inspiration Archives - Redeeming God

No, Adolph Hitler never spoke about the inspiration of Scripture (that I know of).

But last week I posted two blog posts that got quite a bit of discussion, and I found the comments on these two posts quite … ironic.

They were these two posts:

Here is what happened:

The Hitler Billboard Post

In the first post I criticized a church for putting up a billboard which quoted Hitler. I thought that a church had no business quoting Hitler, even if what Hitler said was true.

If you go read the comments, you see that the vast majority of the comments were in favor of quoting Hitler. Though these are not exact quotes of anybody, many people said things like “All truth is God’s truth” and “We should be able to recognize that other people may teach God’s truth, even if we don’t like what they stand for.”

OK. I see the point. I also agree (for the most part).

But just as I would never quote Satan approvingly (even if it was a true statement), I don’t think churches should be quoting Hitler.

But whatever … people are free to disagree. (As many of them did.)

The very next day, however, I posted another post, and I was shocked at the response.

Inspiration and Other Religions

In this post, I argued that God has been whispering His truth to lots of people throughout time, not just to a select few Jews in a small corner of the world for a short period of time.

As such, I argued, it should not be surprising for us to find divine truth in the writings of other religions.

Judging by some of the comments I received, you would think I had just announced my conversion to atheism!

The Two Posts Compared…

But then it hit me …

Why is it okay to accept “truth” as “God’s truth” when it comes from Hitler, but it is heretical to accept “truth” as “God’s truth” when it comes from Buddhist Sutras, Hindu Vedas, or Native American legends?

If all truth is God’s truth (as people claimed on the Hitler post), then why are some so shocked when some of God’s truth is found in the writings of other religions?

I just don’t understand.

I suppose it was because I used the word “inspired” in the second post, though I tried to clarify that what I meant by “inspired” was “God whispering His truth to people.” That’s not deserving of being called a heretic, is it? All I am saying is that God has somehow taught truth to people who were not biblical authors. Heck, maybe that’s how Hitler learned the truth he stated about children, which was quoted in that billboard!

I wonder what would have happened if I had been able to find a quote from Hitler which said the same thing I said in the second post … people’s minds would have exploded!

Anyway, I thought it was strangely ironic that in one post I am condemned for one thing, and in the very next post, I am condemned for exactly the opposite (sometimes by the same people!).

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
We sang a dirge, and you did not mourn” (Matthew 11:17)

The Bible is Inspired … And so are other religious writings (Wait … What?!)

By Jeremy Myers

113 Comments

Let’s see if I can get someone to condemn me as a heretic (again)…

In some previous posts, I have suggested that the term “inspiration of God” in 2 Timothy 3:16 could be understood as the “whisperings of God.”

In this post, I want to float out an idea which has been bouncing around in my head recently, and which I am submitting for your input and comment.

Is the Inspiration of God Only for a Select Few?

The way some people talk about the Bible, it seems that God’s whispering of truth was only heard by a small group of Middle Eastern men for a few brief centuries. In other words, since Moses began writing the Pentateuch (Genesis–Deuteronomy) around 1400 B.C. and since the last book of the Bible was written around 400 B.C., are we to believe that throughout all history and around the entire world, God was only whispering to a select few individuals for only a few brief centuries?

The Old Testament contains 39 books written by less than 30 men over the span of about 1000 years.

Did God only whisper truth to these few people who lived in a tiny section of the world for such a brief period of time?

Based on what we know about God, it is preposterous to think so.

God has communicated with many others

Even Scripture itself reveals that God was whispering truth to other people. Other than the universal revelation of God available to all people through creation and conscience, God was whispering truth to people who were not biblical authors.

Many of them were women (e.g., Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, Esther), and there are numerous hints within Scripture itself that God was whispering His truth to people who were not even Israelites (e.g., Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20; Balaam in Numbers 22–24).

It seems likely that if God was whispering truth to non-Israelite people like Melchizedek and Balaam, they He may also have been whispering truth to people whom we know nothing about.

For example, why couldn’t there have been men and women living in the Far East to whom God graciously whispered truth?

Why couldn’t there have been a Native American tribal leader to whom God whispered truth about His creative power and His dominion over all the earth?

Why couldn’t there have been a hardworking clansman from Northern Europe to whom God whispered truth about the origin of all things and the imminent arrival of One who would defeat evil once and for all?

This is not too hard to believe, is it?

