Posted on 05/14/2014 8:40:09 PM PDT by 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,
\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.
Perhaps you are unaware of this, but Peter’s works and Paul’s are in essential agreement on all issues.
In the Textus Receptus (Stephanus, not Scrivener), ἐν τῷ Ὡσηὲ, the sound of the Greek is Hoh-say-eh (using the characters of the English alphabet).
The translator simply transliterated the Greek, giving O (without the rough breathing mark, untranliteratable), s, e (for eta), e (for epsilon), getting "Osee" from which the H-anglicized understood aspiration is left out.
Has nothing to do with the Septuagint Greek translated into English, from which (transliterated) one would also get "Osee" from what is in the Septuagint: ωσηε.
"Osee" is not in the Septuagint. It is in a translation of the Septuagint.
>>>The translator simply transliterated the Greek, giving O (without the rough breathing mark, untranliteratable), s, e (for eta), e (for epsilon), getting “Osee” from which the H-anglicized understood aspiration is left out.<<<
Thanks for the info. Since your post, I have been researching the Septuagint, and ran across this interesting article:
http://wcbible.org/documents/septuagint.pdf
Philip
Actually, Peter covered the same issues, writing to the very same people as Paul did.
Peter just used fewer, shorter, clearer sentences.
Peter was a simple direct uncomplicated man.
I had researched this myself more deeply about fifteen years ago. Looking for the material and links (which are pretty much in line with this Baptist author) and churchly duties have delayed the rest of my response to you just now.
More later --
Actually, Peter covered the same issues, writing to the very same people as Paul did.
Peter was a simple direct uncomplicated man.>>>>>
True, and Paul was just the opposite.
*******
Here is the general index to the papers by Will Kinney, an apt researcher o Bible-text history:
http://dorightchristians.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/will-kinney-kjv-index/ Particularly, his article on the question of a genuine Septuagint is here:
http://brandplucked.webs.com/nolxx.htm
NO LXX - The Fictitious Use of the so-called Greek Septuagint
(Will Kinney)
=====excerpt=====
There are many serious theological problems associated with the acceptance of the idea that there existed a widespread and authoritative Greek translation of the Old Testament, that subsequently was used and quoted from by the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles. There are several things that smack of the serpent's "Yea, hath God said...?" Satanic spirit.
First of all, this whole notion directly implies that all the Hebrew Scriptures have been corrupted. This in fact is the position held today by most seminaries and Bible translators. All modern translations like the NASB, NIV, RSV, ESV and Holman Standard frequently reject the Hebrew readings and substitute texts taken from the LXX, the Syriac or the Vulgate. Most versions like the NIV, RSV, ESV and Holman Standard tell you this in their footnotes.
This "science of textual criticism" directly contradicts the many verses in the Bible where God tells us not to add to nor take away from His inspired words. "The Scripture CANNOT BE BROKEN" - Jesus Christ (John 10:35). It contradicts the idea that God gave His Old Testament revelation ONLY to the Jews in their own Hebrew language. "Unto them were committed the oracles of God." - Romans 3:2.
For an example of how modern scholars and versions are mixed up by believing some of God's words have been lost, please see my article on 1 Samuel 13:1. - http://brandplucked.webs.com/1samuel131wordslost.htm
Secondly, the use of the LXX version in "reconstructing" the Old Testament implies that God has failed to preserve His words in an inerrant Book. ALL modern versionists, like James White, Doug Kutilek, Gleason Archer, Daniel Wallace, and most pastors today who are not King James Bible only, do NOT BELIEVE that any Bible or any text is NOW the inerrant, inspired, complete and pure word of God. Ask them. They all take the position that "only the originals were inspired", thus denying that any Bible now exists that is the inspired word of God. All we have, according to their view, is "best guess approximations" or the clichéed "reliable versions" of what God may or may not have said. Of course one man's "reliable version" may differ in thousands of words and hundreds of meanings from another man's "reliable version", but, "Hey, the Message is pretty close, isn't it?".
The modern versions pick and choose among the various and conflicting LXX readings, rejecting some and accepting others, yet not in the same places as do the others. None of them agrees with the other modern versions. "In those days there was no king in Israel: Every man did that which was right in his own eyes." Judges 21:25
Thirdly, a question that no one seems to ever ask is this: If the alleged Pre-Christian LXX version existed and was so widely spread abroad and used by countless thousands, then why, after the New Testament was completed, did at least three or four different men (Origen, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian) attempt to make new Greek translations between 140 A.D. and 240 A.D.? Other editions of the Septuagint were produced by Lucian of Antioch and Hesychius of Alexandria; and these editions seem to have circulated respectively in Palestine, in Syria and Constantinople, and in Egypt. The practice of revision and of local texts is well evidenced in the case of the Greek Old Testament.
If the Lord Jesus and the apostles had given their seal of approval to an already existing and widespread Pre-Christian LXX version by quoting it in the New Testament, this would have given special authority to that particular version. Then why try to overthrow it by making 5 or 6 new ones?
====end of excerpt=====
Will Kinney wrote an article on "Josephus and the LXX" which is an annotated summary of a lecture by J. Davila on 11 February 1999. Kinney noted:
The scholar who wrote this is not a King James Only man, and he accepts the widespread idea that there was some kind of Greek translation of the Old Testament. This makes his research all the more devastating to those who promote the idea of a Pre-Christian LXX version. The LXX defenders like to use quotes from people like Josephus, Philo, Augustine, Epiphaneus, Eusebius, Iraneus, and Justin Martyr who refer to the letter of Aristeas as proof of this LXX version, and who themselves further embellished the accounts of this alleged Greek translation.
