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In my previous post, I noted that anyone who claims that the Bible is God’s Word should be expected to support that extraordinary claim with hard evidence—for the sake of his reputation, certainly, but more importantly for his own integrity; no one should order his life around a falsehood.

In this post I’d like to begin by defining exactly what the statement “The Bible is God’s Word” claims. No sense in proving something that nobody’s advocating. If we’re going to evaluate the claim, we need to know accurately and precisely what it is.

So does the Bible make any claims about its own nature? If so, what are those claims?

Most conservative Christians have come across the Big Two verses that speak to this question. The first of them is 2 Timothy 3.16, where Paul tells his disciple Timothy that “all scripture is given by inspiration of God” (KJV). The word inspiration translates the Greek word theopneustos, a compound word meaning “God-breathed.” So Paul says that God breathed, or uttered, the Scripture. I’m going to keep things pretty simple here, but if you’d like (a lot) more information on this concept, I’d recommend this article and this book.

The second Big Verse is actually 2 verses, 2 Peter 1.20-21, which I’ll quote here in full:

²⁰ Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. ²¹ 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.

Three claims to note here:

• The human authors were not making this stuff up or just sharing their own opinions.
• The human authors were under divine compulsion; the word moved here is the same Greek word used to describe Paul’s Roman ship being driven across the Mediterranean by a powerful storm (Acts 27.15, 17).
• The divine compeller was specifically the Holy Spirit.

So the central claim is that God the Holy Spirit breathed out the words of Scripture by compelling the human authors in some way so that they wrote things that originated with Him, not them.

It’s no surprise, then, that Jesus remarks, almost off-handedly, that “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10.35).

But the Bible indicates a few further details about its claim. For example, in places the authors are themselves aware that what they’re writing is not coming from their own minds. Most obviously, the Old Testament prophets repeatedly—415 times in the King James Version—preface their words with “Thus saith the LORD.” And Paul says, “This we say unto you by the word of the Lord” (1Th 4.15), while John famously ends the book of Revelation by insisting that not a word of it be modified, on pain of damnation (Rev 22.18-19).

Further, the authors recognize other passages of Scripture as God’s Word. The New Testament authors repeatedly and consistently cite the Old Testament as authoritative (e.g. 1Tim 5.18); but more impressively, Peter refers to Paul’s writings as Scripture (2Pt 3.16), even after receiving a public dressing-down from him (Gal 2.11ff), and Paul quotes the Gospel of Luke as Scripture in parallel with the writings of Moses himself in the Torah (1Tim 5.18). This is all the more significant because the ink on the Gospel of Luke was barely dry when Paul wrote these words, and Luke had been a close traveling companion of Paul. Why is that significant? Well, Paul knew if Luke snored, or had bad breath, or had BO. You’re not likely to think of your close friends as Direct Messengers of the Almighty.

Now, none of this proves that the Bible is God’s Word. Anybody can take a piece of papyrus or parchment and write “Thus saith the Lord,” and that doesn’t make it so. In fact, if anyone we know today did that, we’d think he was ready for psychological intervention.

But these statements do help us define exactly what the claim is, and thus they prepare us to evaluate it. Is there verifiable evidence that the Bible is what it says it is—an extraordinary, supernatural book? If there is, we cannot reject the Bible’s claim without dealing with that evidence. And if there isn’t, we ought to return to sanity.

Next time, we’ll begin reviewing the evidence.

Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7     Part 8

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

As a conservative Christian, I talk a lot about what the Bible says. Sometimes I even try to settle arguments with it (graciously, of course ????).

There’s a reason for that: conservatives believe that the Bible is the Word of God—that the words in the original languages of the Old and New Testaments are the very words that God spoke through the human authors, through a process called inspiration. In fact, the very first line of the doctrinal statement for the college where I teach is “I believe in the inspiration of the Bible, both the Old and the New Testaments.”

Now, that’s an extraordinary claim—to many minds, extraordinary to the point of ridiculousness, and thus ridicule. It’s perfectly reasonable for someone who hears that claim to respond, “So, you got any evidence for that?” I mean, really. There are Scriptures all over the place. Within the broader Christian tradition, there are the writings of Ellen G. White, and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and the Book of Mormon, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. In the broader religious world, there’s the Qu’ran, the writings of Baha’u’llah, the Sutras, the Vedas, the writings of Haile Selassie, Dianetics, the writings of Swedenborg, and the Divine Principle. And we’re just getting started.

So why should we elevate one, the Bible, over all the others? For that matter, why should we elevate any of them? Can’t we just appreciate them for what they obviously are, the musings of various cultures, ancient and modern, that give us insights into their thinking and even life principles from which we can benefit? Do we have to get all exclusive and mythological and … freakish about it?

That’s not only a legitimate question; it’s one that we must ask. If you think you’re hearing the voice of God, and you aren’t, you’re deeply deluded, perhaps even to the point of psychopathy. And you might even be a danger to society.

But not only should we ask the question; we should demand an answer. It’s not enough to just shrug and say, “Well, that’s just what I’ve always believed.” What laziness. What irresponsibility. What nonsense.

So let’s get serious. Is there evidence—objective, observable, testable, verifiable evidence—that the Bible is extraordinary, and not like other books? And specifically, evidence that calls for alleging a supernatural origin? That’s a tough standard, but it’s a reasonable and even necessary one.

I’m not one to submit to an ancient writing unless there are compelling evidences that I’d be a fool not to. I’d like to spend a few posts sharing how my thinking along these lines has proceeded. My plan is to lay out the next few posts as follows:

1. What the Bible says about itself—not that that’s proof of anything, but we need to start by determining accurately what is actually being claimed.
2. Evidence #1 that that claim is worth considering seriously.
3. An excursus on a matter that evidence #1 raises.
4. Evidence #2. There’s a lot to discuss here, so this one may take 2 or even 3 posts.

Since my choice of life authority has depended on this issue, I’ve tried to think it through as objectively as possible. I’m going to try to communicate that objectivity as I share these thoughts with you.

I invite you to join me for the investigation. See you in the next post.

Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7      Part 8