Biblical Inerrancy and Patriarchy

Since its modern development in the 1970s and 80s, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy has worked to protect inherited beliefs by minimizing and often demonizing alternative interpretations of scripture, presenting them as biblically subversive and thus necessarily erroneous. Utilizing new interviews with Beth Allison Barr (The Making of Biblical Womanhood, 2021) and Sarah Stankorb (Disobedient Women, 2023), this paper will tell one part of this much larger story, particularly how inerrancy has been weaponized to promote and protect a patriarchal theology of authority, submission, and abuse. Special attention will be paid to how inerrancy has been used to attack Barr, Stankorb, and others via social media, blogs, reviews, sermons, books, and threats of lawsuit. The weaponization of inerrancy is a lived reality for these and other authors, many of whom have dared offer a hermeneutic of risk that takes seriously our historical consciousness and thereby challenges inerrancy’s desire for certainty