[+/-] God-Breathed and Useful

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

- 2 Tim 3:16-17

A recent conversation with my friend Lucid Elusion got me thinking about this verse. I've decided that I don't think it means what a lot of people think it means - that the Bible is inerrant or infallible. (I'm not saying that the interpretation I'm challenging is that of my friend, only that it seems to be a popular reading.) Here's why:

To begin with, it goes without saying that a statement in the Bible about the Bible cannot be used to prove its infallibility. A good skeptic will not be at all impressed to hear that the Bible says it's infallible. But most Christians already have great trust in the Bible, and if the question is not "is the Bible at all reliable" but "given that the Bible is reliable, just how reliable is it", then such a statement is of some interest. The logic is something like CS Lewis' famous Liar/Lunatic/Lord argument - if an author claims to be infallible, either he is attempting to deceive his readers, or he's badly mistaken (and probably a bit crazy), or he's correct. I'm not sure that I accept Lewis' argument, particularly in this revised form, but I won't get into that here. What I want to examine is not the truth of Paul's statement, but its exact content. Is Paul really claiming inerrancy?

First of all, there's a question of what the Paul (assuming Paul wrote 2 Tim) considers to be scripture. I'm told that the early Church used the Septuagint (an early Greek translation of the OT, plus additional books), which includes many books and additions that we no longer consider to be "inspired", by which we mean inerrant. Perhaps Paul, an educated Jew, would have made a distinction between the OT and the Apocrypha, but his Greek readers would not. The NT gives no indication that any attempt was made in the early Church to clarify exactly which books are "scripture", and if anything, Jude's matter-of-fact references to contemporary myths suggest a fairly loose understanding of the word.

So when Paul says "scripture", it's unclear precisely what he means. We can be certain he doesn't mean the 66 books to which we now affix the term, because some of them were yet to be written, and the exact content of our Bible was not finalized until centuries later. Hard-line infallibilists are obligated to believe in the inerrancy of not only the Biblical authors, but also the members of the church councils that determined which books would be included. Thus for the sake of clarity, I propose that this verse be read "All books which are accepted by the church as scripture are God-breathed and are useful..."

But this does not help the infallibilists' case, because for the original readers, this statement would apply to the Apocrypha as well, which no infallibilist I know considers to be scripture. Instead, they might wish to read this verse as "All books which were ultimately recognized by the later church councils as scripture...", but this is problematic because it means that both the author and his original readers were mistaken about this verse's true meaning. In fact, for the early church the verse would have the deceptive and somewhat dangerous effect of seeming to claim inerrancy for writings which we now know to be errant. The only other readings I can think of would be "All books which are considered scripture by God, regardless of any human opinions...", which is even less helpful because it gives us no indication of to which books it applies, or "All books which are considered scripture at the time of this [Paul's] writing...", which no one I know would agree to.

Some will resist my interpretation of "scripture" as here meaning "all books which are accepted by the church as scripture" because of the apparent implication that the inerrancy of certain texts could change as they were added or dropped from the canon. But I don't think this verse is about inerrancy at all. What it says is that scripture is "God-breathed" and "useful".

"God-breathed" is not a word found anywhere else in the New Testament. According to my concordance, "God-breathed" is a literal translation of the Greek word, which comes from the words "God" and "blow", and which refers to the inspiration or communication of a deity. It's not unreasonable to think that something inspired by God would be without error, and I can see why some people understand this as a claim that the Bible is completely accurate in all matters - theological, moral, historical, scientific, etc. - from beginning to end. If a God-breathed text contained errors, they argue, it would mean that God is either lacking in knowledge or lying to us.

But no one will argue that hopeless wails of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, the anger and bitterness of the Psalms, or the self-righteous condemnation of Job's friends represent ethical and metaphysical truths. Of course not. These are examples of the human element of the Bible. Truth cannot be plucked from the pages of the Bible as from a creed (yeah, right) or even a physics text. No one argues that the Parables of Jesus are historical truths, and anyone who looks to Psalm 137 for moral instruction is headed for trouble. Even the staunchest literalist does not claim that every statement in the Bible is true.

So what might "God-breathed" mean if not "free of human emotion, bias, and error"? I'm not sure exactly, but I think the rest of the verse gives us a hint: "All Scripture is... useful". Useful for what? Understanding science? History? The mechanics of salvation? No. Useful for "teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness". And in case you didn't catch it the first time, he adds "so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

A story doesn't have to be historically accurate to be useful for training in righteousness. Jesus knew this better that anyone. And if we believe that this great storyteller had a hand in the crafting the rest of scripture, why are we so certain that the other stories it contains are historically true? And why do we think it matters?

It just occurred to me that "God-breathed" has a different feel to it if we call God "Daddy", as Jesus suggests. What might it mean for something to be Daddy-breathed? Parents tell children what they can understand, embrace, and learn from. They don't read them historical tomes or ethical treatises, they read them fairy tales. I think there's a temptation to think of the God who breathed the scriptures as more of a professor than a father, as if a book can only be useful for training in righteousness if it's true the way a physics text is true (only more so).

