DEALING WITH BIBLE DIFFICULTIES
As important as the task may be, dealing with Bible difficulties can have a blinding effect on those desiring the clear truth about inerrancy because they provide a temptation not unlike that of a divorce counselor who is faced with all the problems of his divorced counselees and tends to forget what a good marriage is. Unless he concentrates on the biblical teaching and good examples of many happy marriages, he can be caught wondering whether a good marriage is possible. Likewise, one should no more give up on the inerrancy (of God’s special revelation) because of the difficulties he finds in explaining its consistency than he should give up on the study of nature (God’s general revelation) because of the difficulties he finds in it.
There are several reasons for believing that both of God’s revelations are consistent: First, it is a reasonable assumption that the God who is capable of revealing Himself in both spheres is consistent and does not contradict Himself. Indeed, the Scriptures exhort us to “Avoid… contradictions” (Gk: antheseis—1 Tim. 6:20 ESV). Second, persistent study in both spheres of God’s revelations, special and general revelation (Rom. 1:19-20; Psa. 19:1), have yielded more and more answers to difficult questions. Finally, contrary to some panelists who believe that inerrancy hinders progress in understanding Scripture (Franke, 278), there is an investigative value in assuming there is no contradiction in either revelation, namely, it prompts further investigation to believe that there was no error in the original. What would we think of scientists who gave up studying God’s general revelation in nature because they have no present explanation for some phenomena? The same applies to Scripture (God’s special revelation). Thus, assuming there is an error in the Bible is no solution. Rather, it is a research stopper.
Augustine was right in his dictum (cited by Vanhoozer, 235). There are only four alternatives when we come to a difficulty in the Word of God: (1) God made an error, 2) the manuscript is faulty, 3) the translation is wrong, or 4) we have not properly understood it. Since it is an utterly unbiblical presumption to assume the first alternative that God can err, evangelicals have three alternatives. And after over a half century of studying nearly 1000 such difficulties (see The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, Baker, 2008), I have discovered that the problem of an unexplained conflict is usually the last alternative—I have not properly understood.
Here are some issues discussed in my review of Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (2013) together with their solutions.
Acts 9 and 22. As for the alleged contradiction in whether Paul’s companions “heard” (Acts 9:4) and did not “hear” (Acts 22:9) what the voice from heaven said, two things need to be noted. First, the exact forms of the word “hear” (akouo) are not used in both case. Vanhoozer (229) notes that Acts 9:4 says akouein (in the accusative) which means hear a sound of a voice. In the other text (Acts 22:9) akouontes (in the genitive) can mean understand the voice (as the NIV translates it). So understood, there is no real contradiction. Paul’s companions heard the sound of the voice but did not understand what it said.
Second, we have exactly the same experience with the word “hear” today. In fact, at our house, hardly a day or two goes by without either my wife or me saying from another room, “I can’t hear you.” We heard their voice, but we did not understand what they said.
One thing is certain, we do not need contorted attempts to explain the phenomenon like Vanhoozer’s suggestion that this conflict serves “Luke’s purpose by progressively reducing the role of the companions, eventually excluding them altogether from the revelatory event” (230). It is totally unnecessary to sacrifice the traditional view of inerrancy with such twisted explanations.
Joshua 6. This text records massive destruction of the city with its large walls falling down, which goes way beyond the available archaeological evidence. Peter Enns insists that “the overwhelmingly dominant scholarly position is that the city of Jericho was at most a small settlement and without walls during the time of Joshua” (Enns, 93). He concludes that “these issues cannot be reconciled with how inerrancy functions in evangelicalism as articulated in the CSBI” (92). He further contends that the biblical story must be a legendary and mythological embellishment (96).
