Author's Bias | Interpretation: conservative

Inerrancy

Inerrancy means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. The Bible is true and completely free of error.

Since we do not have the original manuscripts, some will consider this definition as meaningless.

However, we know what the original manuscript comprises 99% of the Bible.

In many of the verses where there are textual variants, the correct reading is clear.

There are very few places where the textual variant is both difficult to evaluate and significant in determining the meaning.

In the small percentage of cases where there is significant uncertainty about what the original text said, the general sense of the sentence is usually quite clear from the context.

The study of textual variants have brought us extremely close to the content of the original documents.

Thus when we say that the original documents are inerrant, we are implying that over 99% of the words in our present manuscripts are also inerrant. Furthermore we know exactly where the uncertain readings are.

References:

1. Geisler NL, Nix WE. A General Introduction to the Bible, Chicago: Moody Press, 1986.

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