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According to H. Chaim Schimmel, [[Judaism]] had never promulgated a belief in the literal word of the [[Hebrew Bible]], hence the co-existence of the [[Oral Torah]].<ref>Schimmel, H. Chaim, ''The Oral Law: The rabbinic contribution to Torah Shebe'al Peh'', 2nd, revised ed., Feldheim Publishers, Jerusalem, 1996, pp. 19–21</ref>
Within [[Christianity]], some mainstream [[Evangelical]] and [[Protestant]] groups adhere to the inerrancy of [[scripture]] as it reads today. However, the ''Encyclopædia Britannica''
The [[Catholic Church]]'s view was authoritatively expressed by the [[Second Vatican Council]], citing earlier declarations, in the following terms: "Since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation."<ref name=DV11>[https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html Second Vatican Council, ''Dei Verbum'' (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation), 11] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531175312/https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html |date=May 31, 2014 }}</ref> The Council added: "Since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words."<ref>''Dei Verbum'', 12</ref>
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== Inerrancy in autographic texts and modern versions ==
Those who hold the inerrancy of the Bible do not all agree as to whether inerrancy refers to modern Bibles or only to the original, autographic texts. There are also disagreements about whether, because the autographic texts no longer survive, modern texts can be
== Textual tradition of the New Testament ==
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{{quote|Most changes are careless errors that are easily recognized and corrected. Christian scribes often made mistakes simply because they were tired or inattentive or, sometimes, inept. Indeed, the single most common mistake in our manuscripts involves "[[orthography]]", significant for little more than showing that scribes in antiquity could spell no better than most of us can today. In addition, we have numerous manuscripts in which scribes have left out entire words, verses, or even pages of a book, presumably by accident. Sometimes scribes rearranged the words on the page, for example, by leaving out a word and then reinserting it later in the sentence.<ref>See Ehrman, ''Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew'', p. 220</ref>}}
In the 2008 Greer-Heard debate series,
For hundreds of years, biblical and textual scholars have examined the manuscripts extensively. Since the eighteenth century, they have employed the techniques of [[textual criticism]] to reconstruct how the extant manuscripts of the New Testament texts might have descended, and to recover earlier [[recension]]s of the texts. However, [[Authorized King James Version|King James Version (KJV)]]-only inerrantists often prefer the traditional texts (i.e., ''Textus Receptus'', which is the basis of KJV) used in their churches to modern attempts of reconstruction (i.e., [[Novum Testamentum Graece|Nestle-Aland Greek Text]], which is the basis of modern translations), arguing that the [[Holy Spirit]] is just as active in the preservation of the scriptures as in their creation.<ref>White, JR., ''The King James Only Controversy: Can You Trust Modern Translations?'', Baker Books, 2009, p. 24.</ref>
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== Justifications ==
A number of reasons are offered by Christian theologians to justify biblical inerrancy. [[Norman Geisler]] and William Nix (1986)
| last=[[Norman Geisler]] and William Nix
| publisher=Moody Press, Chicago
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=== Deductive justifications ===
The first deductive justification is that the Bible
Supportive of this is the idea that God cannot lie. W. J. Mcrea writes:<blockquote>
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Because God cannot lie and because scripture is inspired by God, the Bible must be wholly true. This syllogism may be valid for establishing inerrancy, but it cannot define the concept.<ref>Grenz, SJ, ''Theology for the community of God'', Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000</ref></blockquote> Also, from Geisler:<blockquote>Those who defend inerrancy are deductivists pure and simple. They begin with certain assumptions about God and the scriptures, namely, that God cannot lie and the scriptures are the Word of God. From these assumptions, inerrantists deduce that the Bible is without error.<ref name="Geisler1980">{{cite book |first = Norman L. |last=Geisler |title=Inerrancy |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=e6IlzfPztMUC&pg=PA271 |year=1980 |publisher=Zondervan |isbn=978-0-310-39281-1 |page=271 }}</ref></blockquote>
