Christians believe that the Bible is the unfailing word of God. They acknowledge that yes, the books were written by humans, but they were divinely inspired by God’s spirit. Therefore, nothing exists in the Bible that isn’t there intentionally.

So if we start from this point, looking at Scripture as God-breathed and infallible, the first thing to examine is the way that we interpret it. Different Christian denominations may have differing beliefs about literal vs. metaphorical interpretation and natural vs. spiritual meaning. Many say that a historical perspective must be applied, recognizing that the Scriptures as they’re written don’t necessarily equate to our modern understandings, but that the principles still apply.

One explanation for the differing accounts of the same story is the perspective from which they’re told. Different authors might be telling different parts of the very same story, only highlighting different details. Some point out that lack of detail in one portion of the text, or additional detail in another, doesn’t negate the consistency of the Scripture, but instead adds layers of meaning and understanding to the same story.

Additionally, many Biblical scholars point out that the authors were sometimes recording events that happened long before their time, such as the Gospel writers of the New Testament. The very first Gospel wasn’t written until 40 years after Jesus’ death. Many people claim that the way the Gospel stories were passed down verbally to the individual Gospel writers was God-inspired, meant to show us different aspects of Jesus’ life. Other scholars say the contradictions have everything to do with the way the text has been translated over time; they think that the original Scriptures were the infallible ones, but words have been misapplied in translation, causing problems with consistency and also in our current understanding.

Regardless of whether readers are exegeting (looking critically at the text to derive the original meaning) or eisegeting (drawing meaning from the Scriptures to apply to their current circumstances or beliefs), there are many ways to interpret the Bible and still retain the belief that it’s a holy book without error.