PT042
Inerrancy, ed.
Norman Geisler (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), Covenant Media
Foundation, 800/553-3938
The Inerrancy of the Autographa
By Greg L. Bahnsen
Greg L. Bahnsen is engaged full time in scholarship and writing. Until recently he served as Assistant
Professor of Apologetics, Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson,
Mississippi. He is a graduate of
Westmont College (B.A.), Westminster Theological Seminary (M. Div. And Th. M.),
and the University of Southern California (Ph.D. in Philosophy). He is an ordained minister in the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church. He has served as
Youth Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Manhattan Beach, California; Assistant
Pastor, Calvary United Presbyterian Church, Wyncote, Pennsylvania; and Pastor,
Trinity Chapel, Eagle Rock, California.
Among his publications are Theonomy in Christian Ethics;
Homosexuality: A Biblical View; and A
Biblical Introduction to apologetics. His articles include “Autographs,
Amanuenses, and Restricted Inspiration” in Evangelical Quarterly; “Socrates or Christ: The Reformation of
Christian apologetics” and “Pragmatism, Prejudice, and Presuppositionalism” in Foundations
of Christian Scholarship; “Inductivism,
Inerrancy, and Presuppositionalism” in Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society; and other articles,
letters, and reviews in the Westminster Theological Journal, Journal of
Christian Reconstruction, Presbyterian Guardian, Banner of Truth, Cambridge
Fish, and Chalcedon Reports. Dr.
Bahnsen is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society, Evangelical
Philosophical Society, and the Advisory Board of ICBI. He has been the recipient of numerous
Fellowships.
Chapter Summary
While the Bible teaches its own
inerrancy, the inscripturation and copying of God’s Word require us to identify
the specific and proper object of inerrancy as the text of the original
autographa. This time-honored,
common-sense view of evangelicals has been criticized and ridiculed since the
days of the modernist controversy over Scripture. Nevertheless, according to the attitude of the biblical writers,
who could and did distinguish copies from the autographa, copies of the Bible
could serve the purposes of revelation and function with authority only because
they were assumed to be tethered to the autographic text and its
criteriological authority. The
evangelical doctrine pertains to the autographic text, not the autographic
codex, and maintains that present copies and translations are inerrant to the
extent that they accurately reflect the biblical originals; thus the
inspiration and inerrancy of present Bibles is not an all-or-nothing
matter. Evangelicals maintain the
doctrine of original inerrancy, not as an apologetic artifice, But on sound
theological grounds: (1) the inspiration of copyists and the perfect
transmission of Scripture have not been promised by God and (2) the
extraordinary quality of God’s revealed Word must be guarded against arbitrary
alteration. The importance of original
inerrancy is not that God cannot accomplish His purpose except through a
completely errorless text, but that without it we cannot consistently confess
the veracity of God, be fully assured of the scriptural promise of salvation,
or maintain the epistemological authority and theological axiom of sola Scriptura (for errors in the
original, unlike those in transmission, would not be correctable in
principle). We can be assured that we
possess the Word of God in our present Bibles because of God’s providence; He
does not allow His aims in revealing Himself to be frustrated. Indeed, the
results of textual criticism confirm that we possess a biblical text that is
substantially identical with the autographa.
Finally, contrary to recent criticisms, the doctrine of original
inerrancy (or inspiration) is not unprovable, is not undermined by the use of
amanuenses by the biblical writers, and is not contravened by the New Testament
use of the Septuagint as “Scripture.”
Therefore, the evangelical restriction of inerrancy to the original
autographa is warranted, important, and defensible; further, it does not
jeopardize the adequacy and authority of our present Bibles. Accordingly, the doctrine of original
inerrancy can be commended to all believers who are sensitive to the authority
of the Bible as the very Word of God and who wish to propagate it as such
today.
The Inerrancy of the Autographa
In addressing the household and
friends of Cornelius, Peter rehearsed how the anointed, or messianic, ministry
of Jesus of Nazareth eventuated in His death and resurrection (Acts
10:36-40). After the Resurrection,
Christ appeared to chosen witnesses, whom He charged to preach to the people
and to testify that He was ordained of God as the eschatological Judge of
mankind (vv. 41-42). According to
Christ Himself, all the prophets bore witness to Him, that through His name all
who believe on Him should receive remission of sins (v. 43). Here we see the heart of the gospel
proclamation rehearsed and the vital commission given to have it publicized
abroad for the eternal well-being of men.
It should be obvious that the proclamation of this message in correct
form was crucial if its hearers were to escape the wrath to come and enjoy
genuine remission of their sins through Christ. A different or perverted gospel was, accordingly, nothing short
of anathema; the life-giving good news could not have come from man but had to
have originated in the revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal. 1;6-12).
Thus peter informs us that the
preaching of the gospel (of which the spirit of Christ testified in the Old
Testament) by the New Testament apostles was performed by means of the Holy
Spirit sent forth from heaven (1 Peter 1:10-12). As with all genuine prophecy, this gospel proclamation did not come
by the will of men, but men spoke from God, being carried along by the Holy
Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). In accord with
the promise of Christ, this spirit sent from heaven to inspire the preaching of
the gospel guided the apostles into all
truth (John 16:13). As the spirit
of truth He would not generate error in the life-giving good news of Christ as
publicized by the apostles; their message was made inerrant. Furthermore, the apostles spoke words taught by the Spirit of God (1
Cor. 2:12-13), and the Spirit speaking in them directed both what was said and how it was said (cf. Matt. 10:19-20). Therefore, according to Scripture’s own witness, the verbal form
and content of the apostolic publication of the gospel message should be deemed
wholly true and without error.
Throughout its record the Bible
presupposes its own authority. For
instance, the Old Testament is often cited in the New Testament with such
formulas as “God says” or “the Holy Spirit says” (as in Acts 1:16; 3:24-25; 2
Cor. 6:16). What Scripture says is
identified with what God says (e.g., Gal. 3:8; Rom. 9:16). For that reason all theological arguments
are settled decisively by the inherent authority signified in the formula “it
stands written” (literal translation).
The same authority attaches to the writings of the apostles (1 Cor.
15:1-2; 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:14), since these writings are placed on a par with the
Old Testament Scriptures (2 peter 3:15-16; Rev. 1:3). Apostolic Scripture often has the common formula “it stands
written” applied to it (e.g., John 20:31).
Therefore the Old and New Testaments are presented in the Bible itself
as the authoritative, written, Word of God.
