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 PrintableVersion The word of God?Sad old attack on inerrancyTHE WORD OF GOD? Debates about the Bible never seem to go away. This short book, written for a popular audience, attacks the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture. It comes from the pen of the retired Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. He says some useful things — he reminds us, for example, that there is metaphor in the Bible and warns us of the dangers of taking non-literal passages literally. But much of the book is given over to his main thesis, that, in the light of modern scholarship, we cannot trust the accuracy of the Bible narrative and that the Scriptures are not an infallible revelation from God. Instead, they are a collection of important human writings about God and religion, guided, indeed, by the Spirit and, in that sense, divine revelation, but brought to us through the corruptions and shortcomings of their human authors. The author assures us that the biblical writers are often worth listening to, but we have to exercise caution and use our own wisdom when reading them, to ensure that we do not take on the less desirable aspects of their thinking. For example, they are prone to vindictiveness and judgmentalism, particularly in the Old Testament. We must refuse to follow them when they write like that. Rather, we must concentrate on the true message of the Bible which teaches about the transcendent God of love who wants to liberate all mankind from the bondage of our selfishness. Sadly, this is all too familiar. It has been refuted many times by competent evangelical scholars whom this author simply ignores. He argues that God uses Scripture, with all its shortcomings, to lead people to the truth. It is difficult to see how this can happen, without our being thrown back ultimately on ourselves — in the end, it seems, we are left to make our own judgments about what God is like, what he requires of the human race, and what he has done for us. Religion becomes a reflection of our own prejudices. Happily, God is not so cruel as to leave us in that wretched position. Indeed, the Bible is God’s infallible and inerrant revelation to the human race. Thankfully, we can go to it confident that we can believe its message, without fear of its being inaccurate in any way. It is God’s word to us — there is no need for the question mark of this book’s title. God has spoken: he has told us what he is like and all that he has done for us in his Son and by his Spirit. We can trust his word without question. Robert Strivens,
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