I wonder what those who sign statements like that would have to say about a great many portions of text… For instance, the Deuteronomistic Theology: evil things happened to you because you sinned. Really? Is anyone seriously going to apply that? If so, then the Jews in the Nazi holocaust and the people of Haiti had it coming. But if that’s true, then what do they make of the God of Job who is capricious–not bound by any moral and spiritual principle like rewarding good and punishing evil, but rather rewards the righteous (Job) with evil, tells Job that he shouldn’t think himself important in the grand scheme of creation, and in the end doesn’t bring restoration (Job’s children and servants remain slain by God on no account of their own deeds and with no afterlife or resurrection to speak of in which to make right the wrong God has done against them). In the end, God acknowledges that Job has spoken the truth (that God has wronged him) and that Job’s friends have spoken falsely (that God deals justly with people). Neither of those two can be spiritually or morally true at the same time. And if either one of them is spiritually or morally true, I’d want nothing to do with such a horrendously deplorable and unjust deity or those who follow it.

Thanks, Dave. You’re hitting on a really important point here. I talked about the claim regarding historical facts, while you’ve touched on the claim regarding moral and spiritual teaching (as if there were some singular, monolithic “teaching” on morality and spirituality amidst all the texts of the Bible!). I have already started writing a follow-up on that topic. Thanks!!

I think this has always been a fascinating question; I took a class from Professor Burke at UCLA entitled the “Ancient History Israel” in which the first half of the class we essentially looked at the historical accuracy/existing evidence for the stories of the Old Testament. Growing up Jewish, this was extremely interesting for me and on a shallow “surface” level, allowed me to look at the historicity at the stories I heard as kid during Sunday school to a somewhat entry scholarly level. While much of the the specific dates/examples have left me from that class, obviously, very little hard historical evidence exists (though not completely) for much of what is written in the Old Testament.

But therein lies that problem that you somewhat alluded to; there is so much obsession (and I understand why, I am extremely interested myself) to finding out the truth and finding proof for the Bible because as a society, we base so much on “rationalizing” everything and in the age of science, we as a people attempt to find an correct answer or solution to everything. Sometimes that is good, other times it is irrelevant; in the case of the Bible, I agree with you that trying to turn the Bible into a historical textbook is ridiculous but it undermines what it completely. The only thing for sure that we DO know (in my opinion) is that we DON’T know for sure how “historical” any of it is (I know next to nothing about the New Testament, which I am dangerously using as an assumption, so I can only say about the Old Testament) and instead (as you said in your post) should focus on the meaning of why it was written and when it was written and analyze it in that historical context. We can learn from it that way (ie. just as we can learn about the racist America was by looking at how their textbooks were written compared to today).

Hi Pat
It’s a wonderful piece that you have posted. I hope all of those who claim to talk something about the Bible would read it. Each time I see someone using the terms ‘inspired’, ‘inerrant’, and all those terms that come as a package to describe their faith group , I feel sad, because they are missing the power of the scriptures. When we learned history in school, we thought it is a study of the dates, when each king ruled and when they died and so forth..(that explains that I am from India)…it took a long time to realize that history doesn’t have much to do about dates…it is story of how we look at ourselves…and there can be any number of ways to look at it…each one makes a new reading or looking at history…there are many ways in which the people of God in the bible looks at themselves…that is the power of Scripture.
Ok, there is so much to be said about what you have written…lets not reduce Bible into a text book or an ‘instruction manual’…
Mathew

Thanks, Barry! I think you hit the nail on the head regarding our modern age rationalizing everything. It’s a problem of anachronism, really. We take our modern perspective and expect that this is the sort of perspective we should find in the Bible, a collection of ancient texts. This is especially the case for things in those first 11 chapters of Genesis, like the creation story or the flood and Noah’s ark. The point of the creation narrative(s) in Genesis is not that they represent what we now understand about science. They have nothing to do with science! It is making a statement about the transcendence and power of God, on the one hand, and God’s imminent, intimate care for humanity, on the other hand. Having any sort of conversation about science in these stories profoundly misses the point.

Thanks again!

Thanks, Mathew. “it took a long time to realize that history doesn’t have much to do about dates…it is story of how we look at ourselves.” That’s a great thought! Although, it’s not always “ourselves,” of course, unless we’re thinking collectively about humanity. Thanks so much. By the way, like slaveofone above, you also started to put a finger on the next post I hope to do by mentioning the “instruction manual” bit.

I believe the Bible can be inerrant and historically skewed. Just because its historiography doesn’t match up completely with might have literally happened doesn’t make it errant. I agree that when people use the term inerrant some think that means according to western historical perspectives the Bible is without error. But that just silly, just as silly as saying it isn’t inerrant because it doesn’t meet our western historical perspectives.

[...] my previous post, I ranted about those who feel the need to call the Bible 100% accurate about historical facts. The [...]

Well, if you’re going to define “inerrant” in that way (i.e., in a way which seems not to fit with the definition of the word “inerrant”), then the problem seems to become one of terminology, and perhaps a better solution would be to find a word which expresses exactly what you mean – as opposed to the shoehorning of the term which Pat describes above.

Thanks, Mik. That’s the point I was getting at.

[...] as stories that convey spiritual truths.  That reminds me of Pat McCullough’s recent posts, The Bible Is Not a History Textbook and It Doesn’t Matter if Noah’s Ark [...]