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==== Some clarifications ====
=====Accuracy ''vs''
Harold Lindsell points out that it is a "gross distortion" to state that people who believe in inerrancy suppose every statement made in the Bible is true (as opposed to accurate).<ref name="Lindsell">Lindsell, Harold. ''The Battle for the Bible'', Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan (1976), p. 38.</ref> He says there are expressly false statements in the Bible, but they are reported accurately.<ref name="Lindsell" /> He notes that "All the Bible does, for example in the case of Satan, is to report what Satan actually said. Whether what he said was true or false is another matter. Christ stated that the devil is a liar".<ref name="Lindsell" />
=====Inerrancy ''vs'' infallibility=====
Many who believe in the ''inspiration'' of scripture teach that it is infallible but not inerrant. Those who subscribe to infallibility believe that what the scriptures say regarding matters of faith and Christian practice are wholly useful and true. Some denominations that teach infallibility hold that the historical or scientific details, which may be irrelevant to matters of faith and Christian practice, may contain errors. Those who believe in inerrancy hold that the scientific, geographic, and historic details of the scriptural texts in their original manuscripts are completely true and without error, though the scientific claims of scripture must be interpreted in the light of its [[Phenomenology of religion|phenomenological]] nature, not just with strict, clinical literality, which was foreign to historical narratives.<ref name="inerrancy" />
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=====Metaphor and literalism=====
Even if the bible is inerrant, it may need to be interpreted to distinguish between what statements are [[metaphorical]], and which are [[Literal and figurative language|literally]] true. [[Jeffrey Burton Russell|Jeffrey Russell]] writes that "Metaphor is a valid way to interpret reality. The 'literal' meaning of words – which I call the overt reading – is insufficient for understanding reality because it never exhausts reality." He adds: <blockquote>Originating in Evangelicalism, the Fundamentalists affirmed that the Bible is to be read "literally" or overtly, leading some to reject not only physicalist evolution but even evolution science and to deny that life developed over billions of years. Evangelicals tended to believe in the "inerrancy" of the Bible (though they defined that term variously), a view that sometimes could unhelpfully turn the Bible into an authority on science and history.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/paradisemislaidh00russ_0|title=Paradise mislaid|date=November 19, 2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-516006-2|via=Internet Archive}}</ref></blockquote>
Also, figures such as [[Scot McKnight]] have argued that the Bible clearly transcends multiple [[genre]]s and Hebrew prose [[Poetry|poems]] cannot be evaluated by a reader the same as a science [[textbook]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/05/05/how-do-we-know-when/|title=When is the Bible metaphorical?|work=Jesus Creed|date=5 May 2012}}</ref>
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