Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation

by Norman L. Geisler, William C. Roach

According to the authors, the doctrine of inerrancy has been standard, accepted teaching for more than 1,000 years. In 1978, the famous "Chicago Statement" on inerrancy was adopted by the Evangelical Theological Society, and for decades it has been the accepted conservative evangelical doctrine of the Scriptures. However, in recent years, some prominent evangelical authors have challenged this statement in their writings.

Now eminent apologist and bestselling author Norman L. Geisler, who was one of the original drafters of the "Chicago Statement," and his coauthor, William C. Roach, present a defense of the traditional understanding of inerrancy for a new generation of Christians who are being assaulted with challenges to the nature of God, truth, and language. Pastors, students, and armchair theologians will appreciate this clear, reasoned response to the current crisis.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Biblical Studies

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Norman L. Geisler (PhD, Loyola University of Chicago) taught at top evangelical colleges and seminaries for over fifty years and was a distinguished professor of apologetics and theology at Veritas Evangelical Seminary in Murrieta, California. He was the author of nearly eighty books, including the Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics and Christian Ethics. He and his wife lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Reviews

[Steve VK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inerrancy is a foundation of the Christian Worldview. As a Christian, we believe, “all Scripture is breathed out by God, to be used for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” 2 Timothy 3:16.

As such, it is important to not only understand what inerrancy means but be able to make at least a basic case for this truth. So the information in this volume is without doubt beneficial for everybody to understand.

That being said, there are some positives and some “not quite as positives that I found while reading”. This book will push you. It is written at a scholarly level with LOTS of valuable information to digest. It would be helpful coming into it if you have a decent working knowledge of The Chicago Statement on inerrancy, although that’s basically what the whole book is about so this isn’t vital as the authors will be continuously quoting from it. It would also be helpful to have some knowledge of Apologetics, Hermeneutics and Theology terms and ideas. This is not a “basic” book so the authors use some of these terms with the understanding that the reader is familiar with the term or concept.

That leads me to say this wouldn’t be a good book to start your journey on defending Scripture and inerrancy. While there is some fantastic education to be gained it is pretty heavy material to get through if you’re just looking for a basic understanding of the topic and how to defend it.

The organization can be a bit scattered for me. In order to do due diligence to the topics of the chapters Geisler and Roach are constantly having to re-define terms, re-quote statements and texts and that can lead to getting slightly off topic for a paragraph or two. This can make it hard to follow the original theme of the page or section if you’re not careful. I personally like short chapters which this book lacks. The chapters are packed full of information including disceting and explaining some of the most well known critics of inerrancy. This makes them extremely long, which I personally find difficult to enjoy and get through.

Some of the gems of this volume are chapters 4, “Bart Erhman on Inerrancy”, 15 “The Nature of Hermeneutics and Inerrancy”, and 17 “Answering Objection to Inerrancy”. These three chapters were the highlights for me. They were packed with valuable information on not only the most relative objections of the day but how to assess them and defend the truth.

I will conclude by saying if you have any interaction with the Bible this will be a great book to work through. No matter what side of the inerrancy discussion you fall on, it will no doubt be an asset to you and your learning process. I push my 7 year old to read books EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE that are just a tiny bit out of her grasp, so she can learn new vocabulary and ideas and continue to stretch her mind. That’s what this book was for me. It was just enough over my head that I was able to learn and pick up some very good information, but it opened my mind to new people and ideas that I will now get to revisit and learn from.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A FIRM DEFENSE OF BIBLICAL INERRANCY FROM CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES

The authors wrote in the Prologue to this 2011 book, “Now in the morning of the twenty-first century, evangelicalism is faced with a new challenge to the traditional view of inerrancy as expressed by ETS [Evangelical Theological Society] and ICBI [International Council on Biblical Inerrancy]. In fact, some are openly challenging the adequacy and even the correctness of the ICBI statement… This leads us to pose the question for this book: Can this view of total inerrancy be reaffirmed for the twenty-first century? Does the ICBU statement need to be revised or even discarded? Is it possible to be a biblical scholar and still believe in unlimited inerrancy?” (Pg.13)

