By Jonathan Noyes and Greg Koukl

Are there errors, inaccuracies, and mistakes in the Bible? Can we trust everything the text affirms, or is it riddled with missteps, ethical flaws, and antiquated morality? Jesus said, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).[1] Was he wrong? Can Scripture err?

Nowadays, many think so. A surprising number of Christians—including pastors and influential theologians—reject Scripture’s complete accuracy, reliability, and veracity. Simply put, the Bible is not inerrant, they say. It is not without error.

The question of Scripture’s accuracy and reliability hinges on the answer to a single question: “What kind of book is the Bible?” The Bible is either a book written by men about God, or it’s a book authored (ultimately) by God and given to men. Those are the alternatives. If the former, it’s prone to all the errors, flaws, and misguided opinions that humans are prone to. If the latter, then that changes everything.

What Is Inerrancy?

Simply put, inerrancy means “without error.” If the Bible is inerrant, it cannot be wrong in anything its authors intended to communicate.[2] More formally, biblical inerrancy is the view that the Bible, in its original manuscripts, is without fault or flaw in any and all of its teachings because God’s Spirit is its author. Thus, Scripture tells the truth in everything it asserts, whether in doctrine, history, science, geography, or morality. One author put it this way:

The Bible is a trustworthy communication by Spirit-guided interpreters and is true in all it intends to teach. Its statements convey what is factual given its literary conventions; its record is faithful and reliable. This includes all its individual parts as well as its overall message.[3]

Note the reference in this definition to “literary conventions” and to “Spirit-guided interpreters.”

Since truth is communicated in different ways with different types of writing, genre and grammar matter. The standard methods for interpreting accurately, then, will vary with the kind of material being read. Poetry, for example, does not convey the same kinds of facts as historical narrative. Proverbs do not deliver airtight promises, but rather generalizations about how life works. Apocalyptic literature uses exotic imagery to convey theological truth.

The Spirit also aids in our understanding. In my view, the Spirit does not provide the meaning of the text, strictly speaking. The words and the grammar do that. Even a non-Christian can get the basic meaning simply by paying attention to the language, the sentence structure, and the context. The Spirit conveys the significance of the meaning, not the meaning itself. A non-believer can discover that the text teaches, for example, the deity of Christ, yet he is unmoved. The Christian sees the same teaching in the same text and worships.

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A Word of Warning

The question of biblical inerrancy is an in-house discussion among Christians who are already convinced the Bible is God’s Word in some sense. It’s not a good idea to grapple with skeptics on this issue. Here’s why.

Trying to persuade outsiders that the Bible makes no mistakes in anything it asserts often triggers from the skeptic an avalanche of alleged contradictions. If the believer cannot convincingly meet that challenge—and few can—he’ll be stonewalled, unable to move forward with a more vital concern: a clear, persuasive proclamation of the gospel. Even a single apparent discrepancy raised by a naysayer can be enough to short-circuit that process, potentially undermining any further attempt to reason with him from Scripture.

The early Christians did not engage this way. Before the New Testament was even assembled, Peter, Paul, and the others made no claims of authority for either their speaking or their writing when doing evangelism. They made no appeals to inerrant texts in order to entice listeners to take their words seriously.[4]

The disciples’ message was simple. Jesus the Messiah was crucified and raised from the dead as a fact of history—“to which we are all witnesses” (Acts 2:32). He died and rose again for a reason: rescue. Trust in him, and be saved from damnation. Ignore him, and face the wrath of God.[5] That was it.

In the same way, when we are pressed about the text, our reponse with outsiders should focus on its historical reliability, not its divine inspiration.

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Does Inerrancy Matter?

Does it matter if every word of Scripture is flawless? After all, the libraries of the world overflow with tomes that are written by mere humans yet provide reliable truth about every issue under the sun. None need be perfect on every point to get important things right.

When it comes to the Bible, the simple answer is yes, inerrancy matters. When the issue is spiritual truth with eternal consequences, communicated to us by God himself, every detail matters.

