Challenge our biases, not feed them

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I write in response to the article, ‘The Bible is not inerrant. Please stop saying it is’, written by Dr Michael Abrahams (December 30, 2019) . I would like to commend Dr Abrahams for such a thought-provoking article. He has asked some very important questions, thereby challenging the long-held belief by Orthodox Christians that the Bible is inerrant. Dr Abrahams explained that ‘inerrancy’ means that the Bible is “incapable of being wrong, that it contains no errors.” Well, thank you, sir.

I myself have a few questions for the goodly doctor. The books of the Bible were written by fallible men who are prone to error, according to your article, then why make references to the flawed lives of David and Moses as being well documented in the Scriptures, which you have already established as being rigged with errors? The claim is that the book contains errors, so one would at least expect that some external sources would be considered to make your case against inerrancy. Another thing I wonder, does inerrancy equal perfection and/or the non-existence of discrepancies?

NO ERRORS

Inerrancy, properly understood, (affirmed by W.L. Craig, L. Strobel, M. Slick and the world’s leading textual critic, J.W. Wallace) means that everything the Bible affirms to be true, is true. Inerrancy states that the Bible, in its original documents, is without error regarding facts, names, dates, and any other revealed information. Inerrancy does not extend to the copies of the biblical manuscripts. Why bother explaining this anyway? Dr Abrahams, like the rest of us, has biases. The difference is, some of us are willing to challenge our biases rather than feed them.

One last question for the doctor: should we take any of your articles seriously since, being a fallible man who is prone to error, your articles are very likely full of errors? These questions are not necessarily an assault on your writings, but are merely a component of an objective search for your intent.

RTC