📖 Biblical Definition
Scripture claims divine authorship and therefore complete truthfulness. "All Scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Timothy 3:16). Jesus treated the Old Testament as authoritative to the smallest detail: "Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law" (Matthew 5:18). Because God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), and Scripture is God's Word, Scripture cannot contain errors. Inerrancy is not a modern invention but the historic position of the church from the apostles through the Reformers — the natural consequence of believing that the Bible is what it claims to be.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
INERRABLE: Incapable of erring; infallible.
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INER'RABLE, a. Incapable of erring; infallible. Note: Webster's era took the truthfulness of Scripture for granted. The need to formally defend "inerrancy" arose only when liberal scholarship began questioning what had been assumed for centuries.
📖 Key Scripture
• 2 Timothy 3:16 — "All Scripture is breathed out by God."
• Matthew 5:18 — "Not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished."
• Psalm 19:7 — "The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul."
• John 17:17 — "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Inerrancy is attacked as naive literalism while "infallibility" is redefined to allow for errors in Scripture.
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Liberal and neo-orthodox theologians have waged a sustained campaign against inerrancy. Some claim Scripture is "infallible" in matters of faith and practice but contains errors in history and science. Others claim the Bible "contains" the Word of God but is not itself the Word of God. Both positions undermine the authority of Scripture by making human reason the judge of which parts are trustworthy. Once you concede that Scripture contains errors, you have made yourself the authority over God's Word rather than submitting to it. Every denomination that has abandoned inerrancy has subsequently abandoned orthodox positions on sexuality, the exclusivity of Christ, and the reality of hell. Inerrancy is the first domino — when it falls, everything else follows.
Usage
• "Biblical inerrancy is not a modern invention — it is the historic position of the church, the natural consequence of believing that God cannot lie and that Scripture is His Word."
• "Every denomination that abandoned inerrancy subsequently abandoned orthodoxy — because once you make yourself the judge of Scripture, there is no doctrine you will not eventually surrender."