Inspiration of the Bible

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[boatbums]

Inspiration establishes that the Bible is a divine product. In other words, Scripture is divinely inspired in that God actively worked through the process and had his hand in the outcome of what Scripture would say. Inspired Scripture is simply written revelation. "Scripture is not only man's word, but also, and equally God's word, spoken through man's lips or written with man's pen" (J.I. Packer, The Origin of the Bible, p. 31).

The term comes from Latin and English translations of the Greek word theopneustos in 2 Timothy 3:16. The KJV renders it "inspiration", while the RSV uses "inspired of God". However, the word literally means "God-breathed".

Relevant passages

•Matthew 5:18
•Acts 1:16
•Galatians 3:16
•2 Peter 1:19-21 (ESV)
And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. 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. - 2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

Views on the extent of inspiration

There are tyipcally four main views that are associated with the doctrine of Inspiration.

Neo-orthodox

A common belief of neo-orthodoxy is its view of the utter transcendence of God. That is, God is so completely different and set apart from us that we cannot comprehend him apart from his revelation to us (this entails a rejection of natural theology). The issue appears when neo-orthodoxy is compared to Evangelicalism regarding what the title "Word of God" means. Proponents of neo-orthodoxy claimed the Word of God was God himself, and thus the Bible is a witness to the Word of God. As a witness, the Bible cannot be the Word of God (i.e. God is not the Bible), but the Bible still remains a mediator of the Word of God in some manner. Because the writers were finite and sinful, they were capable of error in their writings. Thus, while the writers of the Old and New Testament recorded their experiences and witness to revelation, their writings may contain errors. Problems with this account are raised when one understands that Scripture is God's Word (2 Tim 3:16) and that people were inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:20-21). They were not merely accounts of each person's experience with God.

Dictation

Although not popular, the dictation theory is prevelant within some conservative Christian circles. This view expresses the belief that God simply dictated what he wanted to be written down. Therefore, all the author did was write down as he was told from God and the end product is the Word of God. Although Scripture does portray this idea (Jer 26:2; Rev 2:1,8), this is not the way all of it was written. At other times authors expressed their own personalities (Gal 1:6, 3:1; Phil 1:3, 4, 8) and the Holy Spirit still insured that the writings reflected God's desired outcome.

Limited inspiration

This view proposes that Scripture is inspired, yet it is limited to certain aspects. It affirms that God guided the writers, yet also allowed them the freedom to express their own thoughts regarding history and experiences they had. This allows the Bible to contain historical errors, yet, it is claimed that the Holy Spirit protected writers against any doctrinal error. Thus, the Bible may contain historical errors but it remains a reliable source of doctrine. Problems with this view appear in its rejection of the historical trustworthiness of Scripture. Archaeology has proven many biblical accounts (and even removed earlier difficulties) correct, and although the Bible is divinely inspired it also remains a historical document that contains accurate details. This view appears to easily conclude that errors may be possible within difficult passages whereas this is not the case.

Plenary verbal inspiration

The word plenary means "full" or "complete". Therefore, plenary verbal inspiration asserts that God inspired the complete text(s) of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, including both historical and doctrinal details. The word verbal affirms the idea that inspiration extends to the very words the writers chose. For example, in Acts 1:16 the Apostle Peter says "the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake" (KJV). Paul calls all scripture "God-breathed" in 2 Timothy 3:16 (referring to the Old Testament). Thus, the Holy Spirit guided the writers along (cf. 2 Peter 1:20-21) while allowing their own personalities and freedom to produce the Bible we have today. This view recognizes and asserts both the human and divine element within Scripture. This understanding has sometimes been compared and contrasted to the understanding of the two natures of Jesus.

Four things inspiration is not

In order to insure the clarity of what inspiration is and is not, the following four points should be helpful:

\1) The idea is not of mechanical dictation, or automatic writing, or any process which involved the suspending of the action of the human writer's mind. Such concepts of inspiration are found in the Talmud, Philo, and the Fathers, but not in the Bible. The divine direction and control under which the biblical authors wrote was not a physical or psychological force, and it did not detract from but rather heightened the freedom, spontaneity, and creativeness of their writing.

