SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Text, the podcast of the Memphis of the Church of Christ, where we encourage and equip people to interact with the biblical text. We are your host, Tim Martin, and Brian Metro.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Welcome back to a new series that we're uh gonna call Ink and Inspiration. I'm excited about this series. I think it's gonna be good as we look at the Bible and kind of what makes up the Bible, what has gone into the Bible of how we view our holy scriptures that we call uh the Bible. A couple questions that we're gonna answer throughout this series is we're gonna answer questions like who really wrote the Bible, how or uh how are humans involved in the Bible, or how human is the Bible, you could say, why these certain books that we have in our 66, has God spoken since the Bible? And then we'll wrap up the series looking at the question of why Tim and I trust the Bible and why we think you can trust the Bible as well. So for this episode, we're gonna be looking at this question of who really wrote uh the Bible. Tim, you got any other intro thoughts before we jump into this one?

SPEAKER_00 1:13

No, I mean you're kind of slaying that tongue in cheek. At which part? Who really wrote the Bible? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's okay. We'll explain that.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Um And really the the part of it is that it goes back to our title here of Ink and Inspiration is unless you're completely brand new to Christianity, uh, you're familiar with the concept of the written word, the Bible that we have, and that there is a human element as humans were involved in that process, but that we believe that this is a message um from God. So that's really what we're gonna look at. A lot of times we think of the word inspiration when it comes to that, of what it looks like, uh how God inspired uh the Bible that we have. Tim, can you define that word for us or give us a little background maybe to it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I think it's good that we do because inspiration in English really can have a mean like maybe somebody I have a sports hero, I have somebody that I follow, and they motivate me to do something. I'm inspired to do. We're talking about something that inspired means something that was kind of breathed through someone. And so, but it it's the common vernacular with that. But uh what I wrote down when I thought about that question, I said divine and supernatural involvement in the composition of sacred writing. That sounds very dry and boring. Uh I feel like that's a good definition, though. But it is. Fit your personality. Uh and and to be honest with you, I mean, really, aside from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, nobody else really necessarily has that particular assignment to their sacred text. I don't really completely understand how Confucianism and Buddhism look at their particular text, but I don't I think they're more think that they're full of human wisdom more so than they're actually given by deity, like Christians and Muslims and Jews would believe.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Yeah. No, I think I think that's fair. Where is there a certain text that jumps out to you when we think of like inspiration or where maybe that idea or concept is rooted in Scripture?

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Aaron Powell Yeah, I think most people run to 2 Timothy uh 3 uh 16 and 17. Uh of course we you know this is a very late writing by Paul. Uh I think that this verse is I think we have to take it very carefully in context.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Aaron Powell Let me read it real quick if that's the right way.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Well, I'll tell you what, is since you just happened to have it, how did you know to have that verse? I figured we would read my mind. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

All scripture is in all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. You did a good job.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

I stumbled through it a little bit but it's interesting how that can be translated. There is no verb, for example, in the sentence. Um God breathe is an adjective that Paul made up. Theopanostos is this word that we don't have anywhere else because nobody in Greek believes in God's breathing out, you know, information in that nature. Um it could also be translated, all God breathed scripture is useful for some book. But the is, the verb there is not in Greek. Uh but I think everybody translates it just like you read it. And so we think about something breathed out by God, we have to say, okay, how does that work for it to be breathed out by God but recorded by a human instrument, you know, uh, and and a human writing it down on paper, uh or or I should say writing it down on papyri or upon parchment. Uh and doing that. And so uh in context, he is speaking of the Hebrew Bible, the what we would call the Old Testament. He wouldn't call it the Old Testament. Um we have to also remember that scripture is a word that doesn't exist in Greek, it's just all writing. But we know that Paul is referring to sacred writing because he's referring to the writings in context that Timothy was taught by his mother and grandmother that made him wise to salvation uh in Jesus Christ. So he he is specifically speaking of the Hebrew scriptures. Now, generally, uh I think just about all Christians, not just evangelicals, I shouldn't say all Christians, because not all Christians, all people who claim to be Christians don't believe in inspiration at all. Um most Christians of the conservative flair, I guess, uh typically broaden the scope of that verse to mean everything contained within this collection of books that we call the Bible, this library of books. Uh, and doing that. Certainly, in addition to that, in 2 Peter 1, we have, again, which is a reference to you know prophets and and others being moved along by the Holy Spirit, uh, that is a reference at that time to the Old Testament. Um and we have other uh instances, uh, you've got something there, uh I think you've got 2 Peter 1, 16 through 21. It's not something that was made up by humans, uh, but it was breathed out by the Holy Spirit. And so in in context, he's speaking of uh what we would call the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah, and in that Second Peter chapter 1, verse 21, it's interesting to me what this means, you know, like in in a tangible way. But it says, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And it goes back to that idea of like, what does that look like? What does that mean to be carried along?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Not only is Peter's, if we really if we really take the verse in context, he which is the only responsible way, I think, to do so. He's not only talking about the Old Testament, he's really talking about Old Testament prophecy. So he's not necessarily talking about things that aren't now prophecy is is hard maybe to define, like any message of God, I guess you might say.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