They state, “Despite [Clark] Pinnock’s claim to be able to affirm the ETS and ICBI statements on inerrancy, his views are clearly opposed to what the framers meant by those statements. He was willing to accept them only as reinterpreted through his lenses, which were contrary to what was intended by the ICBI framers and expressed in their official commentary on it… Pinnock did sign the more brief and less specific ETS statement, but even here he did so contrary to the framers’ meaning and contrary to a majority of ETS members who voted on the issue in November 2003 in Atlanta.” (Pg. 56)

They argue, “Colin Hemer lists fifteen lines of evidence supporting a date prior to AD 62 for the book of Acts. Just a few are sufficient to make the point: (1) There is no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70… (2) Likewise, there is no mention of the Jewish War that broke out in AD 66. (3) The apostle Paul is still alive (Acts 28), so it must have been before his death around AD 65. (4) There is no hint of the death of James the brother of Jesus, at the hands of the Sanhedrin, which Josephus… says occurred in AD 62… Therefore, we have good evidence to conclude that the Gospel of Luke was written by an accurate first-century historian within three decades of the death of Christ.” (Pg. 90-91)

They observe that, “There is always a danger when one sets out, as [Peter] Enns does, to reconcile his view of the Bible with ‘modern biblical scholarship.’ Often when this takes place, one trades orthodoxy for academic respectability. This criticism should come as no surprise to Enns since he recognizes that one’s worldview influences how he interprets the Bible…. Why then should we expect that most of the ‘modern biblical scholarship’ … based as it is on antisupernatural biases, is reconcilable with the Bible? An attempt to reconcile a supernatural God who performed supernatural events recorded in a supernaturally inspired book with naturalistically based scholarship that denies all of the above is doomed to failure.” (Pg. 111)

They assert, “nowhere does Scripture support the view that God accommodates himself to human error rather than merely adapts himself to human finitude. In short, a truly human book, such as the Bible, can still avoid errors. If this were not so, then by the same logic, one must conclude that the divine accommodation in the incarnation means that Christ sinned.” (Pg. 167)

They explain, “When traditional total inerrantists affirm that the Bible is free from all errors, they mean it is free from error in any statements on any topic, redemptive or not, that corresponds to reality. Thus, when limited inerrantists affirm that the Bible is wholly true, they mean one of several things: (1) It is free of all errors on topics it addresses; (2) it is free of all errors on redemptive matters; or (3) it is free of all errors that would hinder its accomplishing its intended redemptive purpose.” (Pg. 249)

They acknowledge, “Of course, there are some disputed passages where the New Testament seems to give a spiritual or allegorical interpretation of an Old Testament text…. But the common mistake is forgetting that the New Testament writers often take an implication of the meaning of the Old Testament text while applying it to another referent. Hosea 11:1 is a case in point… Matthew applies it to Christ… In both cases the MEANING is the same… However, Matthew is drawing an IMPLICATION of that meaning, which Hosea probably did not have in mind when he wrote it.” (Pg. 295-296)

They suggest, “The Bible was written by human beings in human languages, with human vocabularies, and human literary styles. So the Bible is thoroughly human. Admittedly some evangelicals have played down the human side of the Bible in favor of the divine and thus in practice made themselves open to the charge of biblical docetism… But evangelicalism does not embrace biblical docetism and had repeatedly denied it.” (Pg. 313)

In response to the charge that the doctrine of inerrancy is not taught in the Bible, they reply, “Neither is the doctrine of the Trinity explicitly taught in the Bible. But inerrancy is taught implicitly and logically, as is the Trinity… The same is true of other essential doctrines like the hypostatic union of two natures, one divine and one human, in the one and only person of Jesus… whereas all the pieces are there, the Bible nowhere teaches the hypostatic union. Nonetheless, it is a biblically based teaching, being there implicitly.” (Pg. 321-322)

