Evangelicals and the Bible

A century ago, Walter Binwell Hinson (1862-1926) preached a sermon at First Baptist Church (now Hinson Memorial Baptist Church), in Portland, Oregon, on the inerrancy of Scripture.¹ Though relatively obscure, Hinson was a contributor to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, with the former movement defending the authority, inspiration, inerrancy, and traditional interpretation of Scripture against attacks from the latter movement. As part of their defense, fundamentalist leaders published The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (1910-1915), a collection of essays that addressed topics such as the Bible and modern criticism, evolution vs. biblical creationism, Scripture (e.g., its inspiration and unity), and hermeneutics. Fundamentalism was a powerful force against biblical and theological progressivism that sought to overthrow the consensus of the church on the doctrine of Scripture and most all other doctrines; fundamentalism opposed such revisionism.

Though believing in the fundamentals in terms of the orthodox Christian faith, evangelicalism broke ranks with fundamentalism over issues of cultural engagement. While fundamentalism was largely isolationist in its withdrawal from the public square, evangelicalism sought to engage society and its establishments, both to curb their decline and to champion biblical morality and social policies.² One impetus for the rise and development of evangelicalism was articulated by Kenneth Kantzer, a leading critic of fundamentalism:

Evangelicals never again dare withdraw from the intellectual battlefield of the day and hope thus to protect their delicate faith from worldly attack. Such anti-intellectualism is irresponsible. Not only does it lead inevitably to loss of faith, but there is something inherently antibiblical and anti-Christian about such an ego-protecting stance. It is a reflection of little faith. Moreover, it is inconsistent with the commands of the Lord to the church to go into all the world preaching and teaching and to let the light of the gospel shine out into the cultures of all people.³

Accordingly, the founders of modern evangelicalism—for example, Kantzer, Carl F. H. Henry, and Harold J. Ockenga—studied at the finest secular institutions (Harvard University, Boston University), interacted with leading scholars (for example, Kantzer attended lectures by Karl Barth in Basel), founded or contributed significantly to evangelical seminaries (for example, Henry, Ockenga, Wilbur Smith, and Edward J. Carnell started Fuller Theological Seminary, and Kantzer became the dean at T rinity Evangelical Divinity School), and started scholarly organizations like the Evangelical Theological Society (1949).

Both fundamentalism and evangelicalism, in their own way, articulated and defended the canonicity, inspiration, inerrancy, authority, clarity, sufficiency, and necessity of Scripture. As an evangelical, I will address evangelicalism and the Bible 1976 to the present.⁴ The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) launched in 1977 out of the conviction that many “evangelical believers are being turned away from the Bible as their final authority in matters of Christian doctrine and Christian living. There seems little question that this turning away is directly related to the denial, in many quarters, of the historic doctrine of the verbal inerrancy of the Bible.”⁵ An example of such drift was Fuller Theological Seminary. As noted above, Fuller was founded as an evangelical seminary and affirmed that the canonical books of the Bible are “plenarily inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part. These books constitute the written Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.”⁶ In 1971, it revised its statement of faith by removing the phrase “plenarily inspired and free from all error in the whole and in the part.”⁷ Fuller Seminary moved away from the historical doctrine of full inerrancy and instead promoted a Bible that is infallible in matters of faith and practice but which can and does indeed contain errors in matters of history, science, and geography.⁸

Alarmed by such a defection, evangelicals responded with a defense of the doctrine of inerrancy. Two examples suffice. The first was Harold Lindsell’s book The Battle for the Bible (1976), which warned that a drift away from full affirmation of this watershed doctrine would result in a drift from other essential doctrines.⁹ The second was the ICBI’s publication of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978), which affirmed belief in both the infallibility and inerrancy of Scripture. As for infallibility (Article XI),

We affirm that Scripture, having been given by divine inspiration, is infallible, so that, far from misleading us, it is true and reliable in all the matters it addresses. We deny that it is possible for the Bible to be at the same time infallible and errant in its assertions. Infallibility and inerrancy may be distinguished but not separated.

