But is the Bible "verbally" inspired? A serious unbiased and diligent research into this issue answers the question with both a yes and a NO! It is a YES, ONLY IF the assumption is that the words are not necessarily as important as the "assembly of the words into a message" to point to a simple, but universal divine truth.
What will come as a surprise to most conservative Christians, especially of the evangelical or fundamental type, the answer is a RESOUNDING NO if the assumption is that the "very words are inspired "to the point that words are analyzed but not in a plenary context and many times contradicting the immediate context of the use of words. What most exegetes and theologians fail to note is that the literal Greek is GOD-BREATHED, and definitely not GOD-SPOKEN. And rightly so, since it is not the "very words" that are inspired but the message brought about in context by the particular assembly of words to form the thought. What is truly inspired therefore is the MESSAGE behind the words and not the very words (when word studies ignore the context and the author's purpose).
Peter rightly defined inspiration as "men moved by the Holy Spirit", but even this phrase coming from 2 Peter 1:21 clearly implies against "divine verbal inspiration" almost like "God dictated the words or God put the words in the writer's brain". The different styles of the Bible writers obviously demonstrate that the words of Scripture are the words of the human author and NOT the words dictated (or put in the brain) by God. God simply puts his messages or thoughts into the mind of the writer and the human agent simply transcribes THE THOUGHTS OF GOD INTO HIS (the human author's) OWN WORDS!
That is how inspiration really works.
Let me demonstrate what I mean by using Deuteronomy 4:39 in both the Jewish Masoretic text (which all Protestants use but did not exist during the time of Christ and the Apostles) and the Greek Septuagint (which ALL Christians used from Christ up until the Roman Jerome translated WHAT HE BELIEVED AS INSPIRED Hebrew TEXT into the Latin Vulgate in the 4th century AD). The Greek Orthodox churches still use the LXX as inspired Scripture today and it contains 11 Apocryphal books many of which the original King James of 1611 also included.
Of particular interest is the phrase, "" using the Hebrew word "lebab" in the Masoretic Text, is translated several ways per Biblehub.com as follows:
anger (1), breasts (1), conscientious* (1), consider* (5), courage (1), desire (1), encouragingly* (1), fainthearted* (3), heart (185), heart and the hearts (1), heart's (1), hearts (27), hearts like his heart (1), intelligence (1), intended (2), mind (8), purpose (1), thought (1), timid* (1), understanding (2), wholehearted* (1), wholeheartedly* (1), yourself (1).
So how can the "very words" be inspired if they give several, even contradicting, translations??? In fact, this is how dangerous word study is today as practiced in many Protestant churches, many of which claim to be Bible-believing and some even claiming to have the ONLY correct interpretations
Let's now look at the Greek LXX which historically was translated into Greek from the Hebrew extant about 300 years BC (and is NOT the Masoretic text!) by 72 of the BEST HEBREW scholars and rabbis of the time even hand-picked by the High Priest of Jerusalem at that time. The Greek word deemed as the best translation by these scholars is "dianoia" meaning "mind, thought process".
Historically, the message of God was passed on orally from generation to generation before being written down by some unknown scribe and subsequently claimed by the culture, like the early Christian churches, to be the message of God written by a certain author. How reliable would those words be?
What these narrative tells us clearly is that the "very words" do not really exists on their own. If ever they are inspired, they would or should convey ONLY ONE thought or concept which is what God really meant when He inspired the writers to write down His thoughts. Moreover, the true original meaning of the words used or as translated from the mind of God by the Scripture writer is dependent on his culture, common usage of language of his time, and his audience, his historical, anthropological, social environment among others.
In the case of Deuteronomy 4:39 for the Hebrew "lebab" it is possible that the Jews of the period the Hebrew text was written believed that the heart was the center of human decisions and resolutions or commitments. During the Helenistic period, however, the 72 Jewish scholars grew up and we raised in a Greek culture where the mind became the universally accepted center for human decisions, resolutions and commitments. The primitive Hebrews from Egypt, of course, could have just said the "insides" of man which is literally the internal organs was believed to be that center. So, it is easy now to see that whether lebab should be translated as heart or mind or internal organs, there is very little need for word study to get the message. The message, however, remains the same: take it to heart, lay it on your heart, bear in mind, remember, resolve to obey, commit to it. The message is inspired.
