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Loading...I have recently received a number of inquiries about why realizing there may be mistakes in the Bible might lead someone to become an agnostic. Here is one that came a few days ago:
QUESTION:
I want to thank you for your extensive work in explaining … your journey from believing that the bible contained no errors to proving the bible is not inerrant and simply the work of human writers. What I would like to be explained is the necessary logic to go from believing that the bible is not inerrant or the “word of God” to believing there is no God.
RESPONSE
My view of the matter may seem odd to a lot of people, but it is nonetheless held by most critical scholars of the Bible and trained theologians. What is the “necessary logic to go from believing that the bible is not inerrant … to believing there is no God? There is no necessary logic at all.
I have never thought that …
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As you eloquently argue in Jesus Before The Gospels:
“At the end of the day, I find it troubling that so many people think that history is the only thing that matters. For them, if something didn’t happen, it isn’t true, in any sense. Really? Do we actually live our lives that way? How can we? Do we really spend our lives finding meaning only in the brute facts of what happened before, and in nothing else? Think about the things that matter to us: our families, friends, work, hobbies, religion, philosophy, country, novels, poetry, music, good food, and good drink. Do we really think that the brute facts about the past are the only things that matter? To pick only one of these examples, one far removed from the New Testament, to make my point. Is literature unimportant because it does not deal with the brute facts of history? Is Dickens’s great novel David Copperfield of no value because its main character didn’t actually live? Well, that’s different, you say, because it’s fiction. Yes indeed, it’s fiction. And fiction can be life-transforming because it is full of meaning, even though it never happened. Or consider further: can historical discoveries undermine the power of great literature? Does the earth-shattering force of King Lear evaporate if it can be historically proved that someone other than Shakespeare wrote it? Does Dover Beach really fail to grip us with its powerful pathos if we learn that these were not actually the author’s thoughts the last time he was looking out over the English Channel? Literature speaks to us quite apart from the facts of history. So does music. So does sculpture. So do all the arts. The Gospels are not simply historical records about the past. They are also works of art.” New Testament historian, Bart Ehrman
Ah, yes, that was my favorite part of the book…
That whole book was an eloquent argument. And so was Forgery and Counterforgery (the academic version). Thank you for waking the general reader up to a wide range things about New Testament scholarship studies. The only sad part about it, I suppose, is you’ve decided write less books in the coming years.
I’m leaving open the idea of writing not just a trade book every two years (my current goal), but also a scholarly book on occasion. I have the beginnings of a new idea for the next one!
That’s great news here!
When my novel, “Kane’s World” was first published in its British Commonwealth edition, reviewers in many newspapers (The London Times, Manchester Guardian, etc.) compared my work favorably to the work of Matthew Arnold. I was quite flattered, to say the least.
It’s very important to keep making this point, that believers and unbelievers so often miss. ‘The Bible’ is a collection of stories, written over a long long period of time, and faith would have existed if none of them had ever been written down, and faith could survive quite well if all copies vanished from the face of the earth (or if every single story was proven false.)
What I think all people of good will should be fighting for in our time is the right for each individual, of any religion or none, to believe as he or she sees fit, regarding all matters that are not strictly established in fact. I believe faith is an integral part of the human experience, but faith is meaningless if not arrived at through one’s own personal experiences and struggles. Faith that is imposed–including faith in the nonexistence of any deity at all–is empty and worthless. And when we learn to respect each person’s insights about the universe–without feeling we have to swallow any of them whole–is when we’ll have finally grown up as a species.
I’m not holding my breath, you understand. But that’s what I’m shooting for. 🙂
Well said!
I understand the above discussion and it makes complete sense. However, ( don’t you love however?” from what you’ve said, all seminaries in the western world, except very conservative evangelical ones, teach and believe that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher who believed that the end of the world as he envisioned it, was to come in his lifetime or at least in the lifetime of his disciples. In this, he was obviously wrong.
I attended a Catholic school for 8 years and we were taught the God was all every imaginable virtue that we could imagine, the Platonic vision of the perfect whatever, the perfect oak tree, the perfect statue, etc..
So here’s my question. If God is all knowing, then how could Jesus be wrong, the world didnt come to an end during the lifetime of his disciples, and still be God? And don’t give me that what is a year to God so that the end of the world could come in a million years and it would still be just the blink of an eye to God nonsense. That’s not what Jesus said: he said during the lifetime of his disciples which was a clearly defined and limited period, like no more than 60-70 years or so.