Concerning inerrancy (Article XII),

We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit. We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.

Clearly, the Chicago Statement stood against a limited view of inerrancy, denying that Scripture’s truthfulness can be restricted to matters of faith and salvation alone.

Additionally, the Chicago Statement (Article XV) underscored “that the doctrine of inerrancy is grounded in the teaching of the Bible about inspiration.” Two articles addressed this matter (Article VI; Article IX):

We affirm that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration. We deny that the inspiration of Scripture can rightly be affirmed of the whole without the parts, or of some parts but not the whole.

And

We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write. We deny that the finitude of fallenness of these writers, by necessity or otherwise, introduced distortion or falsehood into God’s Word.

As the foundation for biblical inerrancy, the inspiration of Scripture had been affirmed by the church from the outset. By way of definition, inspiration is the special work of the Holy Spirit by which he superintended the human authors of Scripture in such a manner that, employing their different theological perspectives, writing styles, grammatical abilities, and personalities, he ensured that what they wrote was precisely what God wanted them to write: the Word of God, fully truthful, without error in the original manuscripts, and with divine authority.¹⁰ B. B. Warfield had underscored “three very impressive facts regarding the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures”:

1. “this doctrine has always been, and still is, the church-doctrine of inspiration;”
2. “it is undeniably the doctrine of inspiration held by Christ and his apostles;” and
3. “it is the foundation of our Christian thought and life.”

Thus, by linking Scripture’s inerrancy with its inspiration, the Chicago Statement reflected the historical practice of the church.

Despite this theological consensus, and despite 1976 being proclaimed the “Year of the Evangelical,” evangelicalism began to manifest an uneasy tension between what may be called traditional/conservative expressions and novel/progressive expressions, with the former attempting to halt inroads into the doctrine of Scripture by the latter.¹¹

One example of attacks against the traditional view as expressed by the Chicago Statement was the 1979 proposal of Jack Rogers and Donald McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach. It claimed that the doctrine of inerrancy was a recent innovation in church history, specifically the invention of the post-Reformers (especially Francis Turretin [1632-1687]) and so-called “old Princetonians” (e.g., A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield).¹² Thus, as a novelty, the doctrine of inerrancy should give way to the doctrine of infallibility, which the church has always embraced. Critiquing the Rogers-McKim proposal’s “deeply-rooted deficiencies” (e.g., its “arbitrary selection of data,” misunderstandings of historical sources, “inappropriate ‘historical disjunctions,’” and indebtedness to Karl Barth’s neoorthodoxy), John Woodbridge decried their distinguishing between the “central saving message of Scripture and all of the difficult surrounding material that supports that message.”¹³ His exposé remains as a sharp rebuke to those who subjectively (and hopelessly) make such a distinction and thus affirm the infallibility of its central message as opposed to the inerrancy of the message and all that supports it—that is, all Scripture. Woodbridge’s critique was joined by other negative assessments of the Rogers-McKim proposal by evangelical scholars. For example, D. A. Carson joined Woodbridge in editing Scripture and Truth (1983) and Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon (1986).¹⁴

Reflecting and expanding on the Chicago Statement, Paul Feinberg, in “The Meaning of Inerrancy” (1982), wrote what many consider to be the classical evangelical definition of inerrancy: “Inerrancy means that when all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.”¹⁵ I list nine of his specifications:¹⁶

