The absurdity of inerrancy

Today, I bring you a short fisking of Lee Strobel's interview with Norman Geisler, a leading "scholarly" defender of inerrancy. (I've about other aspects of this interview in Why I Fight.)

Part of the defense of inerrancy involves claims of the Bible's amazing reliability in historical matters. But is it so reliable? Here's Geisler talking about contradictions:

I've made a hobby of collecting alleged discrepancies, inaccuracies, and conflicting statements in the Bible. I have a list of about eight hundred of them… All I can tell you is that in my experience when critics raise these objections, they invariably violate one of seventeen principles for interpreting scripture. For example, assuming the unexplained is unexplainable.

Now, there is some truth to the statement that the unexplained is not necessarily unexplainable, though I doubt Geisler would be willing to apply the principle to the search for naturalistic explanations for the Bible's miracles. However, it makes me wonder if there's any possible situation where Geisler would admit a genuine contradiction.

Looking at the rest of his rules, my guess is probably not. Among them is the rule that the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy only applies to the original manuscripts of the Bible, not what we have now. This principle allows him to simply allege that the passage in question was miscopied when faced with a really damning contradiction, such as the question of at what age Jehoiachin began his rule in II Kings 24:8 and II Chronicles 36:9. I do not know of any instances where this strategy is employed in the New Testament, but it demonstrates the willingness of Geisler and his ilk to use any rationalization, no matter how ad hoc, to defend the accuracy of the Bible.

I'm sure some sharp critic could say to me, 'What about this issue?' and even though I've done a forty-year study of these things, I wouldn't be able to answer him. What does that prove, though – that the Bible has errors or that Geisler is ignorant? I'd give the benefit of the doubt to the Bible, because of the eight hundred allegations I've studied, I haven't found one single error in the Bible, but I've found a lot of errors by critics.

At this point, the only serious question ceases to be historical and becomes a matter of psychology, specifically the widespread human ability to hold onto any belief, no matter how irrational. The only reason Geisler has yet to find an error in the Bible is because methodology ensures no error can possibly be found. The main reason he finds lots of errors by critics is that by Geisler's methodology, "he's made a mistake" is a forgone conclusion the moment someone doubts the inerrancy of the Bible.

Even if Geisler can use such a methodogy to keep open a logical possiblity of the Bible's inerrancy, it destroys any argument that we should trust it for historical reasons. The argument goes from "there's lots of confirmation for the Bible's historicity" to "if you try really hard, you can rationalize away all apparent disconfirmations, and even if you can't, you can do well enough to persuade yourself that other problems might be resolved somehow." This is true of lots of books, including works of fiction. It lends no support to the Bible's historical reliability.