Just how inspired is the Bible?

What is Helens belief she never said anything ?

People are not that stupid

Originally posted by Mercury:
I agree with what hamricba posted. The Bible is inspired by God, but it isn't God made ink the way Jesus is God made flesh.

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I'm not disagreeing with you or hamricba here, and I can't speak for the others, for I don't believe God is the author of every word printed in the Bible. But God, the Holy Spirit had those chosen to write what He wished in His Book. The Bible is God “breathed”; for in it we find “life” in His Book that contains “books” that God had men write for men.

Perhaps it is not too far fetched to understand the "books" that men will be judged by are the Books of the Bible, His Word. Who is going to do the judging? It will be The Word, Jesus Christ, and we find His Word in the Books of the Bible.

People will be judged by what they know, and all they can know is what is available in the Age they live. We in this dispensation of God today have all of the information that God will allow men to know until the end.

Had God’s nation accepted their King, we Gentile’s (all today are Gentile’s) would not, and could not be in the Body of Christ for Acts 9 through Philemon would not be in the Bible, the Word of God. People that live in this dispensation will not be judged by the gospel found in the Old Testament, or up to the stoning of Steven, but of what Christ from heaven revealed to Paul. This is what Paul means in Romans 2:16, ”In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” We are not to try and interpret the Bible, for the Holy Spirit has already interpreted it for us.

Will we be judged as to our salvation in that day? Christ Jesus glorified spoke to one on the matter of our salvation today. If we believe that gospel, then we will not be judged on that day for we died with Jesus on that Cross, and are with Him always. We will be there with Him as He judges out of the “books”, according to their works. All before this dispensation, and afterwards had to do a work, but we today in the Body of Christ are in Him because He did all of the Work for Us. We are His inheritance.

Originally posted by Humblesmith:
All scripture is 100% inspired. The lies of Satan that are recorded there are lies, but the text is inspired. Do not confuse the accuracy of the statement with the inspiration of the text.

So saying "it's not all God's word in the same way" can be misleading. In reality, it's all God's word, and it's all God's word in the same way. But God's word records lies of satan, and opinions of pharasees, etc. But every word of the Bible is inspired to the same degree. Don't confuse inspiration with accuracy or interpretation.

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Nicely said Humblesmith.

Originally posted by RightFromWrong:
What is Helens belief she never said anything ?

People are not that stupid

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Dear RFW, if you will look on the first page, second post, Helen very succinctly wrote, and I quote, "Totally."

I agree with "Totally". If we start tearing pages out of the Bible that we do not believe are inspired; where would it stop?

Same goes for pages we don't agree with.

There would be some people who would end up with nothing but a front and back cover!

Originally posted by Bluefalcon:
Was just the original hand inspired, or were the redactions afterward inspired also? Scribal updates of names and places, are they inspired, too? What about the changes in grammar and such that occurred when the ancient Semitic script was replaced with the Aramaic after the Babylonian Captivity?

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This, of course, gets into textual criticism, and is technically not all dealing with inspiration. However, ....

The only the original is inspired. Changes afterward are not. "updates" of names and places were accurate at the time they were written, so no issue there. Ditto for language & grammar changes. Languages change over time, and scribal updating of grammar and translating is not inspired.

Redactions? What redactions? I don't see any redactions.

Scripture claims that certain parts are God's word in special ways. [/QB]

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Such as.......?

I'm curious to find these places that limit inspiration.....

Originally posted by Plain Old Bill:
....just how inspired is your Bible?

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What does scripture say it is? It says it is inspired by God (which means that none of it is not inspired by God), and that it is and useful for instructing and training of what is right and wrong in our lives. The purpose of that inspiration is to adequately equip us for doing the tasks God requires of us. So says 2 Tim. 3:16–17.

Inspiration as the process by which God worked through the authors of Scripture to produce instructionally inerrant and divinely authoritative writings. Inspiration is a mystery because Scripture doesn’t explain specifically how it occurred. I'm personally satisfied that scripture is inspired and authoritative, and don't need to know how it occurred.

