A Case for Verbal Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures

Introduction

There are some who claim that the Bible is entirely without error, being the result of a verbal-plenary form of inspiration. Alternatively, opponents reject such a conception of inspiration claiming that the Bible is full of errors and must be generally understood allegorically, psychologically, critically, and that its antiquated claims should be shed in favor of contemporary understandings. Surprisingly, there are Christians on either side of the argument. The doctrine of inspiration as well as the mechanism and breadth of its implementation has touched the lives of Christians for millennia, but perhaps never to the degree in which it has impacted the contemporary church. It is my view that the Bible is indeed fully inerrant^[1] and the result of verbal plenary inspiration. The modern views are a dangerous capitulation to postmodernism for the Christian faith, but nonetheless they raise important questions that Christians who hold to verbal plenary inspiration and inerrancy should be familiar with and prepared to defend. The claim that the Bible is inspired simply because it claims to be inspired (2 Tim 3:16) is criticized as being circular argument—no different than the very claims that Mormons make of The Book of Mormon, or Muslims make about the Qur’an.^[2] Therefore, a more robust inquiry to the nature of inspiration and inerrancy is warranted both on historical, biblical, and philosophical grounds. 

Verbal Plenary Inspiration Defined and Two Alternative Views

As defined here, verbal plenary inspiration is the theory of inspiration that affirms that God by way of the Holy Spirit (through an unknown mechanism), superintended the exact words for the apostles and authors of Scripture to use.^[3] This process of inscripturation was done in such a way that the end result was without error and entirely truthful (i.e., inerrant). This warrants restatement. The original authors wrote under inspiration. Translations, therefore, are not inspired.^[4] Although there are various conceptions and theories of inspiration the two alternative views that have the strongest support other than verbal plenary inspiration are the dynamic theory and the view developed by Karl Barth (1886-1968) called the encounter view of inspiration.

The dynamic theory of inspiration seeks to find a middle ground between mechanical dictation and spirit-led illumination.  God and man, according to this view, were co-creators of scripture and worked in harmony to produce the Word of God in such a way that everything is truthful and divine yet communicated through the unique personalities of the human being that wrote.^[5] This view does not claim that the exact words were inspired. Rather, it asserts that God inspired the concepts, ideas, emotions, and insights of the authors. In this way, the weakness is that there exists a chasm between God and the Bible, and it is filled by sinful man—God does not intercede in the midst of this chasm to superintend the transmission of his word through the author by way of the Holy Spirit. Notable proponents of this view are A. H. Strong (1836-1921) and G. C. Berkouwer (1903-1996).^[6]  

The impact of Barth on contemporary Christianity cannot be overstated. Even those unfamiliar with his theological work have likely been influenced by his thinking and writing. Especially in the domain of inspiration, and how one views the Bible. Barth’s encounter view of inspiration is important in this discussion because it rejects the conventional view that God inspired the actual words of the Bible. Instead, he puts forth a conception that Scripture is purely the work of man—and only through one’s encounter with the Bible does it become the Word of God. He views the Holy Spirit as working to illuminate the reader through revelation, rather than as one who was present and involved in the initial inscripuration of the works of the Bible. Barth believed the transmission of the Word of God to humans takes place through the mediating body of the Church, rather than directly to individuals.^[7] A remarkable shortcoming of this view is that it does not give an account as to why the Bible as a text is to be trusted in the first place. Notable proponents of this view are of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner (1889-1966), and Reinhold Niebuhr (1890-1971).^[8]

Proponents of Verbal Plenary Inspiration and Its Biblical Support

Proponents of the verbal plenary view from among the last century are (among others): J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), Millard Erickson (1932-), R. Laird Harris (1911-2008) and Wayne Grudem (1948-). In the year 1923, J. Gresham Machen astutely claimed that the Christian message has come to us through the Bible.^[9] This was not a novel claim; however, the posture of his claim was counter to the progressive milieu of the day that sought to undermine the authority of the Bible. For Machen, the very fact that the Christian message came to us through the Bible meant that credence should be given to the Bible alone as the source of faith. Thus, speaking to such a faith, Machen further asserted that “all the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event.”^[10] Ultimately, the Christian event that has been narrated is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ—the prophesied messiah. It is significant then that a strong defense of verbal plenary inspiration can be made on account of Christ’s own understanding of scripture—which he deemed as the very word of God, without error (Matt. 5:17-18; Mk. 7:5; Luke 24:24-27; Jn. 10:35). 