Because of their divine origin
the Scriptures are entirely trustworthy and sure (cf. 1 Tim. 1;15; 3:1; 4:9; 2
Tim. 2:11; Titus 3:8; Heb. 2:3; 2 Peter 1:19), so that by means of them we are
able to discern between what is true and what is false (cf. 1 Thess. 5:21; 1
John 4:1). The Scriptures are the
standard of trustworthiness (Luke 1:1-4) and will never ail us or bring us
embarrassment (Isa. 28:16; John 19:35; 20:31; Rom. 9:33; 1 Peter 2:6; 1 John
1:1-3). Their accuracy extends to every
minute detail, as our Lord said – to every “jot” and “tittle” (Matt. 5:18) – in
such a way that the indestructible endurance of any minor part is coextensive
with that of the whole (cf. Isa. 40:8; Matt. 24:35; 1 Peter 1:24-25). Every single word of the Bible is, by its
own witness to itself, infallibly true, god’s own declaration is: “I, the LORD,
speak the truth; I declare what is right” (Isa. 45:19). Accordingly, the psalmist can say, “The sum
of thy word is truth” (Ps. 119:160), *[In this chapter, Scripture quotations
are from the American Standard Version, unless otherwise indicated.] and the
wisdom literature can counsel us, “Every word of God is tried [proven, true,
flawless]” (Prov. 30:5). If our
doctrinal outlook is informed by the Word of God, then, we must confess that
Scripture is entirely truthful, or inerrant.
The unchallengeable testimony of Jesus was, "Thy word is
truth"”(John 17:17).
The Westminster Confession of
Faith has good warrant for calling “all the books of the Old and New Testament”
in their entirety “Holy Scripture or the Word of God written” (I.2), “all which
are given by inspiration of God,” who is “the author thereof,” being Himself
“truth itself” (I.40. These books of
the Old and New Testaments, therefore, are in their entirety “of infallible
truth and divine authority” (I.5), so that “a Christian believeth to be true
whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God himself speaking
therein” (XIV.2). According to this
grand confession of the church, no error can be attributed to the Bible at any
place. After all, if God sets forth
false assertions in minor areas where our research can check His accuracy (such
as in historical or geographical details), how do we know that He does not also
err in major concerns like theology?[1] If we cannot believe the Lord’s Word when He
speaks of earthly things, how can we believe Him when He tells us of heavenly
things? (cf. John 3:12).
In this vein Archibald Alexander
wrote, “And could it be shown that the evangelists had fallen into palpable
mistakes in facts of minor importance, it would be impossible to demonstrate
that they wrote anything by inspiration.”[2] Likewise Charles Hodge declared that the
bible was “free from all error whether of doctrine, fact or precept”;
inspiration, according to him, was “not confined to moral and religious truths,
but extends to the statements of facts, whether scientific, historical, or
geographical.”[3] Alexander, Hodge, and B. B. Warfield all
firmly maintained that the Bible is “absolutely errorless” in any of the
subjects it touches on in teaching – whether statements about history, natural
history, ethnology, archaeology, geography, natural science, physical or
historical fact, psychological or philosophical principle, or spiritual
doctrine and duty.[4] This doctrine of scriptural inerrancy,
whether presented in the pages of the Bible itself, in church confessions, or
by stalwart theologians, is never an academic curiosity or aside; it goes to
the very heart of the trustworthiness and truth of the life-giving message of
the gospel found in God’s written Word.
If the Bible is not wholly true, then our assurance of salvation has no
dependable and divine warrant; it rests rather on the minimal and fallible
authority of men. Warfield saw this
clearly:
The present
controversy concerns something much more vital than the bare “inerrancy” of the
Scriptures, whether in the copies or in the “autographs.” It concerns the trustworthiness of the Bible
in its express declarations, and in the fundamental conceptions of its writers
as to the course of the history of God’s dealings with his people. It concerns, in a word, the authority of the
Biblical representations concerning the nature of revealed religion, and the
mode and course of its revelation. The
issue raised is whether we are to look upon the Bible as containing a divinely
guaranteed and wholly trustworthy account of God’s redemptive revelation, and
the course of his gracious dealings with his people; or as merely a mass of
more or less trustworthy materials, out of which we are to sift the facts in
order to put together a trustworthy account of God’s redemptive revelation and
the course of his dealings with his people.[5]
The church,
following God’s Word, confesses the entire inerrancy of Scripture as a crucial
and inalienable aspect of the authority of God’s revelation, by which we come
to a genuine knowledge of Christ and the assured enjoyment of eternal life (cf.
2 Tim. 3:15-16).
Inscripturation and Distinction
For the sake of preserving the
apostolic testimony and extending the fellowship of the church around the “word
of life” (1 John 1:1-4), the proclamation and teaching of the apostles has been
reduced to written form. Such
inscripturation of God’s revelation was required if the church was to teach it
until the end of the age (Matt. 28:18-20).
Van Til points out that inscripturation of God’s word gives it the
greatest possible permanence of form, being less liable to perversion than oral
tradition would be.[6]
The great
attribute of the written word is objectivity. The oral word too has its measure of
objectivity, but it cannot match either the flexibility or the durability of
the written word. Memory is
imperfect. The desire to change or
pervert is ever present.[7]
The drawback to having revelation
in oral form (or tradition) is that it is much more subject to various kinds of
corrupting influences that stem from man’s imperfect abilities and sinful
nature (e.g., lapses of memory and intentional distortion). To curb these forces, taught Kuyper, God
cast His word into written form – thereby achieving greater durability, fixity,
purity, and catholicity.[8] A written document is capable of universal
distribution through repeated copying, and yet it can be preserved in various
kinds of depositories from generation to generation. As such it can function both as a fixed standard by which to test
all doctrines of men and as a pure guide to the way of life.
Yet this admirable feature of
inscripturation itself generates a difficulty for the doctrine of scriptural
inerrancy – a difficulty that we must now face. A written word may have great advantages over oral tradition but
it is not immune from what Kuyper called “the vicissitudes of time.” The spreading of God’s Word by textual
transmission and translation opens up the door to variance between the original
form of the written word and secondary forms (copies and translations). This variance requires a refinement of the
doctrine of biblical inerrancy, for now we must ask what constitutes the proper
object of this inerrancy that we attribute to Scripture. Does inerrancy (or infallibility,
inspiration) pertain to the original writings (autographa), to copies of them
(and perhaps translations), or to both?
