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Rescuing Inerrancy

by Hugh Ross, Reasons to Believe © 2023
$21.95 paperback, 262 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1-956112-03-0

Hugh Ross's new book directly addresses the charge that the Bible is full of errors and contradictions and, therefore, cannot be the inerrant word of God. The subtitle of Ross's book is “A Scientific Defense” because he uses science to defend the accuracy of the scriptures.

 Ross uses the term “concordance” to refer to agreement. He says there are “three primary spheres of concordance” — historical, scientific, and theological. The three are intertwined so that if the Bible is historically concordant, it will also be scientifically and theologically concordant. In other words, if we say that science and the Bible disagree, we are suggesting that the Bible also does not agree with actual history or even proper theology. This book addresses that challenge.

Ross says many conservative evangelical Christian teachers and leaders have abandoned the idea that the Bible and science are in concordance, causing them to abandon the Bible's historical concordance. Since two of the primary spheres of concordance have been abandoned, how can we trust the theological concordance of the Bible?

Ross does an outstanding job of addressing these challenges. He addresses evolution, Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, Earth's age, and other areas where people question the Bible's inerrancy. The book's appendix discusses the difference between the Hebrew words bara and asah in Genesis, which John Clayton has dealt with many times. It also includes 34 pages of notes and references and an index of topics.

We highly recommend this book for anyone seeking to learn more about the harmony (concordance) between the Bible and science.

Reviewed by Roland Earnst