I. All Scripture is Inspired

A. II Timothy 3:16-17.
No Scripture is more used to address the issue of inspiration than II Timothy 3:16-17. The passage reads in part, “All Scripture is inspired . . . .” This classic text goes on to say, in summary, that Scripture is “profitable” or useful for both the church’s doctrine and its practice, its beliefs and its life. Let’s look at what this Scripture says and what it does not say.

1. The text says that “all Scripture” is inspired. What Scripture does the writer mean? We must remember that the canon of Scripture was not assembled until at least the end of the 4th century A.D., three centuries or more after this Scripture was written. Timothy certainly did not have access to every New Testament epistle or Gospel; indeed, some may not have been written by this period. So . . . “all Scripture” may mean all Scripture for all time, or does it?

2. The text says that all Scripture is “inspired.” The Greek word for “inspired” can be translated “God breathed.” In other words, all Scriptures originates and is motivated by God breathing, speaking and doing. He is the source, authority and breath of Scripture. As we have been saying during the past two sessions, God is the one whom Scripture seeks to reveal to us through the experience of its writers and the people who experienced God’s movement and revelation in every age.

3. The text does not say which Scripture is inspired. Yes, it says “all” Scripture. But whose Scripture? The Scripture as Torah, the Psalms and the Prophets as these first century Christians would have known? The Scripture as the canon agreed on in the earliest church which may have included books no longer part of our canon? The Apocrypha? The Old and New Testaments as we know it today? Or . . . does this verse simply refer to those Scriptures which the writer, Timothy, and the earliest church knew?

4. The text does not say how Scripture is inspired. Throughout the past two centuries at least, theologians and Christians of every stripe have read their own definitions or opinions about inspiration into this text. There are a few options available to us for understanding the meaning of inspiration:

a. For example, many of us probably grew up believing, and may still believe, that “God-breathed” meant “God-dictated.” In other words, the thinking goes that the Holy Spirit stood over the shoulder of every writer of Scripture dictating the exact words of Scripture like a boss would dictate a letter to a secretary. Therefore, there cannot be any human element, or human personality, or most importantly, human error, in the writings of Scripture because God is the one who said it.

What are the positive aspects of this view?

(1). It retains a strong sense of the divine nature of Scripture. To those who would claim that Scripture is just an expression of human experiences or opinions, this view holds clearly to the view that Scripture is the Word of God for all ages.

What are the problems with this view?

(1). First, Scripture never makes this claim for itself. Instead, the Scriptures tell us that speakers, prophets and writers spoke and scribed these words. Yes, God sometimes speaks. But the human writer is careful to tell us when it is God speaking and the human writer or publisher of the writings.

(2). This view does not allow for the human personality that is clearly present in Scripture. John is a different type of writer than Luke. Their experiences are different, their aims are different, their styles are different. The text often concerns their own personal emotions, reactions and concerns, and they do not make the claim of divine authority for these personal words.

(3). Those who make this claim are unable to be intellectually honest with the Scripture text if they are going to remain true to their convictions about God. If God is all knowing and all present, then how did God get confused about whether Jesus offered his disciples the bread then the cup (Matthew 26:26), or whether Jesus offered his disciples the cup then the bread then the cup again (Luke 22:17)? Other Scriptures differ on historical events and their dating. If God dictated Scripture, then God must have been confused or have a case of Alzheimer’s. Clearly, we do not believe this.

b. The Bible was written by human beings with human motivations, knowledge and emotions, but the Spirit “inspired” the writers (gave birth to, motivated, moved) and guided the process so that the words and meaning of these writings are authoritative witnesses to the God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. What are the positive aspects of this view?

(1). It allows the Bible to retain its human element that it does claim for itself while retaining its divine character as an authoritative text for the church.

(2). It forces us to trust God more fully as our authority and guide.

What are the problems with this view?

(1). It assumes a greater role of the human personality and mind in the formation of Scripture. In my estimation, this is not a problem. It is the appropriate realization and assumption. However, drifting too far toward the human aspect can lead us toward a view similar to the third option.

(2). Acknowledging the human role in the formation of Scripture may cause those who are concerned with exact and literal obedience to Scripture to fear the uncertainty that might accompany this assumption.

c. The Bible is a collection of the experiences of people of faith but has no inherent authoritative words or meaning.

