2011 is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The impact, both religious and cultural, of this event would be difficult to hyperbolize.
Inspiration involved the direct work of the Spirit in the mind of the writer, so guiding his thoughts that what he wrote expressed the communication of God to his people. Hence, God is the primary author of Scripture.- James W. Scott, Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 2009
If Scripture is truly the word of God, then it reflects the attributes of God, such as his omniscience, truthfulness, and immutability. Consequently, Scripture is infallible, inerrant, and noncontradictory, measured not by some ancient or modern standard, but by God's own standard of truth, which is his perfect knowledge of what actually is, was, and shall be in himself and in his creation.
If Scripture is truly the word of God, then it originated in the mind of God. The conceptual world of Scripture, accordingly, is the mind of God. His word is tailored to, but does not originate in, the culture of the biblical writers. To communicate his word effectively, God simplified his message, expressed it in human language, and engaged the historical and natural circumstances of his people. This involved accomodation to the human condition, such as describing phenomena according to appearance and speaking of himself anthropomorphically. It even involved using words that had erroneous etymological meanings and that had referents about which erroneous ideas were commonly held, yet such use did not entail the endorsing of those concomitant errors.
If Scripture is truly the word of God, then the meaning of the text is God's intended meaning, his full understanding of the text as originally inspired.
He [Luther] endorses every honest effort to reconcile problems to the extent possible: "Therefore answers that are given in support of the trustworthiness of Scripture serve a purpose, even though they may not be altogether reliable." His position is the same in connection with Haran's age, if Abraham was the elder brother and married Haran's daughter, Sarah. Luther allows for the possibility that Haran married a widow, and "that the daughter was brought along with the mother." Thus he seeks to squelch what he calls "the foolhardy geniuses who immediately shout that an obvious error has been committed" by averring that finally "it is the Holy Spirit alone who knows and understands all things." With truly wry touch Luther adds: "I wanted to call attention to these facts, . . . in order that no one might get the impression that we either have no knowledge of such matters or have not read about them." Luther likewise dealt with the problem of reconciling Genesis 12:4 with Acts 7:2, the accounts of Moses and Stephen concerning Abram's age at the time of his departure from Haran. He grants that while "each of the two is a trustworthy witness, . . . they do not agree with each other." His suggested solution is to rely on Moses' historical accuracy and to suggest that Stephen is emphasizing not details as much as the fact that God discloses Himself and His mercy through the promised Seed, Christ.
Undoubtedly, this sort of dutiful and childlike surrender when the problem went over his head, appears naive and evasive to much of modern scholarship, which boldly enters in where Luther - and the angels - feared to tread. But Luther resolutely refused to budge one inch from the Holy awe he felt before the Holy Spirit's handiwork in Scripture. This is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that as translator over a period of years Luther had to take that Scripture literally apart to get its meaning into his native German. To imply that it contained error was to him not only contrary to what the Scripture itself testified concerning its truthfulness and inerrancy. but, above all, an insolent affront to God who gave it.
If you're looking for a good introductory answer to this question (in 12 pages), here's a helpful presentation by Matt Harmon, delivered at the No Doubt Apologetics Conference in Indianapolis.
HT: Justin Taylor
Tom Krattenmaker, a Portland, Oregon based member of the paper's Board of Contributors, levels a broadside attack on the unity, inspiration, and veracity of the Bible as the Word of God in his column, "Fightin' Words".
Krattenmaker first celebrates what he describes as "a year of retreat and retrench" for conservative Christianity. Now, he says, "here come more challenges to traditionalist views of the Bible and Christian faith from a lineup of big-name, liberal-leaning scholars and theologians."
First up on Krattenmaker's list is Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina. As Krattenmaker explains, Ehrman "mounts evidence against literalist conceptions of the Bible as factual history and a divinely transmitted testament to an afterlife-focused religion called Christianity."...
Bart Ehrman has established himself as the media's go-to professor in terms of denying the truthfulness and unity of the Bible, especially the New Testament. Ehrman, who has written several best-selling books seeking to debunk and discredit the New Testament and classical Christianity, is a popularizer for many accusations long alleged against the Bible. He takes passages (such as the passion passages from Mark and Luke) and sees contradictions where the church has always seen complimentary accounts. Christ did indeed utter the cry of God-forsakenness recounted by Mark, but this was itself a citation of the Psalms that points to a much different purpose and meaning than Ehrman implies. Which is the true account, Mark or Luke? It takes very little imagination to understand that, in the crucible of the crucifixion event, Jesus experienced both the agony of the God-forsakenness he experienced (and knew He was meant to experience on behalf of sinners) and the serenity that He also experienced, given his faith in the Father's purposes and power to raise him from the dead.