\2) The fact that in inspiration God did not obliterate the personality, style, outlook, and cultural conditioning of his penmen does not mean that his control of them was imperfect, or that they inevitably distorted the truth they had been given to convey in the process of writing it down. B.B. Warfield gently mocks the notion that, when God wanted Paul's letters written,

He was reduced to the necessity of going down to earth and painfully scrutinizing the men He found there, seeking anxiously for the one who, on the whole, promised best for His purpose; and then violently forcing the material He wished expressed through him, against his natural bent, and with as little loss from his recalcitrant characteristics as possible. Of course, nothing of the sort took place. If God wished to give His people a series of letters like Paul's, He prepared a Paul to write them, and the Paul He brought to the task was a Paul who spontaneously would write just such letters (The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible).

\3) Inspiredness is not a quality attaching to corruptions that intrude in the course of the transmission of the text, but only to the text as originally produced by the inspired writers. The acknowledgement of biblical inspiration thus makes more urgent the task of meticulous textual criticism, in order to eliminate such corruptions and ascertain what the original text was.

\4) The inspiredness of the biblical writing is not to be equated with the inspiredness of great literature, not even when (as is often true) the biblical writing is in fact great literature. The biblical idea of inspiration relates not to the literary quality of what is written, but to its character as divine revelation in writing.

[metmom]

If you can’t discredit the message, discredit the messenger.....

So, go ahead..... Show us what he changed.

And about allegations about his character, shall we address the rate of alcoholism amongst Catholic priests?

Or these lists?

Top 10 Most Wicked Popes
http://listverse.com/2007/08/17/top-10-most-wicked-popes/
1. Liberius, reigned 352-66 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
2. Honorius I, reigned 625-638 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
3. Stephen VI, reigned 896-89 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
4. John XII, reigned 955-964 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
5. Benedict IX, reigned 1032-1048 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
6. Boniface VIII, reigned 1294-1303 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
7. Urban VI, reigned 1378-1389 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
8. Alexander VI, reigned 1492-1503 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
9. Leo X, reigned 1513-1521 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
10. Clement VII, reigned 1523-1524 [Catholic Encyclopaedia]
Top 10 Worst Popes in History
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-worst-popes-in-history.php
1. Pope Alexander VI (1431 – 1503)
2. Pope John XII (c. 937 – 964)
3. Pope Benedict IX (c. 1012 – 1065/85)
4. Pope Sergius III (? – 911)
5. Pope Stephen VI (? – 897)
6. Pope Julius III (1487 – 1555)
7. Pope Urban II (ca. 1035 – 1099)
8. Pope Clement VI (1291 – 1352)
9. Pope Leo X (1475 – 1521)
10. Pope Boniface VIII (c. 1235 – 1303)

Gamecock, another one for your list......

And thank God for the Reformation, that broke the stranglehold the Catholic church had on just about everything and every one. God sent Jesus to free us, not to put us back into bondage. If He wanted us to be in bondage to religion, He could have just keep the Law and not sent Jesus to die and pay the penalty for our sin for us.

[boatbums]

I’m not talking about the English. Luther was working with the Vulgate.

Another falsehood. Where are you hearing this? From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible:

While he was sequestered in the Wartburg Castle (1521–22) Luther began to translate the New Testament from ancient Greek into German in order to make it more accessible to all the people of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German nation." He translated from the Greek text, using Erasmus' second edition (1519) of the Greek New Testament, known as the Textus Receptus. Luther did not translate from the Latin Vulgate translation, which is the Latin translation officially used by the Roman Catholic Church.

