A friend recently emailed me asking for some advice. One of his former classmates is apparently losing his Christian faith because of doubts concerning the reliability of the Bible. My friend wanted to know what resources I might recommend on the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. The following is adapted from the reply I sent.
First, I think it's important not to conflate these three distinct questions:
1. Resurrection: Did Jesus rise from the dead?
2. Historical Reliability: Are the gospels and Acts generally reliable as historical records?
3. Inerrancy: Is the Bible without error in everything it asserts?
As you know, I think inerrancy is an important doctrine. I believe a rejection of inerrancy undermines the authority of Scripture (see my recent article for WORLD here). However, you don't have to affirm inerrancy to be a Christian. C. S. Lewis, for example, evidently rejected inerrancy.
Furthermore, inerrancy isn't a doctrine you can establish through historical arguments and evidence. Now I do believe you can establish the general historical reliability of the New Testament through arguments and evidence. However, the doctrine of inerrancy maintains that everything asserted by the Bible is true, and there is simply no way to independently confirm every claim in the Bible (or any other ancient document, for that matter). Inerrancy is not a conclusion we arrive at through historical research. Inerrancy is a theological deduction. For example, if you believe that Jesus is God, and if Jesus said, "the Scriptures cannot be broken" (John 10:35), then inerrancy is a reasonable deduction. In other words, we believe in inerrancy because we believe in Jesus, we don't believe in Jesus because we believe in inerrancy.
So when it comes to engaging with skeptics, I don't think we should start with inerrancy. We run the risk of giving skeptics the misimpression that if they can find one error in the Bible, then they have debunked Christianity. On the contrary, if Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is true. If you are persuaded that Jesus rose from the dead, then you should become a Christian, regardless of what you think about the controversial doctrine of biblical inerrancy. Note that the first Easter was in AD 30, while the first gospel (probably Mark) was not written until some decades later (maybe around AD 70). So if Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity was true before the gospels were ever written! Even if we concede (which I don't) that Mark made many mistakes while writing his gospel, such mistakes could not reverse time and un-resurrect Jesus.
So when engaging with skeptics, I think the best place to start is with the resurrection. A powerful historical argument can be made for the resurrection that does not depend on the inerrancy of the Bible or even the general reliability of the gospels. Here is a video where I lay out an argument for the resurrection without appealing to the gospels:
Now perhaps your friend does accept the resurrection and is simply struggling with perceived errors in the Bible. As you recognize, it would be helpful here if he could give you some indication of what specifically he has in mind. Does he, for example, have concerns about apparent contradictions in the gospels? If so, you could point him to the excellent work that Mike Licona has done on that topic:
Thanks for reading this post! If you made it all the way to the end, you are probably a person who is interested in the serious study of the New Testament. If so, why not learn how to read the New Testament in the original Greek? Click here to start learning the basics!
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