Inspiration of Scripture 1

God’s Revelation:

Hod has revealed Himself in various ways:

His Particular Word:

Exodus 3:1–4 KJV 1900

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

God Living Word:

Hebrews 1:1–2 KJV 1900

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;

Finally: God Written Word:

2 Timothy 3:16 KJV 1900

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

This verse is knows as the Logos Classicus of Scripture Inspiration. It gives us all the basic principles of this doctrine.

1: Inspiration is primarily a property of the Scripture and not of the Authors.

A literal rendering: All scripture that has been given is inspired by God.

Theo - Pnumstos - Literally God - Breathed.

- All Scripture that has been given to us is breathed by God.

Very Important: When we speak of the inspiration of Scripture we speak PRIMARELY of the scriptures themselves as inspired and not the human authors.

Now That does not mean or suggest that the human writers were bereft of the Holy Spirit, They were inspired as well, But only as a secondary cause.

2 Peter 1:19–21 KJV 1900

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

2 Peter 1:19–20 KJV 1900

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

So note: The writers were moved, literally borne, carried along by the Holy Spirit as they wrote - more on this later.

But this , being carried along, as only in reference to their being used of God to write scripture.

They were not papal in their lives. That is we must not diefy them as being Inspired 24/7 and without error. They were holy men of God And when used by the Holy Spirit wrote perfectly inspired scripture, but outside of this grace were prone to error and human frailties.

Example: Pauls rebuke of Peter:

Galatians 2:11 KJV 1900

But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

What this means is that Scripture cannot be attacked by an Ad Hominum argument against the human writers.

The 3 Properties of Inspiration:

1: Scriptural Inspiration is Plenery

2 Timothy 3:16 KJV 1900

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

“ALL” - Not just some book or some sections, but all of it. One cannot set aside some books or chapters as uninspired.

2: Scriptural Inspiration is Verbal

By that we mean that the very words of scripture are inspired. Verbal means Words. Don’t confused it with “oral”

Thats the words are not randomly chosen but each word is specifically chosen.

Plenery - Refers to Breadth.

Verbal - Refers to Depth

So not just the books are inspired but the individual words that make up the books are inspired by God.

Lets so this in scripture itself:

In many places entire teachings hang on specific words that are used.

John 10:34–36 KJV 1900

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?

John 10:35–36 KJV 1900

If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?

Note Jesus teaching is based on the single word gods.

Aslo:

Galatians 3:16 KJV 1900

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

galk 3 16

Here Pauls teaching is based not just on a single word but on whether or not that word is plural or singular.

Plenary and Verbal Inspiration conclude in Sentential Transmission

Because scripture is both Plenary and Verbal those two properties mean that Scriptural Inspiration is Sentential.

Sentential as opposed to Propositional. Scripture is propositional in its function but sentential in its preservation.

Explanation:

Sentential means sentences - thats is: God has revealed Himself in Hebrew and Greek Sentences.

Propositional means information Content of those Hebrew and Greek Sentences.

Example:

I went to the shop

Ek het na die winkle toe gegaan

Sententially these sentences are completely different - they have no words in common and one even has more words than the other and verb order is different.

However both of these sentences contain the exact same propositional Content -they say contain the exact same information as each other.

Now when we speak of Inspired Scripture we affirm, as said, that God chose to reveal himself through the prophets and through the gospel writers and through the apostles in Hebrew and Greek Sentences. Remember Inspiration is a property of the scripture itself.

What does that mean for our English Bibles?

The conclusion is very clear: God did not reveal hims in german, or french, or Portuguese, or english or Afrikaans sentences.

Our bible are a translation out of those original tongues. Are our english bibles therefore not inspired? Well, no, they are not. They cant be. They are not sentential, words have been added, words have been changed that mean different things, they are in an entire different language.

This should not shock or surprise anyone: All your english bible say this within their first few pages:

Well

KJV:

The original thereof being from heaven, not from earth; the author being God, not man; the inditer, the holy spirit, not the wit of the Apostles or Prophets.

If you ask what they had before them, truly it was the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Greek of the New. These are the two golden pipes, or rather conduits, where-through the olive branches empty themselves into the gold. Saint Augustine calleth them precedent, or original tongues; Saint Jerome, fountains.

