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The Bible contains many passages in which the authors claim divine inspiration for their message, or report the effects of such inspiration on others. Besides the direct accounts of written revelation, such as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, the Prophets of the Old Testament frequently claimed that their message was divine by the formula "Thus says the LORD" (for example, 1 Kgs 12:22–24;1 Chr 17:3–4; Jer 35:13; Ezek 2:4; Zech 7:9; etc.). The Second Epistle of Peter claims that "no prophecy of Scripture ... was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet 1:20–21). An exception common to all the different views of inspiration is that, although the New Testament Scriptures quote, paraphrase, and refer to other works including other New Testament documents, the Septuagint (the Jewish translation of the Torah into Greek, later books were translated anonymously and later included in the Septuagint), including the Apocrypha, and the Greek writers Aratus, Epimenides, Menander, and perhaps Philo, none of the various views of inspiration teach that these referenced works were also necessarily inspired, though some teach that the use and application of these other materials is inspired, in some sense. Second Timothy 3:16-17 is cited by many Christians as evidence that "all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable ..." (English Standard Version – see similar language in the King James Version and the New International Version, among others). Others offer an alternative reading for the passage, for example, theologian C. H. Dodd suggests that it "is probably to be rendered" as, "Every inspired scripture is also useful..."[7] A similar translation has been included in the New English Bible, Revised English Bible, and as a footnoted alternative in the New Revised Standard Version. The Latin Vulgate can be so read.[8] Yet others defend the "traditional" interpretation, calling the alternative "probably not the best translation".[9] |
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