The following is a short excerpt, adapted from R.C. Sproul’s Foreword in The Inerrant Word by John MacArthur, ©2016. Original source here:

“The Bible is the Word of God, which errs.” From the advent of neoorthodox theology in the early twentieth century, this assertion has become a mantra among those who want to have a high view of Scripture while avoiding the academic liability of asserting biblical infallibility and inerrancy. But this statement represents the classic case of having one’s cake and eating it too. It is the quintessential oxymoron.

Let us look again at this untenable theological formula. If we eliminate the first part, “The Bible is,” we get “The Word of God, which errs.” If we parse it further and scratch out “the Word of” and “which,” we reach the bottom line:

“God errs.”

The idea that God errs in any way, in any place, or in any endeavor is repugnant to the mind as well as the soul. Here, biblical criticism reaches the nadir of biblical vandalism.

How could any sentient creature conceive of a formula that speaks of the Word of God as errant? It would seem obvious that if a book is the Word of God, it does not (indeed, cannot) err. If it errs, then it is not (indeed, cannot be) the Word of God.

To attribute to God any errancy or fallibility is dialectical theology with a vengeance.

Perhaps we can resolve the antinomy by saying that the Bible originates with God’s divine revelation, which carries the mark of his infallible truth, but this revelation is mediated through human authors, who, by virtue of their humanity, taint and corrupt that original revelation by their penchant for error. Errare humanum est (“To err is human”), cried Karl Barth, insisting that by denying error, one is left with a docetic Bible—a Bible that merely “seems” to be human, but is in reality only a product of a phantom humanity.

Who would argue against the human proclivity for error? Indeed, that proclivity is the reason for the biblical concepts of inspiration and divine superintendence of Scripture. Classic orthodox theology has always maintained that the Holy Spirit overcomes human error in producing the biblical text.

Barth said the Bible is the “Word” (verbum) of God, but not the “words” (verba) of God. With this act of theological gymnastics, he hoped to solve the unsolvable dilemma of calling the Bible the Word of God, which errs. If the Bible is errant, then it is a book of human reflection on divine revelation—just another human volume of theology. It may have deep theological insight, but it is not the Word of God.

Critics of inerrancy argue that the doctrine is an invention of seventeenth-century Protestant scholasticism, where reason trumped revelation—which would mean it was not the doctrine of the magisterial Reformers. For example, they note that Martin Luther never used the term inerrancy. That’s correct. What he said was that the Scriptures never err. Neither did John Calvin use the term. He said that the Bible should be received as if we heard its words audibly from the mouth of God. The Reformers, though, not using the term inerrancy, clearly articulated the concept.

Irenaeus lived long before the seventeenth century, as did Augustine, Paul the apostle, and Jesus. These all, among others, clearly taught the absolute truthfulness of Scripture.

The church’s defense of inerrancy rests upon the church’s confidence in the view of Scripture held and taught by Jesus himself. We wish to have a view of Scripture that is neither higher nor lower than his view.

The full trustworthiness of sacred Scripture must be defended in every generation, against every criticism. That is the genius of The Inerrant Word: Biblical, Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspectives. We need to listen closely to this recent defense.

Eight Reasons Why the Gospels are Embarrassing by Michael Patton (original source: https://credohouse.org/blog/why-the-gospels-are-embarrassing)

I don’t know if you have ever realized this, but the Gospels are quite embarrassing. No, I don’t mean that the Gospel itself is embarrassing, but that the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are embarrassing. Well, let me be a bit less provocative and a little more precise: the Gospels contain many accounts of the Christ story that, if true, would cause early Christians to blush.

Criterion of Embarrassment

I want to briefly talk about the “criterion of embarrassment.” This is a criteria that helps historians determine the truthfulness of historic accounts. The basic idea is this: when people lie, embellish, or make stories up, they normally do not include material that causes them to lose credibility. Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd call this “self-damaging” material (The Jesus Legend, 408). E. P. Sanders calls it “against the grain” (although that it a bit too close to the “criterion of dissimilarity”). Most people don’t make stories up about losing a fight or being the bank employee who failed to lock the safe the night before. We normally cover up our mistakes or embarrassments in order to look more polished. When someone gets pulled over by the police late at night and the officer asks if they have been drinking, they would not say they had been drinking if they really had not. People don’t lie on resumes and say they did not graduate high school when, in fact, they have a masters degree. Continue reading →

Jesus in Non-Christian Sources (Craig Blomberg)

The participants in the film (below) include many of todays top Christian apologists, authors and scholars including Richard Bauckham, Craig Blomberg, Michael Brown, Paul Eddy, Steve Gregg, Gary Habermas, Craig Keener, Mike Licona, Dan Wallace and Ben Witherington III.

Did Jesus really exist? If so, what can we know about Him historically? For any Christian, the historicity of Jesus isn’t merely a matter of curiosity. The Christian faith is dependent upon the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as historical reality. But how can we know if the Jesus of the the Gospels is historical or legendary? Jesus of Testimony answers many of the important questions for skeptics as well as Christians in the area of Christian apologetics.

Part 1: Lord or Legend, the historicity of Jesus Christ is demonstrated by the important non-Christian historical sources that are available to us today.

Part 2: Are the Gospels Reliable? examines the historical reliability of the Gospels as eyewitness testimony to the life of Jesus.

Part 3: Miracles provides strong evidence that miracles happen today and happened in history.

Part 4: The Testimony of Prophecy, many of the Old Testament messianic prophecies are quoted along with their New Testament fulfillments which establish a solid confirmation of Jesus’ credentials as the Messiah.

Part 5: The Resurrection — Fact or Fiction? the case is presented for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Part 6: The Good News concludes that the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels, dependent on eyewitness testimony, is more plausible than the alternative hypotheses of its modern detractors and presents the Jesus’ message of the Gospel.

To order DVDs, make donations or download visit: jesusoftestimony.com

Original source: https://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/does-the-bible-teach-that-a-woman-has-to-marry-her-rapist/

Does the Bible teach that a woman has to marry her rapist?

28 “If a man finds a young woman who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out,
29 “then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her; he shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days.

That passage, it is claimed, describes a young woman who is violently raped by a thuggish man, and rather than being punished, he is told that if he marries her all will be forgiven. The young woman has no choice in the matter. She and her family must comply. And they can never get divorced.

Atheists often complain that it is passages like that one that makes them hate religion.

So are the biblio-haters right? Does the Bible teach that rape victims must marry their rapist, assuming they aren’t married to begin with? A modern day example would be the college freshman coed who gets date raped at a Saturday night frat party forced to marry her frat boy rapist.

Some preliminary remarks before we even delve into providing a response.

First, as I noted in an article on the sex-trade and the Bible, atheists love to abuse those types of passages in the OT. They always cite them out of historical context and often times butcher the translation. But who says atheists like to play fair in these discussions?

After they quote their pet verse, the atheists proclaim how Christians are ignorant of their own Bibles because they cherry-pick verses. Christians need to be consistent, argues the atheist. If they are gonna hate on gays and not allow them to be married, for example, they need to be prepared to own slaves and not eat lobster. That of course is a dishonest, lazy way of offering objections because it doesn’t seek to truly engage the position.

But secondly, and more to the point, why, according to the atheist’s particular view of the world, is this law a “bad” thing? Why should we care? Why should it make them “hate religion?” Continue reading →

in an article entitled “Old Testament Law and The Charge of Inconsistency” writes:

I find it frustrating when I read or hear columnists, pundits, or journalists dismiss Christians as inconsistent because “they pick and choose which of the rules in the Bible to obey.” Most often I hear, “Christians ignore lots of Old Testament texts—about not eating raw meat or pork or shellfish, not executing people for breaking the Sabbath, not wearing garments woven with two kinds of material and so on. Then they condemn homosexuality. Aren’t you just picking and choosing what you want to believe from the Bible?”

I don’t expect everyone to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus and God’s plan to redeem his people, but I vainly hope that one day someone will access their common sense (or at least talk to an informed theological adviser) before leveling the charge of inconsistency.

First, it’s not only the Old Testament that has proscriptions about homosexuality. The New Testament has plenty to say about it as well. Even Jesus says, in his discussion of divorce in Matthew 19:3–12, that the original design of God was for one man and one woman to be united as one flesh, and failing that (v. 12), persons should abstain from marriage and sex.

However, let’s get back to considering the larger issue of inconsistency regarding things mentioned in the Old Testament no longer practiced by the New Testament people of God. Most Christians don’t know what to say when confronted about this issue. Here’s a short course on the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament.

The Old Testament devotes a good amount of space to describing the various sacrifices offered in the tabernacle (and later temple) to atone for sin so that worshipers could approach a holy God. There was also a complex set of rules for ceremonial purity and cleanness. You could only approach God in worship if you ate certain foods and not others, wore certain forms of dress, refrained from touching a variety of objects, and so on. This vividly conveyed, over and over, that human beings are spiritually unclean and can’t go into God’s presence without purification.

But even in the Old Testament, many writers hinted that the sacrifices and the temple worship regulations pointed forward to something beyond them (cf. 1 Sam. 15:21–22; Pss. 50:12–15; 51:17; Hos. 6:6). When Christ appeared he declared all foods clean (Mark 7:19), and he ignored the Old Testament cleanliness laws in other ways, touching lepers and dead bodies.

The reason is clear. When he died on the cross the veil in the temple tore, showing that he had done away with the the need for the entire sacrificial system with all its cleanliness laws. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin, and now Jesus makes us clean.

The entire book of Hebrews explains that the Old Testament ceremonial laws were not so much abolished as fulfilled by Christ. Whenever we pray “in Jesus name” we “have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). It would, therefore, be deeply inconsistent with the teaching of the Bible as a whole if we continued to follow the ceremonial laws. Continue reading →