Recently good old Skeptic X offered another round of belchfire in the form of part 1 of a three-part look at "Traditional Biblical Inerrancy". Of Part 1, little needs be said here; it is Part 2 that portends to have us licking our chops. For now, the gist of Part 1:

• X speaks of "those who disclaim the doctrine of inerrancy while maintaining that the Bible is nevertheless the inspired word of God." Who this may be in view is hard to say. Perhaps X is mistaking "disclaiming a naive, fundaliteral doctrine of inerrancy" for a belief in inerrancy that respects the contexts of the Bible. In any event, while X claims the "motives of those who teach this view can only be surmised," as usual out of the other side of his mouth he proceeds to offer his suspicions anyway that there is some "painful recognition" that the naive view " has suffered such obvious defeat in debating arenas," so that a new method is needed. Presumably X has been asleep in bed while this "new" method in fact emerged completely independent of apologetics, in the ranks of serious scholarship. But if you ever expected X to be up to date, as opposed to say months out of date or even years, you should know better than that.
• X tells us that the naive school believed that the Bible was "verbally inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity." Meaning, what? "Verbal inspiration is a view that the very words that the biblical writers used were the words that 'God' selected for them." Well, that's mighty Calvinist of X. I guess he doesn't think of the option, "Verbal inspiration is a view that the very words that the Biblical writers used were the words that God found sufficient for them to use." In other words, rather than seeing God dictating line by line -- a ridiculous assertion, outside of certain prophecies -- thus, the Chicago Statement:

  We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that he chose, overrode their personalities.

  If this was dictation X had in mind, Chicago just blew it away. And:

  We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations.

  So it seems that the "new" inerrancy is not so "new" after all, X's outdatedness notwithstanding. So then, what else?

• X quotes some of the leading, um, experts in the field stumping for the "old" view, such eminent scholars as...uh...Jerry Falwell. Yep. And, uh -- George DeHoff. And...John Rice. Wow. Can you believe it? Not one serious scholar in the bunch; not one publisher in a peer-reviewed journal. No Blomberg; no Brooks, no....well, X confuses what Rice calls a "high view of inspiration" with this "new" fundamentalism...whatever the heck it is. We were never told exactly who held this in the first place, and can't be sure since the descriptions given ("I know the Bible is inspired because it inspires me.") fits no one in this neighborhood. Maybe X will be kind enough (snicker) to "elaborate" with names and faces next round. Or, this view: "...God inspired only the ideas and left it to the writers to decide what words to use in conveying those ideas, so if there are any errors in the Bible, they are the fault of the fallible writers and not the fault of the infallible 'God' who inspired them." I have no idea who this is. Do you?

  Well, one credit at least. Here's a real scholar at last...Gleason Archer. No slouch, this one, quoted to the effect that you just can't have errors and have inerrancy. I needed that news like I needed Skeptic X's personal fax number.

So, who knows. Maybe X is talking to no one in particular; and is, after the fashion, merely speaking into the wind to hear himself talk. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.