1. Inerrancy is characteristic of all of Scripture, not just the parts that address salvation, faith, and morality.
2. Inerrancy applies to the original manuscripts, or autographs, of Scripture (an important technical but not pedantic point).
3. Inerrancy is consistent with the Bible’s use of the language of ordinary, everyday speech (e.g., Moses’s “two great lights” is phenomenological language describing the sun and the moon).
4. Inerrancy is consistent with the New Testament’s use of loose or free quotations from the Old Testament (the New Testament authors could and did use allusions to, paraphrases of, and summaries of Old Testament writings).
5. Inerrancy is consistent with the fact that the logia Jesu (the sayings of Jesus) do not contain the ipsissima verba (the exact words) of Jesus. On only a few occasions—for example, “Talitha cumi” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise” (Mark 5:41); “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened” (Mark 7:34); “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:33-34)—do we have the exact (Aramaic) words of Jesus. What we have is the exact voice of Jesus, that is, the Greek versions of his Aramaic sayings are faithful renditions of the words Jesus actually spoke.
6. Inerrancy is consistent with unusual grammatical constructions (solecisms) in the Bible (e.g., Revelation 21:9 raises the question “who or what was full of the seven last plagues?” Was it the angels, or was it the bowls held by them, that were full of the seven last plagues?)
7. Inerrancy is consistent with different chronological ordering of events (e.g., Matthew and Luke’s divergent “order” of the wilderness temptations of Jesus).
8. Inerrancy is consistent with divergent parallel accounts in the Bible (e.g., the summary of Jesus’s encounter with the centurion in Matthew and the more detailed narrative involving the Jewish elders and the centurion’s friends in Luke).
9. Inerrancy may be asserted, but not demonstrated, with respect to all of the phenomena of Scripture. We cannot “prove” the inerrancy of Scripture; rather, we embrace it by faith as we seek to understand and work on the difficulties. The beginning of Feinberg’s definition—“When all the facts are known”—invites us to wait hopefully for the eschatological fulfillment of salvation history to fully embrace Scripture’s complete truthfulness and absence of all errors.

Together, the Chicago Statement and Feinberg’s “The Meaning of Inerrancy” have provided guidance and guardrails for conservative evangelicalism’s high view of the inerrancy and inspiration of Scripture.

Of course, other aspects of the doctrine of Scripture need to be addressed in terms of their development or demise over the last fifty years. Each of these—canonicity, authority, clarity, sufficiency, and necessity—will be addressed in turn.

Canonicity

This list of divinely inspired and authoritative writings that make up Scripture developed in the early church and eventually led to the Roman Catholic canon, which includes the Apocrypha, extra books in the Old Testament (e.g., Tobit, Judith), and additions to certain Old Testament writings as found in the Protestant Bible (e.g., additions to Esther, Bel and the Dragon in Daniel). These additional writings were not included in the Protestant canon, which is composed of only sixty-six books.

Despite challenges to the traditional view of canonization—for example, questioning the authorship of the Pentateuch by Moses and 2 Peter by the apostle Peter—evangelicals continue to uphold the sixty-six books as composing Scripture, which was the canon affirmed by the early church in the fourth century and the Reformers and their Protestant churches in the sixteenth century, and which continues to be affirmed today in ecclesial and denominational statements/confessions of faith. Controversy still persists, however, as to the value of all those writings. For example, Andy Stanley has created a “canon within a canon” by (apparently) dismissing the relevance of the Old Testament for Christians and their churches.

Commenting on the deliberations at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), Stanley offered, “(First Century) Church leaders unhitched the church from the worldview, value system, and regulations of the Jewish scriptures … Peter, James, and Paul elected to unhitch the Christian faith from their Jewish scriptures, and my friends, we must as well.” A reason for decoupling Christianity from its roots is to remove the stumbling block many contemporary people encounter when they read Old Testament laws that seem archaic and embarrassing and Old Testament narratives that portray God as vindictive and genocidal. Moreover, Stanley detached Christian salvation from Scripture and set it in opposition to Jesus’s work: “Jesus’ new covenant, His covenant with the nations, His covenant with you, His covenant with us, can stand on its own two nail-scarred resurrection feet. It does not need propping up by the Jewish scriptures … The Bible did not create Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus created and launched Christianity. Your whole house of Old Testament cards can come tumbling down. The question is, did Jesus rise from the dead? And the eyewitnesses said he did.”¹⁷

Stanley’s proposal pushed aside traditional views of Scripture’s canonicity and its inseparable link between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The very fact that these two testaments are physically bound together in all versions of the Bible stands visibly in opposition to his view. Additionally, before Jesus rose from the dead and “launched Christianity,” the Jewish Scripture/Old Testament prepared the way through its prophecies, pledges, and promises concerning Jesus himself. In fact, some of the first words of the resurrected Jesus were, “This is what is written [in the Jewish Scripture/Old Testament]: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead the third day, and repentance for forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47).

