Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy is a written statement of belief formulated by more than 200 evangelical leaders at a conference convened by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy and held in Chicago in October 1978. The statement was designed to defend the position of biblical inerrancy against a trend toward liberal conceptions of Scripture. The subsequent November 1982 Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics recognised the need to add a hermeneutical framework to the statement. Finally the December 1986 conference adopted the Chicago Statement on Biblical Application. Inerrancy statement The Inerrancy Statement elaborates on various details in articles formed as couplets of "We affirm..." and "We deny...". Under the statement, inerrancy applies only to the original manuscripts which no longer exist, but which, its adherents claim, "can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy" (Article 10). In the statement, inerrancy does not refer to a blind literal interpretation, and that "history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth." It also makes it clear that the signers deny "that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood."