No offence caused at all; no problem.

> … getting into some complex issues… far beyond the audience intended by my original post.

Point taken; we’ve probably gone far enough into this.

Thanks for the exchange.

I agree that this discussion is getting into some complex issues. Most of these are far beyond the audience intended by my original post.

One thing stands out to me about the inerrantist argument. It uses as a premise that the verses in question do not make specific claims regarding the precise wording of the sign. Because they don’t, then greater latitude should be allowed based on each of the author’s accepted level of precision. I can accept that, but doesn’t that severely weaken any argument that says the Bible is inerrant in the first place? The Bible makes no specific claims that it is inerrant, so what should we make of claims that it is?

We’re heading into complex issues, but here’s the gist of an argument:

The truth-condition for an assertion depends on its meaning, and meaning is determined by more than just the words used (this is why “the door’s over there” can be an instruction to leave rather than just information about the location of the exit).

Among the other factors that affect meaning are context and convention (to borrow an example from N.T. Wright, this is why “I’m mad about my flat” can express frustration about a blown tire or enthusiasm about an apartment).

You therefore can’t always tell what would have to be the case for a statement to be true just by looking at the words it contains.

Literary conventions about precision in direct quotation have varied over time. Although now we’d say that “Friends, Romans, countrymen, listen up!” is a misquotation, by other (e.g. biblical) standards it would be fine because it accurately captures the meaning.

Now suppose that the inscription over Jesus read “This is Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews”.

It isn’t clear to me that this would make “And set up over his head his accusation written, ‘This is Jesus the king of the Jews’” false. If this verse doesn’t claim to give the precise wording (and because of the conventions concerning quotation when it was written, it doesn’t), then its truth-condition isn’t that the sign said “This is Jesus the king of the Jews” but merely that the sign said that the person below was Jesus the king of the Jews. The sign described above would satisfy that condition.

Neither is it clear to me that the sign would make “And the superscription of his accusation was written over, ‘The king of the Jews’” false. All that’s needed for that to be true is that the sign said that the person below was king of the Jews, and the sign described above does that.

(… and so on for the other verses)

This is what I was getting at in my previous comments. For the Bible to be inerrant, everything it claims has to be true. If we read the Bible bearing in mind the literary conventions of its time, then I don’t think that it makes any claims about the precise wording of the sign over Jesus, just about its meaning, so the minor differences in wording aren’t a problem for inerrancy.

I hope that makes some sense. I’m not 100% sure what I make of this, but that’s the argument I’d use if I were an inerrantist, and I think there’s at least something to it.

Even if we accept that the gist of the Bible is correct, a looser standard of precision means more human interpretation, and humans are prone to errors.