Biblical Inerrancy: What Is Inspiration?

“All scripture is inspired by God and good for teaching, for correcting, for setting things straight, and for providing righteous discipline. They qualify a man of God by providing him with whatever he needs to do all sorts of good work”
2 Timothy 3:16

Introduction

Inerrancy and Inspiration. These are two words commonly thrown around and asserted of the Bible. But what exactly the is true meaning of these things according to scripture itself?

If you were to ask a great many modern day Christians, they would claim to be “inspired”, means that the scriptures are the direct words of God, channelled into the writers minds to be written out on the page, and that therefore the Bible is “inerrant”, meaning without flaw, mistake, untruth or contradiction. In fact, many go as far to say quite literally; “every single letter and punctuation mark” is inspired from God himself onto the page, and that such words have been preserved by God in all scrolls and Bibles to the very letter and digit since its very authorship thousands of years ago.

However, it is ideas and theological statements like these, that have caused much grief for the Christian faith over the years.

The First Problem of Inerrancy: Inconsistent Bible Translations

It is no secret, but rather, common knowledge, that we have today a great many deal of Bible versions and translations, all of which have many different wordings and interpretations of meaning. So right away, only looking to the many translations such as KJV, NIV, BSB, ESV, ASV, and so on… we encounter problems when claiming that all Bibles all over the world, in every rendition is the unchanged, flawless word of God in every number, letter, word, and sentence.

This becomes even more of a difficult problem when we realise, that not all Bibles even have the same verses in them in some sections, some are added, others removed, and others changed altogether! For example;

Some Bibles include the infamous “Three are One” passage at 1 John 5:7-9, whilst others do not. Catholic Bibles after 400 A.D even change one of the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus, from “Thou Shalt not make graven images or idols” to “Thou shalt not take the LORD’s name in vain”. An even more embarrassing rendition, is that the 1631 version of the King James Bible (revered as flawless and perfect by many) had a terrible printing mistake which said “Thou shalt commit adultery”.

We see that claiming God’s word is eternally unchanged and miraculously preserved in all our Bibles, is just simply not true.

However, such an evaluation, some argue, only applies to our “modern Bibles”, but not the “original manuscripts” of which the Bibles we have are translated. And to an extent, this is true, we ought to place our emphasis on the oldest Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic manuscripts of scripture, over that of the bias of later translators. But this still does not solve our problem…

The Second Problem of Inerrancy: Manuscript Variants

A fact regarding ancient Bible manuscripts, is that they are also plentiful in variation in certain passages.

Just as we have many Bible renditions today, in ancient times, things were not so different. We have, for example, many copies of the Greek Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Aramaic Peshitta and the later Masoretic Texts.

All of these scrolls contain some amount of small difference, and with some larger differences, such as the ages of kings during their reigns, or how long ago Noah’s flood was, or the length of certain family genealogies.

Amongst the Christian New Testament copies, we have the Peshitta, the Sinaiticus, the Vaticanus, and others. And these scrolls contain some of the differences as seen in modern Bibles, of the inclusion or removal of certain passages of text.

Thus, even the manuscripts themselves in which we base our Bible translations, have some variants in them too. Making the claim that every single scroll copied down by the scribes, were somehow divinely protected by God for a flawless “word for word” translation every time, not viable at all. And it is at times very difficult to determine which manuscript variant was closer to the “original” text that it was first copied from.

The Third Problem of Inerrancy: Copyist Errors

Another problem to face, is copyist mistakes within the manuscripts themselves. We see in various verses, some inconsistencies that result of such copyist errors.

For example:

2 Chronicles 36:9 and 2 Kings 24:8 in some of the most ancient manuscripts, show the king is 8 years old on the throne in one passage, whilst another says he is 18 years old. Likewise, we see the same kind of error in 2 Chronicles 22:2 and 2 Kings 8:26, where the king is said to be 42, and another passage says 22. Whilst the math and general overall harmony of these books can inform us of which ages are the accurate ones, it is clearly evidence of a textual inconsistency.

Again, we see what appears to be a copyist error in the manuscripts, over who was responsible for killing Goliath in 2 Samuel 21:19 and 1 Chronicles 20:5, due to a likely reading mistake in the grammar of the original language and names, and what the text should have said is that Eleanan killed Goliath’s “brother”, Lachmi.

