Inspiration

January 27, 2022 (Thursday)

 

Let’s start at the beginning of how to understand the Bible. A foundational presupposition is that the Bible is “inspired.” The dictionary meaning of inspired is “arising from some external creative impulse.” [Oxford] Theologians will reflect back to the Greek and claim inspired means “breathed into.”

 

2 Timothy 3:16a claims, “Every scripture is inspired by God.” [CEB] The ESV uses, “breathed out by God.” While the NIV prefers “God-breathed.” Generally, when preachers and theologians state the Bible is inspired, we mean that the Bible stands unique as the only source of information about God and salvation.

 

2 Peter 1:21 is another proof text, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” [ESV] The idea of “prophecy” is principalized to mean the entire Bible. Thus, the belief is that the Bible is not human of origin, not created by the whims of any number of humans, and not creating a human religion. However, there is some debate on what “carried along” means.

 

Theologians break inspiration down into two main thoughts: “verbal” and “plenary.” The idea of verbal inspiration is that every word comes from God. For some this means what has been called “automatic writing” where the author would fall into a trance (be taken over by the Holy Spirit). Thus, every exact word was written by God, not just the ideas. For others, this is unnecessary and considered a weak view of inspiration because any error in transmission of the copies cast doubt on the authenticity and authority of the text. It would also mean that ONLY the original texts, which we do not have, are authentic and authoritative.

 

The idea of plenary inspiration is used to describe authority being complete. An interesting verse is found in Matthew 5:18, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” [ESV] What Jesus is referring to is the smallest letter (generally vowels) or breathing marks (which aid in pronunciation). The fun part about what Jesus said, is these marks were never written in the original texts. In fact, the current Hebrew language (and text) uses a different alphabet than ancient Hebrew. One explanation for leaving out the vowels and breathing marks was to allow the text to have multiple and layered meanings. Another idea is the meaning of the text was left to oral tradition.

 

I doubt there is much value in splitting the fine hairs academics discuss. Jesus was not mistaken about the details and integrity of the text. Jesus means to tell us that nothing of the Law will be invalidated or nullified. Every scripture has life breathed into it by God. None of the Bible was created by human imagination. Nothing of significance is missing, changed, or corrupted.