If God truly is the God of all, then why would God not reveal more of Himself to people all over the world who responded to revelation He had already provided through creation and in their conscience?

In fact, Scripture seems to indicate that this is exactly what God was doing.

The Universal Inspiration of God

He placed eternity within the hearts of men (Eccl 3:11), and through dreams, visions, and other forms of special revelation, revealed Himself to people who were not yet “His people” (cf. Gen 14:18-20; Num 22–24; John 12:32; Acts 10:3-8; 16:9; 17:26-27).

Quite likely, many of these people saw that creation was red with tooth and claw and wondered what kind of deity would create such a place. Many of them, seeing the love and care that family members often showed for each other, wondered what such relational love among human taught us about the God who created humans. Many of them, looking at the innumerable stars, wondered about the power and glory of the God who created such beauty.

And it is not wrong, I think, to assume that in all these situations, God was there, through the universal presence of the Holy Spirit, whispering His truth to people who lived in all corners of the world. How could it be otherwise and God still be all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, and all-loving? If God did not whisper truth to people who were seeking Him, what kind of God would He truly be?

Furthermore, what if some of these people to whom God whispered His truths wrote down the things they were seeing, thinking, and learning?

What if various people in Asia, as they contemplated the things they were seeing in nature and hearing in the whispers of God, wrote down what they were learning? Is that too far-fetched to believe?

What if someone in Northern Europe wrote down the stories, legends, and teachings that had been passed down from generation to generation—the stories about the struggle between good and evil and how a day was coming when good would ultimately triumph over evil? Is that so unlikely? In his book The Scapegoat, René Girard points out that the central themes of the Gospel Passion accounts are also found in all world mythologies (101).

The Universal Whisperings of God

It is this universal whispering of God to people all over the world and throughout time which can partially account for some of the similarities in ideas and belief systems for groups of people all around the world. In this way, all religion is a strange mix of God’s whisperings to mankind and mankind’s idolatry.

Though I would not go so far as to say that all religious writings are inspired by God, I think it is not too much to say that all religious writings derive in some way or another from people listening to what God whispers to their spirit.

In this way, we are not making the Bible less inspired as much as we are saying that other religious writings are more inspired than previously believed.

No, they are not inspired in the same way or to the same level as the biblical accounts, but in some way or another, other religious writings do contain wisdom, insights, and truths which God, by His Spirit, was whispering to people all around the world and throughout time. Sometimes what they wrote was a purely human invention, and sometimes what they wrote was demonic in origin, but if the Spirit of God moves where God wills, and if God’s will is to reveal Himself to all people around all the world and throughout all time, then who are we to say that God’s Spirit was not whispering truth to people in ancient Egypt, Greece, Norway, China, or North America?

Would it not make sense to assume that God was whispering to them as well, and that some of their legends, myths, and religious writings are based on what God was whispering to them? It seems entirely possible.

Please note this word of clarification: I AM NOT saying that the other religious books are inerrant. Not at all. There is a huge difference between people hearing what the Spirit is whispering to people all around the world on the one hand, and writing inerrant Scripture on the other. And as to the Spirit whispering truth to people all around the world, what is the problem with this? Doesn’t Jesus say as much in John 16:8?

The Bible is inspired in that it reveals what God was whispering to people who wrote Scripture, and to people in other parts of the world who were also responding to the revelation which they had received from God (whether it be through creation or conscience).

This does not mean that the Hebrew Scriptures are not unique in the world. They are. They are unique in numerous ways, four of which will be looked at in the next four posts.

Until then, am I off my rocker? Is this going “too far”? Or do you think it is possible that the “whisperings of God” as I have described it here might actually be more widespread than we Christians usually assume?

JEDP Hypothesis, Q Theory, and the Critical Text… Oh My!

By Jeremy Myers

17 Comments

Warning: This post will interest only the most scholarly among you… It is written in answer to a question sent in by a reader about Genesis 1-2. Here is the question:

Question: Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 appear to be written by different people. How is your understanding on this?

Here is my roundabout way of answering:

Yes, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 do appear to be written by different people. Bible scholars have noted that different names of God are used in these two chapters, along with different terminology, different themes, and even a somewhat different order of events. These differences aren’t just with Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, of course, but with the entire Pentateuch.

