Featured Do Fundamentalists/Evangelicals Agree on bible Inerrancy/Infallibility?

Do the gospel accounts record the exact words of Jesus or the exact voice of Jesus?

Did they possible use the same words and put them in different contexts with different meanings?

 

I don't know what type of fundamentalism you came out of, but this blanket statement is an over-generalization. The viw you delineate is true in the KJVO circles of fundamentalism but not in other circles of fundamentalism. For example, when I was at BJU (1972) I asked my Greek prof who would make the choice between synonyms in the writing of Scripture, the Holy Spirit or the human writer. He said the human writer would.

BJU (the largest fundamentalist school) typically takes this position. See the writings of BJU prof Stewart Custer for example. Maranatha BBC, Northland BBC, Central, Detroit and Calvary Baptist theological seminaries would all take the view that the human and divine writers of Scripture should be equally examined.

My grandfather's book, Our God-Breathed Book the Bible, also takes this position. He does use the word "dictation" when describing the process of inspiration, following the view of seminal bibliology author Louis Gaussen, but spends two chapters examining that term and showing why "mechanical dictation" is a term used by liberals to mock the doctrine of verbal-plenary inspiration (the fundamental view of fundamentalists).

Concerning inerrancy, this is just as much (perhaps more) a New Evangelical doctrine as it is a fundamentalist doctrine. The major battle in the SBC on inerrancy that began in the 1970s was led by men like Harold Lindsell (The Battle for the Bible, The Bible in the Balance) and W. A. Criswell (Why I Preach that the Bible is Literally True). As far as I know, neither man called himself a fundamentalist.

 

Yes. Fundamentalism started out as partly a protest against the higher criticism of the day. Therefore, evangelical scholars are much more likely to look favorably on the various "criticisms" such as form criticism (a fundamentalist no-no) and the like.

 

Creeping liberalism. :tonofbricks:

 

There are also other ramifcations which cloud the issue of inerrancy/infallibility:

e.g. Genesis Chapter 1 - Are the "days" of Genesis 1 literal sidereal (sometimes called "solar") days or symbolic of a period of unquantified time?

HankD

 

I would say that the question of inerrancy is a result of a non-literal gen. 1 interpretation but not a cause to affect a view of inerrancy.

And to speak to Yeshua1... there are various views and definition of inerrancy (even "full inerrancy). So one can claim to be evangelical and a full-inerrantist but still hold to a different view of inerrancy than a fundamentalist.

 

True, and I agree, but others might disagree with us.

If I were involved in a pastoral search or an ordination I would ask about the meaning of a creation "day" in Genesis 1 even if inerrancy/infallibility were espoused.

HankD

 

"Biblical view" is a stretch since the Bible never clarifies what you listed so neatly. Not that I disagree, but we need to realize that in this subject we are going beyond Scripture (not a bad thing, but we need to be aware). This awareness causes us not to be so hard-nosed and rigid. We should allow for possibility and even plausible scenarios for things like history and retelling accounts.

Another issue is the concept of original manuscript. What if the form we have now today took years, centuries even, to compile and compose? Which is the inspired manuscript? Just a ponder.

 

The word Evangelical has now become so broad as to have lost its meaning almost entirely. However, the historic Reformed confessions have the highest regard for Scripture as can be seen in the 1689 Baptist Confession:-

It will be seen that the issue of texts is not approached here because there was no dissension at the time from the view that the T.R. was the word of God (tho' men knew about the Johannine Comma etc.). I personally have no problem preaching from the KJV, NKJV, ESV, NIV (1984); they are all the word of God to me. Introducing that issue into confession and statements of faith only causes confusion IMO.

Steve

 

Evangelicals don't even believe that the infallible Word of God exists.

It does, it's called the KJV. But the majority of the apostates on this board don't believe that.