Dean Anderson

A couple of recent threads about Biblical Inerrancy have mentioned 2 Timothy 3:16...

The first half of this sentence - 'All scripture is given by inspiration of God' - is often trotted out by Innerantists in order to demonstrate that the Bible is the Word of God and therefore Inerrant.

If we leave aside for the moment issues of Circular Logic and Forgery and assume that this verse can be taken at face value (and that is a BIG assumption), what does it actually tell us?

If we look at other translations, we get a quite a variety of shades of meaning...

As you can see, we have a spectrum of meaning.

In the ASV, Douay Rehims and Wycliffe versions, the first half of the verse is a qualifier for the second half - so the whole verse can be paraphrased as:

All scripture that is inspired by God is useful.

The KJV on the other hand makes the first half of the verse into an assertation, and can be paraphrased as:

All scripture is inspired by God - and is therefore useful.

The Young's Literal Translation hedges its bets and puts the word 'is' in quotes.

Obviously this verse only supports inerrancy in the KJV (and possibly Young's) translation. The other translations just say that if a particular scripture is Inspired then it is useful.

Given the Greek:
Which is the more accurate translation?

Furthermore, is it better to translate γÏ?αφη as 'Scripture' or simply 'writings'? Is the verse talking about an established and named body of work or simply inspired writings in general?

The context of the verse doesn't help much, since it is in a passage warning people to be careful which writings/scriptures they should trust and saying they should only trust writings if they know where they come from.

It seems to me that a verse that (in the original Greek) means 'All inspired writings are useful' may have been (possibly deliberately) mistranslated to say 'This body of writings is inspired'. From the context, I would have thought that if it was talking about a specific body of writings it would have said so. Also, surely if the verse was saying that all scripture is inspired then why would the previous verses have warned to be careful where you get scripture from because some of it may be dodgy?

Any comments from someone who is better at Greek than I am?

spin

While waiting for some other more knowledgible soul,...

There are no verbs, but they can be intuited. Here is my literal translation (only words not in brackets)

All writing (is) god blown [ie what a wind does, suggesting filled with God's spirit] and (is) profitable for teaching, for evidence, for correction, for tutelage [bringing children up] for righteousness.

This is word for word, remembering theopneustos = god blown.

I find the "and" is confusing. I would like to translate it as

All writing which is god inspired is profitable....

which seems to be the intention. It just maybe something simple in the usage which I don't know.


spin

Yannis (J'ohn)

Oooh, New Testament translations. I love those.

A word-for-word translation of Tomothy B 3:16 would be:

"every writing inspired and useful for teaching for reproof for correction for instruction in justice"

Note that there are two possible translations for that (both are mentioned in my version of the Bible, but I use an Ancient Greek and Modern Greek Bible, and clearly such is not the case for English Bibles]).

In the first one, the word "inspired" is considered a past participle used as an adjective to "writing" (adjectives usually came after the respective nouns in ancient Greek). That makes the transliteration as such: "Every inspired writing is also useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in justice."

Another way to translate this is to consider both "inspired" and "useful" as accusatives to the (inexistant but derived) verb "to be". In which case the translation would be "Every writing is inspired and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in justice."

I would side with the first version of the translation myself. I think it is too vague to have the translation claim something like "every writing is inspired". On the other hand, it is logical for Jesus to be pointing out the properties of inspired writings.

So that means that I agree with the ASV and Wiclyffe's versions, rather than the KJV.

Off course, that means that it no longer makes sense for apologists to refer to that verse in order to justify their belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.

To which I have to say: boo-hoo.

SBS

Dean Anderson

Thanks, guys.

As I said, I thought that the surrounding context supported the

All inspired writing is useful...

translation, rather than the

All scripture is inspired, and useful...

translation.

From what you have said it looks like the Greek supports that translation too.