To be sure, in answering such a
question some have gone to unscholarly excess in the interest of protecting the
divine authority of Scripture. Certain
superstitious stories led Philo to postulate inspiration of the Septuagint
translation of the Old Testament. Some
Roman Catholics, following the declaration of Pope Sixtus V that the Vulgate
was the authentic Scripture, attributed inspiration to this translation. Some Protestants have argued for the inspired
infallibility of the vowel points in the Hebrew Old Testament (e.g., the
Buxtorfs and John Owen; the Formula Consensus Helvetica more cautiously spoke
of the inspiration of “at least the power of the points”). The errorless transmission and preservation
of the original text of Scripture has been taught by men such as Hollaz,
Quenstedt, and Terretin, who failed to recognize the significance of textual
variants in the copies of Scripture that have existed throughout the history of
the church.[9]
Notwithstanding such positions,
the view that has persisted throughout the centuries and is common among
evangelicals today is that the inerrancy (or infallibility, inspiration) of the
Scriptures pertains only to the text of the original autographa. In a letter to Jerome (letter 82), Augustine
said about anything he found in the biblical books that seemed contrary to the
truth: “I decide that either the text is corrupt, or the translator did not
follow what was really said, or that I failed to understand it.” Here the distinction between the autographa
and copies of Scripture is clear, as is also the restriction of inerrancy to
the former. Likewise, in his conviction
that the original was free from error, Calvin showed concern about textual
corruption; see his commentaries at Hebrews 9:1 and James 4:7.[10] Luther labored diligently as a translator
and exegete to recover the original reading of the scriptural text.[11] Richard Baxter said, “No error or
contradiction is in it [Scripture], but what is in some copies, by failure of
preservers, transcribers, printers, and translators.” Warfield quotes this statement and goes on to allude to the work
of other men such as John Lightfoot, Ussher and Walton, and Rutherford,
illustrating how the question of restricting inspiration to the autographa was
a burning question in the age of the Westminster Assembly.[12] He also expounded the Westminster Confession
of Faith I.8 as teaching that immediate inspiration applies only to the
autographa of Scripture, not to the copies, that the original text has been
providentially kept pure in the transmitted texts (but not, as Smith and Beegle
contended, in every or in any one copy),[13]
and that present translations were adequate for the needs of God’s people in
every age.[14]
For themselves, A. A. Hodge and
B. B. Warfield asserted:
Nevertheless
the historical faith of the church has always been, that all the affirmations
of Scripture of all kinds . . . are without error, when the ipsissima verba of the original
autographs are ascertained and interpreted in their natural and intended sense
. . .. No “error” can be asserted,
therefore, which cannot be proved to have been aboriginal in the text.[15]
Edwin Palmer cites Kuyper and Bavinck
to the same effect and he quotes Dijk as saying that the authority of the Bible
“pertains always and only to the original (and not to the translation) and to
the pure text that is to be found in the autographa.”[16] Others who can be readily quoted as
distinguishing between the autographa and copies of Scripture and as
restricting inerrancy (or infallibility, inspiration) to the autographa include
J. Gresham machen, W. H. Griffith Thomas, James M. Gray, Lewis sperry Chafer,
Loraine Boettner, Edward J. Young, R. Surgurg, J. I. Packer, John R. W. Stott,
Carl F. H. Henry, et al.[17] What Henry says is representative:
Inerrancy
pertains only to the oral or written proclamation of the originally inspired
prophets and apostles. Not only was
their communication of the Word of God efficacious in teaching the truth of
revelation, but their transmission of that Word was error-free. Inerrancy does not extend to copies,
translations or versions, however.
It is evident that H. P. Smith and
C. A. Briggs were quite mistaken when they alleged that the assertion of an
original inerrancy for Scripture was a new doctrine generated by “Modern
scholastics.”[18] Warfield’s response was, as usual,
appropriate:
This is a
rather serious arraignment of the common sense of the whole series of preceding
generations. What! Are we to believe that no man until our
wonderful nineteenth century, ever had acumen enough to detect a printer’s
error or to realize the liability of hand-copies manuscripts to occasional
corruption? Are we really to believe
that the happy possessors of “the Wicked Bible” held “thou shalt commit
adultery” to be as divinely “inerrant” as the genuine text of the seventh
commandment – on the ground that the “inerrancy of the original autographs of
the Holy Scriptures” must not be asserted “as distinguished from the Holy
Scriptures which we now posses”? . . .
Of course, every man of common sense from the beginning of the world has
recognized the difference between the genuine text and the errors of
transmission, and has attached his confidence to the former in rejection of the
latter.[19]
The time-honored and common-sense
perspective among Christian believers who have considered the inescapable
question raised by the inscripturation of God’s word (viz., do inspiration,
infallibility, and/or inerrancy pertain to the autographa, to copies of it, or
to both?) has been that inerrancy is restricted to the original, autographical
text of Scripture.
Nevertheless, this basic
evangelical doctrine of Scripture has come under severe ridicule and criticism
from many quarters in recent years, thus calling us to a defense of it. H. P. Smith charged that the doctrine of
original inerrancy is speculative and is concerned with a text that no longer
exists and cannot conceivably ever be recovered.[20] David Hubbard reiterates that the standard
evangelical view contends for the inerrancy, not of any present texts, but of
the original autographs to which no generation of the church has ever had
access.[21] Accordingly, the approach to scriptural
inerrancy that restricts it to the autographa is held to be trivial and without
value, as charged by C. A. Briggs nearly a century ago: “We will never be able
to attain the sacred writings as they gladdened the eyes of those who first saw
them, and rejoiced the hearts of those who first heard them. If the external words of the original were
inspred, it does not profit us. We are
cut off from them forever.”[22] The distinction between inspired or
infallible autographa and uninspired or fallible copies was characterized by
Brunner as useless, idolatrous, and untenable in the light of textual
criticism.[23] The
distinction is irrelevant or of no practical value, he believes, since the
praiseworthy quality (be it inspiration, infallibility, or inerrancy) applies
to no extant text. It is absurd because
it is impossible to define the character of a text that has disappeared. The originals are unimportant since we
cannot completely restore them, and obviously God does not think that it is
necessary for us to have them.
Moreover, we can still receive spiritual blessing from errant copies, so
we could as well receive such a blessing from errant originals. It turns out, so the argument goes, that
restriction of inerrancy to the autographa is simply an intellectually
dishonest escape from embarrassment or an apologetical “cop-out.” Such a line of reasoning is often
encountered, [24] and a large
dose of sarcasm is often mixed with it.
Their [the
assailants of the trustworthiness of the Scriptures] contention has ever been
twofold: that God never gave an errorless Bible, and if he did, that errorless
Bible is no longer in the possession of men.
