Why Professor John Brogan Can’t Have My Autographa

In 2004, John Brogan of Northwestern University published the essay “Can I Have Your Autographa? Uses and Abuses of Textual Criticism in Formulating an Evangelical Doctrine of Scripture” in the book Evangelicals and Scripture: Tradition, Authority, and Hermeneutics. In my opinion, Brogan’s essay is worth reading since it brings up some of the most controversial points of contention and demonstrates very clear and concise writing.

However, his conclusions against the doctrine of inerrancy as stated by the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy are wholly inadequate.

The Big Four

“As I examine the biblical texts and the findings of critical scholarship, I am not persuaded that the ‘inerrant in the autographs’ position [Chicago Statement] is an adequate view of the Scripture. First, this position is inadequate because I agree with the view that inerrant is not a biblical word or concept. I would argue that inerrancy is a modern construct that is somewhat alien to the biblical world. The biblical authors and church fathers spoke in terms of the trustworthiness of Scripture rather than its inerrancy.” 107

As we have shown through the past several months, and as it has been demonstrated over and over and over again by ICBI publications in the 1970s and 80s, inerrancy is not a new concept or an inappropriate term when it comes to the doctrine of Scripture. What would have been foreign to the “biblical authors and church fathers” is a Bible that is filled with mistakes and yet is somehow “trustworthy.”

Truthfulness requires the absence of error (unless we are really to believe the Bible is 94% or 99.6% true in what it communicates). If the Bible is wholly truthful, it does not make mistakes. What truth and error mean, of course, is an issue that has been dealt with in the numerous primary source publications of the ICBI (also, see post on Michael Spencer).

“Second, the inerrantist position is inadequate because it does not take into account the entire phenomena of Scripture. By ‘phenomena of Scripture’ I mean not only the initial ‘inspiration’ of the author, but also these four events: the subsequent editing/redacting of the biblical material, the gathering together and recognition of Scripture as authoritative (canonization), the transmission of the text and the translation of the text into other languages. How do we explain that except for a small handful of people who were permitted to read possibly one of the autographs, everyone has heard and responded to God through reading or hearing ‘errant’ copies of the biblical text, including the translations based on the ‘scandalously corrupt’ Greek text used by most evangelicals today?” 107-108

This is a rather odd objection, since the doctrine of inerrancy – like the doctrine of Scripture’s sufficiency, authority, perpescuity, etc. – was never intended in and of itself to be all-encompassing. Of course the inerrantist position doesn’t take into account every aspect of the doctrine of Scripture. It was never meant to. And, needless to say, the doctrine of inerrancy in no way conflicts with those aspects or the “four events” presented by Brogan.

Real Arguments Please?

Sigh. Like so much (most) criticism coming from anti-inerrantist scholars, there are very, very, very few arguments against inerrancy that actually deal with the primary sources of the debate. Whether it’s ATB McGowan, Michael Spencer, Daniel Harlow, David Clark, Robert Price, or Brogan in this essay, virtually none of them indicate that they even read the four books published by the ICBI (and dozens of other post-1988 publications) – which is their primary target audience.

Why is this so? Perhaps, if critics actually read the arguments by Chicago Statement proponents, they might become convinced of Scripture’s truthfulness and inerrancy. Why is this undesirable? I don’t know. But please, please don’t say it’s because “I don’t want to be associated with a bunch of ‘dirty southern right wing fringe king james thumping dispy fundies’,” because a doctrine has no right to be judged on how its misused. If that was a virtue, we should deny the deity of Christ, which was subject to every possible perversion imaginable in the first three centuries of the church.

In short, genuine scholarship responds to the best arguments of the opposing side. This has yet to be seen on the side of critics who oppose the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy.

Bombs Three and Four

Anyway, it’s hard to feel the weight of Brogan’s question: “How do we explain that except for a small handful of people who were permitted to read possibly one of the autographs, everyone has heard and responded to God through reading or hearing ‘errant’ copies of the biblical text, including the translations based on the ‘scandalously corrupt’ Greek text used by most evangelicals today?” The answer is simple: we don’t “explain,” we simply follow the teaching of Jesus. Jesus gave us an example as to how we should treat fallible manuscripts: He calls them (at least some manuscripts such as those in possession to the Pharisees) the “Word of God.”

This fact, and given Bahnsen’s argument in “The Inerrancy of the Autographa” (in Inerrancy) – which Brogan cites but not once actually responds to – it appears that Brogan’s objection is completely out of place. If copies are close to the original, we call it the Word of God and give it authority. That was the position of Jesus and His disciples. What remains to “explain”?

