Ken Smith (K) wrote:

I have read through Don’s (Don Batten’s) initial posting to a.r.c several times. The issue of “inerrancy” has come up a number of times in the past here, and the participants have (usuallly) agreed to differ. Might I make a plea for a bit of civility in the language to be used in this debate? Don’s posting uses the same sort of language which can be found in other creationist writings, and it gives the impression, perhaps unintended, of belligerence towards anyone who disagrees. In particular, the adjective “apostate” which Don used both of the highly respected historian Ronald Numbers, and of Chris Ho-Stuart who is greatly respected by the regulars on a.r.c, is unnecesary, and adds nothing to the content of the post. (D)

Ken, for someone who throws so much mud you are incredibly imaginative at finding incivility in what I have written. Just about everything you write against creationists in that christophobic rag, ‘The Skeptic’, is dripping with ridicule (not to mention on the JMM website). It’s unfortunately typical to find in anticreationists the tactics of the schoolyard bully-happy to dish it out, but not the converse. You yourself are happy to cite Ho-Stuart to call my colleague Dr Sarfati “a liar and an idiot” -leaving aside the incongruity of an atheist lecturing a Christian on whether evolution and Christianity are compatible! And when your atheistic compatriot Plimer was happy to label a leading US creationist a pederast, you and the other Skeptics refused to repudiate it. But then you complain when a creationist shows the tiniest imagined sign of aggression. But then, you deny biblical inerrancy, so perhaps you regard the commands against hypocrisy to be one of the alleged errors in the Bible?

Fact is, both gentlemen say that they once were Christians and are now no longer. An apostate is simply one who abandons religious faith, vows or principles. And it is relevant to the discussion, because such abandonment of faith indicates that they cannot be regarded as neutral, unbiased observers in the issues pertaining to this debate.

And by whom is Numbers “highly respected”? His assertions about the origins of YEC are crassly ignorant of the history of the interpretations of the Church Fathers and Reformers, as well as the Scriptural Geologists. Yet anticreationists quote him as virtually verbally inspired when he claims that YEC began with Ellen White or George McCready Price. Only those who have never bothered to check his claims could respect his ‘scholarship’ in this area (Skeptics can be very selective in their scepticism).

(K)

Now for some comments on terminology and language. If all participants are to be clear about what others are saying, we need to make sure that we are using the words with the same meaning. Don said that he accepted the Chicago Declaration on inerrancy. I recently posted my full Credo to a.r.c and it is available for public scrutiny on http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/~kgs But for purposes of debating inerrancy, let me emphasise that I cannot disentangle my beliefs about Genesis from my beliefs about the rest of Scripture.

(D)

That is the main point of my first post; that Genesis cannot be separated from the rest of Scripture, since the history recorded there is foundational to the Gospel and much else.

(K)

The two paragraphs in my Credo about scripture are: I believe that in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments God has given us an authoritative disclosure of his character and will, his redemptive acts and their meaning, and his mandate for mission. I believe that since everything asserted by the divinely inspired authors must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted to put into the sacred writings for our salvation: anything which is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of anyone as an article of faith, nor to be regarded as necessary for salvation. Neither here, nor in the Chicago Declaration, is any definition of “Scripture” given.

(D)

There was no need for such, since this was understood by all signatories.

(K)

Don might think that this is a trivial point, and that we are all agreed on the 66 books of the canon. But Athanasius has joined in, and the Orthodox churches have a different canon than do most Protestants. And the Catholics are different again. Some other Eastern churches differ yet again, and the Ethiopan Church accepts the Book of Enoch. So can we agree on a core of writings which we are all (all Christians, I should say: those atheists who have joined in are unlikely to accept any writings as inspired) prepared to accept as “inspired by God”?

