# Does the Bible claim to be the divine word of God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 9, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534 "2003-09-09T15:06:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RoundGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90ced4/32.png) [@RoundGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoundGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/21 "2003-09-10T02:51:05Z")
**Dogface** > [@](#): > > The strength of Scripture ultimately rests upon the living Tradition and Witness of the Church. And which _church_ would that be? ---
**Author:** ![badchad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b77776/32.png) [@badchad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badchad)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/22 "2003-09-10T03:24:38Z")
Polycarp: > [@](#): > > Okay, first, Jesus is speaking of the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy). Second, his comment is that (1) no part of the Law shall pass away till all be fulfilled; and (2) \*\*He has come to fulfill the Law. Most Christians understand that He accomplished this in the Atonement, the giving up of Himself to Crucifixion as a sacrifice for the sins of all, and His Resurrection to new life. You left out the part about no jot and tittle passing from the law until heaven and earth pass away (slip your mind?), which is pretty strong indication that Jesus mildly inconveniencing himself on the cross did not qualify as all being fulfilled. As do his instructions to follow and teach others to follow the law in Matthew 5:19, why give these instructions at all if they were only going to expire in just a few weeks? > [@](#): > > This gave Him the authority to proclaim the New Law, which is summarized in the Two Great Commandments (which He, a scholar of the Law, borrowed from Hillel as summarizing the precepts of the Law). You have difficulty in learning some things don’t you Polycarp? Jesus gave more rules than the above two. While he did say the above two were most important he didn’t give you a pass on the others, regardless of how much you don’t like them. > [@](#): > > BTW, a “jot” was a yodh, the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, equivalent to a Greek iota, or English small i. A tittle was the small mark at upper right that distinguished a roth from a daleth, two letters superficially quite similar – for an analogy, think of the squiggle that distinguishes O from Q. Wow, such academic knowledge, it’s curious how you missed some of the important stuff I listed above. Me thinks the parts you don’t like just don’t register with you. > [@](#): > > Anyone who cannot distinguish between the Beatitudes and Psalm 137:9 (“Happy shall he be who takes your little ones, and dashes them against the rock!”) has distinct comprehension problems, IMHO. And anyone who can distinguish between the two doesn’t need to read the bible to understand how to effectively behave in today’s society. ---
**Author:** ![Nomadic\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/858c86/32.png) [@Nomadic\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nomadic_One)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/23 "2003-09-10T03:30:38Z")
> [@](#): > > One problem with this (as Poly pointed out) is that it does not define “scripture.” Since the New Testament didn’t exist yet, this verse almost certainly refers only to the Hebrew Bible which was the whole of “scripture” at the time that Timothy was written. Good thing God thought of that and made prophecies available. ---
**Author:** ![RoundGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90ced4/32.png) [@RoundGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoundGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/24 "2003-09-10T03:39:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Good thing God thought of that and made prophecies available Can you give a cite to that effect that would have _any_ relevance at all to this discussion? Or do you always just talk out of your arse… ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/25 "2003-09-10T03:47:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Nomadic\_One \* > \*\*Good thing God thought of that and made prophecies available. \*\* What “prophesies” would those be? As a matter of fact, can you cite a single legitimate (meaning _proven_) predictive prophesy anywhere in the Bible (or anywhere else, for that matter). ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/26 "2003-09-10T04:14:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*One problem with this (as **Poly** pointed out) is that it does not define “scripture.” Since the New Testament didn’t exist yet, this verse almost certainly refers only to the Hebrew Bible which was the whole of “scripture” at the time that Timothy was written. \*\* Was the OT canon even formalized by that time? In any event, clearly there’s only one way for the Bible to declare itself to be the word of God. The Bible is not one book, but a collection of books typically published in an omnibus edition. Either every book of the Bible must refer to itself as the word of God, or somewhere in the Bible there has to be a) a statement of which books are the word of God, and b) a statement that the list is itself the word of God. Since the Bible provides neither, then it nowhere declares itself to be the word of God. The canon actually presents a pretty real problem for believers of various stripes, because it goes unexamined. Everybody has a different canon: Jews, Samaritans, Protestants, Catholics, Mormons, Copts, Ethiopians, etc. If you’re going to say “I just believe on faith that this is the word of God,” then you have to face the fact that most people making that argument are wrong, so it must not be a good argument. If you’re going to use logic, then a lot falls apart. Jeremiah has to be kicked out as a false prophet, for one thing. Frankly, the Timothy argument seems a little strange to me. What do you people think the author of Timothy did- look at the Bible on his shelf and think, “yep, it’s _all_ good for instruction”? Maybe he saved some effort when writing his letter by taking his Bible down and copying out 2 Timothy longhand? ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/27 "2003-09-10T05:53:38Z")
The bible as a whole cannot claim itself to be the word of God, or anything else, as the bible did not exist when any one part of it was written. In other words, no one piece of the bible can refer to the bible, as those pieces were not assembled into what we now think of as the bible until well after the last them was written. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/28 "2003-09-10T07:00:44Z")