Authority

Put simply, the authority of Scripture means that to believe and obey the Bible is to believe and obey God himself, and to disbelieve and disobey the Bible is to disbelieve and disobey God himself. For its first millennium and more, the church affirmed and practiced the supreme authority of Scripture, but this consensus eventually yielded to a division between Roman Catholicism—whose authority, like a three-legged stool, consists of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium (the teaching office of the church)—and Protestantism, whose formal principle is sola Scriptura, that is, Scripture alone.

Despite its firm stance on biblical authority, Protestantism eventually caved in to the Enlightenment rejection of all authority. Specifically, the dismissal of biblical authority was fueled by antisupernaturalism and the rise of biblical criticism. In its wake, Friedrich Schleiermacher (the so-called “father of modern Protestantism”), referring to historical ideas of biblical inspiration, truthfulness, and authority, asserted that “in order to attain to faith, we need no such doctrine of Scripture.”¹⁸ Indeed, one of Schleiermacher’s key proposals was that “the authority of holy Scripture cannot be the foundation of faith in Christ; rather [faith in Christ] must be presupposed before a particular authority can be granted to holy Scripture.”¹⁹

Once again, the Chicago Statement articulated an evangelical high view of biblical authority. Its opening presentation affirmed that Scripture “is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.”²⁰ Despite this clarity, attacks against biblical authority persist. One approach to such criticism is to make an appeal to divine accommodation, which is “God’s act of condescending to human capacity in his revelation of himself.”²¹ In terms of the basic principle of accommodation, “for an infinite, perfect, and holy God to interact with finite, fallible, and fallen humanity, he must accommodate himself to our ability to understand him, coming down to our level so that we can grasp what he says and does.”²² Historically, such accommodation was never used to dismiss the truthfulness and authority of the Word of God.

Recent developments, however, disfigure the idea and appeal to accommodation to dismiss biblical authority. For example, Kenton Sparks, invoking divine accommodation in his 2008 work God’s Word in Human Words,²³ placed readers of Scripture on the horns of a dilemma: either Jesus accommodated himself to incorrect ideas of Old Testament authorship, having learned wrongly that Moses, Isaiah, and Daniel authored their biblical writings; or Jesus knew better—he knew that these men did not author those writings—but accommodated himself by not revealing the truth to his naïve and misinformed audiences. In either case, Jesus’s embrace of accommodation leads to error and/or deceit and thus discredits his teachings. As for the biblical authors, Sparks proposed “the possibility that a limited perspective [on their part] might inevitably lead to a mistaken perspective,”²⁴ thus undermining the authority of their writings.

Leading evangelical figures continued to champion the full authority of Scripture against such critics. J. I. Packer was such a defender: “It is true that these critics pay lip-service to the principle of biblical authority, and, indeed, suppose themselves to accept it; but their view of the nature of Scripture effectively prevents them from doing so. It is evident that they have not thought out with sufficient seriousness what subjection to biblical authority means in practice. Their view really amounts to saying that the question of biblical authority is now closed; the supreme authority is undoubtedly Christian reason, which must hunt for the word of God in the Bible by the light of rationalistic critical principles.”²⁵ Updating Packer, we may say that contemporary critics insist on the supreme authority of Christian expressive individualism, which must hunt for the word of God in the Bible by the light of personal sentiments and feelings.

Additionally, as I was taught by Kenneth Kantzer, our approach to critics of biblical inspiration, inerrancy, and authority is to raise four questions:

1. What was Jesus’s view of Scripture? (he held to its full inspiration, inerrancy, and authority)
2. Do you call Jesus your Lord? (Christians should respond positively)
3. Do you think you should have the same view of Scripture as that of Jesus your Lord? (again, Christians should respond positively, but if they don’t, ask the next question)
4. What reason(s) could you give for taking a different view of Scripture? (e.g., Jesus did not hold this view; Jesus accommodated himself to this doctrine, and even though he knew better, he taught it anyway; Jesus was ignorant of this matter; Jesus was just mistaken).²⁶

By engaging in this way, we turn the discussion to the core issue, which is the gospel: Do you believe in the lordship of Jesus Christ in your life? And such lordship connects directly to the full authority of Scripture.

