What's the difference between biblical infallibility and inerrancy, and does it matter for your faith? Join hosts Rev. Dr. Kathryn Schifferdecker and Rev. Katie Langston as they welcome PhD candidate Bridget Jack Jeffries to explore this crucial theological distinction. Many Christians struggle with apparent contradictions in Scripture and wonder if they can still trust the Bible's authority. This episode provides clarity on biblical infallibility as an alternative to strict inerrancy, showing how Scripture can be sufficient for salvation without requiring perfection in every historical detail.

Bridget shares her journey from skepticism to faith, explaining how biblical infallibility allows for narrative choices by biblical authors while maintaining Scripture's trustworthiness. The conversation covers practical interpretation methods, the role of church tradition, and how to approach difficult passages without losing faith. Whether you're questioning biblical reliability or seeking to understand different evangelical perspectives, this discussion offers valuable insights into biblical infallibility and its implications for Christian belief and practice.

Mentioned in this episode:

Stepping Up to Supervision

Hello and welcome to the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible but were afraid to ask. I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker.

I'm Katie Langston and today again we are delighted to welcome our very special guest, Bridget Jack-Jeffries. She's ⁓ a dear friend of mine and is a PhD candidate at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where she is writing a dissertation on Junia in Romans 16, 7. She's a church historian and she is the author of the blog, Weighted Glory, which is great. I encourage you all to check it out. And we have her here today. By the way, hi, welcome.

Welcome, Bridget. Glad you're with us. ⁓ We are tackling a question that came in on our website. And again, if you, dear listener or viewer, would like to submit your own question, you may do so at enterthebible.org. We try to get to as many of these as we can. And the question is, can the Bible contradict itself? Is it heretical to believe that it could? Do you believe the Bible?

Thanks for coming, Bridget.

to be fallible and is it authoritative? So again, we have Bridget on because the term fallible or fallibility really is one that emerges from the evangelical tradition. And so we thought it would be great to have someone who can kind of speak to that a little bit. And so yes, maybe Bridget, we can just start with, know, tell us a little bit more about

The word fallible or infallible isn't a word that we use a lot in the mainline church. That's just a different branch of Christianity that deals more with say the historic Protestant churches of Europe. Talk a little bit more. What even is our questioner asking and how do you begin to respond to that question?

Yeah, and it's such an interesting question. I've got to tell you a little bit of a story that, you know, I went to Brigham Young University and obviously, I'm not Mormon myself, but obviously, Mormons don't teach that the Bible is infallible or inerrant. And those are different things, which we'll get to in a second, actually. But having gone to Brigham Young, when I got to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I was a little skeptical of the concept of inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible.

And I had an essay question for a test. was something like, basically for this class, we had studied a bunch of work by Norman Geisler. And I don't remember the exact prompt, but it was something like, tell us how great Norman Geisler's work is. It wasn't like that.

And

sorry, I'm not familiar with Norman Geisler Bridget, who is a-

it.

He's very conservative. He's in evangelical apologetics. He was involved in the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, which we'll get to for a second. If you want to read about inerrancy in the evangelical world, you'll probably have to read Geisler's work. He's not my favorite person to read on it, though. I thought there were a lot of problems in his work. And Katie, you know me, I'm a bit of an 8 on the Enneagram.

I get to this question and I just feel like I cannot in good faith answer it. You I was still kind of a skeptic about inerrancy or infallibility. So I wrote a very long essay explaining why Norman Geisler's arguments weren't very good. I didn't actually argue against inerrancy. I didn't say in inerrancy was wrong, but I basically said, look, I think his arguments are very questionable because this reason, this reason, this reason, this reason.

Very clear. thought that I had read the material. was engaging the material. I had mastered the material. I just didn't agree with the question. The teacher gave me a zero. No. That I've ever gotten a zero on an essay question on an exam. think it dropped my grade on the exam to a C or a C minus automatically. Like everything I mastered, but the essay questions, since I guess I was cheeky and didn't like

how it was worded and decided to argue with the essay question. The teacher just gave me a zero. I can explain inerrancy. don't know if I'm the best defender of inerrancy and infallibility, but I can explain it. So anyways, let's start a little bit about where it comes from. mean, the idea of, let's talk about inerrancy first and then I'll get to infallibility. Because they're technically different things in evangelical theology. They are. I don't realize that though.

wild

For some reason I thought they were the same. Didn't know that.

talk to an evangelical theologian, they are actually going to make a distinction there. Inerrancy is the idea, I mean, where's the Chicago statement? It's the idea that the Bible is inerrant and its original autographs. Now, obviously, we don't have the original autographs. Here's what's in scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. That's kind of the idea of inerrancy or

The Bible is without error or fault in all of its teaching. So somebody who truly believes in inerrancy would say that there's no way in which the Bible can contradict itself.

or there's no way in which it can contain an error. And there's such different interpretations as to how far we can go with this, because usually these statements on inerrancy, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which I'll explain in a second, since it only says the autographs, there's some people who would say, yeah, I mean, even Mormons would say the autographs were inerrant. But what about the autographs?

right.

