Professor Warfield and I would get along just fine.  I’ll bet he could sign the Bellingham Statement, too.

I wasn’t aware of this article until it popped into my blog reader today. I deliberately try to articulate what I think without appeal to others until I’m well into the task. I’m old enough, trained enough, and seasoned enough to feel like I ought to approach such tasks as a scholar.  When I think I have something, then I look to the wisdom of others (scholars or not) for correction or refinement or support. I’m (again) glad for that method here, since some of Warfield’s quotations (I have highlighted some things) sound like what I’ve been blogging. I’m not saying we’d agree on every jot and tittle, only that Warfield’s words are quite consistent with the view I’ve been working to spell out.

So, if you want to accuse me of denying something, you can now put B. B. Warfield in your cross-hairs. Who’da thunk that?  Warfield vs. the Westminster addendum?!

Technorati Tags: inerrancy, inspiration, Warfield, Westminster

Technorati Tags: inerrancy, inspiration

1. To get academically-minded Christians, especially fellow biblio-bloggers, to offer suggestions and rewrites toward a final statement.

2. To post that final statement on its own dedicated website and allow readers to sign it in some electronic form. I don’t plan to do anything with the signatures except post them on that site. Hopefully the Bellingham Statement can become a reference point for academically-minded believers who view inspiration and inerrancy as important doctrines.

The latest Statement is somewhat lengthy (2 pages single-spaced in WORD).  Readers will recognize the contributions of John Hobbins therein, though I deleted some of his wordings and added material.  Unless I get substantive feedback on it, this will be my last statement. I don’t think I can take it much further without input, and I’d like to start blogging about other things. One thing I did not put into it that may be advisable is something about textual criticism / transmission.  I think we all know that TC is a safety net to evangelical discussions of inerrancy, and so I didn’t feel I needed to add it.  Maybe I should.

Here it is:

I affirm that the Bible is God-given revelation produced through the agency of human authors. The usual process of producing the Scriptures was one where human authors wrote on the basis of their own abilities, education, styles, worldview, backgrounds, and idiosyncrasies apart from a point-in-time divine encounter where the words of Scripture were chosen for the authors. Although there are instances in the biblical record where God is said to have dictated what would become part of the biblical text (e.g., Rev 2-3, the messages to the seven churches), such instances are rare.

The process of inspiration does not require us to contend that God verbally dictated the words of the Bible to the authors, though God did so on rare occasions, at times directly or through a divine agent. The process also does not require us to embrace the idea that God impressed each word on the mind of the author through some silent, mental process, as though the author’s mind was overtaken by God. Having providentially prepared each writer, I believe God presented the biblical writers with truth through a range of means, including (but not limited to) dramatic displays of divine power, time spent listening to the incarnate Christ, formal education, the reading of Scripture already extant, insight given by the Spirit, religious training, and sensitivity to the working of God in their own lives through spiritual devotion. All of these forces and more molded the lives and minds of the authors of the Bible under an over-arching divine providence, preparing them to write that which God would move the believing community to embrace as canonical.

While God providentially prepared the writers of the Bible to produce His truth and providentially oversaw the results of their work, this process of inspiration of necessity involved divine accommodation.  God was perfectly capable and content to use human language to convey truth to humanity. Divine accommodation in the context of the process of inspiration should not be understood as though the biblical writers chose to communicate with their audience in such a way as to accommodate less learned people. I reject the notion that one human (the author) received words from God and then had to dumb down those words for other people (their audience). This is not divine accommodation, but human accommodation, and is a caricature of what divine accommodation really is: the decision of God to be willing to allow his weak, limited human creatures to write about who He is and what He has done.

