Longman, Genesis, and Inerrancy
I’m not going to make an extended comment here except to note that the point at which I get the most questions about my own interpreation of scripture and the doctrine of inerrancy is Genesis 1-2, possibly extending to Genesis 1-11. The fact is that I can find people who affirm the doctrine of inerrancy to back everything I have said about those chapters.
Besides pointing out that I haven’t done anything very original in this area, it shows that people very often conflate some form of Biblical literalism with Biblical inerrancy. The two are not the same thing. I have discussed this more extensively in my series on Biblical interpretation on my Threads blog, and more specifically regarding Genesis 1-11 on this blog. I would note that some things I say regarding Genesis 4 and later raise more questions, though I would still maintain I could find backing from folks who support Biblical inerrancy.
In any case, there has been a recent uproar over some remarks by Dr. Tremper Longman, and my main point is to link to a discussion of this matter by Jeremy Pierce, which I think is exceptionally clear on a number of key points. One cannot determine whether a document in error before one determines what it intends to convey, and one cannot determine what it intends to convey without knowing what type of literature it is.
Read Jeremy’s entire post for a good exposition.