The JEDP Hypothesis

This has led some scholars to suggest that there were maybe 4 authors (or groups of authors) for the Pentateuch, and they can be identified by their emphasis and by what name(s) for God they seemed to have preferred. This theory is called the Documentary theory or the JEDP hypothesis, and the four authors (or groups of authors) are identified as the Yahwist (J), the Elohist (E), the Deuteronomist (D), and the Priestly (P). According to this theory, it is believed that the Priestly author wrote Genesis 1:1-2:3 and the Yahwist wrote Genesis 2:4ff.

Q Theory

So what do I think of this theory? Well, I take an approach similar to how I approach a similar theory about the 4 Gospels in the New Testament. Conventional scholarly wisdom about the 4 Gospels says that there is a “Q” source document for the Gospels which has been lost. It is believed that Matthew and Luke had this “Q” (along with the Gospel of Mark) and used it to write their Gospel accounts.

I never bought into this line of reasoning and remember having many long discussions and debates with other students about this when when I was in Bible college and seminary. My view is a minority opinion, of course, but I was thrilled to read a few years back something that N. T. Wright wrote about Q:

I have never completely caught the disease called Q, though from time to time I have experienced that shivery feeling, and the concomitant double vision, that those who have a chronic case of the Q disease reveal as their normal state. I have experienced, though, an interesting phenomenon: my inability to make up my mind on the synoptic problem has not, I think, in any way impaired my ability to read Matthew, Mark, and Luke as Matthew, Mark, and Luke, nor indeed my ability — though some would no doubt question this — to think and write about this historical Jesus.

How People Write

So anyway, my view of the JEDP hypothesis is similar. I honestly believe Moses wrote most of the Pentateuch (probably all of it except the last chapter of Deuteronomy). Did he have sources? Probably. He likely had some documents or oral traditions from which he drew, and which might account for the differences in the various texts.

Here’s my main concern: Why do modern biblical scholars do not give the same freedom and flexibility to biblical authors that we allows ourselves? Look, I have been writing for about 20 years. If I go back and look at the themes I wrote about 20 years ago, the words I used, the way I thought about God, the names I used for God, and a whole host of other ideas, the “me” of 20 years ago writes nothing like the “me” of today.

Even if I wrote something today and then sat down tomorrow to write it again without looking, I am certain I would phrase things different, write with a different emphasis, and refer to God in different ways. This is true of all authors around the world and throughout time. Cannot this also be true of biblical authors? Of course it can!

I sometimes think these documentary theories are nothing more than scholarly inventions to give scholars something to write about who have become bored with the biblical text itself.

Genesis 1-2

So to answer the original question. Were Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 written by different authors? No, I do not believe so. I believe Moses wrote both, though I believe that he may have used different sources or oral traditions to record the two accounts, but even then, both are accurate and simply reflect two different thematic perspectives on the creation account.

So do I believe in the JEDP hypothesis? Not really. Just like I don’t hold to the Q theory either.

(As long as I am off in the weeds writing about scholarly conventional wisdom which I do not accept, I might as well include here that I also do not accept most of the canons of textual criticism which give priority to the Critical Text based on a few early documents rather than the Majority Text based on thousands of later documents…)

But guess what? Just as N. T. Wright wrote above that a rejection of the Q theory doesn’t keep him from understanding the Gospels, the rejection of the JEDP hypothesis doesn’t keep me from understanding the creation account or the rest of the Pentateuch. In Genesis 1-2 we can still see a beautifully constructed polemic against the Egyptian and Canaanite creation myths that were common in the days of Moses.

Wait… what? Am I saying that Genesis 1-2 do not offer a scientific treatise on how the universe began?

… We’ll have to save that as a question for another time…

The point is this: While the question of authorship is vitally important for understanding Scripture, the question of meaning is even more significant. In other words, the question “What does the text mean?” is way more important than the question “Who wrote this text?” And whether you believe Moses wrote Genesis 1-2 or some nameless Priestly author and Yahwist, you can still find great truth in the message of the text itself.

Why was the Bible Written?

By Jeremy Myers

12 Comments

Ever wonder “Why was the Bible written?”

Maybe not.

But whether you have wondered this or not, here is the answer: It wasn’t.

The Bible was Never Written

No, I am not falling into some mystical religious explanation where I believe that the Bible has eternally existed in heaven or in the mind of God (though many Christians actually believe this), or that the Bible fell out of the sky on stone tablets or golden plates (like some other religions believe about their Scriptures).

No, all I am saying is that the Bible — as you find it on your shelf, or desk, or bedside stand, or wherever — was never written.

How then did it end up on your shelf, your desk, or your bedside stand?