In view of the above, I affirm that God used human language to the degree he deemed sufficient, so as to accomplish the creation of the canonical books.  Humans do not express anything about God perfectly or completely, nor could God reveal anything about Himself in an exhaustive and comprehensive way, as human minds would be unable to comprehend this fullness. Since humans cannot receive all God is, all God thinks, and all God does, what they produce in writing, even under the providence of God, will be articulated in ways that show their limited capacities and finite understanding of God, His ways, and His world. These shortfalls should not be construed as errors, since to do so would be to charge the human author with possessing the limitations of humanity, as though the writer could have circumvented those limitations. That the human writers of antiquity chosen by God were writing under the constraints of an imperfect understanding of science is to affirm the obvious. To contend that this means the point of the inspiration process was meant to factualize ancient scientific notions as points of dogma is to extrapolate from that obvious point to an unnecessary conclusion.  I affirm that the standard for God’s acceptance of the process of inspiration was not the production of material that neither the ancient writer nor his initial audience could have comprehended. Rather, God used humans as they were, with all their limitations, much in the same way He left the task of evangelism and administration of His Body, the Church, to weak human beings. Nevertheless, in grace God chose to use human agents to produce revelation about Himself for human posterity. God was willing and able to use human writers, who utilized a range of normal communicative literary techniques, and who wrote according to deliberate theological agendas, to adequately and accurately (but imperfectly) describe Himself, His plan, His purposes, His acts in history, and His creative acts. God was likewise willing and able to preserve the writers from making erroneous statements about Himself, His plan, His purposes, and His acts in history and His creative acts.

I affirm, therefore, that while the providentially-prepared human authors were the immediate source of most of the words of Scripture, God is still the ultimate source of the words of each canonical book. His work of providence was sufficient at every point of the way to ensure that the words that he intended to be in Scripture, and no others, are in fact therein. The Bible derives its authority from this providentially-guided process.  The Bible’s authority in turn is higher than that of any church, local or corporate, and any tradition about the Bible and its contents, since that tradition did not derive from the same inspiration process as the Bible itself.

I affirm that the process of inspiration included not only the initial composition of a biblical book but also any subsequent editorial work done on the text of that book prior to the recognition of a completed sacred canon. Evidence in hand leads to the conclusion that the process of producing the Scripture text was subject to editorial activity in terms of additions, deletions, rearrangement, and repurposing. I believe that God oversaw any such process by means of providential influence in the decisions made by authors and editors so that the words of each canonical book met with God’s approval. Any writer or editorial hand whose work of composition or editing preceded the final form of a given canonical book and whose work finds expression in the final canonical text was a participant in the process of inspiration.

With respect to learning from the incarnate Christ, and with respect to the process of inspiration, the gospel writers were not required to reproduce the exact “real time” words that Jesus spoke, nor did they, as we know from the synoptic gospels. Rather, they learned truth and transmitted it in writing as their life context dictated under providence, at times capturing the ideas they heard very closely, perhaps even verbatim, on other occasions applying it in different vocabulary as the need arose. I believe the written result (in its final form) was entirely faithful and accurate with respect to the content of Jesus’ teaching.

As with hearing the words of Jesus, the writers of Scripture were likewise not required to memorize all the Scripture they heard and learned when writing their own works that would be recognized as canonical. Rather, they were free to apply preceding Scripture and quote it as needed to teach sound doctrine or make a theological point. The gap between many quotations of Scripture and the source manuscripts from which those quotations came shows us that the writers did not need to reproduce every word they found in the texts they quote, or in the exact order they found them in. At times their own context for writing or quoting a text required that the earlier Scripture text of the Old Testament be repurposed in a different literary form or adapted to reinforce a specific exegetical or theological point found elsewhere in the canonical text.

Could you sign this or not?  Where can it be improved?

Technorati Tags: inerrancy, inspiration

I really don’t like basketball (“ball in Mike’s court”), so the boxing metaphor is substituted!

Once again, I’m pleased to chat with John and the rest of you in regard to his latest post responding to my comments on his revision of my Bellingham Statement draft.  Here goes!

JH:  In reply to Mike’s most basic question: absolutely, I could sign off on his Bellingham Statement as I revised it without a single butterfly in my stomach.

MSH: Glad to hear this!  I will take a whack at this again using a good bit of John’s helpful wordings.  I’d really like to craft something (not only between myself and John) that could be put before other serious bibliobloggers who care about inspiration and inerrancy to see if they could “sign off” as well.  Still needs a good bit of thought.

