The International Committee on Biblical Inerrancy has set out two magisterial documents related to an understanding of inerrancy: the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) and the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics (1981). Earlier (1959), the Christian Reformed Church of North America settled on a definition and understanding of Biblical infallibility . According to one member of the Council on Infallibility: > The committee discussed at some length the usefulness of the word *inerrant* to describe the Bible. We concluded that it is not the most felicitous term to express the unique character of the Scriptures. We agreed that *infallible* and *trustworthy* fit the nature of the Bible more appropriately. The rest of his article speaks in general terms on why they rejected the term, but I'm looking for more than that. I'd like to understand specifically what about the reliability and authority of the Bible the ICBI affirms and denies that the CRCNA would not affirm and deny, and vice-versa.

This official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [source](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/bible?lang=eng) asserts: > As the Bible was compiled, organized, translated, and transcribed, **many errors entered the text**. The existence of such errors becomes apparent when one considers the numerous and often conflicting translations of the Bible in existence today. Careful students of the Bible are often puzzled by apparent **contradictions and omissions**. Many people have also been curious about references by biblical prophets to books or scriptural passages that are not currently in the Bible. What are notable examples of contradictions and omissions in the Bible that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has identified? --- See also: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/101391/61679

Based upon answers and comments to this question it appears that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that the Bible translations in use by all other Christian traditions have suffered some unspecified level of degradation (in accuracy) over time. Thus it was necessary for *an inspired translator, seer and revelator appointed by God to the task of recovering what was lost*. It is claimed that the Joseph Smith Translation (also called the Inspired Translation) corrects many of the errors in the degraded translations of the Bible. There is massive amounts of research (far too much to enumerate) in areas of biblical manuscript scholarship, textual criticism, etc. which stand in defense of the Scripture's accurate preservation and descent to us through time. A simple google search will turn up an almost unreadable volume of material demonstrating the near impossibility of Scriptural corruption such as this from the City Bible Forum . It seems characteristic of religions which proffer an alternative Scripture, such as Islam, to declare that the Bible is esteemed but only insofar as it's discrepancies are corrected by the alternative text. What is the scholarly evidence upon which Church of Jesus Christ bases its claim that the Bible has been degraded and that the truths it once contained need to be recovered?

It's accepted by most Christians nowadays that only the original documents are inerrant, therefore the modern Bibles are bound to have contradictions because of copyist errors and translation errors. And we can see that in numerous verses with at least numerical discrepancies. So we can never compare them with the original. So, I have two main questions: - Why did God allow that? We do not have the original texts anymore, so we can never see this supposed inerrancy, and that can put heavy discredit on the Bibles we have today, one can wonder what else there is wrong without us being able to know, isn't that counter-productive to Christianity? He supposedly intervened on the writing and canonization, but didn't on the copies and translations, He could at least make someone lock up the original documents in secure vaults (even an angel), but chose not to, and as a result we ended up with only the fallible texts at the end, why? That goes against God's nature of being the most responsible being who is deeply concerned with having his message understood. - How can this be reconciled with [Matthew 24:35](https://www.bibleref.com/Matthew/24/Matthew-24-35.html) ? My reasoning goes like this, since we don't have the autographs, we don't have the inerrant words of Jesus written down to us, so they don't exist anymore, they "passed away" at least barely. Or, we can accept that in regard to Jesus' words, at the bare minimum, are written down to us without error (this requires a strong dose of faith, but that's what religion is supposed to look like either way). God simply wanted His infallible words to be lost forever, and I want to know why.

Biblical doctrines are teachings explicitly taught in the Bible. For example, the inspiration of Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 declares that God is the author of Scripture: >16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. [The doctrine of biblical inerrancy]( https://www.gotquestions.org/Biblical-inerrancy.html) reflects on the character of God and is foundational to our understanding of everything the Bible teaches. It is worth pointing out that only the original autographs (the original manuscripts written by the apostles, prophets, etc.) are under the divine promise of inspiration and inerrancy. There is no biblical promise that copies of the original manuscripts would be equally inerrant or free from errors. As the Bible has been copied thousands of times over thousands of years, some copyist errors have likely occurred. I found an article about the 1978 International Council on Biblical Inerrancy where several hundred Christians representing forty-one churches and thirty-eight Christian denominations met to study, pray, and deliberate over an essential doctrinal issue: the inerrancy of Scripture. Over 300 Evangelicals, including John F. MacArthur, J. I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R. C. Sproul, and Josh D. McDowell, signed the document. [Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy](https://www.gotquestions.org/Chicago-Statement-Biblical-Inerrancy.html) Surely this is not the first “official” approval of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy within Protestantism? Did this doctrine exist prior to 1978? I fully acknowledge and understand that Augustine wrote to Jerome to express the meaning of this doctrine and the Catholic Church teaches that the Bible is without error. However, I am looking for sources from Reformed Protestantism to indicate when the doctrine of biblical inerrancy was first defined and documented.

