Is the Bible Perfect?

This Sunday essay is the result of conversations with Christian friends who live in a predominantly Muslim community.  In that community, a common Muslim apologetic is:

1. The Quran is perfect, without error, across thousands of copies & hundreds of years.
2. The Christian Bible is imperfect, with lots of flaws and errors in its tranmission.

The Muslim then concludes that Islam is correct and Christianity is not.

For many Muslims, without much experience in conversations with Christians, these claims are convincing. Both claims are often backed up with copious notes and references, so that the Muslim feels comfortable in their claim that their scripture trumps Christian scripture.

For example, here is a Muslim apologetic on the Quran (from an Ahmadiyya perspective.)  But there are significant issues with that first claim, that the Quran is perfectly preserved. (The Quran is not perfectly preserved! -- see the details in the pdf file here.; another response is here.) 

However, I want to focus on the second claim, above.  That second claim is often phrased, in the Muslim apologetic, as follows:

Christians believe that their Scripture, the Bible, is perfect. 

But Christians are not aware of the many flaws and errors in their Scripture.

This is sometimes communicated with a "gotcha!" list of discrepancies between the Old Testament Masoretic Text (MT) and the Septuagint (LXX). Most of these discrepancies are quite minor. One of the most famous discrepancy occurs in the Old Testament story of David and Goliath.  (That disagreement, along with a possible explanation for it, are given here.) As we work through the books of I & II Samuel, we will find other examples appearing in the Scroll of Samuel in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Before I confront the Muslim argument that Christians naively believe their scripture is "perfect" in transmission, I want to describe the underlying "straw man" fallacy of this debate.

A Straw Man

The second argument, that Christians believe the Bible is "perfect" in transmission yet it clearly is not, is an example of a straw man argument and demonstrates an important difference between the Muslim and Christian views of their sacred texts.

A straw man argument is a logical fallacy in which one wins one's point by attributing to their opponent a ridiculous claim and then easily knocking that claim down, as if it were a man of straw. (See this Wikipedia page on this logical fallacy.) An example, in a religious setting, might be

"The Bible says the world is flat.

The world is obviously not flat.

So the Bible is wrong."

A straw man argument often assigns to one's opponent a statement that they would in fact deny.  Another example:

"Muslims are terrorists.

Terrorists should not be in our country.

Therefore Muslims should not be in our country."

In both examples, the straw man argument is set up with a simplistic first statement. Yes, there are a few (even today) who believe that the Bible teaches a flat earth. Yes, there are a few Muslims who are terrorists. But the first lines of these centered arguments are misleading and deceptive.

In conversations involving an apologetic for Christianity, 

one must be alert for these Straw Man arguments!

The Islamic argument, "Christians believe that their Scripture, the Bible, is perfect", is, in fact, a straw man.  This straw man argument is set up by the very different views of scripture between Islam and Christianity.

Differing Views of Scripture

The Islamic view of the Quran is that it was dictated orally to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel across a period of more than twenty years. The dictation is in Arabic and is the literal "Word of God."  It is perfect and unchangeable. This belief gives Muslims significant incentive to learn Arabic and to recite the Quran in Arabic.

Christians believe that the Bible was "inspired by the Holy Spirit", acting through various human writers over centuries.  (The paragraph in 2 Peter 1: 20-21 is one of a number of passages cited to support this view.)  The Scriptures were not dictated, but used human thought and languages (different languages over different times) and this is evident from reading the Bible text.  

The human element is important to emphasize. My favorite passage that demonstrates this human element is I Corinthians 1: 14-17.  In that passage, the apostle Paul confronts a certain rivalry within the church in Corinth, divisions caused by disputes as to who was the best leader. Some new believers in Corinth were proud to have been baptized by Apollos, others by Peter, and so on.  Into that dispute, Paul claims

"I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius..." (verse 14)

Is this a correct statement?  NO, for Paul immediately corrects it!

"(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; 

beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.)"

We read an "oops" in Paul's first claim, "Oh wait, I forgot -- I also baptized the household of Stephanas.  And maybe some others."  

So verse 14 is false! This is not a problem -- unless one believes that this letter of Paul was dictated by an angel. Instead, it was written by a very human person who sometimes forgot things. Paul goes on to say, 

"For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel..."

This is the point of the passage in 1 Corinthians. Indeed, Paul's very forgetfulness emphasizes his message! He does not even remember whom he baptized!

If Christians treat the Bible as magically and perfectly dictated to us, they are using a Muslim view of Scriptures, not a Biblical/Christian one. The Bible, written in Hebrew and Greek (and a little Aramaic) comes to us through the voices of human beings over the centuries.

One can say more.  Muslims believe that the Word of God (the Quran) is perfect and was given to Mohammed.  But for Christians, the Word of God is Messiah Jesus!  (More accurately, the  "word" of God in the Old Testament was God's voice, God's plans and, in the New Testament, this is revealed as Jesus, see John 1: 14, Hebrews 4: 12-13.) If one wishes to compare views on the Word of God between Muslims and Christians, one should compare the Quran with Jesus! 

Muslims believe the Quran is perfect.

Christians believe that Jesus is perfect.

The Muslim believes that Mohammed points them to the perfect Quran.  But the Christian believes that the Bible points them to the perfect Jesus.  

Is the Bible Perfect?

Is the Bible "perfect"?  I suspect a Christian's response to that question would depend on the definition of "perfect".  If one means "dictated correctly by God" then the answer is "No!"

There are, in fact, a variety of differing Christian views of the Bible. Many Christians believe that the Bible is "inerrant" or "infallible". (These are slightly different terms, see this Wikipedia site on inerrancy and this one on infallibility.)  

If a Muslim friend were to say to me, 

"Your Scriptures have textual disputes and transmission errors!" 

and then were to argue that this makes Christianity false, I would not accept this straw man.  I would agree that there are textual disputes and transmission errors and merely shrug. These textual disputes are not a threat to my beliefs. 

If we understand how the Old and New Testaments were communicated to us, we can confront a simplistic straw man argument. (See previous Sunday essays: Transmission of the Old Testament, and The Old Testament Manuscripts.)

Acknowledgement

Thanks to my dear friends who started this conversation!  (You know who you are!) 😁😘