The Meaning of Inerrancy

One of the shows I enjoy is a program called The Naked Archaeologist. The show presents topics on Biblical Archeology to a general audience. Many of the things presented in greater detail in the magazine Biblical Archeology Review show up on the show. Simcha Yacabovich is the documentarian and the host of the show. He presents some ideas that are strange, as well as archeology that supports various Biblical stories.

The Exodus is the central story of the Jewish people.  In it, God led his people out of slavery and into freedom.  Of course, slavery means more than just having to work for another without pay.  Slavery means you are not free either to do good or evil.  Slavery means you can not move, and must submit to whatever your master demands.  In short, God led his people out of darkness and into the light.  So, it is not surprising that many of the Naked Archaeologist programs deal with some aspect of the Exodus.  A couple days ago, one of these interesting programs dealt with the Tribe of Dan.

The Tribe of Dan was one of the 12 tribes of Israel that marched out of Egypt under Moses's leadership.  When God gave the order to build the Ark of the Covenant, the task was given to the Danites, as they were expert craftsmen of gold.  Dan settled in the North of the Promised Land, and there built a place of worship that the Judean's contended was not legitimate, or at least, that the Judean priests contended was not legitimate.  Recent archeology has uncovered the fact that there are a number of similarities between the Tribe of Dan, the Danoi of the island of Mycenae, and the "sea people," one group of whom were known as Danu.  Of interest is the gold trinket found in a grave on Mycenae that appears to depict the Ark of the Covenant as seen from the point of view of the Priests.  How would a Mycenaean have that knowledge?  Did some of the Danites not go with Moses, but went instead by sea?  All interesting questions.  Also of interest is a grave found in Israel that is exactly like those found on Mycenae, and unlike those typical of  Israel at the time.  In the grave were artifacts from both Israel and Mycenae.  They know this because the clay used in the Mycenaean pottery has been tested and it came from Mycenae.  Also suggestive is that fact that buildings with corbelled domes have been found both in Mycenae and in Danite excavations.  Excavations have revealed the high place where the Danites built a temple, and where sacrifices were offered to God.  In form it is very much like the one built by Solomon in Jerusalem, and it is possible to see how the temple functioned.

Intriguing no?  All very interesting, and I look forward to following this story as events unfold.

I mentioned that my church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) seems to style itself now days as a "social justice" church.  Of course the church says that if Jesus were here today, he would be the leader of the social justice movement.  But would he?  Did Jesus advocate the taking of what the wealthy had earned by the State and the State redistributing it to the poor?  Well, we have numerous stories where Jesus advocated helping the poor and the oppressed by voluntary acts of charity.  But not one in which he advocated that the wealthy should be taxed so that the poor could get even with them.  Indeed, didn't he advocate forgiveness?  Perhaps Progressives are reading a different Bible.  So, in my opinion, in addition to being a meaningless term, "social justice" is anti Biblical.  Paul does not speak of collective salvation, but the salvation of each individual, according to his own acceptance of Jesus as Lord.  Unlike the Islamic notion of God, who insists that every knee WILL bow to him, our God whispers in a small voice "If you want to have a relationship with me, I am here."  I do believe the church is following this path not out of malice as the Left does, but because it has been misled in most cases by high minded and noble language.  At least I hope so.  But the church is none the less losing its soul.  It is beginning to worship the creation, and not the creator.  As a result, I have begun looking for another congregation to join, in a different church body.

One of the church bodies I am looking at is the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, or LCMS.  The LCMS proudly posts its conservative bona fides on its web site, one of which is "The Bible is the inerrant word of God."  Can I confess to that?  You see, as an engineer, and one who takes an interest in such things, I "know" that God created the universe some 15 billion years ago, and our little planet came into being some 5 billion years ago.  At some point early on, God caused life to come forth, and eventually a man evolved who could appreciate the Great Work God had done.  But the Bible doesn't say that.  We know that the story of Noah was a myth, and while it may have some basis in fact, it happened thousands of years before the story of Noah takes place, and doesn't really flood the entire earth.  Similarly, while Sodom and Gomorrah (if that is the names of the places) did burn as a result of the explosion over Europe of a massive meteor, this event too occurred before the story written in the Bible, and we don't really know if Lot was there or not, and in all probability, his wife did not turn into a pillar of salt.  Finally, in one of the central stories of the Hebrews, the story of the Exodus, we find that Moses (whose name may not have been Moses, and who may represent several actual people) led a mixed host out of Egypt, part of which may have been a group of Mycenaean Greeks known as the Danoi.

Could it be that the Bible is wrong, and about details that seem important to the story?  Is the Bible indeed, inerrant?

The Bible is certainly not literally true, nor even the literal word of God.  God did not dictate the first five books of the Bible to Moses, and have him faithfully copy them down, no doubt doing a spell check along the way.  Indeed, Moses didn't write the books attributed to him.  For that matter, none of the Gospels were written by those to whom they were attributed either!  Then there are the stories themselves.  A great many of the stories told in Genesis are rehashing of older myths that were first written down in Sumerian cuneiform a thousand of years before the Bible was first written down.  So what goes on here?  Is the Bible just a collection of bedtime stories to put the children to sleep?  Sort of the Hansel and Gretel of their day, interesting, but useful only for showing us how far man has advanced?  Is the Bible a fraud?

Note, though, the subtle shift in language here.  I have equated inerrant and literal.  In a broad sense, they are similar words, but have subtly nuanced differences in meaning.

Literal implies that the work in question is factual in all details.  Take the age attributed to the Methuselah as an example.  The Bible states that Methuselah lived to the age of 969 years.  Literalists believe that Methuselah did indeed live to the age of 969 solar years.  But that seems, if not impossible, at least unlikely.  Some believe that the 969 years was misinterpreted, and that he actually lived to the age of 80 years, using months instead of solar years.  Still others believe that after the fall of man from grace, God steadily shortened mans life as the world became more and more filled with sin.  Of course, such a view would have us now living to perhaps only 20 years.  In the past, some literalists have taken the generations listed in the Bible and made calculations of the age of the earth from creation until now.  Of course, such calculations spawn counter calculations, and arguments over the age of the earth, as if the age of the earth was a matter of supreme importance to the God of creation.

Unlike literal and factual, inerrant implies fitness for a purpose.  The two terms are very close, but not entirely the same.  Let us say that I call up GM and say that my Cadillac Seville was designed in error.  I point out that it will not plow my field.  The tires bog down in the dirt, and the machine will not pull the plow.  A customer service representative at the company might point out that the Seville does indeed serve the purpose for which it was designed, but that purpose was not plowing.  What it does do, taking a person and his passengers from place to place in comfort and luxury, it does very well indeed.  The Seville then is not designed in error, but I have found it so because I tried to use it for something other than it was intended.

It is the same with the Bible.  The Bible has been billed as a book to solve specific problems in our everyday lives.  Just open the pages, and there you will find the solution to your problem today.  Such advise, well meaning as it might be, credits the Bible with both more and less than it actually delivers.  In effect, the Bible has become a stumbling block to the modern man searching for wisdom and salvation.  And pastors often don't help.  Very few discuss these things, although everyone of them knows this.  The Bible does indeed give meaning to our lives, and shows our place in the universe, but what meaning does it convey?  What does the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, and the age of Methuselah all have in common?  They show us who God is, and a loving God's grace.  I think that the age attributed to Methuselah was a way for the authors to indicate that Methuselah was a good man who found favor with God, and that therefore God granted him a long life.  If you read the Bible looking for grace in everything, you will find it.  That is the central fact, and nothing else matters.