Inerrancy of the Bible

Autographic texts and modern versions

Those who hold the total inerrancy of the Bible have a variety of views as to whether inerrancy refers to modern Bibles or only to the original, autographic texts. There are also disagreements about whether, because the autographic texts no longer survive, modern texts can be said to be inerrant. Article X of the Chicago statement agrees that the inspiration for the words of the Bible can only strictly be applied to the autographs. However, the same article asserts that the original text "can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy", so that the lack of the originals does not affect the claim of biblical inerrancy of such recovered, modern texts. Robert Saucy, for instance, reports that writers have argued that "99 percent of the original words in the New Testament are recoverable with a high degree of certainty."