Response To DD’s “What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means” Pt. IV

Here, here, and here, I've responded to DD's post, What Biblical Inerrancy Really Means (WBIRM). DD has responded to those responses, and I think now would be a good time to revisit DD's original post that prompted my responses in the first place. There's quite a lot going on in DD's original post, so let's try to strain the pertinent arguments from his personal opinions. DD makes 4 claims in WBIRM that I feel the need to respond to:

1. [in Matthew 22, Jesus] proceeds to "correct" [the Sadducees] by declaring that "at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven"—which is not written anywhere in the Old Testament Scriptures! …He accuses them of having missed an important point in the Scriptures, and then teaches something you wouldn’t find even if you read every verse.

2. Jesus has just taken advantage of their ignorance and illiteracy to deceive them regarding what the Old Testament actually taught, and he did it to elevate his own perceived authority above that of the established Bible scholars of his day.

3. There's nothing in [Exodus 3:6] that says anything about death or resurrection or the future. There's nothing in [Exodus 3:6] that requires Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be alive in order for God to be their God. God can be Lord of the Sabbath even when it's not the sabbath, He can be God of Creation even though Creation already happened, He can be the God of the Exodus even after the Exodus is ancient history.

4. [E]ven when we do read an "inerrant" document, we can't be sure we're developing an inerrant understanding of what it wants to say.

So far, the entirety of our discussion has focused on 3, and I felt DD's post merited a more thorough look. He makes some other claims, too – most of which unfortunately distill to his personal sentiments about Christianity and Christians – but that doesn't really help us much in the pursuit of truth, so let's stick to factual claims we can actually deliberate.

DD's first claim is made in the context of "Old Testament Scriptures," and states that Jesus taught something we wouldn't find even if we read every verse. In the interest of maximum clarity, we must note the potential ambiguity in DD's claim as he worded it: is DD arguing that the Old Testament doesn't teach resurrection? Or, is DD arguing that the OT doesn't teach that, "at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven?" Or, both?

Fortunately, he seems to clarify later in the post:

Jesus, allegedly a prophet, allegedly God Incarnate, draws on his allegedly first-hand knowledge of the Law to try and find some passage which justifies belief in a future resurrection of the dead.

It seems from that statement that "a future resurrection of the dead" is the matter at hand, not whether we'll marry or be like angels at the resurrection. Still, let's reparse DD's claim in what appears to be the intended context: is DD's claim – that we wouldn't find resurrection taught in the Old Testament Scriptures, even if we read every verse – true?

Certainly, absolutely, unequivocally not. In fact, we'll need no more than one single verse to disprove DD's first claim: the book of Daniel, chapter 12, verse 2:

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."

That verse – undeniably contained in the Old Testament Scriptures and clearly implying a future resurrection – makes DD's claim undeniably and clearly false.

What about DD's second claim, that "Jesus has just taken advantage of their ignorance and illiteracy to deceive them regarding what the Old Testament actually taught, and [that He] did it to elevate [His] own perceived authority above that of the established Bible scholars of [His] day?"

Well, first off, who exactly does "their" refer to in DD's claim? It refers to the crowds who were astonished at Jesus' reply to the Sadducees as recorded in Matthew 22. Now, if we skip ahead DD's claim 4 as listed above, this raises a most interesting question.

In claim 4, DD argues that, "even when we do read an 'inerrant' document, we can't be sure we're developing an inerrant understanding of what it wants to say." I wholeheartedly agree with that statement, and that's why people who conflate interpreter error as source error induct sloppily – but that's a whole 'nother story. The point is that in WBIRM, DD claims that Jesus "blows away [His] own argument," but DD's fourth argument clearly "blows away" his second – because – if even when we do read an 'inerrant' document, we can't be sure we're developing an inerrant understanding of what it wants to say, why does DD act as if he's developed an inerrant understanding of Jesus' motives? If we "can't be sure" as DD assures us, why is DD so sure that Jesus had "taken advantage of their ignorance and illiteracy," and that He did so to elevate His own perceived authority above that of the established Bible scholars of His day?

I don't know about you, but for me, red flags go up whenever I see anybody attributing motives to people still living, let alone people thousands of years dead. DD has no evidence to support his claim here other than his own FISH: fantasy, intuition, superstition, or hearsay.

So far, we see that DD's first claim as delineated in WBIRM is undeniably false, and his fourth claim legitimately undermines his second. I'd like to stop here and dedicate an entire post to his third claim – the one we've been going back and forth about – so I think that's enough for today.