Long though worthwhile read regarding Bible Inerrancy from C.S. Cowles: Prominent evangelical scholar J. I. Packer defines `inerrant’ as “not misleading or being misled,” or “not deceiving or being deceived.” This was how it was used in the Church until the 19th century, and how Nazarene theologians understand its use in Article IV today: that is, the Bible can be trusted not to mislead us relative to “all things necessary to our salvation.” If this moral rather than technical understanding had prevailed, then the word would have incited little controversy. Unfortunately, Protestant Fundamentalists loaded up an inherently benign word with claims about the Bible that it does not make about itself, and that do not accord with either its contents or purposes. Nearly three hundred evangelical theologians and biblical scholars—mostly from within the Calvinistic theological tradition—gathered in Chicago in 1978 to establish the Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Out of it came the famous...
