Superscriptions in the Psalms

[JesusFan]

You are using an interesting expression, "'inspiration' on him." What does this mean? Does this mean that the person is inspired by the Spirit or is the writing inspired by the Spirit? I've always taken it to be the writing is inspired, not the person having some sort of special gift that creates inspired texts.

And you seem to imply that only known editors (like Moses and Joshua) could be inspired, not editors lost to the records of history. And, if this is our standard, how do we know if Hebrews is inspired since we don't really know who wrote it?


What is your scripture reference to indicate that Luke was "covered" by Paul's Apostolic inspiration?

Does it also mean that God did not preserve His word since one of Paul's letters to the church in Corinth seems not to have survived? (The Mormons make much of this BTW. They use it as "evidence" that "plain and precious" parts of the Bible - that allegedly teach Mormon doctrine - are missing.)


Be careful here. Essentially you are saying that we don't have an inspired text anymore, just something that is close.

I think you are mixing a theory of inerrancy with a theory of inspiration.

I agree that we currently do not have an inerrant Bible. However we have a fully inspired, reliable and infallible Bible.


I worked though all of these issues years ago in a Christian Doctrines class in college. I wrote my term paper on the inspiration of scripture, naively expecting to be able to build a irrefutable doctrinal foundation of inspiration so that I could use it as a foundation for inerrancy, and then for a complete systematic theology based on the "certainty" of those position.

The more I worked through the scriptures and various theories from across the theological spectrum, I realized that the scripture doesn't really tell us how the scriptures were inspired (yes I know, "God-breathed", but it's not really that helpful when you are trying to make a dictation theory work with the variants between the two listings of the Ten Commandments in the Pentateuch or the variations in word usage between descriptions of the same events in the various gospels).

Ultimately, we just have to accept intellectually that the scriptures are indeed inspired, just as the Spirit confirms to our spirit, and that the church through the centuries has understood. Then we move forward in faithful discipleship to Jesus and not try to make claims beyond what the Bible teaches about itself.

believe that part of the "Apostolic" authority granted to them by Jesus was just as God had granted unto OT prophets... That bothe Apostles/propheys themselves were inspired in their writings that became part of the Biblical text...
NOT everything they uttered or wrote was inspired by god, BUT what was preserved for us in Canon was....

Would say that the Canon scriptures books were inspired directly in original versions, altering text amending it etc was not, but what was preserved for us is the "Gist" of the original texts, so would indeed be the Word of God to us for today!

In other words.... There are some small textual add ons, variants, mistranlations etc in any text that we have to translate from today, BUT on essential doctrine 100 % right on, as the minor points would be like in number amounts, a scribe inserting a verse etc, which DOES not affect the reliability, as "mistake free" is just reserved for originals!

PS Please refresh me on terms inspiration/inherrancy/revealtion, if you dont mind!

 

[Baptist Believer]

PS Please refresh me on terms inspiration/inherrancy/revealtion, if you dont mind!

Here’s some off-the-top-of-my-head definitions. Please feel free to correct or clarify these if you see any problems:

Inspiration – The influence of God upon the creation/editing of a text. The word comes from the 2 Timothy 3:16 which tells us that all scripture is inspired by God (literally “God-breathed” since the word for breath, wind, and Spirit is identical). There are various degrees of control/influence according to the nature of the text itself. For instance, the Ten Commandments were written by God on stone tablets, so there was nothing of the personality and/or experience of Moses in them. However in the New Testament Gospels and epistles, we can see the personalities of the writers expressed in the way they expressed the truth of God as well as the way they reported the acts of Jesus in different ways, emphasizing different aspects of the event.

Inerrancy – The doctrine that the scriptures (usually limited to the original autographs) contain no errors. Those who promote this view based this understanding on the idea that since the scriptures are “God-breathed,” they could not have contained any error at their inception since God could not breathe or speak error. Yet since scripture, both Old and New Testament, reveals a human element involved in the process, it seems clear to most scholars that the most scripture was not dictated to the human authors, but rather there was a certain latitude given for human expression. It must be stressed that allowance of human expression in the scriptures does not necessarily mean that there were errors of theology in the original manuscripts. Most conservative scholars believe that the authors of scripture were protected from error in the manuscripts prepared and preserved as scripture. However since many people who believe in inerrancy readily admit that our existing manuscripts contain corruptions and errors, the doctrine actually undermines the perception of the reliability of scripture unless one holds to a theory of divine preservation of scripture. Much of the King James Version Only movement is based upon this issue. As the thinking goes, if God is going to inspire His word, He will also certainly preserve it. And since there are textual variants, faithful believers have to make a choice as to which text is the true word of God. Since God wouldn’t leave the English-speaking peoples without a preserved word of God, the King James Bible is the most likely candidate. (That’s a gross over-simplification of the position, but I believe it is essentially correct.) NOTE: Just because a text is inerrant doesn’t mean it is special in any way. I write inerrant shopping lists all the time, but that only helps me when I go to the store.

Revelation – Revelation is simply God giving insight/understanding regarding a subject that would likely be unknowable without Divine initiative.

Instead of holding a view of inerrancy, I hold what I believe is a higher, stronger view of scripture.

Here are a few more definitions based on my position regarding the scriptures:

Reliable – The scripture, both in the original manuscripts and in accurate translations of the critical texts today, is reliable. The doctrines taught in scripture are trustworthy and the concepts taught by the words of scripture are valid. However, the scriptures are designed for people who seek God. Simply put, the scripture will not fail you if it is properly understood in the context of active and effective discipleship to Christ. If you are not an active and committed disciple of Christ, you may not have the guidance of the Spirit to help you appropriately interpret the scriptures and may well distort the scriptures to your own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).

Infallible – The scriptures will not fail to provide guidance and understanding to those who are committed disciples of Jesus, that is, people who are actively learning to live their lives the way Jesus lived His. Scripture is not designed to be a book of facts, a secret code to be cracked, a science book, a history book, an “owner’s manual”, or an object of veneration. While scripture may indeed be highly reliable outside of its Divinely-purposed areas, it is primarily designed to be a guide to devotion and discipleship for people who live their lives “with God.”