As Kevin Gardner aptly writes, Christians need to understand what the Bible is and how it came to be, or we will otherwise never fully grasp its meaning.
Across the span of six chapters (17 to 22), Beeke and Smalley explain the core Christian doctrines concerning the Bible, including the doctrines of inspiration, perspicuity, inerrancy and sufficiency.
To improve the understandability of these important doctrines, I reframed the doctrines into two questions:
- Doctrine of biblical inerrancy: why do Christians trust the Bible?
- All other doctrines concerning the Bible: what does the Bible mean to Christians?
This article will address the first question: why do Christians trust the Bible? As such, I will summarize Beeke and Smalley’s explanation in chapters 20 and 21.
I recognize that Beeke and Smalley does not truly offer reasons to trust the Bible—the authors merely point to an agreed doctrine and logic of mainstream Christians. At a later time, Lord willing, I will summarize A History of the Bible and other literature to supplement this article.
Why and how was the Gospel published and preserved in the written form of the Bible?
Before we consider why Christians trust the Bible, we should consider why the Gospel might have been written in the form of the Bible at all.
“We may observe important reasons why the Lord willed that his servants, from Moses to the apostles, write down the word of God. Though God preserved the gospel by oral tradition and new revelation in the family line of the patriarchs through the centuries, the birth of Israel as a distinct and populous nation warranted the creation of covenant documents to government the people under their God (Exodus 24:3-4, 7). Written documents have far greater stability over time, uniformity in content when copied, and universality of public access than oral traditions.” (p. 356).
“It is a remarkable fact that despite the violence of Israel’s enemies and the severe judgements of God, the Old Testament Scriptures were not lost or mutilated, but were preserved in such purity that Christ, living a millennium and a half after Moses, can quote his writings with confidence that they are still the … word of God” (p. 357).
“Although the original manuscripts written by the prophets and apostles are no longer extant, the church as faithfully copied them so that today we may consult a large body of manuscripts and confidently affirm that the sure Word of God abides with us” (p. 358).
“Just as Christ and his apostles viewed the copies of the Old Testament that they possessed as the authoritative Word of God, so may we today trust that God has providentially preserved the text of Scripture through the faithful efforts of scribes, printers and publishers, and will do so until Christ returns” (p. 358).
What is the doctrine of biblical inerrancy?
Christians believe that the Bible is without error or fault in all its teaching. This doctrine can be summarized by the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which is supported by John Piper and includes signatures from J. I. Packer and R. C. Sproul.
All Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16). “No part of the Scriptures originated from human thought or choice, but only as the Spirit of God moved men to communicated exactly what [God] willed (2 Peter 1:20-21). Therefore, every word of the Bible is God’s Word. God not only inspired the thoughts of the prophets and the apostles, but gave them the specific words that they used, so that the words of the writer are the words of the Lord (Jeremiah 36:10-11)” (p. 376).
“Christians should be offended at the idea that God could knowingly allow his Word to contain falsehood” (p. 377). “If the Bible contains falsehood, then either God knew it or did not know it. If God knew something to be false but still declared it in his Word, then God is a liar” (ibid). “If the Bible contains falsehood that God did not know about, then God was ignorant or mistaken” (ibid).
What does the doctrine of biblical inerrancy not mean?
First, it does not claim the Bible to be written by perfect people. The authors cite François Turrettini who noted that “the apostles were infallible in faith, not in practice”.
Second, it does not claim the Bible to be written with perfect grammar. “For example, scholars have noted irregular grammar in the Greek text of the book of Revelation. Aside from the possibility that modern scholars may not fully understand ancient Hebrew and Koine Greek grammar, such observations need not disturb the doctrine of inerrancy. The prophets and apostles did not set out to produce an ancient writer’s manual, and grammatical correctness is not essential to true communication …. the question of errors in the Bible pertains to what the writers declared, taught and communicated, not the grammar that they used to say it” (p. 373).