Though the church at large has never formally affirmed inerrancy, from a practical perspective inerrancy was presumed as a necessity for all orthodox theology. Every theological doctrine that the church did formalize was based on its absolute confidence that God had spoken with complete authority through his Word. Without that confidence, the Bible’s entire theological framework loses integrity. Inerrancy protects the church in a number of ways.

First, inerrancy guarantees we have a trustworthy, authoritative revelation to help us follow God in every area of our lives.

If a GPS is unreliable, it won’t help a hiker navigate in the wild. In the same way, if Scripture contains errors, we can’t trust it to pilot us safely though the personal quagmires and theological tangles we encounter in life. Because God is perfect, though, his Word is perfect, too—a dependable source of truth to light our path and restore our souls (John 17:17; Ps. 119:105; Ps. 19:7).

Inerrancy guarantees we have a reliable foundation for all biblical teachings on salvation, theology, and morality. If Scripture is flawed, any doctrine can be reinterpreted in light of human reasoning or conveniently dismissed. Inerrancy, on the other hand, gives us confidence to follow Scripture wherever it leads us in all areas of life. Inerrancy, then, is the lighthouse that gives consistent guidance, keeping us from drifting into error and grounding us in the unwavering truth of God’s Word.

Second, inerrancy guarantees the truth of certain facts of history that are essential elements of God’s plan for the salvation of the world.

The call of Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3) and the Exodus were chief redemptive acts in the history of the ancient Hebrews. In the New Testament, the historical truth of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is a sine qua non of Christian theology. If the record of those events is unreliable, then the foundations for biblical faith crumble. Paul even said that if the resurrection of Christ were not a fact of history, our faith would be worthless, we would still be in our sins, and Christians should be pitied (1 Cor. 15:17, 19).

Third, inerrancy guards us against relativism.

In a world of shifting values and subjective standards, Scripture provides an unchanging benchmark for truth (Isa. 40:8; Matt. 24:35). When culture challenges biblical teaching, inerrancy anchors us firmly and confidently in Scripture’s enduring authority. If the Bible had errors, it could not provide that confidence. It might contain objective truth, like many books do, but it would not be the immutable standard of objective truth. Instead, subjective and shifting human opinion—relativism—would be the standard, not God’s self-revelation.

Finally, inerrancy provides a solid foundation for a safe, satisfying, and durable relationship with God.

A dependable text means we can trust the promises of God regardless of what life throws our way. Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), and, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). In Hebrews 13:5, God assures us, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.” Because God’s Word is completely trustworthy, we have the assurance that God will cause every difficulty to work for our good as he uses each hardship to conform us to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28–29).

Without confidence in the absolute reliability of Scripture’s revelation of a sovereign God who promises to care for us through every uncertainty of life, our relationship with him would be shaken.

The Logic of Inerrancy

A simple equation describes the logic of inerrancy: If the Bible is God’s Word, and God cannot err, then the Bible cannot err. Since God always tells the truth, then his Word always tells the truth. His Word is, therefore, without error. It is inerrant.

The inerrancy of Scripture, then, ultimately rests upon the character of God as the author of the text. God conveys the words of Scripture through a process we call “inspiration.” B.B. Warfield, theologian of the old Princeton era, defined inspiration as “a supernatural influence exerted on the sacred writers by the Spirit of God, by virtue of which their writings are given Divine trustworthiness.”[6]

In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul uses the word theopneustos to describe the nature of inspiration. The term literally means “God-breathed.” If the words of Scripture are themselves “breathed out” by God, they cannot, even in principle, be in error. As Stewart Custer notes, “If this word [theopneustos] does not teach the absolute trustworthiness and authority of Scripture, what does it teach?”[7]

God accomplished this end by means of a unique partnership between his Spirit and the human authors he chose to write Scripture.