Of course, if you are coming to the Bible from the perspective of one who has rejected Christianity, you are likely to see the kind of pattern Ehrman alleges. Of course, if he did see the Bible as the perfect and completely truthful Word of God, he would not remain a rejecter of the Christian Gospel.
No one comes to the Bible without presuppositions and a basic intellectual disposition. That is true for Bart Ehrman, and it is no less true for the evangelical believer. In both cases, the presuppositions assign the way each will read the Bible. Krattenmaker simplistically cites Ehrman as his authority for suggesting that Jesus spoke of himself as God in John's gospel but not in Matthew. But this facile assertion, offered without any supporting argument, does not take in to account that throughout the Gospel of Matthew Jesus speaks and acts as God. When Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, He cites Scripture with the formula, "you have heard it said." When Jesus then continues by saying, "but I say unto you," He speaks as God in a way that any first-century Jewish person would have readily understood. Nature obeys his command, and he performs miracles (even bringing the dead back to life) that show his providential control over the created order.
The Monday "On Religion" feature in USA Today is consistently interesting, even if often exasperating. That is what should be expected of an opinion column -- strong opinions in both the column and the reaction it prompts. Well, get ready to form your own opinion about today's feature, for it is likely to make a lot of waves.This is an important and timely post. Read the whole thing HERE.
Tom Krattenmaker, a Portland, Oregon based member of the paper's Board of Contributors, levels a broadside attack on the unity, inspiration, and veracity of the Bible as the Word of God in his column, "Fightin' Words".
Krattenmaker first celebrates what he describes as "a year of retreat and retrench" for conservative Christianity. Now, he says, "here come more challenges to traditionalist views of the Bible and Christian faith from a lineup of big-name, liberal-leaning scholars and theologians."
First up on Krattenmaker's list is Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina. As Krattenmaker explains, Ehrman "mounts evidence against literalist conceptions of the Bible as factual history and a divinely transmitted testament to an afterlife-focused religion called Christianity."
"It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upward of a thousand lies."Twain was of course speaking of the Bible. The debate over the truthfulness and reliability of God's Word is once again heating up in evangelical circles. Nichols' and Brandt's book is therefore timely.
"This superintendence attended the entire process of the genesis of Scripture, and particularly the process of the final composition of the record." This superintendence also includes "historic processes and the concurrence of natural and supernatural forces." They conclude that this superintendence results in "the absolute infallibility of the record...in the original autograph." (p. 31)
How does the Bible as a whole fit together? The events recorded in the Bible took place over a span of thousands of years and in several different cultural settings. What is their unifying thread?
One unifying thread in the Bible is its divine authorship. Every book of the Bible is God’s word. The events recorded in the Bible are there because God wanted them recorded, and he had them recorded with his people and their instruction in mind: "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).
The Bible also makes it clear that God has a unified plan for all of history. His ultimate purpose, "a plan for the fullness of time," is "to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph. 1:10), "to the praise of his glory" (Eph. 1:12). God had this plan even from the beginning: "remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose’ " (Isa. 46:9–10). "When the fullness of time had come," when the moment was appropriate in God’s plan, "God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law" (Gal. 4:4–5).
The work of Christ on earth, and especially his crucifixion and resurrection, is the climax of history; it is the great turning point at which God actually accomplished the salvation toward which history had been moving throughout the OT. The present era looks back on Christ’s completed work but also looks forward to the consummation of his work when Christ will come again and when there will appear "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Pet. 3:13; see Rev. 21:1–22:5).
The best, clearest, and most reliable historical overview of the doctrine of Scripture for a contemporary audience. As careful historians, Nichols and Brandt show what the church has always believed about the Bible as the Word of God, and also how our understanding of the inspiration, inerrancy, and interpretation of Scripture has grown through the centuries. The authors let scholars and theologians on all sides of the age-old battle for the Bible speak in their own words, giving us the historical context and theological framework we need to accept the Bible's own witness to its beauty, perfection, and divine authority.