According to , at least one Christian church thinks Acts 20:28 in the Lamsa translation supports thier non-trinitarian viewpoint. Many translations use "church of God" and suggest God's blood purchased our salvation, whereas the Lamsa translation says [emphasis mine]: >Acts 20:28 Take heed therefore to yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, to feed the church of **Christ** which he has purchased with **his** blood. What do evangelical leaders and scholars think about the Lamsa translation? Does it appear to contradict their doctrines?

Required Bible reference that Jesus preached for three and a half years.

I've come across some criticism of the gospels as historical accounts based on the author’s ability to know certain events that seem unknowable, or at least hard to know, like the quote below: > Mark’s narrator can describe the inner feelings of the characters – their compassion, anger, fear, sadness, amazement and love. The narrator tells when characters are dazed, stunned, puzzled, pleased, terrified or dejected. The narrator also tells the audience what the characters are thinking, for example, that the opponents think Jesus is a blasphemer or that Pilate knows the high priests are envious. The narrator explains why characters do things and when characters do not understand and when they do not know what to say. *Source*: [Quora post by Dick Harfield](https://qr.ae/pvkK73) referencing [Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, 3rd Ed](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0800699092) (2012) by Rhoads, Dewey and Michie > When a narrator is omniscient, audiences tend to be unaware of the narrator's biases, values and conception of the world, and therefore tend to trust the narrator as a neutral, objective teller of the events. *Source*: [Google preview](https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Mark_as_Story/H1oqpGN5WeMC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22narrator%27s+biases,+values+and+conception+of+the+world%22&pg=PT80&printsec=frontcover) of [Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, 3rd Ed](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0800699092) (2012) by Rhoads, Dewey and Michie, Chapter 2: The Narrator, Section "The Narrator's Point of View", Subsection "The narrator is not neutral" Whilst this quote pertains to Mark, there are multiple instances in the gospels, or even Acts, where things appear to be written from an omniscient narrator perspective, or at least written regarding things the disciples weren’t present at. Consider: > “Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭2:7-8‬ ‭ > “About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way. A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business.” ‭‭Acts‬ ‭19:23-25‬ ‭ There are multiple other examples, such as when the gospels record the discussion of the Pharisees amongst themselves, etc. I have heard that the gospels aren’t verbatim transcripts, but there are just some events where it seems hard to believe that the writers could have even known what happened, or even what was said. So then, how are the gospels able to record some events like omniscient narrators when they would not have even been present, let alone be able to record the private discussions of individuals? How would one refute the quote posted above? Does the (potential) use of omniscient narration impact the reliability of the gospels / their ability to be historical biographies? Please note: I’m not saying there is or isn’t omniscient narration, but for the purpose of asking about it, I've included it in the title of my question. Irrespective of whether you think it is omniscient narration or not, there are some private events in the Bible that are described by the authors which seem difficult for them to be present at. I'm not asking this question to be critical and I understand it may be broad. But, I guess I just want a clarity on **how certain events in the gospels can be recorded if the disciples weren’t there?**

Were New Testament writers infallible when they wrote Scripture, inspired through the Holy Spirit? Thank You.