Luther NEVER used the Latin Vulgate to translate the Bible into contemporary German. From the same link above:

A large part of Luther's significance was his influence on the emergence of the German language and national identity. This stemmed predominantly from his translation of the Bible into the vernacular, which was potentially as revolutionary as canon law and the burning of the papal bull.[25] Luther's goal was to equip every German-speaking Christian with the ability to hear the Word of God, and his completing his translation of the Old and New Testaments from Hebrew and Greek into the vernacular by 1534 was one of the most significant acts of the Reformation.[26] Although Luther was not the first to attempt such a translation, his was superior to all its predecessors. Previous translations had contained poor German, and had been from the Vulgate Latin translation, i.e. translations of a translation rather than a direct translation into German from the originals.[25] Luther sought to translate as closely to the original text as possible, but at the same time his translation was guided by how people spoke in the home, on the street and in the marketplace.[27] Luther's faithfulness to the language spoken by the common people was to produce a work which they could relate to.[28] This led German writers such as Goethe and Nietzsche to praise Luther's Bible.[29] Moreover, the fact that the vernacular Bible was printed also enabled it to spread rapidly and be read by all. Hans Lufft, the Bible printer in Wittenberg, printed over one hundred thousand copies between 1534 and 1574, which went on to be read by millions.[30] Luther's vernacular Bible was present in virtually every German-speaking Protestant’s home; and there can be no doubts regarding the Biblical knowledge attained by the German common masses.

[imardmd1]

It should have said that he added the word “ALOME.” (sic)

My mistake on words.

Did he add it to the plenarily verbally inspired auto- or apographs, or only as a clarifying word to make his German translation conform exactly to the precise meaning of the Koine, as it was understood at the time and in the culture of writing under inspiration by the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit, if you wish, the two terms mean the same in English)?

[NKP_Vet]

Like I said before, it’s a wonder Luther didn’t meet the same fate the majority of heretics met. Death by hanging. He also called the pope the anti-christ. But he also kept some of his VERY CATHOLIC beliefs, that protestants find repulsive. He believed Mary was the Mother of God and was born without sin. He believed in purgatory and he believed the CATHOLIC CHURCH gave the world the Bible. But he was a heretic who had the unmitigated gall to try and change the Word of the Lord and he called the Chair the Peter the anti-Christ.

[boatbums]

If the topic of the thread is too hard to discuss or might reveal their own bias, the “Luther Card” often gets tossed out as a sort of rabbit hole attempt to hijack the thread. I guess it doesn't occur to some that if they don't have anything of value to add, they can just read and learn. No one is forcing anyone to post a comment.

[boatbums]

You got a BINGO! ;o)

[imardmd1]

**Sorry, my mis-tag; this is a corrected re-post**

It should have said that he added the word “ALOME.” (sic)

My mistake on words.

Did he add it to the plenarily verbally inspired auto- or apographs, or only as a clarifying word to make his German translation conform exactly to the precise meaning of the Koine, as it was understood at the time and in the culture of writing under inspiration by the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit, if you wish, the two terms mean the same in English)?

[boatbums]

My, my...touched a nerve did it?

Got any thoughts about the topic of this thread or is this one more chance to condemn all Freeper Protestants by proxy???

[Mr Rogers]

Luther undoubtedly had his faults, as all humans do. However, he was successful at translating the Bible into everyday German and getting it into the hands of commoners - as Tyndale did for England and the New Testament, since he was executed at the instigation of the Catholic Church before he could finish the Old Testament.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"Doesn’t matter what the language. The Catholic church still mistranslated Scripture and it is still an authorized version of the Bible."

Prove it. I'm looking forward to reading your own, personally done, accurate translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts.

[imardmd1]

The topic "Inspiration of the Bible" is, for us, what the various writers claim it to be. We have to choose. Here is a definition supplied by the Dean Burgon Society, a global organization of believers supporting the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek Received Text as the legitimate bases for the English Authorized Version translations. For your information, an except from that organization's web site:

Dean Burgon Society

A. THE BIBLE.

We believe in the plenary, verbal, Divine inspiration of the sixty-six canonical books of the Old and the New Testaments (from Genesis to Revelation) in the original languages, and in their consequent infallibility and inerrancy in all matters of which they speak (). The books known as the Apocrypha, however, are not the inspired Word of God in any sense whatsoever. As the Bible uses it, the term "inspiration" refers to the writings, not the writers (); the writers are spoken of as being "holy men of God" who were "moved," "carried" or "borne" along by the Holy Spirit () in such a definite way that their writings were supernaturally, plenarily, and verbally inspired, free from any error, infallible, and inerrant, as no other writings have ever been or ever will be inspired.