The air has been thick with satirical references to autographic copies
which no man has ever seen, which are hopelessly lost, which can never be
recovered. And the defenders of the
trustworthiness of Scripture have been sarcastically asked what the use is of
contending so strenuously for the plenary inspiration of autographs which have
thus forever passed away.[25]
Great mirth has been evoked in
this vein over the so-called “lost Princeton Bible.” Lester DeKoster has gone to the limit of his reach in pressing
sarcasm into service against those who restrict inerrancy to the autographa:
nobody can use those lost autographa; the Bible on our table is not the
inerrant and infallible word of God, and so today the church has no inerrant
bible by which to live, and preaching is thereby made impossible because it
would be founded on the uninspired word of man.[26] It now appears that the doctrine of biblical
inerrancy, which at first appeared so clearly in accord with the Scripture’s own witness, is
threatened with a necessary qualification or restriction that vitiates the
significance and importance of the doctrine.
What can we say in response?
In the following sections we will
explore the biblical attitude toward
autographa and copies, which should be the starting point of all genuinely
Christian theological commitments. From
that platform we go on to explain the
evangelical restriction of inerrancy to the autographa, indicating that our
evaluation of copies and translations is not an all-or-nothing affair. The rationale
for the evangelical restriction is then reviewed, followed by various
indications of the importance of this
doctrine regarding Scripture. Different
aspects of the assurance that we can
have with respect to possessing God’s Word today will subsequently be
broached. Finally, we will conclude
with an examination of some explicit critique
of the evangelical restriction of inerrancy (or infallibility, inspiration) to
the scriptural autographa. We will
conclude that the doctrine of original inerrancy is both warranted and
defensible, and is a doctrine to be commended to all believers who are sensitive
to the authority of the Bible as the very Word of God.
The Biblical Attitude
Scripture has scattered
indications of interest in or recognition of copies and translations of God’s
Word in distinction from the autographical manuscripts. We can also draw useful inferences from
various passages that tell us something of the scriptural attitude toward the
then-extant copies and subsequent translations. What we primarily learn is that these nonautographical manuscripts
were deemed adequate to perform the purposes for which God originally gave the
Scriptures. What King Solomon possessed
was obviously a copy of the original Mosaic law (cf. Deut. 17:8), and yet it
was considered to contain, truly and genuinely, “the charge of Jehovah . . .
according to that which was written in the law of Moses” (1 Kings 2:3).[27] The book of Proverbs pauses at one point to
draw clear attention to the fact that “these are more proverbs of Solomon,
copied by the men of Hezekiah king of Judah” (Prov. 25:1). The copies are themselves held to be
canonical and divinely authoritative.
The law of God that was in the hand of Ezra was obviously a copy, but
nevertheless it functioned as the authority in his ministry (Ezra 7:14). When Ezra read from this law to the people,
so that divine guidance might be given for their lives, he apparently read to
them by way of translation, so they could understand the sense in the Aramaic
to which they had become accustomed in exile: And they read in the book, in the
law of God, distinctly [with interpretation]; and they gave the sense, so that
they understood the reading: (Neh. 8:8).[28]
In all of these examples the secondary text does the work of God’s written Word
and shares its original authority in a practical sense.
The New Testament also evidences
an interest in secondary copies of God’s written Word. Paul was most concerned that he be brought
the ‘books, especially the parchments” (2 Tim. 4:13). In the practice of collecting New Testament Epistles for the
various churches (cf. Col. 4:160, encouragement would naturally be given to
copying the original manuscripts. There
is every reason, given the examples of Jesus and the apostles, to assume that
these copies were held to be profitable for teaching and for instruction in
righteousness (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16b). When
New Testament writers appeal to the authority of the Old Testament, they used
the texts and versions that were at hand, just as we do today.[29] Jesus preached from the existing scrolls and
treated them as “Scripture” (Luke 4:16-21). The apostles used the Scriptures that were in hand for arguing
(Acts 17:2) and demonstrating points (Acts 18:28). Their hearers checked the apostolic proclamation by searching the
Old Testament Scriptures that they then possessed (Acts 17:11). Because their opponents shared a belief in
the functional authority of the available manuscripts of the Scriptures, Jesus
and the apostles confronted them on the common ground of the extant copies,
without fretting about the autographa themselves.[30] This is illustrated in the present
imperative given to search the Scriptures as testifying of Christ (John 5:39)
and in the rhetorical and leading questions: “Have you read . . .?” and “What
is written in the Law? How do you read
it?” (e.g., in Matt. 12:3, 5; 21:16, 42; Luke 10:26). It may very well be true that the “holy Scriptures” that Timothy
had known from his childhood were not only copies of the Scripture, but the
Septuagint translation, at that.[31] Still they could make him “wise unto
salvation.”
These illustrations show that the
message conveyed by the words of the
autographa, and not the physical page on which we find printing, is the strict
object of inspiration. Therefore,
because that message was reliably reflected in the copies or translations
available to the biblical writers, they could be used in an authoritative and
practical manner. Contrary to the
extreme and unfounded inferences drawn by Beegle,[32]
the exhortation and challenges based on the copies of Scripture pertain to the
conveyed message and tell us nothing
about the extant texts per se. Much
less do they demonstrate that the biblical authors made no distinction between
the original text and its copies.
Otherwise the unique and unalterable authority of the biblical message
would not be guarded so strenuously by these same authors.
Because Christ raised no doubts
about the adequacy of the Scriptures as His contemporaries knew them, we can
safely assume that the first-century text of the Old Testament was a wholly
adequate representation of the divine word originally given. Jesus regarded the extant copies of His day
as so approximate to the originals in their message that He appealed to those
copies as authoritative.[33] The respect that Jesus and his apostles held
for the extant Old Testament text is, at base, an expression of their
confidence in God’s providential preservation of the copies and translations as
substantially identical with the inspired originals. It is thus fallacious to argue that inerrancy was not restricted
by them to the autographa and to say that their teaching about inspiration had
reference to the imperfect copies in their possession.[34]
The fact is that, although
present copies and translations had a practical authority and adequacy for the
purposes of divine revelation, the Bible evidences a pervasive concern to tether current copies to the autographical
text. There is, as one would
expect, no explicit biblical teaching regarding the autographa and copies of
them, but the point being made is still abundantly illustrated in the course of
Scripture’s teaching and statements. We
therefore have an answer to the question of Pinnock, Is the restriction of
inerrancy to the autographa strictly scriptural? And have a rebuttal to the
allegation of Chapman that it is not biblical to restrict inspiration to the
autographa.[35] According to Beegle, there is no explicit
teaching in the New Testament that distinguishes between autographa and copies;
the original writings are not set apart in a special position, for the authors
of Scripture deemed the extant errant manuscripts inspired.[36] Our examination of the scriptural passages
pertinent to this issue will undermine such claims as these.