JH: I can’t say the same about the Chicago Statement, though I could also sign that statement, as do many ETSers, with qualms attached.

MSH: ditto

JH: I take back my suggestion that Mike has a lower view of Scripture than I do. I was just making conversation blogging-style, as I hope he guessed. I’m not sure Mike and I have differences of substance with respect to the particular aspects of a doctrine of Scripture under discussion, though we clearly have differences of rhetorical strategy. Mike says:

“What I back away from is the idea that God *gave* the writers each word.”

My instinctive response: no, you don’t. You just back away from the idea that God gave the writers each word *through dictation.*

MSH: This is fair (kind of), though I take issue below with John’s rationale for this nuancing. Read on!

JH: I don’t see Mike backing away from the idea that God gave the writers each word through a providential combination of factors he has identified with care: through the writers’ “abilities, education, styles, worldview, backgrounds, and idiosyncrasies,” in conjunction with, or not, a point-in-time divine encounter.

MSH: Agreed

JH: I don’t see Mike backing away from the idea that God gave the writers each word and the writers each word to us as they edited, added to, deleted from, rearranged and repurposed what earlier writers had written – including writers whose work is also part of Scripture as we have received it in (relatively) unchanged form.

MSH: Agreed on the PROCESS view of inspiration John describes. The *giving* is still an issue with me for reasons that will become clearer below.  John is marrying providence with a view of divine intention (causation) that I don’t share.

JH: In short, I think we both intend to affirm verbal inspiration, but we choose slightly different ways of expressing it.

MSH: yep

JH:  Speaking of intentions. When it comes to Scripture, the end textual product, how do the writers’ intentions and those of God line up? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it is standard and correct teaching that they are not identical.

MSH: depends

JH:  That is, Jewish and Christian believers hold that God intended that the words of Scripture have fulfillments and repurposings that were beyond the intent of the writers themselves.

MSH: Yes, this is standard; in evangelical circles (conservative ones especially) this is usually referred to (and summarily “solved”) as “the progress of revelation.”

JH: However, it does appear that Mike backs away from the language of divine intention with respect to the wording and therefore the content of Scripture.

I have reservations about the move – though I am absolutely fine with his alternative wording: the words of Scripture “met with God’s final approval,” even if God did not (per Mike) intend those words. (Perhaps I have misunderstood here.)

MSH:  No, you got it.  My view is that, in most cases, God left it up to the writers to decide what to write.  I do think that God had certain revelational goals in mind that He wanted to accomplish. He was the one who decided when those goals were met (what he wanted to teach the believing community – immediate and for posterity).  That is, he decided if what his human agents had written was adequate and accurate (every word, mind you) with respect to the teaching points and salvation history (not using that as a technical term necessarily) that He deemed necessary for the life and perpetuation of the believing community. God molded the writers throughout their lives through providential means, preparing them for the task, but he didn’t need to “intend” words for them.  Their providential preparation was sufficient for that.

JH:  I remain convinced that it is standard and correct teaching that:

Instilling truth about Himself and His works into the hearts and minds of the scriptural writers prepared them to write the very words God intended they write, those words and no others.

MSH: I like it.

JH: It gets worse. I would locate God’s intentions in history and in eternity in the sense that God determined from all eternity to live out the relationships he would have with his creatures in history and in sovereign freedom nonetheless. In my view, the making of Scripture is part and parcel of those relationships, and follows that script as well. Which makes me a Calvinist, albeit a reconstructed one, whatever Mike may say.

MSH: I don’t mind what kind of Calvinist you are, John! Though I have to wonder how a Methodist preacher makes that work!  You must have a wonderful congregation.

JH: I realize that calling oneself a Calvinist is like comparing oneself to the Grinch who stole Christmas, but there it is.

In short, whereas I wish to describe God as the Alpha and Omega of Scripture no less than of everything else that comes to pass in history, I realize that the notion of divine intention goes to determination which goes to predetermination. (Digression alert)

And that is a problem. Can an all-powerful, all-knowing God intend anything without predetermining everything?

