02_iii_0126_chronSummary

Throughout history, there has been a consensus in the Church regarding the inerrancy of Scripture. However, in the 17th century, this belief began to unravel due to the scientific revolution and the rise of theological attacks against the Bible. Biblical criticism emerged during this time, challenging the authority and reliability of Scripture. In the 1800s, historical criticism further undermined the belief in the inspiration of Scripture, leading to doubts about its miraculous aspects. Friedrich Schleiermacher sought to reformulate the doctrine of inspiration, emphasizing personal experience over the authority of Scripture. This shift in perspective led to a subjective interpretation of the Bible and a rejection of its infallibility. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in the 19th century also contributed to doubts about the truthfulness of Scripture, especially in regards to the creation account in Genesis. Higher criticism and the documentary hypothesis further questioned the auth The Notable Consensus that had been held throughout the history of the Church concerning the inerrancy of Scripture began to unravel in the 17th century. European society, and thus Christian society, was in the midst of a scientific revolution which functioned to restructure how many people viewed the world. In 1620, Edward Herbert of Cherbury led the way with his Five Tenets of Deism. English Deism, together with the early development of German Biblical Criticism, was largely a theological attack against the Scripture. Biblical Criticism was introduced to the world during this confusing time. In 1655, as far as inerrancy goes, Isaac la Peyrerie, with his Pre-Adam theory, set off the conflict between theology and science. In 1620, Hugo Grosjean, known for his heretical views on the Trinity, Jesus Christ, and the Atonement, also disbelieved that the entire Bible of all is God's truthful revelation. In 1650, early German Biblical Criticism, so English Deism, together with the early development of German Biblical Criticism, was largely a theological attack against the Scripture. Biblical Criticism was introduced to the world during this confusing time. Anti-Catholic secularists, with the rise of Biblical Criticism, came the rejection of the Roman Catholic claim to being the sole interpreter of Scripture. In 1655, Isaac la Peyrerie, with his Pre-Adam theory, set off the conflict between theology and science. In the 1670s, Erich Spinoza, who relegated some parts of Scripture to an inferior status behind others, also insisted that human reason stood above Scripture as its judge, highly influenced by the philosophy of Rene Descartes, a 1640s guy. Spinoza doubted the reliability of human experience and trusted human reason as the sure guide to what can be known. He thus applied his methodology to the Bible, treating it as any other human book, and eliminated those things that did not fit with his reasoning. He led the way toward a subjective interpretation, as he promoted the right of interpreters to interpret Scripture as they saw fit. In the 1680s, French priest Richard Simon, Spinoza left an infamous legacy behind him and influenced many, including the, quote, father of Biblical Criticism, Richard Simon 1686, Jean Leclercq, he was Geneva, and he said the words versus things, remember, Simon, along with Jean Leclercq, argued about Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. And then way later, in the 1770s, Johann Salomo Semmler, a German theologian and others, engaged in heated debates over the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. All right, 1800. Not until the modern period did the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture experience controversy and attack. Theologians maintained a general anti-supernatural attitude, which led to the dismissal of anything miraculous. Human reason was elevated to the point of ultimate authority standing over Biblical revelation. Some Biblical accounts were treated as myths, and divine inspiration was doubted. Much of this change in direction concerning this doctrine had to do with the advent of historical criticism. The human contribution to the writing of Scripture came into focus while the divine aspect began to fade. Critics insisted on the reality of genuine human error throughout the Bible. In the 1800s, Friedrich Schleiermacher sought to demote the Old Testament in terms of its importance. With the rise of historical criticism came a greater frequency of assaults. Traditional Biblical authorship for certain books was doubted, a division was alleged between the Bible and the Word of God. This is all in the canon. Fr. Friedrich Schleiermacher was a pivotal figure in the modern era of Protestant thought. He sought to completely reformulate the doctrine of inspiration. Reading one's faith and one's personal experience of Jesus Christ, a person's faith, according to Schleiermacher, by no means was dependent on a truthful and inspired Bible. Inspiration was said to belong to all Christians, and especially to the Apostles throughout the extent of their ministries. The doctrine of inspiration was rejected as the foundation for the Christian faith. Man's faith must rest on the historic manifestation of God in Christ rather than the Bible as an infallible book. It was believed that there was no qualitative difference between the Holy Spirit's inspiration of the Biblical writers and His inspiration of ordinary believers. The Bible was said to have differing degrees of inspiration, but it did not reach the extent of absolute infallibility. What was left of the historic doctrine of inspiration was not an inspiration of the Biblical writings themselves, but rather an inspiration of the Biblical writers. Not the writings, but the writers. This was a far cry from what had been taught historically. As far as the authority, he proposed that the authority of Scripture cannot be foundational to faith in Christ. Rather, faith in Christ must be