The only "inerrant" Bible would be in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew scriptures. But the voluminous amount of fragments and/or books are so plentiful, as well as Hebrew/Greeek dictionaries, that today we pretty much know what it says.
I'm not sure that even the Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew scriptures would be inerrant, unless they were the original manuscripts, which they are not.
I'm not aware of any "horrible" errors that changes the message. It is estimated that it is 99.5% correct and the .5 can be figured out.
Nor am I. But that's not my concern. This is:
A list of the books comprising the "Christian" canon was compiled in Rome just prior to 200 A.D. This list was discovered in 1740 in the Ambrosian Libary in Milan, Italy. Missing from the accepted canon in 200 A.D. were Hebrews, James, 1 Peter and 2 Peter. Only two of John's letters were considered canonical, not three, but we don't know for sure which two. The Apocalypse of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon, however, were included.
Eusebius of Caesara, one of the most notable Church historians to have ever lived, described (in about 300 A.D.) a canon which included only twenty-seven of the books in today's New Testament. Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter where described as questionable, as were Jude and Revelation. In the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nazianzus continued to reject Revelation and states, "You have all. If there is any any besides these, it is not among the genuine [books]." The canon he set forth was ratified some three centuries later.
The Greek Codex Claromontanus, one of the most significant New Testament manuscripts, contains a list of the canonical books of the fourth century. (The manuscript itself originates in the sixth century, however most scholars believe that the actual list dates back to the Alexandrian Church from two centuries earlier.) That list did not exclude Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians or Hebrews. But guess what? It does include the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.
And what about about Paul's epistles? Why, for instance, was his epistle to the Laodiceans considered less authoritative than his other epistles? Or was it? Maybe it had just been lost prior to when the first canon was compiled. It's mentioned in Colossians 4:16, for instance. Obviously, it was considered authoritative at the time it was written. Paul also wrote an additional epistle to the Ephesians and another to the Corinthians. When did his "apostolic authorship" come into question? Jude, too, wrote another epistle. Why would it have be considered so unreliable as to have been intentionally omitted from the today's canon?
If we go to the Old Testament, there are even more books that are missing. These were written by "Samuel the seer," "Nathan the prophet," "Shemaiah the prophet" and others. 2 Chronicles mentions many of these by name. Why haven't we gotten rid of 2 Chronicles by now, since it references so many
prophets whose work was apparently not the word of God after all?
The Bible canon itself has been changed many, many times over the years. Surely books don't go from being "God breathed" to "not God breathed" and sometimes back again over the years.
There are four books which we consider to be scripture. Actually, whenever they are named, the Bible is mentioned first, and The Book of Mormon second. In our adult Sunday School classes, we spend twice as much time studying the Bible as we do The Book of Mormon. (It's not The Book of Mormons -- plural -- by the way; Mormon was the name of the man who abridged the sacred record of his ancestors. The book is named after him.) And when we study the Bible, it is to learn from it, not to look for errors in it. It is an extremely important part of our belief system and not just some kind of an add-on. It contains everything we know about our Savior's life and ministry in the Holy Land. We value it highly and consider it God's word.