If truth be to be tried by these tongues, then whence should a Translation be made, but out of them?

These tongues therefore, the Scriptures we say in those tongues, we set before us to translate, being the tongues wherein God was pleased to speak to his Church by his Prophets and Apostles.

NKJV:

In faithfulness to God and to our readers, it was deemed appropriate that all participating scholars sign a statement affirming their belief in the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture, and in the inerrancy of the original autographs.

NASB:

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever."

The New American Standard Bible has been produced with the conviction that the words of Scripture as originally penned in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek were inspired by God. Since they are the eternal Word of God, the Holy Scriptures speak with fresh power to each generation, to give wisdom that leads to salvation, that men may serve Christ to the glory of God.

The purpose of the Editorial Board in making this translation was to adhere as closely as possible to the original languages of the Holy Scriptures, and to make the translation in a fluent and readable style according to current English usage.

ESV:

To this end each word and phrase in the ESV has been carefully weighed against the inspired original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, to ensure the fullest accuracy and clarity and to avoid under-translating or overlooking any nuance of the original inspired text

Very Important: Remember that although our english, german, or afrikaans bible are not sententially inspired, this in NO WAY robs them of any of their authority. Why - because they share the exact same propositional Content as the inspired texts.

This is very important and we have a perfect Biblical example that proves this:

150 years before the birth of Jesus, Hellenistic Jews far began to outnumber traditional Jews. Hellenistic means greek speaking. Paul was a hellenistic jew to a degree. So as more and more Jews began to speak Greek and less spoke Hebrew, so a group of 70 greek Jews began translating the OT out of the original Hebrew into greek. That translation is known as the Septuagint.

The Septuagint is a greek version on the OT.

As a translation, it therefore had the same limitations as any translation - it was no sentential and therefore not Sententially inspired.

ALSO, the Septuagint is universally regarded as a terrible translation as that. you can get an english version of it and its horrible, its a very bad translation that has whole passages missing.

BUT it was the bible that Paul used and quotes from as the Word of God in all His letters.

In showing the authority of a translation, the KJV translators used the Pauls use of the Septuagint as an example to combat the attacks they were under.

They said:

"The translation of the Seventy dissenteth from the Original in many places, neither doeth it come near it, for perspicuity, gravity, majesty; yet which of the Apostles did comdemn it? Condemn it? Nay, they used it...which they would not have done, nor by their example of using it, so grace and comment it to the Church, if it had been unworthy the appellation and name of the word of God.

look at this aswell:

Now to the latter we answer; that we do not deny, nay we affirm and avow, that the very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, (for we have seen none of theirs of the whole Bible as yet) containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God. As the King's speech, which he uttereth in Parliament, being translated into French, Dutch, Italian, and Latin, is still the King's speech, though it be not interpreted by every Translator with the like grace, nor peradventure so fitly for phrase, nor so expressly for sense, everywhere.

All see that: Our english translation because they have the same propositional Content as the originals have the same authority as the originals.

Where are the Originals?

Where then are the actual papyrus that Paul and James and Peter wrote on? They have long since crumbled and turned to dust. 2000 years is not kind to fragile things like paper.

But they are not lost, God has promised to preserve His word:

Psalm 12:7 KJV 1900

Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

How did got choose to preserve His Word? By the medium of replication. Because every christian wanted a copy, thousands and thousands of copies of there originals were made, and as one started to get worn out, more copies were made.

what we have today are over 15 codexes, some whole books others small fragments of those copies.

This is a huge blessing - it means that the scriptures have never ever been in the sole possession of any particular church, or group - and therefore are self correcting. You cannot sneak changes into a text that is wide spread without people noticing.

Now how do we know that the Hebreew and Greek tesxts that our translatorts use are the same as

Now in the coping process you do get copies errors, that can rage from spelling mistakes to different words. It is the job of biblical scholars to take all these codexes and recreate the New Testament, which has been done to a miraculous degree.

Of the 138 000 word in NT

130 000 words, 1300 unsure

Only 1200 word are uncertain.

0.8% which means that the NT is 99.92% certain.

and that 0.8%, those words which we are still uncertain off are not significant and effect no doctrine at all.

eg:

1 jn 1 4 “Your: or :Our”

1 John 1:4 KJV 1900

And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

“Your: or :Our”