Here is the paper cited:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/otp/abstracts/aristeas/
Aristeas to Philocrates
(Summary of a lecture by J. Davila on 11 February 1999)
Here's another analysis of the LXX issue, by Floyd Nolen Jones:
http://www.christianmissionconnection.org/The_Septuagint_A_Critical_Analysis.pdf
Just to offset the above, here is a typical argument that says our KJV and DRB Bibles are false, ad that LXX as we have it today is genuine. It does not seem to me to be a very good position:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/masorete.htm
The Masoretic Text of the Old Testament
By V. S. Herrell
Here's another one that will make you put your thinking cap on:
http://theorthodoxlife.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/masoretic-text-vs-original-hebrew/
Masoretic Text vs. Original Hebrew
Posted on March 12, 2012
=======
I hope you see why I could not immediately respond with a fuller answer to the main sense of your original post to me. I hope these references will be useful to help you make up your mind about what you had been led to believe concerning the Septuagint.
No. Paul was not writing to the same audience as Peter, and vice versa.
Peter had the ministry to the circumcision, and wrote to the Jews of the Diaspora in Asia Minor.
Paul had the ministry to the uncircumcision--that is, the Gentiles--and (except for the letter to the Hebrews, which may be attributed to him) there were different audiences than Peter's, mostly Gentiles, whose cultural ignorance of Jewish/Christian theology needed to be addressed, and many different matters were discussed, ones which Jews already were quite familiar with and for them needed no discussion.
I believe your comment on this is quite naive, and needs correcting.
Thank you very much. I will study them and get back with you.
Philip
What could be less sentient and more naive than trying to say that Peter was ministering to the circumcision when he wrote to the gentile northern Israelites in Asia minor?
He opens his epistle declaring that he was writing to the “strangers.” Checking Strong’s you will find that those strangers were the lost sheep of the dispersion, the very same people to whom Paul wrote most of his letters.
.
You've got your contexts mixed up, looks like. That will influence how the written material is to be interpreted and applied, as to the literal and/or figurative-literal sense. Nuances are important, here. At least, the well-known comentators suggest that.
Also, let me correct a phrase in my response #71: ". . . as to how Jews foreign to those areas ought to relate. . ." should have read ". . . as to how Christian Jews foreign to those areas ought to relate . . .".
A gentile anyone is “out of covenant.”
That is all gentile means. They had been called gentiles by the prophets long before.
The people Peter and Paul were teaching were not Jews by any means, they were Northern Israelites. Very few actual Jews ever followed Yeshua; his assembly were about 90% from the ten northern tribes that had nothing to do with Judah since they had been taken to Assyria by Shalmanessar.
These are the very people that Yeshua himself declared to be the only people to whom he had been sent. (Matthew 15:24)
.
There is no “Jewish” race.
Jews are apostate Hebrews, mostly of Judah and Benjamin.
The use of the term Jews in the epistles is simply an error by the Greek translators, as Strong’s indicates.
You are making up your own rules again. Not the first time. I’m not going to play with you any more. Goodbye.
Did Strong make it up too?
Confusion is so comfey, huh!
In this lecture he deals with the questionable issues of the DSS, the Apocrypha, and the manuals of the community of the Qumran site near Jesus' time. You may find it very interesting.
A few years ago I had a chat with him when he came to Philadelphia School of The Bible, where he gave a little insight on the question of the relative value of surviving manuscripts. He gave the illustration that the least-worn books in any library are usually the ones of little interest in their time. Equating that with such scrolls as the Dead Sea Scrolls not worn out through use, and others such as the Codex Sinaticus, may actually mean that they are not the ones from which reliable translation should be made.
The point is (which most 'scholars' seem to miss) is that older surviving ones do not at all necessarily mean they are better or more reliable. Such manuscripts may survive trough non-use because they are of little value to its original audience. That has a clear ring of truth to those looking for the best manuscripts, which may be those which are in great number and have needed to be saved and made available through much recopying--like the Masoretic text of the Old Testament.
Think about it when you read in the margin or footnote to a modern version that a passage is said to be more reliable when an older manuscript is its source.
H3064
יהוּדי
yehûdı̂y
yeh-hoo-dee'
Patronymic from H3063; a Jehudite (that is, Judaite or Jew), or descendant of Jehudah (that is, Judah): - Jew.
Sample verse in which it is used:
"That every man should let his manservant, and every man his maidservant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrewess, go free; that none should serve himself of them, to wit, of a Jew his brother." (Jer 34:9 AV)
Used 93 times in the OT as Jew, Jews, or Jewish; all the same. ===========
Strong's G2453
Ἰουδαῖος
Ioudaios
ee-oo-dah'-yos
From G2448 (in the sense of G2455 as a country); udaean, that is, belonging to Jehudah: - Jew (-ess), of Juda.
Used in the NT 197 times, always the same.
===========
Guess your Strong must be a diffferent one that edited the Strong's Concordance that I have. Maybe you could give the reference and copy out the definition that yor "Strong" has for this term?
>>>The point is (which most ‘scholars’ seem to miss) is that older surviving ones do not at all necessarily mean they are better or more reliable.<<<
I have read something about that before. Another point mentioned was the weather: that is, some climates, such as the dry climate in Egypt, are easier on the manuscripts than more humid climates.
Anyway, thanks for the info.
Philip
I came across a very good book on the Septuagint:
“The Septuagint and Jewish Worship,” by Henry St John Thackery, 1920
URL: https://archive.org/details/septuagintjewish00thac
Philip
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