back to the other women who were following with the spices. Meanwhile, Peter and John, warned by Mary Magdalene, arrive, look in, and go away. Mary Magdalene returns weeping, sees two angels and then Jesus and goes as he bade her to tell the disciples. Mary (2) meanwhile has met the women with the spices and, returning with them, they see the two angels. They also receive the angelic message, and, going to seek the disciples, are met by Jesus.
Robert, thanks for the backup.
By
Hammertime, at 7/16/2005 05:27:00 AM
Re Jonah - it's not absolutely explicit that God proclaims destruction on Ninevah (i.e. there is no incidence of God actually saying it), but it is very strongly implied. God says in 3:2 "Go to the great city of Ninevah and proclaim to it the message I give you." Then, in 3:4, Jonah proclaims "Forty days more and Ninevah will be overturned." Nowhere does God ever say to Jonah that this message was wrong, and there was plenty of opportunity and motive. So, we must assume, I think, that Jonah was right when he preached this. And thus that God did explicitly say that God would do something, and then actually did something else. So, either God was deceptive or there is some sense in which both the first and the second decisions were real - for example, if (in some speculative universe) Ninevah hadn't repented, God really would have restroyed them but, in our universe, the city repented and God decided not to destroy them.
As for contradictions - "hate your enemy" is a summary that Jesus made ("You have heard that it was said..."). It's implicit in various places in the OT rather than being stated in this form. Also, to demonstrate contradiction, we do not need "I hate divorce" and "divorce is always cool". We only need "I hate divorce" and "divorce is sometimes OK". That is, we don't need polar opposites.
The thought also occurred to me that perhaps we should stop using "contradiction", because it seems to cause problems. If we said that certain passages "clashed" with one another, would that be more acceptable? It doesn't carry the implication that I admit can be drawn from "contradiction" that no resolution is possible.
Aristotle's dictum cannot be applied to narrative without care. For example, we might admit that Jesus' parables are deeply insightful and that Jesus didn't lie. However, do we have to maintain that the stories were absolutely factual (there really was a woman who had 10 coins, or a son who squandered his inheritance and was welcomed back, or that the beggar Lazarus really was asked to dip his finger in water to cool the rich man's tongue in heaven)? In other words, even though Jesus was supremely reliable, we cannot assume (and should not assume) that every element in a story is factual. What I mean is that only certain elements of narrative are amenable to Aristotle's approach and we must establish what they are carefully if we are not to make silly mistakes. That is, the process isn't trivial - we have to take some care over it.
pax et bonum
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Anonymous, at 7/18/2005 05:13:00 AM
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Allen, at 7/19/2005 07:13:00 AM
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Allen, at 7/20/2005 05:54:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/21/2005 02:08:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/21/2005 09:17:00 PM
Pelty,
You'll cede the gospels and still expect to salvage Christianity? There is no Christianity without Jesus, and you won't find many details about his life outside the gospels. Paul talks a lot about the significance of Jesus, but without knowing who Jesus was, we can't talk about his significance at all.
The gospels appear to be good history - their differences are to be expected from accounts written decades apart by different witnesses (some first hand, some second hand) for different purposes, as short summaries of a three-year period.
Without the gospels, we have a philosophy, not a religion. Without the person of Jesus, there is no power in Christianity.
pax et bonum
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Anonymous, at 7/22/2005 04:49:00 AM
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Allen, at 7/22/2005 06:39:00 AM
Pelty,
I totally agree about the focus - I've argued here and elsewhere that we should beware of elevating the Bible too high. My concern here is that, if you dispense with the gospels, you really have very little idea about the teaching and life of Jesus.
pax et bonum
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Anonymous, at 7/22/2005 10:17:00 AM
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Allen, at 7/22/2005 01:51:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/23/2005 10:53:00 AM
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Allen, at 7/23/2005 12:35:00 PM
Pelty,
Alow me to requote the start of this post:
"the benefit of the doubt is to be given to the document itself, not arrogated by the critic to himself".
With the vast array of material providing evidence to the NT autheticity, reliability and uniqueness, I cannot grasp why you choose to go with theories such as "Q" or a dependency at all. The evidence of dependency and of "Q" is contrived. It is only arrived at by seeking to explain why the Gospel are not all the same...which they would not be if they were four points of view.
I, like LP, don't have Hebrew or Greek knowledge. However, if to realize that the NT is true reqires it, and thus requires a priestly, educated class to "explain" it to us, the Reformation was a waste of our bloody time.
Liberal Paul's problem is not with hypocrisy, politics, Crusades, alleged discrepancies in the text, or anything else but one thing. It is the one thing that keeps us all fom Christ - a desire to remain free of God's constraints upon our behavior (which are actually freeing) and refusal to submit. Pride, in other words. Note how he has not actully conceded anything in the discussion. By the way, LP, if you are still reading, Agnosticism takes faith, because you are saying, "if there is a God or not, it doesn't matter to me - or at least won't when I die". No decision is still a refusal to accept Christ.