We believe that the Texts which are the closest to the original autographs of the Bible are the Traditional Masoretic Hebrew Text for the Old Testament, and the traditional Greek Text for the New Testament underlying the King James Version (as found in "The Greek Text Underlying The English Authorized Version of 1611").

We, believe that the King James Version (or Authorized Version) of the English Bible is a true, faithful, and accurate translation of these two providentially preserved Texts, which in our time has no equal among all of the other English Translations. The translators did such a fine job in their translation task that we can without apology hold up the Authorized Version of 1611 and say "This is the WORD OF GOD!" while at the same time realizing that, in some verses, we must go back to the underlying original language Texts for complete clarity, and also compare Scripture with Scripture.

We believe that all the verses in the King James Version belong in the Old and the New Testaments because they represent words we believe were in the original texts, although there might be other renderings from the original languages which could also be acceptable to us today. For an exhaustive study of any of the words or verses in the Bible, we urge the student to return directly to the Traditional Masoretic Hebrew Text and the Traditional Received Greek Text rather than to any other translation for help.

[dadfly]

bookmark

[ravenwolf]

God feeds the birds but he does not take it to the nests for them.

In the same sense God inspired the Bible but he did not do
the writing and translating, there are mistakes or there would be nothing to disagree about.

Even the apostles obviously made mistakes, Paul accused Peter of leaving the Gentiles and eating with the Jews, if it was true then both of them made mistakes, Peter for doing it and Paul for telling the world about it rather than going to Peter in private as Jesus said to do.

Also in Tim 2:8 Paul said to pray lifting up holy hands.

What did Jesus say?
Mat 6
5
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

[metmom]

Moreover, the fact that the vernacular Bible was printed also enabled it to spread rapidly and be read by all. Hans Lufft, the Bible printer in Wittenberg, printed over one hundred thousand copies between 1534 and 1574, which went on to be read by millions.[30] Luther's vernacular Bible was present in virtually every German-speaking Protestant’s home; and there can be no doubts regarding the Biblical knowledge attained by the German common masses.

So much for the *illiterate masses* paradigm put forth by Catholics as to why the Catholic church should keep the Bible out of the hands of the commoners.

Sheesh. *Few people could read*, *They couldn't afford books*.

Excuse after excuse that is proved false at every turn.

[metmom]

Like I said before, it’s a wonder Luther didn’t meet the same fate the majority of heretics met. Death by hanging.

Burning at the stake as is the preference of the Catholic church.

God protected him.

[metmom]

Exactly. The thread is about the inspiration of Scripture and they’ve turned it into another Luther/Protestant bashing thread.

They just can’t defend the Catholic church’s position on it so have to change the subject and put others on the defensive.

[metmom]

Yup. Instead of addressing the two mistranslated verses, it’s Luther bashing, which has NOTHING to do with the thread.

[metmom]

Genesis 3:15

http://biblehub.com/genesis/3-15.htm

In the Hebrew

http://biblehub.com/text/genesis/3-15.htm

Acts 2:38

http://biblehub.com/acts/2-38.htm

In the Greek

http://biblehub.com/text/acts/2-38.htm\

Repent = metanoeo’

http://biblehub.com/greek/3340.htm

Definition: I repent, change my mind, change the inner man (particularly with reference to acceptance of the will of God), repent.

[mlizzy]

He also called the pope the anti-christ.

Not only did he call the pope the anti-christ, he had it depicted as well:

Birth and Origin of the Pope; art (one of a series of eight) commissioned by Martin Luther to the artist Lucas Cranach, for his work Against the Papacy at Rome, Founded by the Devil (March 1545). Luther told him what to depict, and wrote a rhyming verse for each plate. Mark Edwards, from whose book I found this "art" (see below) wrote: "A third cartoon shows the Pope and three cardinals being expelled from the anus of a female devil while three furies are nursing and caring for three infant popes . . . a graphic echo of Luther's assertion in his treatise that the pope had been born from the devil's behind."

Art is at link: http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/06/did-martin-luther-regard-roman.html

[Iscool]

New term for me. Does that apply to how Martin Luther changed the Bible too?

Marty didn't change the bible...He wrote a new bible based on a different source of material...