A second reason offered is that [[Jesus]] and the apostles used the [[Old Testament]] in a way that assumes it is inerrant. For instance, in {{Bibleref2|Galatians|3:16}}, [[Paul the Apostle|Paul]] bases his argument on the fact that the word "seed" in the Genesis reference to "Abraham and his seed" is singular rather than plural. This (as
{{quote|Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds", as (referring) to many, but (rather) to one, "And to your seed", that is, Christ.{{Bibleref2c|Gal|3:16}}}}
Similarly, Jesus said that every minute detail of the Old Testament Law must be fulfilled,{{Bibleref2c|Mt|5:18}} indicating (it is
{{quote|For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.|{{Bibleref2c|Matthew|5:18|KJV|Mt. 5:18 (KJV)}}}}
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==== Inspiration ====
In the [[Nicene Creed]] Christians confess their belief that the Holy Spirit "has spoken through the prophets". This creed has been normative for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and all mainline Protestant denominations except for those descended from the non-credal [[Stone-Campbell movement]]. As
People who believe in inerrancy think that the Bible does not merely contain the Word of God, but every word of it is, because of verbal inspiration, the direct, immediate word of God.<ref>
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<blockquote>Nowhere within its pages does the Bible teach or logically imply the doctrine of scriptural inerrancy. [Concerning] 2 Timothy 3:16 ... this passage merely says that "all scripture" is profitable for doctrine, reproof, etc. It says nothing about scripture being "perfect", or "inerrant", or "infallible", or "all-sufficient". If anything, Paul's words constitute a refutation of the idea of scriptural inerrancy ... What it does say is that scripture is useful, profitable, for the needs of the pastoral ministry. The only "holy scriptures" Timothy could have known from childhood were the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. And yet, would any Christian assert that in Paul's view the Old Testament was the final and complete word of God to man? Of course not. In any event, verse 15 makes it clear that in speaking of "all scripture" Paul was referring to the Jewish scriptures and perhaps to some of his own epistles. The New Testament as we know it simply did not exist yet. Furthermore, it is fairly certain that Paul's canon included some Jewish scriptures no longer found in the Old Testament, such as the [[book of Enoch]].<ref>Griffith, M. T. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qOR8QDixIjcC&pg=PA113&dq=2+timothy+3:16+critic&hl=en&sa=X&ei=inG2U4HpEoHqPIa_gJAJ&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=2%20timothy%203%3A16%20critic&f=false Refuting the Critics: Evidences of the Book of Mormon's Authenticity]''. Cedar Fort, 1993, p. 129.</ref></blockquote>
The Catholic [[New Jerusalem Bible]] also has a note that this passage refers only to the Old Testament writings understood to be scripture at the time it was written.<ref>New Jerusalem Bible, study edition, p. 1967, DLT 1994</ref> Furthermore, the Catholic Veritas Bible website
The view that biblical inerrancy can be justified by an appeal to [[prooftext]]s that refer to its divine inspiration has been criticized as [[circular reasoning]], because these statements are only considered to be true if the Bible is already thought to be inerrant.<ref>
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{{bibleref2|Matthew|1:22–23|31}} reads: "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The ''virgin'' will be with child and will give birth to a son, and ''they'' will call him Immanuel'—which means, 'God with us'." Here Matthew quotes the prophet [[Isaiah]], but the [[Septuagint]], the Greek text of the Hebrew Bible he was using, was mistaken in its translation of the word ''[[almah]]'' ("עלמה") in {{Bibleref2|Isaiah|7:14}}:<blockquote>Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin [(''almah'')] shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.</blockquote>
On this point, Browning's ''A Dictionary of the Bible'' states that in the Septuagint (dated as early as the late 2nd century BCE), "the Greek ''parthenos'' was used to translate the Hebrew ''almah'', which means a 'young woman{{'"}}.<ref>Browning, WRF, ''A dictionary of the Bible'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Entry for ''virgin birth''.</ref> The dictionary also
Another writer, [[David Strauss]] in ''The Life of Jesus'', writes that the question "ought to be decided by the fact that the word does not signify an immaculate, but a marriageable young woman". He suggests that Isaiah was referring to events of his own time, and that the young woman in question may have been "perhaps the prophet's own wife".<ref>Strauss, D. F. ''The life of Jesus'', Calvin Blanchard, New York, 1860, p. 114.</ref>
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