Science in Christian Perspective

The Ongoing Struggle Over Biblical Inerrancy
CLARK H. PINNOCK 
McMaster Divinity College 
Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1 Canada

From: JASA 31 (June 1979): 69-74.

The controversy amongst evangelicals over the extent of biblical errorlesness continues unabated and signs of serious polarization are beginning to appear. It is a sad spectacle to see fellow Christians, who agree on all of the great doctrines of the historic gospel message, dividing into factional parties over the issue of biblical inerrancy. Suddenly, a code-word, inerrancy, looms up in a position of great prominence, and is being used as an instrument of schism in the evangelical coalition. It is time for responsible evangelical leaders to recognize that polarization within can be far more injurious to the cause of Christ than attack from without. When the church is assaulted by external foes she very often responds with heroism and dignity, and becomes stronger in the process. But when she is rent asunder with internal dissension based on intolerance and a refusal to dialogue the result is inevitably disillusionment and disgust. In line with some earlier articles of mine,¹ and out of my desire to make peace amongst the brothers and sisters, I plead once more for an end to rancorous debating and mutual criticism between factions, and offer some further remarks which 1 hope will help to cool down the confrontation and lead us forward to greater amicableness and cooperation.

It is important to remember when discussing biblical inerrancy that it is only one aspect of a much wider and very serious debate about the authority of Scripture and should not he treated in isolation. For more than a century the Bible has needed to be defended against a powerful attack upon it from the direction of what could fairly be called "secular modernity." A great number of voices have been raised, often from within the churches, in radical criticism of the truth, relevance, unity, and power of the canonical Scriptures, and result has been a visible weakening of Christian conviction and sense of mission. Although I do not personally equate the inerraney debate with the secularity debate, and do not believe anyone should do so, nevertheless for a good number of evangelical Christians the inerraney postulate and belief in biblical authority are inseparable, and therefore they interpret uncertainty about inerrancy with a declining respect for the Bible. Wrong they may he, but the fact that they do so is a crucial pastoral fact which goes a long way to explaining why feelings rise so high on this issue. If we would pause to understand how deeply imbedded the inerrancy assumption is in our evangelical thinking and heritage, 1 think we would be more patient and understanding with those who dig in their heels on this matter. Many evangelicals cannot see how one can divorce biblical inerrancy from biblical authority, and it is the responsibility of those who honestly feel these are separate issues to help the rest understand it. There are two levels (at least) operating here: the surface conflict about inerraney which has to be viewed within the context of an evolving "fundamentalist" movement, and the deeper struggle between classical Christian beliefs, including the authority of the Bible, and the framework of secular modernity.²

The Militant Advocates on Biblical Inerrancy

Critics of biblical inerraney profess bewilderment about the omnipresence and stuhborness of this conviction seeing how the term enjoys no ereedal or confessional status and preoccupation with it is a relatively recent phenomenon. But a little historical perspective should remove any mystery. What we have to realise is that one of the defining assumptions of American fundamentalism and of the "evangelical" movement that is its post-war successor and heir has been the inerrancy conviction. This came about through the interesting confluence of the premillennial prophecy movement with the Princeton theology of Hodge and Warfield, in which the Princeton doctrine of perfect errorlessness provided the scholarly basis for the kind of literalism and biblicism favored by the fundamentalists.³ A large percentage of evangelical literature dealing with the Bible is concerned explicitly with inerraney, and the rest of it assumes it. Later on we shall have occasion to notice how this is changing, but the change is quite recent and at present in a distinct minority.⁴

Now it may he true, as a number are now endeavouring to show, that there are texts and moments in the classical traditions, for example, in Augustine, in Luther, in Wesley, among the Westminster divines, where the idea of inerraney did not count for much and was even denied, showing that evangelicals today need not follow the Princeton-fundamentalist furrow.