Such mistakes, of course, can easily be attributed to innocent scribal error, since the Hebrew numbers and words would have looked similar to one another in some cases. And then such a mistake being carried over into later copies of the scrolls. But, whilst this is a rather “innocent” copying mistake, it poses a serious problem for those who believe in Inerrancy, because it means at some point in the past, God allowed a scribe to write down and copy a mistake into the Bible, that was carried over for hundreds if not thousands of years.

It becomes even worse when we discover some scriptures may have been slightly changed for less innocent reasons, such as theological shifts or dishonest motives, as such was the case in some passages of the later Masoretic Texts in the attempt to remove Yeshua from prophecy, or when later Modalist and Trinitarian Christian writers inserted passages into the New Testament, such as 1 John 5:7-8 (Article), to make Yeshua to be part of some kind of three-in-one being.

The Fourth Problem of Inerrancy: Outdated World & Cultural Views

Another problem we face, is that sometimes, though not always, some Biblical writers speak in the local customs and understandings of the world at the time, which in modern scientific standards do not hold up.

For example, we see Joshua and king Solomon speaking from what seems to be a geocentric point of view, that the Earth is still whilst the sun and moon are the objects that move around us (Joshua 10:12-13, Psalms 19:4-6, Ecclesiastes 1:6).

Thus if God himself inspired these writers to speak in such descriptions word for word, then it would seem modern scientific evidence would accuse God of being wrong or a liar for having the authors write down such things, or that the writers simply did not have contact with God at all… And such a thing has even inspired movements such as the modern Flat Earther conspiracy amongst several Fundamentalist Christian groups in extreme response.

The big question that arises because of all this is then:

“If we can prove some parts of the Bible were corrupted over time, how can we even trust any part of the Bible at all?”

What is “Biblical” Inspiration?

The first thing we must start with, is asking whether the modern day understanding of many Christians in regard to “Inspiration” is actually “Biblical”.

Whilst it is a popular view that the idea of “Inspiration” means God has authored or penned every single word that is in the Bible… such a thing is not actually stated in the Bible itself, and in fact is a very “recent” concept. Only are we ever taught that “God’s breathed words” are “inspired” and are thus considered “scripture”, which is very different from saying “all the words in the scrolls are directly God breathed”.

We see confirmation of this by the Apostle Paul, who states some of his very own words, as written in the Bible today, are “not the words of the Lord”, but “his own” (1 Corinthians 7:12). Furthermore, even God himself warns us to “beware of false scribes” and that he will punish anyone who “changes his words”, implying that in fact… change to the scriptures is in fact possible! (Jeremiah 8:8, Revelation 22:19).

So what then actually is “inspiration”?

It is a combination of many elements. It is both the direct words of God spoken to his prophets put into writing, and His divine providence in the guiding of the compilation of the scriptures which we have in our hands today, and in the revelation of its accurate truth, in order to “teach and benefit us”.

The process of inspiration, is not merely just God telling his prophets what words to write down directly, this is only a truth ‘in part’. Inspiration is the process of men writing and documenting in their own words, the things they saw, including the miraculous things God did, or told them in direct conversation. But we should also understand that God did not spoon feed his scribes and prophets. Rather, he allowed them to express the things they saw and understood, within the context of their own world view and culture, for such writings had to be widely understood by the Hebrew populace, as well as for the sake of the other nations around them living in the culture at the time.

To give a practical example;

Imagine a man from the Middle Ages had God speak to him, and He foretold a certain person would get sick and die. This event happens the following year, and God’s words proved to be true. However, the author might likely write something along the lines of;

“God foretold the man would die of sickness. The year following, the man came down with pox, and his four humours stirred out of balance, and he suddenly died”.

Upon reading this, modern critics would say; “look at this verse, it is clear scripture has outdated medical science in it, so it cannot be of God”. But this reasoning missing the overall point, that it was just the ‘author’s’ understanding of the body, but the prophecy was still real, God still spoke with him, it does not invalidate his experience simply because he chooses to write in accordance to how he understands the world around him.

Likewise, the original authors of the Bible were guided to write individual accounts down for purposes of our benefit. But not every single “word and phrase” of the Bible is ‘directly’ inspired of God.

