Re: [asa] Glenn's views

> Except for one correspondent I have who insists on "total inerrancy'
> (of the KJV of course), I view the inerrancy claim to be without any
> usefulness. If only the "originals" are inerrant, and we don't have
> these, what difference does it make?

It implies that the revelation as given by God was entirely correct.
It also indicates that our best evidence as to the content of the
originals is considered the best source of information as to the
proper content of Scripture. The latter point goes against the claim
of inerrancy for the KJV, for example, and so does have some practical
implications.

It's true that we don't have the originals, but the textual evidence
is generally good enough to be fairly confident on most points. I
don't know of any theologically important issue that's impacted by
textual uncertainties (discounting the snake handling, etc. not only
deriving from the doubtful ending of Mark but more importantly which
misrepresents a promise of protection into a command to put God to the
test.). On the other hand, numbers in lists (such as the antediluvian
ages or the numbers returning to Jerusalem) are highly uncertain. Of
course, there is speculation about source documents of very uncertain
composition, but I think that the claim of inerrancy would be applied
to the first edition of the books that we now have and that the
authors were inspired to make right use of the sources, not that the
sources were necessarily perfectly inerrant.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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