The Battle for the Bible Continues

Robert Wilkin
Executive Director
Grace Evangelical Society

I. INTRODUCTION

Forty-eight years ago, Zondervan released Harold Lindsell’s groundbreaking book The Battle for the Bible. Lindsell was a founding member of Fuller Theological Seminary, which had abandoned a high view of Scripture by 1976.

He gave this strong warning:

Once infallibility is abandoned, however good the intentions of those who do it and however good they feel their reasons for doing so, it always and ever opens the door to further departures from the faith. Once errancy enters an institution, it does not simply become one of several options. It quickly becomes the regnant view and infallibility loses its foothold and at last is silenced effectively…Embracing a doctrine of an errant Scripture will lead to disaster down the road. It will result in the loss of missionary outreach; it will quench missionary passion; it will lull congregations to sleep and undermine their belief in the full-orbed truth of the Bible; it will produce spiritual sloth and decay; and it will finally lead to apostasy.”¹

I played flag football at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) in 1980. We sent an all-star team (I was not on it) out to southern California to play Fuller Seminary. We jokingly called it “The Inerrancy Bowl.”

The funny thing is that DTS’s position on inerrancy today is almost identical to that of Fuller Seminary in 1980.

II. WHAT INERRANCY MEANT IN 1976

The word inerrancy means “without error.” The in- prefix reverses the meaning of the base word.

Inexplicable means “not able to be explained.” Indirect means “not direct.” Indecisive means “not decisive.” Inerrant means “not errant.”

In 1976, at DTS and other conservative schools, inerrancy meant the following:

• Jonah was actually swallowed by a giant fish and went to Nineveh.
• Job was a real person who experienced the problems he recounts.
• Adam was created from the dust of the earth and began life as a young man. Eve was created from Adam’s rib and began life as a young woman.
• A serpent spoke with Eve and deceived her into sinning by eating the forbidden fruit.
• The words of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels, accurately tell us what Jesus said.
• There truly was a worldwide flood during Noah’s day.
• The patriarchs really lived between 750 and 1000 years.

III. WHAT INERRANCY MEANS IN 2024

In 2024, at DTS and other conservative schools, inerrancy means the following:

• Jonah might have been swallowed by a giant fish, and he might have gone to Nineveh. Or, Jonah might just be an OT parable with no basis in history. A person can unreservedly hold to inerrancy and insist that Jonah is a parable.
• Job might have been a real person who experienced the problems he recounts. Or, the book of Job might be a morality play with no historical basis. Both are views held by so-called inerrantists.
• Adam might have been created from the dust of the earth and begun life as a young man. Eve might have been created from Adam’s rib and begun life as a young woman. But more likely, Adam and Eve had been born normally and grew up as part of a group of hominids. God selected them, breathed on them, and made them the first humans.
• A serpent might have spoken with Eve and deceived her into sinning by eating the forbidden fruit. However, Genesis 1–3 is poetic history, and we do not know which details are history and which are poetry. We know that God created. We do not necessarily know how He created.
• The words of Jesus in the Gospels tell us “the gist” of what Jesus said, like the oral traditions of Bedouins.
• There truly was a flood during Noah’s day. Most likely, it was a local flood.
• The patriarchs might have lived between 750 and 1000 years. Or, they might have had normal life spans by today’s standards, and Scripture exalted the years, much like the Sumerian Kings, all of whom supposedly ruled for at least 10,000 years.

Over the past fifty years, there has been a significant shift among conservative Evangelicals regarding inerrancy.

IV. KEYWORDS AND PHRASES

There are some important words and terms that we need to understand in this discussion:

• Ipsissima vox. This is Latin and means the very voice. In 1976, it meant that whenever the Gospel writers translated Hebrew or Aramaic into Greek, it was accurate. Whenever the writers summarized what Jesus said, it was accurate. In 2024, it means that the writers of the Gospels gave the gist of what Jesus said, though they sometimes changed the meaning of what He said and sometimes put words in His mouth.
• Ipsissima verba. This is Latin for the very words. In 1976, it meant that Jesus often spoke in Greek and that much (or nearly all) of what we have in the Gospels is exactly what Jesus said, word for word. In 2024, NT scholars believe that most of what we have in the Gospels is ipsissima vox, not ipsissima verba.
• Gist. The word gist is a bit ambiguous. It means “the main point or part: essence.”² However, when used in reference to the words of Jesus in the Gospels, it means that the authors got the basic idea right, but not the particulars.
• Parable. The Gospel writers introduce many of Jesus’ teachings by calling the words that followed a parable. There are some passages, like Luke 16:19-31, that are not called parables, but that some suggest are. Some who claim to believe in inerrancy say that Jonah was an OT parable with no historical basis, even though the Lord Jesus based His future resurrection on the historicity of Jonah’s being delivered from the great fish on the third day.
• Historiography. This refers to the science of reporting history. Many secular historians made up speeches and events, making it impossible to know what happened. Thucydides, often called the father of scientific history, was more careful in his reporting. While he created speeches from memory, he remembered enough of the speech to record the gist of what was said. Many who claim to believe in inerrancy consider Thucydides to have been more careful in his reporting of speeches than the Gospel writers were.
• Autographa. These are the original writings of the Biblical authors. We do not have the autographa, but by comparing existing manuscripts we are able to determine the original readings. Leading NT scholars, including those with a broad view of inerrancy, point out that no significant doctrine is impacted by any of the textual variants.
• An error now, but not when written. This is the majority view of conservative NT scholars today. Today, we consider it an error to misrepresent a speaker, change the meaning of what a speaker said, or put words in a speaker’s mouth. However, according to this view, at the time the OT and NT were written, such practices were common in secular reporting. The readers of the Bible, familiar with such practices, would therefore not have considered them to be errors.

V. WHAT IS THE GIST?

I will discuss four sources that give insight into modern theologians’ thinking regarding the gist of a passage. They believe that the Gospel writers sometimes got close to what Jesus said, but they often changed the meaning of what He said, put words in His mouth, and even misrepresented who was speaking.

A. Dr. Dan Wallace’s ETS Paper, “An Apologia for a Broad View of Ipsissima Vox”

I was present when Dr. Wallace presented this paper at the 1999 annual meeting of ETS. He provided many examples of what he considers a broad view of ipsissima vox. I will cite just three of the points he presented.

His first point was that the Gospel writers followed the historical reporting of Thucydides, a man who not only did not give exact quotes, but was often guilty of not “getting them close.”³ Wallace suggested that, “If Luke [took] certain liberties in the speeches he recorded, John may have done so much more.”⁴

His second point was that the changes made by the Gospel writers were much more than simply translation choices or the use of summary statements. He gave examples of different types of changes they made.

“Occasionally…the meaning seems to be altered.”⁵ That is truly a significant shift from 1976. Wallace was saying that the Gospel writers sometimes changed Jesus’ meaning!

“Within the synoptic gospels, interpretive additions to the words of Jesus seem to occur.”⁶ An example is Wallace’s view that Luke added the words to repentance to the expression, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt 9:13; Mark 2:17).⁷ Luke put words in Jesus’ mouth that He never said. Wallace says, “Luke has slightly altered the meaning of Jesus’ words here.”⁸

According to Wallace, Jesus said that He did not permit either divorce or remarriage of the divorced. However, he says, “Matthew does not have the line about a woman divorcing her husband, but [he] does add ‘except for immorality’—a phrase missing from both Mark’s and Luke’s accounts.”⁹ He summarizes by saying, “There seems to be evidence in the synoptic gospels that, on occasion, words are deliberately added to the original sayings of Jesus.”¹⁰

I found this surprising. According to Wallace, Matthew contradicted what the Lord Jesus said.

His third point was that sometimes the Gospel writers misrepresented who was speaking: “Sometimes the alteration between gospels is not merely a word or two, but seems to involve a change in speaker.”¹¹

Wallace’s last two points concern “giv[ing] a different impression as to the sense of the original”¹² and “some of the dominical material seems dislocated or even patched together.”¹³ Concerning the last point, Wallace gives the example of the Sermon on the Mount. He says that while it might have been one actual sermon, “evidence of such composite redactional work on the part of the evangelists cannot be easily dismissed.”¹⁴ While he mentions that Matthew presented the Sermon on the Mount as one sermon given on one occasion, he does not view that as proof that it was.

I appreciate Dr. Wallace’s scholarship. He is a leading NT textual critic and grammarian. However, when it comes to inerrancy, he is like the emperor with new invisible “clothes” in the Hans Christian Andersen story. What he calls inerrancy is not inerrancy. What he describes are not examples of the very voice [ipsissima vox] of Jesus.

B. Dr. Craig Olson’s ETS paper, “How Old Was Father Abraham? Why the Patriarchal Lifespans Cannot Be Face Value Numbers”

I was present when Olson presented this paper. He had recently received his Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, and this paper was based on his doctoral dissertation.