Rather, the scriptures are acclaimed recordings of special historical events, such as times where words are spoken by God Himself as he did to Moses on Mt Sinai, or by his visting angelic messengers, or recordings of what they believed to be divine prophetic visions. Along with all this, they had their own additional commentaries on these events, recordings of poetry and wisdom which they had learned from God’s prinicples and Law, and of course, chronicles of general history, which are not all dicated by word from God Himself, though His words may be included within such writings.

This is why it is perfectly acceptable for Joshua to say “the sun stopped”, even though science says the sun does not move, because he was describing events in accordance to his cultrual perception, but this did not mean some kind of miracle did not happen.

How Can We Know Scripture is Trustworthy?

Of course, despite having an accurate understanding of what inspiration is, and what it is not, it does not take away that fact that over time, some mistakes and small changes have happened in the copying of the scrolls as we have seen. All we have proven so far is that God doesn’t dicate every single word directly in scripture, but allows the scribes freedom of expression.

But how do we know which words are truly of God, and which scriptures we have are indeed of his providence and guidance, as opposed to what is error or deception? How can ‘any’ portion be trusted if we have witnessed some mistakes and changes over time? The answer is multi-faceted, and shows the brilliance in the composition of the Bible.

The Bible Provides its Own Best Defence

Firstly what is important to point out, is that we have the ability to ‘spot’ the mistakes, which in itself may be a direct blessing to us from God. If there was no core truth or pure version of the scriptures to be had at all, then it would be impossible to point out what need be corrected to fix the copyist errors and changes in passages by later authors.

It is not merely the ability to point out contradictions as we can in any old text, but that fact that we can pin-point with confidence, what all of the errors “are“, the “manner” in which they entered the text, the “reason” they were inserted, and what the passages “should have been“, and all due to the fact of the very harmonisation and compliation of the Bible itself, as attested in multiple scholarly and theological fields.

Incredibly, it acts as its ‘own’ security system, due to the way it is written, both in content and grammactic structure, and thus it in a way “tells us” its own flaws and corruptions by the hands of men. But not only that, it tells us how to correct them.

The Bible has an overall harmony of “theme”, “doctrine”, “theology”, “culture”, and of course, multiple synoptic collections and copies of scrolls highly detailing the same historical events, written by the hands of different scribes in seperate books throughout (e.g; Samuel, Kings & Chronicals, or, the Four Gospels). Through this, we gain a higher “bird’s eye view” of Biblical history. In conjunction, we are able to exercise “textual critiscm” through knowledge of ancient language and grammar, to spot where a copiest error entered by means of a simple reading mistake, or when a change was made on purpose by a later scribe for more nefarious purposes.

By this overall proccess, we have been able to actually ‘attain’ an accurate rendition and preservation of all Biblical passages as originally written and intended, in a concrete, historically backed and logical way.

We not only are able to spot edits, mistakes or corruptions, but we also have the ability to spot what ‘hasn’t’ been changed in the thousands of years of textual tradition, thus giving us confirmation on what the accurate preserved portions of God’s word are, and how to harmonise everything else where there is ambiguity in accordance to said word.

Of all the ancient texts in the world, it is well attested even by critics and non-believers, that Biblical scripture is the most well preserved, consistent and detailed collection of ancient literature in the entire world, even ‘with’ the minor differences and various errors in some copies. 

The Bible Message Remains Preserved

Furthermore, even with the multiple errors and variations of text we do have, what remains harmonious across the board of not hundreds, but thousands of copies, scattered about the world throughout history, are the words said to be spoken by God himself, the overall theme and eschatology of the Bible, the Divine Law (Torah), and the Salvation message of God by means of his Son Yeshua, throughout the Old to New Testament.

For example, Christians have been able, for hundreds of years, to see the themes of the Messianic prophecies as related to Yeshua through the Old Testament, despite only having the later Masoretic Texts of the Middle Ages availible to them, which were ‘intentionally’ changed in places by Jewish scribes after the 2nd Century A.D in extreme rejection of Yeshua as the Messiah.

Only by the 1940s, did even older Hebrew texts become discovered in the caves near the Dead Sea. Such texts contained renderings which solidified the traditional Christian interpretations of the scriptures.

