Almost all Christian discourse about inspiration eventually loops around to 2 Timothy 3:16–17, “Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for training character, so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that is good” (CEB). This series wouldn’t be complete without some attention to this verse, and to its use of the term “inspired.”
Three details (already known to many Higgaion readers) about the grammar and form of 2 Tim 3:16 demand our attention up front. Before I go much further, I should freely confess that I am no New Testament scholar. My command of Greek is weaker than I’d like, and barely even on the same scale as my facility with Hebrew. If in this post I go too far astray in my handling of the Greek text, I trust that colleagues who are better Hellenists than I will gently guide me back to the right path. Also, I admit that the importance of each of these facts might not be immediately evident, but I’ll strive to clarify everything by the end of the post.
Over the course of this series, I’ve examined a number of biblical texts that contain either explicit claims or strong implications about their own composition. I systematized those texts into a spectrum of “types” or “models” of inspiration, ranging from maximal/direct to minimal/indirect divine input. I divided my spectrum into four categories:
A week or so ago, Joseph Kelly asked (on his Facebook page):
Thus far in this series (please start with the