Ah, well, that is a long story indeed. Too long to tell here. But when it comes to the question of “Why was the Bible written?” there never was a time in the long history of the Bible that someone (or even a group of someones) sat down and said, “I’m going to write the Bible.”

This is what I mean when I say that the Bible was never written. We must not ever think of it like a novel, or a history book, or a science book that was written by a person or a group of people to make a particular point to a particular audience.

Why Was the Bible Written?

So the question, “Why was the Bible written?” makes no sense when you understand the nature and content of the Bible. To use my analogy from yesterday about movies, it would be like asking, “Why were movies made?” It cannot be answered. At least, not definitively. I suppose some generic answer could be provided about movies, such as “To entertain” or “To tell a story” but even these answers don’t fit all movies.

The same goes for Scripture. When asking, “Why was the Bible written?” there is no answer that fits all the individual books of the Bible. Sure, some generic answer can be proposed, such as “To tell a story” or “To tell us about God” but these do not fit all the books, and even if they did, are so unhelpful, they qualify as a non-answer.

I suppose, rather than ask, “Why was the Bible written?” it might be more fruitful to ask, “Why was the Bible compiled?” Now there is an interesting question with interesting answers. But that question will have to wait until we talk about the Canonization of Scripture later in this series.

For the purpose of this post, I don’t think a suitable answer exists to the question, “Why was the Bible written?” because the question begins the wrong view about Scripture. The Bible was never written. It is not that kind of book.

It is closer to a collection of books, but even that is not accurate, as most of the “books” are not “books” at all, but are letters, or chronicles of events, or even collections themselves of poems and pithy sayings.

Why were Individual Books of the Bible Written?

Which raises a different point. If we cannot ask, “Why was the Bible written?” maybe we can at least ask, “Why were individual books written?” Books like Genesis. Or Romans. Or Revelation. These are better questions, for these are documents that were actually written, and they do, I believe, have purposes. We can ask, “Why was Genesis written?” or “Why was Romans written?” and find some answers. We may not all agree on the answers, but at least we are making some headway on finding the right questions. In the search for truth, the right question is half the answer.

So where are we on our question? We cannot ask “Why was the Bible written?” because it never was. But we can ask, “Why were individual books of the Bible written?” and to this question, we can attempt to find answers. I am not going to try to do that here as it would take hundreds of blog posts.

Instead, however, we have now arrived at the place where we can approach the third issue I raised yesterday. We wanted to know how the Bible functions, why the Bible was written, and how the Bible presents truth. We have addressed the first two; we will look at the third tomorrow.

Bibliology is Dangerous

By Jeremy Myers

39 Comments

I am quite hesitant to begin blogging through my seminary class notes on Bibliology — the Study of the Bible.

Why?

Because Bibliology is dangerous. It lays traps and creates a labyrinth from which it is very hard to escape. I’ve been trapped in a certain Bibliology for about thirteen years, and in many ways, I feel I am just starting to escape. I would hate to trap anybody else. Of course, maybe I’m entering a new labyrinth and don’t even know it…

Let me back up….

The problem with Bibliology (and Systematic Theology in general) is that the questions it asks are loaded questions. In legal terms, the questions would be considered “leading the witness.” This is a dangerous thing to do when the “witness” is the Word of God.

Here is how Bibliology works:

A theologian (like a lawyer) wants to prove a certain point to the judge and jury. So to prove that point, he calls forward a witness which he views as the ultimate authority — Scripture, the very Word of God.

But the judge and jury are not ready to accept the authority of Scripture. They doubt the credibility of the witness. So the theologian has to back up and make an argument for the authority of Scripture. This is what Bibliology is. It is an attempt to prove the accuracy, authority, and credibility of Scripture.

[Read more…]

Adolph Hitler on the Inspiration of Scripture

The Hitler Billboard Post

Inspiration and Other Religions

The Two Posts Compared…

The Bible is Inspired … And so are other religious writings (Wait … What?!)

Is the Inspiration of God Only for a Select Few?

God has communicated with many others

The Universal Inspiration of God

The Universal Whisperings of God

JEDP Hypothesis, Q Theory, and the Critical Text… Oh My!

The JEDP Hypothesis

Q Theory

How People Write

Genesis 1-2

Why was the Bible Written?

The Bible was Never Written

Why Was the Bible Written?

Why were Individual Books of the Bible Written?

Bibliology is Dangerous

Here is how Bibliology works:

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