This view is taken by many contemporary scholars, and those readers who come to the text with the philosophical assumptions of postmodernism and the ideas of literary deconstructionism. In this view, no text has absolute authority for all cultures or times. A literary text can only be understood as the expression of human experience in particular cultures and times; in addition, every interpreter of a text will be limited by his or her own culture, assumptions and experiences.

What are the positive aspects of this view?

(1). This view permits Scripture to express the human experience which so clearly is evident in its pages. Failure to acknowledge and understand the role of the historical situation, culture and experiences of both the author and the contemporary reader leaves the text to speak into an eternal vacuum of nothingness. Scripture never speaks to nothingness. It is always relevant by its very nature. It spoke to a particular people, about specific issues and problems, and arose out of certain histories and experiences. The contemporary reader will bring his or her own history, experiences and culture to the text, whether acknowledged or not. In other words, no text stands above its historical circumstances in and of itself – it receives its authority today because the church has deemed it to have authority as it witnesses to the God we know in Christ. No reader is “innocent.” As Richard Hughes has written, the notion that we can read the text independent of our own experiences and histories is an “illusion of innocence.”

(2). This view emphasizes the idea that Scripture arose generally out of the experiences of the people of God with this God and the one named Jesus Christ. That is, in fact, its character and purpose.

What are the problems with this view?

(1). This view does not recognize the divine nature of Scripture. Scripture derives its authority from the God whose word it is, from the one Word Jesus Christ revealed in its pages. Scripture was inspired, motivated, moved and breathed by God. It speaks a holy and authoritative word to the church in every age.

(2). This view tends to undermine any concept of absolute truth or authority that Scripture claims belongs to God and, derivatively, to the Scripture whose words contain the word of God and reveal that same God.

B. Historical Approaches

1. Inerrancy refers to the belief that the biblical text is accurate, truthful, reliable, totally free of error, without mistake and absolutely authoritative. Some Christians apply the term to all statements of fact in the Bible, including those referring to "scientific, historical, or geographical" topics. Some who hold to this view even would claim that the Bible is grammatically correct in all its forms.

There are a number of problems with this view:

a. This view makes a claim for Scripture that the Bible never makes. Where does Scripture claim that it purposes to be an accurate guide to botany? What if scientists were to prove that the mustard seed is “not the smallest seed of the earth?” Would the whole of Scripture and its purposes be invalid due to this scientific discovery? Of course not. The Bible purposes to reveal the person and nature of God – not to be an accurate guide to cosmology,  botany, or history.

b. If the Bible is inerrant, then how does one account for the minor discrepancies involved in biblical narratives? For example, in the raising of Jairus’s daughter, in Mark’s account the girl’s father says to Jesus, “My daughter is at the point of death.” (Mark 5:23) However, Matthew records the father as saying, “My daughter has just died.” (Matthew 9:18). Was she dying or dead? Sometimes the sequence of events differs in the gospels. In John, for example, the cleansing of the temple occurs at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (John 2:13-17), while the Synoptic Gospels place the event during the last week of Jesus’ life.

Do these discrepancies matter? Only if we force them to matter by our own assumptions. For example, John declares that his purpose in writing his Gospel was “that you may believe.” (John 20:31). That is, John has written a gospel intended to form faith in Jesus Christ, not to serve primarily as a historical record. He writes as an evangelist, not as an investigative reporter.

c. It leaves the individual's faith vulnerable. Even one proven error can shatter the whole belief system and make the Bible seem useless to some believers: If in actual fact Caesar Augustus did not really order a census before Herod’s death in 4 A.D. but instead the census was ordered by Quirinius in 6 A.D. as the historical records tell us - if it turns out there really was only one Gadarene demonaic rather than two - then the entire Bible becomes worthless and every tenet of Christian faith falls flat. If one single discrepancy emerges, it's all over. This makes Christian faith an easy target for skeptics, and drives believers to unimaginable lengths to 'defend' the Bible.

d. Inerrancy of the Bible refers only to the original, autograph copies of each book, as written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Hebrew is an extremely ambiguous language. Some passages in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) may be interpreted in many different ways. At most, only one of those translations would be correct, and thus be inerrant.

e. Biblical scholars have noted that almost every page of the Bible, whether written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek contains both spelling and grammatical “errors”. Although some spelling errors could be attributed to mistakes by later copyists, it appears reasonable to assume that some of the grammatical errors were in the original copy. If one assumes that the Bible is not inerrant, then one would expect errors of all types to creep into the Bible: errors in fact, errors in belief, errors in spelling and errors in grammar. But if the Bible is inerrant, one wonders why the original writings were not free of errors in grammar.

