Quote:
Originally Posted by VoiceInWilderness
Inerrant means that every word of the Bible is true. Do you believe that?
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That is one definition put out under the teaching of inerrancy.
But there is nothing that insists that words are "true" in the sense that in each case it is the only word that could have been used to convey the meaning intended. The problem with looking at inerrancy at the word level is that it is where you get the growing need to parse each word for its precise meaning. What about what the sentence says. In its most straightforward way? What if it had been written slightly differently yet provided the same information?
If each Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, etc. word is importantly specific and must be studied to arrive at the real meaning, then we should be seeking with all our being to create the single English translation that faithfully translates each word or phrase as necessary to be exact and precise. Word by word (or phrase by phrase where word pictures are involved).
And every time someone goes in to analyze the Greek, they conclude something different somewhere relative to someone. So there is a difference in the scripture as far as the two readers are concerned.
But when it says that Jesus went up to Jerusalem, it could have said that he travelled to Jerusalem. Or that he walked to Jerusalem. Or . . . . But what is it telling us? He went to Jerusalem. Did the word used change the meaning?
I agree with Igzy that God is capable of inserting things that the writer may not have had any idea had been pushed into the text. But a whole lot of it is the telling of events. And the events described are the important thing. Not the nonsense of what we parse out of the individual words.
That, coupled with other hermeneutic tools is how craziness comes to town. Someone insists that certain words can only mean a single thing. For example, there can only be one spirit that gives life. You know where that one goes.
I fully believe in what the Bible tells me. I now tend to not put much stock in the special teachings that come from isolating words and phrases from their context and parsing them to death. That's how we got the ground of dirt, God's economy (Lee's teaching, not the real thing) being simply God dispensing himself into man, and even line-in-the-sand "decision" salvation that is all you need (not Lee's creation). But it is only as inerrant as the interpretation that is put on it. And virtually everyone that used the word is trying to insist that their interpretation is simply the word of God and not another interpretation.
So I don't put much stock in the term "inerrant" or "inerrancy" because, the only way in which it is true is not the way in which it is used.