Exam 4 - part 3

Question 1

What is Erickson’s definition of Bible inerrancy?

Answer 1

“The Bible, when correctly interpreted in light of the level to which culture and the means of communication were developed at the time it was written, and in view of the purposes for which it was given, is fully truthful in all that it affirms” (Erickson, p. 201)

Question 2

What does inerrancy pertain to?

Answer 2

The Bible is truthful in what it affirms or asserts, not merely what is reported. False statements made by ungodly people in the Bible are still false, but they have been correctly reported.

Question 3

Are discrepancies in recorded numbers to be considered errant, such as 24,000 deaths in the plague recorded in Numbers (Num 25.9) and 23,000 deaths recorded by Paul in First Corinthians (1 Cor 10.8)?

Answer 3

No, because “assertions [in the Bible] are fully true when judged according with the purpose for which they were written” (Erickson, p. 203). Rounded numbers are acceptable if that was not the point the author was trying to make.

Question 4

What is Erickson’s definition of the authority of the Bible?

Answer 4

“The Bible, as the expression of God’s will to us, possesses the right supremely to define what we are to believe and how we are to live” (Erickson, p. 211).

Question 5

What is meant by “veracious authority” in regard to the Bible?

Answer 5

The Bible leads those who read it to truth.

Question 6

What about God reinforces the inerrancy of the Bible?

Answer 6

God is omniscient, so he cannot be ignorant of error.
He is omnipotent, so He could prevent error.
He is truthful, or veracious, so He can ensure that future Bible readers would not be misled.

Question 7

What of history supports the concept of Bible inerrancy?

Answer 7

The church has historically supported inerrancy. Augustine and Luther made statements in support of inerrancy while Calvin spoke of the human tendency to err, and Scripture being the only safeguard against this.

Question 8

What is the epistemological importance of inerrancy, and what is the “domino” theory?

Answer 8

How do we know the Bible is true? False in one proposition, uncertain in all. The Bible should be true in its historical and scientific data or else how can we trust its other parts?

Question 9

What is the correct understanding of illumination?

Answer 9

“There is an internal working of the Holy Spirit, illumining the understanding of the hearer or reader of the Bible, bringing about comprehension of its meaning, and creating certainty concerning its truth and divine origin” (Erickson, p. 216).

Question 10

Why is the Holy Spirit necessary for illumination?

Answer 10

God is transcendent and humans are limited. Humans are also sinful and need certainty in spiritual matters of life and death.

Question 11

What does Matt. 13:13-15 and Mark 8:18 say about the human condition and need for the Holy Spirit to illuminate Scripture?

Answer 11

Humans hear but never understand. We see and never perceive.

Question 12

What verse tells us that the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel?

Answer 12

2 Corinthians 4:4

Question 13

What verse tells us that the natural person has not received the gifts of the Spirit?

Answer 13

1 Corinthians 2:14

Question 14

How does the Holy Spirit overcome the human condition of blindness? Give a Bible reference.

Answer 14

The eyes of our hearts are enlightened by the one-time regeneration of the Spirit (Eph. 1:18) and then His continuing work in a believer’s life.

Question 15

What are the four functions of the Holy Spirit?

Answer 15

1. The Holy Spirit will teach the believer and remind him about what Jesus has said.
2. “The Holy Spirit will witness to Jesus” (Erickson, p. 219).
3. “The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment” (Erickson, p. 219)
4. “The Holy Spirit will guide believers into all truth” (Erickson, p. 219).

Question 16

What is the view of absolute inerrancy?

Answer 16

The Bible is fully true in exact scientific, historical, theological, religious, and spiritual data. Apparent discrepancies must be explained.

Question 17

What is the view of full inerrancy?

Answer 17

No difference from absolute inerrancy except the historical and scientific data are reported as phenomenal, or in other words, inexact approximations or how it appears to the eye.

Question 18

What is the view of limited inerrancy?

Answer 18

The Bible is inerrant and infallible when it comes to doctrine, like salvation. But for historical and scientific data, the writers were limited in understanding. These parts of the Bible contain errors.

Question 19

What is the view of inerrancy of purpose?

Answer 19

The Bible accomplishes its purpose of bringing people to Christ, not teaching truth. “Truth is through of not as a quality of propositions, but as a means to accomplish an end” (Erickson, p. 192). Pragmatic truth.

Question 20

What is the view of accommodated revelation?

Answer 20

“The Bible came through human channels, and thus participates in the shortcomings of human nature” (Erickson, p. 192). The Bible is erroneous, containing some revelational and other nonrevelational elements.

Question 21

What is the view of nonpropositional revelation?