So if God is perfectly knowledgeable, and Jesus was mistaken, then that means Jesus was not God and to me, that is the end of Christianity. If Jesus isn’t god because he was in error, how do people who believe that he was an apocalyptic preacher justify their belief in Jesus and Christianity?
It doesn’t necessarily mean that. Theologians for many, many centuries have maintained that when the divine Christ became human he abandoned his divine perogatives and was no longer all-powerful or all-knowing. so he could in fact make mistakes.
Maybe Theologians believe that but none of the ministers or Christians I know believe that. They all believe in Jesus the way that the gospel of John portrays him. That he is all knowing and does not make mistakes. My guess is that most of them would say that since the world as it was known did not end, it is because God’s (and Jesus’) time for it to end has not yet come. It doesn’t matter that some people in the first century were supposed to live to see it happen.
Prof Ehrman,
I’d like to followup on “mcsimon3” above. I also went to eight years of Catholic school, where we learned that Jesus and God the Father were one in the same. Jesus pre-existed the creation, Jesus was God himself on earth, and Jesus was a perfect human being. He turned water into wine, calmed the seas, healed the sick, raised the dead and forgave sins.
This view doesn’t seem to leave room for the theological belief that Jesus abandoned his divine prerogatives. To put it another way, the theological view you mentioned seems like an effort to have one’s cake and it it too. Jesus is a human and, therefore, fallible when it’s convenient. Yet, he’s a divine being when that’s convenient.
I don’t believe that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher in the sense that he thought the end of the world was imminent. My opinion is that Jesus understood that his people were suffering greatly under brutal Roman rule, and he feared that they soon would rise up in armed rebellion — and that would indeed be the apocalypse for Israel–for they could not possibly succeed against the overwhelming military might of the Roman Empire. He conceived his role as to do what he could to avoid this catastrophe. And he sacrificed himself in this cause, as I explain in my novel, “The Murdered Messiah.” Perhaps he succeeded in delaying the inevitable for 30-40 years, but the Jews did rise up and in 70 C.E., Jerusalem burned and the Temple was destroyed. Jesus was a martyr, but not for “our sins.” Rather to save his people. Unfortunately, that is not how the story has been told.
But there’s one thing I’m sure we can all agree on: only Methodists are true Christians.
You are absolutely right!!!
And where is that found in the Bible?
I agree with your comments. My thought is that for some people what can cause them to stop believing in a deity is the realization that all forms of religion were man-made. I grew up in a very conservative church with some members being fundamentalists. We were told from the pulpit to not read anything but the Bible. If anyone had questions, they needed to ask the minister or one of the elders. Years later, we were told we could read books that were written by ministers/elders from the same brand and sect of church. There was much caution about reading any books from outside of the group. Then I began reading books from ministers from my church brand who were more open-minded. These authors looked into questions that were not normally allowed to be asked. This is what started opening my way of thinking toward the Bible and God. Finally, when I started reading whatever I wanted, I found that most Christian book authors were not that much different from my own church that I attended. I then found some of these authors to be more open-minded. The next phase was to begin reading material from scholars such as you…a big no no in any Christian church! I would say the final phase was to read from authors that discuss the history and development of humans. My understanding is that through the development of humans also came the development of all the other parts of our lives including religion and the idea that there is a deity who is responsible for everything and who might be willing to punish people who do not follow the rules…which were made by humans! So if the Bible is man-made, the “rules” to be followed are man-made and the idea of an all knowing and powerful deity is man-made, the next step is probably being an agnostic.
Have you heard stories such as this of how people journeyed from Christianity to being agnostic?
Yes indeed!
I’m concocting a theology where the Bible is indeed the inspired word of God but because God is ignorant and illogical by nature the Bible is full of errors ;-D
Outstanding
hmmm, that was just a teaser.
Well said. But if I may, I’d like to add a footnote.
The bottom line is that these, at their core, are not historical documents. That is not where any value they might have lies.
As noted, the main error made by strict Christian fundamentalists is not that they are applying the *wrong* literalistic reading to the Bible, but that are attempting to read it in a literal way, at all.
However, it is important to bear in mind that the converse is equally true. That is, it is just as invalid –and for exactly the same reason– to argue that historical inaccuracies prove that there can be no value or meaning to the texts. These, as Dr Ehrman indicates, are distinct questions.
To repeat the point above, these are not primarily historical documents. And to take the position of the literalists (either the “pro-Biblcial literalists” like Jerry Fawell, or the “anti-Biblical literalists” like Richard Dawkins, the Mythicists or Bill Maher and his “talking snake”) is to rather badly miss the point.