No he cannot, unless he ties one hand behind his back and does not allow what he knows will happen in the future to predetermine everything he does in the present. I have no idea why this point of logic is not brought up more often.

MSH: This (as “original” Naked Bible readers will know), is where I disagree with John.  I see no necessary connection in Scripture between foreknowledge and predestination. God does not need to predetermine things that happen, though he can.  God can *intend* the end and not the means, though he can.  All of this is hashed out in a series of other posts on the Naked Bible blog (and you thought inspiration was the only thing that rankled readers!).

[Digression alert] My view stems from my understanding of the status of humans as divine imagers REQUIRES genuine human freedom.  We image God. If we do not have true freedom, we cannot image him. If God takes away genuine freedom, we no longer image him. We would actually cease to be human, since imaging and humanity are inextricably bound up together. This idea in turn dovetails with (but does not completely overlap) with the fact that humans and other divine beings are imagers of God (the plurals in Gen 1:26 figure in here – when is the last time you heard someone try to tackle the issue of human free will while INCLUDING the co-imaging status of “angels”)? It’s quite necessary to get it right, but almost no one even considers it, since they wrongly think the plurals in Genesis are about the Trinity. The plurals = a plural exhortation by the singular Yahweh to his heavenly host, the divine council. And this all in turn relates to my “life work focus” of the divine council. I can’t belabor the ins-and-outs here, but I’ve probably spent more time thinking about the imaging status and the divine council than anything I’ve thought about in what could be loosely be called my academic career. But that’s all another subject. Just as God can “decree” something like Ahab’s death (1 Kings 22) and then let free agents in his divine council “get the job done” without specifying (“intending”) all the details (the end is decreed, not the detailed means), so it is with His human imagers, which included the Scripture writers. [End of digression].

JH: With respect to Scripture, however, I think it is adequate to the realia of the text to affirm that its contents and wording conform to God’s intentions in an undiluted sense. I admit such an affirmation has the smell of macho bravado about it. I stand by it just the same.

MSH: I would agree that the original thing produced (the end product of inspiration) was acceptable to God in every word since it accomplished what he wanted it to accomplish (and of course the writers didn’t know all that God wanted to accomplish). He deemed their efforts acceptable for the believing community.  This actually is part of why I don’t think things like a pre-scientific worldview (an example of the realia) count as errors – they are incidental to the doctrine and record of salvation history that God intended. This is different than saying (with some in the seventies and eighties) that “the Bible makes errors in science, but we should disregard those errors in our doctrine of Scripture.”  I’m saying they aren’t errors at all, since they aren’t statements or declarations that the writers put to their audience as things to be believed as truth. They are a part of a writer’s worldview, that he may or may not use in some argument trajectory, but they aren’t the object of the argument trajectory. I’m thinking that one can only commit an error when what one says is rightly understood to be a declaration of fact (in this case, for the believing community for “all time and eternity”).  I don’t see the writer of Genesis telling his audience to believe that there was a solid dome over the earth. He just assumes it in the course of telling us about creation (and I view the creation passage as a polemic against the fallen gods; limiting it to six solar days limits God too much, though I won’t care if the Lord tells me some day that the “day” language was meant to be taken that way as well). The fact that the solid dome was an assumption argues that the author didn’t need to make that a proposition – which (providentially!) is a good thing, since we’d have to reject it if that was a doctrinal statement for the whole believing community.

JH:  Now the ball is back in Mike’s court. In any case, I’m happy to subscribe to the Bellingham Statement as I revised it with or without the language of divine intention.

MSH:  Good thing, since I think you’re wrong there, John!  But seriously, I can’t see where an explanation of intention is needed for the statement.

Whew!

Technorati Tags: inerrancy, inspiration

What follows is some brief interaction with John Hobbins’ post about the Bellingham Statement (second draft as I recall).

John wrote, “I happen to think that Mike’s view of Scripture is not high enough. He backs away from upholding verbal inspiration.”