They point out, “since God did not breathe out the copies of the originals, it is possible for them to err. However, God has providentially preserved them as a whole from substantial error… there may be a good reason why God did not preserve the autographs. Knowing the human tendency to worship relics, imagine what would happen to the original Bible breathed out by God!” (Pg. 331)

They admit certain copyist errors: “These seem to be real errors … However, inerrantists do not claim there are not copyists’ errors in the texts that we possess… These copying errors are relatively rare and do not affect any essential teaching of Scripture… In fact, in most cases we know which one is right from the context or from other Scriptures. So in no way do these relatively few and minor errors affect the doctrine of inerrancy.” (Pg. 334-335)

This book will be “must reading” for anyone interested in the debate about Biblical inerrancy and authority.

[Pieter Lombaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not so easy to read. It's quite academic and not for the average reader. The case is firmly presented but it's a bit tedious and the author keeps on repeating himself.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty disappointed with this book, especially since I have been a fan of some other works from Geisler.

The book was poorly lain out. It starts with an overview of the inerrancy debate (which was helpful), launches into an exposition on what the Chicago Statement on inerrancy was, then counters anti-inerrantist, and then it defends the traditional view of inerrancy. Really, the last two sections should have been switched. So what we wound up within the "counter-argument" portion of the book was a lot of "which will be discussed later" and the like.

Also, I don't like a lot of the way they framed the counter-argument portion, which is such a crucial section and a good chunk of the book. They seemed more interested in proving that certain theologians disagreed with the Chicago Statement than actually arguing against what those theologians beleive in.

[Tom R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this book is probably best avoided. In my opinion it didn’t make a strong argument for its main point, but the worst thing about it is the lack of editing-entire pages are repeated word for word multiple times, and some smaller sections are repeated dozens of times. An editor could have chopped it in half without losing any information.
Also, although I certainly don’t want to judge the authors as people, their writing comes across as incredibly arrogant and condescending towards those they disagree with.
If this viewpoint were the correct one I would expect it to lead to writing that is humble and loving, instead other theologians are mocked and belittled as the authors try to prove their point.

[Canny Tay · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great information we can learn from this book!

[Bret James Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Geisler and Roach have done a nice job with this book. It is laid out well, attractive, and nearly complete with appendices, a notes chapter, and a bibliography. I deduct one star for the lack of an index, which is a no-no, in my opinion, for a non-fiction text, especially one used by academics. I also take away one star due to the authors including tenets of/support from the Roman Catholic religion as if it were Christian since they should know better, especially in a tome devoted to the inerrancy of the Bible as this religion feels free to alter or ignore the Bible at will.

As the subtitle implies, the authors are dealing with recent challenges to biblical inerrancy. Much of the book is spent dealing with the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) and recent scholarship by theologians who hold to and promote various types of non-inerrancy (this is a strange, if fitting, term). This is handled in an argument and counter-argument method in which the authors give an overview of the other scholars' premises and comment upon them.

The first portion of the book provides the need for and history of the ICBI. This is interesting as it provides a framework for inerrancy in Christian thought. This statement is helpful as an overview and apology for biblical inerrancy that many hold to whether or not they support or even know about this particular iteration of the doctrine. Many individuals and organizations (e.g. Southern Baptists) do officially adhere to this document, though, so many people are exposed to it indirectly.

