From: ba2cs252@troi.cc.rochester.edu (Leonidas Hepis)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Definition of Inerrancy/Infallibility/Divine Inspiration
Date: 11 Oct 92 02:26:15 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York

Hello.

This semester I am doing an independent study on Christianity.  One of
the issues that I need to address is the inerrancy of the scriptures.  
Although I have been following many discussions on the subject, I still
feel that I don't have a clear definition of some terms (at least not a 
clear definition of how these terms are *used* by readers of this newsgroup).  
Instead of using my intuitive understanding, I decided to ask you to define 
those terms for me. 

So... what exactly is meant by:

	a. Inerrancy
	b. Infallibility
	c. Divine Inspiration

of text?  (where appropriate, if anywhere, please give an example, especially
if that would show the difference between the terms)

Thanks in advance.

-leo

[The problem is that different authors or groups use the terms in
different ways.  I would say that inerrrancy is the clearest, as it is
used primarily by conservative Christians, with a fairly specific
meaning.  It seems to be that the Chicago Declaration is widely enough
accepted by people who believe in inerrancy that it should be used as
a definition.  If you don't have a copy, I can send it to via email.
Infallibility has been used by some writers in a slightly broader way,
though those who believe in inerrancy use it with the same meaning as
inerrancy.  Some people have adopted the concept that Scripture is
infallible, but only in what it intends to teach, and it doesn't
intend to teach cosmology or physics.  This seems to be a common view
among Catholics, and I suspect many Protestant who don't believe in
inerrancy hold something similar to this.  Inspiration is the widest
of the three terms.  I believe all Christians would say that the Bible
is inspired.  However there are many models of how inspiration worked.
Inerrancy is part of one such model.  

I don't have a comprehensive library on this subject, but some things
I have that you might want to look up for your paper are:

John Hanned, ed, "Inerrancy and the Church".  This is a conservative
view of the history of inerrancy.  Its thesis is that Christians have
generally held to a view equivalent to modern inerrancy, except for
fairly recent writers influenced by liberalism.  I find its summary of
various views useful, but I urge you to look carefully at what the
extensive quotations actually say.  E.g. while Augustine and Calvin do
claim that the Bible in infallible, their idea of infallibility seems
to be compatible with what one would commonly call errors.  See e.g.
the discussion on pg 43, where Augustine deals with Mat 27:9, where a
quotation from Zechariah is attributed to Jeremiah.  Augustine agrees
that Mat attributes the quotation to Zech when it is really from Jer,
but nevertheless doesn't count it as an error.  Similarly, Calvin in a
few places acknowledges that there are things we would probably call
errors, but does not count them as errors.  So their strong statements
that there are no errors in the Bible need to be interpreted in the
light of how they deal with problem passages.  This book has a number
of references, which you may want to look up.  In particular, you
should probably look at Rogers and McKim.

It is probably also worth looking at some representative of the more
radical writers.  While I haven't read it, a work that's often cited
is J. S. Spong's book with a title something like "Rescuing the Bible
from Fundamentalism".  If it's anything like what I have read ("Living
in Sin"), I would classify this as an attack on Biblical authority,
not just inerrancy.  

I'd like to recommend something in the middle, i.e. someone who accept
the results of higher criticism -- i.e. who does not believe in
inerrancy -- but who also believes in Biblical authority.  I believe
that's the position that most people in the "liberal" churches
actually accept (although their leaders are often more radical).
Unfortunately I don't have a good reference.  James Barr's book "Holy
Scripture: Canon, Authority, Criticism" is the closest I've got, and
might be OK, but it's more about the canon than inerrancy.

If you're going to understand discussions about inerrancy, you need to
have at least some exposure to "higher criticism", since that's really
what underlies all the discussion.  Indeed you might want to read this
before the discussions above.  You might want to go to the source, and
read Bultmann's "The History of the Synoptic Tradition", since it's
this sort of work that most conservatives have in mind.  (I would have
to say that it's also more radical than many scholars would now be
willing to accept.)  Norman Perrin's "Rediscovering the Teachings of
Jesus" is a somewhat more recent work that's an attempt to integrate
critical scholarship.  It's still a bit dated.  Perhaps someone can
suggest a more recent equivalent.  For more recent examples of how
critics work, I suggest spending a few hours in the library and
looking at critical commentaries on the Gospels and Genesis.  The
Anchor Bible commentaries would be fairly good for this purpose, as
examples of a reasonably moderate approach, though you might also want
to look at Hermeneia.

For a brief summary of the Catholic view, you might want to look at
the prefatory material in the New American Bible (edition published by
Thomas Nelson -- I think different editions may have different
prefaces).  This attempts to outline the history of Catholic views.  I
don't have any more extensive references.

--clh]