Nevertheless, though I agree with them and believe such historical research useful, it is still true that in the ages before Princeton there is a good deal of inerrancv sentiment and conviction. It would be hard, for instance, to use Augustine or Calvin or even Luther to oppose inerrancy, as the militants know well. Augustine, when confronted with discrepancies in the Bible, went to very great pains to show to his own satisfaction that the difficult passages were not errors, so that to a large extent Augustine was like a fundamentalist and evangelical.
Therefore, it should surprise no one with any sense of history that a fierce struggle would ensue when the inerrancy assumption was questioned. It was entirely predictable. The inerrancy debate is on our agenda simple because it has been a defining assumption for most of our spiritual ancestors and lies close to the heart of how religious certainty has been understood. No wonder many people consider biblical inerrancy a watershed issue theologically, and why becoming disentangled from it is such a painful process for evangelicals. We simply must try to understand that non-fundamentalists connect the truth issue with the inerrancy issue as the necessary bulwark against unbelieving scepticism, and consider a softening of the inerrancy conviction to constitute a diminshed belief in the Bible itself. This fact, whether we like it or not, is a crucial pastoral realitly, and no evangelical should pretend as if it weren't. There is no place for flippancy in the inerrancy debate since the issues for the militant side are fundamental and non-negotiable. The only way we can achieve reconciliation and healing in this matter will be through love, sympathy, and mutual affirmation. Above all we must understand why there are militant advocates of biblical inerraney.

Advocates of Modified Biblical Inerrancy

The debate over inerrancy really began when evangelicals stopped making it an unquestioned assumption and started to look at it critically. I think it is true to say that the rise of evangelical biblical scholarship was responsible, because it brought to people's attention a more detailed acquaintance with the actual text of the Bible. Most fundamentalists and early evangelicals assumed inerrancy a priori, and did nut seriously consider the possibility that there might be difficulties in the text which would require modification of the inerrancy assumption. The change first came about unconsciously, therefore, in relation to specific problems, and only recently in a self-conscious way. Even Warfield did not bother to take such difficulties as Henry Preserved Smith posed to him very seriously, but considered inerrancy so firmly established that no empirical evidence could be expected to overthrow it. For the fundamentalists too, biblical inerrancy was such a crucial cornerstone for their apologetic and religious certainty that suggestions of biblical difficulties were not taken seriously and met a largely defensive response. But this has now changed. Today there is a group of evangelicals trained in biblical studies and open to new ideas who cannot pull the rug over objective biblical phenomena and insist on either broadening the inerrancy category to accommodate them or on eliminating the term inerrancy itself. First, let us consider the advocates of modified biblical inerrancy.⁵

The reason most evangelical biblical scholars are opting for a modified and more flexible variety of biblical inerrancy is quite simple: the biblical text forces it upon us. Unqualified inerraucy makes good rhetoric, but impossible exegesis. There is no way to accommodate the semitic way in which the Bible speaks of the physical universe, for example, without broadening the concept of inerrancy to include it. How else shall we understand the serious discrepancies in the various lists in Chronicles other than attributing them to the sources used or to the special intention of the inspired writer? Inerrancy must he nnanced to allow for the obvious freedom in the way the synoptic evangelists exercise their right to rearrange events and reword sayings of Jesus in keeping with their purpose. As a result of these elementary scriptural facts it became simply mandatory, if inerrancy were to be retained, to define it in relation to the purpose or intention of the biblical writers, and allow that a modern standard of precision should not be the final test of truthfulness. Most evangelical biblical scholars, although they do not often openly explain what they are doing, do not affirm the perfect errurlessness of the Bible in an abstract and unconditional sense, but consider it inerrant in a vaguer, somewhat nuanced sense.6 In the Evangelical Theological Society, for example, this has been tacitly understood for years, but now that the debate has heated tip in the wake of Lindsell's controversial book and Schaeffer's pastoral interventions the progressives are coming under suspicion, and fundamentalistic traits are resurfacing.
The moderate advocates of biblical inerrancy still believe there is merit in retaining this terminology, however, because they believe strong terms are needed for affirming our confidence in the absolute truthfulness of the Word of God written. They do not consider limiting the scope of inerraney to the intentionality of the text is an unfair interpretation of the word, and feel comfortable in the evangelical coalition. In the next part of his magnum opus Carl F. H. Henry, leader of the new evangelicals as distinct from the fundamentalists, promises to come out in strong and extended defense of biblical inerrancy, because he is convinced that "if error had permeated the original propheticapostolic verbalization of the revelation, no essential connection would exist between the recovery of any preferred text and the authentic meaning of God's revelation."⁷ And when he does so I am certain he will do it in a way that broadens and nuances the concept of inerrancy.