In the original manuscripts,

original

manuscripts. Yeah, we don't have the copy that Paul signed and put his name on. some people would say we can't really know what Paul wrote. Most text critics are satisfied that we can know to a great extent what Paul wrote, that we look at the manuscripts and variants and that those generally tell us if something was tampered with or removed. But since we're not affirming, since we're only affirming the autographs, that does leave a little bit of wiggle room. But it's generally the idea that nothing in the Bible is with

fault. So I wouldn't look at a passage, for example, and say, well, that author was wrong. I wouldn't look at 1 Timothy 2, 12 and say, well, Paul or whoever wrote this is wrong. He's just being misogynist. Like, whereas I think a more mainline Christian, not necessarily you guys, but I think a more mainline Christian would be very comfortable saying, look, you know, whoever wrote this was misogynist.

Right, there is that, right, for sure.

So it's this general idea that whatever is in scripture can't really, like it is the idea that it can't contradict itself, but there's some nuance to that idea. And there's this idea though that scripture is trustworthy and reliable. This idea has been in the church for a long time though. It's not just the evangelicals. For example, Clement in the first epistle, Clement says, you have looked into the holy scriptures, which are true, which were given by the Holy spirit.

you know that nothing unrighteous or falsified is written in them. So we don't see people calling it inerrancy or infallibility per se, but you do see throughout church history this idea that scripture is reliable, scripture can be trusted, scripture is not an error. There are a couple of exceptions though where they had questions or they were uncomfortable with something in scripture. Some people would say that

there's an inductive argument here that when we read how Jesus and the apostles treated the Old Testament, they treated the Old Testament as reliable. They never really say the Old Testament is in error. I mean, there's one place where I think there's a little wiggle room, but, you know, they never say the Old Testament is in error here or Jeremiah got this wrong.

So some people would make the argument from the text of scripture itself. think people really began to talk about inerrancy throughout church history. You see people making these affirmations that scripture can be trusted throughout church history. You see that I think that once we got past the enlightenment and we get into the era of textual criticism and German theology and criticizing the Bible and this idea.

That's

Okay.

That's when this really started to be a hot button issue in conjunction with fundamentalism, and it began to be debated, you know, well, can you be evangelical or can you be this without affirming inerrancy? There's quite a bit of disagreement today among evangelicals as to just what inerrancy is and how to interpret it. I mean, for example, I'm a member of the Evangelical Theological Society. To be a member of Evangelical Theological Society, you have to affirm that the Bible is inerrant.

in its original manuscripts. And they direct you to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy to get the gist of what they mean. You don't have to affirm everything in the Chicago Statement, but the affirmation does refer to that. But if you don't really like that, you could go and join, for example, the Institute on Biblical Research, which has a high view of scripture but does not require you to affirm inerrancy. And I know inerrancy is not as big of a deal, for example, in British evangelicalism. It says it's mostly in American evangelicalism.

phenomenon. Do we want to unpack that or should I go on to infallibility?

So infallibility is saying that in the original manuscripts, there's nothing contradictory or wrong in the scripture. Is this why, like for example, someone that holds to inerrancy would believe that the earth was like 6,000 years old or is that like a different –

Okay. That might be their interpretation. There are people who hold to inerrancy who do accept evolution or that the earth is much older, but somebody else might say it's really not possible to interpret scripture that way and scripture can't be wrong. Okay. Got that's why somebody might conclude that the earth can only be six to 8,000 years old.

Okay. And so then, what is the difference between inerrancy and infallibility? Because in my mind, they were exactly the same thing.

Yeah, they're a little bit different. So infallibility is the idea that scripture is sufficient to teach us salvation. It's not necessarily the idea. It's weird because you would think the term infallibility would be more strict than inerrancy and it tends to be a little bit less strict. It's not necessarily affirming that

the right that the scripture is inerrant. It's just saying that ultimately it's sufficient for salvation. It's sufficient to give us everything that we need. There's a little bit more wiggle room within. So you see more evangelicals adhering to inerrancy, but some of the more, I don't know if you want to call them progressive, some find it easier to adhere to infallibility. for example, like a really strict inerrantist would say that Samson, what does scripture say that he killed 500 people with a

Donkey jawbone? Am I remembering that right?

