What is Inerrancy? Part 3

Point: Romanism program that examines the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a biblical perspective viewpoint on Mormonism is sponsored by Mormonism research ministry since 1979 Mormonism research ministry has been dedicated to equipping the body of Christ answers regarding the Christian faith in a manner that expresses gentleness and respect. And now, your host for today's viewpoint on Mormonism. How do we properly explain the doctrine of inerrancy with our Latter Day Saints friends welcome to this addition of viewpoint on Mormonism. I'm your host, Bill McKeever, founder and director Mormonism research ministry with me today is Eric Johnson. My colleague at MRM for the past few days we've been looking at a quotation made by Joseph Smith the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It's found on the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 327 on that page. Joseph Smith is cited as saying I believe the Bible is it red when it came from the pen of the original writers, ignorant translators, careless transcribers or designing and corrupt priest have committed many errors.

Most Latter Day Saints when they read that statement naturally assumed that because Joseph Smith sat our Bible came through the hands of ignorant translators, careless transcribers were designing and corrupt priest, and the fact that his he says there are many errors means they don't need to have the same kind of respect that those of us what we call New Testament Christians have for our Bible.

First of all what Joseph Smith says in the first portion of that citation as we pointed out is really not much different than what Bible scholars have said, we believe the Bible as it red when it came from the pen of the original writers we believe the autographs the handwritten autographs.

The first generation.

You might say of a manuscript is certainly God breathed and that is what we would call in errant as we pointed out this week God gives us no guarantee that a handwritten copy of that manuscript is going to be in errant and we know that down through the years there have been some mistakes there have been some errors as well as variance or differences in the tax that we have today. What we do about that. Does that mean that Latter Day Saints are right that we have no reason to trust our Bible, absolutely not. So what we've been doing is hopefully explaining clearly what the doctrine of inerrancy is as opposed to what it isn't, and in doing so, we have been turning to well respected theologians and scholars before I go on to win grid and that we were talking about yesterday. I want to restate John MacArthur, Christian pastor and three senses. I think he summarizes inerrancy as well as can be done. This is in his book local doctrine, page 109 inerrancy means literally without air when applied to Scripture. It means the Bible is without air in the original copies and as we said yesterday. That's the autographs the originals that were written by the apostles and prophets. It is therefore free. When properly interpreted from affirming anything that is untrue and contrary to fact and I want to point out when he says, properly interpreted first for us in the English language we have to have a good translation to be able to make a proper interpretation but you have Both of those together so that you can understand what God's mind is so that we can believe what he wants us to believe and we can act the way he wants us to act literally put that in a context dealing with the subject of Mormonism.

Another words what I'm hearing you say Eric is that even though we have a correct transmission of let's say first Corinthians 15, a Mormon, has that same transmitted text. The problem arises when the Mormon interprets first Corinthians 15 let's say on the subject of baptism for the dead.

Verse 29 and draws a conclusion based on that which is entirely erroneous and not even close to what we assume Paul meant when he penned those words.

Therefore, the doctrine of baptism for the dead is understood by Latter Day Saints. Certainly cannot be in errant it is in error.

It's wrong.

It's an understanding of the text that Paul never implied at all.

It's reading into the text. Something that we would call ISA Jesus as opposed to taking something out of the text which is exegesis, so we have to have an accurate rendering of the original text, and then we have to be able to understand what the original author meant when he wrote that to his original audience to be able then to interpret it properly and then to be able to make a proper application for the 21st century is pretty simple. So what we're going to do is were going to look at what Wayne Gruden says in his systematic theology because he's going to further explain the meaning of this word inerrancy and he's also going to try and answer the question regarding those copies that may be questionable may have errors in them see a Mormon is quick to throw everything out an agnostic is usually quick to throw everything out an atheist does the same thing, but why is it we should not do that Gruden was going to explain what he writes in his book, systematic theology, and introduction the biblical doctrine and the righteous. On page 96 and I recommend this volume.

If you're interested in a systematic theology book. It's over thousand pages but it's a great resource for the different doctrines that Christianity teaches. This is what Gruden writes it has rather brought us extremely close to the content of these original manuscripts. For most practical purposes than the current published scholarly text of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are the same as the original manuscripts.

Thus, when we say that the original manuscripts were in errant we are also implying that over 99% of the words in our present manuscripts are also in errant, for they are the exact copies of the originals and he goes on and says furthermore we know where the uncertain readings are for where there are no textual variants. We have no reason to expect faulty copying of the original. Thus, our present manuscripts are for most purposes, the same as the original manuscripts and the doctrine of inerrancy therefore directly concerns are present manuscripts as well. So what he saying Bill is what we have in the Bible is that we have in the English version, we have the English standard version, new international version. King James are many different English versions. But when they have the ideas that the original authors wrote down 2000+ years ago. Then we can say that that is the same. In a sense, they are also in errant when we are using 99%. Now the variance of 1%. We can talk about that later. I and what we do with that.