2. Infallibility refers to the belief that the biblical text is authoritative, truthful and reliable in accomplishing its purpose of revealing God to humanity and in the record of how humans have responded to God. The Bible is an authoritative guide for the teaching and practice of the church (II Timothy 3:16-17), but its “truthfulness” is defined by the purpose for which the Bible was written and does not necessarily apply to a broader concept of truth as meaning “factually correct.”

II. WHAT WE DO KNOW (from God’s Holy Fire)

A. The Bible came to us by means of translators, and God’s word is present in the translation.

No translation is perfect because translators face human limitations and must make judgments when rendering the meaning of ancient Hebrew and Greek words.

B. The Bible is a collation of over five thousand manuscripts that date from as early as the third century B.C. for the Old Testament and the second century A.D. for the New Testament. No original autographs from the biblical authors have survived.

This means that there are textual differences among the copies of manuscripts, then differences in translation due to the copy the translator deems best or most accurate.

C. The process of collecting the books of the Bible into one agreed and authoritative canon took place over centuries and was the subject of much dispute.

It was not until the year 367 A.D. when Athanasius referred to the current New Testament canon (4 gospels and 23 letters) that we see some consensus among the church about the authoritative books. There is an ongoing dispute among Catholics and Protestants as to whether the books of the Apocrypha are inspired and authoritative.

D. The biblical writers manifest their own style, personality and level of education.

E. The biblical writers sometimes consult other sources in their writing. Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18 both quote from the “Book of Jashar.” Genesis 1 appears to mirror the claims made for the Babylonian god Marduk in The Gilgamesh Epic. Ezra consulted Persian archives (Ezra 7:1-26). Luke states that other gospel accounts existed (Luke 1:1-4). The writers of Scripture acknowledge that they are citing or quoting other sources other than solely the word of God Himself.

F. The Bible is a library of books, each written to a specific situation in the life of the people of God with a specific historical purpose.

III. AN INCARNATIONAL PROPOSAL FOR INSPIRATION

These realities and discoveries may leave the Christian feeling more confused than certain, and certainly the understanding of the nature of the Bible can cause us to fear what might happen to our faith or practices should we acknowledge our uncertainty or the realities above (domino theory as an expression of our fears). How can we make sense of what still seems to us to be an authoritative word from God to us while allowing the Bible to be human? I propose that the incarnation of Jesus, as perfect divinity and perfect humanity, be our model for how we view the nature and inspiration of Holy Scripture. This means that we hold to our conviction that the Bible is divine – that “all Scripture is God-breathed” – that Scripture is all that it needs to be to guide us to salvation and to a way of life in the Kingdom of God. This is exactly what Scripture claims for itself (II Timothy 3:15-17). Scripture therefore is infallible – it is a true and sufficient guide that can be implicitly and entirely trusted to lead us to salvation and an experience of God in our own time. The Bible is not a book primarily of history or science, but it is more than sufficient to accomplish what it intends to do – to lead us to faith in Jesus Christ.

But this also means that we acknowledge that Scripture is not only 100% divine but also 100% human, just as we believe that Jesus was fully and perfectly both divine and human. Throughout the centuries, it has been difficult for Christians to let Jesus be human. In the same way, we find it difficult to acknowledge the human aspects of our Bible, but those aspects are certainly there and must be explained away if not acknowledged and accepted.

In the end, the divine origin of the Bible is like every other thing we believe – it is an affirmation of faith and not a mathematical certainty. Christians can trust the Bible as God’s Word when others do not believe, not because the Bible has no human dimension, but because the church throughout the ages has come to believe that in these words the Holy Spirit can move our hearts to the truth of God revealed in the everlasting and one true Word, Jesus Christ.


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