Actually, I don’t think this is the case at all.  What I back away from is the idea that God *gave* the writers each word. I could only be seen as backing away from verbal inspiration IF one defines verbal inspiration as the act of God giving each word to the writers. Now, it’s true that most traditionalists in this doctrine (I would guess) would define verbal inspiration in precisely this way. But MUST that be the definition? Is that understanding inherent in theopneustos? Is that the meaning theopneustos would carry in its usage elsewhere in contemporary material? In other words, who made up that definition of verbal inspiration and canonized it?  My view is that every word of every book, upon completion of the process of inspiration (which included editing and redactional composition in places) received God’s stamp of approval. Since I would argue divine approval for every word, how is it that I am dismissing “verbal, plenary” inspiration?  I’m not – I’m just asking for a better definition that conforms to the realia of the text, the processes that produced it, and (negatively) a definition that does not fall victim to what we find in the text itself thereby producing more problems than it solves.

After reading John’s revision, it isn’t clear to me that he would sign it.  What I mean here is it’s not entirely clear whether John was just helping me state MY view (and he did a nice job; I like his rewordings in  a number of places), or if he has produced a view he could sign off on. Maybe he’ll clarify in a reply.

One sentence may produce some quibbling, but only because when I read it, I wonder what John means by the word “intended”. Here’s the sentence, with the italics from John:

Instilling truth about Himself and His works into the hearts and minds of the scriptural writers prepared them to write the very words God intended they write, those words and no others.

Now, John is no Calvinist, so I don’t think he’s suggesting there that there is a *necessary* link between God’s intention and the words to such an extent that the writers could only write the words that God had in his mind in eternity past (in which case the writers weren’t at all free to write as John describes elsewhere so well). So then what does John mean here? I’ll leave that to him, again (perhaps) in a reply. I would reword this last italicized statement this way (note where I put the period and then resume):

Instilling truth about Himself and His works into the hearts and minds of the scriptural writers prepared them to write. The result of that preparation and writing met with the complete approval of God, down to each and every word.

I really like what John has written here and, with his permission, will certainly incorporate a lot of the language in a subsequent installment of the Bellingham Statement. I’m hoping John could indeed sign it, or we could hammer one out that would make that possible.

Did any of you see anything in John’s work that sounds like we’d disagree?  Let us know!

Technorati Tags: inerrancy, inspiration

A view of Scripture not high enough: toward a revision of the Bellingham Statement

Mike Heiser has done the guild of biblical scholars a service by his careful discussion of a number of issues which arise in the development of a doctrine of Scripture adequate to Scripture itself. Several of the posts in his series (go here) rush in where angels fear to tread. This is exactly what needs to be done at this point, if only to reignite the debate all over again. Why are Catholics, evangelicals, and other classical Christians continually rethinking their view of Scripture? Because Scripture is as foundational to the life of the Church and to the resolution of controversies within and without as it was in the fourth century and the sixteenth century. Scripture is still the norma normans: the norm which norms every other norm.

Even those scholars for whom the Bible is not Scripture in the above sense, or Scripture at all, may nevertheless enjoy the spectacle of believers arguing about how many different ways Scripture can be in non-conformity with things we hold to be true but the authors of Scripture knew nothing about, and still be the unerring source of all the truth God intended to vouchsafe to all generations through Scripture.

I happen to think that Mike’s view of Scripture is not high enough. He backs away from upholding verbal inspiration. At least, that is what some of his wording suggests to my ears. Not that he would walk away from the clear teaching of Scripture any more than I would. The question is another: what does an adequate doctrine of Scripture need to emphasize. Below the fold, I offer a revised version of the Bellingham Statement as I found it scattered on his blog. The instances in which I have substantially modified the contents of the statement are printed in italics. I have subjected the non-italicized portion of the statement to abridgement and a degree of stylistic revision, but, so far as I remember, no more. I swear I did less of a number on the Heiser Vorlage than did Deuteronomy with respect to the traditions it assumed and transcended.