I had an otherwise intelligent person tell me recently that the tree of knowledge of good and evil represented human reason. If that is your mindset then maybe there is some validity to the slippery slope argument made by fundamentalists. I wonder if there are any studies showing that fundamentalists are more likely to abandon the faith than other Christians. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Yes, I’d love to see that as well!
WIth regard to the underlying issue here (i.e. the distinction between religion/ethics/spirituality and historicity/factuality/science and how they do or do not overlap and/or conflict) I’d like to suggest a book by the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould “Rock of Ages”?
In brief, Gould argues for what he calls “Non-Overlapping Magisteria”; i.e. the notion that “science/history” and “religion” are two distinct, but ultimately equally valuable aspects of human life. And should, at their base, offer no reason for conflict.
Whether or not you accept all of his arguments, the book offers much useful and clear thought on this topic, as one would expect from Gould.
Surely a historical reading of the Bible excludes the possibility of the existence of a Christian god. For example, if history shows that the virgin birth is highly unlikely, that Jesus did not claim to be the son of God, that he was not resurrected and ascended to heaven, that the miracles did not occur etc, then surely one cannot claim to be a Christian. Similarly, I imagine, if one rejects the notion of Moses being the author of the Torah, and that the Law is man-made and confusing and contradictory, and that the histories are largely legend and folk tales, and that the OT was written many, sometimes hundreds of years after the events they portray, etc, one cannot call oneself a religious Jew. Likewise, if one concludes that Allah is not the author of the Koran nor Mohammed the prophet of Allah, one cannot be a Muslim. Given what we know of the world we know that God cannot be all three of these: Omniscient; Omnipotent; and Benevolent, as you have articulated many times in your books and on this blog but that is exactly what the ‘Abrahamic religions,’ do believe.
None of this precludes the existence of a god of some sort, just not the one defined by these religions. So, if not one of these then what exactly is His nature? This, it seems to me, is an evidence-free area, and can only exist as an unsupported belief: ‘I think, on balance, a creative power greater than us is likely (Deism, Theism etc), unlikely (Atheism) or we simply cannot say (Agnosticism).’
Your arguments are tendentious, your reasoning is circular. And don’t call me Shirley. 😉
If there are factual errors in the bible–eg Abiathar wasn’t the high priest when Mark claimed–that certainly isn’t sufficient to disprove Christianity. But what about theological errors? For example, if Gen 18:20&21 really describes a god who doesn’t yet know what’s going on in Sodom and Gomorrah, that’s a theological error about omniscience. Shouldn’t errors like this be sufficient to disprove Christianity?
No, I don’t see why. There’s no connection between whether God really destroyed Sodom and whether Jesus died for the sins of the world.
Another way to maintain theism in the face of biblical errancy is to conclude that there is indeed a God who divinely inspires scripture but that s/he is not very good at it, muddles things up and does not check his/her work.
Dr Ehrman,
As far as I understand, Paul is a convert who preaches his own understanding of the gospel. If I am correct, and we have no other writings from the first members of Christianity my question is. How can we know what being a Christian required people to do and believe?
Part of the problem is that no one in New Testament times thought about “being a Christian” was something to do. The term Christian is not one they use. They were interested in getting people to believe in Jesus and to behave accordingly.
Paul was not a convert and none of the “gospels” were written before him.
I just finished reading “Jesus before the Gospels”. I always felt that there were many inconsistencies in the Bible which you explained extremely well but that did not “shake my faith”. As far as I am concerned the gospels could have been labeled A,B,C, and D. The gist of them and the ideas contained within them are not, to me, dependent upon apostolic authorship. The final chapter is a masterpiece of respect for those who do believe that what the Bible says is important. To me faith is not dependent on the inerrancy of the Bible because it is too easy to prove otherwise and many fundamentals, although very sincere in their beliefs are sincerely wrong. The Bible was not dictated by God in King James English. I truly appreciate the respect you have for those who have a different belief system than you have. I hope to meet you at the BAR seminars in Boston in November.
Great! I’ll be there.
Just curious when it seems quite obvious from historical context and bible text as well that Jesus was prosecuted then why do Cristians believe that he died for their sins? He didn’t commit suicide for sure. How is it that he never said I’m dying for your sins but it’s still believed to be the case?
I think the idea is that he willingly submitted to his death as part of the divine plan.
