An examination of Norman Geisler’s latest attack on Mike Licona

Earlier this January Geisler was at it again. He has accused Mike Licona of denying inerrancy by allowing for contradictions in the text. You can find this article here; http://www.normgeisler.com/articles/Bible/Inspiration-Inerrancy/Licona/LiconaContradictionsInGospels.pdf

Being an undergrad, my knowledge and understanding of the issues presented in this article are limited. That being said, using logic alone I found a few flaws in Geisler’s reasoning. First allow me to explain briefly what this recent tirade by Geisler is all about. The issue is where John states that Jesus was nailed to the cross on the day of preparation for the passover in chapter 19 verse 14. This seems inconsistent with the synoptics claim that Jesus was nailed to the cross on the day after the passover. Mike Licona has claimed that perhaps John changed the day to make a theological point. Naturally Norman Geisler has become quite distressed by this claim, as inerrancy teaches the Bible cannot contain any contradictions. His objection is as follows;

1) No proposition in the Bible is claimed to be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense.
2) The proposition; Jesus was crucified the day after the passover is in the Bible.
3) The proposition; Jesus was not crucified the day after the passover is in the Bible.
4) Therefore, the Bible contains a proposition that is claimed to be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense.

The issue is with premise 3. If Licona is correct, then John isn’t really making the claim that Jesus was crucified on the day of preparation of the passover but merely using a literary technique to make a point, which from my research appears to be a common practice for Greco-Roman biographies. To explain this further, in our culture, we make claim to strictly propose that they are true, in the ancient world, this is not the case. In the issue of time for example, today we view time as a mathematical measurement, in ancient palestine, they saw time as much more relative. Chronological order was not really an issue for them, so they just often didn't make serious claims about the exact time an even occurred. So there really is no contradiction here according to Licona. Now I have no interest in defending or critiquing Licona’s view here. My main point of contention is that Licona’s view, if true, does not violate inerrancy.

A second issue I found with Geisler’s reasoning is his claim that scripture is its own best interpreter. It seems he means by this that the Bible is its own genre of literature. This view of scripture seems to suffer from the same issue as the Alexandrian school. That being, interpretation becomes completely arbitrary. If the Bible contains unique genre’s of literature, then there can be no objective basis for interpretation. By all accounts the gospels could appear to be biographies, but since they are unique in their genre, they may be a divine poetic account or allegorical for the human spiritual experience. Who’s to say? The fact is Christians have always affirmed that the Bible is unique in its content and ultimate source, it is not unique in issues of language or interpretation. In these respects the Bible was purposefully designed for us to understand what it says. The fact that Geisler, a highly regarded intellectual among evangelicals, cannot seem to grasp even this simple distinction is surprising.

Honestly, I hope I am misunderstanding what Geisler is saying here, or perhaps I have simply made an error in my reasoning. Because if I understand Geisler and Licona correctly and my reasoning is valid, then Geisler has made some very rookie mistakes.

An examination of the gospels as Greco-Roman biographies;
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospelbioi.html

Licona’s view;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ8rZukh_Bc&feature=youtu.be