The fundie church I once belonged to used this quote to establish inerrancy.

However, there are a few problems with this. According to my NIV (which gives very early dates on authorships), 2 Timothy was written before half of the epistles and three of the gospels.

Obviously, it was also written before the establishment of the canon and the dismissal of the apocrypha.

So, which scriptures are god-breathed/inspired/etc?

Zoroaster. I've got an even more ironic fact for you. The actual fundie doctrine was formulated by people like Warfield in the 19th century, but , it was based upon work done in the Renaissance by--you guessed it--Renaissance Humanists! AAAAAAAAAAAA, say it ant so! The Humanists invented inerrancy!!!

But it is. See Models of Divine Revelation by Avery Dulles.


This is an excellent book, btw. Dulles is the son of John Foster Dulles sec of state in the 1950's and he is one of the new American Cardinals just appointed by JPII.

Im afraid I must disagree. "All scripture is given by God" doesn't mean that some is not, it clearly says it is. But the problem is he was only speaking of the OT (and the Dueteronomical books, what Protestants call "Apocryphal"). Paul had no idea that he was writting the better part of the NT.

It was always the word of God. The problme is it wasn't always concieved as inerrent in the same way that the Fundies Think of it. The five points were never before a standard of faith, but rather, the creeds. The lager chruch tradition was more of a framework for the Bible rather than vice versa. And this is my own view. Latter Protestant Neo-Orthodoxy led by Karl Barth argued that the Bible contains the word of God, and it is a dialetical relationship between reader and text that is requried for the word to emerge.

Dulles, whose book I speak of above, presents five models of Biblical revelation. I give my take on them in the following page which I link to, and dissemenate my own take on that. Dulles proposes his own notion called "dialetical retrieval" though which he lays out his own understanding of how the Bible is the word of God. This method barrows from all five models and than uses the dialetical relationship between reader and text to mediate between the five.


Models

When did this dogma first enter the christian world?
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With Moses & the 10 Commandments... we are to understand that those came pretty much straight from God :]

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Paradoxically, it is the militant protestant groups who loudly proclaim that the catholic church is without authority who at the same time proclaim the bible as the word of god. How can this be?
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I don't know. I'm not actually Catholic, but I certainly believe that they are Christians. I see theology a bit differently in some places, but I see no grounds on which not to consider them Christians :] Maybe I'm too ecumenical? I don't know... :]

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When did it happen that the bible turned from being the holy book of christianity to being the inerrant word of god?
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After the doctrine of inerrancy became applied to more than the autograph? Then again, it also depends on what you mean to include under "inerrant" :] Are misspelings bad? They're the biggest 'error' I know of. Given the very few verses with disputed readings, though, and the minor importance of said verses, well... :]

Hubzilla:
The fundie church I once belonged to used this quote to establish inerrancy.

It is an unfortunate fact that churches are not concerned with history and literary accuracy, but theology. In theology, virtually any biblical quote can mean anything the theologian wants it to mean. That is, unless the quote supports their dogma. Then it is to be taken literally.

However, there are a few problems with this. According to my NIV (which gives very early dates on authorships), 2 Timothy was written before half of the epistles and three of the gospels.

The NIV is the work of conservative Christians with an obvious agenda. DO NOT place high value on the opinions of NIV- affiliated commentators.

Another view is given by NT scholar Burton Mack: "The three letters [1 & 2 Timothy and Titus] were written at different times, undoubtedly during the first half of the second century. They were not included in Marcion's list of Paul's letters (ca. 140 C.E.), nor do they appear in the earliest manuscript collection of Paul's letters (P46, ca. 200 C.E.). Quotations first appear in Irenaeus' Against Heresies (180 C.E.), and their content fits nicely into the situation and thought of the church in the mid-second century. Their attribution to Paul is clearly fictional, for their language, style, and thought are thoroughly un-Pauline." Who Wrote the New Testament. P. 206

Obviously, it was also written before the establishment of the canon and the dismissal of the apocrypha.

No one KNOWS when any letter of Paul's was actually written. All we have is scholarly conjecture.

So, which scriptures are god-breathed/inspired/etc?

In a word, NO. ALL religious works were written by human beings and inspired by nothing more than the human imagination.

rodahi