Genesis *seems* to say that God created the Earth in six literal days ~4,000 B.C., and that there was a *global* flood ~2,000 years later that destroyed (almost) all life. It also claims that Earth was created before the stars, birds before land animals, and that all animals were vegetarian before The Fall. It "seems" to say this so plainly that for ~4,000 years, this was the prevailing belief among Jews and, later, Christians. Moreover, Christ Himself made statements such as "From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female". Many today believe however that the Earth is ~4.5 billion years old, humans are some hundreds of thousands of years old (some tiny fraction of a percent the age of the universe), and death and suffering reigned for millions of years before any humans existed. Clearly this is at odds with a "plain" reading of Genesis; at least the first nine chapters must be pure fantasy, and none of the genealogies can be trusted. Someone made the claim that God's revelation is progressive. That may be, but that puts Genesis firmly in the "lies told to children" category. It also puts Christ in the same boat; why, for example, would He not choose a phrasing that *isn't* factually wrong (e.g. "from the start of history" or some such)? If God lied to his people for thousands of years (and Christ perpetuated the lie), or if Genesis is simply not inspired, how can we trust *anything* about the Bible or Christ? If the origin of Sin and its consequences is a lie, and if death, disease and suffering are Very Good, how do we make sense of Christian theology? Okay, that's a lot of questions, but the one I really want to ask is this: **according to Trinitarians that *deny* a historical reading of Genesis**, what is the purpose of this misleading narrative? Even if "we weren't ready", why include elements that are *factually* wrong but appear to make no difference, such as the wrong order of creation? ---- Some evidence that Christians prior to ~1800 AD believed predominantly that the Earth was created < 10,000ya: - [This article](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/geohist.html) on talk.origins (note the first sentence). - [This paper](http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/6795/1/How_old_is_the_Earth_really.pdf) . - [This article](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/how-an-archbishop-calculated-the-creation-1.378556) . - There are various YEC resources floating around that give much more comprehensive lists of age-of-the-earth calculations done by Christians which mostly give a Creation date of ~3,500 BC - ~7,000 BC (with a few outliers, but all much less than 100,000 years). - Wikipedia also [discusses the topic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism) , and asserts that "an Earth that was thousands of years old remained the dominant view during the Early Modern Period (1500–1800)". There were other beliefs prior to ~1800 AD, both [Christian](/a/25872/53502) and otherwise, but to the best of my knowledge, belief in a "young" Earth prior to ~1800 AD was *predominant*, at least among Christians and Jews. Moreover, *the Scriptures themselves* (and even Christ, as noted above) generally refer to the Creation and Flood accounts as plain history.

What are the most challenging objections to the divine inspiration of the Bible? Are there particularly compelling arguments that skeptics of the divine inspiration of Scripture commonly bring up to justify their skepticism? *Note: this is the counterpart question to [What are the strongest arguments for the belief that the Bible was supernaturally inspired by God?](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/83868/what-are-the-strongest-arguments-for-the-belief-that-the-bible-was-supernaturall)*

So I recently watched a documentary about a new age movement and felt a bit rattled by what I perceived to be some examples of peoples behaving in a way that undermines the common arguments for trusting the gospel accounts. The video was about a new age movement called Breatharianism which basically claims that humans don't need to eat food but can instead subsist on the divine energy within them. While the gurus of this movement certainly did benefit financially and otherwise by promulgating their message which they had to have known was a lie, they also seemed to me at certain points to risk their lives for it. At multiple points, there was evidence that the gurus who claimed to have gone years without eating actually did eat regularly. So they knew what they were saying was a lie. Yet, they several times volunteered to undertake tests to prove this thing they knew was a lie. Even after knowing that some of their followers had died genuinely trying to follow the no eating rule. For instance, the most prominent woman volunteered to be monitored by 60 minutes to ensure she didn't eat for an entire week. The experient was ended by 60 minutes and not by her when the doctor who was monitoring her told her she was in imminent danger of dying. Certainly, it worked out in her favor, she got more publicity for nothing, but it seems as though she was determined to do this thing that she knew very well could have killed her despite the fact she had to know what she believed was a lie. Lots of people say, it's not plausible that the Apostles knowingly lied about seeing Jesus resurrected because of the persecution and eventual death they suffered because of it. It doesn't seem rational to die for a lie. And yet these breatharian people seem to be willing to do so. So what's the difference here?

