Inerrancy, Biblical

The belief that the Bible contains no errors, whether theological, moral, historical, or scientific. Sophisticated holders of this theory, however, stress that the biblical manuscripts as originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek were inerrant, but not those that are presently available. Some more conservative scholars are reluctant to speak of inerrancy, but choose to speak of biblical infallibility. They mean that the Bible is completely infallible in what it teaches about God and God's will for human salvation, but not necessarily in all its historical or scientific statements. Biblical inerrancy and infallibility are not accepted by the Episcopal Church. See Fundamentalism.