Even when combining every scribal error, every textual variant, and every corruption, nothing has stood in the way of that core message and teaching, nothing is substantial which could serve to destroy the core meaning of the Gospel as has been threaded throughout 4000 years worth of texts, which in itself is an attestment to the eternal guarantee of God’s promises and guidance amongst the “textual chaos” and evils of men, and could argubly be ‘more’ of an attestmet to divine providence of God’s word, than it would be if there were no difficulties to overcome in the first place.

It is for this very reason, God did not need to preserve each and every little word exactly from copy to copy, because we know all we need. That is the important part. The mistakes are inconsequential, for the main salvation message is retained, even with the later intentionally corruptive errors that have been attempted to change that message and its fulfillments in some translations.

The proven alterations are minimal, and the Bible still makes perfect overall sense. No ammount of mistakes nor later textual alterations (as can be compared to the earlier and different renditions of the text), have blinded us to the truth and fullness of authentic scripture.

Historically Vindicated

Another key factor to point out, is that scripture has been proven to be historically vinidcated over time by historians and archeologists, of the overall truth to its content, even to the surprise and shock of critics, who many times have been proven wrong in the doubting of the accurate historicity of the Bible when hard evidence comes to light.

Even with all the variants in manuscripts, it has been possible to discover tangible evidence which attest to the words contained with in. No ammount of tampering has prevented this, and the fact that we have all the manuscript variants in hand, have only further served in aiding in the gaining of this evidence in support of scriptrual content and in turn refining our understanding of it.

Be it from the evidence pertaining to the Exodus of the Israelites, ancient civilisations, historical figures, confirmation of historical events that long pre-date the age of current manuscripts, or even the external witnesses of Lord Yeshua, such as his Historical Opposers, or the Crucifixtion Darkness.

These things could not be possible, if scripture as we have it, contained no reliable truth at all. And as it stands, its record of truthfulness far outshines any number of scribal errors or corruptions.

Prophetically Vindicated

One of the most firm evidences for scripture containing God’s true words and providence, is the confirmation of multiple highly detailed and fulfilled prophecies, in both the Old and New Testament texts.

Prophecies such as Daniel’s 70 Weeks, and the Digusting Destroyer, or the Sacred Secret of Adam’s Genealogy, Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, and many more, as well as advanced knowledge of some scientific and medical matters. Thus, we see amongst the textual variants, evidence of true divine and supernatural knowledge contained within the texts, which have not been impacted by any ancient manuscript variants.

Why Would God Allow Error & Corruption?

A key question many would ask is; “why would God allow error and corruption?” Such errors have served to cause some doubt in their faith afterall. Wouldn’t God want us to know what is true words are with total security?

An answer to this has already been given in part, that God’s providence ‘has’ given us security, in that we have seen the evidences which support scripture, and that nothing essential to our faith has changed in any of these texts, even if we were to make an edition which comprised of ‘all’ of the errors and corruptions combined, everything essential remains.

But there are also further reason for our own benefit…

Confirmation of Age

One such unexpected benefit, is that of the confirmation of the ancient historicity of the scrolls, far beyond the existing copies we currently have.

For example, if all copies of a scroll we have contains a scribal error from a simple mistake of misreading a word, to be then afterward passed on copy to copy, this means it had become a long held “textual tradition”, that the mistake was being copied for a long time across a lineage, with seemingly nobody raising a question, which implies that there was a time long prior where said mistake did not exist in a far earlier copy or alternate lineage of said scroll since gone extinct.

This then tells us, the scrolls are not as “young” as some more critical or sceptical scholars would try to advocate them to be, since if ‘all’ the surviving ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic scrolls with the clear scribal copyist mistakes are the ‘only’ ones we have, then just truly how old are the ‘original’ “pre-scribal mistake” copies? Far older than 500 B.C.E that’s for sure.

Vindication of God’s Judgement

Another reason, is the vindication of God’s judgement.

Our God Yah, has allowed us to discover these truths regardless of textual error (whether they be by small mistake or purposeful change). By allowing corruption, it also serves a greater purpose, as it tells us the character and fruitage of the people who did these things.

