Scripture

When the first Christians spoke of scripture, they meant the Jewish Scriptures—the Hebrew Bible and its translation into Greek, the Septuagint. In Greek, these texts were called ta biblia, or “the books”—hence, our English “Bible.” It was not long, however, before certain Christian writings assumed an importance equal to that of the Jewish Scriptures.

The first four books in the New Testament are the gospels. Although tradition attributes the gospels to specific individuals, some of them disciples of Jesus, none identifies its author by name. Each gospel portrays Jesus in its own way. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is a messiah who resolutely submits to suffering on behalf of humanity. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is a figure reminiscent of Moses who reveals the true meaning of the Torah. The Gospel of Luke focuses on Jesus’s compassion for sinners, women, the poor, and the sick. Finally, the Gospel of John emphasizes the divinity of Jesus. In describing him as God’s “Word” (Greek logos, “word,” but also “divine reason”) “made flesh,” John presents Jesus as a revelation of God in human form.The gospels are followed by the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the founding of the Church in Jerusalem and tells the story of Paul’s missionary journeys.

Christians have always seen scripture as the revealed word of God. They turn to the Bible for instruction in doctrine, ethics, and higher truths, confident that this collection of divinely inspired texts has an authority that sets it above all others. But what, exactly, does “divinely inspired” mean? More important, does the Bible make the claim of divine inspiration about itself?

As it turns out, one New Testament text speaks of scripture as “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), which comes very close to “divinely inspired.” Of course, the reference here is only to the Jewish Scriptures, or Old Testament, as the New Testament was not recognized as scripture until long after this text was written. Another New Testament passage describes the prophets of the Old Testament as men who “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Two Old Testament passages say that God himself wrote the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:12 and Deuteronomy 5:22). There are also several Old and New Testament texts that describe Old Testament figures as taking dictation from God when writing small portions of scripture (e.g., Ezekiel 11:5, Matthew 22:43). Beyond this, the Bible says little about divine inspiration.

Until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, divine inspiration was not an issue of great importance. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions had always agreed that the biblical texts were somehow inspired by God, who chose their authors and worked with and through them, and that seems to have been enough.

Today, there is a broad range of opinion on divine inspiration and the Bible. Some Christians credit the authors of the biblical texts for their spiritual insights and leave little or no room for divine influence. Others downplay the human contribution to scripture, some to the point of attributing every word and idea to God.

The issue of divine inspiration is closely tied to that of biblical accuracy. As you might imagine, the more one emphasizes God’s involvement in creating the biblical texts, the more necessary it becomes to insist on their inerrancy. After all, since God cannot lie or contradict himself, a Bible whose ultimate author is God cannot possibly contain even a single error. Of course, there do seem to be errors and contradictions in the Bible. In such cases, Christians who support absolute inerrancy use biblical, historical, and linguistic arguments to show that these are only apparent, not real. Those who endorse a limited inerrancy say that the Bible is inerrant in matters essential to faith and doctrine but may contain insignificant errors relating to geography and history. For the most part, conservative Protestants favor absolute inerrancy. Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and liberal Protestants tend to support limited inerrancy.