The Bible: The Perception Of Scripture In The Bible

The Bible is called the “Word of God.” Therefore, did God choose every word or did the authors freely choose their words? Also, how divine is the revelation of Scripture if humans were included in the process? Through the centuries the church’s view of Scripture has remained fundamentally the same, with few exceptions. As early as A.D. 200, the early church father Origen affirmed, “the Scriptures were written by the Spirit of God.”2 Yet as Roger Olson points out, the Bible was not dropped out of heaven.3 Therefore, from the Old Testament to the New Testament the church as believed that Scriptures are both divinely inspired and written by human authors. Furthermore, Olson writes, “The consensual tradition of Christian thought and teaching has

Yes, because of the human element of writing the text. Humans make errors, such as Paul’s grammatical errors mentioned above. A long held belief and still held by some today is that the Bible is inerrant—without error, in all of its words. The reason for this belief goes back to support the dictation theory or plenary verbal theory of inspiration. The Swiss theologian Emil Brunner claimed, “Scripture is not only inspired by God and authoritative for Christian faith and practice and infallible in communicating the will and way of God for salvation, but also literally, technically inerrant in everything upon which it touches, including matters of history and cosmology.”12 Yet scholars have revealed minor errors in some texts. Therefore, a better understanding of the perfection of Scripture would be to call it infallible, which according to Olson, “describes the power of Scripture never to fail in its main purpose, which is to teach people about God and transform them in encounter with him.”13 Therefore, Scripture’s main goal and purpose are held together without error in all matters of

In fact, the writer of Hebrews says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”14 The Holy Spirit continues to work through the text of Scripture to inspire people and transform people into the likeness of God’s Son Jesus Christ. Olson comments, “Suffice it to say here that the consensus that Scripture has a divine origin and possesses divine authority because of its unique inspiration continues to unite faithful Christians of many traditions and denominations.”15 In other words, there is a timeless work of Scripture.

Also, Olson says, “In the ‘hands’ of the Spirit of God the Bible has always again and again become the unique instrument that shapes the identity of God’s people and transforms their lives.16 The Bible is truly God’s means of reveling himself to all of humanity as well as transforming the lives of his followers. The Scriptures were inspired through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit continues working through these “living” words to form his