The Chicago Statement of Inerrancy (1987) states We affirm that the whole of scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original were given by divine inspiration (Article 6). The earlier (1647) Westminster Confession of Faith which is the foundation for the Chicago Statement says The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which, at the time of the writing of it, was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and, by His singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentical (1.8). Now considering that the LXX is quite different than the Hebrew text in hundreds of significant places and considering that the New Testament authors both used and paraphrased the LXX text and not the Hebrew text, and further considering that all theories of inerrancy argue that it is the original (lost or unobtainable) Hebrew manuscripts that are inerrant, how are we supposed to accept any theory of inspiration that goes against the known data? If the LXX was good enough for the apostolic church (not to mentions the Targums for Jesus), is it even possible to assert a theory of inspiration of original manuscripts or even writers? One simply has to bury ones head in the sand and ignore all the data in order to buy into inerrancy. Inerrancy or the divine superintendence of the original writing is a castle built on shifting sand, faulty arguments, ignorance of evidence and deception.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 01:04:49 +0000