“Third, the inerrantist position does not allow honest inquiry into the historical or scientific details within the biblical record or the complex history of the Bible’s composition, transmission, or canonization. By presupposing that the Bible is inerrant in every detail (whether historical, scientific, or theological), one is forced to either ignore or explain away every challenge that is made about the Bible’s accuracy. Thus, according to the inerrantist view, if another historical document or archaeological find challenges a detail of the biblical record, then the finding (no matter how certain and convincing) must be in error. Even well-established scientific hypotheses must be abandoned if they in some way suggest that biblical statements are inaccurate. By the nature of their doctrine, inerrantists are forced to argue that each book of the Bible had a single author so that they can speak of an inerrant autograph (in the singular). As a result, the finding of course, form, redaction, and even textual criticisms that demonstrate how many of the biblical books went through long and sometimes complicated editorial processes are either ignored or hastily brushed aside.” 108

This is a forthright attempt at undermining inerrancy, but it culminates in a terribly confusing paragraph.

First of all, accuracy is not the same as inerrancy or truthfulness. I can talk about a football game that happened a year ago with varying degrees of accuracy while still remaining true. Truth and error – the meaning of which is largely determined by literary context – is on or off, but accuracy is (generally) in degrees. Most importantly, “truthfulness” or “inerrancy” determines “accuracy.”

If I said, “the book of Daniel contains 200 true assertions and 8 false assertions,” I would say “Daniel is accurate (96% in fact)” – depending on my standard – but I would not say “all of Daniel is true” or “Daniel is inerrant.”

Thus, the terms are closely related but not the same, so challenging accuracy is different than challenging inerrancy. It is not exactly clear what Brogan means in that regard. However, he does talk about “details” in a qualitative sense:

By presupposing that the Bible is inerrant in every detail (whether historical, scientific, or theological), one is forced to either ignore or explain away every challenge that is made about the Bible’s accuracy. Thus, according to the inerrantist view, if another historical document or archaeological find challenges a detail of the biblical record, then the finding (no matter how certain and convincing) must be in error.

Let me rephrase that according to the true inerrantist position:

By presupposing that the Bible is the fully truthful and inerrant Word of God (whether historical, scientific, or theological), one is “equipped” (II Tim. 3:16) with an objective standard by which to measure (relevant) truth claims. Thus, according to the inerrantist view, if another historical document or archaeological find challenges any part of the Scriptures, then the finding (no matter how certain and convincing), the finder (no matter how many Ph.Ds he/she has), the interpretive method of the finder (no matter how sophisticated), and/or the manuscript (no matter how early or numerous) must be in error. Everyone approaches Scripture with at least one of two assumptions: man determines some truth and occasionally makes mistakes, or God determines all truth and never makes mistakes. The latter, which is the only true Christian position, requires some doctrine of inerrancy.

It is evident that Brogan is missing a few details.

He continues:

“By the nature of their doctrine, inerrantists are forced to argue that each book of the Bible had a single author so that they can speak of an inerrant autograph (in the singular). As a result, the finding of course, form, redaction, and even textual criticisms that demonstrate how many of the biblical books went through long and sometimes complicated editorial processes are either ignored or hastily brushed aside.” 108

Both of the assertions in this paragraph are false. In no way “inerrantists are forced to argue that each book of the Bible had a single author so that they can speak of an inerrant autograph (in the singular).” Inerrantists believe, and have been doing, the exact opposite since the first day at the Chicago summit: they argue for multiple authors (i.e. God and the prophets, several essays have addressed that issue in ICBI publications) and speak of multiple autographs (“autographs,” plural, Article X, Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy). It is puzzling how Brogan can make these odd statements in the face of reality.

Unfortunately, it gets worse:

“The possibility that there might be ‘mistakes’ in the way information is presented or inaccuracies in details or discrepancies between accounts is not even an option open to an inerrantist. Inerrantists force the biblical authors to comply with modern standards of history and science concerning ‘truth’ and ‘error,’ although these categories are completely foreign to the cultural and contextual worlds of the biblical authors.” 108

I can’t help but ask, has Brogan even read the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy? Has he read any of the primary sources of the inerrantist position he is attempting to refute?

On the third page of the Exposition of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, RC Sproul said:

Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed. (emphasis mine)

Upon what basis, then, does Brogan assert that inerrantists (of the Chicago kind, which are the target audience of his entire essay) hold the biblical authors to “modern standards…concerning ‘truth’ and ‘error’ and a “post-Enlightenment” (p. 108) standard of truth and error?

There simply is none, and clearly, he provides none. He gives no examples and provides no citations of anything for this assertion.

Just a reminder, this is the best the world of academia has to offer when it tries to dethrone the truthfulness of God’s Word.

