I would still dispute this, although I have to admit that different translations can lead to apparent contradictions. Even though the original manuscripts of everything are unknowable in total, my faith is still that they were perfectly consistent in their original drafts. I would hold that if we can't believe that the Bible is factually accurate, then why should we believe that it is spiritually accurate?
[from the statement of Catholic Bishops] “We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision."
I suppose this pretty much throws the whole concept of divine inspiration out the window, doesn't it? If the writers were free to deviate from facts, then why were they not also free to deviate in spiritual truth?
But, to answer your question more broadly, the Fathers always maintained that the Bible is not within everyone's grasp. This is not an act of arrogance or pride, but of their deep spiritual understanding that Scripture is not for everyone.
This is very revealing, and I would strongly disagree with this idea. That is my definition of an unrevealed faith. That also requires that a layman can only receive the truth from other fallible men, NOT from God. I believe that scripture is for all those whom God loves, not only their human masters.
Finally, I will state that it makes no difference whether Christ walked the earth in Israel or America, whether He had long hair or short hair, whether He was a carpenter or a shoemaker, whether Bararaba existed or not, whether He had 12 or 24 disciples (as it turns out there were more than 12 anyway), but it is what He says in the Scripture that matters.
So only direct quotes from God in the Bible are accurate? Everything else is "who cares"? That wipes out the vast majority of the Bible as unreliable, does it not? You say that the Bible is not flawed. Indeed that surprises me very much. That means you believe that factual error is not a flaw. Therefore, God actively uses false stories, LIES, to give your leaders spiritual truth. The only alternative is that God was not the final editor of the Bible, and it just turned out the way it did through men's decisions. I admit I have never heard of this view before.
"If the writers were free to deviate from facts, then why were they not also free to deviate in spiritual truth?"
A very good question.
Let me put it this way, you know the parable about the mustard seed. That seed is not the smallest seed that exists and a mustard plant does not become a tree. Nevertheless, that was not the point of the parable. The truth of the parable was revealed by God, the story was recounted as known to the author.
If you read some of the "science" in the Bible it is obvious that either God was telling us lies or that the authors simply didn't know the world as we know it. I would say definitely the latter. God reveals the spiritual truth and those who are inspired write according to their human faculty and language constraints to express that truth.
That's why in the Bible the earth has "ends" and "corners" and hares chew cud, and bats are "birds," and mustard seed is the smallest seed -- certainly God knows that this is not so, therefore He did not put those in the Bible. The inspired authors did to the best of their knowledge.
If Bible were to be the source of physical, zoological and astronomical truths, it would have said such unbelievable things that the earth is round and that people stand upside downs on opposite poles but don't fall off, that there are no corners, that we go around the Sun, that there are such birds as penguins, that bats are not birds, that the mustard seed is not the smallest seed and does not grow into a tree, that illnesses are not caused by demons, etc. Human discoveries would have only confirmed the "ubelievable" things stated in the Bible instead of revealing a completely different world.
The fact that we discovered all these things that seem to contradict the Bible means that these were put into the Bible by the authors who didn't know better and couldn't possibly have known what we know today to be fact.
In 1978, in Chicago, conservative evangelicals issued a common statement on Biblical inerrancy in response to many liberal trends of the day. Part of their statement reads:
"Also, 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."
If you read Vatican II's carefully stated Dei Verbum on biblical inerrancy"everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit," you discover that the language falls short of factual claims.
One does not have to be a scholar to understand that "assertion" is not the same as "fact." It merely means that something is stated positively or assertively, as in asserting one's innocence (without proof).
Inability to distinguish inspired author's spiritual assertions, which we know in our hearts to be true, and their own world knowledge which reflects their place in time and geography, has led to anti-biblical tendencies that have culminated in the 20th century with the rise of communism and general decline of morals and religion, especially in Europe.
The impression, ever since Galileo, is that the Bible "lied" to us about the world and therefore must have lied to us about everything else. That's why bible inconsistencies are used primarily by various agnostic and atheist groups. The fact that Galileo didn't get a pardon for his "heresies" for 350 years doesn't make a good cause for the Church. The fact that we discovered that plagues are not God's wrath and neither is lightening, and that the world is round and that we go around the Sun and not the other way around, that bats are not birds, that hares don't chew cud, etc. does not help those who claim that everything in the Bible is true, because apparently it isn't so.