Therefore, the Christian faith in part depends on such an event being preserved through the writing of Scripture. This is what theologians have termed revelation.  However, revelation on its own lacks authority. For a man may write an account of any such event, and it rests ultimately on his own authority—this is evident in the claims of Joseph Smith. The Bible is unique because the very revelation that brought it about is claimed to rest on the authority of God himself by means of inspiration. In other words, the Bible came to us through men, who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to actually write an account of what they had seen (in the case of the NT and the life of Jesus) as well as what they said (in the case of Prophets of the OT). In this way, the very doctrine of inspiration begins first within the doctrine of God.^[11] This is why the theological doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy are so foundational to Evangelicalism (i.e., compared to progressivism); it matters how one views the scriptures because the view is a representation ultimately of God. It is the view of John B. Webster (1955-2016) that God is the primary cause or author of scripture. He rightly determines that this original work of God began first in the “calling and sanctification of the prophets and apostles so that by divine appointment and superintendence they became fitting instruments for divine teaching.”^[12] It was Justin Martyr (AD 100-165) who declared, “When you hear the words of the prophets spoken as in a particular character, do not think of them as spoken by the inspired men themselves, but by the divine Word that moved them.”^[13]

Thus, the actual creation of Scripture cannot be divorced from God, or the men involved in its production. The result of this union is (originally) an entirely inspired and inerrant body of writing that fully represents the word of God according to his character and divine will. Indeed, the apostles and prophets themselves are actually God’s “workmanship” (Eph. 2:10) established for the specific revelatory purpose of producing the inscripturated word of God—this was done without mistake, confusion, ambiguity, or ignorance. Verbal plenary inspiration affirms that in the concomitant work of God and man the individual personalities and nuances of the authors were maintained in the writing. By God’s grace this has greatly aided contemporary and historical biblical scholarship through domains such as textual criticism, where we can study an author’s writing and better understand what God was communicating through them.^[14]If inspiration is rejected, inerrancy goes by the wayside too and the Bible becomes merely another human-authored book, “regardless of how inspiring it may be.”^[15] If inerrancy and inspiration are thrown asunder, the authority of the Bible is diminished severely. 

Opponents of Verbal-Plenary Inspiration Introduced and Refuted

The two strongest arguments levied against the verbal plenary theory of inspiration are the claim that the Bible gets scientific and historical facts wrong and the claim that because of the various translations of the Bible (especially in English) we cannot be sure what the true word of God is. Both arguments are used to assert that the Bible is full of errors which indicate it was not inspired by God.  

Dealing with the first, it is important to begin with an understanding of scientific and historical claims made in the Bible. We should not approach the Bible with a modern understanding of accuracy that would have been foreign to the original authors.^[16] It is well known that historians should avoid anachronisms, and so should a Bible interpreter. To impose scientific discoveries of today onto the Biblical text that were entirely foreign to those who wrote it is unfair to the text itself. Again, the verbal plenary theory asserts that God and man worked in harmony to produce the Scriptures, and when the Holy Spirit superintended those very words, He did not reach millennia into the future to inspire words that would be entirely unknown to the contextualized audience. This fact does not diminish the truthfulness of the Bible. As an example, Craig L. Blomberg recounts the downfall of Bart Ehrman’s belief in the inerrancy of scripture as stemming from Mark 2:26. The issue had to deal with Mark referring to Abiathar, rather than the High Priest of Ahimelek during the time of King David. Ehrman determined that this was a mistake, and therefore had to logically abandon the truthfulness of not just this one verse, but the entire Bible. To him, it was no longer inerrant. However, Blomberg does well in explaining that this was not in fact an error, but it was a much more likely way of referring to a more significant character in Jewish history at around the same time—due to public reading in the synagogue, this reference would have been far more easily understood with its reference to time. ^[17]

Addressing the second argument, it is important to understand translation theory and start from there. Part of the difficulty of translating the Bible is the vast number of manuscripts, all of which were handwritten—a tedious process. Naturally, textual variants are going to develop amid handwritten and copied documents. The more manuscripts, the more variants. These manuscripts are all attempts to copy the original autographs. To the degree that human scribes can do this with precision we have choices to make in modern times when translating into modern English. Translators have to span culture, time, syntax, and semantics all to produce a readable text today. The method of inspiration theory that a translator presupposed will inevitably determine how they proceed in translating the original languages into English and as Mark Strauss has accurately stated, “every translation is an interpretation.”^[18] If it is presupposed that inspiration was merely dynamic, as opposed to verbal-plenary, then the translator does well to strive to interpret and then try and replicate the intended meaning as accurately as possible.^[19]  Alternatively, if the translator presupposes verbal plenary inspiration as the method that produced the scriptures, they will do their best to accurately translate a word for word translation (i.e., literal), even if it is harder to understand to the modern reader—after all, the goal here is to faithfully replicate the very words of God, not necessarily the concepts, ideas, and intended meaning which can be elusive and subjective.^[20] It is not the case that given the difficulties of translation we do not access to the Word of God, nor is it the case that variants or differences in interpretation indicate inspiration is a fallacy. Instead, the desire to faithfully translate and understand the best manuscripts and how they differ is an indication that the Scriptures are unique, inspired and should therefore be approached with great care and reverence. 

