Johnny Skeptic

I look forward to reading comments from readers.

spin

Some verse or other says so.


guru

Chris Weimer

Catholics maintain tradition, and Protestants do too.

Toto

Johnny S. has started an identical topic in GRD here, where it is getting more traffic.

Probably everyone in this forum had their say in the thread Where in the bible, if anywhere, Does the Bible say it is the word of God?

Beth Phillips

Hey there...

There is no actual 'evidence' other than a well-established traditional interpretation of scripture. The whole idea is 'supported' in the Gospel of John 1:1:

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word..."

Most all translations of this verse fall terribly short of the original Greek meaning, for several reasons, but in brief: the term "Word" is actually "Logos" in Greek, and is one of the more misunderstood words in the New Testament.

This term meant anything from 'a cosmic pattern of the universe' down to the use of a single 'word' (and several other things in between.) This 'word' could be written, spoken or thought. "The Logos" or 'a logos' was, in general, the use of language but it was very often used to denote 'Reason' or 'a rational thought'. (Read about the pre-Socratic 'Heraclitus'; he is thought to have coined the original term.)

Try this:

"In the beginning there was Reason, and Reason was with God and God was Reason..."

This option provides very provocative ideas as to what the ancient Greeks thought about the use of the term "Logos." If this is indeed what the writer meant (and in the context of philosophical thought at the time, it well could have been) the writer is taking 'Reason' and making it omnipresent with, or even synonymous 'as deity'. As a synonym with deity, it could represent all extremes of the meaning of the word--from cosmic design to a simple divine utterance--as well as establish an indentity for the deity.

When the NT was translated into Latin, the term "logos" did not have a Latin equivalent (no one word could encompass such a broad range of meaning) so "logos" was translated as "verbum" and became concretized as "word" (loosing all of the rational and metaphysical richness of the original term.) This then led Christian writers to create the tale that "The Word" was "The Bible" and that, ergo, "The Bible Was God." Le repos est histoire d'eglise..."the rest is Church history."

Also, the word choice of "Logos" works well with the OT's Elohim and Yahweh--"Yahweh" being related to the primary 'to be verb' of the Semitic language. All of these meanings are cryptically addressed in John 1:2-5.

What doesn't work, however, is that "logos" is the bible or any one book, or that it is any one man, divine or no.

Beth

judge

No I don't think there is any verse that even comes close to saying the bible is the "word of God"

David B

I would think that one would have to establish the existence, or at least the plausibility (as opposed to logical possibility) of the existence of any god, and have minimally plausible but maximally convincing accounts of any attributes that such a hypothetical god might have, before looking at the bible.

good luck!

Then you could examine the bible to see if it is consistent with any god whose existence and (assuming merely for the sake of argument that you can establish its existence) attributes you can reasonably attribute to such a god.

David B (is not of the opinion that there is sufficient evidence to take the view that the bible is the word of god seriously)

Toto

How do you interpret 2 Timothy 3:16 ? (All scripture is god-breathed. . .)

Thomas II

Has anyone bothered to ask God about this? :huh:
Cause I would ask...Something simple like..."Is this yours?"
I mean, I'm just saying... :huh:

Zeichman

Psalm 109:107, paralleling v 106 indicates that at least the Torah is.

As it also seems that v. 169 does, too.