Derived inspiration: a discussion

I may be in the minority and obviously there are fundamental theologians who differ from me, but I refuse to use the term "inspired" to refer to anything other than the original autographs. Now, if you want to say "derived qualities" or "derived characteristics" or "derived authority" then I"m with you. But inspiration implies the qualities of a God-breathed product -- absolute inerrancy and perfection -- something that no translation can stake claim to. Translations are authoritative, faithful, trustworthy, dependable, etc, to the degree that they reflect the orginial God-breathed autographs. Accurate theology requires a preciseness in terms, something I think we lose if we start talking about "derived inspiration."

Does anyone know if Hodge, Erickson, Reymond, or others use "derived inspiration" in their systematic theology books? Does Warfield ever use the term?

Andy

 

We should all bear in mind that God often simply causes something to happen without any apparent supernatural acts. For example, He caused Nebuchadnezzar to attack Jerusalem rather than Rabbah by causing the lines in a goat's liver to appear in a certain pattern to the Chaldean "prophets", as well as causing a handful of arrows to fall in a certain pattern when dropped. (Ezekiel 21:21) He hardened the heart of the Pharaoh of the Exodus, Taui Thom, or whoever he was. We know these things only because God SAID He'd done it. Many other things He's caused or allowed to happen without doing any big, obviously-supernatural acts as He did at Mt. Sinai. For example, He's preserved the Jews, the most-persecuted people in history, as a distinct people. Within my lifetime, they've risen to a first-rate military power, much more than a match for all their traditional enemies together, without any obvious specific supernatural acts being employed.

Who's to say that God didn't simply will for His word to be preserved & therefore it WAS preserved, without any fanfare or obvious supernatural acts? Are some people looking for something spectacular to have happened when it didn't?

 

To deny derivative inspiration is to deny historical fundamentalist orthodoxy:

Larry Pettegrew of John MacArthur's Master's Seminary states: "Yes, translations partake of derivative inspiration as long as they reflect accurately the original documents (II Tim. 3:15)." Dr. Pettegrew expands on that statement in endnote #3, pages 11 and 12. "By the term 'derivative inspiration' is meant that a copy or translation is the Word of God to the degree that it reflects and reproduces the original text. In the words of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, 'We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original.' K. McCune adds: 'In the Scriptural record, there are examples where the copies of God's Word were considered authoritative in as much as they reproduced the autographa (Deut 17:14-20) . . . . The authority of the copy lay in the assumed correct copying of the inspired original" (p. 20).

"Jesus Christ used a copy of Isaiah to proclaim His Messianic purposes (Luke 4:16-21), and in so doing placed His stamp of approval on the copy as truly representing God's Word. Likewise, the apostles used current copies of the Old Testament in their defense of the Christian message (Acts 17:2; 18:28). Divine authority could only have been granted their arguments as they set forth the true message as given by God, even though they received that message derivatively through copies of the autographs.

"This is not to say that Jesus Christ or the Apostles saw no difference between the original text and their copies and translations. But they ignored any minor differences in their practical use of the Word of God. 'They approached their Bibles in the common sense fashion with which anyone approaches a copy of an original work. To the extent that the copy reproduced the original Word of God, to that extent the copy derived authority as being the Word of God also' (McCune, 23)."

 

There are two aspects to derivative inspiration.

1. The original languages are inspired.

2. The versions are derived from the original languages.

Which of those two points do you deny?

Oh, and, where did you get the idea that only two small seminaries take an orthodox position on derivative inspiration? I can name at least a dozen.

 

Inspiration is only climed for the documenstr not a translation.

If one could claim that a translation is inspired then anyone could claim there language is superior over another. No language can translate the OT and NT with 100 percent accuracy. Even our language does not have all the tenses and voices and moods of the original languages. Anyone ever seen a hithpael in English? Or how about idioms that have no meaning in our culture or words that don't translate in our language? How would you translate a prohibitive imperative in English. Ever notice how so often a first class conditional sentence is translated with a third class conditional sentence in English in every translation I have seen including the KJV.