We can begin our survey in the
Old Testament, where we soon discover that:
Most of the
references to inspiration that are found in the Old Testament concern the
Semitic augographs. The majority relate
to the biblical writers’ own compositions, which they identify, not as products
of divine dictation, but as the equivalent of God’s own words: e.g., David,
“The spirit of Jehovah spake by me” (II Samuel 23:2); Isaiah, “Seek ye out . .
. (this) book of Jehovah, and read” (Isaiah 34:16); Jeremiah, “(God’s) words .
. . even all that is written in this book” (Jeremiah 25:13, cf. 30:2, 36:2), or
perhaps even Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12:11.
Others concern writings that were
still fresh enough to imply the original manuscripts either as present, e.g.,
Joshua’s referring to Moses’ writings as “the book of the law of God” (Joshua
24:26), or as immediately accesible, e.g., Joel’s quoting the contemporary (?)
prophecy of Obadiah 17, “as Jehovah hath said” (Joel 2:32).[37]
The assumption throughout
Scripture is that we are obliged to follow the original text of God’s written
Word. Present copies function authoritatively
because they are viewed as reflecting the autographa correctly. This foundational perspective comes to the
surface from time to time. For
instance, Israel was required to do what God “commanded their fathers by Moses”
(Judg. 3:4). This reference implicitly
points to the original message, which came from the author himself. Isaiah was explicitly told to write, and his
book was to be a witness forever (Isa. 8:1; 30:8); the autographical text was
the permanent standard for the future.
Daniel “understood by the books” (which we can assume to have been
copies), but these very books indicate that the God-given words were “the word
of Jehovah [which] came to Jeremiah” (Dan. 9:2). The perfect aspect indicates completed action with respect to the
coming of the word of God to Jeremiah specifically.
Likewise the New Testament
assumes that correct teaching can be found in copies of Scripture then in
existence because they trace back to the autographical text. Matthew 1:22 quotes Isaiah 7:14 as “spoken
by the Lord through the prophet” (cf. 2:15).
Jesus taught that we are to live by “every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4), thus tethering the authority of the Scriptures
iin hand to the original utterance given by divine inspiration. What people read as “Scripture” in the books
of Moses was thought of as “spoken unto them by God” (Matt. 22:29-32; Mark
12:24-26). The inspired David himself
spoke to them in the copy of the Book of Psalms that they possessed (Matt.
22:43; mark 12:35; Luke 20:42), just as when on e reads the copy of Scripture
he will see that which was spoken by Daniel the prophet himself (Matt. 24:15;
Mark 13:14). In each case the autographical text is assumed to be present in
the extant copy that is consulted. When
Christ asked, “Have you not read . . . [in extant copies, no doubt]?” (Matt.
19:4; cf. v. 7), He was actually seeking what Moses himself commanded the Jews
(Mark 10:3). The Mosaic words that He
quoted from Genesis 2;24 were viewed by Him as fully equivalent to what “God
said” as the original author of Scripture (Matt. 19:4-5). Those who possess existing scrolls “have
Moses and the prophets” themselves, who, accordingly, should be heard as such
(Luke 16:29).
The actual distance between the
autographa and the copies can be for present purposes ignored, because the
original text is thought to appear in these copies. After all, it is the things written by the prophets themselves
that bind us (Luke 18:31). In
expounding the extant Scriptures Christ actually expounded what the prophets
had spoken and He could therefore condemn those who were slow to believe what
the prophets themselves had spoken (Luke 24:25-27). In the Scriptures as they were then written, Christ’s followers
could find what is fulfilled by Him, namely, all things “which were written” in
all the Old Testament (Luke 24:44-46, author’s translation). The “writings” that were then in hand, and
that indicted their hearers, were assumed to be identical with what Moses wrote
(John 5:45-47), and the law that was cited as relevant to a current controversy
was understood to be given by Moses (John 7:19; cf. v. 23).
John 10:34-36 is particularly
instructive. Jesus said, “Is it not
written in your law . . .?” thereby indicating their own manuscript copies of
the Old Testament. He then quotes Psalm
82:6, resting the thrust of His argument on one word in that text. The premise
of His argument is that God “called them ‘gods,’ unto whom the word of God
came.” That is, God called the judges
“gods” who were contemporary with Asaph, the psalm writer, and they were the
ones to whom the word of God came. It
is thus Asaph’s original that is equated with the word of God. Jesus was able to accept, and work on the
foundation of, the Jews’ belief in the authority of “their law” (copies)
because He deemed these to reflect the original accurately. The “Scripture” to which He appealed in this
controversy is intimately connected with what was actually said to those “to
whom the word of God came.” The
inscripturated word of God that originally came to the Israelites is not found
written in their present-day law books.
Here we find quite an explicit indication that the authority of present
copies is traced to the autographa lying behind them.
The importance of the autographa
for the new Testament Scriptures is already hinted at in Jesus’ promise that
the Holy spirit would take His original words and bring them to the remembrance
of the apostles for the sake of their writings (John 14:25-26). When the apostles cited the Old Testament in
their preaching and writing, it was with the assumption that they were
propounding the initially composed Scripture.
Accordingly, peter described “this Scripture” (i.e., Ps. 69:25) as that “which
the Holy spirit spake before by the mouth of David” (Acts :16; cf. 4:25). The earlier autograph, given beforehand by
the Holy Spirit, is the primary referent of his preaching form present copies
of the Psalm. Similarly Paul cited
Isaiah 6:9-10, saying, Well spake the Holy spirit through Isaiah the prophet
unto your fathers . . .” (Acts 28:25; cf. Rom. 3:2), and he proceeded on the
understanding that his quotation was true to the original deliverance given
many years previously. The citation of
Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews 10 is viewed as a rendition of what the Holy Spirit
originally said through the prophet (Hebrews 10:15). Indeed, the comfort that could be gained from the then-present
copies of the Scriptures was tethered to “whatsoever things were written
aforetime,” the original text written in former days (Romans 15:4). In a similar way, that for which Paul
claimed inspiration was his autographical text – “The things which I write unto
you . . . are the commandment of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37; cf. 2:13).