But this is what he goes on concludes this section he says it's extremely important to affirm the inerrancy of the original documents the autographs for the subsequent copies were made by men with no claim or guarantee by God that these copies will be perfect, but the original manuscripts are those to which the claims to be God's very words apply. Thus, if we have mistakes in the copies as we do, then these are only the mistakes of men. But if we have mistakes in the original manuscripts and we are forced to say not only that, men made mistakes the deck but that God himself made a mistake and spoke falsely. This we cannot do when you use the phrase the mistakes of men naturally. What comes to mind, will, if you're familiar with the title page of the book of Mormon and I might mention that Joseph Smith himself in the times and seasons, volume 3, page 943. He said that the title page was a literal translation from the gold plate so you can't dismiss this but here's what it says. Towards the end of that title page in the book of Mormon. And now, if there are faults. They are the mistakes of men interesting. I doubt if Wayne Gruden knows about this because Wayne Gruden doesn't study Mormonism and he probably has never read this title page, but yet he uses the same phrase we can see without any problem that some errors could creep into the various manuscripts and handed down to our day. But at the same time we can also feel confident that we can know where the mistakes are. That's why as evangelicals we will throughout the whole Bible just because some errors could have crept into the manuscripts that doesn't bother us because we know how to find them, and because the latter-day St. doesn't know that I can see why it would be very easy for them to say well I'm not going to have anything to do with the Bible. Once they find out that Joseph Smith was in fact a fraud and that happens far too many times earlier in the week. You talked about how scholars are not the ones who usually are citing article 8 in the articles of faith and article 8 says that the Bible is true as far as is translated correctly. You don't hear scholars usually talking in that kind of a way impact often times the scholars are saying that we have lots of evidence is were going to say as evangelical Christians of the historicity and the accuracy of the Bible as it was originally written. I want to give you two quotes Bill from two different Latter Day Saints. One is from a Donald W.

Perry and article that he wrote in the insight magazine December 2014, page 61. We should mention double Perry professor at BYU Brigham Young University and he wrote an article called the Dead Sea Scrolls window to the modern Bible.

He said when we consider the ancient methods of transmitting tax by hand, we realize that the Bible went through a remarkable process to make it into this century, the Dead Sea Scrolls stand as a witness that the Old Testament has been passed down through the centuries with a respectable degree of accuracy, but we talked on this program before about the Dead Sea Scrolls that were first discovered K-1 in 1947 and over the next few years. They found a total of 11 caves close to a thousand biblical manuscripts, all but one Old Testament book was included there and what that helped us to understand is the accuracy of the Old Testament that before I thousand years later, around 900 A.D. the Masoretic taxes we had. We didn't have anything before that.

In this we have for instance an entire book of Isaiah called the great scroll of Isaiah dated about the second century BC, so I thousand years before, and they found how accurate this was of the book of Isaiah. So according to Donald Perry. The Old Testament can be ascertained through something like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Let me just interject something.

Eric those scrolls that we have what is the latest possible date. Any of those scrolls could have been would've been no later than 6880. How does this corrupt church that we hear Mormons talk about how is it corrupting these texts when they are written before of this alleged church even got started. You see there's a lot of problems that start springing up for the latter-day St. defense for why they don't want to believe our Bible one other quote. This is from BYU professor Lloyd Anderson that he gave on the archaeology of the Scriptures. This is what he says in part for a book to undergo progressive uncovering of its manuscript history and come out with so little debatable in this text is a great tribute to its essential authenticity. Talking with the New Testament.

Personal manuscript discovery has produced serious differences in the essential story.

This survey has disclosed the leading textual controversies and together they would be well within 1% of the text. Stated differently, all manuscripts agree on the essential correctness of 99% of all the verses in the New Testament. That's exactly what Wingert them said thank you for listening. If you would like more information regarding this research ministry. We encourage you to visit our website www.mrm.org you can request a free newsletter Mormonism research. We hope you join us again as we look at another viewpoint is beginning on Saturday, March 6 Utah lighthouse bookstore will be reopening on Saturdays. If you're in the downtown Salt Lake City area. Be sure to stop by to say hello to either Bill McKeever for Eric Johnson will be there from 1 to 5 PM.

Now once again the bookstore is located just west of Smith ballpark at 1358 S. on W. Temple St. in Salt Lake City. That's on Saturdays 4:59 PM Bill or Eric will be there. And of course they look forward to seeing you