(D)

The content of the canon was covered in the link I provided: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4306apol_v3n21994.asp, which you apparently did not read. This article also shows that we are aware of the nuances of the issue. We can get into debates about the Canon, but since Ken Smith belongs to a Baptist church which accepts the Protestant Canon (which in the OT is the same as the Jewish Canon), this is just another example of obfuscation (Red Herring fallacy). Even more so, since all the Canons include Genesis 1-11! When it comes to the Genesis creation account, there is no doubt that the original stated creation in six days and provided a chronology of thousands of years, not billions. The textual problems are only between the Masoretic, LXX and SP versions of the chronogenealogies and whether an extra Cainan should be there, but they don’t make any difference to the broad picture. AiG argues that the Masoretic is closest to the original, that there are no gaps in the chronogenealogies and that the extra Cainan is spurious—see http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i3/chronogenealogies.asp

(K)

But even if we are agreed, there are major problems once we start talking about the “original autographs”. Some of these were mentioned by Peter Ballard in a posting in August 1998: Lines: 68 G’day all, Considering this inerrancy debate: Most proponents of Biblical inerrancy – including (I think) all of those involved in the debate here on this newsgroup – limit inerrancy to the autographs. That is, only the original copies penned by the the Biblical authors are necessarily inerrant, but errors in copying have crept into the copies which we possess. It is almost impossible to claim that the copies are inerrant, given some of the numerical differences between Samuel/Kings and Chronicles. (e.g. compare 2 Sam 10:3-4 with 1 Chr 18:3-4 – did David take 700 or 7000 horsemen? Obviously one of them contains a copyist’s error.) However, most proponents of inerrancy do not seem to realise that, once errors in the copies are admitted, most arguments for inerrancy fall apart.

(D)

Complete nonsense. There is a huge conceptual difference between: “The original manuscripts were inerrant, and textual criticism can help us approach this ideal”, which is the orthodox view; and “The original manuscripts had mistakes”, which is the heterodox view. Leading19th century New Testament textual critics Westcott and Hort, who were hardly fundamentalists, said, “If comparative trivialities such as changes of order, the insertion or omission of the article with proper names, and the like are set aside, the works in our opinion still subject to doubt can hardly mount to more than a thousandth part of the whole New Testament.” And if you were to parrot an alleged biblical contradiction from one of the gutter atheist sites (that mainly copy uncritically from each other), I would not resort to explaining it as a copyist error unless I could show that it was likely from scribal practices (e.g. numbers and long lists). As for why God didn’t preserve the original autographs, one word: RELICS (and we would have real bibliolatry)! See also Copyist Errors and Estimations in the text of the Bible at http://www.tektonics.org/af/copyisterrors.html

(PB)

I can think of 4 main arguments I have seen for inerrancy, and only one of them applies to the autographs and not the copies: Argument #1 (Jesus’ and the apostles’ use of the OT): “Jesus and the apostles considered Scripture absolutely authoritative” Reply: But what they considered authoritative was the (errant) copies not the (inerrant) autographs. Argument #2 (the epistological argument): “If the Bible contains errors, how can we be sure of ANYTHING it says?” Reply: The same can be said about the copies. My position is this: just as errors in the copies are minor and insignificant and have no effect on our faith and the doctrine, so also the same can be said for errors in the autographs.

(D)

The few errors in the copies can be shown to be such from scribal practices, and have no effect on the inerrancy of the originals. Here is a good example of an easily traceable copyist error that explains the discrepancy in extant MSS about who killed Goliath:

2 Sam. 21:19 In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod. 1 Chr. 20:5 In another battle with the Philistines, Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.

Hebrew scholar Gleason Archer explained this in Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties with three scribal errors based on confusing similar letters and haplography: 1. A copyist first mistook the sign of the direct object before “Lahmi,” which was ‘-t, for a b-t and got Bethelehemite; 2. the copyist also misread the word for “brother” (‘-h) as the sign of the direct object before “Goliath” and made “Goliath” the object of “killed” instead of “brother” as Chronicles does; 3. the word “weavers” was also misplaced after “Elhanan” to make the name “son of the woods of weavers,” which is quite an unlikely name.)

(PB)

Argument #3 (the argument from church history): “Historically, the church has believed in an inerrant Bible”. Reply: That is probably true,

(D)

It is nice to see this acknowledged, albeit somewhat reluctantly, it would appear.