Diogenes, tho I know all the other explanations against the Christian interpretation, the Seventy Weeks (490 years) of Daniel Chapter 9 predicting that time would elapse from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem to the cutting off of the Anointed One & His Seven-Year Covenant (458 BC-33 AD) looks pretty good to me. Also, the continued survival & thriving of the Jewish people, even to the point of restoring their nation after almost two millenial of exile and the most extreme attempt in history to eliminate them, is something attested to throughout the Jewish Scriptures. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/29 "2003-09-10T07:37:04Z")
Btw, the books of the Bible, in claiming Divine inspiration, also refer to each other, not just to themselves, the Prophets & the Writings in the Hebrew Bible attest to the Torah, which attests to itself. The Christian Testament attests to the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. 2 Peter 3:15-16 attests to the writings of Paul. The Apostles epistles attest to the words & deeds of Jesus (which are recorded in the Gospels). Revelation attests to itself, but it recapitulates the prophetic themes & historical pattern of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Testament & applies them to the present distress of the fall of Jerusalem & the persecution by Rome as well as all of future Christian history unto the Return of Jesus & our passage into Eternity, so its claim is just a reaffirmation of the inspiration of its Hebraic-Christian source material. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/30 "2003-09-10T13:17:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > [Here](http://www.gotquestions.org/Bibleword.html) is an example of how the Timothy argument is typcically presented. Tell me this isn’t circular: OK. This isn’t circular. It is predicated on the notion that the person that it is being addressed to _already accepts_ the notion that the Bible is a truthful document, and the question is only whether it is the word of God or the like. In general, I imagine that that these arguments are typically addressed to liberal Christians or others about whom the assumption is being made that the Bible is accepted to some degree. It is likely not addressed to atheists or similar such who are also considering the possibility that the Bible is completely unreliable. I can’t absolutely guarantee that no one has ever put forth a circular version of the argument. There are billions of people out there, many of whom are utter nitwits. But I am pretty sure that the typical use of the argument is as I have described it, and to present the typical usage as being the circular version is most likely a misrepresentation. > [@](#): > > I wasn’t saying that your contention was circular only that it was unconvincing. It throws in a totally arbitrary predicate (that the authors of the Bible were honest) simply to avoid sounding circular. Not to avoid sounding circular. To avoid being circular. Whether it is an arbitrary predicate is a judgment call. As is whether it is unconvincing. But I am not going to argue that. I am addressing whether it is circular. > [@](#): > > Christian Fundamentalists do not try to argue that the Bible was written by honest men, they think it is the literal and inerrant word of God. They use passages like the one in 2 Timothy to prove it. Ask one. Most likely true. But that is because they have already accepted, for other reasons, that the Bible is reliable. Once that is accepted, proofs like the one from Timothy are valid. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/31 "2003-09-10T16:10:21Z")
**Izzy** , IMHO you are missing the point. Any argument which depends on the Bible to validate the accuracy or reliability of the Bible is _ipso facto_ circular, because it assumes the accuracy or reliability of what it sets out to prove. The assumptions that God inspired the Bible _totius porcius_, or that the human writers of the Bible accurately reported their experiences of Him, bring in external testimony and are not circular. If one can know, apart from the Bible, that God exists and is truthful, or if one can demonstrate from archaeology, secular history or legend, or other sources, that the human writers accurately reported such things as those modes of inquiry are able to show, then you have two potential external sources for validating it. But it does not and cannot function as a standalone document that validates itself. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/32 "2003-09-10T16:24:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben \* > The canon actually presents a pretty real problem for believers of various stripes, because it goes unexamined. That’s not true, at least not quite in the sense that people might use it. First, for a “canon” to “go unexamined”, there must be a hard-and-fast “canon”. The Orthodox Church does not have an iron-clad legalistic, pharasaic sort of “canon” where there are zillion mile high walls between “canon” and “everything else”. Instead, there are gradual steps. Even within standard compilations of Scripture some books are considered more important than are others by the Orthodox Church. > [@](#): > > What do you people think the author of Timothy did- look at the Bible on his shelf and think, “yep, it’s _all_ good for instruction”? Maybe he saved some effort when writing his letter by taking his Bible down and copying out 2 Timothy longhand? Of course, you already know there was no “Bible” at that time. However, given what was written at the time, I’d say that St. Paul was quite familiar with the Scripture of his day, given that he was a bit of a scholar. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/33 "2003-09-10T17:00:10Z")
No, **Polycarp** , it is actually you who has missed the point, which is a bit strange since I’ve made it several times. Somehow you seem to have gotten the idea that I’ve said that belief that the Bible is divinely inspired is circular, and you’ve gone to some length to explain why this is not so. But that is not something I’ve said or believe. What I have said, again, is that _once you accept_ that the Bible was authored by honest sincere people inspired by God, it is not circular to use the descriptions in the Bible about itself to decide what it’s nature is. Therefore, to use the argument that the Bible itself claims to be the word of God _if directed at someone who accepts that the Bible is divinely inspired_ is not at all circular. In sum, to say “_it doesn’t make sense to say that sincere religious people inspired by God wrote “these are the words of God” if this is not actually true_” is not a circular argument. ---
**Author:** ![Svt4Him](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@Svt4Him](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svt4Him)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/34 "2003-09-10T17:45:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*What “prophesies” would those be? > > As a matter of fact, can you cite a single legitimate (meaning _proven_) predictive prophesy anywhere in the Bible (or anywhere else, for that matter). \*\* Have you read Daniel? Sorry, I’ll have to wait until I get home to get deeper than that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/35 "2003-09-10T20:29:17Z")
To **Izzy** , I don’t know what to tell you. I am an agnostic who has engaged in many debates with various flavors of Christians. For any Christian who asserts a belief in the divine authorship of the Bible I always ask them why they believe it. The Timothy passage is the most common response I get. They cite it as the reason that they believe it and as the reason that _I_ should believe it. it has been done on this very board by **H4E** and others. If you don’t trust me, ask **Poly** if he’s heard Christians try that argument. Ask any atheist who’s ever argued with Christians. I promise you, fundies use Timothy as a way to try to convince non-believers to believe in the divinity of the Bible and they do it frequently. **FriarTed** and **Svt4Him** : Of course I’m familiar with the Christian interpretation of Daniel and I am spectacularly unimpressed by it. Daniel was written during the Seleucid occupation. It used the Babylonian exile as a template for an apocalyptic book about the 2nd century BCE Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid King, Antiochus. It does predict the Messiah (as an explicitly _human_ king, not a God) but it also predicted that the world would end after the death of Antochus (it also predicts a war that never happened and gets the location of Antiochus’ death wrong) so Daniel is an example of a _failed_ predictive prophesy not a fulfilled one. I know all about the Christian spin put on this book. Instead of hashing it out point by point I will just say that this is a case of people making the prophesy fit what they want it to than any truly convincing or definitive precognition being demonstrated in the text. **Friar** , I know that you, especially, are aware of the arguments against this being a predictive prophesy of Jesus so I won’t go into them. Suffice it to say that to interpret Daniel as being predictive of Jesus is an interpretation grounded in faith and not something that would be readily come to from a purely objective standpoint. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/36 "2003-09-10T23:45:37Z")
Oops; I gotta go back to Sunday School… If not the jot-and-tittle verse, isn’t there _something_ in the Revelation about not adding to or taking away from scripture? Doesn’t that verse pretty much make the claim that the Bible is divine? Trinopus (3/5 of a Pentateuch?) ---
**Author:** ![FriendRob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecc23a/32.png) [@FriendRob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriendRob)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/37 "2003-09-11T00:40:17Z")
According to John 1:1-5, the Bible is **not** the word of God: “In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … Through [the Word] all things came into being…” Clearly, the Word is not a book. (Or, if you think it is a book, what was it written on? What language was it in?) It seems to me that people who say the Bible is the Word of God weren’t paying much attention when they read it. And people who take the Bible “literally” are guilty of idolatry: the book is more important than the truth. (And, as AndrewT pointed out, no one _really_ takes it literally anyway these days. ---
**Author:** ![FriendRob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecc23a/32.png) [@FriendRob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriendRob)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2003, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/38 "2003-09-11T00:50:23Z")
Trinopus: that would be Rev 22:18-19, which curses anyone who adds to or takes away from “this book”. Problem is, when Rev was written it wasn’t attached to the rest of the NT, much less the Hebrew Scriptures. So “this book” originally meant Rev itself, and nothing else. Tacking Rev onto the NT doesn’t make these verses apply to the other books of the Bible any more than tacking it onto the Annotated Code of Texas would make God’s curse fall on any legislator who dared change a law. To complicate matters even more, many early Christians didn’t accept the book of Revelation as genuine. Martin Luther didn’t think much of it either, IIRC, and wanted to cut it out of the NT. (He succeeded in removing several books from the OT, and so Protestant Bibles today don’t include the Apocrypha. He failed to convince others that the NT should also be edited. All this just goes to say that “the Bible” is simply a collection of whatever books the collector thinks should be in it. So what books, other than Revelation itself, could 22:18-19 be referring to?) ---
**Author:** ![RoundGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/90ced4/32.png) [@RoundGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RoundGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2003, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/39 "2003-09-11T02:10:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Have you read Daniel? Many times. Is there a thesis you’d like to present? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534/40 "2003-09-11T03:28:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FriendRob \* > \*\*According to John 1:1-5, the Bible is **not** the word of God: > > “In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … Through [the Word] all things came into being…” > > Clearly, the Word is not a book. (Or, if you think it is a book, what was it written on? What language was it in?) > > It seems to me that people who say the Bible is the Word of God weren’t paying much attention when they read it. And people who take the Bible “literally” are guilty of idolatry: the book is more important than the truth. > > (And, as AndrewT pointed out, no one _really_ takes it literally anyway these days. \*\* Great points, but your cite stops too short, **FriendRob**. John 1:14 “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us…” John 1:17 “The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.” **Izzy** : I see your point. But what **Diogenes** said is the complete and total truth. Less than a month ago, over on the Pizza Parlor, **His4Ever** quoted the II Timothy passage in refutation of a point I was trying to make, and got several supportive posts about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-bible-claim-to-be-the-divine-word-of-god/200534.md?page=3)