This is a much more limited sense of “inspiration” than is found in the tradition of, say, the Catholic Church (of which I am a member) and, indeed, I’d argue, in the Scriptures themselves, where we find such things as St. Paul writing that “ALL Scripture is inspired by God,” (2 Tim. 3:16), and, “You received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God…” (1 Thess. 2:13), and St. Peter stating, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” (2 Pet. 1:20-21) Because of Scripture passages such as these, not to mention the constant tradition of the Church, the Catholic Church, for one, has always held that each and every word of Sacred Scripture has the Holy Spirit Himself as the PRIMARY Author (with the human authors of Scripture being secondary, though true, authors, as well). This being the case, it is absolutely impossible for Scripture to ever be in err; for, whatever is affirmed in Scripture as true is affirmed by the Holy Spirit as being true…and the Holy Spirit is God, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived. And, thus, any apparent contradictions or mistakes in Scripture—and they can only be apparent, but not real—have an explanation (St. Augustine’s rule of thumb for dealing with such apparent contradictions or mistakes in the Bible is to: a.) check the translation, as it could be wrong; b.) check our own understanding of each verse involved, as that could be wrong; c.) if the above efforts of (a) and (b) don’t offer an immediate solution, then "offer up" the difficulty as an act of humility, knowing that there must necessarily be a reasonable explanation, even if one cannot readily find it, for Scripture cannot err—a Christian is sooner to believe that he is in ignorance about something related to the Scriptures than that the Scriptures themselves are in error—may such a thought that the Scriptures contain even one error perish immediately from the Christian soul!)An inspired person can make a mistake. I think that the essence of inspiration is that the inspired person has the supernatural ability to convey God's truth about His Son and salvation from sin, through His Son's supreme sacrifice.
In my experience, the apparent difficulties or mistakes or contradictions in Scripture put forward by modern scholars (and, btw, most, if not all of these, were also known by the Church Fathers, and these Fathers had no real difficulty or crisis of Faith in dealing with these) can be readily answered. For example, the reference of St. Matthew to the prophecy of Jeremiah in Matthew 27:9-10, instead of to Zechariah, can be explained, for example, by the fact that St. Matthew is referencing two distinct passages from the O.T.—one from Zecchariah (the reference to the 30 pieces of silver), and one from Jeremiah (the selling of the field). For, if one notices, the verse given by St. Matthew is found, as it is given by Matthew, in neither Jeremiah nor Zecchariah—rather, St. Matthew, as is his custom (eg., the prophecy about Christ as the Nazarene at the end of Matt. 2), conflates multiple prophecies into one and, in this case, attributes it to the more famous prophet. Such is one legitimate explanation of this verse….And similar things can be said about any other apparent contradictions or mistakes in Scripture—all can be, at least eventually, explained, and many already have been explained….and that they can be explained is a matter of Faith—for it is a bedrock principle of the Christian Faith that the Holy Scriptures, being Authored by God, can never be in error.
In Christ,
BrotherAlan