For me at least some of the momentum in my transition from believer to atheist stemmed from what I felt to be attempts by fundies (or perhaps a general push throughout fundamentalism) to use the Bible as a matrix of personal control and unearned authority over myself and others. Did you experience any of that resentment in your transition?
A bit. Once you start moving away, some of those still in the camp seem to propel you.
Yes, sadly ironic.
I once had a Fundamentalist friend who said to me, “If the Bible isn’t all true, throw it in the trash!”. Sad.
I suppose the idea is that once you admit that the Bible contains errors, you can no longer rely on it as an authoritative source of knowledge…and once you give up on that, you open the possibility that any given claim in it may be wrong, if not corroborated by other sources or evidence. Just like every other document! But the Bible says a lot of things that aren’t attested by any other sources or evidence—so if you can’t reconcile Jesus riding into Jerusalem both on a donkey and on two donkeys, and casting out the Legion of demons in both Gerasa and Gadara, you admit that it’s at least theoretically possible that the Bible is wrong in the Garden of Eden story (since you can’t back it up with independent sources or evidence), and out goes (potentially) original sin and the need to be saved and… (I think the infamous Ken Ham has openly stated that something like this motivates his mission—but don’t quote me on that: I may be mixing up major league creationists. I know one of them said it…)
Now, I think that literal inerrancy is a frankly crazy idea, while I think that ‘liberal’ religiosity is, although wrong, not crazy; and yet there is a certain logical consistency in that fundamentalist belief that I don’t see in more liberal religion. If you accept that the Bible is a human, fallible document, then what is your basis for believing any given ‘Bible-only’ proposition? It seems to me like many believers take the approach of thinking that the Bible is right until proven false—believe everything except the contradictory bits and those parts refuted by science and archæology and so forth (to varying degrees, depending on the believer) and (a major category) the bits they haven’t read—but this seems like a rather peculiar and ad hoc epistemology.
Meanwhile, if you accept the doctrine of inerrancy, a lot of other stuff really does follow from that one assumption, so it is parsimonious and consistent, albeit at the cost of having to rationalise a lot of contradictions and counterfactuals. —And of course, as you pointed out in the post, in practice these people tend to add a lot of other stuff, like the whole trinitarian structure. I’m currently reading Alan F. Segal’s Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religions, and he made the astute remark that it is an ironic fact that fundamentalists of all religions are at once the people who most fervently assert that they are returning to the simple truth of their scriptures and yet inevitably innovators of reactionary doctrines that weren’t there before.
Bart,
Rejecting inerrancy may not be sufficient by itself to lead one to agnosticism,
But it is a “necessary” predicate. You cannot be an agnostic unless you first reject inerrancy.
.
I don’t think I would put it that way. That assumes that inerrancy is the default position that everyone starts with and one has to reject it to move on. But unless you are a fundamentalist to begin with, you don’t have that views at the outset, so you never have to “reject” it. You simply never had it.
I do not mean to quibble, but this thread is about fundamentaliism
And imo these adherents have a very strict logic
Which affirms that everyone is self responsible to follow jesus or to go to hell
And… bundled into that is the view that you are also responsible to know of ….and affirm the inerrancy doctrine
, therefore, if you reject Inerrancy you are rejecting fundamentalism…. albeit without rejecting Christianity
therefore rejecting inerrancy is the “first and necessary” prerequisite for a fundamentalist to transition to being an agnostic. Which is of course a major reason why fundamentalists aggressively defend this doctrine… it is seen to be the first step on a slippery slope to damnation
I keep getting told by more liberal Christians on Facebook that the reason I became agnostic is because I was a Fundamentalist. And the arguments they use are very similar to the ones you use above. But I disagree.
If there are mistakes in the Bible then it is untrustworthy. It claims to be perfect, yet from start to finish it is a jumbled mess of evolving theology and morality. I cannot accept that the Bible is the best the God of the universe could come up with. What a complete idiot this god must be if that is the case.
Sure, it’s still not “necessary” to reject a god based on a poor communication system. I could keep coming up with excuses for the rest of my life based on every disappointment. I could keep changing and evolving my theology like they do. Or I could realise that if a religion claims to be perfect and complete but is not then perhaps the problem lies at the very foundation and it is all just made up garbage.
Why don’t you think about “scripture” as the sincere work of fallible humans to understand the world they live in and to create systems of morality/ethics that will be constructive in their lives.
Three questions please (if that is not being greedy).
A. You appear to fluctuate between calling yourself an agnostic or an atheist. I understand that in the epistemological sense it is a safer bet to use agnostic (because we cannot KNOW) but have you not in fact truly moved on into atheism?
