What the one holding to biblical infallibility is clearly committed
to is examination of every passage with a view to allowing the author to direct
his thoughts with entire freedom. Every constituent message (which may or may
not correspond to a simple statement of some kind) must be obediently received
with that end in view, that is, according to the service it was intended to
have in the development of the passage itself. This is the central
qualification I have been emphasizing as the hermeneutical answer to much of
the difficulty in the inerrancy debate. Perhaps returning to the problem of
David’s census . . .I can illustrate the two-way implications of this
qualification: “Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he
incited David against them . . .” contains two related messages for the information
and reflection of the reader as he approaches the story to follow. So does the
following statement, which introduces the parallel account: “Satan rose up
against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.” This apparent
conflict cannot be ignored, for it cannot be maintained that the element of
conflict here is incidental to the purpose of the statements. (Douglas Farrow, The
Word of Truth and Disputes About Words [Winona Lake, Ind.: Carpenter Books,
1987], 209-10)
In the
footnote to the above, Farrow wrote:
Cf. 2 Sam 24:1 and 1 Chr 21:1. Those who jump quickly to the
conclusion that these statements are simply contradictory—and relatively
unimportant—introductions to duplicate accounts of the incident show the same
sort of hermeneutical insensitivity as the inerrantists they criticize. By
examining other differences as well, the two narratives (beginning with their
introductions) will be seen to offer deliberately different, but complementary,
perspectives, in keeping with the different themes that gave both books a position
in the canon despite the repetitious nature of the Chronicles. Where 2 Samuel
is concerned with the relevant of this incident to the dialectic of judgment
and forgiveness, blessing and curse, all taking place within the providential
purposes of God, 1 Chronicles shows more attention to the evil character of the
act itself, perhaps in keeping with the chronicler’s interest in documenting
the relationship between action and effect. In any event, this certainly is not
the only place where the activities of God and Satan are shown to have intersected—no
small point for the penetration of theological thought into the nature of
reality in “this present evil age”—and both points of view are indeed
significant. (Ibid., 210 n. 30)
