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- Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994. – Pages 54 – 140 (chapter 3 – 8)
- Horton, Michael S. The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011. – Pages 151 – 185
- The Chicago Declaration of Biblical Inerrancy -http://www.reformed.org/documents/icbi.html (Accessed March 28th 2011)
The Canon and nature of Christian scripture is often a hot topic of debate among scholars and laypeople alike. A common question, especially in light of research by the Jesus Seminar, and fictional works by Dan Brown have cast widespread doubt (in the mainstream) upon whether or not the Bible is trustworthy as both historically viable and theologically rigorous. The Jesus Seminar has called into question the accuracy of the sayings of Jesus and the authorship of the New Testament canonical documents, and Dan Brown has claimed (due to a bold truth claim to historical accuracy at the opening of his novel – “The DaVinci Code”). How then is it possible to trust the Canon of scripture? How can Christians claim that the Bible is their authority? How can we boldly declare it is without error while some scholars point out variations in texts? How can we trust the Bible especially since we no longer have access to the original copies of the texts but only have access to copies that contain translation errors? These questions will be discussed in the following work.
The Canon of scripture has been defined as a “list of all the books that belong in the Bible” (Grudem p.54). The Canon of the Bible contains two main sections – the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scripture, and the New Testament. The Canon, especially the Hebrew Bible was recognized by Jesus and his opponents as God’s word and it is generally seen to have been fully formed around the time of the prophets Zachariah and Malachi which were completed by around 435BC (Grudem, p.56). There is very little serious argument about which books belong in the Old Testament. The New Testament came about over time and was recognized very early (contrary to Dan Brown’s claims) as being authoritative and as God’s word. There are several different authors within the New Testament and in several instances we can see the reference of one author to another as a writer of scripture. For example – Paul refers to Luke 10:7 in 1 Timothy 5:17-18 (Grudem, pp. 61-62), and Peter refers to Paul’s writings as scripture (2 Peter 3:16). This constitutes not only clear evidence to an early authorship of the Gospel of Luke (another source of contention of some scholars) but it also supports that the early church accepted the writings of the apostles (those who had seen Christ in person and witnessed his resurrection (Grudem p.63).
The Bible often gets accused of having lost it’s authority because of the lack of original documents and the pervasive translation and copy errors in the earliest copies of the original documents. This objection to the accuracy of modern Bible translations falls flat when one examines the evidence and comes to understand that despite copy errors and differences within translations there is nothing that diminishes the teachings of the Church and the doctrine that can be extrapolated from scripture. The meaning of scripture is unaffected by the differences between the texts. What we have today can be considered reliable translations of scripture and we have little reason to doubt Biblical Authority based on transmission errors.
What of inerrancy then? How can a document written by human hands be without error? First Christians need to define what inerrancy means. Grudem suggests, “The inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact (p. 91). Grudem further suggests that inerrancy is not diminished by the use of vague language, or by the use of reported speech. This supports the orthodox position that the Bible contains the words of Jesus, even if it is not an exact, word for word, recording of Jesus’ own words. Using reported speech is in line with the doctrine of inerrancy and with what were known as historically accurate documents of the Hellenistic period. Christians report that they can trust the Bible because the Bible is authoritative and it supports its own claims. A possible objection, here, of circular reasoning can be refuted simply as an appeal to authority. It is because the Bible is internally coherent, and accurate, it proves itself as inerrant.
It is possible to trust the Canon of scripture based on the above affirmations. How then do we come to an understanding of the Bible as God’s word? Inspiration is an important doctrine of scripture and many Christian theologians hold to a twofold view of the revelation of God. God’s revelation through creation (Romans 1:19-21) and what is called Special Revelation or “Verbal Plenary Inspiration” (Horton, p. 160). Christians accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God. This inspiration they say was God speaking directly through human writers using their own talents, gifts and personalities within the writing to bring about the Scripture precisely as God intended. This view affirms that the writers of scripture were fallible humans, but that at certain times God used them to speak His own words (Horton p. 160). God may have used human authors but there is distinct influence of the Holy Spirit who gave special knowledge for men to prophesy, and to apostles to write their epistles to correct errors that were rising up within the churches at the time.
The Bible is the Word of God given to his church. The Christian Scripture is useful in determining doctrine, useful in teaching and in discipling (1 Timothy 3:16). God speaks through his word because the Bible does not simply contain truth, but it is held to be truth itself (Grudem p. 83, Horton pp. 173 – 175). If we can trust the Bible then we can know that we have an accurate revelation of God and his plan of redemption for the world. If the Bible is errant in some ways then the whole belief system of Christianity would collapse and Christians would not be able to trust, not simply the Bible, but God who inspired it to be written. Thankfully this is not the case and truth holds up in the end.
Erik
Stephen Dawe
Liam