B. You say there is no LOGICAL connection with problems in the Bible and the existence of God. I understand this. However, is it not the case that this indicates the god of Christianity (at least as expressed in the creeds) requires the Bible to be true?
Surely some fundamentals are predicated on ‘truths’. If there were no Adam and Eve then there was no Fall and thus no original sin and therefore no need of a saviour. If there were no virgin birth then Jesus was not pre-existently divine etc.
C. Re your answer about the Greek of John 1, does not the absence of the definite article signify the indefinite article and thus θεος indicates ‘The word was ‘a’ god’?
A. I don’t think atheism and agnosticism are two degrees of the same thing. I explain it all here: https://ehrmanblog.org/am-i-an-agnostic-or-an-atheist/ I am both an atheist and an agnostic
B. No, I don’t think that logic follows at all. E.g., most early Christians believed Jesus was divine and never had even heard anything about a virgin birth. See my book How Jesus Became God.
C. It involves a technicality of Greek syntax I’m afraid.
Another terrific post! This is a great series! I do think the large number of errors and contradictions in the Bible makes it difficult to trust the Bible about much of anything especially when the contradictions are about really significant events like the empty tomb events and the Ten Commandments. So, it’s not so much one or two errors that are the problem, but that there are many errors everywhere…..
Bart,
With all due respect, I think you miss the point when you assert that acknowledging an error doesn’t necessarily/logically lead to atheism. Of course, it doesn’t.
But, as Petter puts it in his comment above, “once you admit that the Bible contains errors, you can no longer rely on it as an authoritative source of knowledge…and once you give up on that, you open the possibility that any given claim in it may be wrong….”.
That is the point. It is not that errors prove that none of the Bible is true, but rather that errors prove that there is no reason to believe that any particular part MUST be true (short of extra-Biblical evidence).
I Find it fascinating that you think the Fundy perspective makes no sense. To me, it makes total sense. Ultimately, it’s wrong, but ONLY because it’s based on a demonstrably erroneous premise (inerrancy). To me, if the Bible really is the inerrant (and complete) Word of God, then Fundamentalism is the only theological perspective that does make sense.
How am I wrong?
My point is actually different. It is that Christian faith does *not* depend on the Bible. It is faith in Christ, Christianity, not faith in the Bible, Biblianity. The Bible could be most anything at all and still there would be the very real possibility of Christian faith.
Your blogs are eloquent and amazing – exactly the kick in the pants that Christianity needs at this time. There is a book coming out to the masses within the next 2-3 months that addresses everything you say here, and everything that every skeptic has said about the Bible for almost 2,000 years. Stay tuned for more…
Mr. Ehrman.
The question is; Why did Mark confuse Ahimelech with Abiathar in the first place?
After all, Mark seems to have known the Old Testament perfectly, as we understand from all his references to the ancient prophets. And why didn’t any of the later copyists correct Mark on this obvious confusion?
Perhaps this confusion was done on purpose?
The Jews must have seen Abiathar as a traitor in those days, supporting Adonijah as the new king in opposition to king Solomon and in opposition to David’s own wish. Abiathar lost his priesthood and was driven away by Solomon for his betrayal!
However, if the early Christians had another way of looking at this isident between Solomon and Adonijah, then this mention of Abiathar makes perfect sense.
He probably just misremembered the story. It happens all the time, even today — lots and lots of times — among people for whom it would take only 28 seconds to look up the story. For him it would have been much much harder. But he probably just remembered the detail wrong.
Yes, misremembering could be an explanation.
But if so, wouldn’t that rule out Mark as dependent of a Q-source?
Mark is almost certainly not dependent on Q.
Looking at this article, https://ehrmanblog.org/am-i-an-agnostic-or-an-atheist/, I wonder if it is possible to be a Christian (having faith in Christ), yet an Agnostic (thinking that there is no observable evidence that God exists)? And if this is possible, I wonder how many scholars would be inclined to think along those lines.
Certainly agnostics can call themselves Christian. I sometimes think of myself as a Christian agnostic. But that doesn’t mean most Christians would agree!
I do believe at least in a general sort of way that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But literally believing every word is uniquely inspired poses a problem and that is all the translations. For example, a few weeks ago I was reading a passage from the NT. I honestly cannot even remember which Book it was. The pastor was a bit incredulous. “What translation do you have?” he asked. It was the New Living Translation. Well, apparently and unbeknowance to me, that is not an acceptable translation at least in some denominations. He suggested I use KJB, NIV, or the English Bible. So if a fundamentalist believes every word is inspired, how do they deal with the various translations which can potentially create some various understandings of a certain event or topic?