The Reformation's recovery of both Scripture and the apostolic teaching produced the Reformation solas of sola scriptura (Scripture alone), sola fide and sola gratia (salvation and justification by faith alone and by grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), and soli Deo gloria (for the glory of God alone). And so it is in the modern age. The challenge to supernatural revelation, the challenge to the Bible, has been met with deeper reflection on and clearer expression of the doctrines of Scripture. The doctrines orbit around three words, words that have received a great deal of attention in the nineteenth, twentieth, and now into the twenty-first century. These three words are inspiration, inerrancy, and interpretation. This book tells the story of how these words were developed in these last few centuries. It is the story of how the ancient word of God speaks to and in our changing world.
- From the Introduction
The analogy is not really an analogy at all in the formal sense of the word, since the mystery of the personal union of the two natures in Christ does not serve to shed light on the nature of the union in the divine-human word of Scripture. Christ and Scripture are not equivalent realities as there is but one hypostatic union. Following along this line, it can be said that "an incarnational model may not be the best because, whereas with Christ's incarnation there is one person with two natures, with Scripture there are two persons (God and the human prophet) and one nature (the one Scriptural speech act). Thus to try to make the analogy may be like comparing apples to oranges" (Henri Blocher from a review of Inspiration and Incarnation in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society).Apples and oranges indeed. For the errantist the incarnational model serves as a way to explain the Bible's supposed errors. But what does this say about their understanding of incarnation? We already know that their doctrine of inspiration does not allow for God to ensure that His words were acurately written through human authors. Could it be that their inderstanding of incarnation allows for something less than a perfect Christ? I am only speculating. It just seems strange that a miracle as awesome as the incarnation of God in human flesh would be used as analogy to promote the idea that the Bible errs.
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But immediately upon man's creation in innocency, the serpent introduced the first lie that contradicted the truth of God (Gen. 3:1, 4-5). From that point on, the voice of the speaking serpent resonated in the utterances of the false prophets.
If the intent of Satan is to oppose the purposes of God with respect to the redemption of his people, then it is understandable that he would seek to misrepresent the truth in a way that would contradict the revelation given through the Lord's prophets.
By this method he would strike at the root of the means by which God had determined to direct the faith and life of his people. (p. 92)
Basic to Killinger's theological transition is his rejection of the Bible as the literal, inerrant Word of God. Having been taught as a young Southern Baptist that the Bible is, word for word, the very Word of God, Killinger moved on to see the Bible as a mere record of theological reflections, limited and corrupted as they are, of ancient people. Those who believe that the Bible is actually God's Word are, by implication, just simplistic fools yet unenlightened by modern scholarship...
Conservative Christians, we are now told, are also hung up on sex. This leads to our repressive understanding of human sexuality and explains, of course, why we believe homosexuality to be sinful. Jesus, Killinger claims, "almost never said anything condemning sexuality." Freed from a commitment to the comprehensive truthfulness of the biblical text, he can just ignore whatever passages declare all sexual expression outside of marriage to be sin...
In the confrontation between the Bible and science, science wins. We should not be concerned about this, Killinger assures, because, "God doesn't need an inerrant Bible to be God. True believers shouldn't need it either." At this point, Killinger commends the example of Benjamin Franklin, who said that he read the Bible as he ate fish, throwing aside the parts that would stick in his throat...
In his first chapter, Killinger recounts a lunch conversation with Jerry Falwell, Pastor of Lynchburg's Thomas Road Baptist Church. One can only imagine the fireworks which must have resulted from the encounter between Falwell and Killinger during the years they served prominent pulpits in the same city. During their lunch conversation, Falwell warned of the slippery slope toward doctrinal compromise that follows the denial of biblical authority. At the end of Ten Things I Learned Wrong From a Conservative Church, Killinger acknowledges that Jerry Falwell was right. "Once we were able to say out loud that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God--that its inspiration is not really different from that of the Bhagavad-Gita or Thoreau's Walden or Maya Angelou's poems--then a great number of conservative and fundamentalist idols begin to topple." Furthermore, Killinger recounts that without an affirmation of the inerrancy of Scripture, it is "a simple step to denying that Jesus is the only way to God, or that he really had to die for our sins."