But there are critics of this approach, on both the militant and more liberal sides. John W. Montgomery, ardent defender of biblical inerrancy, roundly condemns any effort to redefine inerrancy as making a farce of language and selling out at a crucial point,⁸ and from the liberal view it has been observed how much exegetical fancy foot-work is required once one is committed both to critical honesty and to biblical inerrancy⁹ For those who like myself are sensitive to both these criticisms the appeal and attractiveness of the inerrancy category lessens considerably. It is held with less and less enthusiasm, and becomes more of a burden than a positive asset. Indeed, it may well be, that modified inerrancy will prove to he a temporary way-station oil the road, not to apostasy as Lindsell darkly warns, but to a non-inerrancy position on biblical inspiration. It serves at present as a momentary shelter for critically honest but cautious evangelicals who want to scrutinize the terrain just ahead before moving into it.

Evangelical Opponents of Biblical Inerrancy

Even more recently a group of evangelicals has surfaced at Fuller Seminary, but not only there, who do not find inerrancy terminology appropriate and decline to use it. Unfortunately for the militants we can count among their number some of the finest scholars which have yet emerged out of the evangelical movement: F. F, Bruce, C, C. Berkouwer, C. E. Ladd, B. P. Martin, David A. Huhbard, and others. They represent the noble tip of an iceberg which is much larger, I suspect, and whose views are beginning to surface. A full census of their number is sadly impossible because the heavy hand of the evangelical establishment, still quite militant on this subject, forces them to stay out of print on it. Nevertheless, I think I can with some confidence rehearse their reasons for dissatisfaction with biblical inerrancy.

First, and very important, is a basic critical honesty. The opponents of biblical inerrancy, while they appreciate the honesty of its moderate advocates in moving toward a nuanced view, remain unconvinced, and feel that the inevitable result of any kind of inerrancy assumption in biblical studies must be implausible harmonizations, allegorisations, and explanations. It is their concern for respecting the precise nature of the biblical text, ironically, which makes biblical inerrancy impossible for them. They simply cannot see the point of the mental gymnastics required of inerrantists when they have to perform such acrobatics as these: to prove that the "days" of Genesis 1 are not days, that there are actually gaps in the apparently tight genealogy of Genesis 5, that the 969 "years" in Methusaleh's long life were possibly not years, that two million Israelites could have wandered around the Sinai for forty years, or that the "thousands" do not mean thousands, that the brief list in Exodus 6 allows a 430 year interval, and so forth. The only reason evangelicals wrestle with such details in the Bible is because the inerrancy assumption requires it. Therefore, these progressives identify inerrancy to be the problem, and drop it. Recently, systematic theologian Berkouwer has come to their rescue by explaining that the desire for absolute precision in the ease of the Bible is docetie in tendency and unbiblical anyway, so that a non-inerrantist theology of inspiration is starting to emerge from the ranks of the evangelicals.

At least one lesson should be learned from this concern for critical honesty-the experience of quite a number of undoubtedly evangelical scholars in biblical studies has been to find the inerrancy of the Bible to be a problematic conviction, and one that ought not to he heralded as our strongest point. Therefore a strategy for the defense of the Bible which leads out with an inerrauey plank is obviously a strategy which leads with its weakest foot. At the' present there is a ten-year campaign being launched to set biblical inerrancy before the public and hold it up for public arid scholarly scrutiny. One thing is fairly certain: at the end of ten years nothing will have become plainer than the fact that biblical inerraney is a problematic.

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

A 5000-word statement an biblical inerrancy was the product of a three-day conference during October 1978 sponsored by the international Council an Biblical inerrancy. The 6-member executive committee far the 16member decision making body consists of James Boice, Chairman, Norman Geisler, Harold Haehner, Earl Radmacher, R. C. Sprout, and Jay Grimstead, full-time executive director. A Short Statement has been published summarizing the position, the text of which follows.