But earlier on in that chapter, he's talking about that he doesn't believe their their messages based upon like just human made-up myths. But he's like, we've seen and heard these things and references then the it's a confessional statement.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

It's not that we believe because of faith. Now there's people out there that say because the Bible is historically accurate, it's inspired by God. Well, that's a ridiculous statement. You know, there's plenty of historically accurate documents out there that are not inspired. And so something doesn't have to be inspired to be historically accurate, uh, nor does it have to be inspired to be scientifically accurate. Um but for it to be theologically authoritative, then it has to be inspired. Uh and so that makes uh to me uh a different. I don't I don't think historical evidence justifies the Bible being inspired, but I ultimately have to believe what these people say.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah. Um can you walk us through some of, I guess, the major camps of inspiration?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, yeah. There's a there's a few different ones. Um uh and I'll tell you which one that I prefer. And and within these different major camps, there are certainly different flavors and shades of belief, but you know, kind of the major one that probably is the most literal is the dict it's called the dictation theory, which essentially it means that God has, through his Holy Spirit, has taken over the body of the writer essentially, and they've become like a mechanism or a essentially a human typewriter that they are writing and they have no control over what they're saying. I mean, it is everything, there are even movements of writing it down are controlled by the Holy Spirit of God. So it's it's the same thing as if they're they're a tape recorder. I just happen to be recording it using ink and and parchment or papyri. Uh so that's kind of one that if you really, really, really want to hold tight to say we've got the actual literal words that came out of God's mouth, then you have to take dictation theory, right? Um if we if we think about that in a literal sense. And and and some people take that route. I don't particularly take that route.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Before we leave there, and I know we're gonna talk about in our next episode, uh, more of the human side of things, but I I think it's worth pausing here for a moment and making a comment on here. You talked a little bit about, I guess some would say the strength of that theory or understanding of inspiration. What do you feel like the weakness is of that?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Aaron Ross Powell The weakness is in what I've encountered in in translating the Bible myself. I've translated about seven or eight books in the New Testament, and there are great differences between writing style, grammar, vocabulary, syntax, how they write, uh, the quality of writing, uh, even between supposedly books written by the same author, like the fourth gospel, uh attributed to John, of course, and then first John, which is obviously attributed to John the son of Zebedee, they read like they're written by a Galilean fisherman, very s well, a pretty good Galilean fisherman that can write, but they're very simplistic in their structure. Whereas the apocalypse, Revelation, uh has terrible grammar, terrible syntax, uh, and it really looks like somebody who doesn't know what they're doing in writing. But then we go around and look at like Luke and the Hebrew writer, which have very elegant Greek and very high quality Greek and very good use of Greek. Um and then there's everything in between, Paul's writings and things of that nature. They don't all read like they all came from the same machine. Um, and so that's why I struggle with the dictation theory. I think it doesn't take into account the differences in writing style and even the differences in experience, uh, and it doesn't take into account, for example, what Luke even says at the beginning of his gospel, that there have been several people that have written down accounts of what Jesus said and did, oh excellent Theophilus. And I'm going to try to make sure that I'm giving you uh, you know, we have some source criticism practice there. I'm gonna try to give you an accurate rendition of it. And I believe Luke did, um, but I don't believe Luke was a dictation machine or a tape recorder.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

