Questions Youve Asked about the Old Testament THE MEANING OF INSPIRATION

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Questions Youve Asked about the Old
TestamentTHE MEANING OF INSPIRATION
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Our belief in inspiration

• 2 Timothy 31617
• Inspired hapax legomenon (used only once)
• Inspired God-breathed
• God-spoken? (cf. Prov 145)
• God-enlivened? (cf. Gen 27)
• God-destroyed? (cf. Isa 407)
• Contemporary usage usually relates to origins

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Understanding inspiration

• Poorer, but more common, procedure
• Define inspiration
• Make the Bible fit the definition
• Better, but less common, procedure
• See what the Bible says about its own origins
• Make the definition fit the Bible

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Inspiration by dictation

• God dictates exact words
• Usually very short texts
• The Ritual Decalogue (Exod 34)
• Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa 812)
• For Judah/Joseph and the Israelites associated
  with it (Ezek 3715)
• January 15, 588 BC (Ezek 242)
• Letters to the 7 churches (Rev 23)
• No such explicit claim for a complete biblical
  book

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Inspiration by disclosure

• God gives the message, but not the words
  (quasi-dictation)
• Typical for prophetic visions
• Habakkuks vision of Chaldeas demise (Hab 223)
• Ezekiels vision of the idealized temple (Ezek
  431011)
• Probable for many prophetic speeches (and
  symbolic actions) as well

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Inspiration by deeds

• God does something that evokes a response
• Widespread application
• Hymns of praise (Ps 8)
• Pleas for help (Ps 44)
• Historiographical narrative (Luke 114)
• Divine action shapes but does not word these texts

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Inspiration by devotion

• A writer applies knowledge of God to new
  situations
• Found mainly in didactic literature
• Explicit in Paul (1 Cor 710, 12, 25)
• Implicit in Old Testament wisdom literature
  (Proverbs Ecclesiastes)
• Gods character and prior revelation shape but do
  not word these texts

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A spectrum of inspiration

• Dictation
• Disclosure
• Deeds
• Devotion

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Inspiration in a nutshell

• The biblical writers claims about their own
  writings allow us to say that every word in the
  Bible is there because of God.
• The biblical writers claims about their own
  writings do not allow us to say that every word
  in the Bible was explicitly chosen by God.

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Implications

• Read with discernment
• Try to discern inspirational mode
• Try to discern human contribution
• Accept authorial limitations
• Culture, history, language, knowledge
• Treasure in jars of clay
• Appreciate biblical variety
• Stylistic variety
• Theological variety

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Questions Youve Asked about the Old
TestamentTHE MEANING OF INSPIRATION

• Next Weeks Topic (June 16)
• HOW WE GOT THE OLD TESTAMENT