In Christian Theology (3rd ed. Baker Academic, 2013), Millard J. Erickson (2013) outlines a number of approaches to biblical inerrancy.

I summarise:

1. Absolute inerrancy.  The Bible is completely true in all of its utterances, whether historical, scientific or theological.

2. Full inerrancy.  The Bible is completely true.  However, scientific and historical data are conveyed phenomenally, as they appear to the human eye.  They include approximations, couched in popular, rather than scientific language.

3. Limited inerrancy regards the Bible unfailingly true in its teaching on all matters that pertain to salvation and the spiritual life.  Its scientific and historical references, however, reflect the worldview and state of knowledge at the time.

4. Inerrancy of purpose holds the God’s intention, in giving us the Bible, was not to convey propositional truth, but to bring people into a saving relationship with Christ.  The Bible faithfully accomplishes this purpose, and so can be said to be inerrant in that sense.

5. Accommodated revelation.  The Bible has been given to us through human channels, and therefore reflects the shortcomings of human nature.  These shortcomings relate not only to its teachings that touch on questions of history and science, but also its religious and theological teachings.  Paul, for example, retainined some elements that derive from his background as a rabbi.  Moreover, over time he revised his teaching on subjects such as the resurrection (compare 1 Cor 15 with 2 Cor 5).  His teaching on the role and status of women is a mixture of divinely revealed and human ideas.  Some believe that even Jesus was sometimes mistaken (for example, in regard to the time of his return).

6. Functional usefulness.  Revelation in nonpropositional.  The Bible records the fallible words of its human authors, while pointing us to an authentic personal enounter.

7. Inerrancy is irrelevant.  This has much in common with the previous position.  ‘Inerrancy’ is a negative term.  It is not a biblical concept.  In biblical teaching, errancy is a spiritual or moral issue, rather than intellectual or propositional  It distracts from the proper issues.  It binds scholarship to a constraining set of a prioris.  It is artificial and externally imposed.  It poses questions that were of no interest to the biblical authors.  It requires a type and degree of accuracy that is appropriate only to modern scientific thinking.  It represents a position that is rather recent in the history of the church.  It imposes a particular philosophical viewpoint on the study of the Bible.  It creates damaging and unneccessary divisions within the church.  It turns what should be (at most) a minor issue into a major one.

Comment

This is a somewhat helpful taxonomy.

However,

• By focusing on ‘inerrancy’, Erickson has already presupposed that it is a concept of central importance.  But that itself is questionable.
• In placing ‘inerrancy is irrelevant’ last in the list, and in suggesting that it has ‘much in common’ with the previous position, Erickson strongly implies that it is a rather extreme view.  But it is not necessarily extreme.  In fact, it can be consistent with a very high view of the inspiration and authority of Scripture.  I myself have declined to espouse a doctrine of inerrancy for many years, but any reader of this web site and any hearer of my sermons will be hard pressed to find one statement that casts doubt on the accuracy of the Bible (properly interpreted, of course).
• Actually, Erickson’s set of supposed problems with inerrancy is rather impressive.  It is for precisely such reasons that there are better ways than the doctrine of inerrancy of formulating the nature of Holy Scripture.

See also this, by Danny Akin