What are we to make of the conflicts between the different accounts of the Gospels? For example, there appears to be some disagreement about who ran to the tomb of Jesus and found what and when. How can we still hold to inerrancy when those accounts diverge?
I absolutely do believe in inerrancy, but I’m having a hard time squaring all of that.
A bigger problem is Mark 2:25-26, where Jesus himself says that Abiathar was high priest, when he was not yet at that time–and it was Ahimilech who was involved in the incident with David (1 Sam 21). Was Jesus wrong? or merely mistaken?
Does it really matter? I don’t think so.
A more reasoned position is that of the Church, as articulated at Vatican II in
Dei Verbum 11: “In composing the sacred books [of the Bible], God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted.”
Thus the human authors use their abilities to express what they know, but God, speaking through them, ensures that they expressed what He wanted said. In this way, they can use (as human authors) symbolic language, or non-scientific images, which may even, from our standpoint, be wrong–but they still express the truth God wants.