He said, “Skeletal and tooth wear data from ancient times indicates an average lifespan of around forty years old, not over 900 years as in Genesis 5, or even the almost 200 years of the later patriarchs.”¹⁵ He saw no problem since, “The patriarchal lifespans are in error only if the original author intended them to be accurate historical records, and the original audience accepted them as such.”¹⁶ He then compared Genesis with pagan writings: “Writings from the third and second millennia BC (such as the Sumerian King List) contain exaggerated lifespans that everybody understood were intended to honor their ancestors.”¹⁷

Olson suggested that the entire book of Genesis exaggerated lifespans, right down to the end. During the question-and-answer time, an audience member asked why Jacob said he was 130 years old when asked by Pharaoh (Gen 47:9). Olson said he did not deal with that in his dissertation, and he did not have an answer that day either. Moses reported that Jacob was 147 years old at his death (Gen 47:28). If he was forty or even eighty, then the Bible is not inerrant.

Science cannot prove that no one lived for hundreds of years before or after the Flood.

The more significant issue is that what Olson suggested is a rejection of inerrancy.

C. Dr. Darrell Bock’s “Live, Jive, or Memorex”¹⁸

This article was required reading for all DTS Th.M. students for years. It might still be.

Bock suggests that Jesus’ words in the Gospels are neither jive nor Memorex. Jive would be something completely made up. Memorex (a recording device) would be the exact words of Jesus. Live would be the gist.

While that may be comforting to some, it is discomforting to those taught that the Gospel records of Jesus’ words are completely accurate in every detail.

D. Bock and Simpson’s Minding the Gap

In the Fall 2019 issue of DTS Magazine, Drs. Bock and Simpson wrote about the inspiration of Scripture. They addressed how the Gospels can accurately report what Jesus said when there was a gap in time and memory.

The authors suggest three answers. First, the time gap was only thirty years. Second, multiple people’s reports were considered. Third, the disciples told the stories of Jesus repeatedly during the three decades before they wrote. Bock and Simpson call this “careful orality.”

Bock and Simpson cite the Bedouins in the Middle East as a modern example of the disciples’ oral tradition. Missionary Kenneth Bailey noted that when he heard Bedouins tell the same story multiple times, “a story’s detail could vary, but the retelling could not change its core.”¹⁹

The authors then indicated that they agreed with Bailey when he related this to the Gospel writers: “The details of the Gospel accounts might not match exactly, but the story’s point remains intact.”²⁰

When I read that article, I was shocked that any conservative Bible scholar would use the example of unregenerate Bedouin storytellers to illustrate what it must have been like for the Gospel writers.²¹

VI. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

Dr. John Walvoord passed away on Dec 20, 2002. Dallas Theological Seminary had a memorial chapel for him, which I attended. Mark Bailey, the current president, and Chuck Swindoll and Don Campbell, the previous presidents, spoke. As I heard them talk, I remember thinking that while Dr. Walvoord was the reason for DTS’s great growth and progress, he was also the reason for its move away from its earlier positions.

DTS was accredited in 1969 by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. A few years later, the accrediting agency told DTS that it had to broaden the degrees of its faculty. Nearly all its faculty had master’s and doctoral degrees from DTS. That had to change in order to remain accredited.

Between 1974 and 1978, DTS sent many men to Europe to get prestigious doctoral degrees. The school paid them salaries during that time with the understanding that they would commit to returning and teaching at the school.

The day after the chapel service honoring Dr. Walvoord, I had lunch with Zane Hodges and Réné López. I said that I was convinced that the doctrinal changes at the seminary were due to the faculty’s going to Europe to get degrees. Hodges agreed with me. However, Lopez said he thought that at least some of those who got European doctorates had not changed. Hodges disagreed. Having taught with all of them, he said that, to a man, they all returned as changed men, and not for the better.

I studied under many of those professors at DTS (1978-1985). Their view on inerrancy was nothing like the seminary’s historic position.

DTS is but one of many historically conservative seminaries. What happened at DTS happened at nearly all those schools, with the exception of some Fundamentalist schools.

We could talk about the views of Dr. Craig Blomberg at Denver Seminary, Dr. Michael Licona at Houston Christian University, Dr. Robert Gundry, Professor Emeritus at Westmont College, Dr. John Sanders at Hendrix College, the late Dr. Clark Pinnock of McMaster Divinity College, and author and pastor Dr. Greg Boyd, who formerly was a full-time professor at Bethel University and subsequently taught as an adjunct professor.

