Bible as the Inspired Word of God
The Bible is the work of various authors, who lived in different
continents and wrote in different eras. Furthermore, much of the text
does not claim to have been 'dictated' by God and is not always God
speaking to people. In parts it consists of people speaking to God, as
in the Psalms, and people speaking to people, as in the New Testament
letters written by Paul. In light of this, some maintain that it is
not possible to treat the Bible as a book of divine oracles, delivered
once by God and recorded by its authors through divine inspiration,
since biblical authors were products of their time and subsequently
their understanding of divine truth was culturally conditioned.
Nevertheless, fundamentalist Christians hold that that the Bible is
the revealed word of God. Indeed, one of Jesus' closest friends,
Peter, wrote, [1]"Above all, you must understand that no prophesy in
Scripture ever came from the prophets themselves or because they
wanted to prophesy. It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to
speak from God."
In 2 Timothy 3:16, the apostle Paul reminded Timothy that "all
scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true
and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives." It seems that
although the writers wrote from their own personal, historical and
cultural context and used his own style, each wrote in accordance with
God's wishes. Yet, it is easy to see how interpretation of the
scriptures may instate doubt in peoples' minds; there appears to be
much contradiction in teaching. For example, whilst in the Old
Testament God sent the Israelites to fight, the New Tes...
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... overcome since interpretation is
undertaken with the help of divine intervention. Furthermore, if the
meaning of passages remains unclear, then it would seem that they are
of little importance or God would have clearly revealed their meaning.
We certainly cannot reject the teaching in 2 Timothy that "all
scripture is the inspired word of God." As for more liberal
approaches, it is necessary to recognise that not scripture should be
viewed literally, but God will guide the believer as to how texts
should be addressed.
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[1] The Bible, 2 Peter 1:20-21
[2]
[3] John Locke, A Second Vindication of Reasonableness of Christianity
(1768).
[4] Author of The Groundwork of Philosophy of Religion.
[5] Author of Theology of Revelation
It is the reader and his or her interpretive community who attempts to impose a unified reading on a given text. Such readers may, and probably will, claim that the unity they find is in the text, but this claim is only a mask for the creative process actually going on. Even the most carefully designed text can not be unified; only the reader's attempted taming of it. Therefore, an attempt to use seams and shifts in the biblical text to discover its textual precursors is based on a fundamentally faulty assumption that one might recover a stage of the text that lacked such fractures (Carr 23-4).
For thousands of years there have been many transcriptions and changes to the words of God, For example, just in the last thousand years there has been three different transcriptions, The New Testament, Homer, and also Sophocles. For a person not to look for their own interpretation of the lord’s book is
Notably, Bultmann’s approach is less as a debunker and more as an interpreter: his idea of the NT is a kind of pure theology written in the poetry of narrative. Therefore, the narrative elements are not important they are means of expressing a theological insight born of an encounter with God. Particularly, Jesus’ the death and resurrection are not two separate events, or two halves of one event. Christ simultaneously is crucified and God resurrects him to conquer death, is a singular event. As a result, the act of proclaiming Christ transcendence of the fallen world results in the person experiencing an encounter and relationship with Christ. Therefore, faith is an act of trust in this encounter and Christ's resurrection is an ongoing activity within the kerygma, and historical "facts" become irrelevant. Bultmann is criticized of denying the actual resurrection; perhaps it may be more accurate to say he redefines it.
“The Bible is a special revelation from God to man of truths concerning Himself, His purposes, His plans, His will, man and his sinful nature, and God’s redemptive plan for man.”
The Hebrew Bible, better known as the Old Testament, is a collection of tomes that form part of the Biblical canon. Many scholars around the world do not think that a single author wrote the books contained in the Hebrew Bible, but rather that it represents centuries of stories frequently compiled after the events they describe . The stories were created with visions for the future, in order to allow audiences insight into communities and beliefs that were common thought during their era. The stories responded to the issues and problems of their time, but also addressed contemporary climates. While the stories themselves may not be true, they convey truth without needing literal readings. For example, the creation stories in Genesis, portray God as creating the universe, and while this is considered as not ‘literally true’; the stories communicate theological truths about mankind’s relationship with God through the eyes of Hebrew writers .
