From: 
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Verbal Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 03:19:28 GMT

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.
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.

Argument #3 (the argument from church history):
"Historically, the church has believed in
an inerrant Bible".

Reply: That is probably true, 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
Adelaide, AUSTRALIA

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~pballard/
[personal opinions only]