Alright, apparent errors and dark passages. This is a really jam-packed, very important lesson to talk about a topic to discuss because it really flows from the previous topics that we had here of biblical inerrancy. Now, just a quick review of five minutes or so, what is biblical inerrancy? Catechism 107 explains it.
It says, In quotes. That's Catechism 107 quoting the Eberbon, right, the word of God from the Second Vatican Council. So this is the statement that the books of Scripture firmly faithfully and without error teach truth which God gave to us for the sake of our salvation. Now inerrancy and inspiration go hand in hand as we discussed in that previous lecture.
You can't separate the two of these at all. They're the two sides to the same coin. If the whole of Scripture and all of its parts are inspired by God as we discussed, then it follows logically that the whole of Scripture with all of its parts must be without error. Simply put, because God cannot deceive nor can he be deceived.
So if God inspires the word, if it's God breathed, as Saint Paul calls it, the most most, if it's God breathed, God cannot lie. He cannot error. He cannot deceive. It's impossible.
It goes against his very nature as truth itself, right? So therefore, Scripture cannot error as well. Now what's important to clarify about this is that Scripture cannot error. All of Scripture is free from error when properly understood as it was meant to be understood.
According to the authors, various literary genres that he's using, the devices, form, style, techniques, etc., etc. You have to take these into consideration. It is unfair, it is intellectually dishonest to try to force the text to say something that is not intending to say or to affirm. It is very, very important.
This has a lot to do with an upcoming lecture here about how to properly interpret Scripture. But despite the say right now, again, Dave Erbum says, in determining the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be paid among other things to literary genres. This is because truth is presented and expressed differently than historical, prophetic, or poetic texts or in other styles of speech. Note it doesn't say it is parenthetically here.
It doesn't say there's different kinds of truths. That's not what this is saying. It's saying that truth is presented in different ways depending on the type of style of speech. So it goes on to say the interpreter has to look for that meaning which a biblical writer intended and expressed in his own particular circumstances, then in his historical and cultural context by means of such literary genres as were in use at his time.
To understand correctly what a biblical writer intended to assert, do attention is needed both to the customary and characteristic ways of feeling, of speaking, of narrating, which recurrent in his time and to the social conventions of the period. So this is really, really important. And again, we'll talk more about this and then pack it a lot more in a future lesson about how to interpret Scripture. But for right now, the point is that you can't use a literary genre or try to force a literary genre upon a text that doesn't intend to use that genre.
What I mean to say is you can't look at a apocalyptical text and say, oh, this is trying to be poetry or this is trying to be history. This is Scripture, as I said in lesson one, is a completely, it's a complete diverse collection of different types of books written over 1,500 years by 40 different authors, different genres. You have to be honest and take the text as it was meant to be presented to us. And you'd be surprised how many critics of Scripture, how many enlightened scholars, if you want to call them that, don't understand this basic point.
So they're going around attacking Scripture and criticizing it saying that there are hundreds of contradictions in Scripture when they don't realize that this was not the genre that is being used at this point. This author is not trying to affirm what you're trying to say is affirming. So it seems like a basic truth and it really is a basic truth, but it's really discouraging how many people critic specifically fail to recognize this point. So there are no true contradictions in Scripture because, again, God cannot deceive, he cannot be deceived, God is truth.
If it's the inspired word of God, if God is the origin of Scripture, then it cannot contradict itself, impossible. But nevertheless, there certainly are apparent contradictions and difficulties. Absolutely. We need to acknowledge that and not sweep it under the rug, not turn our backs to it, not ignore it.
There are what seems to be contradictions, but again, there are apparent contradictions. There's a great, great line from St. Augustine when he's writing a letter to St. Jerome.
I just love that concept of these saints in the early church writing letters to each other and discussing all of these matters. It's just so fantastic to imagine that. Then he says to St. Jerome, look, if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose either one, the manuscript is faulty, or two, the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or three, simply humbly, I myself have failed to understand.
That's okay. The manuscript reliability as we talked about is really, really good. It's flawless for the New Testament. It really, really is.
The Old Testament is incredibly reliable, but nevertheless, you might have a faulty manuscript for one reason or another. Probably the translator maybe has caught the meaning of what was said and swallows nowadays, because you have to understand. Augustine is reading this in Latin. He didn't read Greek.
He didn't understand the Hebrew in Greek. Like Jerome did. Jerome translated from the original languages, but Augustine didn't have that facility as like Jerome did. If he's reading the Latin, then maybe something wasn't caught with the translation, and that could happen with that as well.
In our Bibles, it's translated from the original languages as well. Now we have teams of scholars working really, really hard to try to grasp the meaning of what was said, but there are still problems. But more than likely, it's number three, right? I myself have failed to understand, and that's okay.
Have no fear. We're talking about the Holy Inspired Word of God. This is the greatest book in all of human history, right? It's the words of God in the words of God, and you're not going to get it immediately, and you can dedicate your whole life, in fact, and be a genius, and spend all of your time trying to understand Scripture, and you'll never plan the depths of the mysteries of the Word of God.
So I myself have failed to understand, and that's typically where most people fall into it, is like, okay, I just don't get it. And there's no shame in that. There's nothing wrong to say like, yeah, it seems like a difficult passage. It seems like a contradiction, but I know because it's the inspired Word of God, there are no true contradictions, so I'm going to pray for patience, and I'm just going to wrestle with the text, and if I can find an answer, great, if I can't, I'll just wait until the time comes when I can understand.
So I hope that makes sense, you guys. So this is the super quick review of biblical inerrancy as it flows from the doctrine of biblical inspiration. Now what I want to do in this lesson then is to just look at a few examples. This series for 25 lessons long, which would be awesome to do, and I would totally do that in the future, then we can have a whole hour or more just on a selection of various apparent errors or apparent contradictions.
And then a whole other hour on what we call the dark passages of scripture, or the things that just seem really violent and just really out of God's character, okay? But we can't do that. So we're going to look at two big examples for apparent errors. I'll take one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament.
These are probably the two biggest examples that are you, so I'll take those on, and then we'll look at just the biggest example of the dark passages, which is the Hernam Warfarin. We'll talk about that here really, really soon. So we're only going to be doing three examples, and the hour will fly by, trust me, okay?