I was a member of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) from 1982 until around 2020. I eventually let my membership lapse because the society, formed in 1949 to defend the inerrancy of Scripture, no longer did so. I was present at the 2003 annual meeting of ETS when we voted on whether to expel Drs. Clark Pinnock and John Sanders. Both men had made many statements that were inconsistent with the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

I recall that Dr. Geisler came to the microphone and said that if these men were not expelled, he would resign his membership. It should be noted that he was one of the founding members. Slightly over half of us voted to expel Dr. Pinnock, and nearly sixty-five percent voted to expel Dr. Sanders. However, since it took a two-thirds vote to expel anyone, they retained their membership, and Dr. Geisler resigned.

VII. THE BIBLICAL PROOF OF INERRANCY

There are multiple proofs that the Bible is without error based on the highest standards of historiography.

First, the Bible is God’s Word,²² and God cannot lie.²³ If the Bible has errors, then either it is not God’s Word or God can lie.

Second, God’s Word claims to be inerrant. The Lord Jesus said to the Father, “Your Word is truth” (John 17:17). An unnamed psalmist wrote, “The entirety of Your word is truth” (Ps 119:16). Proverbs 30:5-6 says, “Every word of God is pure [or flawless, NIV, LEB; proves true, RSV, ESV; tried and true, CEB]; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.”

Third, if God’s Word has errors in it, then it is hard to see how we can be sure that we have everlasting life, that the kingdom is coming, that there will be eternal rewards, etc. John 3:16 is only true if John infallibly reported exactly what Jesus said. If he put words in Jesus’ mouth and changed the meaning of what He said, then John 3:16 would not be accurate.

VIII. HOW CAN WE DEFEND THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE?

It starts with being aware of the issues.

Study the issue and become familiar with the problems. I would suggest reading some books that defend a high view of inerrancy. I recommend The Jesus Crisis by Thomas and Farnell,²⁴ The Big Book of Bible Difficulties by Geisler and Howe,²⁵ Defending Inerrancy by Geisler and William C. Roach,²⁶ Inerrancy, edited by Geisler,²⁷ and my book, Current Issues in Inerrancy.²⁸

Do not financially support churches or schools with a low view of inerrancy.

Do support churches and schools with a high view of inerrancy. You, hopefully, are already in a church with a high view of inerrancy. If you ever move, do not settle for a church with a low view of inerrancy.

Teach your children, family, and friends about the inerrancy of Scripture.

The battle for the Bible has not only continued since 1976 but has also become more intense. It is now much more difficult for students in the leading conservative seminaries to retain a high view of inerrancy. They are bombarded with arguments in favor of the Bible’s giving us the gist, but not precisely what was said and done.

Of course, we should be gracious in our defense of inerrancy. We seek to win over those who have abandoned a high view of Scripture. But we must stand firm, or we too will become casualties of the battle.

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¹ Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1976), 25.
² Miriam Webster online: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gist. Last accessed 8/14/24.
³ Daniel B. Wallace, “A Broad View of Ipsissima Vox,” Unpublished paper presented Nov 18, 1999, 2.
⁴ Ibid., 5.
⁵ Ibid., 7.
⁶ Ibid., 10.
⁷ Ibid.
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Ibid., 12.
¹⁰ Ibid.
¹¹ Ibid., 13.
¹² Ibid., 16, italics his.
¹³ Ibid., 17.
¹⁴ Ibid., 18.
¹⁵ Craig Olson, “How Old?” Unpublished paper presented Nov 15, 2017, 1.
¹⁶ Ibid., 18.
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland, eds., Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 73-100.
¹⁹ Darrell Bock and Benjamin I. Simpson, Minding the Gap: Orality, Memory, & the Gospels, Fall 2019 DTS Magazine, 10.
²⁰ Ibid.
²¹ Interestingly, Bock and Simpson mention John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” They imply that the Holy Spirit improved the memories of the Gospel writers. However, they fall short of suggesting that the Holy Spirit gave them perfect recall, which would be Memorex, not live. In my estimation, John 14:26 is a promise of perfect recall. There are people on Earth today who have what is called hyperthymesia, which is the ability to remember all or nearly all events in their lives with perfect accuracy. Could not God have given that to the disciples? Is that not what the Lord promised in John 14:26?
²² Psalm 119:105; Prov 30:5; Isa 55:11; John 10:35; 1 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 3:16-17; 1 Pet 1:24-25; 2 Pet 1:21.
²³ Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; Heb 6:18.
²⁴ Robert L. Thomas and F. David Farnell, The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 1998).
²⁵ Norman L. Geisler and Thomas Howe, The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992, 2008).
26 Norman L. Geisler and William C. Roach, Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation (Grand Rapids, MI, Baker, 2011).
27 Norman L Geisler, ed., Inerrancy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980).
28 Robert N. Wilkin, Current Issues in Inerrancy (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 2016, 2024).