presupposed before any authority can be given to Scripture. His subjective experiential perspective thus reversed the historical order of Scripture as leading to salvation. After Friedrich Schleiermacher, higher Biblical criticism, in terms of clarity, served to remove the individual's ability to interpret the Bible for himself, leaving the layman to doubt his ability to understand anything. In terms of interpretation, this is the evolutionary perspective. Biblical criticism began to shake people's confidence in the truthfulness and authority of Scripture during the modern age. Along with this came a shift in interpretive methods. For many, the Bible became just like any other book, and so its interpretation should be approached like any other book. An evolutionary perspective led interpreters to deny certain aspects of Scripture that seemed antiquated and barbaric. In 1830, while Charles Hodge used this approach, he also insisted on the important role of the Holy Spirit in theology. So he had a scientific perspective, probably not evolutionary. Charles Hodge, 1859, so 1860s, Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, was published in 1859 and had a profound influence on undermining people's confidence in the truthfulness of Scripture, especially as it pertained to the creation account in the Book of Genesis. 1870s, these two stories are at SBTS, there's kind of a dispute there. John Brodus, according to John Brodus, if one accepts Darwin's theory and thus rejects the historical creation account in Genesis, then he would have no problem rejecting the rest of Scripture as true. And then in the 1880s, Crawford Toye, so an example of this development came when Crawford Toye, a professor of Old Testament at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, being influenced by a higher criticism of the Bible and Darwinian's evolutionary theory, rejected the historical creation account of Genesis in light of modern science. And then in 1880, Abraham Kuyper argued that if Christians were to call Jesus Lord, then they must accept his view of the authority of Scripture. And in 1880, Julius Wellhausen, a German scholar, another development known as the documentary hypothesis, Julius Wellhausen in 1880, proposed that the Pentateuch is a collection of selections from a number of written documents written by a number of different authors and composed in a number of different places over about five centuries' time. This hypothesis rejected any possibility of mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. In 1890, on the Protestant side of the matter, Boswell Manley, Jr. affirmed both the divine and human authorship of the Bible. In 1915, B. B. Warfield offered the most formidable defense of the historic doctrine, claiming that there was a reason that the Church has always held to the doctrine, because it was the same position held by the writers of the New Testament and even Jesus himself, that is, it was the Bible's doctrine before it was the Church's doctrine, and it is Church doctrine only because it is Bible doctrine. Warfield offered the term confluence to describe divine-human cooperation that took place in producing the Scriptures. So in 1940, Emil Brunner exchanged the authority of Scripture with the authority of Christ, claiming that Christians believe in Christ not because of the Scriptures, but they believe in the Scriptures insofar as they teach Christ. Brunner's position did not grant authority to Scripture, but upon a subjective encounter with Christ in them. And then interpretation in the 1900s, liberal Protestants concentrated on the historical critical method to aid them in their interpretation of Scripture. Such interpreters focused on the JADP theory in the Old Testament and new critical approaches such as the source, form, and reduction criticism in the New Testament that probably was prior to the 1960s. All right, then, the 1960s, here we go, Karl Barth. Karl Barth, in terms of authority, continued this instrumental approach to biblical authority, going back to Emil Brunner, teaching that rather than viewing Christ as the Word of God, it should be understood to become the Word of God, as God chooses to freely reveal himself to people through the Bible. Authority thus became associated with the function of the Bible. And so he continued, in terms of inspiration, the conversation by reformulating it all together. He maintained that the Bible is a witness to revelation, and that it becomes the Word of God. Thus he made a distinction between the Bible and the Word of God. The Bible is not revelation in itself, but God can choose to reveal himself to people through the Bible as it becomes the Word of God. God uses the errant Bible to communicate to people as he chooses to reveal himself. All right, and then at the same time in the 1960s, evangelicals such as J.F. Packer responded in defense of the traditional understanding of the doctrine. He argued that by trusting in the biblical criticism methods, they had elevated reason to an authority along Scripture. In the 1960s as well, Martin Lloyd-Jones proposed that the authority of Scripture is not a matter of argument, but one of faith. Though critical methods are of value in the end, man must submit himself to the authority of Scripture as a result of the internal witness of the Spirit. In the 1960s as well, the canon of historical criticism drove many to deny any divine superintendence in the canonization of the Bible, suggesting that it was a work entirely carried out by man. Standing against the onslaught of attacks, evangelicals contended for a traditional view of canonicity. Others set out on the defensive, seeking to undermine and destroy the historical critical method altogether. That doesn't seem like a debunked statement. In 1965, the Roman Catholic Church condemned critics who rejected the historical doctrine of inspiration, claiming that inspiration is essentially incompatible with error. In terms of inspiration, others have sought to make a