The starting point for understanding Christianity is the Scriptures. It is the Bible in all 66 books which tells the story that lies at the heart of the faith. The core essential here is that the Bible is the authority for the faith i.e. the authority of Scripture. The Bible is utterly reliable. It is completely trustworthy. It is inspired in that in some way, God oversaw the writing of its words so that through the words of Scripture he reveals himself to humanity. I would die for this notion. Now how we formulate this is worthy of debate. Some argue for inerrancy, in that the Scriptures are utterly flawless in their original autographs according to authorial intent. Fair enough, I agree with this in principle; except that this tells us what the Bible is not and it is difficult to prove either way. It is also hard to formulate an understanding of an inerrant song (a Psalm), an inerrant parable etc. On the other hand, errancy cannot be applied to the Bible, as no 'error' has or...
The blog of Mark Keown, New Testament lecturer at Laidlaw College, Auckland, New Zealand. It involves comments on theology, life, sport and whatever comes into Mark's random mind.