Clarity

The church has historically, though hesitantly, affirmed the perspicuity or clarity of Scripture, which “means that the Bible is written in such a way that it is able to be understood, but right understanding requires time, effort, the use of ordinary means, a willingness to obey, and the help of the Holy Spirit; and our understanding will remain imperfect in this lifetime.”²⁷ Against the common Roman Catholic critique of this doctrine, Scripture’s clarity does not mean that all Scripture is easy to understand; the apostle Peter, referring to Paul’s letters, frankly admits that “there are some things hard to understand in them” (2 Peter 3:16). At the same time, the Roman Catholic emphasis—that Scripture is largely obscure and should be interpreted only by its clergy—was exaggerated and led to Protestantism’s articulation of the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture.

As an implication, Protestants translated the Bible into the languages of common people, based on the conviction that ordinary believers and not just Bible scholars and church leaders are able to hear/read and understand it correctly. Bible societies published Bibles and distributed them, often in missionary contexts. Many churches today follow this Protestant doctrine, especially in their encouragement of personal reading of the Bible, discussion of Scripture in group Bible studies, and interaction with the Word as it is preached by pastors and ministers.

Sadly, this doctrine became marginalized even among evangelicals.²⁸

A contributing factor was the rise of the science of hermeneutics—the study of the rules of interpretation as applied to all literature—which replaced the long-standing principles of biblical interpretation. “Gone was the confession of faith—Scripture is clear—and in its place was put a literary principle—all literary works are clear. There is nothing particularly religious about this principle, and certainly nothing that is distinctively Protestant.”²⁹ A second contributing factor was the development of biblical criticism. As T. P. Weber noted: “Higher [biblical] criticism took away the individual believer’s ability to interpret the Bible for himself … The findings of higher criticism forced many lay people to doubt their ability to understand anything.”³⁰

As before, the Chicago Statement sought to overcome this sorely neglected attribute of Scripture, specifically in two articles (Article XXIII; Article XXIV):

We affirm the clarity of Scripture and specifically of its message about salvation from sin. We deny that all passages of Scripture are equally clear or have equal bearing on the message of redemption.

And

We affirm that a person is not dependent for understanding of Scripture on the expertise of biblical scholars. We deny that a person should ignore the fruits of the technical study of Scripture by biblical scholars.

Sufficiency and Necessity

These two characteristics of Scripture have historically been treated together (and then referred to as the perfection of Scripture). First, by way of definitions, the sufficiency of Scripture is

an attribute of Scripture (in written form or orally transmitted) whereby it provides everything that non-Christians need to be saved, and everything Christians need to please God fully. However, Scripture is not absolutely sufficient; indeed, there is much about God that he chose not to reveal (Deut. 29:29). Rather, the sufficiency of Scripture is restricted to its purpose, which is instructing non-believers about salvation and training believers to be “equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).³¹

The necessity of Scripture is

an attribute of Scripture (in written form or orally transmitted) whereby it is essential for knowing the way of salvation, for progressing in godliness, and for discerning God’s will. Negatively, without Scripture, there can be no salvation, growth in holiness, and knowledge of God’s will. However, Scripture is not absolutely necessary; indeed, before the Old Testament was written, people were saved, pleased God, and knew his will. Rather, there is a necessity conditioned on God’s good pleasure to reveal his truth through a written Word. Without Scripture, people cannot have what God willed to reveal through Scripture.³²