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, its divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation and the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerraney is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

Other statements in the full exposition suggest a somewhat more discriminating application of these affirmations than has frequently attended the defense of "inerrancy." In Article Xiii of the "Articles of Affirmation and Denial," it is stated: "We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose." Also in a later section called "Exposition," it is stated: "Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed." R. C. Sproul has promised the journal further clarification in the near future.

conviction.

Alongside the new critical consciousness there is growing a complementary conviction about what the Bible claims for itself, Warfield had of course maintained that the biblical doctrine of inspiration involved nothing less than the perfect errorlessness of the original autographs of the Bible. Now this is being scrutinised as well. People are beginning to doubt whether Scripture actually says anything of the sort. As Beegle had pointed out more than a decade ago, the Bible which Christ and the Apostles credited with inspiration was the text available to the readers in their day, not some unavailable autographical text, and a text tainted by mistranslations and transcriptional errors at that, and therefore Warfield's thesis cannot stand.¹⁰ But if it cannot stand, why go on making the inerrancy assumption? Maybe the debate is based on a false problematic, the result of recent polemics.

There are other nuances too in the case against biblical inerrancy. First, there are evangelical historians such as Jack Rogers and Timothy Smith trying to document the thesis that evangelical leaders and groups in the past have not always been preoccupied with biblical inerrancy.¹¹ Second, there are others who interpret the whole debate in political terms, an attempt on the part of an evangelical establishment to ensure the social cohesion of evangelicalism by means of a special code-word.¹² Third, there are a group of "sojourners" who regard the struggle as a scholastic game which steals time away from the pressing need to obey biblical imperatives, the purpose for which the inspired Word was given. In sum, there is quite a coalition of evangelicals which refuses to accept inerrancy as a theological watershed, and protests its use as a defining characteristic of the movement.

The development of an evangelical non-inerraney doctrine of biblical inspiration is certainly an event of some importance in the history of contemporary Christianity. Whether we see it as a healthy development or a dangerous shift from orthodoxy, it is a novel and significant adjustment in the evangelical theology of this century. As we noted earlier, the inerrancy assumption is very deeply imbedded in recent fundamentalist and evangelical thinking, and the sense of alarm and betrayal expressed in the Lindsell book is the perfectly natural response of large numbers of people. The retreat from inerrancy is one reflection of the theological and social change occurring within the evangelical movement, as it evolves from a closed, separatist stance to a more open and pluralist position. Social change when it occurs and affects the deepest convictions of a people creates a nervous and defensive mentality. Fundamentalism, in effect, is becoming open to aspects of modernity, in this case critical biblical scholarship, and there is great uncertainty how things will turn out, and the fear feeds on the fact that no one knows.

Developing the Non-Inerrancy View

What needs to happen now from within the non-inerrancy evangelical camp is the development of a more complete and adequate understanding of their point of view. After all, it is not enough to oppose inerrancyseepties of all kinds do that. A positive and compelling understanding of biblical authority has to be set forth which can command the assent and appreciation of God's people, who are anxious to know where and how the Bible can be trusted if it cannot be followed everywhere, and what are the limits that prevent a dismantling of biblical teaching in the name of "liberation from inerraney." It is not unreasonable to expect answers to questions like these, and if these new evangelicals do not address them or if they answer them weakly they cannot expect to exercise much influence and leadership in an evangelical movement that badly needs their gifts and wisdom. It is not too difficult to imagine a scenario in which the evangelical coalition hardens into a new form of fundamentalism and creative, innovative elements spin off into regions beyond evangelicalism. This can be avoided if the non-inerraney evangelicals are able to formulate and demonstrate a solid understanding of Scripture.

We simply must try to understand that neo-fundamentalists connect the truth issue with the inerrancy issue as the necessary bulwark against unbelieving scepticism.

