My response to that is: there is no theological word that does not have to be similarly footnoted and constrained: justification, spirit, sanctification etc.
The Bible is endlessly interesting because it is God’s story, and God by nature is himself endlessly interesting. The Bible is an ever-flowing fountain. The more you read it, the more you find its truth and beauty to be inexhaustible.
God in his infinite wisdom chose to give us his Word in the 66 canonical books, with all of their variations in theme, emphasis, vocabulary, literary form, and distinctive contributions across time.
In every generation there are voices that question the authority of Scripture. So in one sense this is merely part of the continuing stream. But there’s a sense in which the questions that are raised against Scripture vary a wee bit from generation to generation.
Systematic theology will ask questions like “What are the attributes of God? What is sin? What does the cross achieve?” Biblical theology tends to ask questions such as “What is the theology of the prophecy of Isaiah? What do we learn from John’s Gospel?
The Christian’s whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always a wretched bastardization of our goals when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for him.
Any term can be distorted or domesticated or fly off the handle because of another alien philosophical structure that’s imposed on the text and so on. Inerrancy is no different from what we find in every other theologically loaded word.
We want to fan the flames of Christians for whom inerrancy and the authority of Scripture are not mere shibboleths, but part of her life beat, part of the beating heart of what makes them tick.
There may be some, but not everybody. But there are many, many, many different Christian, theological, pastoral, specialisms that are covered by one section or another of the book and this will become, therefore, a resource volume for many people.
Often a Study Bible will also include some brief articles, photographs of geographical and archaeological sites, fairly extensive maps, and charts that summarize a lot of information.
