The Keystone Cops

According to Bill Curry of DC,

“The issue that had the greatest impact on my thinking about the resurrection was the argument for inerrancy. The inerrancy of the Bible is affirmed by the major defenders of the Christianity including William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, and Norman Geisler. Members of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) must annually affirm their belief in inerrancy to maintain their membership (see here). If one is a Christian, it makes a great deal of sense to affirm this.”

Yes, and how do they demarcate the parameters of inerrancy? Here’s a standard formulation from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy:

“We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.”

Continuing with Curry:

“However, I think it is quite reasonable for someone to believe that the Bible contains at least one error. Consider 1 Chronicles 24:14 and 1 Kings 6:2: ‘With great pains I have provided for the house of the LORD, a hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, and bronze and iron without weighing, for there is so much of it; timber and stone, too, I have provided’ 1 Chronicles 22:14.”

Two problems for Curry:

i) It’s hard to “consider” the Biblical data when Curry manages to misquote two of the three citations. There is nothing in 1 Chron 24:14 or 1 Kgs 6:2 corresponding to issue at hand.

A word of advice for future reference: If you’re going to make a case for errors in Scripture, it’s helpful not to commit errors in your citation of Scripture.

All an erroneous citation goes to show is the ineptitude of the Debunker.

ii) If we turn to a standard Evangelical commentary on 1 Chron 22:14, this is what we find:

“The quantities specified here seem to be exceptionally large. One explanation is that it was a standard figure of speech for stressing the magnificence of the temple and drawing attention to David's vast preparations for the temple that was soon to be erected. This sort of hyperbole is often used in ancient literature and speeches, and the round numbers further imply that they are not to be taken literally. Our western propensity to be precise allows little room for a characteristic feature of the literary methods of the ANE,” J. A. Thompson, 1,2 Chronicles (B&H 1994), 165-66.

Other Evangelical commentaries on 1-2 Chronicles by L. C. Allen and Richard Pratt take the same approach.

So Curry’s case for the errancy of Scripture has established the following indisputable facts:

1.He’s too much of a slob to accurately cite chapter and verse.

2. He’s ignorant of how Evangelicals typically define inerrancy.

3. He’s ignorant of standard Evangelical commentaries on the verse in question.

No wonder he was recruited by Loftus for the DC—where systematic incompetence is a prerequisite of membership. That’s part of the job description over there.