The Inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures:
Appendix and Links

by Rev. Sterling Durgy

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IV. Appendix

Past issues of the Evangelical Theological Society's journal "JETS" are currently posted at the Bible Studies Foundation web site in addition to those materials posted at the ETS site. The Evangelical Theological Society was founded in 1949 to foster conservative scholarship on Biblical and theological issues with the statement:

"The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written, and is therefore inerrant in the autographs."

Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi is an Wesleyan institution of higher learning that maintains a strong belief in the inerrancy and full authority of the Holy Scriptures. Their statement of faith reads:

"We hold the following: 1. The supreme authority of the Word of God which stands written in the sixty-six books of the Holy Bible, all therein being divinely inspired by Almighty God and therefore without error or defect in the autographs. Believing the Bible to be the Word of God written, the only infallible rule of faith and practice, Wesley Biblical Seminary asserts the authority of Scripture alone over the life of the Church and its individual members. We therefore believe that a reverent and loyal approach to the study of the Bible recognizes and affirms its full inspiration and its absolute trustworthiness as the divinely revealed and authoritative Word of God."
"Of the Holy Scriptures" from A Brief Statement of the Doctrinal Position of the Missouri Synod, Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, N.D.) [Adopted 1932], put in plain ASCII text for Project Wittenberg by Rev. Robert E. Smith, Walther Library, Concordia Theological Seminary reads:
"1. We teach that the Holy Scriptures differ from all other books in the world in that they are the Word of God. They are the Word of God because the holy men of God who wrote the Scriptures wrote only that which the Holy Ghost communicated to them by inspiration, 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21. We teach also that the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures is not a so-called "theological deduction," but that it is taught by direct statements of the Scriptures, 2 Tim. 3:16, John 10:35, Rom. 3:2; 1 Cor. 2:13. Since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, it goes without saying that they contain no errors or contradictions, but that they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth, also in those parts which treat of historical, geographical, and other secular matters, John 10:35.

"2. We furthermore teach regarding the Holy Scriptures that they are given by God to the Christian Church for the foundation of faith, Eph. 2:20. Hence the Holy Scriptures are the sole source from which all doctrines proclaimed in the Christian Church must be taken and therefore, too, the sole rule and norm by which all teachers and doctrines must be examined and judged. -- With the Confessions of our Church we teach also that the "rule of faith" (analogia fidei) according to which the Holy Scriptures are to be understood are the clear passages of the Scriptures themselves which set forth the individual doctrines. (Apology. Triglot, p. 441, Paragraph 60; Mueller, p. 684). The rule of faith is not the man-made so-called "totality of Scripture" ("Ganzes der Schrift").

"3. We reject the doctrine which under the name of science has gained wide popularity in the Church of our day that Holy Scripture is not in all its parts the Word of God, but in part the Word of God and in part the word of man and hence does, or at least, might contain error. We reject this erroneous doctrine as horrible and blasphemous, since it flatly contradicts Christ and His holy apostles, set up men as judges over the Word of God, and thus overthrows the foundation of the Christian Church and its faith."

V. Related Links

Lutheran writings discussing the Scriptures and inerrancy may be found at Project Wittenberg (available from the Institute for Christian Leadership) and the Lutheran Biblical Inerrancy Conference 1994.

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was made by a number of conservative evangelical scholars. Among the Internet sites where this statement is available are the web site of Mill Creek Community Church and Andrew S. Kulikovsky's web site devoted to Biblical Hermeneutics.

The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy Statements are carried at the site of "Reasons to Believe," which discusses science and the Scriptures.

Links are also provided for items quoted in the Appendix above.


Copyright 1999 Sterling M. Durgy. All Rights Reserved.

The American Night Watch is a trademark of the Christian ministry of Sterling M. Durgy.

Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968,1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Permission is granted to reprint this article as long as the copyright is included, this statement is included, and the article is not sold to the recipients.

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This page was last updated October 22, 1999.