How then do we resolve this cacophony of voices or confusion of tongues so that we get as close as possible to the one true original message of God through the Scripture writer? How much scholarship do we really need to get at the mind of God as laid down in text form?
Here is my short answer:
God inspired his pure MESSAGE through the ages despite human error, human distortions (both intentional and unintentional) and up to the present, changes the lives, mindset and transforms hearts of millions who have even no knowledge of any Hebrew or Greek translation. This is the best proof of what is God-breathed or what is really inspired. Believing otherwise borders on Bibliolatry!
Addendum: [Written in response to an article on The Development of the Christian Canon]
My point was not so much to state that the LXX is inspired (although such is the claim of the post-Apostolic fathers) but to point out that the current understanding of inspiration is faulty as preached or taught in many churches and seminaries.
This post-Apostolic belief betrays the concept that it is not the "very words" which would be Hebrew for the OT but it is the message that is inspired. Words come from the human vehicle who was given a divine concept to declare or explain to their audience. Perhaps a compromise would be to say that "the contextual concept given by the asssembly of the author's words is inspired taking into account the original context of his purpose and his audience"
What other proof do we have than the millions or billions that have been saved and transformed by the word of God who are completely ignorant of the Hebrew or the Greek original language (if they even exist since these manuscripts are mainly rabbinical constructs after decades of oral tradition).
Does this undermine our faith in the inerrancy and "canonicity (there are different Christian churches with different canons) of the sacred writings in our hands? God forbid, in fact it should strengthen our faith that God has sovereignly preserved his MESSAGE (NOT the "very words" as verbal inspirationists misleadingly put it) despite the human distortions (intentional and unintentional) over the past 2,000 to 3,000 years. That is how to appreciate the more robust meaning of "God-breathed" (not God-spoke, in fact).
To further conclude, ALL extant manuscripts (including the Masoretic Text and the LXX) as are ALL translations, are ALL IMPERFECT COPIES of the word of God. The message is what remains PERFECT and/or COMPLETE. The simple man understands the basic message and has all the information required to respond to it's offer of salvation. On the other hand, students and teachers of the word are compelled to compare parallel versions and MOST ESPECIALLY the commentaries of the post-Apostolic writers (who had varying "canon's") before they develop their interpretation of the text.
This post-Apostolic belief betrays the concept that it is not the "very words" which would be Hebrew for the OT but it is the message that is inspired. Words come from the human vehicle who was given a divine concept to declare or explain to their audience. Perhaps a compromise would be to say that "the contextual concept given by the asssembly of the author's words is inspired taking into account the original context of his purpose and his audience"
What other proof do we have than the millions or billions that have been saved and transformed by the word of God who are completely ignorant of the Hebrew or the Greek original language (if they even exist since these manuscripts are mainly rabbinical constructs after decades of oral tradition).
Does this undermine our faith in the inerrancy and "canonicity (there are different Christian churches with different canons) of the sacred writings in our hands? God forbid, in fact it should strengthen our faith that God has sovereignly preserved his MESSAGE (NOT the "very words" as verbal inspirationists misleadingly put it) despite the human distortions (intentional and unintentional) over the past 2,000 to 3,000 years. That is how to appreciate the more robust meaning of "God-breathed" (not God-spoke, in fact).
To further conclude, ALL extant manuscripts (including the Masoretic Text and the LXX) as are ALL translations, are ALL IMPERFECT COPIES of the word of God. The message is what remains PERFECT and/or COMPLETE. The simple man understands the basic message and has all the information required to respond to it's offer of salvation. On the other hand, students and teachers of the word are compelled to compare parallel versions and MOST ESPECIALLY the commentaries of the post-Apostolic writers (who had varying "canon's") before they develop their interpretation of the text.
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