Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy

J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett, eds. Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013, 326 pp. $19.99.

If one frequents the annual gatherings of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), one might easily conclude that rumors of a “crisis” regarding biblical inerrancy are unfounded. After all, the society’s annual conference regularly draws in excess of 2,100 attendees, and aggregate society membership is steadily increasing. Yet such figures don't tell us everything. On the one hand, there are persons who still affirm ETS’s commitment to inerrancy but now attend alternate conventions; on the other there are those who once supported the doctrinal basis of the Society but no longer do so. A session at the 2013 ETS convention in Baltimore, reflecting this volume’s release, highlighted the existence of this spectrum.

That “wide angle” reality is highlighted in this important addition to the Zondervan Counterpoints series. Two contributors, Albert Mohler of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Kevin Vanhoozer of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, affirm the doctrine of inerrancy in quite different ways. Another, Michael Bird of Melbourne, Australia, opposes the terminology of inerrancy while maintaining the largely overlapping conception of infallibility. Peter Enns, a former inerrantist, seeks to end the “domain” of this theological term as he judges it unsustainable in light of biblical difficulties, while John Franke, now a post-conservative evangelical, is willing to go on using the word provided that he may define it on his own terms. Each of the five contributors must supply a chapter and then weather the critique of four co-contributors.

I found it useful to remember that the five contributors, while certainly not all on the same page as to inerrancy, are at the same time writers vying for the attention of the same broadly evangelical readership. Several release books from the same publishers. Does this mean that some, whose views cross the boundaries of evangelical belief, are set on subversion through this volume? I think not; their hope instead is that the broadly evangelical American public—which takes Scripture and theology quite seriously—will, in time come around to see it their way. Thus, while this book viewed narrowly is about the veracity of the Bible, it is in this broader context a kind of “proxy struggle” for the future of evangelicalism. What will that look like, vis-à-vis the Bible? Keep reading