Inerrancy: Is the Bible free of error?

Something that I chanced upon from a rather intriguing read of a site - http://www.religioustolerance.org/.

This article discusses the matter of inerrancy of the Bible. Is it truly free of error? What piqued my interest was the question if apocrypha (books removed, forcibly or otherwise aka known as "those having been hidden away") from the Bible we know today, are actually inerrant too?

Here's a glimpse...

In the early days of the Christian religion, there were about 40 gospels, hundreds of epistles, and a few apocalypses in circulation. Each was deeply revered by various theologically diverse Christian faith groups. Nobody knows exactly how many books there were. Many did not survive until the present time. Some are known only by having been mentioned in other Christian writings.

Larry Taylor comments that in order to decide on which books should be accepted into the official canon in the fourth century CE:

"...some bishops [at]...several church councils voted for conflicting lists, the contradictions of which took centuries more to resolve. These votes came after a long period of sorting and choosing by the churches at large, so that the choice was not haphazard..." 6

The bishops' main criteria was whether the book in question was actually written by an important leader in the primitive Christian church -- usually an apostle or someone closely affiliated with an apostle. Some theologians suggest that a second criterion was the degree to which the book's religious beliefs were compatible with the theology of the bishops in the fourth century. The Gospel of John, for example, barely made it into the canon. There was considerable resistance to its inclusion because of its Gnostic content.

The question remains: did the bishops make the right choices?


I then wonder if it's a matter of devotion if we go and find out exactly what was taken out.

Go here for the full article.