I'm not saying there is widespread historical inaccuracy in the Bible. (How would I know?) I'm just saying I don't think it really matters one way or the other. Paul could have said "All scripture is God-breathed and true", but he didn't. So I don't know what exactly Paul thought of the inerrancy of scripture, but it seems that he didn't consider the matter worth writing about. What was more important to him, apparently, is that the Bible is "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness". I like that.

[+/-] Father, Forgive Them

When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." -Luke 23:33-34

I think it's significant that Jesus does not merely ask for their forgiveness, but adds "for they do not know what they are doing", as if their ignorance ought to (but does not automatically) absolve them. I think this passage, among others, suggests a far more complex model of guilt and grace than I'm used to.

Whose forgiveness is he talking about? It seems that there were a lot of people involved who didn't grasp the significance of their actions. The soldiers who crucified him didn't realize he was innocent; they merely followed orders. The crowd that called for his crucifixion were told to do so by the chief priests and elders - their spiritual and social leaders. The priests and elders were acting on the ruling of the High Priest, and the High Priest believed Jesus to be guilty of blasphemy, and thus deserving of death. Pilate found Jesus innocent by Roman standards, but certainly didn't realize he was killing a sinless man. (And from a utilitarian perspective, he probably did the right thing.) Even Judas didn't fully understand what he was doing, because he didn't believe Jesus to be the Messiah. (He did realize that he'd shed innocent blood, but for this he seemed to genuinely repent.) If we take Jesus' statement as normative (i.e. all those who sin unintentionally ought to be forgiven) it seems that there's an awful lot of sin that qualifies, at least in part.

More food for thought: Jesus forgave people who didn't ask for it. (Didn't he know about the fourth spiritual law?) He told some people to stop sinning. (Stop all sinning, or just the major ones? Did Jesus think that certain sins aren't a big deal?) He said that he came to call sinners to repent, not the righteous. (I thought no one was righteous.) He even forgives a man because of the faith of his friends. (Can I save others by my faith?) And here he seems to be saying that God should forgive those who sin in ignorance. (This is especially weird because it sounds like the Father is less willing to forgive than Jesus.)

I like the weirdness of this verse because there's a lot of talk in the Bible about sin and guilt that really bothers me. I don't understand why Adam's sin would create a "sinful nature" in humanity, or why this would be passed down to his descendants, or why individuals in the Bible were consistently punished for the sins of their nation, king, family, or ancestors, or why I deserve judgment for being imperfect if it's impossible for me to be perfect, or why anyone at all would deserve to suffer eternally for finite sins. My issues with these concepts run pretty deep, and I doubt I'll be able to fully accept any of them any time soon. But maybe part of the problem is that words like sin and guilt have very narrow, specific definitions in my mind, whereas the Bible's use of these words may be different, and more complex.

[+/-] An Extravagant Hope

Have you ever read a story and not been sure if it was the happy-ending kind or the sad-ending kind? Or have you ever read one where the hero keeps getting into hopeless situations, and you can never see a way out of them but he always comes through? Or one where you've got a hunch that it's the happy-ending kind, but you're not sure how it could be, and you just have to trust that the hero's got a plan, and whatever it is, somehow it's going to work out?

I've got a feeling that the story of creation is that kind of story.

I couldn't tell you why. No good reason, I guess. Stupid hope, overoptimism, I don't know. But remember the story of Jesus, and how unexpected and strange and backwards it was? The Jews spent centuries waiting for him and studying what he'd be like, and they still didn't know him when they saw him. I don't think it was their fault either. I think God threw them a hell of a curve ball.

And remember the crucifixion? Even the people he explained it to weren't ready for it. They knew God was up to something with Jesus, but they had no idea how big it was. They had no idea how high the stakes were, and how far God would go to love us. And when they thought the story had come to a very bad end, in fact it was just the beginning of a very good ending - the best of any story yet. And the next surprise what that this story wasn't just for twelve guys, or a few hungry crowds, or one nation in need of deliverance; it was for all the people of the world, even all of creation. We never guessed the ending could be that good.

But lean close, and I'll tell you my secret hope:

I don't think we've seen the last twist yet. I don't think we yet know the best of God's plan. I just can't believe that he's come this far merely to snatch up a few fortunates, burn the rest, and start new. I believe in re-newal. I believe in redemption, and reconciliation, and reunion, and I believe in them bigger and deeper than I have any good reason to. You can call me greedy or starry-eyed, but there it is.

It's not that I see a whole lot of redemption in creation today. In fact I see a shocking amount of senseless pain and evil - things broken that can never be fixed, things lost that can never be restored. Longings without hope of fulfillment, pain without purpose, faith betrayed. But in God's plan (what I've seen of it so far) good things are always born out of broken ones. Even the perfect man was created in a carnal womb, and new life is given through the spilling of blood.

If I have a reason for believing that there's more to come, it's only that I see a whole lot of pain and evil in this world that has yet to be redeemed, and I can't help but think he's got a plan to work even these things for good.

I don't know how this world came to be so broken, and I certainly don't know how it could all be fixed. But "I know whom I've believed, and am convinced that he is able".

You're welcome to disagree with me, but that's my hope.