There is too much here for me to talk it all, so I'l have to leave it at that. I suppose my difficulty is that I cannot understand why someone would believe that God, the almight and all-powerful, came to earth as a baby in a nasty stable, walked the earth as a homeless evangelist, was crucified by jealous political leaders, rose fom the dead, and provided a salvation by grace through faith which we cannot have earned that is free...but he can't preserve us a written Word with the exactly perfect message in it? He can make the King of Babylon rebuild Jerusalem, but not stop people form corrupting the Scriptures in a convincing fashion?
Just try it - start with the assumption that God can do it, instead of the assumption that he cannot - and the sheer volume of evidence for it will astound you.
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Hammertime, at 7/24/2005 02:56:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/25/2005 09:19:00 AM
LP,
I didn't say my worldview was true. I said that no decision is choosing not to believe. Do you disagree? Or do you think that ignorance of the rule provides a cover? It doesn't work for humans, why should it for the Almighty?
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Hammertime, at 7/25/2005 12:12:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/25/2005 03:05:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/25/2005 05:03:00 PM
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By
Allen, at 7/26/2005 09:37:00 AM
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Allen, at 7/26/2005 10:23:00 AM
Pelty,
You have successfully exposed my laziness! I was typing, and struggling between remembering whether Nehemiah was the cup bearer to the King of Persia or Babylon, and didn't even Google it or heck the Bible no more than three feet away! I, with my distaste for laziness, still display it.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, says the NT. What edification do we gain by attempting to explain that away?
I don't think it is a red herring at all to say that those with knowledge of Greek textual criticism are the only ones who can explain the Bible to us. I did not compare it with the Gospel at all, did I? That, sir, was a false dilemma. Also, I understand the value of theological education - I merely point out that it should not be necessary to understand any important aspect of the Bible, nor to have a fruitful ministry.
I simply cannor comprehend what purpose you aspire to by claiming that the gospels have errors. Why should we beleive that Romand, 1&2 Corinthians and Galatians do not? Are we, like the Mohameddians, to rely upon the writings of a single man for our faith? Our do we base it upon a unique book by authors hundreds and thousands of years apart who seem to be united in their subject and ideas?
if we are to discard the accounts of those who were there with Christ, why would we accept anyone else's? There is no source more objective between believers than the NT. Either you believe that "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works", or you don't.
Why not? I guess that is my question. It is not about "worshipping a book" (red herring) or "losing the message", but the reliability of the message when discussing the details. as I presented in my initial post, if you can't believe a book with these qualifications, why would you believe someone's "personal spiritual experience"? Helping me to understand your motive may help me to understand your posiiton better. Thanks.
Also, please present the "difficulties of a historical nature found in the text" or "historical innacuracies" as well as the "agendas" and "problems with the birth account". I have not seen these mentioned before.
...
After thinking about it, I don't have a problem at all with your assertion that Mark or even Q was a source for other Gospels. "Inspiration of God" need not be in absence of all other inputs, just that the final product is His by design. What is more important to me is, why does it matter? Thanks!
By
Hammertime, at 7/26/2005 01:20:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/26/2005 04:56:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/26/2005 06:29:00 PM
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Allen, at 7/27/2005 09:53:00 AM
The validity of a religion is not to be judged based upon the selective analysis of its members - that is foolish at best, deceptive at worst.
If you wish to evaluate any religions, LP, you need to examine two things - the holy book and the founder. Men are cpable of justifying and twisting anything, so to lay the evil of some men who claim to be Christians at the feet of Christianity is a distractor. Instead, examine the writings and the founder. Without those two, there is no religion.
Until you do that, you are being as unreasonable as judging the US Constitution and our freedoms by the actions of the KKK, the Bloods and the Crips, and the Hatfields and the McCoys.
By
Hammertime, at 7/27/2005 12:34:00 PM
" For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God."
The First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 1, Verse 18
Of course you don't understand it, LP. That's predicted in the book itself. The cause of your skepticism is neither your intellect nor your behavioral learning and observation, but your pride. You won't accept a God who has rules you don't like. Thus, you attribute the evil that men to to Christianity, with logic that is anything but.
You basically say this:
1) Christians think that they are right that Jesus is the only way to a relationship with God, based upon the uniqueness and unmatched reliability of the Bible.
2) Therefore, they think they are right in horrible acts, which are specifically prohibited in the Bible.
Make sense? Not to us, either. You may want to rethink your reasoning.
My posts on inerrancy have done their work - no matter how convincing a case is made for the Bible, men still reject the message of salvation. Why? Because they don't want anyone to be God but themselves.
"My intellect and observation".
Exactly.
By
Hammertime, at 8/01/2005 05:35:00 PM
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