I'm not remembering the details, yeah, something like that, but I don't remember the number of people.

Yeah, like the account is found in Judges 15. I think it says he killed like 500 people, which, you know, it's, it's that, that defies belief sometimes. Cause you know, you would think after the, I killed a thousand men, it's supposed to be like a thousand people. And you would think that after the first couple people might get out of there, right? Was this like Kill Bill?

This donkey jawbone is a is a is a lethal weapon. I better retreat

You might expect the donkey jawbone to break after killing enough people or something. So some people would say a very strict inerrantist, inerrantist would say he had to have killed a thousand people. Somebody who believes in infallibility might just think that what's important is that he had a great conflict and it's the number of men he killed with the donkey jawbone is not as important or ⁓

There's just different interpretations here, like somebody with a looser view of inerrancy or more of a view of infallibility, somebody who affirms infallibility might say, doesn't really matter, what matters is our salvation and what scripture teaches us gets us to salvation. So they just might have a looser view on what is non-negotiable. One more place to kind of explain differences and interpretations here. When Jesus cries out on the cross, the four gospels all recount something slightly different that he cries out.

So what happened? Like a very strict inerrantist would say, well, he had to have cried out four times. Exactly. And somebody with a looser view, somebody who views either in loose inerrancy or the infallibility of scripture might say, well, one of the gospel authors may have changed his words to make an artistic point, but that's not what's important exactly what he cried out. What's important is that the words in scripture bring us to salvation. They point their way to him. Does that make sense? So, you know,

In my view, he probably only had one death cry and the rest are taking some kind of artistic liberty with his death cry. But a very strict and errantist would say, that's wrong. He had to have cried out four times. Got it.

I didn't know the distinction between inerrancy and infallibility either. If you take infallibility as you're describing it, if you take that definition, then I would be closer to that, right? Yeah, would be comfortable. inerrancy. And in Lutheran theology, the ELCA talks about scripture as the only source and norm. talking about scripture as authoritative.

And inspired, but not in the definitions you're using, not inerrant, right? That there may be ⁓ a need to interpret or to let scripture interpret scripture. ⁓ To use, ⁓ you know, the topic that we talked about in our other episode with you, the issue of women's ordination, that there are texts certainly that seem to lend themselves to the idea that women shouldn't be pastors. And then there are texts that

are the opposite that seem to imply both through example and through ⁓ theology that women could be pastors. So how do you reconcile those differences? Lutherans would say you let scripture interpret scripture, right? Luther himself said you prioritize those texts that show forth Christ. that are... ⁓

afraid to say that there are some texts that are more central to faith than others. So texts about the mercy of God, obviously the Gospels, but many Old Testament texts as well, right? I, the Lord, am merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love is more central to faith than the text in Leviticus 19 that talks about not mixing two kinds of cloth, right?

or exactly how many people did Samson kill with the jawbone

Or

how many people said it. Right? we don't throw out any texts. mean, certainly more liberal Christians would not be afraid to say, just get rid of some texts. Thomas Jefferson did that, right?

I mean, Luther kind of wanted to get rid of some of the text to be fair.

Well,

he didn't like Esther and he didn't like James and yeah. But he never advocated like cutting them out. He never actually took them out. But he prioritized certain texts over others as being more central to faith and more those that bore Christ, those that showed forth Christ. And so I see that as at least somewhat compatible with your definition of infallibility, right?

took about.

that scripture is sufficient for inspiring faith. Certainly the Holy Spirit working through scripture. I think a lot of Lutherans could agree with that.

think that the way that people got to inerrancy, not just the historic statements about the Bible being reliable and trustworthy and not an error, but just the idea that the Bible is inspired by God and how could God inspire error. So I think it's usually derived kind of theologically from if God is inspiring somebody to write something, how could he inspire them to write error?

somebody who disagrees might say, he still worked within the human beings that he inspired. I mean, there's just different views on this. For sure. I I affirm inerrancy. probably on the looser end of inerrancy than some others. To give one more example, in the Gospel of John, Jesus cleanses the temple at the start of his ministry. And in the synoptics, he cleanses the temple at the end before crucifixion. Well, which is it?

