About Jesus Steve Sweetman
Inspiration of Scripture
Mohamed claimed that God dictated the Koran to him as he wrote. Dictation is not inspiration. God did not dictate the words of the Bible to its numerous authors. He "inspired" what they wrote. This means that men wrote in their own words, their own writing style and mannerism. They were aided, moved upon as they wrote, and motivated by the Holy Spirit. This is clearly seen by the different writing styles of the New Testament writers. These differences don’t suggest that they weren’t inspired. They suggest the words weren’t dictated.
We need to note that the traditional view of the doctrine called "The Inspiration of Scripture" applies only to the original writings that these men wrote, not to any copies or versions of these original writings. By the way, we do not have any of these original inspired manuscripts today.
This means the Kings James Version of the Bible is not more inspired than any other version. The KJV is called the "authorized version" because King James authorized it to be written. God did not call the KJV authorized. Man so named it as authorized. No other translations that we read today would be classified as inspired as well, only those original writings penned by the original authors is classified as inspired according to the orthodox view of inspiration.
As I’ve said, we do not have any original copies of any of the books found in the Christian Bible. We only have copies and fragments of copies. It is important to understand that the Bible stands out alone as authentic among other historical writings of its kind. Our copies, or partial copies of the Biblical writings are closer to the originals in date than any other historical writings of its kind. We also have more copies and fragments of copies than these other historical books written in the same time period.
This may bring questions to our attention concerning the reliability of our modern translations. Can we trust what they say as really being the Word of God if they aren’t the original inspired version? As Christians we have an underlying element of trust in Jesus that helps us with this question. We trust that Jesus would not leave us with a Holy Word that is not reliable. This only makes common sense. If we cannot trust Jesus on this point, we can’t trust Him on any other point, including salvation. because all of what we know about Jesus is found in our versions of the Bible. The real question that remains is whether Jesus is really who He and we claim Him to be. Does He really exist in the first place as the Bible claims? That’s the real question. The answer to this question can only be found on a personal basis. That is, you have to come to your own conclusion on this matter after weighing all of the evidence under the influence of the Holy Spirit. There is good logical and historical evidence to support the claims of the Bible. This evidence is a topic for a later date.