Guide to Class 11 of Inspiration and Authority of the Bible George F. Beals (Preliminary) Mar 31, 2011

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1 Guide to Class 11 of Inspiration and Authority of the Bible George F. Beals (Preliminary) Mar 31, 2011 I. Unfinished business from Class 10: More on properties 8 and 9 on Evidences for the Inspiration of the Bible: P8: Archaeological corroboration of the Bible and critical reversals. Among the best here is Free and Vos, Archaeology and Bible History. See also related chapters in Carl F. H. Henry, ed., Revelation and the Bible, especially Nic H. Ridderbos, Reversals of Old Testament Criticism, and Merrill C. Tenny, Reversals in New Testament Criticism. On the internet, look up the Rylands Papyrus, P52 (John 18:31-33, 37, 38), which is a copy of John dated early in the second century, reversing claims of negative critics of the nineteenth century. P9: The person of Jesus Christ documented in the Bible, forces a decision: a phony deceiver (and thus not a good man), or real (as claimed)? Analyze the evidence. II. We enter into the next topic: Challenges to Biblical Inspiration. I plan to spend two class sessions on this. Relevant reading on this topic: Jack Cottrell, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Inerrancy, in Restoration Forum VI, Akron, OH, Nov 1, 2, 3, 1988 Richard Belcher, A Layman s Guide to the Inerrancy Debate Cottrell, Solid! The Authority of God s Word, Chapters 5 and 8 Geisler and Howe, Making Sense of Bible Difficulties A. Go over highlights of Jack Cottrell, Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Inerrancy, in Restoration Forum VI, Akron, OH, Nov 1, 2, 3, 1988 B. Go over highlights of Richard Belcher, A Layman s Guide to the Inerrancy Debate C. Add and discuss new terms for your notebook glossary: 1. autographa and apographa Distinction: (1) The original writings of the Bible and (2) Copies and translations of the Bible. Oftentimes, the originals are called the autographa (something written with one s own hand; literally: self-writings ). Less often, the copies and translations are called the apographa (copies; literally: from writings ). 2. verbal plenary inspiration verbal means word; plenary means full, complete; inspiration, in discussions about the Bible, means God-breathed out. The term verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible refers to the Bible s being the product of God s creative breath. Its words were breathed-out of God. God is their source: 2 Tim 3: The method by which this was accomplished was through the agency of certain human beings as their words were borne along by the Holy Spirit: 2 Pet 1: Plenary refers to the scope of this: the whole Bible, all of it, not just some parts of it. For an extended explanation of verbal plenary inspiration, see the booklet by R. C. Sproul, Can I Trust My Bible?(Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust Publishers, 2009), which discusses the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. This is a statement put out by a group of evangelical scholars in October, It consists of nineteen articles of affirmation and denial about the inerrancy of the Bible. The statement is useful to give insight into what many mean by verbal plenary inspiration. 1

2 3. Heilsgeschichte Not a view that everyone finds easy to understand. This is a German word that means salvation history. It is the view that denies that God reveals himself in the Bible by the propositions of the Bible. Thus, it is sometimes referred to as the non-propositional view of revelation. That is, the sentences in the Bible that we read are not the revelation of God. These are just the expressed opinions of the human writers of the Bible about the revelation of God that they experienced in their lives. D. Subtopics for discussion 1. What is inspired, the Autographa, the Apographa, or both? Or Does Scripture in Second Timothy 2:16 refer to the Autographa only, or to the Apographa too? 1. From Chapter 2, Evangelicalism and the Inerrancy Debate, of the Th.D. dissertation titled, Redaction Criticism of the Synoptic Gospels: Its Role in the Inerrancy Debate Within North American Evangelicalism, by Randolph Terrance Mann (Univ. of So. Africa Thesis June 2007). You can obtain a free download of a PDF of this document at the following website: The apographa are the copies of the autographa. 19 Some argue that Scripture in Second Timothy is referring to the copies and translations of the Bible. In Is My Bible the Inspired Word of God (Portland: Multnomah, 1988], Goodrick argues that inerrancy applies to the original autographs, while inspiration also applies to the copies and to translations. Goodrick argues this because copies of the Septuagint were used by Jesus and the apostles, which they referred to as [graphe, Scritpure]. 20 Goodrick s argument that the apographa are inspired, neuters this divine activity by equating it with the fallible, human, process of making copies of Scripture, which is not in agreement with the unique activity described in Scripture (2 Pet 1:20-21). As [E.J. Young in Thy Word Is Truth] writes: If the Scripture is God-breathed, it naturally follows that only the original is God-breathed. If holy men of God spoke as they were borne by the Holy Spirit, then only what they spoke under the Spirit s bearing is inspired. It would certainly be unwarrantable to maintain that copies of what they spoke were also inspired, since these copies were not made as men were borne of the Spirit. They were therefore not God-breathed as was the original. 21 Should translations be called the Word of God? Nicole argues that, Any translation is entitled to acceptance as the Word of God to the extent that it corresponds to the original. This is a common understanding and usage. 22 When one speaks of the preservation of the manuscripts of the Bible it is necessary to address the issue of what was preserved, why they were preserved and how they were preserved. In addressing the issue of how the text was preserved it is not the mechanics of preserving parchments or animal hides that is under consideration but questions pertaining to the recognition and acceptance of certain manuscripts (books) into the canon. This can be further narrowed to a more specific issue yet. How was God s revelation preserved from the infiltration 2

