Topic

Scripture and Inerrancy

In what sense the Bible is without error: whether its truthfulness covers every statement it makes, including history and science, or chiefly what it teaches about faith and life.

Biblical Inerrancy holds that Scripture, in its original manuscripts, is true in everything it affirms. Limited Inerrancy holds that Scripture is fully reliable in faith and practice but need not be precise in every incidental historical or scientific detail. Many Catholic, Orthodox and mainline Protestant theologians frame the question in other terms again, speaking of the truth Scripture teaches for salvation.

The argument is sharpest among Evangelical Protestants. It came to a head in the 1970s with the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy (1978) and the Southern Baptist “Conservative Resurgence” that began in 1979. It relates closely to wider questions of Authority such as Sola Scriptura.