Did he cleanse the temple twice or did John move it from the end of his ministry to the beginning for narrative effect? And me personally, I think he did it once. I think John moved it from the end of his ministry to the beginning for narrative effect. And I would say that doesn't mean John was an error. I think he did it intentionally to make a rhetorical point. So my view of inerrancy is probably a little more flexible than some evangelicals view. I don't see that as an error, especially can't be an error if it was intentional. I think he moves it

the beginning of Jesus' ministry, because he's trying to make a different point. And we kind of see this all over the Bible where a different author may be trying to address a different situation or make a different point, and it may seem like they're giving very contradictory advice versus someone else. In my view, they're just addressing different situations. But a skeptic would be like, ha, see, they contradict. Obviously, they contradict.

And I think a very strict inerrantist would maintain that there's no contradiction whatsoever. We're just not understanding them correctly, or we're not understanding the text correctly, if that makes sense. that's kind of where you get it from though, just this idea that if God's going to inspire revelation, then it has to be perfect, at least in the autographs. And I think that's a very comforting idea. mean, and it's important for, I think, the Protestant Reformation to some extent, because we

got rid of the Pope and we didn't have somebody who could come in and say, this is what things mean and this is what things say. Luther was very clear that he did not want to be another Pope, even though he really accused of that.

And I think what inerrancy does and why it's important for evangelicals at least is that it gives us grounds for conversation. It gives us parameters for conversation because if you're talking to somebody who's willing to throw out parts of scripture, you know, then how do you engage? And the church dealt with this early on, right? I mean, this was partially a canon question, but they dealt with it with, there was this heresy, I guess I'll explain for listeners. There was this heresy, the Marcionite heresy, the Marcionite heresy where a Marcionite was going through

he wanted to get rid of most of the Old Testament, he wanted to get rid of certain books of the New Testament, he wanted to change parts of Paul that he was uncomfortable with that were too Jewish, basically. He's kind of taken scissors to Scripture. So I think the church learned early on that there has to be something we all agree on to talk with or to talk about or to use as a basis for faith and Scripture. I mean, they had tradition and popes and whatnot eventually, or bishops eventually, but

Scripture became that and then it became very important for Protestants or for evangelicals in reaction to the text critical movement to kind of shore things up. But like I said, there's been still a lot of disagreement between evangelicals as to how far we go, what it means, you know, whether Jesus cleansed the temple once or twice. There's different views on this. So I would answer the question, know, that Scripture is authoritative. I don't think the Bible is a

fallible, but I think that's a statement of faith on my part. I remember somebody once asked Bruce Metzger if he thought the Bible had errors in it. He's like, yeah, it's full of errors. Like, obviously in regards to like, like in regards to what's in the manuscripts, obviously the manuscripts are full of errors. Were the autographs full of errors? I don't know. It goes back to that question about

Samson and the jawbone and the thousand people that he killed. it important that he killed a thousand people or if he only killed 10 or a hundred, is that acceptable? Like, I don't know. There's just different views on this.

Yeah. Well, so I would love to ask where do you come down then? If this question is, you know, if the questioner is worrying about or struggling with the question of whether or not the Bible can quote unquote contradict itself, and can you still trust the scripture, you know, how might you respond to the listener to kind of help guide them as they're approaching their own study? think

I think, I'll just editorialize, I mean, think if you are coming out of a tradition that has a stricter view on these questions, the evidence begins to stack up, right? can reach a point where then the entire structure of faith collapses because there are two, you know, because there's the beginning of the John narrative where Jesus cleanses the temple and the ending of the John narrative.

And so, a more rigid view on this, I have seen in my own life and working with folks as a pastor as well, that the more rigid view can cause a crisis of faith as the person gathers more information or reads more deeply. And so,

I think, you know, so for me personally, I would say, yeah, the Bible is reliable. Yes, you know, we can't just throw parts of it out that we don't like. And I'm not gonna, I don't lose sleep over those kinds of contradictions for precisely the reason that you said, Bridget, you know, that it has to do with understanding that the authors are making narrative choices and that we're reading, engaging in literature. It's art, you know, as much as it is, you know, it's not a science textbook. It's a work of art.

And so there's, you know, I'm less concerned about some of those things, but I don't know. That's what I read into the question as someone who's like wanting, maybe I'm just projecting, but it's someone who wants to believe, but maybe comes from a background with a stricter interpretive standard and is finding that, you know, difficult. So anyway, that was a lot of rambling, but how might you respond?

I think that's a good question. mean, my answer is definitely that scripture is trustworthy, scripture is true, scripture is reliable. I don't think it's so much that the autographs contained errors. I think some authors made narrative choices.

