Is the Bible completely without error, or does it contain real human mistakes — and does your answer change everything?

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  Ravi3d ago

  If the Bible has even ONE verifiable error, then how do you decide which parts to trust? You've just handed yourself the authority to pick and choose, which means YOU become the final judge — not God. That's not Christianity, that's just therapy with ancient texts.

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  Jordan2d ago

  I lost my church over this. Genuinely. I asked an elder about the two different accounts of Judas's death — Matthew says he hanged himself, Acts says he fell and burst open — and I just wanted an honest conversation. I was told I had a 'spirit of doubt' and that my question was dangerous. I wasn't trying to tear anything down. I just wanted to understand. That was three years ago. I still don't know where I belong.

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  Reese M.1d ago

  been a pastor 22 years. this debate has burned down more churches than most heresies. my take: hold inerrancy humbly. not as a bludgeon. not as a litmus test for who's really saved. the people demanding absolute precision on every syllable have never sat with a grieving widow and opened that book hoping God shows up in the words. He does. every time. and she doesn't care about the census numbers.

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  Omar2d ago

  To the person above — that elder failed you. Questions like that have been discussed by serious scholars for 2,000 years. The early church fathers knew about those two accounts and didn't consider it a crisis. You were punished for curiosity. That's a church culture problem, not a Bible problem.

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  Leo1d ago

  that last comment is exactly why people are leaving lol. zero compassion. just suspicion and accusations. you wonder why the pews are empty

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  Iris2d ago

  okay but the 'original autographs' argument is a cop-out and everyone knows it. we don't HAVE the original autographs. so you're asking me to believe in the inerrancy of documents that literally no longer exist. that's not faith that's just untestable

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  Jamie M.1d ago

  I'll be the one to say it: young evangelicals are leaving inerrancy in droves not because they've studied their way out of it but because they've been wounded by people who wielded it like a weapon. The doctrine itself might be fine. The culture around it is often toxic.

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  Hana2d ago

  i grew up being told inerrancy was the hill to die on and then i actually read the bible carefully and... Numbers 25:9 says 24,000 died. 1 Corinthians 10:8 says 23,000. same event. somebody explain that to me without doing gymnastics because i've heard every answer and none of them are satisfying

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  Sam1d ago

  The Jesus-affirmed-inerrancy argument is actually circular though. We know what Jesus said because of the gospels. If the gospels can err then we don't know for certain that he said 'Scripture cannot be broken.' You can't use the Bible to prove the Bible is error-free without assuming what you're trying to prove.

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  Jamie2d ago

  I'm a seminary professor (reformed tradition) and I want to push back gently on both extremes here. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) was careful to say inerrancy applies to the original autographs, in all that they affirm, interpreted according to their literary genre and cultural context. That's not the same as saying every number is a modern-precision statistic or every narrative is journalistic reportage. Most of the 'contradictions' dissolve when you apply basic hermeneutical discipline. That doesn't mean the question is simple — it means people are arguing past each other.

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  Drew L.1d ago

  Can we talk about how the inerrancy doctrine itself isn't actually in the Bible? The Bible says it's inspired, profitable, useful — it doesn't call itself inerrant. That word was formalized in the 19th century partly as a response to Enlightenment criticism. We built a doctrine about the Bible that the Bible doesn't make about itself. That's worth at least pausing on.

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  Iris18h ago

  Here's my challenge to everyone who says the Bible contains real errors: if God cannot or did not preserve His own Word accurately, what does that say about His power or His commitment to humanity knowing Him? And if your answer is 'He allowed errors so we'd learn to wrestle with the text,' then you've made God's communication strategy indistinguishable from any other ancient human literature. At that point I genuinely want to know — why THIS book? Why not Plato?

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  Sam K.1d ago

  That's one of the most cynical and uncharitable takes I've read in a long time. Most people who believe in inerrancy do so because they genuinely love the Word of God and believe Jesus himself treated Scripture as authoritative and without error. John 10:35: 'Scripture cannot be broken.' Why is it impossible for you to believe someone holds this view sincerely rather than for power?