Originally posted by RightFromWrong:
MATT. 5:18 " For truly I say to you , until Heaven and Earth pass away, not the smallest LETTER or STROKE shall pass away from the Law, until it is all accomplished."

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To be fair, thise verse is referring to "jots and tittles", which are textual elements in Hebrew composition. This verse is not referring to scripture as a whole, but to God's commands (the Law). I know, I'm probably splitting hairs, but we as Christian must endeavour to be true to what scripture says, and not inadvertently infer something into scripture that isn't there.

We always want to make sure we're not worshipping the Bible, but the God of the Bible.

Originally posted by Helen:
Wazamatta, you guys, "totally" didn't work?

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Works for me.

Even though God did not perfectly preserve the copying of scriptures through the ages, wasn't God involved in seeing to it that His word was, in fact, copied and copied reliably, if not perfectly?

Originally posted by Mercury:
I agree with what hamricba posted. The Bible is inspired by God, but it isn't God made ink the way Jesus is God made flesh. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is a good summary of what the Bible is and what it's good for. 2 Peter 1:19-21 reveals how the prophecies within Scripture came about.

I do not think that all Scripture is God's word in the same way. A simple example:

"The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me,
And His word was on my tongue.
The God of Israel said,
The Rock of Israel spoke to me,
'He who rules over men righteously,
Who rules in the fear of God,
Is as the light of the morning when the sun rises,
A morning without clouds,
When the tender grass springs out of the earth,
Through sunshine after rain.' " (2 Samuel 23:2-4, NASB)

Now, my contention is that while the entire passage is inspired by God and is part of God's word, the last six lines are God's word in a special way that the first four lines are not. Why do I think that? Because David himself declares it to be the case.

The same principle applies in many other instances. All of Exodus 3 is God's word, but God's words to Moses are God's word in a special way that Moses' words to God aren't. The oracles given to a prophet are God's word in a different way than the narration that describes the deliverance of those oracles. Jesus' recorded words in the gospels are God's word in a different way than Eliphaz's speeches in the book of Job.

Here's a more controversial example:

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy." (Exodus 20:8-11, NASB)

Now, I think that the last sentence is God's word in a different way than the rest. Why? Because I think the last verse is Moses' inspired commentary on the command that God gave. The command was written by God on the tablets, while the last verse, if one assumes inerrancy, was not. This is because in Deuteronomy 5, which also recounts the words God wrote on two tablets of stone, this last sentence is not found. The command is the same, but the commentary is different (Deuteronomy 5:12-15). If one takes verse 22 seriously and literally when it says that God "added no more", that rules out Exodus 20:11 also being written in stone by God.

Of course, that's no reason to deny what that verse says. It remains Scripture, it is still part of God's word to us, and can't merely be pushed to the side. But, neither should the verse be elevated to a status higher than the rest of the Bible, as if it were written directly by God's finger in a way most of the rest of the Bible is not.

Personally, I think that discussions about inspiration are a red herring when it comes to the creation debates mentioned in the opening post. At least in this forum, those who are arguing the different positions all believe that all Scripture is inspired by God. But, some seem to stress the Bible's inspiration as a way to claim that they can't possibly be mistaken about their interpretation. For instance, when Martin Luther was combating the idea that the earth revolves around the sun, he stated of Copernicus that "This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Because Luther knew that the book of Joshua was inspired, sacred Scripture, he thought that he couldn't possibly be wrong about what it meant, since after all he was only claiming that the plain, literal meaning of the text was the total truth, including in what it said to Luther and many others about the relation of the sun to the earth.

When inspiration is used this way, it ceases to be useful. Such an approach can lead to a very cavalier attitude when reading the Bible, since one may think that one cannot possibly be wrong about what a passage means, and that no amount of study could possibly overturn the plainly evident meaning that first strikes a 21st-century reader. Instead of cultivating humility and deference in how one approaches Scripture, it can lead to a careless attitude that expects Scripture to speak quickly to whatever issue one is curious about.

