Haven’t you read the stories?
God spoke directly to Moses through the burning bush and inspired him to lead the Israelites, yet he sinned in this work and was not allowed to enter the promised land.
God has always worked through imperfect people like you and me
That does not mean that what was recorded was inaccurate or not inspired. Moses was a sinner. ✓ Right on.
One of the things compelling about scripture is that it does record the patriarchs and other saints with all their warts.
Yep.
You seem to have missed the point.
Moses was inspired to do his work, yet his work was imperfect because it was done by a human.
The writers of the Bible were inspired to do their work, yet their work was imperfect because it was done by humans.
John the Baptist was inspired, filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb. Yet he was imperfect and doubted during his prison stay.
Work done under inspiration does not mean work done perfectly.
I got your point a long time ago, and you are still mistaken.
Agreed. He was not involved in producing scripture.
Agreed, unless we are talking about the production of scripture.
Agreed, no problem… until it comes to the production of scripture (whether or not Moses was responsible for the entire Pentateuch, which seems doubtful).
No.
There is something different about the Bible, and it says so about itself, as you well know, but you disagree about what it means and the implications.
That does not mean that just the human authors were inspired, it means, simply, that all of the scripture itself is inspired. The Holy Spirit did not produce an imperfect work.
I hope you think I was inspired to say that. I tend to think I was.
Interesting Christy. I believe that I have read similar thoughts elsewhere, but I think I also have seen verrrrr–rrry old documents with the views of other eras in which they did seem to hold to a “Divine dictation” view. I think the development of a slightly different viewpoint has probably left some people frustrated. A coworker once asked me “where do asteroids come from?” and when I said “they are left over from the Big Bang” — she started screaming at me at the top of her lungs —“It’s GOD’S WORD!!” — Evidently if The Big Bang was not named by dictation, then it is suspect. The developments and theories of modern science and text studies and archaeological research have probably done more than anything to compel us to look beyond the Divine Dictator approach.
Thanks again for the article.
Dale, I wrote: “Work done under inspiration does not mean work done perfectly.”
And you replied:
“Agreed, unless we are talking about the production of scripture”
That is a nice philosophy, but it is not a teaching of scripture.
More importantly:
Your comment prompts the question: how do you reconcile your claim that scripture was produced perfectly with the fact that there are minor errors of fact in scripture?
I think you were writing to Dale, not me, but I agree with you. I don’t think the Bible is perfect and I don’t think it has to be perfect to be inspired or to speak with authority as the word of God. What does perfect applied to a collection of mostly narratives even mean? We aren’t talking about math homework, where “accuracy” or “correctness” is a legitimate criterion. How do you write an accurate and correct lament?
Have you ever read Kenton Sparks, Sacred Word, Broken Word? That was a thought-provoking book about how Scripture corrects Scripture.
You are talking to a diverse audience here. Sometimes it comes across like you think we are all a bunch of fundies with rigidly incoherent views and you are sitting in this seat of progressive wisdom, above it all, telling us how it really is. But many of us have views on Scripture that are far more complex than the strawmen you keep setting up, and you aren’t interacting with those views at all.
I don’t hold to inerrancy. I don’t think the authors of Scripture were somehow above the limitations of their culture and language or free from worldviews. I believe the Bible is a fully human product, just like Jesus was a fully human man. God became incarnate in a human body, an “imperfect” (limited) one we might add because surely Jesus got colds, and headaches, and zits, and had to learn things, and measure twice to cut once correctly. In the same way, God became “in-worded” in human language and cultural constructs. That comes with limitations and “imperfections.” But just like we can’t demote Jesus to “just a man,” we can’t demote the Bible to “just human words.” It is part of the Christian confession that God has filled those words in a unique way and made himself known through them. They are revelation.
You are right. I meant to address this to Dale. My apologies. I will edit the post.
That does make your calling it “The Word of God” all the more inexplicable.
The Holy Spirit’s providential guidance in producing the scripture means we got it exactly as he intended, according to his perfect plan. Anything in it that you choose to attribute to human error was not caused by it.
Me and everyone else I know. Note that Kenton Sparks and Pete Enns, who both have written several books contesting Evangelical constructs of inerrancy, call the Bible God’s word. It is a Christian thing to affirm the Bible is God’s word to us.
And a big Amen to that.
Nice man-made philosophy, not a teaching of scripture.
Not every Christian believes it is appropriate to pad the Bible’s resume by making claims for it that it does not make for itself.
Do you think the Holy Spirit intended for Mark to contradict Luke in the instructions Jesus gave to the disciples before they left on their missionary journey? One says to being a staff and the other says not to bring a staff.
Do you think the Holy Spirit intended for Matthew to say Joseph was a paternal descendant of David’s son Solomon and intended for Luke to say Joseph was a paternal descendant of David’s son Nathan?
These two claims are mutually exclusive.
Yes, you’ve made that point repeatedly. How about we not revisit that twenty more times? How about instead you point to specific issues you have with the Christian doctrine of inspiration instead of issues you have with the way Christians talk? Then maybe we could have a constructive conversation.
How about you tell us what you believe the Holy Spirit’s role was in the creation and preservation of Scripture?
Here’s the first hit on my search criteria “mark luke disciples take staff” (and it’s from AiG 
):
(That was the first hit on my search criteria “Bible genealogy Jesus David Solomon Nathan”)
You asked three questions. I will try to answer all three.
We should continue to seek to correct the situation, whether it takes 20 or 20,000 times.
I don’t have a problem with inspiration. I recognize the writers were inspired to write. I do see the error in the claim that God controlled the writing and made them perfect.
I believe the Holy Spirit inspired people to write. The history of the scriptures makes it clear they were not perfectly preserved. There are many textual differences and there are minor errors in the text where there are not textual variants, which are evidence that the Holy Spirit did not make the text perfect to begin with or preserve it perfectly.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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