There are a few biblical texts that give me pause in the area of biblical inerrancy... for me, it is not Jonah and the Whale, or Creation, or Noah's Ark or any of the miracles that some find so hard to believe. For me it is Paul's admonition "to the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord)..." (1 Corinthians 7:10) and parts of today's reading in Ecclesiastes.
I also thought about the human condition—how God proves to people that they are like animals. For people and animals share the same fate—both breathe and both must die. So people have no real advantage over the animals. How meaningless! Both go to the same place—they came from dust and they return to dust.How does one treat these texts under the lens of biblical inerrancy? In the case of the passage from Corinthians Paul clearly says that this is his command, not the Lord's, while the second seems to more Solomon's opinion rather than God's. I guess it really comes down to what inerrancy really means. I lean towards the definition that says that the Scriptures are always right in fulfilling their purpose: revealing God, God's vision, God's purposes, and God's good news to humanity rather than the literalist view that focuses on the legalism of each word being exactly right. Just a thought...
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