Answer 21

The Bible is not in itself revelation, but points people to a personal encounter that is revelation. The Bible contains errors, but these are just the words of the Bible writers, not God. The Bible is still functional.

Question 22

What is the view that inerrancy is irrelevant?

Answer 22

The issue of inerrancy is regarded as “false or distracting” (Erickson, p. 193) It distracts us from what the Bible is trying to teach about our relationship to God. Inerrancy inhibits impartial exegesis, and is imposed.

Question 23

Why is inerrancy important?

Answer 23

There is a concern for the reliability and dependability of the Scriptures.

Question 24

What was B. B. Warfield’s abstract approach to dealing with the problem passages in Scripture?

Answer 24

The difficulties did not need to be explained.

Question 25

What was Edward J. Young’s and Louis Gaussen’s harmonistic approach to the phenomena of Scripture?

Answer 25

Difficulties in the phenomena can be resolved with currently available information, like other recorded events or scientific data.

Question 26

What is the moderate harmonization approach to the phenomena of Scripture?

Answer 26

“The problems are taken seriously, and an effort is made to solve them or relieve the difficulties as far as this is reasonably possible with the data currently available” (Erickson, p. 199) This is Everett Harrison’s approach. Inerrancy is a “corollary of full inspiration” (Erickson, p. 199).

Question 27

What was Edward Carnell’s approach to dealing with the phenomena of Scripture?

Answer 27

“Inspiration guarantees only accurate reproduction of the sources the Scripture writer employed, not correction of them” (Erickson, p. 199). There may be errors in the source material.

Question 28

What is Dewey Beegle’s solution to the difficulties in some passages of Scripture?

Answer 28

The Bible does err. There are real and unsolvable problems in the Bible.

Question 29

What does Erickson say is the best approach to dealing with the phenomena of Scripture?

Answer 29

Everett Harrison’s view of relieving the difficulties with available data, and acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers.

Question 30

To what does inerrancy pertain?

Answer 30

What is affirmed or asserted rather than what is merely reported.

Question 31

Give an example of the Scripture writers recording more than they understood.

Answer 31

John writing about his vision on the island of Patmos.

Question 32

How must the truthfulness of Scripture be judged?

Answer 32

In terms of its meaning in the cultural setting where it was written, and the purpose for which it was written.

Question 33

How are the Bible’s reports of historical and scientific matters phenomenal rather than technical?

Answer 33

“The writer reports how things appear to the eye” (Erickson, p. 204). There is no effort in the Bible for scientific exactness, such as describing what held the axhead afloat.

Question 34

Why is it not good to prejudge difficulties in the Biblical text as error?

Answer 34

The problems could be resolved when more data comes in.

Question 35

Is “inerrancy” a good term to use?

Answer 35

It should not be understood in the sense of scientific exactness, but otherwise, because it has become common, it is a useful term. A better understanding is that the Bible tells the truth.

Question 36

What would constitute an “error” in the Bible?

Answer 36

Any statement that plainly contradicts fact. If the walls of Jericho never fell, or Israel did not leave Egypt, then the Bible is erroneous.

Question 37

What does the doctrine of Bible inerrancy apply to?

Answer 37

The originals in a strict sense, but also to the copies in a derivative sense in that they reflect the originals. Inerrancy does not extend to the copyists and translators.

Question 38

What is the conflict and between Gen. 1:11-12 and Gen. 2:5? What is the resolution?

Answer 38

Gen. 2:5 seems to suggest that plants came after man was made to till them, but plants were made on the third day. But Gen. 2 serves to supplement the details of Creation, and verse 5 may refer only to the kind of plants that require cultivation. They could have been delayed in growing.

Question 39

Where did Cain get his wife?

Answer 39

Gen. 5:4 says that Adam and Eve had sons and daughters. Incest was not a problem in the first generation because the first humans were pure, coming from God.

Question 40

What is the conflict between Num. 25:9 and 1 Cor. 10:8? What is the solution?

Answer 40

The plague following Israel’s worship of Baal and Peor is recorded to have killed 24,000 people. Paul later records it as 23,000 dead. These both may be rounded numbers, or Paul may have meant 23,000 dead “in one day.”

Question 41

What is the conflict between 2 Sam. 24:1 and 1 Chron. 21:1?

Answer 41

Did the Lord cause David to number Israel or did Satan? Both could have been involved because they both participated together in other matters throughout Scripture.

Question 42

Who killed Goliath? (2 Sam. 21:19; 1 Sam. 17:50)

Answer 42

David could have had another name, Elhanan. There also could have been another giant in Gath who was “the brother” of Goliath (copyist omission), or even two Goliaths.

Question 43

What is the conflict between 2 Sam. 24:9 and 1 Chron. 21:5? What is the resolution?