Over and over again we are confronted
with the obvious fact that the biblical writers made use of existing copies,
with the significant assumption that their authority was tied to the original
text of which the copies are a reliable reflection. It is especially important to note this fact with respect to two
key verses that teach the inspiration of Scripture. In 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul stresses that all the Scriptures were
God-breathed, placing obvious emphasis on their origin, and thus on their autographic form. The reason why the sacred writings known to
Timothy (perhaps the Septuagint) could make him wise unto salvation is found in
the fact that they were rooted in the original, divinely given Scripture –
those writings that were the direct result of inspiration and that Paul here
associated with Scripture’s original form as coming from God. Likewise, in 2 Peter 1:19-21 we are told
that “we have the prophetic word” (presumably in copies) and must heed it and
treat it as authoritative. Why is this
so? Because men spoke from God, being “carried
along” by the Holy Spirit. The
sufficiency and function of the extant biblical manuscripts is not divorced
from, but rather explained in terms of, the original manuscripts, which were
divine products.
We have noted a long list of
illustrations that point to the fact that, the adequacy of existing copies of
the Bible was countenanced in terms of the autographical texts that are
presumed to stand behind such copies.
The importance and
criteriological authority of the autographical texts of Scripture are brought
out in four specific Old Testament situations.
Each shows us that the inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy of the
Bible must be found in the autographical text, which is normative for God’s people
and for identifying anything that would lay claim to the title of “God’s Word.”
The first known case of the need
for textual restoration is related in Exodus 32 and 34. The first tablets of the law were written by
God Himself (Exod. 32:15-16) but were subsequently destroyed by Moses in his
anger (v. 19). God provided for the
rewriting of the words of the original tablets (Exod. 34:1, 27028), and
Scripture makes the point that these second tablets were written “according to
the first writing” (Deut. 10:2, 4).
Here is a significant model for all later copying of the biblical
autographs; they should reproduce the words that were on the first tablet or
page in order to preserve the full divine authority of the message they convey.
So also, in Jeremiah 36:1-32 it
is said that the prophet dictated the word of God to Baruch, who wrote it in a
scroll. When this scroll, with its
unfavorable message, was read to King Jehoiakim, he cut it into pieces and
burned it. The word of God then came to
Jeremiah, instructing him to make a new copy of the Scripture, and we see quite
plainly that the standard for the copy was the original text: “Take another
scroll and write on it all the words that were on the first scroll” (v.
28). As common sense tells us, a
reliable copy ought to reproduce the original text accurately.
The paradigmatic or
criteriological nature of the autographic text of Scripture is also taught in
Deuteronomy 17;18. Although the Mosaic
autograph as placed by the Levites next to the ark of the covenant (Deut. 31:24-26),
a copy of this law was to be written by the king in a book, “out of that which
is before the priests and the Levites.”
The copy would offer authoritative guidance only as it correctly
reflected the original. Without studied
concern for a copy that accurately transmitted the autograph, the king could
not be sure of himself in refraining from turning aside to the right or to the
left from God’s commandment (Deut. 17:19-20).
Copies of Scripture, then, were not to deviate in the slightest from the
original text.
The fourth key Old Testament
situation that manifests the esteem and deference the Jews gave to the
autographic text is recorded in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34, which relate
the recovery of the temple copy of the book of the Law during the reign of
Josiah. The existence of the book of
the Law was previously known; it had been placed by the side of the ark of the
covenant and used for public reading from time to time (Deut. 31:12, 24-26; 2
Chron. 35:3). However, though there were likely private copies of the Law in
the hands of some priests and prophets,[38]
The official, autographical copy had been lost from sight. Chronicles indicates that Josiah had already
begun to follow the law in a hazy fashion, probably according to a traditional
knowledge of it (34:3-7). Subsequently
the temple began to be repaired, during which time the book of the Law was
found by Hilkiah, the high priest.
Josiah’s desire to repair the temple already demonstrated his
disposition to foster the worship of Jehovah, and Hilkiah’s discovery generated
great excitement. In time Josiah became
quite concerned about the words of “this book that is found” (2 Kings
22:13). Apparently it brought to his
attention material (most likely the curse-threats of the covenant: 2 Kings
22:11, 13, 15, 18-19; cf. Deut. 28; Lev. 26) that was not found in the other
available copies or traditions of the law.
What is relevant for our concern
here is that this recovered Book of the Law, which corrected and supplemented Josiah’s
theological outlook, was, I believe, the original, officially preserved mosaic
autograph.[39] What was found was not simply “a book” (a
copy of some generally known volume) but “the
book of the law” – a manuscript somehow different from others (2 Kings
22:8). In particular, it was the book
of the law “by the hand of Moses” (2 Chron. 34:14, literal translation). While the evidence is not fully decisive and
the recovered book was not necessarily the autograph, the weight of evidence
favors this interpretation; there is little obvious counterevidence.
This Old Testament incident
magnifies the value, corrective function, and normative authority of the
autographic text of Scripture over all copies or traditional understanding of
what God had said. The sufficiency of a
copy is proportionate to its accurate reflection of the original. Deviation from the autograph jeopardizes the
profit of a copy for doctrinal instruction and for direction in righteous
living.
The biblical writers clearly knew
how to distinguish, then, between autographa and copies and they perceived the
significance of the difference.
Josiah’s recovery of the autographic Scripture was a momentous occasion,
not merely the addition of one more copy, among many manuscripts, to an undifferentiated
repository of Bibles!
There are yet other ways in which
Scripture teaches or illustrates the explicitly recognized or assumed
normativity of the autographa for subsequent copies. First, the Bible warns us throughout against altering the text of
God’s Word. According to god’s command,
it is not to be added to or diminished (Deut. 4:2; 12:32). Proverbs counsels, “Add thou not unto his
words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar (30:6); honesty requires
that one stick to the originally given message of God without supplementing it
with new features. Otherwise the
permanent norm of judgment could hardly be expressed in these words: “To the
law and to the testimony! If they speak
not according to this word, surely
there is no morning for them” (Isa. 8:20).
The New Testament Scriptures
evidence the same jealousy for the unaltered purity of the original text, as
seen in the well-known warning of the book of Revelation (22:18-19). The normativity of the autographic message
is the presupposition underlying the conflict with tradition pursued by Christ
and the apostles (e.g., Matt. 15:6; Col. 2:8). As evidenced in Matthew 5:21ff.,
tradition conveyed the Old Testament text to some extent, but it was not to be
allowed to obscure the authentic Word
of God (Mark 7:1-13). Accordingly, we
see Christ condemning Pharasaical teaching when it altered the text of the Old
Testament Scriptures – e.g., with respect to hatred (Matt. 5:43) and with
respect to divorce (Matt. 19:7). In the
same vein with Old Testament warnings, Paul instructs Christians not to tamper
with the Word of God (2 Cor. 4:2). The
New Testament lays great stress on not accepting teachings that run counter to
the apostolic message (e.g., Rom. 16:17; Gal. 1:8; 1 John 4:1-6). We find, even as we would expect, strong
warning against departing from what is said in the apostolic text (2 Thess.
