Kathryn Wright shared with me an interesting argument against inerrancy:
I heard something today and thought it might make a good blog topic for you. It was on inerrancy. The argument was regarding 2 Tim 3:16. Taking the concept of inspiration as God-breathed, this is connected to Genesis and the Lord breathing life into Adam. Therefore, the argument was made that because Adam was not perfect when the Lord breathed into him, the Bible is likewise not made inerrant simply because the Lord breathed into it.
Thanks, Kathryn. Let’s think that through.
The word theopneustos does not mean God-breathed, though a few English translations render it that way (NIV, ESV). Rather, it means inspired by God (cf. BDAG, p. 450; so NASB, LEB, HCSB, NET, RSV, KJV, NKJV).
2 Timothy 3:16 does not say that God inspired all the authors of Scripture. Instead, it says that He inspired all the words of Scripture.
There is a big difference between God breathing the breath of life into Adam and God inspiring the Word of God. The former concerns a person being given life. The latter concerns the Scriptures being God’s Word.
The reason that all Scripture is useful “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness” is because it is God’s Word. If it had errors in it, then it would not be inspired; all Scripture would, therefore, not be useful for the four purposes listed in 2 Tim 3:16.
Hiebert explains 2 Tim 3:16 beautifully:
The inspiration is here not asserted of the authors of Scripture but of the writings themselves. But inspiration was not mechanical. The Holy Spirit did not destroy the personality and individual characteristics of the individual writers but rather so worked through the entire being of the writer that the very words used, although truly the words of the human author, were yet the very words the Spirit intended to be employed to express the divine truths being recorded.i
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i D. Edmond Hiebert, Second Timothy, p. 101.