Third, it does not deny that manuscript copies of the Bible differ from one another at some points. “The doctrine of [inerrancy] does not claim flawless transmission of the original manuscripts in all their copies through the centuries. A review of the many Hebrew and Greek manuscripts shows that they do diverge from one another in places, although a comparison of the manuscripts allows us to establish the original readings with great certainty so that no doctrine of the Bible is in question. The copyists, despite their reverence for the text, did not make some mistakes, but this does not affect the truthfulness of the original documents composed under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit or our confidence in the text that we possess today” (p. 373).
Fourth, it does not claim that the Bible speaks with scientific precision. For example, “the Bible is not a science textbook or a document for technicians and specialists, but a book written for ordinary people. A scientist may say that the time is 1:02 p.m. and 27.764 seconds, but if we were to say that it is one o’clock, we are not telling a falsehood, just speaking with ordinary precision” (p. 374).
Fifth, it does not deny that the Bible was written from an ordinary human point of view. “For example, the Bible speaks of the sun rising and setting. Objectively, we now that know that the sun is not moving around the earth, but only appears to do so because the earth is rotating on its axis. However, the Bible is not teaching a geocentric view of the universe, but using common language according to everyday human experience” (p. 374).
Sixth, the use of figures of speech do not contradict the truthfulness of the Bible. “For example, Scripture speaks of God’s arm, hand and finger (Exodus 6:6, 8:19), not to indicate that God has a physical body, but as symbols of his power, skill, and precision” (pp. 374-375).
Seventh, it does not disregard the challenges of interpreting the Bible, such as harmonizing the history or theology of one part of the Bible with another, or showing the consistency between the Bible and historical or scientific evidence” (p. 375).
What are the common objections to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy?
First, the human authors of the Bible are fallible. “Though God inspired the Bible, it was written by human beings. Human beings make mistakes. Therefore, it is inevitable that the Bible should contain some errors, which are not to be blamed on God, but man” (p. 384). In response, the authors cite John Frame who remarks that “even unregenerate people sometimes speak the truth. So we should not think it impossible that God could reveal himself through human agents, keeping them from error, without violating their humanity” (ibid). If the Bible errors, then God errors.
Second, the historical accounts are flawed, especially the early chapters of Genesis. In response, the authors explain that “Jesus Christ affirms the complete reliability of God’s Word, including the historical accounts from Genesis. Christ refers to the creation of the first man and woman … and to God’s institution of marriage in the garden (Matthew 19:4-6). He does not regard Genesis as a myth … he considers the worldwide flood, Noah’s ark, the destruction of Sodom … and compares them to his second coming (Luke 17:26-32). Similarly, Christ speaks of the swallowing of Jonah by a great fish, the repentance of Nineveh at Jonah’s preaching, and the Queen of Sheba’s visit to Solomon as real, historical events (Matthew 12:39-42). If we could be counted as followers of Christ … then we must accept his view of Genesis and biblical history in general” (pp. 384-385).
Third, the Bible contains historical and scientific errors. In response, the authors remind us that “the Bible was not written with scientific precision, but in ordinary language as matters appear to the human eye” (p. 386).
Fourth, there are contradictions within the Bible. In response, the authors argue that “believers in Christ who study the Bible carefully find that … it teaches a remarkably unified system of truth. It is true that God progressively revealed his truth with increasingly clarity and varied how he administrated his covenant through history. However, the moral law of love and the gospel of grace remain the same” (p. 387). The God of the Old Testament is not a God of raging wrath, different from the God of the New Testament, because the consequences of sin is indeed death (Romans 6:23). “The Gospels do not claim to place all their events in the exact order … furthermore, the original manuscripts of the Bible did not use quotation marks to mark direct quotes, and there is no claim that they report the exact words of Christ. It is probable that Christ often spoke in Aramaic, and the Gospel writers translated his words into Koine Greek. In a similar way, the New Testament writers did not directly quote the Hebrew Old Testament but used a Greek translation … and at other times paraphrased or alluded to Old Testament texts” (p. 388).
Fifth, the doctrine of inerrancy is a new invention—not a doctrine of the ancient, medieval or Reformation church. In response, while the doctrine might not have been explicitly formulated, the authors point to writings by Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin to support the same view.
This article is part of a series on systematic theology, based upon the first of four volumes of Reformed Systematic Theology by Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley.