Here is the revised text:

I affirm that the Bible is God-given revelation produced through the agency of human authors. The usual process of producing the Scriptures was one where human authors wrote on the basis of their own abilities, education, styles, worldview, backgrounds, and idiosyncrasies apart from a point-in-time divine encounter where the words of Scripture were chosen for the authors. Although there are instances in the biblical record where God is said to have dictated what would become part of the biblical text (e.g., Rev 2-3, the messages to the seven churches), such instances are rare. Dictation or no dictation, God in His providence is both the ultimate and the immediate source of the words of each canonical book. His work of providence was sufficient at every point of the way to ensure that the words that he intended to be in Scripture, and no others, are in fact therein.

I affirm that the process of inspiration included not only the initial composition of a biblical book but also any subsequent editorial work done on the text of that book prior to the recognition of a completed sacred canon. Evidence in hand leads to the conclusion that the process of producing the Scripture text was subject to editorial activity in terms of additions, deletions, rearrangement, and repurposing. I believe that God oversaw any such process by means of providential influence in the decisions made by authors and editors so that the words of each canonical book met with God’s approval. Each and every book of the canon had such providential oversight throughout the process that the words God intended are exactly what we find in the final form of its text.

I believe that the description of the process of inspiration just described is consistent with the idea of divine revelation. I believe God presented the biblical writers with truth through a range of means, including (but not limited to) dramatic displays of divine power, time spent listening to the incarnate Christ, observations of providence if their lives and the lives of others, formal education, the reading of Scripture already extant, and religious training. All of these forces molded their lives and minds under the over-arching providence of God, preparing them to write that which God would move the believing community to embrace as canonical. Instilling truth about Himself and His works into the hearts and minds of the scriptural writers prepared them to write the very words God intended they write, those words and no others.

With respect to learning from the incarnate Christ, the writers were not required to reproduce the exact “real time” words that Jesus spoke, nor did they, as we know from the synoptic gospels. Rather, they learned truth and transmitted it in writing as their life context dictated under providence, at times capturing the ideas they heard very closely, on other occasions applying it in different vocabulary as the need arose.

As with hearing the words of Jesus, the writers of Scripture were likewise not required to memorize all the Scripture they heard and learned when writing their own works that would be recognized as canonical. Rather, they were free to apply preceding Scripture and quote it as needed to teach sound doctrine or make a theological point. The gap between many quotations of Scripture and the source manuscripts from which those quotations came shows us that the writers did not need to reproduce every word they found in the texts they quote, or in the exact order they found them in.

Technorati Tags: 2 Pet 1:20-21, 2 Tim 3:16, Hobbins, inerrancy, inspiration

Now, back to the discussion.  When we last left off, some time ago, I had issued my third “Bellingham Statement”.  Here are the three statements to date:

1. Another Whack at Bellingham Statement 1

2. Moving to Bellingham Statement 2

3. Bellingham Statement 3

What I’d like to do at this juncture is start specifically comparing my thoughts to the Chicago Statement. After the third Bellingham Statement it occurred to me that it would be easier to issue more statements if I had first gone through the entire Chicago Statement and taken some notes as it were. Below are the first eight (of 19) Chicago Statement Articles and my thoughts on them. Subsequent posts will cover the rest.

Technorati Tags: Bible, Chicago Statement, dictation, inerrancy, inspiration

In statements 1 and 2 I wrote:

“. . . the usual process of inspiration meant that the words of the text were given to the authors by God. Instead, human beings were, for the most part, the immediate source of the text of Scripture under the providence of God. God is, however, the ultimate source of the text of Scripture by means of His providential approval of the words of each canonical book as they existed at the end of the process of inspiration.”

and

“. . . the process of inspiration could include not only the initial composition of a biblical book but also any subsequent editorial work done on the text of that book prior to the recognition of a completed sacred canon . . . God oversaw any such process by means of providential influence in the decisions made by authors and editors so that the words of each canonical book met with God’s approval.”

Now for something new:

Bellingham Statement 3:

I believe that the description of the process of inspiration described in Statements 1 and 2 is consistent with the idea of divine revelation. God need not give all or most of the specific words to the writers to reveal truth to them. I believe God presented the biblical writers with truth through a range of means, including (but not limited to) dramatic displays of divine power, time spent listening to the incarnate Christ, observations of providence if their lives and the lives of others, formal education, the reading of Scripture already extant, and religious training. All of these forces molded their lives and minds under the over-arching providence of God, preparing them to write that which God would move the believing community to embrace as canonical. Instilling truth about Himself and His works into the hearts and minds of the scriptural writers did not need to involve giving each precise word in form and sequence to the writer. They were prepared by providence for the task, and influenced by providence to write what they did when the need arose.

