Your Interpretation of the Bible is not Inerrant

Part 4 of My Gender Role Journey

Another topic in Theology 1 that impacted my understanding of gender roles was the Doctrine of Scripture. I dove into 350 pages of reading and hours of lectures covering the diverse theories of how God revealed himself in the world and what scripture is. I had always heard that God’s word is inspired, inerrant, and authoritative, but I did not realize how loaded and debated those terms were. For instance, if someone says scripture is “inspired” they could mean anything from the Biblical author was just an especially gifted spiritual writer, to God was directly dictating words that the author wrote down verbatim. These terms are used to communicate the general idea that, because God is perfect and he has revealed himself in his word, his words are trustworthy and have implications for humanity.  

Theology often consists of a spectrum of views, and I never feel comfortable at the extreme ends of any topic. It’s been interesting to find that the spectrum is far broader than I had thought. The doctrinal papers we were assigned were an opportunity for us to state, “this is where I stand on this issue.” The term inerrancy is the most hotly contested of those three; it was not as dichotomous as I thought. There are various conceptions of inerrancy. [1]

1. Absolute Inerrancy– The Bible is fully true in a detailed treatment of matters both scientific and historic.
2. Full Inerrancy– The Bible is completely true. However, it’s primary aim is not to relate scientific or historical data, but when it does, they are fully true. These are not necessarily exact, but may be approximate, yet still correct as reported by the human eye.
3. Limited Inerrancy– Regards the Bible as inerrant and infallible in its salvific doctrinal references. Scientific and historical references reflect the current understanding at the time.
4. Inerrancy of Purpose– The Bible faithfully accomplishes its purpose: to bring people into personal fellowship with God, not to communicate scientific or historical truths.

Further along the spectrum are three additional views about scripture that do not claim to be inerrant. I landed somewhere between full and limited, and my entire doctrinal paper can be found here.

            In my research, I stumbled onto a website in defense of inerrancy by a group purporting to be “Standing up for the Bible before it’s too late.” [2] The group warns that inerrancy is an essential doctrine that some scholars are trying to redefine and “IT’S UNDER ATTACK… RIGHT NOW!” They encourage visitors to sign their petition and look for their pastor on the list. I recognized the organization’s founder, Norman Geisler, as a renowned apologist and saw he had apparently written a book called Defending Inerrancy. Despite the inflammatory rhetoric, I read through their description of why they are raising the alarm. Apparently, in 2010, a seminary professor in the SBC made the case that it’s possible to interpret a few non-essential events described in the Bible with figurative imagery rather than as literal historical events. This professor assented to inerrancy and other scholars agreed his views were still consistent with an inerrant position. [3] Why did a figurative interpretation among conservative evangelical scholars cause such a ruckus?

            New research helps us understand more about the context the scriptures were written in. Novel ideas tend to challenge traditional interpretations. People can get defensive and see those ideas as threats, in this case, a danger to the doctrine of inerrancy itself. The debates on creation illustrate why one’s view of inerrancy is not necessarily determined by one’s interpretation. Some believe Genesis 1 is a description of six 24-hour days completing the creation event. Others notice the figurative language describing a pattern of formation and filling with an emphasis on God’s power in creation. They take it literarily not literally since it is a narrative, not a science text. Is it possible that God created the earth in 144 hours? Absolutely. Is the text of Genesis actually making that claim? Not necessarily. People who believe the scriptures are inerrant can hold either interpretation of the text.

            What I have noticed is biblical literalists are accusing others of not holding to the inerrancy of scripture. They restrict who can be considered an inerrantist by using certain interpretations as a litmus test. By narrowly defining inerrancy, they assert that certain interpretations cannot be questioned. This may appear to be defending inerrancy, but what they are really defending is the power to determine what is considered orthodox. It’s theological gatekeeping birthed from suspicion and fear of error. It is scripture that is inerrant, not our interpretations of it. This is not to say that every interpretation is equally good or valid for consideration, nor should we allow texts to be interpreted subjectively. When dealing with essential aspects of Christianity, we must endeavor towards a greater degree of certainty in our interpretations. When the stakes are high and a narrow interpretation is necessary, we must strive to understand as much as possible and come to conclusions that we can defend logically and compellingly.

So, what does inerrancy have to do with gender roles? All my adult life I had been told that egalitarians didn’t believe the Bible was inerrant. That’s how they were able to ignore those clear scriptures about submission or women not teaching. They just cherry picked all the hard parts and said those were errors. At this point in my journey, I still wasn’t reading egalitarian scholarship for myself. Everything I’d read about egalitarians was filtered through complementarians who warned me they didn’t believe in inerrancy so they couldn’t be trusted. I hadn’t known about the different degrees of inerrancy or that someone who didn’t hold absolute or full inerrancy could still believe that God’s word was trustworthy and authoritative. It felt like it was all or nothing: either you believe the Bible is true or you don’t. Inerrancy became a watch word.

It would still be months before I got the courage to read what egalitarians had to say for themselves, but I was beginning to get the sense that I needed to read their arguments directly instead of filtered through complementarians. It was no longer sufficient to outsource my theology to the big names I was familiar with. I had to do the work myself. My next class would give me the space I needed to explore.

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[1] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2013), 191–92.

[2] Defending Inerrancy. “Defending Inerrancy | We’re In SERIOUS Danger!” Accessed August 19, 2024. https://defendinginerrancy.com/.

[3] Defending Inerrancy. “What Is Biblical Inerrancy?” Accessed August 19, 2024. https://defendinginerrancy.com/why-is-inerrancy-important/.