An initial difficulty faced in achieving this task has to do with a seeming softness of any noninerrancy possition as compared with the strict militant view, owing to the fact that the latter fits a certain image of scientific rationality, in its concern for factual preeisions, whereas the former is less concerned with it. Although Berkouwer is right to call into question the relevance of this modern standard of inerraney, and point out how unscriptural it really is, it still remains true that many people bring this assumption with them when they read theology, and feel instinctively cheated if it is not maintained. In a certain ironical sense, fundamentalism has an advantage because it is more modern, should we say modernistic (sic), than the so-called progressive view! This difficulty must be squarely faced, and a more biblical understanding of truth and error set forth.¹³
I suspect that the non-inerraney view of inspiration should interpret itself, not in terms of a defection from inerrancy, but in terms of a movement toward greater doctrinal simplicity and pastoral responsibility. Doctrine has a tendency of becoming more and more detailed and abstract, remote from both the original scriptural intentions and the needs of ordinary Christians. When it does, a way to make progress may be to reverse the process, and instead of adding further complexities, to drop some. The inerraney of the biblical autographs is after all a pretty theoretical belief, requiring considerable subtlety of mind to maintain and defend, whereas a simpler belief in the truth and the power of the Scriptures extant and in translation touches people right where they are. The practical effects of each approach are also different. The strict inerraney position call make the length of Pekah's reign a matter of much greater concern than Paul's theology or Jesus' teaching because the whole authority of the Bible is suspended upon each detail, whereas the simpler non-inerrantist position allows believers to glory in the gospel of Christ without fuss and worry about the latest developments in genealogical researches. Thus, if the strict view has a certain technical advantage related to the ideal of strict precision, the non-inerraney view surely enjoys greater practical relevence.

What will this new view look like? It will certainly stress the true humanity of the biblical writers and God's willingness to stoop to use real people in the writing of the Scriptures. New texts, unused previously
in the inspiration discussion, like II Cor. 10-13, will come into prominence, highlighting the "weakness" of a revelational vehicle such as the apostle Paul by his on profession, and yet his suitability for the message God wanted to convey. There will be greater emphasis upon the Bible's own stated purpose, to give knowledge of salvation through Jesus Christ, and resistance to substituting for that purpose such an extraneous ideal as factual precision. Stress will be placed on the competence of the Spirit to use Scripture in nourishing the church and his dependability in keeping believers in the truth. Certitude, rather than certainty, will be encouraged, certitude in the unbreakable validity of the gospel. Focus will be placed on the sufficiency of the Scriptures to meet our needs in the practical realm of Christian living. Validation of biblical authority will he sought, not in scholastic controversy, but in the effective preaching of the Word and in its proven relevance for decision making.¹⁴

With great themes such as these we may fairly hope for there to emerge a vital new expression of evangelical respect for the Bible. Even though the strict inerrancy assumption is lacking, there remains strong confidence in God speaking infallibly in the Scriptures, so that fears about unhindered drifting into heresy from this position should seldom be realized. (After all, the strict view also permits some driftage into heresy-e.g., the Jehovah's Witnesses.) I think we should respect this option as a possibility for evangelical believers and not surround it with dire predictions and sharp attacks. To confess the Lordship of Christ and the infallibility of the Bible to convey the knowledge of salvation, is certainly an evangelical conviction, and on one should denounce it as anything else.

The Broader Context

The evangelical debate over inerrancy should not be viewed in total isolation from the discussion about Scripture in the wider context of contemporary theology. There is after all a crisis of the Scripture principle, and a battle for the Bible. Intra-evangelical debating should not obscure this fact for us. Overshadowing. oor parochial disagreements there hangs a very real and not imaginary threat to biblical inspiration. What defines evangelical Christians in my opinion is the orientation which they share with classical Christians of every age, namely, a respect for what we could call the didactic thought models of Holy Scripture as divinely given and inspired. Things are quite otherwise in much modern theology, where it is considered acceptable to dismantle and demythologise scriptural categories in order to bring the Christian faith into greater proximity with modern concepts. All evangelicals, ineluding all those discussed here, deplore this undermining of the cognitive authority of Holy Writ. The church which no longer hears the message of Scripture, soon forgets who she is and what her mission is in the world. We are all disturbed by the recent trends in criticism and theology which cast fresh doubt on the unity, relevence, and authority of the Bible.¹⁵ We are apalled by Christians who seem to hear only divergent human voices in the Bible and not the Word of the Lord,

This is the context in which to view the evangelical debate over inerrancy. The militant advocates of inerrancy

We may not all agree on the appropriateness of inerrancy terminology in doctrinal definition, but can we not all agree that the Scriptures possesses unique authority, relevance, and power for our generation?

 are aware of this threat from the liberal side, and perceive the non-inerrancy evangelicals in collusion with the effort to undermine the Bible's authority. Of course this suspicion reveals a profound lack of trust and relationships between the protagonists and should provoke wounded and pained objection, but nevertheless it is incumbent upon the objects of this suspicion to clear away all doubt by coming forward with an unmistakably strong and enthusiastic doctrine of the unique authority of the Bible, so that our preoccupation with internal infighting can give way to a more united and profound reply to the real battle for the Bible. A polarized evangelicalism cannot fulfil her Godgiven mission in the world.

