Product Description

Innerancy is a collection of essays by fourteen leading evangelical scholars on a wide range of topics related to the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. Footnotes and index are included.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #85632 in Books
• Published on: 1980-05-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 526 pages

From the Back Cover
This is another in a series of books sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. The fourteen leading evangelical scholars who have contributed to this volume come from various denominations and have written on a wide range of topics related to the doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. Believing that this doctrine is "an essential element of the authority of Scripture and a necessary ingredient for the health of the church of Christ," they have made a strong defense of it. This book is presented as an appeal to the church of Jesus Christ. To those churches that hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, it is a call to hold the line. To those churches that have given way to the persuasions of radical higher criticism, it is a call to return to the historic position of Christianity. Inerrnacy is shown to be a doctrine of crucial importance to the church. Among the chapter titles are these: Christ's View of Scripture - Alleged Errors and Discrepancies in the Original Manuscripts of the Bible - Higher Criticism and Biblical Inerrancy - Legitimate Hermeneutics - The Human Authorship of Inspired Scripture - The Meaning of Inerrancy - Philosophical Presuppositions of Biblical Errancy - The View of the Bible Held by the Church - B. B. Warfield Versus G. C. Berkouwer on Scripture -- Included as an appendix is the Statement of the Council. This Statement consists of three parts: a Summary Statement, Articles of Affirmation and Denial, and an Exposition. The intent of this declaration underlies all of the chapters in this significant book.

About the Author
Norman Geisler (Ph.D., Loyola University) is president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and author or coauthor of over fifty books including Decide for Yourself, Baker’s Encyclopedia of Apologetics, and When Skeptics Ask.

Customer Reviews

A Much Needed and Well Researched Work
This book, edited by Norman L. Geisler, is a compilation of Christian scholars who have gone to bat over the issue of the inerrancy of the Scriptures. With the traditional orthodox view waning, a book of this kind is much needed.

Some of the chapters and scholars included in this work are:

Christ's View of the Scriptures - John W. Wenham

Alleged Errors and Discrepancies in the Original Manuscripts of the Bible - Gleason L. Archer

Legitimate Hermeneutics - Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.

The Adequacy of Human Language - James I. Packer

The Meaning of Inerrancy - Paul D. Feinberg

Philosophical Presuppositions of Biblical Errancy - Norman L. Geisler

The Internal Testimony of the Holy Spirit - R. C. Sproul

The View of the Bible Held by the Church: Calvin and the Westminster Divines - John H. Gerstner

(and more).

The book is sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy and contains some of the greatest articles by modern Biblical scholars in print. This book is a must for anyone who is interested in learning more about why the Bible is inerrant and how to defend such a position. Moreover, it is a necessary edition to any apologist's library.

The doctrine of inerrancy is, as the back cover totes, "an essential element of the authority of Scripture and a necessary ingredient for the health of the church of Christ." And this book is a definitive text on the issue of inerrancy and works as a great reference tool in developing a strong defense for Biblical inerrancy. I highly recommend it!

Disappointing
I had to purchase and read this book for a seminary class that I took this past year. To be quite frank, I was very disappointed with it. There are only a few essays in the book that show substantial scholarship and solid writing (e.g. Walter Kaiser Jr.'s). Most of them tend to be reactionary in tone and contribute little to the discussion of inerrancy. I was especially frustrated by the ad hominem attacks on men like G. C. Berkouwer (c.f. Krabbendam's essay where he essentially says that Berkouwer either must have been living in great sin or not been a Christian to hold such a view of inerrancy).

A second problem I had with the book was its naive reliance upon Enlightenment philosophical categories to define the term "inerrancy." Most of the writers implicitly seemed to think that for something to be true it has to be "scientifically accurate" (granted, they would probably deny this; however, the underpinnings of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy are clearly there). The result is that the contributors often miss the point of the teleological thrust of Scripture. They are so concerned about proving the Bible to be a coherent, rational scientific text-book that they seldom stop to ask the questions: "what is the purpose of the Biblical text?" and "am I imposing an unwarranted philosophical framework upon the text which leads to unnecessary problems and dilemmas?"

In conclusion, I was also frustrated by the lack of real engagement with the topic. Most of the authors set up weak straw men of their opponents and talked past the real issues. As noted above the last essay by Henry Krabbendam degenerated into an ad hominem fist fight. While I understand why the authors are determined to defend their version of inerrancy (i.e. they are worried that Christianity will crumble from within if the God breathed character of Scripture is abandoned), I was still disappointed by what I perceived to be a mis-handling of the issues (compare the responses in this book to Millard Erickson's irenic, thoughtful discusion of inerrancy in his book Christian Theology).

A Timeless Work Defending Inerrancy of Scripture
In our day and age it is not uncommon for people to say that they love Jesus but reject the Bible as the sole authority for faith and pratice. Furthermore, people often will accept the teachings of Jesus (or atleast those they agree with) and yet reject portions of the Bible such as Genesis 1-2 or the miracles recorded in the Bible because of science. They view the Bible as a work of faith and religion but science as being grounded in absolute truth.

This book, INERRANCY, edited by Norman Geisler defends the view that the Bible is to be accepted as the Word of God and without error in the original manuscripts. Based off the historical 1978 Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, this book was published in 1980 but is timeless in its defense of Scripture much the same as B.B. Warfield's book, THE INSPIRATION AND AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE. The book dives into the defense of the Bible as the infallible and inerrant Word of God by first looking at how Jesus viewed Scripture. This is vital. How Jesus viewed the Old Testament leads us to understanding how the Church viewed the entire Canon of Scripture. INERRANCY leaves no doubt that Jesus loved the Old Testament, viewed it as the Word of God, and accepted the Old Testament as historically true.

Overall this is a solid work. Despite being first published in 1980, INERRANCY is vital to helping the true Church of Christ defend the absolute trustworthiness of Scripture. If we doubt the inerrancy of Scripture and doubt, for example, the six day's of creation in Genesis 1-2, how can we trust that what Jesus said or did is true? We must accept the Bible from Genesis to Revelation as the inerrant Word or our faith is built only on faith and not clear, truthful statements from God Himself in His Word.