Studies

Subjects

Biblical Inerrancy

The main presupposition for Biblical textual purity and inerrancy is: a. God’s providential control. b. God’s word supplies the necessary preconditions for logic and ethics. The simple Biblical argument is: Without God and His infallible word, one cannot account for anything. Only God and revealed inerrant Scripture supply the necessary the preconditions for logic, morality, mathematics, and everything else in the cosmos. One must be certain of something, because to assert that no one can know anything for certain would require one to be certain of at least that. There has to be certainty in our world to know anything. And we must know something, we fall into self-refutation. The problem is that, to know anything, one must either have all knowledge or hear from one who does (the inerrant Bible). Only an omniscient being can know universals and absolutes. No finite man could know universals unless an omniscient and infinite being revealed it to him as the Word has. And God has revealed truth and logic to man; therefore, we can have knowledge. Without God one can have no knowledge; a self-refuting proposition. Thus it is certain that God must live and scripture is inerrant. I. In accord with scripture’s own witness. The Bible tells us copies have kept Proverbs pure and are the word of God as when Solomon was given a copy. 1 Kings 2:3- “And keep the charge of the LORD your God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn. Law of Moses hundreds of years after the original was first written. Proverbs 25:1 These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied. “As is” 1 Kings 2:3 and “Are” in Proverbs 25:1 is in the present tense. Therefore: Copies are the word of God. John 7:19 “Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?” “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”. - Greg Bahnsen 2 Timothy 3:16 - All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 2 Peter 1:19-21- And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. “Have” is in the present tense. “The sufficiency... of the extant Biblical Manuscripts is not divorced from... the original manuscripts.” - Greg Bahnsen 1st known case of God’s textual restoration ... Ex 32 and Ex 34. When God allowed Moses to destroy the 1st tablets of the law and then God provided a rewriting of the words of the original. Deu. 10:2-4 - ‘And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.’ “So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. “And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the LORD had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. See Jer. 36:1-32- - destroyed and then restored the texts. The main presupposition for biblical textual purity is. a. God’s providential control. b. God’s word supplies the necessary preconditions for logic and ethics. Deu. 31:24-26- So it was, when Moses had completed writing the words of this law in a book, when they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying: “Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there as a witness against you; - authorized a copy. Josiah found a copy and God declared it the pure word of God. See 2 Kg 22 , 2 Chron. 34-35 “The book by the hand of Moses” was found and all the Old testaments texts were pure... The authority and usefulness of extant copies and translations of the scriptures is apparent trough out the Bible - They reproduce the original, autographical text... Remember the autographical text (the words, the truth) is not the same as the autographical codex (the physical document). The codex contains the text in its ink and paper. Loss of the original codex does not mean the loss of the text... If we presuppose a sovereign God, observes Van Til, we need no longer worry whether or not the transmission of scripture is not altogether accurate.” Bahnsen. This outline is produce by attempting to summarize and outline Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s work on inerrency found in Norman Geisler’s book: Inerrancy. All errors and mistakes are mine. Pastor Mike Robinson.