Of Huckleberry Finn and Football

"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. ..."

And thus begins Chapter One of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.  Mark Twain was unique among American authors in his ability to make his characters sound like real people.  And each character had a unique voice.  The grammatical errors in the above excerpt are pretty clear.  Let me make an attempt at editing this text to take out those grammatical errors and let's see how it goes:

"You wouldn't know about me unless you read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that doesn't matter.  That book was created by Mr. Mark Twain, and he mostly told the truth.  There were things which he stretched, but he mostly told the truth."

I think we'd all agree that Mark Twain's version is better by far, mainly due to the grammar he used which I called "errors" previously.  In fact, the grammar used gives it many things it wouldn't have otherwise...authenticity, interest, and uniqueness being among them.  The reality is Mark Twain had certain intentions when he wrote Huckleberry Finn.  He wanted to write it a certain way because writing it any other way wouldn't have the same effect.  Because it was written with purpose I cannot call his grammatical use an error.

American football is played on a field and the field is 100 yards long from end to end.  The field is surrounded by a line and that line designates what is "in bounds" and "out of bounds".  When a team is down by a few points and the game clock has just a few seconds left often the strategy employed by the team is to take the ball out of bounds intentionally because that stops the clock and allows the team to regroup.  Sometimes we would call going out of bounds an error but in these circumstances going out of bounds is what the team should do.  It's not an error because it was done with purpose.

My point is we cannot say something is "in error" unless we understand what was its original intended purpose.  If the intended purpose was not accomplished then it is "in error" but if it was accomplished then it was not "in error."

Let's consider the Bible for a moment.  History is loaded with debate about the inerrancy of the Bible.  For clarity, "inerrancy" means "without error".  Now, "inerrancy" is a loaded word because it means different things to different people, and I caution against using words that have become loaded with meaning because while it means one thing to you it can imply something completely different to someone else.  But as with Huckleberry Finn and the game of football the ultimate question we must ask about the Bible to determine whether it has errors is this:  Will the Bible accomplish God's intended purpose?  Isaiah answers this question and confirms why I can believe the Bible is without error:

10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.  Isaiah 55:10-11

If there is any debate the Prophet Isaiah is referring to the Scriptures found in the Bible, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says,

16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

We like to make Biblical inerrancy an issue about historicity, authorship, harmony, and any other number of things but those are irrelevant to the question.  Will it accomplish its intended purpose?  The answer is an emphatic "Yes!"