Defending Inerrancy 

By Haley Cleveland 

Inerrancy means that the inspired, original manuscripts of the Scriptures are free from errors. Since the Christian’s faith and foundation of belief come from the Bible, we must have confidence that the Scriptures are trustworthy. Both an understanding of this doctrine and the ability to defend it are crucial for believers today.

This article will focus on six common objections to inerrancy and how a Christian can respond to them:

• Objection 1: Jesus found errors in Scripture.
• Objection 2: Scripture is only inerrant when it refers to salvation.
• Objection 3: A defense of inerrancy is built on circular reasoning.
• Objection 4: Inerrancy is a new doctrine, not something that the early church believed.
• Objection 5: The Bible contains errors because it was written by humans.
• Objection 6: The Bible is errant because of inconsistencies and scribal errors.

Objection 1: Jesus found errors in Scripture.

Some critics of inerrancy will point to Jesus’s words in the Gospel, saying that in some places, he appears to change or contradict a passage or teaching from the Old Testament. Was Jesus himself critical of the Old Testament, and was he pointing out errors in Scripture? 

Jesus references and quotes the Old Testament frequently throughout his ministry. His overall use of the Old Testament Scriptures reveals his belief in their authority.¹ In a few places, however, he does clarify or expand on what had been previously written in Scripture. This does not mean that he changed it or that it originally had errors. 

One example is found in Jesus’s teaching on divorce (Matt. 5:31–32, Mark 10:1–9, Luke 16:18). Deuteronomy 24:1–4 mentions an allowance of divorce, which Jesus references in Matthew 5:31–32, then explains that he does not permit divorce except in situations of unfaithfulness. 

Was Jesus pointing out an error with the Old Testament teaching of Deuteronomy on divorce? 

Deuteronomy 24:1–4 is not an approval of divorce. Wenham states about this passage, “It is a rather disapproving recognition of the fact of divorce, with regulations to mitigate the worst of its evils.”² 

Jesus is not saying that the Deuteronomy passage is in error, but he is clarifying the sanctity of marriage. In fact, in Mark 10:6–8 where Jesus addresses divorce, he references Genesis 2:24, where a husband and wife are described as united in one flesh. In doing so, he uses the authority of the Old Testament as a basis for his teachings.

Wenham writes, “For the son of God to abrogate a law of God is in no way denial that it was first enacted by God.”³ Wenham’s chapter of Inerrancy (edited by Norman L. Geisler) expands on Jesus’s full use and treatment of Scripture throughout his ministry, making a fascinating case for Christ’s high view of it. He writes, “The evidence is abundantly clear: to Christ, the Old Testament was true, authoritative, inspired. To Him, the God of the Old Testament was the one living God, and the teaching of the Old Testament was the teaching of this living God. To Him what Scripture said, God said.”⁴

Objection 2: Scripture is only inerrant when it refers to salvation.

Some critics, not believing that the Bible can be accurate on matters of science or history, attempt to compromise on inerrancy. They will adopt what is called “partial inspiration,” where they determine that the Bible is only inspired or infallible when it talks about its main purpose, salvation. When it talks about topics like creation, history, geography, and so on, it may contain errors. 

While this may satisfy some who do not think the Bible is capable of being accurate on all things, it is a compromise. Charles Ryrie writes, “Without a reliable Bible, how can we be certain that our understanding of Christ is correct? . . . How can we know the truth about the Holy Spirit unless we trust the accuracy of the Bible?”⁵ 

If the Bible is not trustworthy in all it contains, why should we accept what it says about salvation? 

The passage 2 Timothy 3:13–17 deals with the purpose and intent of Scripture. Verse 16 begins, “All Scripture is breathed out by God. . .” and is frequently used to show that the complete Scriptures are fully inspired by God. 

However, more progressive interpretations of the Greek text will favor an interpretation like this: “Every Scripture inspired by God is. . . .” This translation is more vague, opening the door to the meaning that not every passage is considered to be inspired by God. Which translation is correct? Edwin A. Blum’s conclusion of this problem is that with critical study of the Greek text and the surrounding context, the translation “All Scripture is inspired by God. . .” is the accurate version.⁶

The Bible is not a history book or a science book, but when it talks about history and science, it is always accurate. We must embrace 2 Timothy 3:16 in our view of Scripture, realizing that the Bible in its entirety is inspired by God, completely true and without error, and as such it is useful in our lives. 

Objection 3: A defense of inerrancy is built on circular reasoning. 

Another objection to belief in inerrancy is found methodologically. Some will point out that Scripture cannot be used to defend inerrancy, saying that this is circular reasoning and thus is unreliable. 

D. A. Carson addresses this claim by stating that, “If we begin with our views of God, and from this perspective start to think our way toward the nature of the Bible, we must pause and admit that our views of God are (in the Christian perspective) drawn from the Bible. If we begin instead with, say, Jesus’ assessment of the authority of Scripture, that assessment is itself drawn from Scripture. The entire project of constructing a doctrine of Scripture is deeply flawed.”⁷ 

Does this mean that Scripture cannot be used to defend inerrancy, and as such, does it cast doubt on our belief of inerrancy? 