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  Kofi1d ago

  "The Bible doesn't call itself inerrant" — okay and the Bible doesn't use the word Trinity either. Does that mean the Trinity isn't a valid doctrine? We use systematic language to describe what Scripture teaches about itself. That's just theology.

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  Marco2d ago

  The problem with the 'it has errors' camp is that nobody agrees on WHICH errors. One guy says the creation account is symbolic. Another says the Exodus numbers are exaggerated. Another says the resurrection appearances can't be harmonized. At what point is this just cafeteria Christianity? At some point you have to trust the whole menu or eat somewhere else.

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  Reese 921d ago

  The 'reconcilable if you squint hard enough' approach is intellectually embarrassing. At some point harmonization becomes fabrication. We are adding details to the text that are not in the text in order to protect a doctrine about the text. That circularity should bother us.

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  Liam1d ago

  With respect, pastor, the grieving widow deserves to know whether what you're reading to her is actually true. Compassion doesn't require abandoning truth claims. If the Bible is comforting but not actually reliable, you're giving her a warm blanket made of fiction.

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  Hana2d ago

  Barth had it right? Barth denied the historicity of the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection. If that's where 'the Bible becomes the Word of God in encounter' leads you, I think I'll stay with the fundamentalists, thanks.

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  Avery1d ago

  Infallibility vs inerrancy is a distinction that actually matters here and nobody is making it. Infallibility means the Bible won't fail in its purpose — to lead you to God and salvation. Inerrancy means no factual errors of any kind. You can hold the first without holding the second and still be completely orthodox. The Catholic and many mainline Protestant traditions have done exactly this for centuries.

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  Liam2d ago

  Inerrancy. Full stop. 2 Timothy 3:16. All Scripture is God-breathed. You don't get to add an asterisk to 'all.'

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  Avery1d ago

  Jesus quoted the Old Testament constantly and never once said 'well, the scribes got that part a little wrong.' If Jesus treated Scripture as unbreakable, and Jesus is God, and Jesus is the one I'm following — I think I'll take His view of Scripture over a seminary professor's view. Seems like the safer bet.

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  Drew1d ago

  What nobody here seems to want to say out loud: the real motive for rigid inerrancy isn't theology, it's CONTROL. If the Bible is absolutely perfect in every detail, then whoever claims to interpret it correctly has absolute authority. This is why cults operate this way. I'm not calling inerrantists cultists — I'm saying the mechanism of 'perfect text + authoritative interpreter' is a power structure, not just a hermeneutic.

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  Reese2d ago

  Y'all are missing the point entirely. The Bible is not a science textbook or a newspaper. It's the inspired witness to the living God revealed in Jesus Christ. Barth had it right — the Bible BECOMES the Word of God in the encounter of faith. Quibbling over census numbers in Numbers is like arguing whether the Prodigal Son's father literally ran or speed-walked. You've left the building.

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  Feli S.1d ago

  OR they're leaving because they want permission to believe whatever is culturally convenient without being accountable to an authoritative text. You can dress that up in trauma language all you want.

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  Elena20h ago

  No offense intended is always followed by something offensive but go off

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  Morgan _x2d ago

  Former atheist here. The thing that actually shook me toward faith wasn't inerrancy arguments — it was the manuscript evidence and the way the core message of the gospel stayed consistent across wildly different authors over centuries. I'm honestly not sure where I land on inerrancy of every number but I do believe the Scriptures are uniquely trustworthy in a way no other ancient document is. Maybe that's a cop-out, I don't know.

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  Maya2d ago

  Nope. Hard disagree with the 'it has errors' crowd. The moment you say the Bible errs, you have to ask: who decides what's true? You? Your denomination? Your favorite theologian? God said what He said.

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  Ravi B.2d ago

  both accounts of Judas are actually reconcilable if you understand he hanged himself over a field and the rope/branch broke and he fell. ancient readers would have known this. its not even a stretch. people act like this is this huge unsolvable mystery

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  Jamie22h ago

  If you're citing Catholic or mainline Protestant tradition as your baseline for orthodoxy you've already lost the plot for most people in this forum. No offense intended.

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