Mathetes

Actually, Plognark, the closest literal rendering of the Greek is "God breathed", whatever that means. Although since the word for "breath" and "spirit" are the same in this language, there are thousands of ways to interpret this sentence to suit the theological ramblings of your choice.

However, one thing to point out is that Paul never refers to Scripture as anything other than the Old Testament, that is the Jewish Scriptures. He never quotes anything in the New Testament as Scripture (the Gospels had not even been written before 2 Timothy anyway). Since the canon for the New Testament was not put together until something around the 4th century, it is pretty clear that Paul (if it was Paul) was referring to the Jewish Scriptures, and that's it. He could not be referring to what people would call "Scripture" four centuries later.

Bright Life

Sadly, I'm afraid you don't understand the meaning of "circular argument," either.

For your edification.

Plognark

Well, yeah, that was my point. Somehow, probably because TBT doesn't actually know what's going on, that got interpretted as circular. I guess it's kind of like a parrot repeating things it has said to it back at it's master without real comprehension. :huh:

The quranic difference, IIRC, is that Muslims belive that Allah acually spoke directly through Mohamed, as opposed to any form of inspiration, filling of spirit, or whatever. The Quran is literally supposed to be the actual spoken word of god put down in writing.

Yep, pretty interesting point.

BSM

Well there appears to be at least two possibilities among Christians:

Now mainstream Christian theology presupposes that it is all God's word. So naturally both authors of the above believe that there is only one way to interpret the verse. However, one of those references cite Christian scholars who interpret the verse to mean "that there may be some Scriptures not inspired by God."

So, apparently it's grammatically possible to translate that verse to mean something else--not to mention those verses that the above authors use to shore up their apology for 3:16.

~BSM

Jehanne

One can “pick and choose� certain Bible verses to emphasize, analyze “the Greek, this way or that�, read various Church fathers one against another, etc., etc. The list is endless. The sad reality is that there are people who spend their entire lives trying to find meaning from such nonsense. Well, at least Christians are no longer killing each other (or we “infidels�), at least on large scales.

show_no_mercy

So a letter written by Paul is the be-all-end-all of Christianity?

Let me get this straight:

1. The OT is written
2. Jesus is born
3. Jesus dies
5. Gospels are written
4. Paul writes some letters
5. In one of the letters, Paul claims that all of the previous stuff written is "godbreathed"

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc?

seebs

Your interpretation of 2 Timothy 3:16 is equally circular; more so, in fact, because it doesn't actually say that the text is inerrant, merely that it's useful for instruction. A history of ethical thought is useful for instruction in ethics, even if we freely admit that some of the ethical thoughts involved are not so ethical...

seebs

I don't think it's mainstream, so much as vocal. I think some of the big churches have a very different view of inspiration.

Dean Anderson

There is a great depth to the interpretation of 2Tim 3:16.

2 Timothy 3:16 is a verse that is quoted very often by Christians during arguments or discussions with non-believers. It is often displayed as 'proof' that the Bible is inspired.

(Of course, it is actually sorely lacking as proof - because if you don't already believe that the Bible is inspired then you have no reason to believe that the verse is inspired. It is a case of circular logic - but that is besides the point for this discussion...)

This verse reads (in the original Koine Greek)...


This is translated in various English translations as follows:






As can be seen, there are various subtle - but important - differences between these translations. The most significant being the difference between the KJV and the ASV.

The KJV version point-blank says that all scripture is inspired by God and therefore is useful. The ASV doesn't though - it merely says conditionally that scripture that is inspired by God is useful.

In other words, the KJV translation makes a blanket assertion that all scripture is inspired. The ASV on the other hand makes a conditional claim that only if scripture is inspired then it is useful.

So - which is the more accurate? Which is what the author of the passage meant?

If we look at the Greek for this first half of the verse, and transliterate it exactly into English, we get...

πασα = all
γÏ?αφη = writings
θεοπνευστος = God-blown (or God-breathed), generally translated as 'inspired'
και = and
ωΦελιμος = useful
Ï€Ï?ος = for
διδασκαλιαν = teaching

Now this, unfortunately, is ambiguous. It could mean 'All writings are inspired...' or 'All writings that are inspired...'

Notice that in the original Greek, the verse only talks about writings in general. It has no connotation of 'Scripture' with a capital 'S'. There is no indication of which writings are being talked about. There is certainly nothing to indicate that when it says 'all writings' is specifically refers to the collection of writings that is today known as the Bible.

To give us more information about which meaning of the verse was probably intended, we need to look at the context in which it sits.

The verses around 2 Timothy 3:16 say (I am using the NIV translation here...)


This passage is warning about being deceived by false doctrines and false teachings. Verse 13 in particular warns about being deceived by false teachers.

Verses 14 and 15 then goes on to say that the readers should only trust teachings that they know the source of, and not trust those that come from an unknown source.

Looking at this context - with the emphasis clearly on having discernment over which teachings to trust and which not to trust - would the author then immediately go on to say that all writings are inspired?

The context makes it clear that the author is saying that only writings that you can trust to be inspired (because you know where they came from) are useful. You should not just read all scriptures and trust them all.

This is a far cry from the usual simplistic interpretation that reads only a single English translation out of context and proclaims that the verse specifically claims the everything in the Bible is inspired.

This interpretation is further strengthened when we look at when 2 Timothy was written.

The mainstream scholarly opinion (from both Christian and non-Christian scholars) is that 2 Timothy - along with the other Pastorals - was not written by Paul, and was a 2nd century work that simply used his name (a common practice in those days).

The main reasons for this are:

1) The vocabulary used in the text is very different from the vocabulary used in the genuine Pauline letters. Not only is much of the vocabulary not used elsewhere by Paul - this same vocabulary is in common use by 2nd century Christians. Some words are even the same words that Paul used but used in different ways to the way he used them.

2) The genuine Pauline letters (Romans, Corinthians, Galatians) show Paul to be a dynamic speaker/writer, full of emotion and often talking about partners or adversaries. Timothy, on the other hand, is very subdued and meditative. It is not in Paul's style at all.

3) 2 Timothy (along with the rest of the Pastorals) was unknown by early Christians such as Marcion, who failed to include it in the canon of 10 Epistles that he laid down in 140AD. Then, strangely enough, in 170AD Irenaeus suddenly starts quoting from them to support the position of his particular sect of Christianity (that later became the Catholic church) against other rival sects of Christianity.

This situation fits very well with the text that we see in 2 Timothy 3. If the work was written by one of Irenaeus's group in an attempt to show that Paul supported their doctrine as opposed to their rivals' doctrine then we would expect it to be warning about false teachings (i.e. those of their rivals) and claiming that only certain writings can be trusted.

So - in conclusion - the original Greek text of the verse, the context of the verse within the passage, and the historical context during which the passage was written all point to the verse not meaning what modern-day Christian fundamentalists interpret it to mean.

Yet another sad example of people simply believing whatever their pastor tells them rather than actually examining the texts for themselves and doing their own research.

Sven

I suggest to ask your fellow Christians about this. Most don't get that the entire bible is the word of god out of this passage. So I'm talking about facts - you, on the other hand, simply took the opportunity to shot another silly insult towards all of us.

Really a shiny example of a Christian. :down: