Dr. James White just finished a publicly moderated debate with Islamist Shabir Alley in South Africa.

Dr. White writes:

Dear Shabir:

Last evening in the mosque in Erasmia you raised, I believe anyway for the first time in our encounters, your booklet of 100 alleged contradictions in the Bible. I have had your little booklet for quite some time. But I will be honest, I assumed it was an “early” work for you, and as such, I did not focus much on it, assuming that as you obtained your education at a higher level you would produce a much more nuanced and forceful argument. But given that you cited it last evening, I can only assume you continue to feel this list has sound merit.

When I began my ministry thirty years ago I encountered, and then engaged, an atheist by the name of Dennis McKinsey. McKinsey put out a little monthly publication titled “Biblical Errancy.” Reading his little flyer gave me plenty of examples of how people can, by ignoring context, original language, and plain common sense, accuse any document, let alone a document of ancient origin, of error. I do not know if any atheists out there put out something like “Qur’anic Errancy,” but the very same methodology could surely do so, though not to nearly the same extent, given the Qur’an is barely half the length of the New Testament, and only one fifth as long as the Tanakh, and hence only 14% as long as the entire Bible.

With all affection and respect for you, Shabir, your list is very, very unworthy of you. It is barely up to the level of most atheist lists, and does not include, to be honest, the most serious questions I have wrestled with regarding the accuracy of the Biblical text. No serious discussion of the contexts are provided, as you know. Answers have been provided—consistent, scholarly, accurate answers—to your allegations since the days of the early church. And I have published full refutations of a number of your allegations, long before you put them in print under your name.

Let me provide three examples from my book, Letters to a Mormon Elder, first published almost a quarter of a century ago! The first refutes #55 in your list: Continue reading →

Justin Taylor writes: The word inerrant means that something, usually a text, is “without error.” The word infallible—in its lexical meaning, though not necessarily in theological discussions due to Rogers and McKim—is technically a stronger word, meaning that the text is not only “without error” but “incapable of error.” The historic Christian teaching is that the Bible is both inerrant and infallible. It is without error (inerrant) because it is impossible for it to have errors (infallible).

In his chapter on “The Inerrancy of Scripture” in The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010), John Frame offers some important distinctions and clarifications on the doctrine. He points out that inerrancy suggests to many the idea of precision, rather than its lexical meaning of mere truth.

Frame points out that “precision” and “truth” overlap in meaning but are not synonymous:

A certain amount of precision is often required for truth, but that amount varies from one context to another. In mathematics and science, truth often requires considerable precision. If a student says that 6+5=10, he has not told the truth. He has committed an error. If a scientist makes a measurement varying by .0004 cm of an actual length, he may describe that as an “error,” as in the phrase “margin of error.”

Frame then reminds us that truth and precision are usually more distinct when we move outside the fields of mathematics and science: Continue reading →

Over the past 40 years, the principle of biblical inerrancy has come under increasing fire from theological liberals. On Thursday morning, Dr. Ligon Duncan III, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss., hosted a discussion at the 41st General Assembly with Dr. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on the history of antagonism to biblical inerrancy and why a firm belief in inerrancy—what Mohler calls “total truthfulness”—is just as crucial for modern Christians as any time in the past.

Mohler explained that he grew to theological adulthood as liberal theology was growing in popularity in U.S. seminaries, including Southern Baptist, his alma mater.

“I remember one of the first things one of my professors said, ‘I don’t believe in the inerrancy of Scripture,’ ” Mohler recalls.

But Mohler diverged from his contemporaries, being influenced by Reformed thinkers such as D. James Kennedy, Francis Schaeffer, and R.C. Sproul. Under such teaching, Mohler became convinced that without a conviction of the total truthfulness of God’s Word, you don’t have anything.

“There is no safe place out of an unashamed biblical inerrancy,” Mohler said. He contends that those who waiver on inerrancy but still think they can hold orthodox theological positions about the Trinity, or God’s sovereignty, for example, don’t have solid ground to stand on. Mohler calls such in-between places “halfway houses”—positions that are ultimately transitory, in the direction of error.

“If you reject biblical inerrancy, you don’t necessarily become a heretic,” he said, adding, “but your children will.”

The only option, then, for modern Christians is to reaffirm what believers have held for centuries: “What Scripture says, God says.”

Ironically, he explains, the modern atheists—folks such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens—have accidentally assisted the argument for inerrancy. By posing arguments against the supposed “immorality” of Christianity and Christianity’s God, citing such examples as “genocide” in the Old Testament, such atheists have forced the theologically liberal to admit that their views are inconsistent, splicing and dicing the parts of Scripture that seem uncomfortable to them.

“You can’t just show up being ‘mildly genocidal,’ ” Mohler said, half in jest.

In his opinion there are just two options: either a person throws out the entire Bible or one takes the whole thing, troublesome parts and all, and reaffirms what Christianity has always affirmed—that the whole Bible presents God just as He says He is: perfectly loving and perfectly just.

The modern Christian must not shy away from this proclamation—not the 80-year-old nearing the end of her life nor the 18-year-old entering the college classroom subject to all the intellectual fury of his theologically progressive professor.

“We must be celebratory of this truth,” Mohler said, “not concessional of this truth.”

Because, when all perspectives have had their say, “You only have the Gospel if the Bible is the Word of God.”