All right, so what would be uh the second one on our list?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

The second one has a real big fancy name that you have to say really, really fast three times. Verbal plenary inspiration. Uh uh a plenum is a uh a pipe or a uh device that carries like air, for example, like the ductwork in your house that either is the return duct that takes air back to your HVAC unit or the cold or hot air that comes to your registers in your floor or in your ceiling, those would be plenums. Something that is a device that air passes through, whether it's square or round, it doesn't make any difference. And so when we think about plenary, we think about words that were spoken through some sort of device uh to that. And and there's different flavors of that, and but it's the one that I ascribe to, and I explained the version that I would ascribe to that the Holy Spirit guided the author's words so that they were exactly what God wanted it to say, but the Holy Spirit made use of the repertoire of the author, his his vocabulary, his writing style, maybe even their own personal experiences. For example, Matthew and John were, if we take traditional authorship of the first and fourth gospels, they were eyewitnesses to things that other people were not eyewitnesses to.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

You know, how that book opens as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah, that that's right. And even John acclaims, and even at the beginning of Revelation, John claims, hey, about Jesus Christ. These are some things that we saw. Uh, and so we have eyewitness testimony there. For me, you have Luke's knowledge of maybe looking at these other compilations of the uh whether it be written tradition or oral tradition uh about Jesus, which which we know the oral tradition about Jesus was very strong in early Christianity. Uh so I I think that he used their words. We even have the example in Romans where Paul uses an omonousis, which is a terribly hard word to say, really a secretary. In Romans 16, Tertius says, I wrote this letter. So he was obviously taking taking dictation from Paul. So you would have to say, No, the Holy Spirit didn't put dictation machine on Paul, he put the dictation machine on Tertius. But no, what I think was that Paul was insp was driven by the Holy Spirit and guided by the Holy Spirit, and he gave words to Tertius that were written down, and they're exactly what the Holy Spirit wanted to say, but he made use of Paul's abilities and his grammar and how they wrote, and maybe even some of Paul's own firsthand experiences uh that he had had. And so, and Paul, even by his own testimony, knows what it feels like to be guided by the Holy Spirit, because he says, My preaching. You know, I came to you, I gave you a message. It didn't come from mankind, it came by revelation of Jesus Christ. That's what he tells the Galatians, and other times he may say, I give you the Lord's command, or something of that nature, uh, or I gave you the Lord's command. And so I believe in that method of inspiration. Now, can I explain to you how those authors felt or how that worked? Absolutely not. I don't know how that felt, or if he even felt at all. But I do believe certainly that involves for me a supernatural element of God using that writer and their style and everything to write things down that God, and it is what God wanted to produce, and I'm gonna put a qualifier on here, in the autographs, in the originals, and we'll talk more about that later. Yeah. There's a couple other things. Now, there's there's weaknesses and strengths to that one as well. That one to me is what I see most demonstrated when I actually read the New Testament in Greek.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

What would you say a weakness of that is?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

I think for some people to hear that, it could weaken their thoughts about is this the actual word of God? You know, like you like maybe when we think about like the the Jewish version of view of the Torah, that every little pinstroke is divinely driven and the word of God. Um I don't want I I think it doesn't have to be that way, but I can see where explaining that to someone, they'd be like, okay, well, I really don't have the word of God. I've got the words of Peter or or James or John or Luke that were selected by God.

unknown 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

And so that may that if you don't really think through it, somebody could be misled by that and it weaken their the authority of that scripture. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah, and I think anytime that there's a and I don't want to jump too far into next week, but anytime there's a human element, we assume mistakes are being made or that it can't it it devalues what's there. And the best way that I try to explain this to people is the interaction between the Holy Spirit and God's role in scripture and the and the human side of it, I think can still produce the result that I see scripture claiming, because we see that in Jesus. Like he was fully God, but yet he was still fully man as well. So I think just because a human element is a part of that, that doesn't mean that God loses control over what he wanted to be produced.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Control is an excellent word. An excellent word. I think is exactly what God wants it to say. So to me, that's the same thing as saying the word of God. Of course, I'm still talking about in the context of the Old Testament, but I also happen to believe that about the New Testament, which is an even more confessional statement.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Unless people have done like college-level courses on the Bible and stuff like that, they may not know these different categories and would have said, Oh, I'm in this I'm in this camp.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