3 of error or malicious tampering? White gives a nice summary of the significance of God s chosen method of preservation: One may well see a tremendous amount of wisdom in the way in which God worked over the years. By having the text of the New Testament in particular explode across the known world ending up in the far-flung corners of the Roman Empire in a relatively short period of time, God protected that text from the one thing that we could never detect: the wholesale change of doctrine or theology by one particular man or group who had full control over the text at any one point in history. You see, because the New Testament books were written at various times, and were quickly copied and distributed as soon as they were written, there was never a time when one man, or any group of men, could gather up all the manuscripts and make extensive changes in the text itself, such as cutting out the deity of Christ, or inserting some foreign doctrine or concept. No one could gather up the texts and try to make them all say the same things by harmonizing them, either. If someone had indeed done such a thing, we could never know for certain what the apostles had written, and what the truth actually is. But such a thing did not, and could not, happen. Indeed, by the time anyone did obtain great ecclesiastical power in the name of Christianity, texts like P66 and P75 were already long buried in the sands of Egypt, out of the reach of anyone who would try to alter them. The fact that their text is nearly identical to even the most Byzantine manuscript of 1,000 years later is testimony to the overall purity of the New Testament text Analysis of the non-propositional view of revelation From Tim Shoemaker, The Heilsgeschichte View of Revelation, A Guided Research Paper Presented to Professor Thomas B. Warren, Harding Graduate School of Religion (HGSOR), Memphis, TN, May 1972 (Available from HGSOR library): Heilsgeschichte a view which holds that revelation is not truths about God but is God Himself coming within the orbit of man s experience by acting in human history. 3 The particular stream of history, known as the story of salvation, was the interpreting of some apostles and prophets in the light of a profound and consistent ethical monotheism. 4 What such a view really means is that the Bible is to be recognized as a book of opinions. 5 Let us take a look at a Biblical command under such an understanding. In Acts 2:38 Peter said: Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. As a subjective standard, the best that can be said for Peter is that he preferred people being baptized after repenting. There can be no reason for saying that Peter had the authority to command it. The same applies to other Biblical commands such as the command to love one s neighbor as yourself, or the commands to flee from drunkenness, adultery, idolatry, etc. And what of such a crime as murder, is it wrong? If it is, how do we know it? Is it because the Bible says so? But that is only a subjective preference

4 Notice some quotations from proponents of the heilsgeschichte view. John Hick argues: Theological propositions, as such, are not revealed but represent human attempts to understand the significance of revelatory events. John Ballie on this point said: The propositions which the Bible contains, and likewise the propositions contained in the Church s creeds and dogmatic definitions and theological systems are all attempts on however different levels, on the part of those who have received this revelation to express something of what it portends. William Temple, sounding out the same idea, stressed that there are truths of revelation but not revealed truths. Again he said: the message is so inextricably human and divine in one, that no single sentence can be quoted as having the authority of an authentic utterance of the All-Holy God Emil Brunner argued for the Heilsgeschichte view and objects to the propositional view of revelation. Shoemaker refers to an article by Kenneth S. Kantzer titled, The Communicatio of Revelation, in The Bible the Living Word of Revelation, ed. By Merrill. Tenny (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1968), pp for a critique of Brunner s objections. Shoemaker provides a summary: The first of these states that to identify the human words of the Bible with divine revelation is derogatory to God. It makes God responsible for the imperfections found in the Bible. [moral shortcomings, scientific and historical mistake] The second major objection is the loss of any personal encounter and personal communion with God Himself. Such a view places the focus of revelation on a book of truths rather than on God. 14 The third major objection alleges that the Bible itself fails to claim this dubious honor. Rather, it is argued, the Bible repudiates this idea on practically every page. A great deal of what Brunner has to say in support of his contention revolves around John s reference to Jesus as the Word. In the Old Testament there is reason to believe that the written word was indeed a revelation from God. But today we have the Word Jesus Christ. That which was previously Word has not revealed itself in such a way that henceforth it has become evident that the Word about Him is different from Him, Himself, and that the real revelation is the fact that He Himself is here present Because of this, revelation has now become a matter of personal encounter. 16 Shoemaker then critiques Brunner: Brunner argues that the Bible is only human testimony and therefore fallible. He has also admitted that the testimony on which he depends is subjective; it is a personal encounter flet in the heart. But when he argues to show this contention is true, he uses the Bible as his authority. 18 He argues for the separation of Jesus from the word for they are not the same. Of course, it is true that they are not the same. But this does not show that Jesus words were not revelation [and a source of real, personal, comfort]: For example, through the written word we learn of God as a Father and that in Christ Jesus we have one who has experienced everything that we experience. 19 See Mt 6:9; Heb 4:15. See also Romans 15:4 and Hebrews 12:1f, which tell of the comfort of the Scriptures. 4