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The bible is God's inspired, trustworthy and authoritative scripture to mankind.

Man's interpretation of that scripture is untrustworthy and unauthoritative but we often use words like inerrancy or infallible to comfort ourselves and confuse our interpretations for what the text itself says.

Originally posted by Humblesmith:
This, of course, gets into textual criticism, and is technically not all dealing with inspiration. However, ....

The only the original is inspired. Changes afterward are not. "updates" of names and places were accurate at the time they were written, so no issue there. Ditto for language & grammar changes. Languages change over time, and scribal updating of grammar and translating is not inspired.

Redactions? What redactions? I don't see any redactions.

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The first question dealing with Textual Criticism.

2 Sam. 21:19: "And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam."

1 Chr. 20:5: "And there was war again with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver’s beam."

Is there an error in one of these two passages that is not inspired?

Secondly, a question of redactions. I would ask everyone to consider if God ordered a prophet to update the Scripture, would not that update be inspired?

Dt. 34:10: "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,"

This assumes that many prophets had come and gone and, from the advantage of hindsight, still there was like Moses.

Originally posted by Humblesmith:
All scripture is 100% inspired. The lies of Satan that are recorded there are lies, but the text is inspired. Do not confuse the accuracy of the statement with the inspiration of the text.

So saying "it's not all God's word in the same way" can be misleading. In reality, it's all God's word, and it's all God's word in the same way. But God's word records lies of satan, and opinions of pharasees, etc. But every word of the Bible is inspired to the same degree. Don't confuse inspiration with accuracy or interpretation.

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You make a vrey good point Humblesmith. The Bible is the Word of God in that God caused it to be recorded. Everything that is recorded in Scripture is not truth in itself yet it is truly recorded. The first example of this in Scripture is the exchange between Eve and Satan. Lies were told and these lies were truly recorded.

Originally posted by RightFromWrong:
What is Helens belief she never said anything ?

People are not that stupid

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Perhaps I am one of those stupid people but I understood it perfectly. Helen and I disagree on many things but on this we agree, The Bible is totally or completely or fully inspired.

When I compare those two passages, each one provides a couple of more details than the other, which is not a descrepancy. When I compare them, the only thing that doesn't line up is the name of the father: Jair and Jaareoregim. Several easy explanations: one could be a nickname, one could be a grandfather or other noted ancestor (e.g.,"son of David" for Christ) or it could have been the same name translated differently from whatever language the Philistines spoke (I confess ignorance there....) There's no reason to doubt that both originals were not accurate and fully inspired.

The second question is hypothetical, since there's no indication that it ever happened.

Here's a hint as to the two passages I brought up. In Hebrew textual criticism, "Lahmi" of 1 Chr. 20:5 is the same as the object "Bethlehemite" in 2 Sam. 21:19. Something got crossed up here. Also, the different names of Elhanan's father in both passages indicate another textual error, in one he is Jaareoregim, in the other just Jair. The "-oregim" is actually the word "weavers" as in the "beam of the weavers" at the end of both of the passages. This indicates where something else got crossed up in what is believed to be unintentional scribal error and unsuccesful scribal correcting of the error.

Oops, Bluefalcon already addressed what I wrote.

I think Dt. 34:10 assumes that later redacting did occur. And if it did, one question is by whom and under whose authority, and, for us, with or without God's inspiration. I do not care so much about the former, and I assume the latter by faith.

Oh yeah, "the brother of" is missing in the Hebrew MSS in 2 Sam. 21:19, making Elhanan the one who killed Goliath himself, not David. I think most translations take out this gloss of the KJV translators which was inserted to clean up the apparent contradiction in remaining Hebrew MSS.

Yeah, that's what I thought you were referring to in the first place. In my KJV, the words "the brother of" in 2 Samuel 21:19 are in italics.