The second portion of the book grapples with the most important works refuting, at various levels, the concept of inerrancy. In more or less chronological order, the authors deal with challenges to the doctrine from the 1960s forward. They supply the basic arguments made by the individual author and comment on both areas of agreement and disagreement, providing refutations of the latter. This section is, of course, more interesting if one has read the text/author in question, but the arguments of these scholars is explained sufficiently to allow both the arguments and the counter-arguments to make sense. The scholars/theologians covered are Clark Pinnock, media darling Bart Ehrman, Peter Enns, Kenton Sparks, Kevin Vanhoozer, Andrew McGowan, Stanley Grenz and Brian McLaren, and Darrell Bock and Robert Webb. The last two sets of authors have similar arguments and are treated together.

The third portion of the book provides a treatment of inerrancy in general and argues for the legitimacy of the concept. Some answers are provided for the reader to refute the most common objections to the doctrine. If one is not very familiar with inerrancy, this segment might be the best place to begin. I personally believe that this section should have been first in the book, but I understand that the focus of the text is not a general argument for the concept but, rather, a specific refutation of the authors from part two and (to a lesser degree) the general promotion of the ICBI from part one.

Overall, I think this book adequate. I am disappointed by the omission of an index and the commission of the inclusion of non-Christian material, both of which are readily correctable, and which would greatly increase the value of the text for students as well as general readers. This book would appeal predominantly to those seeking information regarding the counter-arguments of the theologians in section two and/or those seeking to learn more about the ICBI.

[Brooks Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is atrocious and I could barely get past chapter 1. First, Norman Geisler assumes that what good Evangelical Protestants of the 20th/21st century understand to be Scripture and Canon (the sixty-six books) are what Ancient and Medieval Christians understood to be Scripture and Canon. Geisler also reads his definition of inerrancy (ICBI Chicago) into the Church Fathers he proof-texts. I found it humorous that he notes that Origen was deviant for allegorizing the text and yet so effortlessly quotes various Ancient and Medieval sources in support of ICBI, when those very same sources allegorized the text. A proof-text from Augustine does not merit support for inerrancy in the ICBI sense, especially when considering Augustine's rich understanding of sign and symbol, the dual meanings of texts, and his love of allegorical readings. See Augustine's On Christian Doctrine (especially ch. 3), Confessions (chs 5 and 6), and in his Reply to Faustus. I also suspect that it might be difficult to synthesis the hermeneutical key of the ancient Christian Fathers, the Rule of Faith, with historical/grammatical interpretation. At least in the strict sense Geisler wishes (See Geisler's handling of NT scholars Michael Licona and Robert Gundry). In other words, Geisler tends to engage in circular argumentation, question begging, and has a problem picking up on the historical nuances and differences between those he cites or critiques.

Out of curiosity, I did decide to skip ahead and read Geisler's take on Kevin Vanhoozer. It is important to note that Vanhoozer's conception takes its historical cue from Augustine. Since Geisler cannot read Augustine correctly, we shouldn't expect Geisler to correctly read Vanhoozer. Like Augustine, Vanhoozer acknowledges the importance of the historical meaning, but sees importance in going beyond the historical meaning. Vanhoozer, working in the post-modern context we find ourselves currently in, pushes back against the presuppositions of the historical-grammatical. The assumptions of pure objectivity in understanding a text(a product of modernity and a sibling to the historical-critical reading) without taking into account our situatedness and the situatedness of the text itself and those behind the text. Geisler's take is to assume that Vanhoozer is a stereotypical post-modernist relativist. A false assumption and an almost cartoonish handling of Vanhoozer. Clearly Geisler's understanding of contemporary hermeneutics is lacking.

To those thinking about reading this book: Don't. There is nothing to see here.

[Rich Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank and lucid analysis of several aspects of the current debate on Inerrancy. Particularly helpful in locating the current discussion in the larger historical setting since the end of the 19th Century. Helpful in presenting the viewpoints of a number of figures in the debate (Pinnock, Ehrman, Enns, Sparks, Vanhoozer, McGowan, Grenz, McLaren, Bock, Webb).

While the book is helpful in general, there are two specific criticisms that keep me from making it required reading for an college elective on Biblical Authority and Inerrancy.