Most fundamentalists qualify their statements by saying they are referring to the inspiration of the Bible in its original Greek and Hebrew, not in English translations.
I consider myself to be a Christian. I began life with the teachings of my mother who was greatly influenced from the Southern Baptist tradition. And all the years since then it has been fairly well accepted in most denominations that God is a Trinity. A few exceptions like JW but for the most part this is the orthodoxy that is accepted in Christianity. For me, however, I have never been able to prove to myself that God really is a Trinity. Sure, I believe Christ is the Son of God and that would be a binatarian belief. But where does the Holy Spirit fit in? I once read that the Holy Spirit in the Greek NT is in the male gender but then I read that in Greek it isn’t always clear the gender of a noun. I know nothing of Greek so I cannot say. And I am not sure that any of this would matter. But back to the point of the Trinity, is the Holy Spirit a person? Or is it the power and essence of God? Constantine tried very hard with the Council of Nicea to quell Arianism and make the Trinity concept universal. He did it for political reasons, not religious ones. Constantine craved uniformity. I believe that the Trinity was confirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381CE and became orthodoxy. But I also do not believe that settled the matter and Germans continued to believe in Arianism until well into the 9th Century. So would be interested in what others think about this.
I deal with a good bit of this in my forthcoming book The Triumph of Christianity
A humorous book written to save America from fundamentalism: Jesus, Mari and Joji. On kindle for a buck.
I read this today after having heard the Pastor at a church say that if you do not believe in the Trinity you are not a Christian and the salvation of your soul is at stake. He is also the one that justified “Paul” not condemning slavery, for instance in 1 Timothy 6, because slavery was necessary for the economy of the time. I nearly face-palmed in my seat.
What are the most important and fundamental Christian beliefs, that, when falsified, will lead to the crumble of Christianity?
I suppose the two complete cornerstones would be that God exists and that Jesus, in one way or another, reveals him.
Dear Ehrman,
I try to do as much quality research on biblical contradictions as I can. Some Christians both accept that there may be contradictions in the Bible and also believe that the Bible is a holy book. I want to ask you a related question.
Is the view that the Bible can both contain contradictions (Genealogies, where Jesus first appeared to the Apostles, etc.) and also be a holy book is a modern view or does this view have more ancient roots?
As far as I know, until modern times, Christians(All Catholics,Protestants and Orthodox) were trying to reconcile biblical contradictions(There are exceptions, of course, like Origen.), but in modern times they can no longer make absurd conciliation(Evangelists still do) because Theology is done more seriously.Am I thinking wrong? Could you help me?
THere were certainly ancient people who knew that the Bible was filled with contradictions AND was completely inspired by God. The most famous theologian of the first three centuries, Origen, explicitly argued this view. For him, God put contradicitons in the Bible to force readers to realize that he meant a passage to be taken figuratively instead of literally!
Dear Ehrman,
A professor I spoke with told me that the Fundamentalist view that the Bible is “inerrancy” has its origins in the early 20th century. As far as I know, these views are based on the Niagara Conferences.
However, my estimation is that, with the exceptions of Origen, the majority of Christians throughout history thought that the Bible was a book without contradiction. Because the Bible was written by revelation, and there can be no contradiction in revelation. The Niagara Conference, I think, was a public announcement of an opinion that was already accepted by everyone.
Indeed, throughout Christian history, what has been the view of Christians (I’m talking about the Mainstream. Not the Gnostics or the Ebionites) about the infallibility of the Bible? Can you give me a rate? What percentage of truly knowledgeable Christians throughout Christian history thought the Bible could contain contradictions? Revelation could allow contradiction? I think this rate is too low, not counting the exceptions like Origen. Do you think i think right?
The modern view of the inerrancy of the Bible goes back originally to the 19th century and was indeed made emphatically for the first time at the Niagara conferences (1890s). When ancient authors claimed the Bible wsa inspired and true, they were not making exactly the same point as moderns do, since they were not faced with the facts and theories of science that show the Bible cannot be taken as literally true. It is only with the rise of fundamentalism, largely (though not exclusively) in response to geological and biological sciences, astronomy, physics, etc, that “inerrancy” came to mean that the Bible had to be literally true in every single thing it affirmed despite the reality of “knowledge” (science) that indicates otherwise.