From:  (Nigel B. Mitchell)

Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

Subject: Inerrancy – was Re: Denominations

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 14:17:05 GMT

I am not quite sure how, but I think we have reached some form of

agreement here.
In <>,  (Able)

wrote:
>1. The original autographs are no longer in existence, we could

>therefore argue forever more about the actual words that were

>written, and the order in which they  written . This we find out in

>heaven.
>2. The original intention has been preserved in four different

>independent accounts..this to me is quite astounding.
and…

>>The Bible was written by divinely inspired fallible human beings. 
> I agree.
This is exactly what I have been saying in each of our discussions on

the scriptures. What we have in the NT is the different accounts of

the various authors’ understanding and experiences of God. They were

divinely inspired to record those experiences and understandings “that

we may believe” (John 19:35). 
Writing, authorising, copying, translating, and interpreting the

scriptures over the past 20 centuries has been a major part of the

responsibility and ministry of the Church, The people who did these

things were all fallible, but we can be confident that most, if not

all, were guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit. There are

demonstrable errors and discrepancies that have crept into our Bibles,

but the remarkable thing (and IMHO an evidence of the ongoing work ogf

the Holy Spirit) is that the alteration and introduction of errors has

been so minor overall. 
We cannot re-create the exact words of Jesus’ teaching, but we can be

very confident about his intentions and the things he spoke about in

general. We can be slightly more confident about the teaching of Paul,

but even there the overall themes and intentions come through more

clearly than the exact or literal words.
In other words, the example of the differing accounts of the Last

Supper shows that what we have in the New Testament is a _fairly good_

account of what actually happened, and what the early Church thought

was important about the ministry and teaching of Jesus. 
It also follows that since we can identify minor discrepancies and

errors in the differing wording and meaning of an event where we have

four different accounts (five if you includ John 13), we should be

*very* careful about forming doctrines or thinking that we know

exactly what happened and exactly what was intended in events where we

have only one account or two. 
Cheers
N+
Nigel B. Mitchell