I have said multiple times that fundamentalism is a recent development in the history of Christian thought, and is rooted in the hyper-rationality of the past two or three centuries. I think that the way Biblical inerrancy is argued is the best example one can use to show how this is so. The argument usually goes something like this:
-If the Bible is in error on any one particular fact or claim, the entire book is therefore suspect as a source of Truth and Faith.
The problem with this argument is that errors, internal contradictions, historically verifiable assertions that are false, and morally questionable accounts of the dealings of God and God's people are rampant throughout the Bible. I say this not trying to be insulting; these are just facts that have been known for centuries - even St. Augustine noticed them and made jokes about them - and Biblical literalists, for all their intellectual contortions deny them to their detriment. I find it fascinating that people who revere the Bible as much as they do would ignore the tow competing, contradictory accounts of creation in the first two chapters of Genesis. Does this nullify the claims of the Bible to speak a word of faith to people who might hear it? Only, I suppose, if one takes for granted that faith is based on some verifiable (or at least non-falsifiable) claim to accuracy.
I have heard it said that if one makes a statement such as I have done in re the question of errors in the Bible, one is calling God a liar. That would be true if God wrote the Bible, or dictated it the way the archangel Gabriel dictated the Q'uran to Mohammed. I see no reason to deny this, or the multiple contradictions or erroneous statements in the Bible (one of my favorites is the claim in Joshua that the people of Israel sacked the city of Ai; the word "Ai" in Hebrew mean "ruin", indicating that the city was already dead when the Hebrews encountered it; archaeological research has shown the city was in fact destroyed hundreds of years before there is any indication of Hebrew settlement in what became Israel.).
Critics of Christianity usually point to the reality of errors in the Bible as proof that Christianity (and, by extension, one supposes, Judaism as well) is intellectually and morally bankrupt. These critics, however, are taking fundamentalism as normative for Christianity, as well as assuming that a rational discussion of issues of religion suffices for understanding religious belief and decoding it. Fundamentalism, however, is hardly normative, and rationality, while useful, is hardly the only way human beings reason (indeed, Buddhists, for example, use a totally different logical structure that works perfectly well for them) and there is no way to prove, rationally, that it either is or should be.
One can surrender the issue of the factual accuracy of the Bible and still hold the Scriptures as key for understanding Christianity and hold one's head high. One can acknowledge morally vicious passages such as the rape of Lot by his daughters, Elisha sending bears to kill the children who made fun of him, and the end of Psalm 137 and still insist there is a moral center to the Scriptures that transcends what one feminist Biblical scholar has called Texts of Terror.
I know neither Democracy Lover nor some of my more conservative readers will be satisfied with this particular view. This does not make it correct; it only highlights that both come from a position in which the use of rational logic is paramount in all human endeavors. I think logic is a useful tool, and human rationality a marvelous thing. There are more things in heaven and earth, however, than are dreamt of in their philosophies.
Virtual Tin Cup