(PB)

but there is little evidence of the church distinguishing errant copies from inerrant autographs. For instance, Article I of the Westminster confession calls the copies “pure”. That just leaves Argument #4: “Certain Bible verses teach that Scripture is inspired directly by God, and errant autographs are incompatible with such a mode of inspiration”. This argument cannot be applied to the copies, that is true. Nor do I wish to dismiss this argument as without weight. But one must realise that this is the only argument left for inerrancy, and that it is based on very few verses. Also, I would submit, none of these verses exclude the possibility of error. Peter Ballard

(D)

But all this is rather beside the point (the Red Herring fallacy) and indicates misconceptions about what inerrancy entails. The Chicago statement covers the issue of the original autographs:

Article X. “WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.

“WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.”

And in the covering exposition:

Transmission and Translation “Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this science, however, is that the Hebrew and Greek text appear to be amazingly well preserved, so that we are amply justified in affirming, with the Westminster Confession, a singular providence of God in this matter and in declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error-free.

“Similarly, no translation is or can be perfect, and all translations are an additional step away from the autographa. Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English-speaking Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true Word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in view of the frequent repetition in Scripture of the main matters with which it deals and also of the Holy Spirit’s constant witness to and through the Word, no serious translation of Holy Scripture will so destroy its meaning as to render it unable to make its reader “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).”

(K)

As well as the major point that all the NT writings which quote the OT must have been quoting from copies, not the “original autographs”, there are additional problems with the term “original autographs” which Peter hasn’t mentioned.

(D)

More nonsense. Sometimes they quoted from the LXX, but that is basically for the same reason I will quote from the KJV if the congregation uses that version – so they can check what I am saying. Otherwise the ‘noble Bereans’ of Acts 17:11 might have said, “That’s not what we find in our translation. How do we know that you haven’t altered it to suit your case?” Many of the Greek readers had to have a translation, just as most English readers do, so it makes sense to use one, even though I still believe only the autographs were inerrant, simply because God doesn’t inspire mistakes. A lot of this is covered in Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, including the issue of LXX and types of scribal errors.

(K)

The Greek word translated “scripture” is graphe (long “e” which can’t be indicated in a text message), and almost always refers to the Old Testament. In particular 2 Timothy 3:16, the verse usually used to define inspiration, can only refer to the Hebrew scriptures. And it doesn’t say which version of the Hebrew writings, or which selection of the then extant writings, are to be regarded as “inspired”.

(D)

Again, these matters were covered in the same link I gave: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4306apol_v3n21994.asp

And all these supposed problems apply equally to the view of Scripture of those ‘evangelicals’ who deny inerrancy, where apparently a book with errors can be authoritative (but in practice, you yourself become the authority over those parts you consider to be errors; that is apparently any part that disagrees with a materialistic view of origins).

(K)

It is not generally appreciated among the more conservative groups of Christians

(D)

Oh we conservatives are such ignoramuses, we are! Here we have another fallacy: Argumentum ad Hominem.

(K)

that a large number of quotations of “scripture” in the New Testament do not quote the Hebrew Masoretic text (MT for short), but in fact quote the Greek translation, called the Septuagint (LXX for short), made several centuries BC. Athanasius can provide more information about this, but this is one reason behind the Orthodox churches claim that the LXX was inspired by God. And since Jesus seems to have been content to quote it, who am I to disagree?

(D)

Already covered, and this is obfuscation because even the LXX chronology of Genesis refutes long ages and theistic evolution. I can only conclude that you raise this merely to confuse the flock and avoid dealing with the issues (Red Herring fallacy).

(K)

