The 'Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy' was formulated in October of
1978 by more than 200 evangelical leaders at a conference sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, held in
Chicago. The statement was designed to defend the position of
Biblical inerrancy against a perceived trend toward liberal conceptions of
Scripture. The undersigners came from a variety of
evangelical Christian denominations, and include
James Boice,
Carl F. H. Henry,
Kenneth Kantzer,
J. I. Packer,
Francis Schaeffer, and
R. C. Sproul.
Leading inerrantists regard the Chicago Statement as a very thorough statement of what they mean by "inerrancy". The 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 can be inferred on the basis of extant copies), not to the copies or translations themselves. Further, in the statement inerrancy does ''not'' refer to a blind literal interpretation, but allows for figurative, poetic and phenomenological language, so long as it was the ''author's intent'' to present a passage as literal or symbolic. (see
Biblical hermeneutics)
See also
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Biblical inerrancy
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