When looking at the story found in Genesis 1 and in the story found in Genesis 2&3 in relation to inerrancy, we can look at how the stories are viewed by theologians.
In the Pastoral Letter of Bishop Sims he said:
quote:
In Genesis there is not one creation statement but two. They agree as to why and who, but are quite different as to how and when. The statements are set forth in tandem, chapter one of Genesis using one description of method and chapter two another. According to the first, humanity was created, male and female, after the creation of plants and animals. According to the second, man was created first, then the trees, the animals and finally the woman and not from the earth as in the first account, but from the rib of the man. Textual research shows that these two accounts are from two distinct eras, the first later in history, the second earlier.
There is also the two entirely different gods described in the two stories as pointed out above.
These differences should force the reader to look and see if those differences do create questions about whether the Bible can be inerrant, or "under what definition of inerrant" could they fit?
Well it is obvious that neither can be taken as literal or factually true. If one is literal and factual, then the other must be false. When you also consider that both are factually incorrect, that neither describes creation that is compatible with the actual evidence that is the universe we live in, then they must not be meant as scientific or historical accounts.
They can be considered as inerrant in regards to the belief that GOD is the creator of all that is, seen and unseen. The different tales may be understood as accounts created by people of differing cultures, times, milieus, one, the latter, from a much earlier tradition and concept of god, the former a much later and somewhat more sophisticated god. They do agree on the "WHY" of creation,
Turning again to Bishop Sims' Pastoral Letter we find...
quote:
Insistence upon dated and partially contradictory statements of how as conditions for true belief in the why of creation cannot qualify either as faithful religion or as intelligent science. Neither evolution over an immensity of time nor the work done in a sixday week are articles of the creeds. It is a symptom of fearful and unsound religion to contend with one another as if they were.
Source
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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