With respect to learning from the incarnate Christ, the writers were not required to reproduce the exact “real time” words that Jesus spoke, nor did they, as we know from the synoptic gospels. Rather, they learned truth and transmitted it in writing as their life context dictated under providence, at times capturing the ideas they heard very closely, on other occasions applying it in different vocabulary as the need arose.

As with hearing the words of Jesus, the writers of Scripture were likewise not required to memorize all the Scripture they heard and learned when writing their own works that would be recognized as canonical. Rather, they were free to apply preceding Scripture and quote it as needed to teach sound doctrine or make a theological point. The gap between many quotations of Scripture and the source manuscripts from which those quotations came shows us that the writers did not need to receive every word that they wrote, even when referencing canonical material already extant.

A bit rough, but I’m guessing you’ll help me sharpen it.

Technorati Tags: canon, inerrancy, inspiration

I affirm that the Bible is revelation from God produced in writing through the agency of human authors. Although there are instances in the biblical record where God apparently dictated what would become part of the biblical text (e.g., Rev 2-3, the messages to the seven churches), such instances are very rare. Rather, the normative process of producing the Scriptures was one where human authors wrote on the basis of their own abilities, education, styles, worldview, backgrounds, and idiosyncrasies apart from a divine encounter where the words of Scripture were chosen for the authors. It is therefore denied that the usual process of inspiration meant that the words of the text were given to the authors by God. Instead, human beings were, for the most part, the immediate source of the text of Scripture under the providence of God. God is, however, the ultimate source of the text of Scripture by means of His providential approval of the words of each canonical book as they existed at the end of the process of inspiration.

Now for number 2:

Statement 2: I affirm that the process of inspiration could include not only the initial composition of a biblical book but also any subsequent editorial work done on the text of that book prior to the recognition of a completed sacred canon. Both rare instances of dictation¹ and the normative (non-dictation) process of producing the Scripture text could be subject to editorial activity in terms of additions, deletions, rearrangement, and repurposing.² I believe that God oversaw any such process by means of providential influence in the decisions made by authors and editors so that the words of each canonical book met with God’s approval. Each and every book of the canon had such providential oversight throughout the process that culminated in the final form of its text.

Technorati Tags: canon, inerrancy, inspiration

I affirm that the Bible is revelation from God produced in writing through the agency of human authors. This agency involved human authors writing on the basis of their own abilities, education, styles, worldview, backgrounds, and idiosyncrasies. I deny that the writing of the Bible required encounters between God and the writers where the human authors came under divine control as though God’s delivery of his revelation necessitated seizing the mind of the writer to produce the words of the text. I further deny that the words of the text were given to the authors by God through some sort of dictation process, whether audible or mental.

Now a second whack at it:

I affirm that the Bible is revelation from God produced in writing through the agency of human authors. Although there are instances in the biblical record where God apparently dictated what would become part of the biblical text (e.g., Rev 2-3, the messages to the seven churches), such instances are very rare. Rather, the normative process of producing the Scriptures was one where human authors wrote on the basis of their own abilities, education, styles, worldview, backgrounds, and idiosyncrasies apart from a divine encounter where the words of Scripture were chosen for the authors. It is therefore denied that the usual process of inspiration meant that the words of the text were given to the authors by God. Instead, human beings were, for the most part, the immediate source of the text of Scripture under the providence of God.  God is, however, the ultimate source of the text of Scripture by means of His providential approval of the words of each canonical book as they existed at the end of the process of inspiration.

This one is more “positive” in wording (I think). Now … what is unclear and in need of rewording? Better, what can be flagged in this statement that needs to be elaborated upon in subsequent statements?

Technorati Tags: Bible, inerrancy, inspiration, providence