Inerrancy & redundancy

Most reputable Christian denominations (and some not-so-reputable) include an element in their creed something to the effect of:

The Holy Scriptures are inspired by God, without error in the original manuscripts, and a reliable source of knowledge and wisdom. (Mt 22:29; Mk 14:49; Lk 24:45; Jn 10:35; Ac 1:16; 17:11; 18:28; Rom 1:2; 15:4; Gal 3:8; 1Tim 4:13; 2Tim 3:14-17; 2Pet 1:20-21)

What, precisely, is meant by “without error” is a subject of debate, and not one I want to get into right now. Rather, I want to focus on the qualifier, “in the original manuscripts”. We obviously don't have the original manuscripts. How, then, can we know whether what we have is reliable?

We can. In fact, it is readily shown that the Bible is the most reliable historical record known to mankind.

Redundancy

Engineers know that if you want a system to be truly reliable, you have to build in redundancy — extra cylinders, magazines, whatever has a chance of breaking down or being exhausted. Likewise in a court of law, a single witness can only be trusted so far, but multiple independent witnesses are considered reliable.

The same applies to historical records. If you have one record of an event, then your certainty depends on your estimate of the reliability of that one source. But it you have multiple records of the same event, each told from a different perspective, then you can know to a high degree of certainty that the common elements of all the different accounts are reliable.

The Judeo-Christian Bible is massively redundant. Unlike many so-called “holy” books, penned by a single author in a single generation, the Bible was penned by some 40 or so distinct authors over some 2000 years. This, in a nutshell, is why it is so reliable, despite the possibility of transcription errors or errors in translation. An error in relating any significant detail will generally be shown up in comparison with other texts.

Redundancy can either be diachronic or synchronic. That is, themes can recur repeatedly over many years (diachronic), or multiple witnesses can report important events (synchronic). Both forms occur in the Scriptures.

Recurring themes

An example of a (diachronic) recurring theme is the command, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which occurs 9 times verbatim in the Scriptures (Lev 19:18; Mt 19:19; 22:39; Mk 12:31,33; Lk 10:27; Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14; Jam 2:8), not counting all the variations such as “Love one another”. (Jn 13:34-35; Rom 13:8; 1Pet 1:22; 1Jn 3:11,23; 4:7,11-12; 2Jn 1:5) This principle can therefore be recognized as a key teaching of the Scriptures.

Another example of a recurring theme is the Messianic prophecies, which pervade the Old Testament (e.g. Gen 3:15; 12:3;18:18; 49:10; Dt 18:15-19; Ps 2:7; 16:10-11; 22:7,16-17;34:20; 35:11,19;69:4; 41:9; 68:18; 69:21; 72:10-11; 118:22-23; 132:11; Is 7:14; 9:1-7; 28:16; 35:1-10; 50:6; 52:13-53:12; 55:3-4; 59:16; 61:1-3; Jer 23:5-6; 31:31-34; 33:15-16; Dan 9:25-26; Joel 2:28-32; Mic 5:2; Zec 9:9; 11:12-13; 13:7; Mal 3:1; Mt 3:11-12). It must therefore be recognized that the Messianic prophecies were a dominant feature of Israel's entire history; not, say, something stuck in as an afterthought by Jesus' supporters.

See: Messianic Prophecies

Multiple witnesses

One example of multiple (synchronic) witnesses is the plethora of prophets before the exile, all preaching the same message: repent or be sent into exile; and all the prophets during exile, preaching of the restoration to come.

Another prime example of multiple witnesses is the set of four distinct gospel accounts, along with letters written by various other eyewitnesses. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most reliably attested historical event up until at least the invention of the printing press — far more reliable than, say, the life of Julius Caesar.

Some will argue that there are apparent inconsistencies between the gospel accounts. For instance, John reports the cleansing of the temple early in Jesus' ministry (Jn 2:14-16), while the other gospel writers place the event near the end of his ministry (Mt 21:12-13; Mk 11:15-17; Lk 19:45-47). Matthew implies that the two Mary's witnessed an angel rolling away the stone from the tomb (Mt 28:1-2); Mark says the stone was rolled away before they got there (Mk 16:4-5); Luke says it was a group of women and two angels (Lk 24:2-4); John mentions only one Mary, and no angel (Jn 20:1).

Far from casting doubt on the reliability of the eyewitness testimony, these discrepancies strengthen it. For, as any cop knows, if two witnesses agree on every detail of an account, they have assuredly rehearsed their testimony. Only if they disagree on minor (or even major) details can they be considered reliable.

We can know with a high degree of certainty that Jesus drove away the merchants from the temple. Perhaps he did it twice. Perhaps he did it once, toward the end of his ministry, and John wasn't concerned about presenting a chronological account. The precise details are unimportant; what matters is that it happened, and why it happened.

Likewise, we can be certain that at least one woman arrived at the tomb and found the massive stone rolled away, and the body of Jesus missing. Perhaps it was two women, and perhaps they witnessed the act of one or two angels rolling the stone away. Perhaps Mary arrived first, and another group of women came by shortly thereafter. The precise details are unimportant; what matters is that it happened, and that we have the testimony of multiple “witnesses” recording it.

I put “witnesses” in quotes here, because evidently none of the four gospel writers were present when the women arrived at the tomb. Three of them presumably heard about it when the women ran back and told the disciples; one (Luke) heard about it later. Their testimony of this particular event is therefore secondhand, and perhaps therefore not admissible in a court of law. But how many historical accounts have you read where the author actually talked with the participants immediately following the event?

Do such discrepancies undermine the doctrine of inerrancy? If we believed what is taught in some pseudo-Christian religions, that God dictated the words to write, or possessed the authors and used them as automatons, then, yes, it would. However, if what we believe is that the Holy Spirit led people to write down what they had witnessed as a testimony for future generations, in the context of their free will and subjective experience, then we can only marvel and be thankful for such a scientifically reliable account.