I agree with what hamricba posted. The Bible is inspired by God, but it isn't God made ink the way Jesus is God made flesh. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is a good summary of what the Bible is and what it's good for. 2 Peter 1:19-21 reveals how the prophecies within Scripture came about.
I do not think that all Scripture is God's word in the same way. A simple example:
"The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me,
And His word was on my tongue.
The God of Israel said,
The Rock of Israel spoke to me,
'He who rules over men righteously,
Who rules in the fear of God,
Is as the light of the morning when the sun rises,
A morning without clouds,
When the tender grass springs out of the earth,
Through sunshine after rain.' " (2 Samuel 23:2-4, NASB)
Now, my contention is that while the entire passage is inspired by God and is part of God's word, the last six lines are God's word in a special way that the first four lines are not. Why do I think that? Because David himself declares it to be the case.
The same principle applies in many other instances. All of Exodus 3 is God's word, but God's words to Moses are God's word in a special way that Moses' words to God aren't. The oracles given to a prophet are God's word in a different way than the narration that describes the deliverance of those oracles. Jesus' recorded words in the gospels are God's word in a different way than Eliphaz's speeches in the book of Job.
Here's a more controversial example:
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11, NASB)
Now, I think that the last sentence is God's word in a different way than the rest. Why? Because I think the last verse is Moses' inspired commentary on the command that God gave. The command was written by God on the tablets, while the last verse, if one assumes inerrancy, was not. This is because in Deuteronomy 5, which also recounts the words God wrote on two tablets of stone, this last sentence is not found. The command is the same, but the commentary is different (Deuteronomy 5:12-15). If one takes verse 22 seriously and literally when it says that God "added no more", that rules out Exodus 20:11 also being written in stone by God.
Of course, that's no reason to deny what that verse says. It remains Scripture, it is still part of God's word to us, and can't merely be pushed to the side. But, neither should the verse be elevated to a status higher than the rest of the Bible, as if it were written directly by God's finger in a way most of the rest of the Bible is not.
Personally, I think that discussions about inspiration are a red herring when it comes to the creation debates mentioned in the opening post. At least in this forum, those who are arguing the different positions all believe that all Scripture is inspired by God. But, some seem to stress the Bible's inspiration as a way to claim that they can't possibly be mistaken about their interpretation. For instance, when Martin Luther was combating the idea that the earth revolves around the sun, he stated of Copernicus that "This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Because Luther knew that the book of Joshua was inspired, sacred Scripture, he thought that he couldn't possibly be wrong about what it meant, since after all he was only claiming that the plain, literal meaning of the text was the total truth, including in what it said to Luther and many others about the relation of the sun to the earth.
When inspiration is used this way, it ceases to be useful. Such an approach can lead to a very cavalier attitude when reading the Bible, since one may think that one cannot possibly be wrong about what a passage means, and that no amount of study could possibly overturn the plainly evident meaning that first strikes a 21st-century reader. Instead of cultivating humility and deference in how one approaches Scripture, it can lead to a careless attitude that expects Scripture to speak quickly to whatever issue one is curious about.
