Part 1: Summary

In the previous post I observed that the biblical writers often used other works as they composed their writings—and that they didn’t confine themselves to other biblical works.

Here are the specifics.

I like to organize these references into 2 categories:

• Consultation, by which I mean that the author says, “This is also recorded in such-and-such a document.”
• Allusion or quotation, where the author quotes, loosely or directly, from another source, whether he specifies it or not.

First the consultations.

Jewish Sources

• Book of Genealogies (Gen 5.1)
• Book of Jasher (Josh 10.13; 2Sam 1.18)
• Book of Nathan the Prophet (1Ch 29.29; 2Ch 9.29)
• Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2Ch 9.29)
• Visions of Iddo the Seer (2Ch 9.29; 12.15; 13.22)
• Book of Shemaiah the Prophet (2Ch 12.15)
• Book of the Acts of Solomon (1K 11.41)
• Book of Gad the Seer (1Ch 29.29)
• Sayings of the Seers (2Ch 33.19)

Note that two passages, 1Ch 29.29 and 2Ch 9.29, are particularly rich in these consultations.

I also note that these sources cannot be divinely inspired, since they have not been preserved, as God promised that his Word would be.

A Persian Source

• The author of Esther (perhaps Mordecai?) consulted “The book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia” (Es 10.2)—perhaps in the same warehouse where the unnamed servant grabbed a clay tablet at random to read to Xerxes so he could sleep (Es 6.1).

And now the allusions and quotations. Where possible I’ve included links to the sources on the internet so you can check ‘em for yourself.

Jewish Sources

• Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21.14; cf Ex 17.14)
• Jannes and Jambres (2Tim 3.8)—text not available online
• Martyrdom of Isaiah 1.9-10, 5.11-12 (Heb 11.37)
• Assumption of Moses (lost fragment) (Jude 9)
• 1 Enoch 1.9 (Jude 14-15)
• 1 Enoch 21.10 (?) (2Pt 2.4)

Pagan Sources

• Aeschylus, Agamemnon l. 1915 / 1624 (Acts 9.5)
  • This is included in Jesus’ words to Paul from heaven. Jesus’ sentence is clearly the same as the line from “Agamemnon,” but we can’t be certain that Jesus is quoting that poem. It’s possible that Aeschylus’s line became common in the ancient culture—similar to, say, “Early to bed and early to rise”—and Jesus is simply referring to the popular expression.
• Epimenides, Cretica (Acts 17.28a; Titus 1.12-13)
• Aratus, Phaenomena l. 5 (Acts 17.28b)
• Menander, Thais 218 (1Cor 15.33)

So What?

What does all this mean?

• The Spirit-driven biblical writers used sources, including pagan sources, with no apparent discomfort.
• They did so using the standard practices of their day; for example, Paul uses a couple of lines about Zeus and applies them to the Lord. The hearers would be expected to understand what he was doing, and there was no intent to deceive.

Here’s what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that the source is inspired. We do not “live, and move, and have our being” in Zeus.

One closing note.

Jude cites 1 Enoch in his epistle. Now, we know that the biblical Enoch is not the author of everything in 1 Enoch—but there’s no reason that the traditions on which 1 Enoch is based couldn’t have included some authentic statements of the ancient saint. If Jude had simply cited 1 Enoch without any comment, it wouldn’t matter whether or not what he quoted was actually spoken by Enoch. But he puts it this way:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying … (Jude 14).

In my opinion, Jude is stating that the historical Enoch, seven generations from Adam (and long before “1 Enoch” was written), said these words. And since Jude is inspired, I believe that the verse he quotes from 1 Enoch is in fact an authentic saying of the ancient prophet.

Have fun with all this.

Photo by madeleine ragsdale on Unsplash

Where did the Bible come from?

The answer to that question depends on what you mean.

Most simply, and most importantly, the Bible comes from God. Paul tells Timothy that the words of the Scripture (and in this context, he pretty clearly means the Hebrew Scripture, or what we Christians call the Old Testament) were breathed out by God (2Ti 3.16), and Peter says that the human authors were “moved” by the Holy Spirit (2P 1.21). That word “moved” is used in Acts of the storm (Ac 27.15, 17) that nearly blew Paul’s ship all the way to Africa (Ac 27.17). Since the Greek word for “wind” is the same as the word for “spirit,” it’s pretty clear that Peter is engaged in wordplay.

But the Bible also came from human authors, people like us. The fact that they were blown along by the Holy Wind doesn’t mean that they had no control over what they were writing. When the prophet Jeremiah accuses the Lord of deceiving him (Je 20.7), he’s clearly expressing his own opinion, not God’s. And when Paul writes that he baptized only two people in Corinth (1Co 1.14), you can see his thought process as he corrects himself in the succeeding verses: “Oh, yeah, I baptized that one family—and, uh, I don’t remember whether I baptized anybody else” (1Co 1.16). (That’s clearly my informal paraphrase.) Paul’s words clearly indicate that he isn’t just quoting the Holy Spirit, who most certainly does remember whether Paul baptized anybody else.

In the famous “needle’s eye” passage, Matthew (Mt 19.24) and Mark (Mk 10.25) use the common Greek word for “needle,” the kind of needle any first-century Jew could find in his house. But many manuscripts have Luke (Lk 18.25) using a different word for “needle,” a technical term for a surgical needle. Luke, the doctor, uses the first Greek word that comes to mind for “needle”; he speaks from his own experience.*

So the authors, though completely under the direction of the Spirit, played a role in the composition of the biblical text.

Let’s take this a step further. The authors themselves used other sources as they composed their works. I’m not speaking here of the common critical assumption that the Genesis creation story came from the Enuma Elish, or that the flood story came from the Epic of Gilgamesh. I think it’s much more likely that those pagan myths came from the cultural memory of an actual ancient creation and an actual ancient global flood, the one Moses describes in Genesis.

Rather, I’m saying that the authors borrowed freely from other ancient works, often saying so at the time—in effect, inserting a footnote.

Now, we all know that the New Testament often quotes from the Old. The simplest way to see this clearly and quickly is to flip through the Christian Standard Version (available online for free at biblegateway.com). The editors of that version have opted to set all NT quotations of the OT in bold-faced type, making them visually jump right off the page. And if you start in Matthew, who quotes the OT frequently, you’ll see a lot of bold-faced type.

But the biblical writers don’t limit themselves to quoting just other writers of Scripture. They quote from all over the place—including Persian historical archives and classical Greek poets waxing eloquent about Zeus. It’s possible, though not certain, that Jesus himself, resurrected, glorified, and at the right hand of the Father, quotes a classical Greek poet.

And these writers do so without seeming to sense any need to explain themselves or to offer some sort of disclaimer.

Next time we’ll look at what’s there in the biblical text.

* A note for those of you thinking as you read: which Greek word did Jesus actually use? And which Gospel author reported that word inaccurately? Freak out thou not, my friend; Jesus almost certainly was speaking Aramaic, and he used the common word for “needle” in that language. Matthew, Mark, and Luke were translating Jesus’ words into Greek as they wrote, and so each writer would choose the first Greek word for “needle” that popped into his head, based on his experience.

Photo by madeleine ragsdale on Unsplash

Part 2: Specifics