To illustrate this, let me take Don’s first section, where he listed a number of places where he claimed Jesus cited the OT as authoritative. The second paragraph of Don’s section 1 reads: Jesus regarded the OT scriptures as God’s word; that is, spoken by God or inspired by the Holy Spirit, although written by the hands of men (Matthew 19:4, 5; 22:31, 32, 43; Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37) and therefore even the smallest letter or stroke was inspired and would “never pass away” (Matt. 5:18; Luke 16:17). Jesus cited nearly every book in the OT as authoritative, thus authenticating the canon as we know it (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4306apol_v3n21994.asp). There is no room here for regarding any part of Scripture as deficient in any way due to it supposedly being the product of the minds of ‘illiterate primitives’ (campfire stories of Semitic nomads, ‘primitive goat-herders’ etc.). In 1967 the United Bible Societies published, in their “Helps for Translators” series, a book “Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament”, edited by Robert Bratcher in co-operation with the UBS Sub-committee on Translation. This presents the New Testament passages in parallel with the Old Testament passages. If the NT agrees with the MT only that is given. But if the NT disagrees with the MT the LXX is also given, and in a number of cases the LXX rendering is clearly the one used in the NT. Places where the “quotation” is more a paraphrase or an allusion are noted in the list. Of the first group of quotations in Don’s list we have the following information noted by the UBS: Matt. 19:4 is marked as a paraphrase, and is closer to the LXX; Matt. 19:5 is virtually identical with the LXX, and differs from the MT; Matt. 22:31 is not marked in the UBS Greek NT as a quotation; Matt. 22:32 omits some words from the MT, which here is the same as LXX; Matt. 22:44 (43 was probably a typographical error) seems to be a composite of LXX and MT; Mark 12:26 is parallel to Matt. 22:32 (see above); Luke 20:37 is labeled a paraphrase, and again is parallel to Matt. 22:32.

(D)

So what? This was well within the rabbinic methods of citing Scripture – see Good question … did the Messianic Jewish Believers use the OT deceitfully or ignorantly in the New Testament? http://www.christian-thinktank.com/baduseot.html A paraphrase or translation, as long as it is accurate, is hardly the same as error. And surely the Holy Spirit is allowed to paraphrase Himself if He wishes.

(K)

Summarising this data, of the six quotations three omit some words from the OT, either MT or LXX; one is a composite of MT and LXX; one is a paraphrase and is closer to LXX; and the remaining one is identical to LXX. There is thus clear evidence that copies of the Greek translation, not copies of the “original autograph”, is what was quoted. We could get into a very lengthy debate, trying to analyse all the “quotations” in the NT and working out what proportion prefer the LXX to the MT. The Appendices in both the UBS Greel NT (4th edition) or in the Nestle/Aland Greek NT (27th edition) go some way towards helping, but these will only be useful for listing those places where the LXX is the obvious source. If a “quotation” is not marked as LXX it will need to be examined to see whether the LXX is a faithful translation of the MT (as it is in most cases) or whether the two differ. And. frankly, I don’t have either the inclination or the time to do this. In addition, the OT texts from Qumran provide us with more fascinating data. Some of the Hebrew texts, although somewhat fragmentary, seem to be copies of the Hebrew which underlies some passages of the LXX where this differs from the MT, so that at least up to around AD 70 there were variant Hebrew texts. And even more interesting has been the discovery of Hebrew originals of some of the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, indicating that the Hebrew canon was, at that time, still not closed. The above information is presented to indicate that using the phrase “original autographs” has a large number of problems associated with it, and these cannot simply be dismissed. Nor can we lightly assume that Jesus and the early church took the MT as inerrant, since the existence of a canon corresponding to what we now know as the MT seems very doubtful.

(D)

All this is rather beside the point also, showing misconceptions about the meaning of inerrancy. The Chicago Statement covers the issue of free quotation of the OT:

Article XIII. “WE AFFIRM the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture.

“WE DENY that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.”

A number of years ago I was reading an article by Henry M. Morris where, as part of his attempt to justify his interpretation of Genesis 1-11 (which, in fact, is largely based on the writings of the mid-19th century Ellen G. White – but that’s a separate story)

Here we have a nice example of the genetic fallacy: 1. The Seventh Day Adventist founder, Ellen White, is the source of creationist teaching 2. Therefore, creationist thinking must be wrong.

The premise is false and the logic is unsound. What more can I say? How much evidence do I need to present to prove that this stuff about Ellen White is nonsense? Our basic framework of understanding Genesis is the same as the church has held since its beginning. I have amply demonstrated that. I can only think that this mantra must be a garbled version of Ronald Numbers’ historical revisionism, since Numbers (incredibly) attributes ‘creationism’ to George McCready Price (an SDAer) in the 1920s.

Here is a parallel argument:

Evolutionary ideas can be traced to pagan Greek philosophers. Therefore evolution is wrong.

The only difference here is that at least the premise is true, even if the logic is unsound.

