Undeception

This is the first of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics.

In determining the value and purpose of the Bible, we have to begin by looking at its origin. While a description of the process that put the words of the Bible on the page in mechanical terms is interesting, the theological and philosophical answer to the question of origin is foundational. This we refer to as the issue of inspiration.

The passage in Scripture usually cited as the primary source of the doctrine of inspiration is 2 Tim 3:16-17. This begins, “Every Scripture is inspired by God…” The syntax of the phrase is the most problematic aspect, because in the Greek the word “is” (the copula) does not occur, a situation common in Greek that does not always carry any detectable significance. The ambiguity of where we should understand the copula is significant in this case when you factor in the word kai, which could be translated either “and” or “even” based upon where you insert the understood “is”: in other words, should we render this verse as “Every Scripture [is] inspired by God and [is] useful…” or “Every God-inspired Scripture [is] also useful…”? In the first, the point of the statement is that God inspired Scripture and hence it is useful for doctrine, etc. In the second version, inspiration seems to be the qualifier, and that seems to suggest that there are Scriptures that are not inspired and that those are not necessarily useful.

But would it really mean that? Keep in mind that the word graphe meant simply “a writing” when the word was used outside the New Testament, but within the New Testament it is always understood to mean “sacred writing” or “Scripture”. My understanding is that theopneustos, commonly translated “God-breathed”, was probably intended not to strengthen the already specialized “Scripture” sense of the word but rather to act as a specializing qualifier for the more general meaning “writing”, thereby forming a phrase meaning literally “God-inspired Writing” and hence “Scripture”. Besides this, the usage data gathered by Robinson and begrudgingly confirmed by House seems fairly conclusive about the use of that particular syntactic construction throughout both the NT and the Septuagint: in almost every instance the adjective is attributive (i.e. it modifies graphe to mean “every God-inspired Writing”).^[1]

If this interpretation is taken, we translate kai as “also”. So what is the significance of the phrase “also useful”? What was it useful for in the first place? Here, the context strengthens the case. If we look at the previous verse, we see that the start of this inspiration passage is not verse 16, but verse 15:

…and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures [translating the Greek grammata], which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. [NIV]

Notice there that Paul modifies another term grammata ‘letters’ (which by itself, like graphe, is quite general) with the specifying adjective hiera ‘holy, sacred’, a word that may be justly considered a parallel to theopneustos. Underscoring the generic nature of grammata, we note that is not used in the New Testament to refer to the Old Testament as a body of Scriptures. Although it is used in reference to the Ten Commandments in 2 Corinthians 3:7, the context is clear that Paul is trying to highlight the fact that the actual lettering was engraved in stone. Grammata is a term with meanings ranging from accounting (Luke 16:6-7), to written words in contrast to spoken words (John 5:47), to learning in general (John 7:15, Acts 26:24), to epistolary correspondence (Acts 28:21), to the actual characters written (2 Cor. 3:7, Gal. 6:11). Surely this is why Paul found it necessary to use the specializing qualifier hiera to specify holy “letters” or “learning”^[2]. Therefore, if we take theopneustos as attributive (as I argued above), we have parallel phrases between v. 15 and v. 16: “sacred Letters” and “God-breathed Writing”.

The parallelism doesn’t end with just those phrases but also extends into the logic of the entire passage. Thus in 2 Tim. 3:15-17 Paul praised Timothy’s learning of “sacred letters” because it is able to make one “wise for salvation”, and that is the take-off point for the following assertion that every Scripture is “also” useful for doctrine, reproof, etc. In other words, Paul is glad that Timothy knows the Scriptures because they take one beyond the door (salvation) and actually help one navigate once inside.

All this evidence aside, there is no real scholarly consensus on the interpretation of this passage, although many on both sides will claim there is one because both are completely possible treatments of the underlying Greek. The ambiguity may have in fact been present to the original audience. As it stands, the close relationship of the two interpretations is such that a decision on one of the two does not even end up being wholly determinative for our view of inspiration. Because neither view disproves or substantiates the rest of what I have to present, I will avoid referring to the debate in my subsequent arguments. Similarly to avoid out-of-place controversy, I will put off until later the discussion of whether “every Scripture” includes the New Testament, which the Church centuries later designated as such but which at the time of Paul’s writing did not even fully exist. We have good philosophical reason to believe that the principle Paul is explaining applies to the New Testament as well, and so I will assume this in what follows.

^[1] A. T. Robertson, cited by H. Wayne House in “Biblical Inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16″.

^[2] Cf. our term, “a man of letters” referring to an individual who has availed himself of learning by being literate; also DLitt. or Litt.D. degree (Latin Litterarum Doctor ‘doctor of letters’).

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