And I think that some authors were addressing different situations. And when we put them together as a whole, they may seem contradictory, but I think when we look at the situations they were addressing, they weren't really giving contradictory advice. But if you're looking at that and you're trying to figure out how do I implement this in my own life, I mean, I know we're all Lutheran or quasi-Lutheran here, but I really like the Wesleyan quadrilateral for having to discern.

how different parts fit into it. What are the four parts, the quadrilateral? There's scripture, tradition, reason.

and experience.

us. So yeah, we read scripture and we wrestle with scripture. like I said, I think we're agreed that we don't, there's no part of, it always makes me uncomfortable when somebody gets to a part of scripture they don't like and they're like, well, obviously this person was misogynist or obviously this person hated certain people. What I, I try to wrestle with it, but I try to look

to church tradition, you know, see what other people said about this text. I bring my own experience, obviously, and then you reason with the text. I think that the promise that we get in scripture is that we won't be alone, that God will send the Spirit to guide us. And you know, there have been Christians that have gone before us that, obviously, I'm a church historian, I push this, but there have been Christians who have gone before us that can guide us. And I mean, this may sound terribly progressive or liberal, but sometimes I think...

that there's meaning in the text. Like, I don't think that only the original author's intention mattered. Sometimes there's new meaning that gets breathed into the text that's beyond what the original author intended. So to give an example, like a lot of people quote Jeremiah 29, I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

And then we have the snarky people that come along and are like, you think that passage is about you? Tell me about your time in the Babylonian captive. But I think it's okay that people take that scripture and they apply it to themselves and their own lives because, you know, as long as you understand that it may not mean that you'll be wealthy and physically safe, like I think ultimately God's promised us a salvation and heaven and resurrection. Like as long as you understand that God's promises could be fulfilled in the next life.

I think it's okay to take that text and say, know, I feel like God is speaking to me through this text, even though it's not actually about me, you know? That's how I read scripture. I would just, I guess that my answer to the question, I personally think scripture is infallible. I think the original autographs were inerrant, but I do, perhaps I have a bit more of a per-

a looser view than some evangelicals, and that I think that certain authors were making narrative choices, and I think it's okay to say that. And I don't think it contradicts itself per se. I think that different authors had different emphases and addressed different situations. But I just think that it's trustworthy and that it's one of, it's the biggest guideposts that God gives us, but he also gives us the spirit. He gives us other Christians. He gives us other people that can guide us. Sometimes even our skeptical or unbelieving friends are

great guideposts and teach us a lot. So I don't know. I guess that would be my answer to those questions. And I definitely take it as authoritative, I think.

Yeah, I think that's really helpful, Bridget. And I agree with everything you said. I think particularly that point about interpreting in community. So both the community of your church or your Christian friends, but also the community of all the interpreters of the Bible for the past 2000 plus years. if you're talking about the Old Testament, right, 2500 years or whatever, right?

that we give the dead a voice and we read those interpretations as well and we pray for guidance. And yes, indeed, the author's original intention, I mean, if we mean anything by scripture, we mean it's a living word that can mean more, that can have different facets and can mean more than the original author intended. And your point about the Jeremiah passages is a good point there.

that those texts that may have addressed Israel in exile originally can still address us as a living word through the power of the Spirit.

sure. One of my favorite books, this is, I mean, I do like this book, this guy here though, John L. Thompson, he's on my dissertation committee, but he wrote a book that's actually called Reading the Bible with the Dead, where he goes through a number of controversial passages and he discusses what

past interpreters said about certain controversial passages and how they applied them to their lives. So I don't know if somebody's looking to give the dead a voice. think that's a great choice for seeing how past interpreters dealt with some of the trickier passages in the Bible. Because they did struggle with things like a concubine being gang raped and murdered and cut into pieces. Believe it or not, they did struggle with that. They were not just like...

struggled with it. They struggled with Jephthah's daughter. They struggled with these texts that are really difficult to deal with. you know, obviously read the text for yourself, pray about it. I would just say read it with tradition as well and see what tradition said about the text.

Like, contrary to popular belief in our particular context, the universe does not revolve around you and you are not the first person to ask the question.

Right.

Well, it's not good to be alone. One of the first things in the Bible. Right.

That's right. And there's nothing new under the sun. Well, this was ⁓ such a rich conversation and I found it just so helpful as well to have someone from a different kind of traditional angle coming in to sort of speak to these questions. so thank you so much, Bridget, for this really, really helpful conversation. You're welcome.

Thank you.

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