Also, given that modern scholarship generally agrees that 2 Timothy is not a 'real' letter of Paul but is a later forgery written by the early church fathers to promote their particular version of Christianity over the other rival versions - then it would not make sense for it to say that all scripture is inspired, since that would also support the rival writings.

I believe the historical perspective also supports the translation that marks this verse as part of a warning that not all writings are worth studying.

Peter Kirby

A couple commentaries...

Jouette M. Bassler: "The author digresses briefly to discuss the usefulness of scripture. The Greek word translated 'scripture' in verse 16 is different from the word in verse 15 (the singular noun, graphe, rather than the plural one, grammata). It can mean simply 'a writing,' but in Jewish and Christian contexts it was almost a technical term for scripture (Rom 4:3; Gal 4:30) and probably means that here. It is the author's somewhat enigmatic reference to scripture's inspiration, however, that has spawned the most vigorous debate. This debate centers on the fact that the phrase 'inspired by God' can be either attributive, identifying which scripture is meant ('All/every scripture inspired by God is also . . .'; so REB, NEB; see also NRSV, NJV, and NAB textual notes), or predicative, making an assertion about scripture ('All/every scripture is inspired by God and . . .'; so NRSV, RSV, NJV, NIV, NAB). The first reading suggests that there are writings or scripture or scripture texts that are not inspired; only the inspired ones are useful. The second affirms the opposite: All scripture or every scripture text is inspired and therefore useful. Grammatically it is impossible to adjudicate between these two readings." (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, p. 167)

Donald Guthrie: "The context itself must decide. Simpson maintains that the adjectival interpretation 'presents a curious specimen of anticlimax'. It is difficult to see why the apostle should need to assure Timothy that inspired scriptures are profitable. On the other hand, it is not easy to see why Timothy should need to be assured, at this point, of the inspiration of the Scriptures. Bernard's explanation is: 'It is the profitableness of the Old Testament which St. Paul would press upon Timothy, not its inspiration, of which he had been assured from his youth'. The kai (and) before profitable is certainly more intelligible in the AV rendering, for the RV 'also' seems to be pointless (cf. Lock). Bernard defends the ascensive force of kai from the similar use in 1 Tim. iv. 4, but Simpson appeals to the same passage to support the conjuctive force of kai, and it would seem that Simpson's opinion is here correct. While not ruling out the possibility of the alternative interpretation, it is rather more in harmony with both grammar and syntax to translate 'All scripture is inspired by God and profitable . . .' (RSV). Timothy is not therefore being informed of the inspiration of Scripture, for this was a doctrine commonly admitted by Jews, but he is being reminded that the basis of its profitableness lies in its inspired character." (The Pastoral Epistles, p. 164)

best,
Peter Kirby

Dean Anderson

Peter,

Thanks - they were interesting. I wasn't aware that this verse was the subject of 'vigorous debate' (as Bassler puts it).

Bassler seems to agree that the grammar itself is not enough and that we must go on context, if we take the last part of what you quoted:

Looking at the context of the verse...

...it appears to be saying that there are a lot of false doctrines around and that one needs to be careful which scriptures one trusts. That would (in my mind) definitely favour the first reading over the second one.

Guthrie's commentary, on the other hand, seems to me to be fair comment only if 2 Timothy is a genuine letter sent from Paul to Timothy. If we take the view that the epistle is a later forgery that was used to say 'Only trust our scriptures - not those of rival sects' then I would have to disagree with his conclusion.

Clutch

Interesting thread!

Still, I thought it was worth a reminder of PHF's original qualification. No matter what the translation, the inerrantist argument is awful. Certainly it would be a mistake to present this translation issue as an argument against inerrantism.

As far as apologetics goes, the issue is analogous to finding an inscription translated as, I, Bob, never lie, and concluding on this basis that Bob never lies. This conclusion might be more extravagantly embarrassed by the discovery that the translation really should have read, I, Bob, never snore. But its fundamental embarrassment remains even on the most favourable translation; so the translation question is fundamentally a digression.