Conclusion

Verbal plenary inspiration of the Scriptures is complex, multifaceted, and spans multiple domains of thought, doctrine, and faith. I believe that it is the view that best displays the glory and sovereignty of God. I believe that the evidence presented here builds a strong case that when such a view is abandoned, the Bible becomes merely another book that the human mind must contend with. If the Bible was not superintended by God himself man has no assurance that the claims of Scripture are real, and applicable to us today.  Ultimately, if inspiration is rejected—and inerrancy thrown to the wayside—Christ is thrown away too because everything is left to criticism and doubt. There is no limit to the liberal interpretations of a book that is only written by fallible man. Sin is of no consequence, and the death (and certainly the resurrection!) of Christ is a historical implausibility at best.  Therefore, the Christian must wrestle with their belief in inspiration and the consequences of it (i.e., inerrancy). To not do so is to set one’s faith upon a foundation of sand where once challenged the house will collapse—as it did with Bart Ehrman and others.^[21] It is the God-breathed nature of his word that allows the Christian to proclaim with the Psalmist, “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.”

Sources Consulted

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Black, George D. “The Sunday School as a Church Problem.” The Biblical World 51, no. 3 (1918): 150–52.

Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the New Testament. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016.

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Ezigbo, Victor I. “Christian Scripture.” In Introducing Christian Theologies I, 1st ed., 65–108. Voices from Global Christian Communities – Volume 1. Cambridge, United Kingdom: The Lutterworth Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ffjnm7.9.

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Harvey, Angela Lou, and R.W.L. Moberly. “Karl Barth and the Reality of God in Scripture.” In Spiritual Reading, 1st ed., 78–107. A Study of the Christian Practice of Reading Scripture. The Lutterworth Press, 2015. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1p5f1pk.9.

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^[1]I agree with Erickson’s definition of “full inerrancy” as opposed to “absolute inerrancy,” or “limited inerrancy.” See Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 191.

^[2] Ron Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with Mormons (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1995), 87–115, http://archive.org/details/reasoningfromscr0000rhod.; Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), 178–80, http://archive.org/details/answeringislamcr0000geis.

^[3] Erickson, Christian Theology, 175.

^[4] It is common knowledge that none of the original manuscripts of the New Testament, for example, exist today. Yet, verbal plenary inspiration allows for the translation to still maintain inerrancy, to the degree that a translation is faithful to the best manuscripts and evidence. Textual variants, for example, are errors but do not originate from the Holy Sprit’s guidance—instead from the scribes themselves.  

^[5] Victor I. Ezigbo, “Christian Scripture,” in Introducing Christian Theologies I, 1st ed., Voices from Global Christian Communities – Volume 1 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: The Lutterworth Press, 2013), 74, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ffjnm7.9.

^[6] Daniel L. Akin, ed., A Theology for the Church, 1st ed. (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2007), 153.

^[7] Angela Lou Harvey and R.W.L. Moberly, “Karl Barth and the Reality of God in Scripture,” in Spiritual Reading, 1st ed., A Study of the Christian Practice of Reading Scripture (Cambridge, United Kingdom: The Lutterworth Press, 2015), 84–85, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1p5f1pk.9.

^[8] Akin, A Theology for the Church, 2007, 151.

^[9] J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (New York, NY: The Macmillan Company, 1923), 69.

^[10] Machen, 70.

^[11] John Webster, “Ὑπὸ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου Φερόμενοι Ἐλάλησαν Ἀπὸ Θεοῦ Ἄνθρωποι: On the Inspiration of Holy Scripture,” in Conception, Reception, and the Spirit, ed. J. Gordon McConville and Lloyd K. Pietersen, 1st ed., Essays in Honor of Andrew T. Lincoln (The Lutterworth Press, 2015), 238, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1dfnrc1.21.

^[12] Webster, 242.

^[13] Justin Martyr, The Library of Christian Classics, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Cyril C. Richardson, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1953), 265, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.x.ii.iii.html.

^[14] William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard Jr., Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Academic, 2017), 263–66.

^[15] Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard Jr., 211.

^[16] “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and Hermeneutics” (Chicago, Il: International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, 1978), https://www.etsjets.org/files/documents/Chicago_Statement.pdf. See especially article XIII. 

^[17] Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the New Testament (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016), 65–67.

^[18] Mark L. Strauss, Distorting Scripture? (Downer’s Grove, IL.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 89.

^[19] This has been termed dynamic equivalence. Greg Gilbert states, “[Translation] is a matter of understanding the meaning of the word or sentence, and then, laboring to say the same thing in different words, that will be understandable to a different person.” Greg Gilbert, Why Trust the Bible?, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 31. 

^[20] Strauss, Distorting Scripture?, 77–79. This is termed word for word, and is common in the NASB, or ESV., among others. However, literal does not always mean more accurate.

^[21] Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (New York, NY: Harper San Francisco, 2005), 210–11, http://archive.org/details/B-001-016-573.