 

I don't think its the doctrine itself that anyone is objecting to. It's the name. It makes it sound as if a translation is somehow "God-breathed". It isn't. It's a translation of the God-breathed text.

You can derive authority. You can be God's word by derivation. But how do you derive "God-breathedness"?

The doctrine is fine. The name given to the doctrine stinks.

I had never heard the term "derived inspiration" before someone used it on this board a couple of weeks ago. I think it is probably a term that certain groups may be familiar with, but other groups, while espousing what the doctrine teaches, don't use that particular name for it.

 

I agree with what Larry Petegrew is teaching; I just would not use the term, derived inspiration, to explain it. If you start talking about inpirired translations, derived or otherwise, then you will get people thinking that their translation has absolutely no errors or misleading translations in it. You'll get people thinking that if you try to improve an English translation that you are attacking the Word of God itself. I think we see the fruits of such sloppy terminology in the KJVO debate today.

Andy

 

Little INCORRECT detail. Read the old creeds and confessions of Christendom and note that historic orthodoxy believed the original language texts available to them were the inspired word of God. To abandon inspiration of the original languages is to abandon historic orthodoxy.

Once again you err. Derivation IS translation, just as the apographs are derived from the autographs, the printed texts are derived from the apographs, and the versions are derived from the texts.

I suggest you talk to Gordon Lovic, Clint Banz, Warren Vanhetlo, and others, again. Maybe you just fell asleep when the historic orthodox position was being taught.

 

OK, let's pick one, the Westminster Confession, and see what is says:

What I see here is that the originals were immediately inspired by God but the copies are only authentical. BTW, "kept pure in all ages" cannot mean "totally free from error" simply because every known manuscript has errors in it. Far be it from me to criticize the Westminster divines, but I think a better phrase would be "essentially pure."

Andy

 

Sorry, but I disagree. Historically "inerrancy" was not even a position held by the orthodox. The word was co-opted around 1900 and applied to the autographs. Until that time the creeds and confessions all used the word "infallible." The bible is "unfailing" in its history, promises, and prophecy. And even the word "inerrant" does not carry the meaning most people (such as you) ascribe to it. "Inerrant" applies to the movement of the planets in their orbits. They never leave their orbits, but there is considerable variation within their orbital plane. The same is true of the bible. It is "inerrant" in that it contains no provable error of fact, but there is considerable variation within the manuscripts and texts, but those variants don't produce an error of fact.

 

One thing I think we can all agree on is that the Scriptures breathed out by God must confirm to His character. Psalm 119:137 (NASB) says, “ Righteous are You, O LORD, And upright are Your judgments.” Since God is true, faithful, and completely perfect, so is His Word. Man, however, is none of these things and what man touches, whether they be manuscripts, texts, or translations, is marked by man's fallibility. God has providentially preserved His Word in a state of essential purity within a great number of extant manuscripts, but those manuscripts and the text and translations upon which they are based contain errors.

All Hebrew manuscripts, for example, are corrupt at 1 Sam 13:1, where they lack the age at which Saul began to reign (the LXX, incidentally may preserved the age for us). It is virtually certain that all Hebrew manuscripts are corrupt at 1 Chron. 19:18, where they read 7000 instead of 700 (cf., 2 Sam. 10:18). Then there are all the Qere/Kethib alternatives that sometimes affect the truthfulness of the passage (cf., Isaiah 9:3 – “increased the joy” vs. “not increased the joy”). I could go on and on but I think we have to say that the original autographs are of a fundamentally different character than the manuscripts, texts, and translations.

Personally, I have always considered the terms “inerrant” and “infallible” to be virtual synonyms. Robert Reymond discusses the terms on page 70 of his systematic theology and says they mean “essentially the same thing.” Some, I think, use “infallible” to mean “mostly but not quite totally without error,” and use it to refer to manuscripts, texts, and translations. I’m fine with that as long as everyone understands the distinction.

Dr. Burggraff is an amazing teacher. He came down to preach at my church occasionally when I lived in Maryland. I always appreciated his ministry.

Andy