FullReads

1. All writing inspired by God (i.e. being inspired by God, supposing it inspired, which makes theopneustos part of the subject) is also profitable for teaching, etc.

2. All writing is inspired by God, and profitable, etc. (which makes theopneustos part of the predicate.)

Now, in this last way of construing the text, which is the way adopted by our authorized version, one objection strikes everybody at a glance, viz., that St. Paul could not possibly mean to say of all writing, indiscriminately, that it was divinely inspired, this being so revoltingly opposed to the truth. It follows, therefore, that, on this way of interpolating the is, we must understand the Apostle to use the word graphe, writing, in a restricted sense, not for writing generally, but for sacred writing, or (as our English phrase runs) ‘Holy Writ;‘ upon which will arise three separate demurs–first, one already stated by Phil., viz., that, when graphe is used in this sense, it is accompanied by the article; the phrase is either Î�Î�ρÎ�φÎ�, ‘the writing,’ or else (as in St. Luke) Î�Î� Î�ρÎ�φÎ�Î�, ‘the writings,’ just as in English it is said, ‘the Scripture,’ or ‘the Scriptures.’ Secondly, that, according to the Greek usage, this would not be the natural place for introducing the is. Thirdly–which disarms the whole objection from this text, howsoever construed–that, after all, it leaves the dispute with the bibliolaters wholly untouched. We also, the anti-bibliolaters, say that all Scripture is inspired, though we may not therefore suppose the Apostle to be here insisting on that doctrine. But no matter whether he is or not, in relation to this dispute. Both parties are contending for the inspiration–so far they are agreed; the question between them arises upon quite another point, viz., as to the mode of that inspiration, whether incarnating its golden light in the corruptibilities of perishing syllables, or in the sanctities of indefeasible, word-transcending ideas. Now, upon that question, the apostolic words, torture them how you please, say nothing at all.

There is, then, no such dogma (or, to speak Germanice, no such macht-spruch) in behalf of verbal inspiration as has been ascribed to St. Paul, and I pass to my own argument against it. This argument turns upon the self-confounding tendency of the common form ascribed to Î�Î�Î�πÎ�Î��…στÎ�Î�, or divine inspiration. When translated from its true and lofty sense of an inspiration–brooding, with outstretched wings, over the mighty abyss of secret truth–to the vulgar sense of an inspiration, burrowing, like a rabbit or a worm, in grammatical quillets and syllables, mark how it comes down to nothing at all; mark how a stream, pretending to derive itself from a heavenly fountain, is finally lost and confounded in a morass of human perplexities.

First of all, at starting, we have the inspiration (No. 1) to the original composers of the sacred books. That I grant, though distinguishing as to its nature.

Next, we want another inspiration (No. 2) for the countless translators of the Bible. Of what use is it to a German, to a Swiss, or to a Scotsman, that, three thousand years before the Reformation, the author of the Pentateuch was kept from erring by a divine restraint over his words, if the authors of this Reformation–Luther, suppose, Zwingle, John Knox–either making translations themselves, or relying upon translations made by others under no such verbal restraint, have been left free to bias his mind, pretty nearly as much as if the original Hebrew writer had been resigned to his own human discretion?

Thirdly, even if we adopt the inspiration No. 2, that will not avail us; because many different translators exist. Does the very earliest translation of the Law and the Prophets, viz., the Greek translation of the Septuagint, always agree verbally with the Hebrew? Or the Samaritan Pentateuch always with the Hebrew? Or do the earliest Latin versions of the entire Bible agree verbally with modern Latin versions? Jerome’s Latin version, for instance, memorable as being that adopted by the Romish Church, and known under the name of the Vulgate, does it agree verbally with the Latin versions of the Bible or parts of the Bible made since the Reformation? In the English, again, if we begin with the translation still sleeping in MS., made five centuries ago, and passing from that to the first printed translation (which was, I think, Coverdale’s, in 1535), if we thence travel down to our own day, so as to include all that have confined themselves to separate versions of some one book, or even of some one cardinal text, the versions that differ–and to the idolater of words all differences are important–may be described as countless. Here, then, on that doctrine of inspiration which ascribes so much to the power of verbal accuracy, we shall want a fourth inspiration, No. 4, for the guidance of each separate Christian applying himself to the Scriptures in his mother tongue; he will have to select not one (where is the one that has been uniformly correct?) but a multitude; else the same error will again rush in by torrents through the license of interpretation assumed by these many adverse translators.