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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
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October 7, 2025 at 12:50pm October 7, 2025 at 12:50pm
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Prompt for October 5, 2025: Do you believe the Bible is 100% truth? Why or why not?
At the risk of getting all philosophical, I think it's important to define what is meant by the word "truth" in this case, because there are a couple of different ways to interpret the Bible. I've mentioned this in prior blog posts, but there are two broad interpretations of the Bible that are most widely accepted:
Biblical inerrancy is the school of thought that everything in the Bible is true, accurate, and without error. It's often associated with advocacy for the factual precision or literalism of the text in most respects.
Biblical infallibility is the school of thought that the Bible is true in its purpose (i.e., to provide guidance in faith and life, and to tell the story of God and His people), even if some of the specifics — such as historical or scientific information — are not entirely accurate.
For example, let's take a look at the very opening verses of the Bible:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
— Genesis 1:1-5 (NIV)
According to an inerrant view of the Bible, one might look at that text and say, "The Bible very clearly states what God created on the first day. On the first day, out of nothing, God created the heavens and earth, and day and night. Therefore, since there are 24 hours in the day, the Biblical truth is that God created the heavens and the earth, and day and night in 24 hours."
According to an infallible view of the Bible, one might look at that text and say, "Well, the Bible very clearly states what God created on the first and second day. But does the Bible say a day is exactly 24 hours? Actually, in Psalm 90:4, it says, 'a thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night' ... and in 2 Peter 3:8 it says, 'but do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day'. Based on that it seems pretty clear that God exists outside of the construct of linear time, so what if "the first day" where God created the heavens and the earth was actually a thousand of our linear years? Or even a billion? At the end of the day, the exact length of chronological time it took isn't the important detail here; the Biblical truth is that, however long it may have taken in human years, God created the heavens and earth, day and night."
Ultimately, I suppose I land more on the infallible side of things where Biblical interpretation is concerned. The Bible is, after all, the story of God and His people, and in most cases, we don't look to other storybooks to form our understanding of scientific facts and historical accuracy. We wouldn't read Frankenstein or The Island of Doctor Moreau for their scientific truths, and I'm not sure we should be reading the Bible that way either.
That said, I do believe that the Bible is the divinely-inspired word of God, and I believe it's incumbent upon all believers to read it and use it to inform how they live their lives. I just happen to believe there has to be some synthesis there, because there are inconsistencies in the Bible. If you're reading the Bible from an inerrant perspective, there are quite a few contradictions that are difficult to explain. If you're reading the Bible from an infallible perspective, it's a little easier to square some of those circles and realize that religion and science (or religion and history) are not necessarily fundamentally at odds with one another.
Take the Genesis example from above. If you interpret the days of creation from Genesis, and all other dates relayed in the Bible, as literal, chronological truth, the earth is only about 6,000 years old and that is difficult to reconcile with things like the scientific study of evolution, paleontology, etc. With the inherent timeline contradiction, one or the other has to be discounted. But if you interpret the days of creation from Genesis as potentially being billions of years, you start to see how both the Biblical truth and scientific truth can simultaneously both be accurate.
Now, none of this is to say that you should assume that the entire Bible is open to interpretation and should be warped to fit your own tastes and preferences; that's just as bad as prooftexting (i.e., the practice of taking specific verses out of context to reinforce a preconception). But the challenge I think Christians are tasked with is to take the Bible and interpret how it applies to their own context, whatever that may be. Where we tend to run into trouble as Christians is when we try to inflexibly assume that a book that was written literally thousands of years ago is the final word on not just matters of faith, but also on matters of science, history, medicine, politics, etc. as well.
To me, the Bible is a lot like the United States Constitution. I don't have an "originalist" mentality, where nothing can be changed or deviated from or expanded upon from what was first put down on paper or the "intentions" of the people that wrote those words. I think that the world has evolved a lot since that time and, as a result, it requires a lot of study, intentionality, and humility to figure out how to interpret the infallible truths of the past and reconcile them with our very different present-day world.
On a personal note, having read the Bible multiple times at this point, the one thing that keeps jumping out at me over and over again as a recurring theme is that we are tasked with loving God and loving each others above all else. So my "pro tip" on reading and interpreting the Bible is to start with that as an absolute baseline. If your interpretation of the Bible is leading you away from either of those things, that's probably a red flag.
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