For the record: the assertion that inerrancy is an invention by post-Reformation Scholasticism or post-Enlightenment fundamentalism has been refuted over and over and over…and over again. There’s no sense in me repeating the arguments of Cambridge, Oxford, and Westminster scholars that have been published over two decades ago. Just, get the books for yourself.

“Finally, the inerrantist position is inadequate because it is not helpful pastorally. When scholars speak only of the ‘inerrant autographs,’ people are not told anything about the Bibles they actually use. Why should people have confidence in a Bible that was once – long ago and far away – inerrant, when all that they have before them is an imperfect translation of an imperfect copy?” 108-109

First of all, how many pastors, scholars, anyone in the entire world, have sat down with another human being and told them about “only…the ‘inerrant autographs’” and said nothing “about the Bibles they actually use”?

Probably zero. The unlikeness of this hypothetical situation is off the scales (and certainly not helpful pastorally!).

Second of all, Brogan throws a soft ball: “Why should people have confidence in a Bible that was once – long ago and far away – inerrant, when all that they have before them is an imperfect translation of an imperfect copy?”

The answer is obvious: “because that’s what God incarnate did.” Jesus had confidence in manuscript copies that were inerrant to a high degree (i.e. possible textual variants), but not completely inerrant. Jesus didn’t have the autographs any more than we have the autographs. Yet, he called those copies and translations “the Word of God” and he treated them as having functional authority for the church. This was one of the several points addressed by Dr. Greg Bahnsen in the main inerrancy publication Inerrancy. For how directly relevant this essay is for his criticism, it is unfortunate that Brogan only cites it in passing and doesn’t actually address any of Bahnsen’s arguments. There’s no doubt about it, Brogan has no intention of giving Chicago-Style inerrantists a fair hearing.

An Unusual “Plea” Regarding Textual Criticism and the Doctrine of Scripture

That sums up Brogan’s criticism of inerrancy. Now comes his alternative.

Under the heading “A Plea,” he says, “My plea is that we develop a more positive doctrine of Scripture that affirms of a number of realities,” 109. One of his assertions under the second of his two points is incredibly troubling:

“Our doctrine of Scripture must allow for the editorial development of certain biblical texts, affirming that the writing was ‘God’s Word’ at every stage of the process.” 109

Friends, this is absurd. And holding to this belief would destroy the very foundations of the church: the Holy Scriptures.

Are we really to believe Marcions and Mormons can change the Bible as much as they want without destroying the Word of God? Does not the Word of God exist as textual words? If so, then if the words get corrupted, the Word of God gets corrupted. Or doesn’t Brogan believe there is even such thing as textual “corruption,” and if not, by what standard is corruption even measured?

Jesus called manuscript copies of the Bible “the Word of God” because they accurately reflect the originals. He would not have called “certain biblical texts” that were changed in an “editorial development” the “Word of God” if they did not reflect the original. It almost sounds as if Brogan believes that no matter how much we edit or what the process of editing was, it’s always the “Word of God.” But this is absurd, for it destroys the entire nature of the Bible – it destroys the Bible itself, word by word, sentence by sentence. Anyone can change anything in “every stage of the process” and continue to give it the same authority. The New World Translation of the 20th century. The canon of Marcion of the 2nd century. You name it. If it involves transmission or translation – no matter how good or bad – it’s all part of “the process,” and it must be called the “Word of God” according to Dr. Brogan.

It is amazing how fast God’s Word can be destroyed when one places human autonomy and reason ahead of the presupposition that God is the author of Scripture whose words are “pure words…purified seven times,” (Psalm 12:6).

Conclusion

Like McGowan, Daniel C. Harlow, Enns, Price, Spencer, and other 21st century critics of inerrancy, Brogan’s essay demonstrates a failed attempt at undermining the complete truthfulness of God’s Word. The same fallacies have been refuted countless times in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s continue to permeate the “scholarship” of today’s Christian academic world.

But, thank the Lord, for the truth of the matter:

“Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.”

“God is not man that he should lie.”

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

Appendix A – Examples of Sound History in Scripture

• David ate the bread of the presence. [1]
• Jonah was in the whale. [2]
• On the day Lot left Sodom fire and brimstone rained from heaven. [3]
• Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. [4]
• The people of Israel passed through the sea, ate and drank spiritual food and drink, desired evil, sat down to drink, rose up to dance, indulged in immorality, grumbled, and were destroyed. [5]
• Esau sold his birthright for a single meal and later bought it back with tears. [6]

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[1] Matthew 12:3-4.

[2] Matthew 12:40.

[3] Luke 17:29.

[4] John 3:14.

[5] I Corinthians 10:11.

[6] Hebrews 12:16-17.