It is known to most that the gospels often differ from historical facts due to the writer of each gospel putting significant emphasis on particular actions and attributes of Jesus. Also a major part in this difference is the fact that the gospels were written 35-60 years after the death of Jesus and some of these memories have altered over time. Differences in conflicting evidence, writing to different communities, writing during a different time period, and with different intentions are all more reasons as to why these gospels conflict with historical facts. There is said to be six accounts that are subdivided into two separate traditions. These two traditions are those having to do with the appearance of Jesus in Galilee and the others are the appearances of Jesus to the eleven disciples in Jerusalem. These two traditions seem to not have any knowledge of one another and when the two were attempted to be combined into one tradition it was proven that this is not only impossible but it is unbeneficial.
telling her, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it
The Bible is read and interpreted by many people all over the world. Regardless, no one knows the absolute truth behind scripture. Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament, wrote “Biblical Authority” to help people understand what he describes as six different parts that make up the foundation to ones understanding of scripture. He defines these six features as being: inherency, interpretation, imagination, ideology, inspiration, and importance. As Brueggemann explains each individual part, it is easy to see that they are all interconnected because no one can practice one facet without involuntarily practicing at least one other part.
Authority of Scripture reconciles the community with God and can transform our lives. To participate in the fuller blessing of understanding, it is important to view Scripture with historical and literary sensitivity, interpret theocentrically, ecclesially, and contextually. I realize each of these can be overwhelming to the average person who is seeking direction for a specific concern in their life. Therefore, Migliore reminds us, interpreting Scripture is practical engagement in the living of Christian faith, love, and hope in a still redeemed world. When we listen carefully to the voices of the past, from a worldwide culture, and guided by the Holy Spirit, we will open ourselves to those transformational opportunities.
For centuries now Christians have claimed to possess the special revelation of an omnipotent, loving Deity who is sovereign over all of His creation. This special revelation is in written form and is what has come to be known as The Bible which consists of two books. The first book is the Hebrew Scriptures, written by prophets in a time that was before Christ, and the second book is the New Testament, which was written by Apostles and disciples of the risen Lord after His ascension. It is well documented that Christians in the context of the early first century were used to viewing a set of writings as being not only authoritative, but divinely inspired. The fact that there were certain books out in the public that were written by followers of Jesus and recognized as being just as authoritative as the Hebrew Scriptures was never under debate. The disagreement between some groups of Christians and Gnostics centered on which exact group of books were divinely inspired and which were not. The debate also took place over the way we can know for sure what God would have us include in a book of divinely inspired writings. This ultimately led to the formation of the Biblical canon in the next centuries. Some may ask, “Isn’t Jesus really the only thing that we can and should call God’s Word?” and “Isn’t the Bible just a man made collection of writings all centered on the same thing, Jesus Christ?” This paper summarizes some of the evidences for the Old and New Testament canon’s accuracy in choosing God breathed, authoritative writings and then reflects on the wide ranging
Evangelicals do not believe that the word of God should be followed if it must be modified to follow Christ. The word of God traditionally means the same as it is today. (pg.256) In Lane it says, “What the scripture says is what God says”. (Pg.256) “God is the author”
From the New Testament you can look at one of an often repeated phrase, “it is written”, to see that this fact that the Bible’s inspiration is verbal is seen in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament (Geisler, 29). The second idea is that inspiration is plenary or full (Geisler, 29).The Bible is inspired in all its parts (Geisler, 29). Referring back to 2 Timothy 3:16 it says that ALL scripture is God breathed. You can even look to Romans 15:4 when it says, “For EVERYTHING that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Jesus and the New Testament writers often illustrate their belief in the full and complete inspiration of the Old Testament by quoting from every part of the Scriptures as authoritative (Geisler,
Although Christianity and Judaism are very different religions, they are similar in their inspiration of sacred texts. While Christianity has the Bible, and Judaism has the Torah, there is still a question of how those books were written, and by whom. In both the Bible and Torah, people’s personalities are ever present, and differ based on the person, indicating that they are real experiences. The Bible, and Torah, were written mostly based off human experiences, human origin only, with some excerpts from God, or Jesus himself. For example, in the Bible, “I am a free man. I am an apostle. I have seen Jesus our Lord” (Corinthians, 9:1). This passage was written by Paul, an Apostle of Jesus, in first person, indicating that it was an actual experience, and also by using “I”. Both religions are also deeply inspired by God, saying that "Scripture is not only man's word, but also, and equally God's word, spoken through man's lips or written with man's pen" (J.I. Packer, The Origin of the Bibles, 1992, p. 31). Because God highly influenced both religions, the books are both very much the same, but some things were lost through translations, and some accounts that Jews ...
With the advent of the printing press and the protestant reformation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Word of God became available to the common believer. Now, in the twenty first century, people all over the world, can read for themselves the scriptures in their own languages. Consider the Bible studies going on in any given country on any given evening, where people are encouraged to interact with the sacred scriptures. As encouraging as this may be, it may present a problem. Could discussions of what a scripture ‘means to me’ cloud out what the scripture originally meant? Is it even possible to know the author’s intent? Even if we could understand a first century text as its author intended, can we also grasp what it’s supposed to mean to us?
the Bible were “God - breathed” making each a Word from God and not the words of the