The Nature of Scripture

INTRODUCTION

All scripture is inspired <θεόπνευστος> by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16-17 NRSV). The Greek word (Theo-pneustos) means "God breathed." I don’t believe God errs, and I can therefore embrace the concept of biblical inerrancy. If God is who He says He is, then He is error-free and thus scripture is error-free. (Read on to get the full view that this applies to the original "autographs" of scripture, and what it then may mean for our Bible. Hint: The Bible is reliable, but as always it's a little more complicated). [1]

For some people, just claiming inerrancey is enough. If you believe inerrancy, you believe the Bible. Full stop (and if you don't claim inerrancy or if you want to expand and talk further about the concept, then you don't believe the bible is God's word and you are therefore suspect). But I don't really think that is correct. This topic demands a full and complete and expanded discussion. For the coherent-thinking disciple, the Bible is both a divine AND a human book. We believe that God breathed it, but He used human authors. This is a mystery. It’s a mystery in that we can think about the author’s background and history and vocabulary and experiences, and why that author (say, Paul) chose and understood a particular word or what influenced how he made that statement as well as that word or phrase might have meant at that time to that audience. Still, God breathed it, and thus the product is just what God wanted us to have. As NT Wright says (loose quote from memory), “I believe that the scriptures we have are just what God wanted us to have.” But Wright goes on to say that each generation is meant to “wrestle” with some of the difficulties.

An excellent place to read about this is in a post entitled “Saving Inerrancy from the Americans” [2].

INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE IS NECESSARY

Some seem to think that inerrancy settles the matter. There will never be another debate about the meaning of scripture. But not all who believe the Bible is inerrant agree on all issues. Some use inerrancy to force all to interpret as they do. Inerrancy applies to the original scriptures themselves -- which we do not have. Thus, inerrancy is little more than a faith statement. Inerrancy does not apply to an interpretation of the scriptures, and scriptural understanding presumes interpretation. We must interpret what we read to understand it. In reality, we may interpret certain passages differently, and we still agree (at least on the nature of scripture). And in the context of taking the scriptures to guide our life, "the plain things are the main things, and the main things are the plain things." Interpretation is not necessarily hard. It's just what a reader does as the reader reads. But difficult passages make you stop and think. And perhaps that is what God wants us to do.

When we interpret the Bible, we simply ask what did Paul (or Samuel or David or Moses or John or Peter …) meant when he said this? We have to ask questions of the scripture. At the very least: When and to whom was it written? Why did get written? Was there a specific occasion that prompted the writing? Is there some specific vocabulary that I might need to know to understand the context of the writing? Is there some historical event(s) that enlighten me so that I can think like the original audience and understand the text as they would have understood it?

When we interpret the Bible, we use the grammatical-historical method. We look at the translations and the original language to understand what the author meant when he spoke to the original audience. We look at the original author’s life and times to understand the context, and we look at the purpose of the writing (every one of the 66 books may have a different purpose and should be looked at individually; and within the books, often different parts of the books have unique individual settings which need to be understood).

On the other hand, interpretation is not complex. The Bible’s message is so straightforward. Most of the time, you get 98% of the meaning without ever needing to revert to the original language. Yet, context is huge, and knowing the original language is like watching a movie in color instead of in black and white (not being able to actually read the original language, but being able to do some word studies, is perhaps like watching a “colorized” movie — it’s a little bit better, but not quite the same). Knowing Greek and Hebrew greatly enhances one’s ability to catch nuance and meaning, words used multiple ways, plays on words, and words that would mean something special to the original audience, references to cultural events that the original audience would catch automatically, but might slip past us reading it centuries later in a different culture. Knowing Hebrew history and the way people thought and felt, and worked during the various times of the Old Testament gives insight to meaning. Similarly, knowing the way Jews acted and thought during what we now call Second Temple Judaism makes New Testament usage and context clearer and less distant.

Knowing how to ask basic questions of meaning is key. It is almost always wrong to say we interpret the Bible literally (sometimes literal is correct; sometimes allegorical is correct; sometimes getting the one single metaphorical point but not pushing all the details of the metaphor) Again, struggling to ask what was the intent of the human who wrote this (this does not undermine the idea of Holy Inspiration).

The concept of Inerrancy means there are no errors in the original, but is there a better word to describe my faith in the trustworthiness of the Bible?

OTHER TERMS AND PHRASEES THAT ARE AS IMPORTANT AS INERRANCY

Here are a few other terms which have been used to describe the faithfulness of scripture. (1) Sufficient (we don’t need anything more to get God’s message to us). (2) Infallible (it does not fail). (3) Totally true and Trustworthy (comes from The Baptist Faith and Message). (4) “It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.” (Again, from The Baptist Faith and Message; this is my favorite turn of phrase about scripture, and it is unchanged from 1925, 1963, and 2000 as well as from the New Hampshire Confession which is the source of the original BFM). I could list more terms to describe the faithfulness of scripture (such as infallible, reliable, certain, true, steadfast, etc.).

