For a lot of Christians, biblical inerrancy (the view that the Bible, as God’s word, is infallible and so free from error) is a big deal. There seems to be this idea that in order to be a proper Christian, one who is passionately committed to following God, you have to believe that he inspired the Bible in such a way as to protect its authors from error.

This idea has become important enough to Christianity that some people now reject Christianity on the ground that the Bible contains errors. I think that this is a mistake. I don’t think that biblical inerrancy is central to Christianity, and I don’t think that biblical errancy (the view that the Bible does contain errors) is a good reason to reject Christianity. (more…)