In a 2016 article entitled, “Am I Neo-Orthodox?” (see here), Baptist scholar Dr. Roger Olson, professor at Baylor’s Truett Seminary, told about the time “some years ago” when the president-elect of the Evangelical Theological Society invited him to give a plenary message. ETS was founded in 1949 to defend the inerrancy of the Bible. Olson did not say when this occurred, but I think it must have been between 2000 and 2010.

Roger Olson, however, does not believe in inerrancy (i.e., the view that there are no errors of any kind in the Bible). He reminded the president-elect of that. I found the following quote from Olson to be very astute:

The most interesting part of this incident–to me–is that out of it came a rather lengthy e-mail conversation with the president-elect of the ETS–the dean of a large, conservative seminary. We talked about “biblical inerrancy” and related matters. I informed him that, given all his qualifications of “inerrancy,” I could believe in it, too. I just think the word is intellectually dishonest–given the many qualifications that no ordinary person would guess at. After several e-mail exchanges, we agreed that we probably held the same view of Scripture’s accuracy but only disagreed about whether “inerrancy” is a good word for it. Then I asked him the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: “Given that you and I agree about the real nature of Scripture’s accuracy and only disagree about the helpfulness of the word ‘inerrancy’ to name it, can I join the ETS?” (Membership in the ETS requires affirming biblical inerrancy.) He said no; you have to affirm the word. Interesting.¹

What is being taught at many leading “conservative” schools is no longer inerrancy. It is called that. But it is not that.

Is affirming that you believe in inerrancy the same as believing in inerrancy? I would say that today most people who say they believe in inerrancy are false professors. Not false professors in terms of everlasting life. But false professors in terms of inerrancy.

I will give a few examples from my own experience.

In 1999, I was in Danvers, MA, a suburb of Boston, for the annual ETS meetings. Famed NT scholar Dr. Dan Wallace read a paper entitled “An Apologia for a Broad View of Ipsissima Vox.” Here are some of his main points: 1) “We need to read the NT in…the context of ancient historiography [esp. Thucydides].” He suggested that Thucydides and the Gospel writers made up a great deal of what they included in the speeches they recorded (pp. 1-4). 2) The Gospel writers sometimes altered the meaning of what Jesus had said (pp. 7-10). 3) They sometimes put words in Jesus’ mouth (pp. 10-13). 4) Sometimes, the Gospel writers incorrectly identified the speaker (pp. 13-16). 4) Details concerning what Jesus did were misreported at times (pp. 16-17). 5) Sometimes, they created sermons from a patchwork of Jesus’ sayings. For example, Wallace suggested that there was no Sermon on the Mount (pp. 17-18). 6) In his conclusion, Wallace said that a broader view of ipsissima vox “can, at first blush, be disturbing” (p. 19). He added, “If we say, ‘Such cannot be the case because my view of bibliology does not allow it,’ then it seems that our interpretation of inspiration is governing our interpretation of the text” (p. 19).

In response, I wrote, “Toward a Narrow View of Ipsissima Vox.” See here.

When I was in the NT doctoral program at DTS (1982-1985), one of the professors gave an example in class of how Luke changed what Jesus had said. Matthew reports that Jesus said God will give “good things to those who ask Him” (Matt 7:11). But Luke, knowing OT theology, interpreted this as referring to the Holy Spirit. So, according to my professor, Luke reported Him to have said that the Father will give “the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him” (Luke 11:13). He said this illustrated the principle that the Lord who spoke is the Lord who speaks. There were ten doctoral students in the class. We all vigorously objected. We all were convinced that Jesus had said both things. If the Gospel writers put words in Jesus’ mouth, then the Bible has errors in it.

DTS publishes DTS Magazine. In the Fall 2019 issue was an article entitled “Minding the Gap.” The authors suggested that the Gospel writers gave us “the core” of what Jesus said and did but not the exact details. They illustrated what the Gospel writers did by recounting how Bedouins “passed their stories along orally” (p. 9). “A story’s details could vary, but the retelling could not change its core” (p. 10). “The details of the Gospel accounts might not match exactly, but the story’s point remains intact” (p. 10). Comparing the Gospel writers to Bedouins orally passing on stories from generation to generation does not seem like a good illustration of inspiration and inerrancy to me.

Olson is correct. What passes as inerrancy for many today is “interesting.”

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¹ See https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2016/06/am-i-neo-orthodox/.