Carson continues by admitting that the argument can be considered circular, but “almost all human thought is in some measure circular, that is not to suggest that the circularity is intrinsically false.” He adds, “We do not turn to the Bible for certain proof about the nature of the Bible; rather, we turn to it for information. If the Bible made no claims about the nature of the Bible, we would have less reason for holding to the doctrine of Scripture outlined here. To go further, informed Christians may want to argue for the utter truthfulness and reliability of Scripture, but they will not want to argue for the utter truthfulness and reliability of their doctrine of Scripture. Methodologically speaking, they proceed with the creation of a doctrine of Scripture exactly the same way they proceed with the creation of a doctrine of Christ. Both are subject to revision as more light breaks from God’s gracious self-disclosure as already even in the Scriptures.”⁸

Although using Scripture in our defense of inerrancy could be called circular, this is not a fallacy. Rather, it is a logical use of information that the Bible affirms what we can already determine is a reasonable view of inerrancy.

Objection 4: Inerrancy is a new doctrine, not something that the early church believed.

The belief that inerrancy is a newly created doctrine has been prominent within the last fifty years. This belief sheds doubt on the legitimacy of inerrancy; after all, if this is something that the church throughout generations never believed, why should we? 

John D. Woodbridge is a scholar and historian who has debunked this belief in his research. His chapter titled “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy” in Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century gives a convincing history of notable Christian leaders throughout history who both affirmed and taught inerrancy.⁹

One notable adherent is the theologian Augustine (354–430), who wrote this in a response to Saint Jerome’s suggestion that Paul had written a lie in Galatians 2:14: 

“It seems to me that the most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books: that is to say that the men by whom the Scripture has been given to us, and committed to writing, did put down in these books anything false. . . . If you once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement, . . . there will not be left a single sentence of those books which, if appearing to any one difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away, as a statement in which, intentionally, . . . the author declared what was not true.”¹⁰

Woodridge says, “Augustine clearly affirmed as a nonnegotiable church doctrine that there are no errors in sacred Scripture. Such was a working premise for him, an essential guardrail if you will.”¹¹

Though there is sufficient evidence to prove that inerrancy was an important doctrine to the early church and throughout church history, Charles Ryrie cautions that history alone does not prove inerrancy is true. He writes, “The truth or untruth of any doctrine does not depend on whether or not it was ever taught in church history. Its truthfulness depends solely on whether or not it is taught in the Bible.”¹² 

Al Mohler says, “Inerrancy has been what the church has believed, based upon the Bible’s own testimony to itself.”¹³

The church, whether early or modern, did not create the concept of inerrancy, nor determine what is inerrant. D. A. Carson writes, “The church. . . did not confer a certain status on documents that would otherwise have lacked it, as if the church were an institution with authority independent of the Scriptures or in tandem to the Scriptures. Rather the New Testament documents were Scripture because of what God had revealed; the church, providentially led, came to wide recognition of what God had done in his climatic self-disclosure in his Son and in the documents that bore witness and gathered up the strands of the Son-revelation.”¹⁴ 

Christians throughout history have embraced inerrancy, not because of tradition, but because of what the Bible itself taught. 

Objection 5: The Bible contains errors because it was written by humans.

Perhaps one of the most common arguments against inerrancy is the objection that the Bible must contain errors because it was written by humans, who can err. To respond to this objection requires an understanding of the doctrine of inspiration. 

Inspiration is the doctrine that God divinely inspired human authors to write the Bible, usually taken from 2 Peter 1:21: “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” 

Ryrie defines inspiration this way, “God’s superintendence of the human authors so that, using their own individual personalities, they composed and recorded without error His revelation to man in the words of the original autographs.”¹⁵

The word inspiration literally means “God Breathed,” as seen in 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” When Scripture describes the process of inspiration, it is clear that God is the author who used humans to communicate his words. 

Ryrie writes this about the role of human writers: “The human wills of the authors were not the originators or the carriers of God’s message. That does not mean that the authors were totally passive. . . But it does mean that whatever the spirit was and did as inspiration, their human wills were not and did not do. And the spirit was the source in the guiding force; the authors’ wills were not. . . God did not permit the will of sinful man to divert, misdirect, or erroneously record His message.”¹⁶ 

Just as God used human authors to write the Bible, the divine/human relationship is perfectly balanced in Jesus Christ, in his role as fully God, yet fully man incarnation, life, and death.

Objection 6: The Bible is errant because of inconsistencies and scribal errors.

In this objection, critics will discover what they think is an inconsistency or an error in the Bible, and thus conclude that the Bible is errant. Do inconsistencies truly exist within the biblical text?

While any Biblical scholar will say that there can be differences or variants within the text, this does not mean that they are inconsistencies. 

