It cannot be overstated how much Hodge’s thesis, that the Bible was the completely inerrant, infallible word of God, was an astonishing break with Protestant church fathers and the traditional interpretation of the authority and limitations of scripture. Martin Luther, who had been a theology professor, used to acknowledge that the Bible contained contradictions and historical errors. Even the famously strict arbiter of human depravity John Calvin had been known to suggest that biblical writers were not particularly concerned with factual accuracy, keen to remind believers that the Bible’s
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