Episode Details

We look at some of the common ways that believers [mis]understand this, and share some other perspectives on the how’s, who’s and what’s behind it.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Is the Bible divinely-inspired?

Often the first thing that Evangelicals will do when asked that question  — after voicing a very vigorous “YES!”  — is quote 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which begins with “All scripture is God-breathed …”

The problem is, that’s not the question that was asked.

To begin with, Paul is NOT talking here about the Bible! He’s writing this before the Bible as we know it even existed: before the Gospels or any of the non-Pauline books (from Peter, James, Luke, and one or more Johns) had even been written, and hundreds of years before a number of books were selected out of a large pile of sacred writings circulating at the time and collated into what we call “the Bible”.

He’s probably referring in part to the Old Testament books, but who’s to say he wasn’t also referring to yet other books? He uses a phrase which in the original Greek means “sacred writings” and which is translated in our modern English into “all scripture”. The Old Testament itself endorses many other ancient Hebrew books — “sacred writings” — that are not in our modern Bibles:

• the Annals of Samuel the Seer (1 Chronicles 29:29)
• the Records of Nathan the prophet (1 Chronicles 29:29; 2 Chronicles 9:29)
• the Records of Gad the Seer (1 Chronicles 29:29)
• the Visions of Iddo the Seer (2 Chronicles 9:29 and 12:15)
• the Records of Shemaiah the prophet (2 Chronicles 12:15)
• the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14)
• the Book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13)
• the Annals of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41)
• Annals of the Kings of Judah (1 Kings 14:29). 

Paul would also have been studying f