The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) met from 1978–1988 and drafted two very helpful documents explaining the doctrine of inerrancy and defining the principles of sound interpretation (hermeneutics). The documents affirmed that the Bible is inerrant in matters of history and science and that scientific theories should not be used to overturn Scripture's teaching about Creation and the Flood. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the 300+ signatories of those two documents favored some old-earth interpretation of Genesis 1. How could this be? This paper will carefully examine the relevant affirmations and denials in those documents to expose the ambiguous wording that opened the door for these old-earth views. I will then document a number of examples to show how leading inerrantists unknowingly and unintentionally have violated the principles that they endorsed in those two documents. They have thereby undermined the inerrancy and authority of the Bible that they sincerely love and defend.