First, who wrote the Bible, was it God or man? It was God AND man. But what do I mean? I once saw a man use a picture to explain this. He used a picture of two arms entangled with both writing on the other one’s arm. It was an image of two hands. One was God’s and the other the human author. Both holding pencils, both writing on each other. He used this to explain how the Bible was written.
If I were to explain the Bible, I would begin by saying it has 3 sections. It has the Old Testament, the in-between, then the New Testament. I would explain that the Old Testament was a compilation of writings for a particular time and for a particular people. It was written strictly for the nation of Israel. The Old Testament is a mixture of history, law, prophecy, and writings. And the real purpose of it was to point to something greater- Jesus. And it is true that God supernaturally spoke to Moses and gave him the first 5 books of the Old Testament. It is also true that God orchestrated the things that happened and that were spoken in Joshua, Judges, and beyond. Then we have prophets who spoke and acted directly from God with words downloaded from Heaven. Now Moses, Joshua, the Judges, and others were also known as prophets who spoke and acted from God with words downloaded from Heaven. There is also wisdom literature like Psalms and Proverbs which is filled with prophetic words along with life circumstances and emotions, AND this was God’s will. Because God designed the Bible to have real human emotion and experience. But then we also have books like 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles which are historical accounts written later than the actual events. Scribes wrote about God’s historical dealings with Israel in these books. And this too was God’s will. God had real human scribes document Israel’s history. Yet, within these, you will see the human writer pointing out, like in either 1 or 2 Chronicles (I can’t remember which), that he is actually having difficulty. He noted that he was copying from an older text that previous scribes from Israel’s past had written down and now he was taking that history and putting it together. So, we see that God had called certain people to document Israel’s history for future generations. AND this was God’s way of doing it. These scribes were specifically trained for this, and this was their job. But does this mean what they wrote was “downloaded from heaven” like we would see in the book of Isaiah or Jeremiah? No, it was not. In fact, the scribe made an error. But only because what he himself was copying from lacked a piece of minor history. Yet God preserved that missing piece in the book of 1 or 2 Kings where King David “counted his men” and was severely disciplined by God for not trusting Him (for those who know the story). The book of Chronicles says the number was not known, but in the Book of Kings it was documented. So here we see humans involved in writing the Bible. We may ask, how can a mistake happen!? We only ask this because we are presuming that we fully understand how God “inspired” the authors of the Bible. A perfect God “chose” to use fallible humans. And yet God holds all of it within His control. But who are we to complain? Remember, the Old Testament was a compilation of Law, Prophets, and writings that were written in Hebrew (a small part Aramaic) for ONE PEOPLE GROUP for a limited time. And the purpose of the Old Testament was to prepare the way for the Messiah anyway. It was not a finished product without Christ.
Next, we have the in-between time. And things get interesting. As Prophesied in Daniel, Israel falls under Gentile control. Gentile culture invades Jewish culture and tons of persecution occurs. Soon Greeks took charge and Greek became the common language. Then there is the first Bible translation. The Hebrew Old Testament becomes translated into Greek (the LXX version). This became the Bible of the Jews during that time and the Bible of the Greek-speaking Jews during the time of Jesus and after. But due to the beauty of that language, it was able to take the Hebrew language and add more clarity along with interpretation to it that was unavailable in the Hebrew Old Testament. Was this translation “inspired” by God? Well, like all translations, it took one language and did the very best it could to communicate it in another language. And because God cares about His Word, I would say He was “hovering” over the translation work. But also, during these 400 years between the Old and New Testament, writing became popular. All kinds of writing. But what’s important for this post is to know that lots of Jewish religious writing occurred. “Rabbis” or teachers of different Jewish beliefs were created. You know, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, to just name a “few.” Many were looking for the Messiah and writing about the coming Kingdom of Heaven and about end times things (apocalyptic literature) like the book of Enoch, 4 Ezra, and many others. Also, new Jewish Chronicles were created like 1 and 2 Maccabees marking these 400 years, along with plenty of other Jewish “apocryphal” writings that are currently in the Catholic Bible but not in ours.
Lastly, we have the New Testament. But the purpose of telling you about the “in-between” time above is so that you would understand that by the time Jesus arrived on the scene, you didn’t just have the Hebrew Old Testament, you had a lot of other Jewish literature! Knowing this will affect your understanding of some of the settings, expectations, and comments made in the 4 Gospels. But when we understand that the 4 Gospels were not written “to” us it helps. Now hang on a minute! What I mean is we are not “Jewish” and Jesus Himself said He came for the “Jews.” What I’m saying is that the 4 Gospels (even Luke) are inherently Jewish and are full of things the Jews understood either from the Old Testament or from Jewish religious literature during those 400 years mentioned above. In truth, if we (Gentiles) did not have the writings of the Apostles from Acts onward we would have no clue how to understand the 4 Gospels. But praise God that He raised up Paul (the Apostle to the Gentiles). To make this point even clearer, though most skip right over it, we Gentiles don’t even arrive on the scene until Acts chapter 10 verse 9. From this point forward in the Bible we Gentiles become a part of the conversation. Remember, the Gospel came “first” to the Jews. We need to remember this when reading the 4 Gospels. My next point is that the New Testament is written differently than the Old Testament. To start, it begins with history. From Mathew to Acts is a “historical Chronicle” written either by an eyewitness or someone familiar with the eyewitnesses. Nonetheless, it is important that we understand these were Chronicles of Jesus’ life and the acts of the Holy Spirit. The beginning of the Gospel of Luke and of Acts are excellent examples for showing the method for how Luke got his information. Luke “himself” in Luke chapter 1 tells us he “gathered” his information from doing extensive research, and in the beginning of Acts he tells us he’s writing to a particular individual and Chronicling the work of the Spirit. Then you have Paul’s letters. When you “carefully” read Paul’s letters you recognize that he has no clue he is “inspired” by what he writes (I’m not saying he wasn’t). He’s simply carrying on normal conversations, answering questions, he’s angry and frustrated at times with an individual or Church, and sometimes he makes strange, off-the-cuff remarks. Really, Paul is simply being “human,” BUT a human chosen by Christ, given the “authority” to speak his heart and mind empowered by the Holy Spirit. God said Paul was “trustworthy” and therefore Paul had Christ’s stamp of approval over WHATEVER Paul wrote. Actually, all the chosen Apostles of Christ were marked with “authority” to speak on behalf of Christ. And this is unique to the New Testament. In the Old Testament, a Prophet was suddenly covered with the Spirit and spoke like, “Thus sayeth the LORD.” Whereas the entire New Testament after the 4 Gospels are human beings being “led by” the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, the Spirit was “poured out” unlike the way the Spirit came upon someone for a particular message in the Old Testament. Knowing and “understanding” this affects everything about the New Testament. This is why the books of Jude, and 2 Peter, can use Jewish literature from between those 400 years (from the book of Enoch and possibly the Ascension of Moses) to explain apocalyptic “last days” things. Now even though Enoch and the Ascension of Moses are not “inspired” books they still hold some, or maybe even much, truth within them. You see, the Jewish literature written before the time of Christ was “based on” and that’s key here, “based on” the Old Testament hopes and expectations of both the Messiah and the last days, and some of these authors got it right, while others partly right, and some completely wrong. But God allowed Jude and Peter to use ideas from these writings “because” they held truth. And you have the same thing going on with the book of Revelation (I believe). I am almost certain that God “used” the Apostle John’s mind and imagination together with imagery derived from the LXX (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Note: this translation is used in various places in the New Testament, it was common) but also in much of John’s visions in Revelation. But I only have proof for the “1000 years” of Christ’s reign at the end of Revelation. This was a Jewish tradition and belief out there before the book of Revelation was written (but it was not an untrue tradition and expectation. They believed that in the 7th thousand year of creation, it would be a 1000-year Sabbath rest). But again, we must note that God USED the minds, literature, imaginations, language, ideas, word pictures, and ways of talking that were common to the 1st century Jewish Christians in writing the New Testament. For a moment imagine the same thing taking place in our generation. If Christ came now, we all have a worldview lens we see through, we have our history and education, books, memories, imaginations, and normal life, all of which God would use in creating His message to the world.
So, though God used humans to create the Bible, He was never out of control of the message or the means of the message. And even though we know that Paul tells us that all scripture is God-breathed, and Paul meant the Old Testament when he said this, but we still have Peter in 2 Peter telling us that God gave Paul wisdom in what he wrote down. So, though God may not have “downloaded information” into the minds of every author of the Bible, He still “orchestrated” the bringing forth of the message. God, in His divine being, used flawed humanity to communicate with His creatures. And He was over and through all of it, finally putting it into a book called the Holy Bible
Hold onto this image that I wrote at the start of this post: “I once saw a man use a picture to explain this. He used a picture of two arms entangled with both writing on the other one’s arm. It was an image of two hands. One was God’s and the other the human author. Both holding pencils, both writing on each other. He used this to explain how the Bible was written.” – God is sovereign and faithful. His Word is Truth.
Aletheia: Truth in the Darkness 