Biblical inspiration, properly understood, does not entail dictation.[8] Instead, the Holy Spirit superintended a unique partnership with Scripture’s human authors so that by using their own words, personal styles, and research, they would still write down the exact words the Holy Spirit moved them to record. Thus, their words would also equally be God’s words.

Theologians call this process “concursive operation.” Though the writer’s personality is fully evident in the text, God’s Spirit is simultaneously securing the complete accuracy of every jot and tittle of his writing. Peter describes this unusual partnership this way:

But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (2 Pet. 1:20–21)

The phrase “moved by the Holy Spirit” evokes an image of wind in the sails of a ship being driven forward by the breeze. The same language occurs in Acts 27:17, where a ship is “driven along” by the wind.

Peter’s point is that Scripture is not merely a human invention (“an act of human will”) but is the result of a mysterious partnership between the writers of the text and the Holy Spirit who moves them decisively forward. One might characterize the process as 100% God and 100% man. Stewart Custer offers this helpful comparison:

Just as the Lord Jesus Christ had two natures, the human and the divine, the written Word of God also has its human and divine sides.... If the human nature of Christ is perfect, there is no inherent reason why the human element of the Bible could not be perfect as well.[9]

The result of this partnership is what theologians call “verbal plenary inspiration”: The very words themselves are inspired (“verbal”), and all of the words of Scripture are inspired (“plenary”).

Our confidence in Scripture doesn’t merely rest on how it was inspired. The key to our case for inerrancy is understanding what the biblical text says about itself.

The Witness of Scripture

Stewart Custer notes, “There is one reason, and one reason alone, that Conservatives hold so tenaciously to the inerrancy of Scripture: the Scripture itself teaches it.”[10] If we take the Bible as God’s Word in any robust sense, we have to take seriously its own assertions of authority. The Bible consistently claims to be the Word of God, not simply to contain the Word of God.

First, according to Hebrews 1:1–2, not only were the Hebrew prophets the mouthpiece of God, but Jesus’ words were also God’s words: “God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son.”

Second, throughout the New Testament, the words of the Old Testament are identified as the words of God. Matthew 1:22 refers to “what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.” Acts 1:16 states, “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David.” In Romans 9:17, Paul cites as “Scripture” a passage that explicitly identifies God as the source of the statement (Ex. 9:16). To Paul, “Scripture says,” was equivalent to “God says.” B.B. Warfield observed:

In one of these classes of passages the Scriptures are spoken of as if they were God; in the other, God is spoken of as if He were the Scriptures: in the two together, God and the Scriptures are brought into such conjunction as to show that in point of directness of authority no distinction was made between them.[11]

Third, the apostles claim divine authority for their own teachings. John writes, “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:6).

In Galatians 1:11–12, Paul says, “For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” He tells the Corinthians, “If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment” (1 Cor. 14:37). Paul says that the apostles’ words are God’s words:

Now we [apostles] have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. (1 Cor. 2:12–13)

The authority of the apostles’ words was also established by Jesus’ own words the final night he was together with them:

But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. (John 16:13–14)

Fourth, the Scripture distinguishes itself from myth. Paul tells Timothy not to pay attention to myths (1 Tim. 1:4), but to be “nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following” (4:6). Paul was treating biblical doctrine as inerrant truth contrasted with the “deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” that some would fall prey to (4:1).

Finally, Paul confirms that the Gospel of Luke is Scripture. In 1 Timothy 5:18, he couples an Old Testament reference from Deuteronomy 25:4, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing,” with a New Testament statement by Jesus in Luke 10:7, “The laborer is worthy of his wages,” and calls them both “Scripture.”

The most compelling reason to affirm inerrancy, however, comes from Jesus.

Jesus’ View of Scripture

If the incarnate Word fully affirmed the integrity of the written Word, then his conviction about Scripture should be ours, too.[12] So, what did Jesus think about the authority of the Hebrew texts? Our Lord consistently appealed to “the writings” as a rock-solid source of divine revelation.