Darwin did not invent evolutionary ideas. Some of the ancient philosophers before Christ – such as Empedocles (d. 435 BC), Democritus (d. 370), Epicurus (d. 270) and Lucretius (d. 55) – had evolutionary ideas that life arose spontaneously and that different life forms arose from one another. Evolutionary ideas were on the scene in English society well before Darwin. Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus, wrote about evolutionary notions of beginnings (‘all from shells’, was the motto on his family shield).

(K)

that Jesus quoted from each of the first 11 chapters of Genesis. This struck me as unlikely, and it only took a few minutes with the “Index of Quotations” in the back of the UBS Greek New Testament to uncover the fact that the only chapters of Genesis 1-11 quoted in the NT are chapters 1, 2 and 5. I didn’t check to see if these were quoted by Jesus, since Morris was obviously wrong.

This criticism of Dr Morris is also beside the point (and an attempt at the ‘guilt by association’ fallacy?), but I suspect that you have misconstrued what he claimed anyway, just as you have misconstrued what I said (see below). Also, you did not give the name of the article so that the validity of your criticism could be checked. In his commentary on Genesis (‘The Genesis Record’) Dr Morris lists ‘Quotations from or allusions to Genesis in the New Testament’ (note: not just quotations). But restricting it to just Jesus, He made clear reference to Genesis chapter 1 (Matt. 19:4; Mk 10:6), chapter 2 (Matt. 19:5; Mark 10:7-8), chapter 3 (Luke 10:19), chapter 4 (Matt. 23:35, Luke 11:51), chapter 6 (Luke 17:26, Matt. 24:37, Matt. 24:38-39), chapter 7 (Luke 17:27), and chapter 9 (Matt. 26:52). Furthermore, Matt. 19:4 and Mark 10:6 could be seen as referring to Genesis 5:2, as well as chapter 1.

That would leave chapters 8, 10 and 11 apparently without direct reference from Jesus. In footnote #10, Dr Morris notes that Jesus refers to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 (p. 682), which agrees with the above list. However, Genesis chapter 8 is the conclusion of the account of the Flood, which Jesus certainly referred to, so he referred to the event, the conclusion of which is recorded in chapter 8 (the fact that Noah et al. were saved is recorded in this chapter). Jesus did mention Abraham’s birth (John 8:58), which is recorded in Genesis 11:27. That leaves chapter 10, which is the table of nations (genealogies). However, even here, Jesus referred to Sodom and Gomorrah, which are first mentioned in chapter 10, thus authenticating the reality of these places (interestingly, directions are matter-of-factly given to Sodom and the other cities of the plain, long destroyed and under the Dead Sea by Moses’ time. This shows that this section dates from the time of Abraham or even earlier, when these cities were still standing as landmarks). If we expand the list to all references in the NT to Genesis 1-11, not just from Jesus, the list blows out to over 100.

Just how many references to Genesis are necessary to show that Jesus and the inspired writers of the NT regarded Genesis 1-11 as real history and authoritative? Again, your argument here about minutiae can only be seen as a distraction from the issue at hand, which is that the Jesus and the New Testament writers regarded Genesis 1-11 as history.

(K)

So I have reservations about Don’s claim, in his paragraph quoted above … Jesus cited nearly every book in the OT as authoritative, thus authenticating the canon as we know it (http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4306apol_v3n21994.asp ). Since there are no direct quotations from Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Obadiah, Nahum or Zechariah (15 out of 39 books) in the NT, and some of the other books (1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, I Kings, Job, Proverbs, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos, Habakkuk and Haggai, another 10 books) aren’t quoted in the gospels, it seems to me, on the face of it, unlikely that there is evidence that “Jesus cited nearly every book”, but I need to do some more investigating here.

(D)

Again, you have misconstrued what I said. I said, ‘cited’, not ‘quoted’. So here we have the Straw Man fallacy. The Oxford Dictionary makes it clear that ‘cite’ has a broader meaning in addition to quoting: ‘adduce or mention as an example, precedent or proof; call to mind; refer to.’ This is especially so when we understand Rabbinic methods of citation. What I said stands.

(K)

These aren’t my only response to the first section in Don’s article, but this is quite long enough. Expect more responses later.

(D)

It would help if you actually responded to the issues I raised.

Don