(1) The book is repetitious to the point of being tedious. This seems very unusual, given Geisler's other works. But each chapter reads like it was prepared in isolation of all the others (which, perhaps, was the case, if each began as an independent paper or lecture). In this sense, the book cries out for editing, to make it a unified work. By the time I finished reading, I felt like I had read about Brunner's illustration about the old RCA ad describing "his master's voice" and the point about inerrant phone books a dozen times.

(2) Geisler is perfectly suited to explain the rationale behind the ICBI statement and its accompanying documents, and one of the book's strengths is the way it works through the statement, its relationship to ETS, and its presentation of an orthodox view of Scripture. In this regard, I have no criticism. However, the work frequently reads like an argument to oust Pinnock (et al) from ETS, rather than a a defense of "the accuracy of Scripture" (which is the purpose expressed in the title of the book). Granted, much of what Geisler says in this regard probably grows out of the controversies surrounding Gundry, Pinnock (et al) in regard to the ETS doctrinal statement, so this is understandable. However, for the purposes of this book, it is odd that it often seems that the primary concern is that Pinnock, Enns, and others have disagreed with the ETS doctrinal statement and the ICBI statement rather than with an orthodox view of Scripture. While Geisler does make the case that ICBI does, indeed, adequately represent orthodoxy, the frequent appeal to the specific wording of the statement itself comes across as if its authority is in itself, rather than its representation of apostolic teaching. As was the case with the previous concern, this issue would be resolved by better editing -- it's not that Geisler's logic is faulty, but the presentation could be more tidy.

[Tung · Rating 2 out of 5]

As society has grown more liberal, so too have views on Christianity. The inerrancy of Scripture is a foundation held for centuries whose acceptance as a critical doctrine has waned as liberal thinking has infiltrated seminaries and pulpits and denominations. The title gives away Geisler’s position: this book is meant to reaffirm the importance of inerrancy, to lay out the rationale for it, and to respond to positions against it. Overall, I had a difficult time getting through this. I was expecting an easy read that made the case for inerrancy. Instead, this is more like a graduate thesis – very dry and academic. Geisler spends the first third of the book documenting in minute detail the different organizations and conferences focused on the inerrancy debate and who disagreed with what specific wording of a doctrinal statement and why. This is only interesting for people really interested in the subject and not for casual readers. The next third is spent discussing the viewpoints and arguments of vocal opponents to inerrancy. This section was also hyper-technical and academic, although useful to read Geisler’s counterpoints to opponents of inerrancy. The last third of the book is Geisler’s defense of inerrancy, although he spends a portion of it rehashing the counterpoints he made from the middle section. The most useful of the three sections, but took a lot to get there. All in all, this is a book for seminary students only.

[Patrick S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good read on the subject and developments of inerrancy. Geisler does a good job of laying out the foundations of the arguments and deals, fairly, with the counter arguments. He almost writes the book a little backwards and so tends to repeat himself at times, but if you can get over that it's good. He deal with the critics and picks ones that don't overlap as much so you get a good shotgun approach. He then launches into the positive aspects of inerrancy and that's where you might see some repetition come in. So you can read one section or another or both with some over lap. Geisler's arguments are pretty solid and well thought out. There were a few times where my disagreement with a point here or there could have been taken a bit further but it'd be hard to undermine the whole argument. There are also a few points where he needed to draw out his argumentation a bit more as he seems to state a few things matter-of-factly but again, nothing that made me throw it all out.

A very good book on the subject of inerrancy and would be interesting to see a response, if possible. Final Grade - A-

[Willie Pate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any questions about the bibles complete utter perfection (inerrancy)? Geisler sums up this recent argument and looks to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy as a guide to interact with this issue. He brings an honest and clear look at the views on bibliology from modern critics (both christian and atheist), and steers us into a better place to view God's word as holy and free from any mistake or misguidance.

[Gabriel Santana · Rating 3 out of 5]

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