Is the Bible Inerrant?

Podcast can be played below (AI generated from the full article - so cool!). Also, below the podcast is a shortened summary of the full article. Click here to read the full article, which takes about 10-15 minutes. You also can download a .pdf version of the full article at the bottom of the online content.

Is the Bible Inerrant?

Imagine you're debating whether God is loving or wrathful, and someone slams their Bible down, quoting Romans 12:19: "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord!" Case closed, right? But then you remember that Jesus taught us to love our enemies and forgive endlessly. So... which is it? And is the Bible as clear-cut as some claim?

How Did We Get the Bible?

Before we ask if the Bible is inerrant, let’s talk about how it came together. Spoiler: It didn’t drop from heaven, leather-bound, with Jesus' words in red.

The Bible is a collection of 66 books for Protestants and 73 for Catholics, written over 1,500+ years by 40+ authors across three continents. It includes history, poetry, prophecy, and letters—yet carries a common theme of God’s love and redemption.

But deciding what made the cut took centuries. The Old Testament was mostly settled by Jesus’ time, but the New Testament wasn’t finalized until the 4th-5th centuries. Then, in the 16th century, Martin Luther removed several books from the Old Testament. Depending on your Christian tradition, your Bible might have different books.

So, if the Bible was shaped by human hands, does that mean it’s flawed? Or does it mean God has been working through history’s messy process? Either way, the Bible is worth reading, wrestling with, and learning from.

A God of Genocide?

If the Bible is always literally true, some stories raise tough questions. Take 1 Samuel 15:3, where God supposedly commands the destruction of entire cities, including women and children. Or Genesis 22:2, where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son.

Would we accept these commands today? Of course not. Instead of assuming these stories reflect divine approval of violence, we might consider that they reflect the culture of their time. The Bible was written by real people interpreting their experiences with God—perhaps sometimes misunderstanding. Just as Jesus pushed his culture toward love and forgiveness, scripture invites us into an evolving conversation, not a rigid rulebook.

What Does “Inerrant” Even Mean?

Some say inerrancy means the Bible is without error in history, science, and morality. This view gained traction in the 19th and 20th centuries in response to challenges from modern science and secular philosophy. Evolution, geology, and astronomy contradicted literal interpretations of Genesis. Meanwhile, biblical criticism questioned the authorship and accuracy of many texts. Some Christians doubled down on inerrancy, while others embraced new approaches.

Here’s the thing: the early church never talked about biblical inerrancy. They saw scripture as inspired and authoritative but understood that human authors shaped it. Many early theologians, like Augustine, saw deeper truths in scripture rather than strict literalism.

And if inerrancy means every detail must match perfectly, we’ve got some problems:

• The Gospels differ on the order of the Last Supper (Matt. 26:26-28, Luke 22:17-20).

• The wording on Jesus' cross varies in each Gospel (Matt. 27:37, John 19:19).

• The resurrection accounts don’t fully align—who got to the tomb first? How many angels were there? (Compare Matt., Mark, Luke, and John.)

• Jesus says the mustard seed is the smallest seed (Matt. 13:32), but scientifically, it’s not.

Do these differences make the Bible unreliable? Not at all. They show that real people wrote it, sharing different perspectives. If all accounts matched perfectly, we’d suspect they had rehearsed their stories.

Jesus' Approach to Scripture

If we want to know how to interpret scripture, we should look at Jesus. Did he treat scripture as an unchanging rulebook? Not exactly.

1. He Reinterpreted It – In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly said, “You have heard it said… but I say to you” (Matt. 5:21-48). He wasn’t rejecting scripture but expanding it—moving beyond legalism into transformational love.

2. He Used Parables – Jesus rarely gave straight answers. He taught through metaphor and story (Matt. 13:34-35), inviting deeper reflection instead of rigid doctrine.

3. He Omitted Troubling Passages – When quoting Isaiah 61, Jesus stopped mid-verse, leaving out “the day of vengeance of our God” (Luke 4:18-19). He intentionally reshaped the message toward love and healing.

4. He Prioritized Love Over Legalism – When criticized for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus responded, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). He valued compassion over strict rule-following.

5. He Redefined the Commandments – When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus condensed over 600 laws into two: love God and love your neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40). True faith isn’t about rule-keeping—it’s about living in love.

A Bible That Moves Us Forward

The Bible shows a growing revelation of God and an evolving human consciousness. It starts with an eye for an eye (Exod. 21:24) but moves toward Jesus’ radical forgiveness (Matt. 5:38-44). It begins with purity laws and nationalistic religion but expands to radical inclusion (Gal. 3:28).

Paul calls scripture “useful for teaching and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16), but that doesn’t mean divine wisdom stopped when the last book was written. If the arc of scripture moves toward grace, our faith should do the same—embracing God’s love for all people, without exception, without conditions, and without fear.