Explaining Biblical Inerrancy

The Chicago Statements on Biblical Inerrancy, Hermeneutics, and Application with Official ICBI Commentary

By R.C. Sproul

2014

First Published

4.37

Average Rating

174

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5H18M

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From its inception in the 1730s, the evangelical movement was underpinned by the conviction that the Bible was the inspired, infallible, and inerrant word of God. The evangelical seminaries and societies that sprang up in the 1930-1940s as a response to the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy and to the abandonment of orthodoxy in the mainline Protestant divinity schools started off as bastions of that same conviction. But it became clear in the 1970s that more humanistic notions were beginning to become endemic there too. Seminarians were learning that the Bible was ultimately more human than divine, contained errors of fact and logic, and needed to be interpreted in new ways. Seeing how these innovations would undermine and erode the foundations of their Bible-based faith, more than 300 scholars and leaders arose to meet the challenge with a scholarly, conservative, and pan-denominational response. This International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) worked to clarify the proper ways “handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15) and to educate evangelicals about its importance. As a result, the revolutionaries retreated for the remainder of the 20th-century. Explaining Biblical Inerrancy is a collection of the three primary and two secondary documents of the ICBI corpus. It offers a witness to a historic era where conservative evangelical scholarship may have approached its zenith, delayed its twilight, and contributed to the fourth Great Awakening. This repository of 20th century wisdom should provide a valuable and timeless resource for 21st century evangelicals who stand at the cross-roads of conservation and contextualization, tradition and trends, preservation and progress, retention and revolution.

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Author

R.C. Sproul

Author · 152 books

Dr. R.C. Sproul (1939–2017) was founder of Ligonier Ministries, an international Christian discipleship organization located near Orlando, Fla. He was founding pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla., first president of Reformation Bible College, and executive editor of Tabletalk magazine. Ligonier Ministries began in 1971 as the Ligonier Valley Study Center in Ligonier, Pa. In an effort to respond more effectively to the growing demand for Dr. Sproul’s teachings and the ministry’s other educational resources, the general offices were moved to Orlando in 1984, and the ministry was renamed. Dr. Sproul’s radio program, Renewing Your Mind, is still broadcast daily on hundreds of radio stations around the world and can also be heard online. Dr. Sproul produced hundreds of lecture series and recorded numerous video series on subjects such as the history of philosophy, theology, Bible study, apologetics, and Christian living. He contributed dozens of articles to national evangelical publications, spoke at conferences, churches, and academic institutions around the world, and wrote more than one hundred books, including The Holiness of God, Chosen by God, and Everyone’s a Theologian. He signed the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and wrote a commentary on that document. He also served as general editor of the Reformation Study Bible, previously known as the New Geneva Study Bible. Dr. Sproul had a distinguished academic teaching career at various colleges and seminaries, including Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando and Jackson, Miss. He was ordained as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.