5 From Robert Camp s chapter titled, The Nature of Bible Truth-Is It Propositional? in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible Being The 1971 Bible Lecturship of Harding Graduate School of Religion (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1971), 40-49: When one contemplates a copy of the Bible, he immediately becomes aware of the fact that the Bible is composed of propositions or statements. There is no part of the Bible that is not propositional. If the Bible is composed of truth, it is composed of propositional truth. If it is composed of error it is composed of propositional error. It is composed of propositions, true or false. 41 Camp quotes from The Encyclopedia of Philosophy: The fundamental premise of the propositional view has no place in the non-propositional conception of revelation that has been widely adopted by Christian Theologians in the twentieth century. This view maintains that revelation consists not in the promulgation of divinely guaranteed truths but in the performance of self-revealing divine acts within human history. The locus of revelation is not in propositions but events, and its content is not a body of truths about God but the living God revealing himself in actions toward men. The non-propositional view thus centers upon what has come in recent theology to be known as Heilsgeschichte (salvation history) identified as a medium of revelation. Camp continues, The so-called Christian Theologians who have adopted the nonpropositional view of revelation would contend that Christ revealed God in his person. Certainly he did, but he also made statements during his earthly ministry. Jesus spoke proposionally. The question is, Did Christ speak propositional truth or propositional error? 44 If it can be established that someone is completely honest, will always tell the truth on the subject in question, if follows necessarily that what that person has said on the subject is the truth. 48 The very fact that you and I have the obligation to read the complexity of God s actions in the affairs of men is staggering beyond belief. It appears that God brought Esther to the Queen s throne of the empire of Ahasuerus for the salvation of the Jews. (Esther 4.) However, the most that Mordecai would say was, who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. God s providence has surely been in the world and the will of God has been accomplished by it but his providence ACTS, it does not SPEAK. If the revealed word found in the Bible carefully chosen and suited for the limited intelligence of man is too difficult to fathom, then help us if our eternal destiny depends upon our knowledge of his will revealed in the enormous complexities of his actions for the most part unknown to anyone and when made known has been recorded by fallible men as mere human history. If this is the case we must despair. But God be praised that HIS WORD is a lamp unto our stumbling feet and a light to our dark path. 49 (Psalm 119:105) Note that it is Scripture (that which is written) that is God-breathed and all sufficient, according to Second Timothy 3: Note also prophecy of Scripture in Second Peter 1: Note too that Jesus said it is Scripture that cannot be broken, in John 10:35.. 5

6 From Clark Pinnock in Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian Theology (Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute, 1971): At best, Scripture seems reduced to what St. Luke couldn t help fancying someone s having said he thought he remembered St. Peter s having told him, as A Farrer puts it. Pinnock, 26 The liberal idea of the Bible as a record of religious experience lives on in the neorthodox concept of revelation as an ecstatic, personal encounter. It is subjectivity again trying to pose as Chrisianity. 26 sees God as coming within the orbit of human experience in a divine-human, personal encounter. Theology and the Bible represent the human response to revelation, the attempt at understanding the significance of revelatory events. Faith is a voluntary recognition of revelation, a creative response which elects to see events a certain way,. Thus a religious interpretation is superimposed upon the ambiguous data of history by the act of faith. For Hick [John Hick] and Tillich [Paul Tillich], happenings became revealing events through response. 26 Theology and the Bible are but fallible human attempts to understand the data of faith. 27 Although we can sympathize with those who (because of what they consider to be the assured results of biblical criticism) desire to be rid of the theory of an infallible Bible, we must hasten to point out the high cost of such convenience: namely, the lack of any definite word from God, and only rough approximations of it, with nothing solid on which to stand. When the standard of the written Word is discarded, sentimentality becomes the canon. Biblical preaching is more than subjective testimony about a meaningful psychological event. It is to be the proclamation of divine doctrine and revealed truth Inerrancy argument: 1. If [A: The Bible s words (the autographs) are the words of God] and [B: The Bible teaches that God knows everything and cannot lie], then [C: The Bible s words are inerrant]. 2. A. The Bible s words (the autographs) are the words of God. See the evidence in previous classes. (Many already believe this. So, in such cases, you can proceed to the next premises.) 3. B. The Bible teaches that God knows all: Psalm 147:5; First John 3:20. It also teaches He cannot lie: Numbers 23:19; First Samuel 15:19; Romans 3:4; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6: Therefore, A and B. (Combine premises 2 and 3.) 5. Therefore, C. (Combine premises 3 and 1.) 4. Go over Guy N. Woods reference to Campbell on predicting a manuscript reading. See PDF. 6