Answer 43

2 Sam. reports 800,000 people in Israel and 500,000 in Judah. 1 Chron. reports 1.1 million in Israel and 470,000 in Judah. The solution may be the 300,000 number mentioned in 1 Chron. 27 that was not recorded in 2 Sam 24. There’s also a special 30,000 number figure in 2 Sam 6:1 that may have been excluded from 1 Chron. 21:5.

Question 44

What is the conflict regarding David’s choice of punishment in 2 Sam. 24:13 and 1 Chron. 21:12?

Answer 44

2 Sam. records David’s punishment as seven years of famine, while 1 Chron. says three. Some translations of the Bible have record both as three. This is likely a copyist error. Inerrancy does not extend to the copies.

Question 45

What is the conflict regarding David’s property payment in 2 Sam. 24:24 and 1 Chron. 21:25?

Answer 45

2 Sam. says 50 shekels of silver while 1 Chron. says 600 shekels of gold. The 50 shekels of silver may have been for the threshing floor and oxen alone.

Question 46

What is the conflict regarding the laver in 2 Chron. 4:2?

Answer 46

The dimensions don’t work out mathematically unless you take the inner diameter minus about two handbreadths (verse 5), then multiply by pi to get the result.

Question 47

What is the conflict regarding taking a staff in Matt. 10:9-10; Mark 6:8; and Luke 9:3?

Answer 47

“Mark records that Jesus allowed the disciples to take a staff while Matthew and Luke say he forbade it” (Ryrie, p. 113). The disciples may have been allowed to take a staff if they needed it to walk, but they were not to take or buy any extra, unneeded provision for their journey.

Question 48

What is the trouble with the mustard seed in Matthew 13:32?

Answer 48

Jesus seems to have made a scientific error claiming that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds. But he may have been making a comparative, not absolute statement, as in “it was the smaller of all seeds,” and also, the phrase “small as a grain of mustard seed” was a contemporary idom of the day.

Question 49

What is the conflict regarding the blind men at Jericho in Matt. 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52, and Luke 18:35-43?

Answer 49

Matthew recorded that Jesus healed two blind men while leaving Jericho, while the other gospel writers focused on one blind man as they were entering Jericho. Mark and Luke do not mention a specific number, so there may have been two blind men, but one stood out to them. Also, Jericho’s old city and new city may have provided different perspectives of exiting one and entering the other.

Question 50

What is the issue with Zechariah’s father in Matt. 23:35 and 2 Chron. 24:20?

Answer 50

Matt. says that Zechariah the preist was the son of Berechiah, while 2 Chron. says the father was Jehoiada. “Son of” does not necessarily mean next of kin in the Bible, as in Jesus was the son of David. Jehoiada was likely Zechariah’s grandfather, noted in Scripture for his fame.

Question 51

Was the Old Testament quote from Zechariah or Jeremiah in Matt. 27:9-10?

Answer 51

In the Babylonian Talmud, Jeremiah was placed at the beginning of the Old Testament prophetic writings, so Matthew may simply be using his name to indicate the section of Scripture where the Zechairah passage came.

Question 52

Why did Mark quote from both Malachi and Isaiah, but attribute the whole quote to Isaiah in Mark 1:2-3?

Answer 52

Mark may have had only the principal quote in mind, which was from Isaiah. The NKJV fixes this passage to read “written in the Prophets” instead of “written in Isaiah the Prophet.”

Question 53

What is the conflict with the record of Abiathar vs. Ahimelech in Mark 2:26?

Answer 53

Mark’s reference to Abiathar being the high priest at the time David ate the tabernacle bread conflicts with the Old Testament record that Ahimelech was the high priest. The answer is that Abiathar was performing priestly duties and took the high priest position after Ahimelech was killed right around that period of time Mark mentioned.

Question 54

What is the conflict with the death of Judas in Acts 1:8 vs. Matt. 27:5?

Answer 54

Acts records Judas falling headlong and bursting open while Matthew says he hanged himself. Both accounts are correct. Something happened to make Judas fall, or the Acts verse could be interpreted differently to mean that he swelled up in the noose and his guts burst.

Question 55

What is the trouble with Stephen’s speech in Acts 7:6?

Answer 55

Stephen records 400 years of Egyptian captivity, while Exodus 12:40 and Paul say 430 (Gal. 3:17). The difference is likely an approximation. Also, in Galatians, the 430 years may refer to the period from the end of the Patriarchal Age (Gen. 35) to the giving of the Law in Exo. 20.

Question 56

What is the trouble with Acts 7:14’s record of Jacob’s family?

Answer 56

Stephen records 75 people in Jacob’s family while Genesis 46:27 records 70. Both numbers are of a restricted group because Jacob’s entire family was much larger.