Ultimately the inerrancy debate will prove whether the evangelicalism in the last quarter of the 20th century in North America has room for a pluralism of opinion on the nature of biblical inspiration. I hope that it does, because the interaction between evangelicals who trust and affirm one another can be rich, exciting, and productive.

While the issue is resolving itself, all evangelicals need to pray for the leading of the Spirit in the community, so that despite the variety of human opinions on this matter God's truth will be preserved and proclaimed with power all the while. One senses a spirit of threat and fear, together with anger and recrimination, sometimes occurring in this debate, which does not suggest we are trusting in God for the future which he oversees. We may not all agree on the appropriateness of inerrancy terminology in doctrinal definition, but can we not all agree that the Scripture possess unique authority, relevance, and power for our generation, and pray together for a renewal of authentically biblical faith?

REFERENCES

¹Pinnook, "Inspiration and Authority: A Truce Proposal", The Other Side, May/June 1976, pp. 61-65; "The Inerrancy Debate Among the Evangelicals", Theology, News, and Notes, Fuller Seminary, 1976, pp. 11-13; and "Three Views of the Bible in Contemporary Theology," Jack Roger, editor, Biblical Authority (Waco: Word Inc. 19771 pp. 47-73.
²I find Langdon Gilkey most helpful in explicating the nature of this struggle. Naming the Whirlwind (New York: BobbsMerrill, 1969), pp. 3-106 and Catholicism Confronts Modernity (New York: Seabory Press, 19751, pp. 1-83.
³Sandeen's analysis provides full documentation of this widely recognized theological development. The Roots of Fundamentalism (Chicago: University of Chicago).
⁴This is demonstrated by James Barr in his scathing attack Fundamentalism (London: SCM, 1977) ch. 3, 5.
⁵1 know them well because my own writings fit into this category, although they have been used by the militant camp as well. A careful reading of them would reveal that I have always advocated a noanced version of the inerrancy assumption.
⁶cf. Pinnock, Biblical Revelation: Foundation of Christian Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971), pp. 71-71, 7581.
⁷Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, Volume II, God Who Speaks and Shows, Waco: Word, Inc. 1976), p. 14.
⁸Mootgomery, 'Whither Biblical Inerrancy?" Christianity Today July 29, 1977.
⁹1 have in mind James Barr in the work cited earlier.
¹⁰Dewey M. Beegle, The Inspiration of Scripture (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), ch. 5. There is more detail in his revised edition of 1973 entitled Scripture, Tradition and Infallibility (Grand Rapids: Ecrdmans, 1973).
¹¹Timothy L. Smith in a letter to Christian Century, March 2, 1977, and Jack B. Rogers, Scripture in the Westminster Confession (Grand Rapids: Ecrdmans, 1967).
¹²Cerald T. Sheppard, "Biblical Hermeneutics: The Academic Language of Evangelical Identity", Union Seminary Quarterly Review 32 (1977) pp. 81-94.
¹³C. C. Berkouwer attempts to do this in Holy Scripture (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975).
¹⁴The beginnings of such a theology can be seen in Harry R. Boer, Above the Battles The Bible and Its Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), H. N. Ridderbos, Scripture and Its Authority (Grand Rapids: Eardmens, 1977) and David A. Hubbard, in Biblical Authority, Jack Rogers, editor, pp. 149-181.
¹⁵For example, C. F. Evans, Is 'Holy Scripture' Christian? (London: SCM, 1971), D. E. Ninebam, "The Use of the Bible in Modern Theology", Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 52(1969) pp. 178-99, and James Barr, The Bible in the Modern World (London: SCM, 1973).