If there was no evidence of scribal corruption over time, in some cases it would be harder to point out false teachers. God has always allowed crime to happen, in order to create evidence against his enemies for our benefit, whilst also preserving enough knowledge for us to all piece together in a wholistic manner the true message of words of God in these scriptures:

• “But the ways of the righteous are like light. They illuminate and shine until morning. While the ways of the irreverent are dark, and they don’t know how often they stumble“. – Proverbs 4:18-19
• “Indeed, this sinner has started operating in secret, but only until the one who’s holding him back is no longer among us – for that’s when that sinner will be revealed. [He’s the one] our Lord Yeshua will consume with the breath from his mouth and will eliminate by the appearance of his arrival. This one will come with the works of the Opposer, using great powers, lying signs, false wonders, and with every sort of deceit of the unrighteous (those who are ruined because they didn’t have any love for the truth that they received – which would’ve saved them)! Because of this, God will send them active delusions so that they’ll believe a lie, and they’ll prefer unrighteousness to believing the truth, which is what will condemn them.” – 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12
• “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account“. – Hebrews 4:12-13

By this, we see God allows false teachers and deceivers to operate and corrupt, to reveal righteous people who will stand up, as well as to show the folly of the wolves.

One extremley good example of this, can be seen in the early genealogy of the Bible, which has been altered in the later Masoretic Text in an attempt to opposose the lineage of Yeshua as the Messiah, but has resulted bringing forward the history of the events in Genesis, such as the flood, forward by hundreds of not over 1000 years, dating to after the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Such has resulted in much secular criticism of the Bible, since the pyramids are said to hold no signs of water damage. But by using the older genealogy, from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Greek Septuagint, the history is pushed back, placing early Genesis well before the pyramids… Therefore, the only way for Jews today to substantiate the historical accuracy of their own sacred texts, would be to accept the authority of these older scrolls, which in turn places Yeshua in line as their Messiah, forcing us to conclude, the more historically accurate scrolls also are the ones that support the genealogical Messianic evidence for Yeshua.

Thus, God’s method of preservation, is far superior than merely having a tradition of texts that are without error or copyist mistake through history. It serves to reveal what is the true message of God ‘despite’ attempted corruption or mistakes. It reveals the true dedicated worshippers of God, and it reveals God’s enemies who attempt to change his words for their own gain.

By history of variation, error and corruption, it better points out the genuine article and words of our faith, rather than us being unsure over whether if we have a totally corrupted text handed down to us over the years with no traces of what was before hand. By the allowance of darkness, we are shown the comparison, the contrast of the light against such shadows.

All we have ever needed for all of this, is the Bible itself, inasmuch with its several variants.

Conclusion

In conclusion…

We understand that Divine providence and inspiration, is God making sure not that very specific “words” are preserved in the Bible, but rather the “spirit” of the words, the message, the intent of his teachings, his prinicples to his people, the things important to our ways of life, the core themes of His morals and means of salvation, and is expressed by individuals through their own cultural lenses and understandings of the world around them.

The Bible is best decribed as “written by men, at the providence and experience of God”, as opposed to the idea that God somehow is constantly channeling infomation directly into the brains of the authors to write word for word and then divinely preserving every character of in every concievable way, even if he did sometimes give the authors or prophets specific things to say.

It is clearly demonstrated, that inspiration is not God making sure every single word is dicated by his command, nor is inerrancy God making sure the texts of the scriptures remain “preserved exactly” as they were first penned on paper. Such a definition and theology only serves to harm the faith, making Christianity and Judaism look foolish in the eyes of onlookers, by holding the scriptures up to a standard they themselves were never written in accordance with.

YHWH has allowed for error to creep into the texts, for he warned such a thing could happen, and it has served to reveal the corruption and evil of men who attempt to decieve genuine and righteous followers of the Way.

But even with such errors, the overall core of the scriptures, the Gospel, the salvation message the words and commands of God, we clearly see have been unchanged, preserved amongst the chaos of all the corruptions and textual variants we have, and confirmed by the external historical witnesses. We see evidence of divine inspiration of the many words found in the scriptures, as demonstrated by historical confirmation and prophetic fulliment.

By such means, God has attained victory over men and evil demonic spirits, even in the face of their attempts of deception.

The faith is a “living thing”, the Word is “active”, a living tradition, and a living document, not only in scrolls and books, but continually in the hearts and minds of the faithful believers, who always seek to worship in “spirit and truth” (John 4:24).