Eric Reitan on Biblical Inerrancy

I've posted before on the whole conversation about biblical inerrancy. I'm not really so concerned about whether or not there are really what we'd call "errors" in the text. I don't honestly think it would make much difference for me if it does or does not. I'm more concerned with how we use that language and how thinking of the Bible as "inerrant" might limit our ability to truly understand what the authors and original audiences might have thought about the text. For example, if one biblical author disagrees with another biblical author we would never know it because it's "inerrancy" would probably keep us from ever asking that question let along accepting an affirmative answer. Overall, I just don't think the inerrancy language is helpful but it can indeed hurt. Here's a great quote which I robbed from James McGrath's blog that eloquently addresses this issue:

"[T]he doctrine of biblical inerrancy has the effect of inspiring its adherents to pay more attention to a text than to the neighbors they are called upon to love. Sometimes it even inspires them to plug up their ears with Bible verses, so that they can no longer hear the anguished cries of neighbors whose suffering is brought on by allegiance to the literal sense of those very texts." _Eric Reitan