In the early church, the authenticity and the inerrancy of the scriptures were never seriously challenged. "Justification by the faith alone" was what many people believed. If the bible is considered to be totally inerrant then this leaves a major concern in its teachings of theology, morals, beliefs, geology, geography and history. If it is considered then it leaves the individuals faith venerable. Every one proven error can shatter the whole belief system and make the bible seem useless to some believers. People have different foundational views about the bible. This causes them to reach very different conclusions. We also must not forget that the bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramatic and Greek. Some passages in the Hebrew Scriptures may be interpreted in many different ways. The biblical commands are imbedded in the history and culture of the time, the scripture itself provides us with criteria for evaluating how the entire scripture should be applied to our lives and culture. .
Biblical scholars have also noted that almost every page of the Bible, weather written in Hebrew or Greek contained both spelling and grammatical errors. If one assumes that the bible is inerrant, then you could expect errors of all types in the bible; errors in fact, errors in belief, errors in spelling and errors in grammar. In addition, no scripture is free of bias. Essentially all versions are the product of translators who come from a similar theological background. Being human, they sometimes produce versions of the bible that tend to match their own belief systems. .
Even though the bible has been used to support differing positions on such issues as Christians participation into war, slavery, and the male female relationship, we believe that there are principles, which will give us helpful guidance on these issues. In this way, the authority of the bible as God's word transcends the culture and the history in which it was written.
