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Andreas_Hofer
Guest
But you’re working within a notion of inerrancy that you’ve come up with. By presuming that Biblical inerrancy entails freedom from mere historical/factual error, you eliminate literalism (which I wouldn’t mind you doing), which much of Protestant is at least inclined to, if not subscribers thereof, because it cannot be reconciled with some contradictions (such as conflicting sizes of armies, etc.). If these contradictions are no longer “errors” then your accusation against the deuterocanonicals carries much less weight.
The larger problem with this standard, however, is that it cannot be found in Scripture, which is supposed to be your sole source of teaching.
It also begs the question. If your standard of inerrancy is correct, those books should be excluded from the canon. But on the other hand, if those books are Scripture, your notion of inerrancy is incorrect.
The biggest problem, however, is that your standard excludes the Book of Daniel from the canon. Two errors that came immediately to my mind were
- Belshazzar is referred to as Nebuchadnezzar’s son. In fact, several kings intervened. The passage could be referring to Nabonidus, Belshazzar’s actual father. But this one could also be explained by the custom of referring to more distant ancestors as simply father. So I’ll give you that this is not necessarily an error. However…
- Darius the Mede supposedly conquered Babylon in this book. In reality, the kingdom of the Medes had already been conquered by Cyrus the Persian at this point in the narrative of Daniel and it was he who conquered Babylon. That means that the book of Daniel has a historical error and, by your reasoning, is not scriptural.
