At the outset, I have deliberately chosen to dwell on the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the doctrines of inspiration and infallibility of Scripture. We normally tend to plunge directly into the task of reconciling anomalies in the Bible or defending it against charges of inaccuracy in historical and scientific matters. We would however do well to first establish the reasonability of this belief on the basis of agreed parameters.

If I believe in the reasonability of the existence of the Triune, Infinite-Personal Creator-God, such a Being would be infinitely virtuous, the crowning attribute being love, which exemplifies every dimension of His eternal holiness. This love is objectified by communication - in Christian Theology, we could legitimately speak of the love of God the Father for God the Son (Jn.17:24) - without which there can be no actualisation of it. This love will, at best, remain potential. But God, as the Infinite One, cannot have potentiality in any of His attributes because that would make Him susceptible to change. He therefore fully actualises it in the mysterious relationship of the Trinity.

One of the many shining examples that can be found in the Gospels is Jesus' repeated insistence in different contexts that all things have been committed to Him by His Father and that the Father and the Son know Each Other exhaustively (Matt.ll:27). This state of affairs comes about only by Divine self-disclosure which is the basis of all genuine communication. (May I digress at this point to say that this divine reality is what sets Christian communication so distinctly apart from all secular communication about which much is made of these days? While the Christian yearns to grapple with the vitals of this communication, his secular counterpart is content to play around with the techniques that form only the outward shell of the subject. It is a tragic irony for the Christian to think that communication, Christian and secular, is basically identical and the difference relates only to the content!

That such a God, if He exists, must communicate can therefore be taken as axiomatic. This communication rightly begins at the creation of the objective universe by the spoken Word (Gen.1), and its continued preservation is also an ongoing Word from an omnipotent God (Heb.l:3). Well can the psalmist say that the heavens are telling us - the tense in the original Hebrew is best translated as present continuous - about the glory of God (Ps.19:1). His creative act is climaxed by the fashioning of the first man made in God's own image, capable of communicating with His Creator, as well as hearing, understanding and obeying His Word to him.

The idea that the Bible is the Word of God arises from this reality of a communicating God desiring to disclose Himself to His special creation. Such an interaction, in and of itself, would constitute the communication from God to man. Thus it is that God's historical choice of a man (Abraham) and his dealings with a nation (Israel) make for the strategy of His communication as seen from the voluminous history in Scripture.

An important part of the Divine image in humans is the capacity to speak. God's Word, in order to be objective and verifiable has to be verbal. All other non-formal types of communication, though more important and in some cases more expressive, cannot serve the purpose of objectivity which needs to be hallmark of God's unchanging communication with mankind.  The objectivity of God's communication is rightly underpinned by the creation of the external universe by the spoken Word. It is not surprising that the Bible should open with the majestic account of creation!

The possibility of an inerrant Bible has its roots in the character of the immutable and inerrant God of communication. What would be the medium that God could choose for such a self-disclosure? If God were to let frail and fallible humans perceive Him and pen their thoughts about Him, error on their part cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, if God were to communicate in an entirely divine mode, humans would be incapable of understanding it. (In fact, the Scriptures of Hinduism and related religions are believed to belong to the former category and the Qur'an decidedly is held to belong to the latter). The only reasonable third option would be a medium which is Divine-human in which human language is employed under Divine superintendence. We do not subscribe to the doctrine of dictation of Scripture by God, by manipulating or obliterating the human dimension, nor do we believe that the authors were totally free to choose their own mode of expressing the divine input, God in no way assuming responsibility for the quality of the eventual product. This mysterious coincidence of the human and the Divine is made possible on account of two reasons:

1. Man is made in the image of God and thus Divinity and humanity are not mutually exclusive categories. God could choose to condescend and speak in human terms without the inevitability of error in the communication. In Schaeffer's words, He can speak to humankind truly, though not exhaustively.

2. The agency of the Holy Spirit is crucial in the communication - He can so operate through human authors without depriving Scripture of its humanness (II Pet.1:21). Jesus could therefore underline this combination in Matt.22:43 - "David, speaking by the Spirit, ..."

But then this communication from God - His self-revelation - had to be made permanent so that it could be passed on to posterity without distortion. The inscription of God's Word was a legitimate precaution against accretions through oral traditions. Gen. 5:1 employs the Hebrew word 'sepher' which is well translated in the NIV as 'written account'. It appears that records were available to Moses from which he could compile the genealogies of his ancestors. Even in Moses' own time, God had commanded him to record crucial events in 'THE scroll' (Ex.l7:14 - the Hebrew employs the definite article!) The writing down of historical occurrences and prophetic utterances are a familiar sight to one conversant with the Bible.