The early church’s belief in both Scripture’s sufficiency and necessity gave way to Roman Catholicism’s denial that it was its sole source of divine revelation. Rather, both Scripture and Tradition constitute divine revelation, which in turn is interpreted by the Church’s Magisterium, or teaching office. These three elements together form its sufficient knowledge of God and his ways. Additionally, Roman Catholicism claimed that the Bible is not necessary for the church’s existence but only for its well-being. Against these two Roman Catholic denials, Protestantism articulated the sufficiency and necessity of the Bible. Because Scripture is its sufficient revelation, the church does not need anything (Tradition, the Magisterium) or anyone (the pope) in addition to the Bible. Also, because Scripture is its necessary revelation, the church could not even exist apart from Scripture.³³

While evangelicalism broadly holds to these two attributes of Scripture, such belief is not without controversy. One such disagreement swirls around the Holy Spirit in relationship to Scripture. Specifically, the issue is raised as to the Spirit’s ongoing guidance of individuals and/or their churches. Those who deny such leading by the Spirit often claim that it undermines the sufficiency of Scripture, replacing it or supplementing it with subjective sensations. Those who defend such ongoing guidance clarify that it is completely subordinate to Scripture. For example, the Pentecostal theologian J. Rodman Williams asserted that “God’s truth has been fully declared. Accordingly, what occurs in revelation within the Christian community is not new truth that goes beyond the special revelation (if so, it is spurious and not of God). It is only a deeper appreciation of what has already been revealed, or a disclosure of some message for the contemporary situation that adds nothing essentially to what he has before made known.”³⁴

Another debate has to do with the continuation or cessation of certain gifts of the Spirit: prophecy, the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, miracles, and healing (some would include dreams and visions, as well as exorcisms, in this list). Generally speaking, those who oppose such continued distribution of those gifts by the Holy Spirit—the position of cessationism—claim that it minimizes or even contradicts the sufficiency of Scripture. From the perspective of continuationism, Wayne Grudem articulated a traditional view of Scripture’s sufficiency and necessity while maintaining the legitimacy of ongoing prophetic revelation, revelation that does not possess the same authority of Scripture and which requires the assessment of the church to affirm its truthfulness and validity of application.

A third disagreement focuses on the incorporation of extra-biblical resources—for example, secular psychology and medical intervention—for providing care for hurting Christians. Some proponents of the absolute sufficiency of Scripture question the advisability of, or reject, resources other than Scripture in some cases of suffering (e.g., depression, obsessive-compulsion disorder). On the opposite side are those who support the use of medication and extrabiblical resources to deal with such suffering, maintaining that the all-sufficient and infinitely resourceful God has provided measures for the relief or melioration of such suffering.

In terms of the other attribute, contemporary challenges would never blatantly propose that Scripture is not necessary; rather, they appear in more subtle ways. An example is Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence. It claims to offer Young’s personally sensed communication of Jesus’s words of peace, comfort, and reassurance that he gave to her as she sought “something more” from him. Its accessibility has attracted millions of readers, some (many?) of whom find Scripture to be difficult to understand and/or not as immediate as are the words in Jesus Calling. Proponents of the necessity of Scripture are alarmed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while many attacks against the historical and consensus-enjoying doctrine of Scripture have been launched in the last fifty years—certainly by non-evangelicals, but sadly by so-called evangelicals as well—proponents of its inspiration, inerrancy, canonicity, authority, clarity, sufficiency, and necessity continue to emerge and flourish. For example, since its founding in 1949, the Evangelical Theological Society continues to affirm its original doctrinal commitment that “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs.”

Moreover, since 2013 the Executive Committee (now the Board of Directors) of ETS has sponsored a session on bibliology at the annual meetings, initially titled “The Inerrancy of Scripture” and now “The Doctrine of Scripture.” Over the course of thirteen years, ETS members have presented fifty papers on bibliology (see Appendix). Additionally, leading evangelical scholars have published significant books addressing the doctrine of Scripture; for example: D. A. Carson, ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures; John S. Feinberg, Light in a Dark Place: The Doctrine of Scripture; and our very own David S. Dockery and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, Special Revelation and Scripture.³⁵

