Thank you By Grace.When we speak of the Bible, we go to a much higher level than what you posted. Here is a shortened version of the 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy
A Short Statement
1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself.
2. Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises.
3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture's divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.
4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives.
5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.
Articles of Affirmation and Denialfrom http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html
Article I.
WE AFFIRM that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God.
WE DENY that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source.
Article II.
WE AFFIRM that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordinate to that of Scripture.
WE DENY that Church creeds, councils, or declarations have authority greater than or equal to the authority of the Bible.
Article III.
WE AFFIRM that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.
WE DENY that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity.
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These (and the rest of the 19 articles in total that follow) have been definitive for the Evangelical community believing in the plenary and accuracy of the Scriptures on the matters which it speaks. Using the example of your words above "It doesn't say "all scripture is dictated by God." " since the Bible NEVER uses the terms such as you suggest, "dictated by God" it is logically impossible to establish either a positive or a negative from a negative statement. In other words, "prove to me that I did not steal the cookie from the cookie jar."
The last three paragraphs of the exposition section read as follows, and I believe that they are quite significant.
In our affirmation of the authority of Scripture as involving its total truth, we are consciously standing with Christ and His apostles, indeed with the whole Bible and with the main stream of Church history from the first days until very recently. We are concerned at the casual, inadvertent, and seemingly thoughtless way in which a belief of such far-reaching importance has been given up by so many in our day.One unique thing about this board is that saying "You are wrong" is severely frowned upon because everyone has a right to believe as they wish, but that position does permit questioning others, and rational discussion of ideas.
We are conscious too that great and grave confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical reasonings and in principle reducible still further once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for the time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard not to move further.
We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified. Amen and Amen.
Therefore, I ask you to consider the things that Jesus said about the Scriptures, especially when He said that "not one jot or tittel will be broken..."
When the long-forgotten scroll of the Pentateuch was discovered in the Temple, why was there a subsequent fasting and period of mourning when they read it if God's hand did not write that (not in the literal sense, of course)?
Why was it necessary for both Mark and Matthew to make two exactly accurate genealogies of Mary and Joseph?
Why was it necessary to establish that there were two independent witnesses of the circumcision of Jesus?
Why was it necessary for the prophet Isaiah to say to the scoffing and ungodly king Ahaz that the proof that not one arrow would fall in Jerusalem that "a virgin shall conceive"?
Isaiah 7: 9 And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.
10 Moreover the LORD spake again unto Ahaz, saying,
11 Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. [the prophet told him to ask ANYTHING from God as a sign]
12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD. [this is a false piety because he was the greatest king in terms of evil, ever in history. His wife was the infamous Jezebel]
13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
15 Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.
16 For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings.
17 The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.
Yes, I had to get Christmas here!
But these questions are not just "pricks in your side" they are designed to have you look at Scripture to see if the things mentioned in it are indeed so. the Bereans did that, and they were commended for that by Paul.
Ultimately, you need to ask yourself, "Is my belief congruent to or in opposition to what Jesus taught, what the Apostles taught, and what indeed the Bible itself teaches? The things in the Bible are put there for a reason, and IMHO it is vitally important to discover why God put them in the first place.
We all need to be reminded of this from time to time.
It's especially good for those who don't know it.
And a great rebuttal for those who don't believe it.
