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Biblical Errancy: An Analysis of Its Philosophical Roots

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Norman Geisler and Company do another monumental powerful addition to the philosophical investigations involving biblical errancy. This work should be read along side other wonderful works on biblical errancy called Inerrancy, The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority. This work is pretty heavy duty in terms of details and exhaustive analysis on the works and concepts of notable Philosophers that have contributed to multiple views on Biblical Errancy and gives lots of information to keep any honest "lover of wisdom" occupied for days. This work is strictly historical residual accounts of philosophies that are contra-inerrancy and have dominated schools of thought and theology like Liberal Christianity, Deism, Pantheism, Panentheism, Agnosticism, Atheism, and Mysticism for quite some time. This book basically shows the conceptual "fuels" of Higher Criticism on the Bible as being used to see the Bible as an errant text. This book takes major contributions and movements in the History of Philosophy and inter-links them in a chronological manner leading up to Modern Philosophy and it's contributions to views of the Errancy of the Bible.

Here are a few topics which ultimately contributed to the modern distorted view of Biblical Revelation (and all other oral or textual Revelations, for that matter):

Relativism(Cognitive and Moral), Misconception, Assumption of Immutable Induction, Natural Theology and the Uselessness of Revelation, Wittgensteinian Language-Games, Mysticism, Hegel's Absolute Spirit, Limits of Epistemics, Pantheism, Panentheism, Skepticism, Irrationality of Miracles, A. J. Ayer's "Verification Principle", "Contradiction" Searching, Materialism, Nihilism, Anti-Supernaturalism, Segregation of Faith and Reason, Dasein, and so much more.

This book has a general format of presenting the Philosophers, and their philosophies, who contributed to modern conceptions on Revelation. It is as follows:

1.Short Biography of the Philosophers
2.Possible Influences and Turning Points in the Lives of these Philosophers
3.Contributions to Philosophy of Biblical Errancy, their Works, and Impact on Modern Philosophy
4.Rebuttals, Refutations, and Problems with these Philosophers' Conclusions

Here is what lies inside this book (Chapter Titles)
1. Inductivism, Materialism, and Rationalism: Bacon, Hobbes, and Spinoza
By Norman Geisler

2. Skepticism: Hume
By Gary Habermas

3. Agnosticism: Kant
By W. David Beck

4. Transcendentalism: Hegel
By Winfried Corduan

5. Existentialism: Kierkegaard
By E. Herbert Nygren

6. Atheism : Nietzsche
By Terry Miethe

7. Noncognitivism: Wittgenstein
By John Feinberg

8. Mysticism: Heidegger
By Howard Ducharne Jr.

Bravo for Geisler and Company! The presuppositions of biblical errancy are rarely discussed in layman Christian circles or layman non-Christian circles. At least this book does humanity and especially Christianity a great service of documenting the origins of the faulty assumptions people make when claiming or imagining errancy of scripture. Many people subliminally assume errancy without verification from primary source materials. This book deserves a wide audience and Christians would be wise to add this to their libraries as it would help see why some people have such horrible (usually unverified) views of God, biases against and for Revelation, and Inerrancy/Errancy of Scripture. People assume many things when viewing the Bible as Errant or Inerrant - We might as well look at how views on Biblical Errancy have formed and what has allowed for doubt in reliability of revelation to have developed.

Maybe we should doubt the doubts and test to see how far we can claim error and rectitude in any Revelation.

A good list of practical assumptions people take, usually subconsciously when they argue for a "contradiction" in the Bible, can be found in Big Book of Bible Difficulties, The: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation. Other books that deal with supposed contradictions, or textual matters, are New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties and even New Testament Text and Translation Commentary which gives excellent insights from the earliest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament on some issues with errancy. Also for issues with dates and chronology from the Bible look at The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings to get a look at the middle eastern cultural calendars used by the Biblical authors and how dates which seem wrong to us are actually correct when looking at them in their cultural/archaeological contexts.