APPENDIX

1. I was privileged to be chairman of the board of Hinson Memorial Baptist Church from 1999 to 2003. Bruce Boria, the lead pastor (who, for the occasion, dressed smartly in 1920s formalwear), re-preached Hinson’s sermon on inerrancy to honor this fundamentalist figure. Hinson’s vision for theological education was instrumental in launching Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, which was officially dedicated in 1927, the year after his death. I taught at Western Seminary from 1994 to 2003. ↩︎
2. For histories of the fundamentalist-modernist clash and the rise of evangelicalism see David Beale, In Pursuit of Purity: American Fundamentalism Since 1850 (Bob Jones University Press, 1986); Joel Carpenter, The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (Oxford University Press, 1991); George Dollar, A History of Fundamentalism in America (Bob Jones University Press, 1973); Bradley J. Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates (Oxford University Press, 1991); J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923; reprint Aquarius, 2025); George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and the American Culture, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2022); Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Eerdmans, 1991). ↩︎
3. Kenneth S. Kantzer, “Evangelicals and the Doctrine of Inerrancy,” in James Mongomery Boice, ed., The Foundation of Biblical Authority (London & Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, 1979), 149. ↩︎
4. Though these last fifty years constitute the period of my presentation, I will occasionally discuss previous developments. For example, the very influential First Lausanne Conference in 1974 formulated the Lausanne Covenant. Among its fifteen articles, many of which addressed evangelism, Article 2—“The Authority and Power of the Bible”—offered, “We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We also affirm the power of God’s word to accomplish his purpose of salvation.” ↩︎
5. “International Council on Biblical Inerrancy,” Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, https://alliancenet.org/icbi/. ↩︎
6. Cited in Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Zondervan, 1976), 107. Other examples include “I do not affirm that the Bible is inerrant. . . . I can affirm . . . that the Bible is ‘the only infallible rule of faith and practice.’ By that I simply mean that I find the Bible entirely trustworthy on matters of faith and practice.” Stephen T. Davis, The Debate about the Bible: Inerrancy Versus Infallibility (The Westminster Press, 1977), 15. ↩︎
7. “Statement of Faith,” Fuller Seminary, https://fuller.edu/about/mission-and-values/statement-of-faith/. ↩︎
8. To be noted is the fact that the two terms infallible and inerrant were historically synonymous terms. ↩︎
9. Lindsell, Battle for the Bible, 107. ↩︎
10. For publications about the inspiration of Scripture, see Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Baker Book House, 1948); René Pache, The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture (Sheffield, 1969). For an opposing voice, see Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Baker, 2005). ↩︎
11. In September 1976, George Gallup Jr., 46, president of the American Institute of Public Opinion, proclaimed that 1976 is the “Year of the Evangelical.” Time Magazine, on October 4, 1976, reported Gallup’s announcement, which Newsweek echoed in its October 25, 1976, edition. ↩︎
12. Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (Harper & Row, 1979). Rogers and McKim relied heavily on the (mistaken) proposal of Ernest Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (University of Chicago Press, 1970). The definitive response was given by John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Zondervan, 1982). ↩︎
13. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority (Zondervan, 1982), 153, citing Rogers and McKim, Authority and Interpretation of the Bible, 461. ↩︎
14. D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Scripture and Truth (Zondervan, 1983); D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge, Hermeneutics, Authority, and Canon (Intervarsity, 1986). ↩︎
15. Paul D. Feinberg, “The Meaning of Inerrancy,” in Inerrancy, ed. Norman Geisler (Zondervan, 1982), 267–304 (quote is from p. 294). ↩︎
16. Many of these specifications had been previously challenged by critics of inerrancy. See for example Davis, The Debate about the Bible, 24-28. Appealing to these qualifications of the doctrine, Davis averred “this is certainly enough to show how difficult it is to say precisely what is meant by the apparently simple claim that the Bible is inerrant” (p. 28). ↩︎