3:14, where the norm is “the word by this epistle”). Believers are to be on guard against what purports to be
Scripture but is not. Do not be troubles,
Paul says, by “an epistle as though from us” (2 Thess. 2:2). Paul usually wrote his own authentic letters
by means of an amanuensis (e.g., Rom. 16:22) – an arrangement that created ripe
conditions for forgery. However Paul’s
custom was to add his own authenticating signature to his letters, as he notes
in 2 Thessalonians 3:17: “The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand, which
is the token in every epistle: so I write” (cf. 1 Cor. 16:21; Gal. 6:11; Col.
4:18).[40] Significantly Paul makes this statement in
the same Epistle in which he warns against spurious apostolic epistles. Here Paul draws attention to the quite
literal “autograph” as authenticating the message that is to be believed and
obeyed by Christ’s people!
Criteriological textual authority,
we conclude, is uniformly presented in Scripture as being the original,
autographic texts of the biblical books.
Copies are to be evaluated and heeded in the light of the autographa,
which ought to be reflected in them.
Their authority derives from the original text, whose own authority
derives from God Himself.
We may now summarize the attitude
that the Bible itself displays to the autographa and copies in this
fashion. The authority and usefulness
of extant copies and translations of the Scriptures is apparent throughout the
bible. They are adequate for bringing people to a knowledge of saving truth and
for directing their lives. Yet it is
also evident that the use of scriptural authority derived from copies has
underlying it the implicit understanding, and often explicit qualification,
that these extant copies are authoritative in that, and to the extent that,
they reproduce the original, autographic text.
Biblical writers understood the
distinction between the original and a copy and they manifest a commitment to
the criteriological authority of the original.
These two features – the adequacy of extant copies and the crucial and
primal authority of the autographa – are rather nicely combined in the standard
formula used in the New Testament for citing Scripture to clinch an argument:
“it stands written.” This form (the
perfect tense) appears at least seventy-three times in the Gospels alone. It signifies that something has been
established, accomplished, or completed and that it continues to be so or to
have enduring effect. “It stands
written” expresses the truth that what has been written in the original
Scripture remains so written in the present copies. Conversely, that to which the writer appeals in the present
copies of Scripture as normative is so because it is taken to be the enduring
witness of the autographic text. New
Testament arguments based on a phrase (as in Acts 165:13-17), a word (as in
John 10:35), or even the difference between the singular and plural form of a
word (as in Gal. 3:16) in the Old Testament would be completely emptied of
genuine force if two things were not true: (1) that phrase, word, or form must
appear in the present copies of the Old Testament, or else the argument falls
to the ground with the intended opponent because it is spurious to begin with
(i.e., there is no evidence to which appeal can be made against him), and (2)
that phrase, word, or form must be assumed to have been present in the original
text of the passage cited, or else the argument loses its authoritative
foundation in the Word of God (i.e., such an element of the text would have no
more authority than the word of any mere human at best and would be an
embarrassing scribal error at worst).
If the New Testament authors are not appealing through their extant
copies of the original text, their arguments are futile.
We see, then, that the Bible
demonstrates two points. First, the
permanent need of God’s people for the substantial reliability of the extant
biblical text is satisfied. We can believe our copies of Scripture and
be saved without having the autographic codex, for the Bible itself indicates
that copies can faithfully reflect the original text and therefore function
authoritatively. Second, the paramount
features and qualities of Scripture – such as inspiration, infallibility, and
inerrancy – are uniformly identified with God’s own original word as found in
the autographic text, which alone can be identified and esteemed as God’s own
word to man.[41]
A brief postscript to this section
can be added regarding the use of the Septuagint in the New Testament and the
problem of New Testament quotations of the Old Testament that appear to deviate
from the original. Neither one of these
practices undermines our previous conclusions.
The Septuagint was used to facilitate the communication of the New
Testament message. It was the popular
version of the day. This fact, however,
does not confer inspiration on it (a view held by men such as Philo and
Augustine). Even Beegle admits that if
the New Testament writers considered the Septuagint inspired, it was so “in a
secondary or derivative sense.”[42] As Jerome maintained in his dispute with
Augustine over this matter, only the Hebrew text was strictly inspired. The authors of the New Testament, we must
assume, used the Septuagint only to the extent that this translation did not
deviate essentially from the Hebrew text.
Just as people can write in their own vocabularies without introducing
falsehoods and can quote questionable sources without incorporating erroneous
portions from them,[43]
so also the New Testament writers could use the vocabulary and text of the
Septuagint without falling into error.
Being carried along by the Holy spirit in their work (cf. 2 Peter 1:21)
they were shielded from such error, for that spirit is the “spirit of truth”
(John 16:13). Textual diversity was
recognized by the New Testament writers, but it was not a source of perplexity,
since they were directed by the Spirit.
They could select the reading that best carried the divine meaning,[44]
often quoting the Septuagint as the Word of God and yet sometimes even
correcting the Septuagint rendition!
A greater difficulty is found in
the fact that the Septuagint is sometimes quoted in a way that initially
appears to be contrary to the Hebrew text and as hardly permissible.[45] This relates to the problem posed by many
critics, that the way in which the New Testament sometimes quotes the Old
Testament seems to show little concern for accurate rendering of the original.[46] Foitzmyer says, “To modern critical
scholarship their [the New Testament writers’] way of reading the Old Testament
often appears quite arbitrary in that it disregards the sense and the content
of the original.”[47]
This is not the place to launch
into a full discussion of the well-known, difficult passages related to this
issue, some of which call for further study in the light of the broader
attitude that Scripture itself teaches toward the issues of inerrancy and the
original text. As always, the biblical
phenomena must be considered in terms of the basic and background testimony of
Scripture about itself – that is, in the light of Scripture’s own given
presuppositions. Suffice to say here
that an artificial standard of precision that would have been foreign to the
culture and literary habits of the day in which Scripture was penned need not
be imposed on the Bible in the name of inerrancy or of fidelity to the
autographa. Methods of quotation were
not as precise in that age as they are today, and there is no reason why New
Testament citations had to be verbally exact.
The issue is whether the meaning of the autographic text is or is not
assumed to lie behind the extant texts and translations used by the New Testament
writers. I have given grounds above for
adopting this as the assumption of the biblical witness. In focusing on a particular (sometimes
narrow, sometimes general) point or insight, New Testament quotation of the Old
Testament need only embody an accuracy that suits the writer’s purpose. Preachers today are not being unfaithful to
Scripture when they mix passing allusion with strict quotation from the Bible,
when they rearrange biblical phrases, or when they paraphrase contextual
matters in getting to their specific target statement, phrase, or word. Their scriptural point can be communicated
in a way that is true to the sense without being a pristine rendition of the
specific text.