In response, it should be noted that: (1) This would not be the first time that the “dominant scholarly position” has been overturned by later discoveries. The charge that there was no writing in Moses’ day and that the Hittites mentioned in the Bible (Gen. 26:34; 1 Kings 11:1) never existed, are only two examples. All scholars know that both of these errors were subsequently revealed by further research. (2) There is good archaeological evidence that other events mentioned in the Bible did occur as stated. The plagues on Egypt and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are examples in point. The first fits well with the Uperwer Papyrus and the second with the recent discoveries at the Tall el Hamman site in Jordan (see Joseph Holden, A Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible, Harvest House, 234-238, 214-220).
Indeed, Enns admits that the Joshua description of some other cities around Jericho fits the archaeological evidence (Enns, 98). He even admits that “a trained archaeologist and research director” offers a minority view that fits with the Joshua 6 record (Enns, 94), only the alleged time period is different. However, since the dating issue is still unresolved by scholars, a date that fits the biblical record is still possible.
The fact that the belief in the full historicity of Joshua 6 is in the minority among scholars poses no insurmountable problem. Minority views have been right before. Remember Galileo? As for the alleged absence of evidence for a massive destruction of a walled city of Jericho, two points are relevant: 1) the absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence since other evidence may yet be found; 2) the main dispute is not over whether something like the Bible claimed to have happened actually did happen to Jericho, but whether it happened at the alleged time. However, the dating of this period is still disputed among scholars. Hence, nothing like “overwhelmingly” established evidence has disproven the biblical picture of Joshua 6. Certainly there is no real reason to throw out the inerrantist’s view of the historicity of the event. On the contrary, the Bible has a habit of proving the critics wrong.
Deuteronomy 20 and Matthew 5. Again, this is a difficult problem, but there are possible explanations without sacrificing the historicity and inerrancy of the passages. The elimination of the Canaanites and the command to love one’s enemies are not irreconcilable. Even Enns, no friend of inerrancy, points out that an “alternate view of the conquest that seems to exonerate the Israelites” (Enns, 108), noting that the past tense of the Leviticus statement that “the land vomited [past tense] out its inhabitants” (Lev. 18:25) implies that “God had already dealt with the Canaanite problem before the Israelites left Mt. Sinai” (ibid.).
But even the traditional view that Israel acted as God’s theocratic agent in killing the Canaanites poses no irreconcilable problem for many reasons. First of all, God is sovereign over life and can give and take it as He wills (Deut. 32:39; Job 1:21). Second, God can command others to kill on His behalf, as He did in capital punishment (Gen. 9:6). Third, the Canaanites were wildly wicked and deserved such punishment (cf. Lev. 18). Fourth, this was a special theocractic act of God through Israel on behalf of God’s people and God’s plan to give them the Holy Land and bring forth the Holy One (Christ), the Savior of the world. Hence, there is no pattern or precedent here for how we should wage war today. Fifth, loving our enemy who insults us with a mere “slap on the right cheek” (Mat. 5:39) does not contradict our killing him in self defense if he attempts to murder us (Exod. 22:2), or engaging him in a just war of protecting the innocent (Gen. 14). Sixth, God gave the Canaanites some 400 years (Gen. 15:13-15) to repent before He found them incorrigibly and irretrievably wicked and wiped them out. Just as it is sometimes necessary to cut off a cancerous limb to save one’s life, even so God knows when such an operation is necessary on a nation which has polluted the land. But we are assured by God’s words and actions elsewhere that God does not destroy the righteous with the wicked (Gen. 18:25). Saving Lot and his daughters, Rahab, and the Ninevites are examples.
As for God’s loving kindness on the wicked non-Israelites, Nineveh (Jonah 3) is proof that God will save even a very wicked nation that repents (cf. 2 Peter 3:9). So, there is nothing in this Deuteronomy text that is contradictory to God’s character as revealed in the New Testament. Indeed, the judgments of the New Testament God are more intensive and extensive in the book of Revelation (cf. Rev. 6:19) than anything in the Old Testament.
Of course, there are many more alleged contradictions in the Bible. However, as shown elsewhere (Geisler, The Big Book of Bible Difficulties; (see also inerrancy.org or do a search here), there are no demonstrated errors.
