it stated that biblical inerrancy is more broad than the Church’s infallibility. In other words, the Church is infallible when it comes to teachings on faith and morals only, but the Bible if without any error, period.
OK: this makes sense. They’re talking about one particular notion in Scriptural studies. This discussion is going to go down the rabbit hole quickly – time to buckle up…!
In the 18th-19th centuries, a method of study of Scripture emerged in Europe and took root; ‘higher criticism’, as it’s called, drew upon new ways of looking at Scripture and new approaches to dealing with the truth claims that are found within. In particular, we might look at the (often maligned) ‘historical-critical method’ as one of these forms. The historical-critical method attempts to analyze a text in terms of historical context, and thus, it draws from a variety of historical sources. (The Church, by the way, gives the thumbs-up to historical-critical method, while noting that it is possible to take the method in directions that are unhelpful for Scriptural exegesis.)
As these new perspectives on the Bible were being investigated, some scholars began tearing down previously unchallenged assertions about the text of the Bible. They began to ask, “is the Bible really an accurate record of history?” and “if the Bible
isn’t historically accurate, then is this proof that it is not inerrant?”. Of course, them’s fightin’ words to a Bible-believing Christian, right?
So, some people attempted to resolve the question by making the assertion that the Bible is only inerrant
in matters of faith and morals – the rest, they asserted, was just ‘other stuff’ that happened to show up on the page. This theory, then, suggested that relatively little in the Bible was covered by inerrancy. The Church, by the way, rejected that theory (as you might have read in Divino afflante spiritu).
So, it seems, your introduction is responding to that theory and making a comparison: whereas the Church only speaks infallibly in matters of faith and morals, the Bible is inerrant in its entirety. Perhaps that’s what they mean by ‘more broad’. From a Catholic perspective, both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition are sources of authoritative teaching. I don’t know that we could say that one is ‘more broad’ than the other.
This surprised me since I was always under the impression that the Bible could contain certain historical mistakes without it effecting the essential meaning of the passage.
This is one way of putting one of the theories that were posited, and it seems to me that it’s the one the Church has gone to. The Church (in the documents already quoted in this thread) asserts that Biblical writers may have used a variety of writing styles and modes of expression in their inspired works. These styles and modes, when incorrectly assumed to be in the genre of ‘historical documentation’, might lead a person to believe that there is error in the text. However, that assessment would be incorrect, if the writer wasn’t intending that mode or was writing in a style that differed from a “just the facts, ma’am” approach. The Church also remarks that the Bible doesn’t intend to teach science or history, so those fields can’t be considered part of its property of ‘inerrancy.’ In other words, the Bible is inerrant (only) in the ways it intends to be inerrant.
Now based on the sources that have been posted on this thread already, it seems to me that the Church does in fact take the position that every historical detail (that was intended by the author to be taken historically) must be without error. What is still confusing me is that you said that that was not the case?
No – that is the case. The devil in the details is that, when you look at a passage, how would you propose to assert “this passage is meant to be historically accurate” or “that passage isn’t intended to be historically accurate”? In other words, when we look at a passage, there are two possibilities: ‘intended to be historically accurate’ (and subject to inerrancy in terms of accurate historicity) or ‘not intended to be historically accurate’ (and thus not subject to inerrancy as historical fact). The caveat here is that it’s possible that someone might look at a passage and claim “look! there’s an error here!” when referencing a passage that’s not covered by inerrancy in terms of historicity. Does that make sense?
Furthermore, I was wondering if the doctrine extended to impeccable spelling/grammar to original documents.
I think I have two answers for you: first, the documents that discuss inerrancy never suggest that spelling and grammar are covered by that property. Moreover, the areas in which inerrancy are defined are described in terms of higher-level goals (such as “God’s self-revelation” and “salvific message”). For these reasons, it would seem that spelling and grammar are not covered by this definition. Here’s the catch, though: it takes some people’s breath away and makes them see red when folks have the audacity to even
conceive of the idea that the Holy Spirit might allow misspellings!
(Yeah. I know. What can ya do?
)
Note that authoritative sources offered (Divino afflante spiritu to Dei verbum) only address scripture transcriptions, not the originals
Do they, though? I don’t have anything in front me that I can cite, but as I understood it, the originals were the only sources that we would argue are inerrant – later translations and transcriptions retain the property of ‘inerrancy’ only inasmuch as they’re accurate to the originals.
I thought I had my answer after e_c said I had it right, but then you’re telling me I have it wrong.
I’m still waiting to hear e_c’s response, too, to my analysis of the documents he cited.
