Too often, while professors, scholars, and students claim inerrancy of Scripture, they will advocate that it says something else other than Biblical authors intended. Where there is a denial to recognize what Scripture says, they can claim or say anything they want and yet hold on to an inerrantist view or conviction. Scholars and others will deny the historicity of certain events, and the authorship of certain books with excuses always the same. The thought process runs like this: “Inerrancy deals with what the Bible claims” and “I” am saying it claims something else. So whatever you bring up, another person could reject your way of interpretation because they choose to believe the Bible says something else.
Consequently, through the denial of authorial intent, skeptics can assert that inerrancy becomes meaningless. People begin to claim that the Bible is in contradiction with itself and history while still insisting they are inerrantists. Scholars and skeptics proclaim that inerrancy is dead, and hermeneutics has killed it.
By comparison to this type of thought, the Bible itself informs us about how Scripture is used to communicate and reinforce meaning. Biblical authors used this intertextuality to apply a hermeneutic to faithful communicate the truth of God’s word. The way biblical writers read Scripture is how they wrote according to a high hermeneutical standard. This is to serve as an example for us today. How prophets and apostles read under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, shows us how we are to rightly divide the Word of Truth. The Bible comes with its hermeneutic included.
The biblical writers are the first inerrantists. To codify the fact that inerrancy is not a recently developed doctrine.
There are three main points about the New Testament’s use of the Old. They are literal, grammatical, and historical. These are points of observation traditionally associated with both inerrancy and hermeneutics. We received these points to identify and describe what is involved in both inerrancy and hermeneutics because that is what the apostles and prophets believed.
The Apostle’s Literal Hermeneutic
A literal hermeneutic is about the interpretation of meaning from an author’s original intent, context, and purpose. In this sense, there is a direct correlation to the issue of truth. Where we can conclude if there is error or mishandling among the apostle’s use of the Old Testament, what they had to say is less than truthful, consistent, or authoritative.
As an example of scholars that dispute the apostle’s literal hermeneutic, consider common assumptions made by Matthew among other New Testament authors. That there is the authoritative weight with Scripture to assure confidence and truth in what is written. With Jesus’s use of “have you not read” in Mt 12:5 and Mt 19:4, He appeals to the use of Scripture as authoritative. He believed Scripture settled issues relevant to readers.
In the New Testament, from Matthew’s (Mt 2:15) use of Hosea (Hos 11:1) in the Old Testament, we see from close examination “what was spoken by the Lord” (NASB). The first exodus referenced in Matthew from our deliverer Christ Jesus is a correlation to the second exodus of Israel written about in Hosea. Whereas we can understand and accept an introductory statement from Matthew that the reference concerns God’s word as authoritative. To support and build context among New Testament writers, biblical writers used the Old Testament to demonstrate meaning and authority and show their confidence in its inerrancy. This occurs numerous times throughout Scripture in various books, chapters, contexts, across genres and authors. Everything is connected.
How the New Testament uses the Old can be illustrated as a chain of reasoning where the prophetic hermeneutic is drawn out and applied by the apostolic hermeneutic. The literal hermeneutic Matthew chose from the book of Hosea factually illustrates a chain of extended authority. As Hosea references the book of Exodus and thereafter, Mathew references Hosea. Whereas, by comparison, Matthew could have appealed to Exodus directly. Scripture interprets Scripture, it is consistent with itself, and it is not contradictory over the centuries. This is a corollary to the doctrine of inerrancy.
The Apostle’s Grammatical Hermeneutic
The apostles knew that Scripture is truth word by word in structure and syntax. Disputes among Scholars attempt to show that this is not so as proof texted by Galatians 3:16. Where there is a seemingly errant contradiction between the plural and singular use of seed (NASB) or offspring (ESV). However, with further examination elsewhere in Genesis 22 and Psalm 72, both Abraham and David respectively recognize that there is one promised seed (singular) as again reference in the Galatians 3:16 verse.
Apostle Paul picks up what David references in Psalm 72 to concentrate on the word and grammar of “seed.” Whereas by comparison, modern scholars too often get it wrong. Making use of Galatians 3:16 in isolation without the application of a biblical hermeneutic to grasp a coherent and reliable meaning confirmed as truth.
What Paul refers to in Galatians 3:16 is exceptional evidence of the rule concerning effective sequential linkages in Scripture that correspond compellingly.
The Apostle’s Historical Hermeneutic
Scholars allege that in certain historical narratives, details might never have happened. That certain stories are entirely fictional. Objections to surface with reason about whether or not the apostles viewed historical events within Scripture as truthful and accurate. As evidence, Galatians chapter 4 is relied upon by scholars to make a case of allegory by Paul to show that not even the apostle accepted Scriptural truth within its historical detail.
Since it is demonstrated in Scripture elsewhere and overall that Paul is saturated in historical facts pertaining to numerous events, stories, and covenants across time, we are confident about his use and attention to detail as he writes his letter to the Galatians and even to us today. So Paul’s idea and purpose of allegory are not as we recognize and apply it today. We make sketchy allegorical use of spiritual symbology or principles drawn from Scripture while downplaying history. Paul uses history to make theological points. He argues theology from historical fact to demonstrate it is actualized by it. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul does the same thing concerning the historical resurrection of Jesus. To say, if you don’t have a historical resurrection, you don’t have a gospel. History is the foundation of theology. In Romans 4:25, the resurrection is necessary for our justification to make again the point that history actualizes theology.
How Paul uses the principle of allegory is demonstrated by what is written in 1 Corinthians 10. Just as Israel was blessed and tempted, we are blessed and tempted. There are these two separate categories from a historical perspective, blessed and tempted. Israel blessed and tempted, the church blessed and tempted as they are categorically the same between both, but allegorical in contrast. Two items grouped and compared in contrast having different categories. So as other authors refer to events or circumstances in Scripture using different categories, by allegory, Paul does the same to connect corresponding theology to historical facts. Not to draw symbolic, vague, or spiritual inferences.
While there is an overall biblical hermeneutic standard, as demonstrated in Scripture, we do not always hit that standard. There is a difference in wrestling with the text as compared to wrestling against the text. We must apply the standard the apostles set for us as much as we can. The Prophetic hermeneutic is the Apostolic hermeneutic, and they, in turn, are the Christian hermeneutic. Inerrancy demands a hermeneutic of surrender as Scripture is the inspired, infallible, and all-sufficient word of God.
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