The Gospel of Matthew is now considered to be important, however the 1st century and 2nd century references to it are surprisingly confusing and sparse. Which authors in the 1st and 2nd century refer to it *unambiguously*? For each author, please note the following: 1. When they wrote. 2. Whether they cite the Gospel of Matthew's content. 3. Whether they refer to it as the Gospel of Matthew. 4. Whether they seem to have considered that it was written by Matthew the apostle. 5. What criteria they use for acceptance as canonical. **Examples** * Tertullian seems to have written ~190AD (?), but doesn't associate the contents of what is now the Gospel of Matthew with Matthew the person, and instead associated it with Luke. * Clement (end of 1st century?) seems to quote Matthew, but does not say it was written by Matthew, or indeed give it a name or authorship of any sort. * Papias (150AD) mentions a Gospel of Matthew, but gives the impression that it was written in Hebrew and does not cite it, so doesn't leave us certain that he was talking about the same one. * Iranaeus (190AD) gives what is most similar to the modern account of the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew. (I assume that he cites it so that we can be sure that he saw what we see in the gospel of Matthew?) So: Are the above correct? Are there other 1st and 2nd century sources that refer to and/or cite the Gospel of Matthew and its authorship? What criteria did they use for determining authorship and canonicity?

One of the charges that is consistently leveled against Biblical reliability is that the Bible is "full of contradictions". This is certainly not a new charge, and the field of Apologetics, with its disciplined approach to defending God's word surely has a defined, commonly accepted approach to dealing with alleged discrepancies. What is that approach? In other words, what are the common "rules" (or less stringently, "guidelines") that are taught and followed in classic apologetics? --- **To be very clear**, I am not asking "is the Bible reliable?". I'm not asking "are the rules used true, correct, or sound"? I am well aware that skeptics, atheists, and Christians that believe the Bible could contain contradictions will likely disagree with the rules and techniques applied by apologetics. I'm not asking if the rules are true, I'm simply asking what they are, so that we have a record of the techniques used on the site. My hope is that these rules can be referenced later, for questions about such contradictions, to provide a framework for addressing the apparent contradiction questions using the classic apologetic approach.

GOD's words will never change from the beginning of creation and forever. If we read in Mathew chapter 7 words 17-18 it says: >17) Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. >18) A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. I need to understand how this tree of knowledge bringeth forth GOOD and EVIL fruit which Adam and Eve eat.

Is there trustworthy evidence of any event written in the bible ? For instance events like- Garden of Eden, The great flood & Noah's ark, Moses & Parting of the red sea, Miracles of Prophets, Miracles of Jesus like transforming water into wine at marriage ceremony,conversion of bread & fish into large number of those, curing people with disease,etc, Miracles of Apostles

For anyone who's unfamiliar with what the Young-Earth view, here's a starting point . I want to start out by saying that this question is not about whether or not the YEC view it true. It's not about whether there is scientific evidence for and/or against, or even neutral. This is in no way, shape, or form, a question about the validity of the YEC view, or any opposing view. Specifically, I'm asking why the Kent Hovinds, Ken Hams, and other prominent YEC creationists, and so many Fundamental conservative Christians so married to the YEC view, and so vocal about it. Most of the people that self-identify as Christians could care less about the issue. The idea of creation/evolution is a non-issue. Debating whether the Genesis account of creation and the flood has no bearing on doctrines they care about, from their perspective. As a matter of fact, many of them consider Creationists to be an embarrassment, and the idea of speaking out on the topic as counter-productive at best, and some think it's downright dangerous. They open themselves, and as a result, all of Christianity to ridicule because they "refuse to believe science" and stick to ancient stories. For the record (for the one or two people that don't already know it) I am one of those people. I'm a Young-Earth Creationist, so even though the above may sound like I'm attacking the YEC view, that's not why put all that in there. What I'm looking for is an answer as to why the "Creation Science Evangelists" - the Kent Hovinds, Ken Hams, the ICR, creationtoday.org, and others are willing to go around preaching something that gets them laughed at, ridiculed, and even other Christians wish they'd just knock it off. Why is it so important to them? Is there a doctrinal reason, or are they just that stuck in their ways that they're unwilling to change?

In the future, I will learn Koine Greek and I will read the New Testament in it’s original language. I will also read the Septuagint. The Dead Sea scrolls are all fragments so They are defined not proper to read the Bible. But which is older? And when were the Dead Sea Scrolls finished being written? God bless you all.

If Jesus went to desert alone for forty days and forty nights, how could the apostles write about it?

In several Apologetics articles (including one answer of mine on a different question), I see the statement that "there is overwhelming manuscript evidence to support the fact that the Bible has been transmitted accurately through time". Often, these sites contain a chart like the following, with no explanation of why the number of copies, or the gap between the original written version and the earliest known manuscript matters. So how does all of this prove anything? Does it prove the Bible is the Word of God? If not, what's the point?