All these terms, it seems to me are synonyms or other ways to describe scripture as a faithful and certain foundational text. But the most important way to describe scripture, it seems to me, is to use the word AUTHORITY. The scriptures are the supreme authority to which I go to understand what God wants me to know. Not the church or tradition (important, but not the ultimate authority). Not what others say. Not what a great preacher or teacher says. Not any creed or book. If I believe something and you think my belief is wrong, the way to convince me is to go to the scriptures and show me that the scriptures teach otherwise. Scripture is the authority for faithful Christian teaching. I take the scriptures as my highest authority for understanding what God wants me to know (from the preamble of the BFM, “the sole authority for faith and practice among Baptists is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments”). The cry of the Protestant Reformation was sola scriptura. If someone is either not a believer or a believer that has another authority or authorities other than scripture, then appealing to what scripture says is not how one changes their beliefs.

And now we have returned to what was said at the beginning. Interpretation is needed. Inerrancy and/or Authority apples to the scriptures themselves. When you say the Bible teaches this, and someone else who also believes in the Bible and thinks the Bible teaches differently, it’s a matter of interpretation. If we differ on interpretation, it doesn’t matter whether we both believe in inerrancy or authority of scripture. Thus, inerrancy does not guarantee that I will agree with everything someone else says who also believes in inerrancy. Unfortunately, when the Baptist Faith and Message was updated (from the 1963 edition to the 2000 edition; this was done to add a section on the family and marriage), they changed the best line: "the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ." I think it was a mistake to remove the word interpretation from the statement on the veracity of the scriptures (and to remove the central means by which we interpret all scripture -- the central message of all scripture is the Good News of the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE SAY ABOUT ITSELF?

"All scripture is inspired (θεόπνευστος) by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16-17 NRSV). It is God breathed (He was intimately involved in the writing), and it is useful (valuable, useful, profitable) for the following: teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness. It also has a statement of purpose: so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work." One might notice this: in the verse just prior to this one(2 Tim 3:15), Paul makes it clear that the scriptures make one “wise for salvation through faith in Christ.”

Also, from the Baptist Faith and Message, is a pretty good list of other verses one might read to see what the scriptures says about themselves:

Exodus 24:4; Deuteronomy 4:1-2; 17:19; Joshua 8:34; Psalms 19:7-10; 119:11,89,105,140; Isaiah 34:16; 40:8; Jeremiah 15:16; 36:1-32; Matthew 5:17-18; 22:29; Luke 21:33; 24:44-46; John 5:39; 16:13-15; 17:17; Acts 2:16ff.; 17:11; Romans 15:4; 16:25-26; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-2; 4:12; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:19-21.

Interestingly, the original New Hampshire Confession only had only the following scriptures listed to demonstrate the basis for the belief about scripture: II Tim. 3:16-17; II Tim. 3:15; Proverbs 30:5-6; Romans 2:12; Phil. 3:16; I John 4:1. As we have sought more stringent words to describe scripture, so too we have lengthened our list of scriptural supports.

THE BOTTOM LINE

I believe in scripture as the highest authority for determining the content of my beliefs about God. [3] This is not a provable statement; it’s what I believe. Thus, the way to show me if I hold a belief that is wrong is to go to the scriptures and show me how and why my beliefs are in error. This is why interpretation is so very important. And yet Christians interpret things differently. May God give is grace and grant us humility in applying our interpretations or evaluating someone whose interpretation is different than ours.

There is still much more to say. Heretofore I have made it sound as if the Bible is only written by God. Yet there are human authors; this is how God chose to work.

In this article, I barely mention that the Bible has human authors, yet this is how God chose to record His revelation (2 Peter 1:21). Peter Enns draws an analogy from the early church’s beliefs about Christ’s Divinity (Enns is not a conservative; does not believe in inerrancy. I don’t buy all this book has to say, yet I find it instructive — particularly his "Incarnational Model of scripture" which takes seriously that the Bible has both Divine and Human.) [4]

The bottom line is that it is not what someone SAYS about what I believe about scripture. Many people claim to have a high view of scripture. However, when you watch how they treat the scriptures, you see that they read into the scriptures some meanings that just don't belong. What is important is not what someone SAYS about their view of scripture, but what someone does when they actually handle the scriptures. Do they let the scriptures tell what they actually say (do they struggle to get the meaning that the original authors meant)? Do they apply that meaning in a way that is consistent with the original intent of the scriptures? If the answers are no, then despite a claim to have a high view of scripture, their actions betray them.

Footnotes:
[1] By scripture, I mean the 66 books of the Protestant Bible.
[2] https://michaelfbird.substack.com/p/saving-inerrancy-from-the-americans
[3] See this book, Russell Dilday, The Doctrine of Biblical Authority.
[4] Peter Enns' book is entitled Inspiration and Incarnation.