Defining Inerrancy

Affirming a Defensible Faith for a New Generation

By: J. P. Holding, Nick Peters

Narrated by: Philip D. Moore

A frontline of traditionalist Evangelical Christian commentators, like Norman Geisler and David Farnell (coeditors of The Jesus Quest), are promoting a concept of biblical inerrancy that rejects biblical scholarship and fosters an indefensible conception of the Christian faith. In Defining Inerrancy, authors J. P. Holding and Nick Peters lay out the case for a defensible form of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, which respects the social and literary contexts within which the Bible was written.

©2013 James Patrick Holding (P)2015 James Patrick Holding

Authors focus too much on criticism

This book is definitely worth a read if you want a better understanding of the arguments around inerrancy. However, the authors seem to have chips on their shoulders about criticism they have received over their theological positions. The forward starts off very negative in that it focuses almost solely on criticizing the authors' opponents. A lot of the book follows this same tone, focusing more of criticism instead of supporting the authors' viewpoints.

This book is well-written overall but it could have been much better. Much of the book centers on the death of Judas which was very unsatisfying despite adequately demonstrating the differences between the two views. I would have liked to have seen many other supporting examples and questions answered such as "Would God inspire someone to write a conversation that included God that didn't take place?". There was a great opportunity here to cover controversial topics such as the Exodus, the inclusion of legend within historical writings, etc., yet the book feels like one long bitter response to Norman Geisler.

It sounds like this was originally an online PDF and in that context I understand why this feels like more of a rebuttal, but as a "book" titled "Defining Inerrancy", I expect much more depth.

An engaging critique of literalist inerrancy

Using the great debate over in errancy started in 1982 at the evangelical theological society between Geisler and Gundry, the author criticizes Geissler's approach to inerrancy and his popery and elevation of this doctrine in a narrow and damaging way. Every student of inerrancy should listen to this discussion and decide for themselves how much contextualization is legitimate.

Not big on substance.

Most of this book focuses on the bickering between scholars and authors. I was hoping for something I could learn from but after an hour, it was just more criticisms about other authors.