When tempted by Satan, Jesus rebuffed him three times saying, “It is written” (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10), invoking Old Testament passages to counter the devil as if they were the final authority on God’s truth.

In Matthew 5:18, Jesus declared, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished,” affirming the enduring authority and accuracy of the Law down to its tiniest details.

In Matthew 22:31–32, Jesus made a theological point hinging on the tense of a verb: “But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” By building his argument on the precise grammar of the text, Jesus confirmed his belief in the Old Testament’s word-for-word authority.

After his resurrection, Jesus spoke with two disciples on the road to Emmaus and confirmed the complete accuracy of “the things concerning Himself in all the [Old Testament] Scriptures”(Luke 24:25–27).

Here is what Jesus said about his own words:

• “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63).
• “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me” (John 7:16–17).
• “He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world” (John 8:26–27).

The day before he died, Jesus summed up his own view of Scripture with these words: “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:17). To deny inerrancy, then, is to deny Christ’s own conviction about God’s Word. If we part with our Lord on this question, there’s little keeping us from parting with him on a host of other issues.

Dealing with Difficulties

What about challenges to inerrancy that have to do with the text itself? For example, some claim inerrancy fails because manuscripts contain differences due to copyist errors.

Recall first that inerrancy applies only to the original manuscripts, not the copies. Even so, given the vast number of ancient Greek manuscripts currently in our possession, scholars have been able to reconstruct the original text with remarkable accuracy. The few uncertainties that remain do not affect any Christian doctrine. For all intents and purposes, we have the original wording.

Others have argued that Scripture is not historically or scientifically accurate. Offering an itemized rebuttal to each challenge in this category is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that careful attention to literary genres, historical context, and the precise wording of passages has resolved many of those concerns.

The Cost of Compromise

Compromising on inerrancy may seem like a small concession to cultural pressure, but the damage rarely stops there. History is replete with examples of individual churches or whole denominations discrediting scriptural authority and eventually abandoning God’s Word entirely. When they traded theological and moral clarity for cultural acceptance, doctrinal fidelity gave way to moral and theological confusion.

If the church relinquishes inerrancy, she loses her prophetic power and is no longer able to speak with authority to a confused world or offer certainty to a searching soul. When people start believing the Bible is flawed, the dominoes begin to fall. Broken confidence leads to broken pastors and broken churches. Undermine the foundation, and the whole edifice eventually crumbles.

Affirming the inerrancy of Scripture is not just a theological detail. It’s a declaration of trust in God’s character and God’s promises. Inerrancy assures us that what God said, he meant, and what he promised, he will fulfill.

Is Scripture broken? Are there errors, inaccuracies, and mistakes in the Bible? Is the Word riddled with missteps, ethical flaws, and antiquated morality? Jesus didn’t think so. The apostles didn’t think so. The early church didn’t think so. Neither should we.

The unbreakable Word of God is our unshakable foundation. On this rock we will not be moved.

[1] Young’s Literal Translation renders Jesus’ words, “The Writing is not able to be broken.”

[2] The author’s intent is a critical factor with inerrancy, as it is with all proper biblical interpretation.

[3] William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1993), 146.

[4] The Jews, of course, were an exception. Paul cited the Hebrew prophets frequently with his Jewish audiences since they were already convinced that God had spoken in their ancient texts.

[5] John 3:36; Acts 2:22–24, 36–38; Acts 17:30–31; Acts 24:24–25.

[6] Benjamin B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1948), 131.

[7] Stewart Custer, Does Inspiration Demand Inerrancy? (Nutley, N.J.: The Craig Press, 1968), 51–52.

[8] The exception would be those rare times when God instructed a prophet to “write this down.”

[9] Custer, 87.

[10] Ibid., 86.

[11] Warfield, 299.

[12] Note, our line of reasoning here is not based on a presumption that the Bible is God’s Word in some sense, as were my earlier points, but simply on the claims Jesus made that are found in the primary source historical documents of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. For a more complete treatment of this approach, see “A Simple Case for Inspiration” at str.org.