17. Andy Stanley, “Aftermath, Part 3: Not Difficult” (April 30, 2018), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pShxFTNRCWI. ↩︎
18. Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart (T & T Clark, 1928, repr. 1960), 593. ↩︎
19. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 591. ↩︎
20. Chicago Statement, “Short Statement,” 2. ↩︎
21. Gregg R. Allison, The Baker Compact Dictionary of Compact Terms (Baker, 2015), s.v “accommodation.” As Donald McKim defines “accommodation, “Theologians trained in classical rhetoric (Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Calvin) used this idea to indicate God’s condescension in revelation. God communicated in ways adjusted to limited human capacities.” Donald K. McKim, The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, 2nd and rev. ed. (Westminster John Knox Press, 2014), s.v. “accommodation.” ↩︎
22. Glenn S. Sunshine, “Accommodation Historically Considered,” in The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures, ed. D. A. Carson (Eerdmans, 2016), 238. ↩︎
23. Kenton L. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical
    Biblical Scholarship (Baker Academic, 2008), 165; cf. 252–53. Other attacks include A. T. B.
    McGowan, The Divine Authenticity of Scripture: Retrieving an Evangelical Heritage (IVP
    Academic, 2007); Craig T. Allert, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and
    the Formation of the New Testament Canon, Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for
    the Church’s Future, ed. D. H. Williams (Baker Academic, 2007); Peter Enns, Inspiration and
    Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Baker Academic, 2005). ↩︎
24. Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words, 225, 226. ↩︎
25. J. I. Packer, Fundamentalism and the Word of God (Eerdmans, 1958), 72-73. For other publications
    on the authority of Scripture see David. S. Dockery and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, eds.,
    The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture, rev. and exp. ed. (Seminary Hill Press, 2024); H.
    van den Belt, The Authority of Scripture in Reformed Theology: Truth and Trust (Brill, 2008). ↩︎
26. Kenneth Kantzer, class notes, Systematic Theology 511, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (fall quarter, 1982). ↩︎
27. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Zondervan, 1994, 2000), 109. To expand on this definition, perspicuity is “a property of Scripture whereby it is clear and thus comprehensible to all Christians who possess the normal acquired ability to read texts or understand oral communication (when Scripture is read to them). This clarity is true regardless of their gender, age, education, language, or cultural background, though it does not mean Scripture is necessarily easy to understand. This doctrine is affirmed in the context of the church, to which God has given pastors and teachers to assist members in better understanding Scripture. Moreover, its clarity means that unbelievers can gain some cognition of Scripture in general.” Allison, Baker Compact Dictionary, s.v. “perspicuity of Scripture.” ↩︎
28. Happy exceptions include Gregg R. Allison, “The Protestant Doctrine of the Perspicuity of Scripture: A Reformulation on the Basis of Biblical Theology” (PhD diss., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1995); Mark D. Thompson, A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Apollos; InterVarsity Press, 2006). ↩︎
29. Gregg R. Allison, Historical Theology: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Zondervan, 2013), 138. ↩︎
30. T. P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1982 (Zondervan, 1983), 36. ↩︎
31. Allison, Baker Compact Dictionary, s. v. “sufficiency of Scripture.” ↩︎
32. Allison, Baker Compact Dictionary, s. v. “sufficiency of Scripture.” ↩︎
33. For publications on the sufficiency of Scripture see Dockery and Yarnell, eds., The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture; Timothy Ward, Word and Supplement: Speech Acts, Biblical Texts, and the Sufficiency of Scripture (Oxford University Press, 2002); Noel Weeks, The Sufficiency of Scripture (Banner of Truth, 1988). ↩︎
34. J. Rodman Williams, Renewal Theology: Systematic Theology from a Charismatic Perspective, 3 vols. in 1 (Zondervan, 1996), 1:44. ↩︎
35. D. A. Carson, ed., The Enduring Authority of the Christian Scriptures (Eerdmans, 2016); John S. Feinberg, Light in a Dark Place: The Doctrine of Scripture (Crossway, 2018); and our very own David S. Dockery and Malcolm B. Yarnell III, Special Revelation and Scripture, Theology for the People of God (B&H Academic, 2024). ↩︎