Modern Biblical scholars have many reasons that cast doubt on the idea that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. They have identified issues with translations, multiple authorship, interpolations, contradictions and context as just some of them. Plus, there is the issue of what was chosen to be in the Bible (called closing the canon). The choice of books is different for Protestants and Catholics and the Orthodox Church. And on that topic, why are Jonah and Job and Esther in the Bible and not the Gospel of Thomas?  The choices they made seem odd sometimes.  

We think “deconstruction” is a new idea, but it isn’t. Quakers were undergoing “deconstruction” in the seventeenth century. The Quaker debate about whether the Bible was inerrant took placed in public. There was a debate in pamphlets between a Quaker and a Puritan preacher over whether the Bible was the WORD of God or the Words of God.

I think some of the concepts from when they were wrestling with their faith can be useful for people who are in the process of unwinding what they have been taught and coming to their own beliefs.

Crucial the Quaker belief system is that it didn’t come from one person. While there was a charismatic early founder (George Fox), he was one of many. And his beliefs incorporated ideas from others that he learned from. In fact, his Journal recounts his travels around England in the 1640s looking for and learning from other Seekers.

An outgrowth of the Quaker belief of the Inner Light, the idea that God is still working in the world and can be accessed, is the idea that the Bible isn’t the only way we learn about what God wants, because God is continuing to speak to us.  This is the concept that Quaker theologians call “Continuing Revelation”. 

Because they believe that God is still speaking to us, that means we aren’t limited to the Bible.  I’ve criticisms that the Devil is behind the temptation to go beyond the Bible. But Quakers developed a test to determine whether a “leading” (an idea to go beyond scripture) was a message from God or not.  One key test is consistency with scripture, but that’s not the only test.  This is a process of discernment – it’s not easy and can lead to some abuses, but so can following a leader.