Therefore, the New Testament use
of the Septuagint or of inexact renditions of the Old Testament does not belie
the commitment of the involved writers to the criteriological authority of the
autographa. The practice does, however,
underline their unanxious acceptance of texts or versions that were not
strictly autographic as being adequate for the practical purposes at hand in
their teaching. These were adequate
precisely because they could be assumed to portray the true sense of the original.
Explanation and Rationale for the Restriction
Given the previously explored biblical
attitude toward the autographa and copies of them, we can proceed to explain
the sense in which evangelicals correspondingly restrict inerrancy to the
scriptural autographa and offer reasons for that restriction.
There is circulating at present a
rather serious misunderstanding of the evangelical restriction of inerrancy (or
inspiration, infallibility) to the autographic text and of the implications of
that restriction. DeKoster claims that
there are only two options: either the Bible on our pulpits is the inspired
Word of God, or it is the uninspired
word of man. Because inspiration and
inerrancy are restricted to the autographa (which are lost, and therefore not
found on our pulpits), then our bibles, it is argued, must be the uninspired words
of man and not the vitally needed word of God.[48] Others have misconstrued an epistemological
argument for biblical inerrancy as holding that, if the bible contains even one
mistake, it cannot be believed true at any point; we cannot then rely on any
part of it, and God cannot use it to communicate authoritatively to us.[49] From this mistaken starting point the
critics go on to say that the evangelical restriction of inerrancy to the
autographa means that, because of errors in all present versions, our Bibles
today cannot be trusted at all, cannot communicate God’s word to us, and cannot
be the inspired Word of God. If our
present Bibles, with their errors, are not inspired, then we are left with
nothing (since the autographa are lost).
Such a dilemma rests on numerous
fallacies and misunderstandings. In the
first place, it confuses autographic text
(the words) with autographic codex
(the physical document). Loss of the
latter does not automatically entail loss of the former. Certain manuscripts may have decayed or been
lost, but the words of these manuscripts are still with us in good copies. Second, evangelicals do not, by their
commitment to inerrancy, have to commit the logical fallacy of saying that if
one point in a book is mistaken, then all points in it are likewise
mistaken. Third, the predicate
“inerrant” (or “inspired”) is not one that can be applied only in an
all-or-nothing fashion. We create a
false dilemma in saying that a book either is totally inspired or totally
uninspired (just as it is fallacious to think a book must be either completely
true or completely false). Many
predicates (e.g., “bald,” “warm,” “fast”) apply in degrees. “Inerrant” and “inspired” can be counted
among them. A book may be unerring for
the most part and yet be slightly flawed.
It can have inspired material to some measure and uninspired material to
some measure. For example, an anthology
of sacred texts from world religions would be inspired to the degree that it
includes selections from the Bible.
This is not to say that inerrancy or inspiration as qualities admit of
degrees, as though some passages of the Bible could be “more inspired” than
others, or some passages of the Bible could be “more inspired” than others, or
some statement with a given sense in Scripture could be a mixture of truth and
error. Rather, the objects (viz.,
certain books) of these predicates have elements or parts to which the
predicates completely apply and elements or parts to which the predicates do
not apply. That baldness can be applied
in degrees means that certain objects (e.g., heads) may have hairy areas and
nonhairy areas, not that there is some quality that itself is a cross between
hair and nonhair.
It needs to be reiterated quite
unambiguously that evangelical restriction of inerrancy to the autographa (1)
is a restriction to the autographic text,
thereby guarding the uniqueness of God’s verbal message[50]
and (2) does not imply that present
Bibles, because they are not fully inerrant, fail to be the Word of God. The evangelical view does not mean that the
inerrancy, or inspiration, of present Bibles is an all-or-nothing matter. My Old Cambridge edition of a Shakespearean
play may contain mistaken or disputed words in comparison with the original
text of Shakespeare, but that does not lead me to the extreme conclusion that
the volume on my desk is not a work of Shakespeare. It is Shakespearean –
to the degree that it reflects the author’s own work, which (because of the
generally accepted high degree of correlation) is a qualification that need not
be explicitly and often stated. So also
my American Standard Version of the Bible contains mistaken or disputed words
with respect to the autographic text of
Scripture, but it is still the very Word of God, inspired and inerrant – to the
degree that it reflects the original work of God, which (because of the
objective, universally accepted, and outstanding degree of correlation in the
light of textual criticism) is a qualification that is very seldom in need of
being stated.[51] As virtually anybody would understand, a
copy counts as the words of a work only to the extent that it has not altered
the very words of the author of that work.[52]
Therefore, let us clearly explain
the implication of the evangelical view of inerrancy’s restriction to the
autographa. Francis Patton put it this
way: “Just so far as our present Scripture text corresponds with the original
documents is it inspired . . .. Have we
a correct text? If we have not, then
just in proportion to its incorrectness are we without the word of God.”[53] Many contemporary evangelicals have made the
same kind of statement. Pinnock writes,
“Our bibles are the Word of God to the extent that they reflect the Scripture
as originally given,”[54]
and “a good copy of an original work can function like the original itself, to
the extent to which it corresponds to the original and is in accord with it.”[55] In the same way translations, as observed by
Henry, “may be said to be infallible only to the extent that they faithfully
represent the copies available to us.”[56] Palmer accordingly answers DeKoster’s false
dilemma about having or not having the inerrant and inspired Word of God on his
desk by pointing out that copies and translations are inspired, infallible, and
inerrant to the extent that they have faithfully reproduced the original
text. To the extent that they add to,
subtract from, or distort the original, they are not the inspired Word of God.[57]
Is there any good reason for this point of view? What rationale can be offered by evangelicals for restricting inerrancy (inspiration, infallibility) to the biblical autographa? Critics have often assumed that inerrancy is restricted to the autographa for apologetical reasons and they have condemned this restriction as desperate weaseling and an “apologetical artifice” (to use Brunner’s words), an intellectually dishonest cop-out arising from embarrassment.[58] Rogers attacks the evangelical restriction of inerrancy to the autographa as an attempt to secure an “unassailable apologetic stance” (which, Pinnock observes, would produce a position that is unfalsifiable yet meaningless).[59] Such abuse is misplaced. Evangelicals appeal to the missing autographa in a limited and specific fashion, where independent evidence (quite apart from apologetical embarrassment) supports the suggestion of transcriptional error.[60] Inerrancy critic Stephe