According to Dr. Dan Wallace, there are over one million variants, but 99.9% of these textual variants are not meaningful or viable. The remaining 0.01% do not affect any major doctrine.¹⁷ The original autographs of Scripture were inspired and inerrant. 

Although we do not have access to these ancient manuscripts, we can have confidence that our modern day translations are trustworthy and accurate copies.

Ryrie points out that the claim of inconsistencies is a serious one. He writes regarding claims of inconsistencies in the Gospels, “Notice that inerrancy feeds on itself. If all the words cannot be trusted, then one may tend not to do careful exegesis and therefore either ignore or refuse to consider a perfectly reasonable explanation such as this.”¹⁸ 

Later on, he adds, “If someone comes to the Bible expecting or allowing for error, he can make a case for an errant scripture. But if he comes expecting the Bible to be inerrant, he can find plausible solutions, and even if you cannot honestly accept any of the suggested solutions, he can still simply believe that the Bible is inerrant and that we simply do not yet have enough facts to solve some of the problems.“¹⁹

Inconsistencies may not be a concern in our defense of inerrancy, but what about other errors? Can scribal errors be possible, and if so, does this affect the reliability of our text? 

First of all, we need to understand that inerrancy does not extend to copies of the manuscripts. Scribal errors, though rare, can exist. However, we have so many reliable copies of manuscripts that a copyist error is easily noted. 

Ryrie writes, “We need not conclude that errors are present in the text, except for, possibly, occasional copyist errors. How one views those suggestions will be a reflection of one’s underlying confidence, or lack of it, in the Bible itself.”²⁰ 

Many Bibles make potential scribal errors clear in their footnotes; we do not need to be concerned that these occasional errors will distract from the Bible’s message.

Why do we need to be on guard?

Why does this discussion on inerrancy matter today? 

My own father, a pastor and scholar, Kurt Seboe, commented this about inerrancy: “It shapes how we think about God and forms our epistemological structures. It determines where we go to learn about God. God himself is entirely truthful. He is without error and incapable of error. The Bible itself is inspired, infallible, and entirely truthful. Simply stated, it is without error and incapable of error.”²¹ 

Inerrancy is a matter of truth, and the truth of God and Scripture will transform our lives.

We must have the solid foundation of inerrancy in our approach to God’s Word. This is crucial because of the varied challenges to inerrancy, many of which we have discussed in this article. 

Ryrie cautions, “The attack on the total accuracy of the Bible is coming, not from liberals, but from born again believers who called themselves evangelical, yet do not believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Certainly, that domino is teetering. For some it has already fallen.”²² 

Inerrancy is a crucial belief for the Chrisitan today. We must believe God’s Word to be trustworthy and without error so that we can apply it to our lives accurately and fully.

Al Mohler says, “If the Bible is not the very Word of God, bearing his full authority and trustworthiness, we do not know what Christianity is, nor do we know how to live as followers of Christ.”²³ 

A belief in the truthfulness of Scripture must precede its working in our life. Let’s be Christians who are committed to the truth of God’s Word, and then are continually transformed by it to be agents of truth to a dark world.

Notes

1. John W. Wenham, Inerrancy (Zondervan, 1980), 16–17.
2. Wenham, Inerrancy, 27.
3. Wenham, Inerrancy, 24. 
4. Wenham, Inerrancy, 30.
5. Charles C. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy (Moody Press, 1981), 10.
6. Edwin A. Blum, Inerrancy (Zondervan, 1980), 44–48.
7. D. A. Carson, Collected Writings on Scripture (Crossway, 2010), 35.
8. Carson, Collected Writings on Scripture, 36.
9. John D. Woodbridge, “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy” in Understanding the Times: New Testament Studies in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of D. A. Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (Crossway, 2011), 121.
10. Augustine, Letters of St. Augustin (Aeterna Press, 2014), 28.3.
11. Woodbridge, “Evangelical Self-Identity and the Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy,” 111.
12. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 25.
13. Al Mohler, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Zondervan, 2013), 42.
14. Carson, Collected Writings on Scripture, 31.
15. Charles C. Ryrie, “What Is Meant By ‘Inspiration’” in the NASB Study Bible (Moody Publishers, 2012), 1633.
16. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 47.
17. Alisa Childers, “Top Bible Scholar Debunks TikTok Bible Myths: Dr. Dan Wallace,” Dan Wallace, YouTube, May 17, 2026, Video, 0:34–0:44, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky3TQJaO5DQ. 
18. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 94.
19. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 98.
20. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 89.
21. Kurt Seboe (Pastor), Discussion with Haley Cleveland, August 15, 2025.
22. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy, 10.
23. Mohler, Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy, 43.

Recommended Resources 

• Norman L. Geisler, ed., Inerrancy (Zondervan, 1980).
• Charles C. Ryrie, What You Should Know About Inerrancy (Moody Press, 1981).
• J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett, eds., Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Zondervan 2013).