distinction between the words infallible and inerrant, adopting the former rather than the latter as the proper description of Scripture. In the 1960s, Fuller's rejection of inerrancy, others moved away from the historical position on biblical inerrancy by resorting to a different approach. These men sought to draw a distinction between the terms inerrancy and infallibility. The previous description of inspiration was on inerrancy. Rejecting inerrancy, which studies the historic position of the Church, theologians adopted the term infallibility, which only required men to believe that the Bible makes no false or misleading statements on any matter of faith and practice. The most notable occurrence of this shift came in Fuller Theological Seminary's espousal of the language of infallibility. In the modern era, the expansion of the Protestant missionary endeavor has been accompanied by Scripture being made available in the languages of numerous people groups. This venture was rooted in the conviction of Scripture's clarity. It would be interesting to see if this started as a bookless stuff in the history of that interpretation or translation. In the 1960s, the science of hermeneutics, two main trends, to some degree undermined the doctrine of interpretation or the clarity of Scripture. The science of hermeneutics handled the interpretation of the Bible as though it was nothing more than a piece of literature. The 1970s and following. So in the 1970s, maybe? I'm not sure who this is, but in terms of inspiration, despite these worries and defenses for the Church's historical position of the inspiration of Scripture, critics continued to allege their escalating attacks on the doctrine. Some have suggested that it has not been the historical doctrine of the Church. It is argued that rather it was introduced in the 17th century by theologian Francis Turiton. I don't know who he was talking about. In terms of interpretation in the 1980s, literary criticism became another challenge for the evangelical position. The overall meaning of the text was called into question and authorial intent was considered by some to be meaningless. This should go back to the 1960s in terms of inspiration. So here we go. 1978. The inspiration. The evangelical consensus was finally expressed in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which upheld verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture and rejected the mechanical dictation theory and affirmed Scripture's inerrancy. This document would become the standard and common expression of evangelicalism's doctrine of inspiration. So CSBI, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. In response to opposition, contemporary evangelicalism continues to argue for the classical formulation of biblical authority and has presented its position in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Here Protestants affirm the divine authority of Scripture and reject functional interpretations of biblical authority. They argued for the historical doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture and the clarity is dealt with in 1982. The Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics. In the 1980s, evangelicals rejected the subjective approach to interpretation and some defended a more scientific approach to interpretation, suggesting that God's people should use the scientific method to interpret biblical truth. In 1982, John Woodbridge. So in the 1960s, he left Fuller during that whole time. In 1982, he launched a formidable evangelicalist, John Woodbridge, response seeking to demonstrate their misinterpretation of the historical figures of the Church and proved instead that the historical figures affirmed the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. Interpretation of Scripture. So in 1982, key evangelical leaders responded in the Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics by affirming that the meaning of Scripture is singular, definite, and fixed. And furthermore, they proposed that one meaning could engender multiple applications. In 1990, Millard Erickson proposed a proper understanding of the relationship between the Word of God and the Spirit of God. According to Millard Erickson, it must be viewed in terms of the objective basis of the authority of the written Word and the subjective dimension of the inward illuminating and persuading work of the Holy Spirit. And then, continuing on the authority of Scripture, in the 1990s, Stanley Grins, influenced heavily by neo-Orthodox theology, understood Scripture to possess only an instrumental authority. He granted Scripture a secondary role, making the Bible a servant to divine revelation and the Spirit. Then in the present day, in 2000, in response to the critical method, Alistair McGrath, argued for a mediating position between two extremes. He pointed out that evangelicals tend to respond to critical methods in one of two ways. They abandon their faith altogether or they resort to fundamentalism. He suggested, rather, that evangelicals should welcome critical methods while denying that they would do away with biblical authority. Interesting to see Alistair McGrath versus Diakos inerrancy at present. So, Paul Feinberg has continued in this evangelical stance for the inerrancy of Scripture and has formulated a definition on the doctrine that has become the standard view of conservative evangelicals in the 21st century. Inerrancy means that when all the facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, and life sciences. In terms of clarity, evangelical scholars such as Kevin Ben-Husser and Greg Allison have devoted serious study to the matter. In terms of interpretation, divergence of opinion continues to exist in the evangelical world of interpretation. Such evangelicals as S. Lewis Johnson, J.I. Packer, and Elliot Johnson, and Douglas New have pointed out the dual authorship of the Bible, human and divine, and have promoted a census-plenier or fuller-sense understanding of Scripture.