Is Biblical inerrancy an aberration in the history of theology?

Bart Ehrman says yes, and gives a concise set of reasons and evidence for the claim. Chris Hallquist says no, also providing concision, but for a different reason: zero evidence, and hardly any reasons. I have a suspicion that Hallquist did not fully read Ehrman’s piece, and so we may be responding to different items, me to something real, and he to something imaginary. I’ll go through some of his responses.

The omissions are serious: maybe no one said “you must believe in inerrancy to be a Christian” before 1870, but clearly the doctrine was important to Christianity before then. Both Augustine and Aquinas believed it (see especially the quote from Augustine in article 5 objection 2).

Hallquist undermines the point all by himself, since Augustine and Aquinas finding “importance” in related ideas does not in any way contradict Ehrman’s claims. Since he is attempting to be within the mainstream of scholarship, Ehrman can be taken to be going along with the view that the early church was multifaceted in its doctrinal views. William Abraham traces this development in his Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology. For the early Christians, God’s revelation was “polymorphous,” and there was no one canonized epistemology. The point, and Ehrman’s point, is that there was no such thing as propositional belief in “inerrancy” being essential for Christian faith. Who cares if Hallquist finds random people who believe it? (Random people, mind you, who are within the time frame Ehrman give for when the New Testament itself became canonized). Moving on.

Also, the fundamentalists of 1870 had understandable motives for wanting to re-emphasize inerrancy: the liberal theologians they were reacting to weren’t just questioning inerrancy, they were questioning other things in the Nicene creed. The purpose of making inerrancy central was to draw a line in the sand, to refuse to cede an inch to the liberals, lest more important doctrines get thrown out along with inerrancy.

Great, so Hallquist supports the fundamentalists of 1870 in their push for canonizing a particular view of theological epistemology. His personal preferences matter even less than the first point. What does it matter that the fundamentalists had pragmatic fears? Worse reasoning still:

For Ehrman to align himself with both liberal theologians and the Nicene creed is disingenuous, and makes his claim that “biblical scholarship will not destroy Christianity” ring false.

Hallquist thinks that some alleged immorality on Ehrman’s part (disingenuousness) somehow makes false a perfectly mainstream historical claim. Weird!

There’s also a serious misrepresentation of what fundamentalists believe when Ehrman jumps from the slogan “believe in the Bible” to making it “an object of faith,” in place of Jesus. When fundamentalists talk of believing in the Bible, they’re using it as short-hand for believing that the Bible is inerrant, not making it an object of faith. To claim otherwise is just a cheap shot.

Hallquist is somewhat safe here, because he provides no evidence for what fundamentalists think (Ehrman of course does provide such evidence). So probably Hallquist could find some random Christians who fit his description. Regardless, the point about using the term “believe in the Bible” is that this is what Fundamentalists are really doing. After all, they are attributing epistemological supremacy and declaring doctrinal allegiance to a text, the kind of postures normally reserved for gods, priests, Noam Chomsky, and economists. Namely, people. Perhaps Hallquist would like to explain how it is that the Reformation period saw people being martyred for sola scriptura. Maybe Hallquist will tell us that they were really “just saying” something about scriptural inerrancy.

Given everything wrong with fundamentalism, it’s unnecessary to make stuff up in order to criticize it.

But Ehrman is not making stuff up; he’s showing how other people made stuff up. Unlike Hallquist, he provided evidence.