This argument is undermined by the hundreds of errors and inaccuracies and contradictions found in Bible. It is anything but “inerrant”.
A few creationists are honest enough to admit that the evidence supporting the theory of evolution is irrelevant as far as they are concerned: as it contradicts the “Word of God”, it simply has to be wrong.
Some Christians regard the text of the Bible as literally true or, to use their term, as “inerrant”. If people reject evolution on this basis, it is only fair to ask whether this belief stands up.
Whichever translation of the Bible you look at it is not hard to find errors. The texts are full of internal contradictions as well as historical and scientific inaccuracies.
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There are so many examples it is hard to know where to start. Take its cosmology: according to the Bible, the earth is flat and immovable, the moon emits its own light, the sky is solid and the stars can be shaken from the sky by earthquakes.
Its mathematics is also poor. How many sons do you count: “The sons of Shemaiah: Huttush, Igal, Bariah, Neriah, and Shaphat, six” (I Chronicles 3:22). Such errors are common. The value of pi is given as 3, even though many other cultures had already worked it out with greater precision.
Bible biology
Its biology is no better. The Bible claims that rabbits chew the cud, that the pattern of goats’ coats can be changed by what their parents look at while copulating, that only dead seeds can germinate and that ostriches are careless parents.
Fundamentalists try to explain away some of these examples in the light of what we now know: pi is approximately three, they point out, while rabbits eat their own droppings, which is a bit like chewing the cud. But such explanations essentially admit that the Bible is not the ultimate source of of reliable truths about the world.
In other words, if you want to know anything from how rabbits digest their food or how to breed goats to the value of pi or whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa, you have to turn to science and mathematics, not the Bible. If that’s the case, then surely the same is true of how life on Earth came about?
So how reliable is the Bible chapter that relates to evolution? Let’s leave aside the long-standing evidence that Earth is older than 6000 years and that there was no world-wide flood, and look at what else Genesis says.
Genesis 1 gives the order of creation as plants, animals, man and woman. Genesis 2 gives it as man, plants, animals and woman. Genesis 1:3-5 says light was created on the first day, Genesis 1:14-19 says the sun was created on the fourth. Genesis 7:2 says Noah took seven pairs of each beast, Genesis 7:8-15 says one pair.
The list goes on. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is said to kill within a day of being eaten, yet Adam and Eve don’t die after eating it. Genesis says there were giants (Nephilim) before the flood and that the flood annihilated all creatures other than those on the ark, but Numbers says there were giants after the flood.
Sorting it out
Attempts to resolve these contradictions are almost as old as the Bible itself. Those who regard the Bible as inerrant tie themselves in knots trying to explain them away (hands up who believes that T. rex was once a peaceful vegetarian?), or even take it upon themselves to rewrite the Bible to expunge them.
However, there are far too many errors, inaccuracies and contradictions to dismiss them all. The only rational and reasonable conclusion is that the Bible is not inerrant.
Don’t believe us? Good, that’s the spirit. Question everything. Go look up all these examples for yourself and make up your own mind.
Read all the myths in our Evolution Special
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