Inerrancy (INERRANZA) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, p. 1108

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

INERRANZA. — Immunity from error, a quality enjoyed by the books of Sacred Scripture, which preserves them from every formal error. Inerrancy is distinguished into inerrantia facti (of fact) and inerrantia iuris (of right), according as one excludes from the error only its presence in the particular case, or also its very possibility. Inerrantia iuris (also called inerrantia infallibilitatis) includes the other as well.

Since God is its author, by virtue of inspiration the Bible possesses God’s own inerrancy, that is, both inerrantia iuris and inerrantia facti. The sources of Revelation place the foundation of biblical inerrancy in the divine origin of Sacred Scripture: being the word of God, it cannot err, otherwise the error would fall back upon God. Inerrancy, although not solemnly defined, is a dogma of faith (cf. Decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of 24 February 1934, in AAS, 26 [1934], pp. 130–31). Inerrancy entails the logical truth of the content of the Bible, that is, its conformity with objective reality, according to the mode that God intends to express through the words of the hagiographer; from these words the literary genre employed must be established, since each literary genre entails a determined degree of objectivity. Pontifical documents encourage the exploration of literary genres (v.), especially in Genesi.

The presupposition of inerrancy is the truthfulness of the Bible, which therefore cannot deceive. Inerrancy concerns only the original text; it exists in translations to the extent that they reproduce II.
During the last seventy years, inerrancy has been the object of many challenges because of conflicts with the sciences, which prompted more profound study and gave rise to the so-called “biblical question” (v. BIBLICA).

BIBL.: G. Bonaccorsi, Questioni bibliche, Bologna 1904; C. Pesch, De inspiratione S. Scriptura, Friburgo in Br. 1906, pp. 347-475, 489-511; id., Supplementum continens disputationes recentiores et decreta de inspiratione Scriptura, ivi 1926, pp. 13-68; F. Egger, Absolute und relative Wahrheit der hl. Schrift, Brizen 1909; F. Albanese, La verità nelle S. Scritture e le questioni bibliche, Palermo 1925; id., La Bibbia scevra di errore contiene alcune inaccuratezze, ivi 1929; id., Le questioni bibliche alla luce della esegesi tradizionale, ivi 1949; E. Florit, Ispirazione e i. biblica, Roma 1943; F. S. Porporato, La S. Scrittura e le scienze, Chieri 1944; id., Miti e ispirazione biblica, ivi 1944; A. Bea, Inspiration et inférence, in DBs, IV, coll. 520-59; A. Van Rooy, De inerrantia S. Scriptura, in Collectanea Bicchliotensia, 33 (1948), pp. 158-60; Eufrasto di Cristo Re, I generi letterari e l'encicl. « Divino afflante Spiritu », in Questioni bibliche alla luce dell'encicl. « Divino afflante Spiritu », I, Roma 1949, pp. 1-30; G. Castellino, L'i. della S. Scrittura, Torino 1949.