People are already asleep listening to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

But I would say most of the people that I have talked to about this in my circle falls somewhere in these two camps to some degree. Yes. Um but let's step outside of that. What what are some other people probably most evangelicals are going to reject?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

And one of those is typically called like dynamic, meaning that God guided the authors in in their general concepts and their ideas, uh, but the author really was writing down their own words. But they he God kind of kept them in some guardrails, if you will. He kept them on the right interstate, how many lanes of on that interstate maybe different views of this. Uh, and then you have kind of really a more b the most basic view of somebody who really thinks there's any supernatural involvement, and then we have like this illumination theory is that the Holy Spirit kind of enhanced their words and made them sound like they're supposed to, and but there's not any kind of God choosing the words. Um and so I don't ascribe to either one of those. Then outside of that, the last theory would be there is no supernatural involvement. This is all nothing but human authors that were great godly people and had the best of intentions, but it's n it's it's their words, it's their theology. And of course, I don't believe that.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah. And there are churches, you can I'll use that term loosely because of where on their view of scripture, but there are gatherings of people that claim to be Christians that I would say do not have a high view of scripture and would not view the Bible as being inspired in the way that we would view it. Um at a very low. And those were the last kind of two camps you were talking about, especially the the third there. Um and it completely changes how you interact with interact with scripture and the authority it has over one's life as well. Um so we can touch on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

I don't look as you know, even though I'm in kind of that verbal plenary camp, it doesn't mean dictation people may wind up being right. I'm not going to know an answer to that until I get to heaven.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

So I'm glad you mentioned that because one of the questions I had for you.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

You may want to mention going to heaven.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

No, no, not that part. Um I love to talk about what you don't know. Tim Everything. A lot. So with this topic, what do we not know about inspiration and what do you wish you knew a little bit more?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

I really just wish that like Paul or somebody had written like the separate treatise that said, here's what it's like, and here's how it happened. If he even realized it was, like when he was writing, maybe I should go back and say, okay, what about I do believe Moses wrote part of the Torah. I don't think he wrote all of it in the present form we have it today, and I probably go get stoned to death uh for saying that. But um let's just say the author of 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel, we'll just say the books of Samuel, which I don't think was Samuel because Samuel dies in the middle of the story. And so let's just say the author of the books of Samuel. How did that because he's recording something after the fact. You know, it's something that had already happened in uh in Israel's history, uh, and I think he's being guided. How did it, how did it even feel to be given knowledge that you were not an eyewitness of? You know what I mean? Or or ask Mark that question or Luke that question. Maybe to some extent, even James and Jude. I mean, they thought their brother Jesus, let's assume for a minute that we're talking about Jesus' two brothers as the traditional authorship as a sign. They thought Jesus was nuts. You know, and so I don't they didn't go around with him everywhere. And so, and of course, they don't really they're not giving historical testimony of Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

You're unfamiliar with that. Tim's talking about earlier in their life, but then became believers. Yes, yes, yes, yes. They became believers. Not when they wrote the book. James was a Jew, did they open up?

SPEAKER_00 20:13

When we think about like Luke writing some portions of Acts, we have portions of Acts we call the we passages, where Luke speaks as if he's there. And I think he was there. Like for instance, on the ship and on the sea voyage uh to Rome, Luke writes that he's there, and he gives a lot of observances that you wouldn't know unless you were there. And so, but he he wasn't I don't know that Luke was there at Pentecost, or I know that Luke wasn't there at Cornelius' house. I mean, you know what I mean? There's things that he records that how do you how does it feel to get information you did not, you don't, you're it's just completely given to you that you know anything about. Now I might go back, you could argue that perhaps the writer of uh of the books of Samuel, the books of the kings, did have some knowledge of the history of Israel. But they don't know what happened when Nathan and David were in there talking. You know, they weren't in the room, and so that would be just amazing to think about how did you how did it how did you even feel receiving that? Now some people say the dictation theory makes that easy. They didn't, they just went they just went into some kind of psychosis uh and wrote those things down, but that's what I would like to to know. Uh you know, we don't know the authorship of most of the Old Testament. Uh we know the authorship of most of the New Testament. We have some debates uh about certain ones, but it would be inner how did it feel to be in inspired by God?

unknown 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Now some people today would say, well, I do know because I I you know some Christian traditions have people still speaking by prophecy and things of that nature. So we may be able to go up and ask somebody in the Pentecostal faith, how does it feel? Uh and and so uh Which we will cover that topic. Yeah, I've got a lot of I've got a lot of questions that I need answers on. I saw somebody the other day who was uh claimed to be a prophet on TV, but then they were they had a lot of questions about something. I was like, Why do you you should know

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Let me answer this and you can decide how you want to answer this. But you've alluded to it some that the New Testament authors, when they were looking at the Old Testament, saw that it was being from God. And I feel like we've established that. And if people are unsure about that, reach out to us and we can establish that more. But you know, that we see that all the way through the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

If I believe their testimony and their viewpoint, and and really even not just the Austin viewpoint, I think that would be the viewpoint of the Pharisees. I think that would be the viewpoint of the scribes. I mean I think that would be a common second temple Judaism belief.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Do you have you come across much of the early church in those Christians, how they viewed the writings of like Paul and Peter and so forth?

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Well, yes, Brian actually wrote a dissertation on it.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

I knew it overlapped a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah, well, not a lot. Now, but you know, when I say early church, I mean second, third century. I know that that's not all encompassing, but once the once Christianity became a government religion, I don't really pay attention to it too much anymore, but um we have some samples of Christian writing in the second century, for example, and at the end maybe of the first century, early part of the second century, uh, and writings sometimes grouped called the Apostolic Fathers, so people like Ignatius, uh we have some copying of a guy writings of a guy named Papias, but that's really actually from Eusebius' testimony. Uh we have people like Justin, who sometimes called Justin Martyr, uh Irene uh Iranius. Ireneus. Um later on we have people like Tritullian, Clement of Alexandria, uh earlier on we have Clement of Rome. Anyway, a lot of people that wrote. Uh they am I I think it really is the best way to say it is they do quote the New Testament, not just prolifically. Uh the apologists that I studied were people who wrote, uh it was Athenagoras, uh, Tatian, and Theophilus. They all wrote in the second century, and they were all writing to non-Christians about explaining why Christianity is not a bad thing. And they used a lot of the Old Testament, more of the Old Testament than the New Testament. But a lot of them, what they a lot of them use a lot of the Sermon on the Mount of Jesus' testimony. And so my my dissertation was trying to figure out what text were they reading from, comparing their text to today's text, and why did they even use it? Why would you use a New Testament text to convince somebody who doesn't believe in the New Testament? You know, but they were more using Jesus and his moral teachings. Hey, hey, we're good people, we don't commit adultery, we're peacemakers, this we give to the poor, and that kind of nature. What I would say is that they used not only those apologists, but also people like Mark Justin and people like Ironis, they seem to use the New Testament the same way the New Testament writers use the Old Testament or view the Old Testament. That makes sense. Yeah. The way that you just described that the New Testament writers seem to venerate the Old Testament as authoritative sacred writings from God. I think that what we do have from the second century and on in the third century, they seem to use the New Testament in that same way. If not even like Justin describes the memoirs of the apostles written in the church or that were read out loud in the churches. Most people think he's talking about the gospels. Well, why would they be read out loud in a church if they weren't looked at some kind of sacred writing? Especially when really Christianity, this is gonna sound sacrilegious when I say this, is really a derivative of Judaism. Meaning that we're talking about a group of people who share the same belief that there is a supreme deity and that he has given words to people to to to human beings to use as authoritative writings. And so that concept is the same. So I don't think uh I don't think in any Jewish synagogue they got up, they maybe they did, and necessarily read from the book of one Maccabees or or some other pseudobographical writing. What we know is they read from Isaiah or they read from the the the from Moses or there's a Torah reading, there's a provhet reading. They read it because we're talking about authoritative scripture. But the the Christians seem to do the same thing. And so I would think that that is the case. I don't know, I'm sure that maybe there is something out there. I don't know of anything where somebody's making that argument saying, oh, the I I think it's like this de facto acceptance that these writings, and it's not all of them, uh, but when they quote something or use something, they they seem to say, and the Apostle Paul, when he said so and so and so, they speak about it like he was hit that this was he said it, and therefore that's it. And so I I think that their view was probably identical to how New Testament writers looked at the Old Testament. Yeah. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Yeah, I like what you said there, and a word triggered where I wanted to go next as well when you said it's not like they're like laying out an argument for it.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

They don't have to when I see, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

When I when we think about inspiration in the New Testament, the New Testament itself is also in a similar boat, in that it's not like you're gonna go to this one chapter and there's this like debate occurring about the inspiration of the New Testament or the Old Testament. And you know, like what I see is an establishment of authority, like if Paul's writing of like, hey, this is coming from God, or that you know, like when that's necessary to do that for the audience, but to some degree there's an assumption I feel like being made that this is from God. Um, but anyways, there's just not a big ball debate that you see where the Bible is trying to establish that per se.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Like so you know, Paul definitely reinforces from time to time that, hey, what I told you when I was there.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah, in that reference. And so that's different than referring to the actual writing he's making. Not in every writing does he say, I say all this through the Lord is giving me. Now, from time to time he may say, and I give you the Lord's commandment, and saying, or I say this, but sometimes he says, and I say this not the Lord. Yeah. And so does is there a brief excurses where we're outside of the realm of inspiration? Um that's why I kind of prefer the verbal plenary thing, but yeah, it's not as if we have the beginning of every letter that Paul says, you know, I, Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, greet you and and and send you blessed. You know, it's not it's not what they do. But I like the words you use as good, an assumption of authority. Sometimes he has to defend that authority. Yes. But he writes as if I'm telling you to do something and I expect you to do it that I don't need to now. Yeah. Maybe in 2 Corinthians he starts.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

It's coming from God.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yeah, that's right. He has to assert and re- re-establish or justify or defend his apostolic authority like in 2 Corinthians. But yeah, for the most part, it's like I'm telling you what to do and how you ought to behave. And there's really not he has to stop and say, Oh, and remember, I'm telling you something that's from God. I think there's an assumption of authority that he probably established when he was there. Now, like he couldn't do that with Rome because he hadn't been to Romans. He hadn't been to Rome when he wrote Romans. But he could do that with the church in Corinth or the church in Ephesus, uh, or the churches in Galatia if he is in fact writing to the southern churches. So uh, because he probably established his authority or claimed his authority while he was there.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yeah. Hey, next episode, I think we're going to be looking at how human is the Bible in its autograph, but I but also how human is the Bible that we have today. Yeah. Before we turn that chapter and go to that study in our next episode, any final thoughts before we move on?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

No, I think it would be good for us to talk about that because it would be a good bridge, because when I tell you what I believe in as far as verbal plenary inspiration, I do believe on I am only referring to the autographs. And so we have to explain an autograph for our audience that doesn't know that is the original writing that Paul or James or the author of 1 Samuel or whoever wrote uh Ruth or whatever, that that's what when they when that was written down. And of course, we don't have any of those. So it's going to be important for us to explain. Okay, then why do I have confidence in this leather-bound English version laying in front of me that that most Western Protestants use for their guide? And so uh I think it'd be important for us to clarify what that is.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Thank you for joining us for Tech Support. I hope you will join us in our next episode as we continue it to unpack ink and inspiration.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

This is a podcast of the Mount Juliet Church of Christ. You can find more personal growth resources like this one at mountjuliat.org slash resources. The Mount Juliet Church of Christ exists to glorify God and make disciples by helping people grow in Christ, love one another, and serve others.