Is the Bible without error? What does the Church teach about inerrancy?

Yes. The Catholic Church teaches that Scripture is inspired by God and teaches without error the truth that God intended the sacred authors to affirm for our salvation.

What inerrancy means. God is the author of Sacred Scripture because He inspired its human authors (CCC 105). Those writers remained true human authors who used their own faculties and powers, yet they wrote everything and only those things God wanted (CCC 106). Therefore, the inspired books teach firmly, faithfully, and without error the truth God wished to see confided to Scripture for the sake of salvation (CCC 107; Dei Verbum 11). This teaching applies to Scripture as God's inspired Word, not merely to a few favorite doctrinal verses.

What the authors affirm. Inerrancy must be understood according to authorial intention and literary form. A poet may use imagery without asserting a scientific description. A parable can teach infallible truth without reporting a historical event. Ancient historians may arrange, summarize, or select material differently from modern biographers. The Church directs interpreters to consider culture, genre, modes of expression, and the circumstances of the sacred writers (CCC 109-110). Truth is judged according to what the text actually asserts, not according to a purpose the author never had.

Apparent difficulties. Readers sometimes find differing chronologies, numbers, descriptions, or parallel accounts. These do not justify declaring Scripture mistaken before examining genre, translation, textual history, perspective, and the author's purpose. The four Gospels, for example, select and arrange events in distinct ways while truthfully handing on what Jesus did and taught for our salvation (CCC 126). The Church does not claim that every copyist, translator, footnote, or later manuscript variation is inspired. Inspiration belongs to the sacred books as written by their inspired authors.

Neither fundamentalism nor skepticism. A rigidly modern reading can demand scientific or chronological precision from passages that do not intend it. Skepticism can dismiss a historical claim merely because it includes miracles. Catholic interpretation avoids both errors. It begins with faith in God's truthfulness, uses careful scholarship, and reads Scripture within the Church's living Tradition (CCC 111-114). Some difficult passages remain debated among faithful Catholic scholars, and the Church has not settled every historical or literary question.

When a passage appears erroneous, identify what the author is actually asserting. Consult a Catholic study Bible, the Catechism, and sound commentary before concluding that the text has failed.