How did the original manuscripts come about?

Correctomundo. Lindsell caused a huge stir with that book, and the followup, The Bible in the Balance. In particular, it might be said that his discussion of the SBC in those books was a catalyst for the conservative resurgence.

 

First, it's not my concept. That's what the Scriptures say about themselves. Here are just two examples:

Romans 9:17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

Ga 3:8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

I don't know what else to say except we have a book written by God Himself and it is alive.

 

Welcome to the BB.

Actually, the influential Swiss theologian Francis Turretin (1623-1687) taught that only the originals were given by inspiration. He was known for opposing the Catholic idea that the Latin Vulgate was inspired and authoritative over the originals.

Turretin wrote, "Although translations are not authentic formally and with respect to the form of teaching, they ought nonetheless to be used in church, because if they are correct in agreement with the sources, they are always authentic materially and with respect to the content of teaching" (The Doctrine of Scripture, Locus 2 of Insitutio Theologiae, Elencticae, trans. by John W. Beardslee III, p. 152).

 

Yes, you must be confused because the quotes certainly do NOT support your assertions: you questioned that the "writers" were inspired (the quotes do NOT support that); you assert that the writings became inspired "after" completion, essentially at canonization (and again, the quotes do NOT support that); finally you say you have the "inspired word" in your hand, but unless you are holding Hebrew & Greek scriptures, that is not supported by the quotes either.

"Kept pure" does not equal inspired.

Feel free to produce a couple of Hodge quotes showing that he believed that the genuine words of original language manuscripts were NOT inspired (except those that are demonstratably not transcribed correctly).

 

You are correct. I should have said Hodge was the first AMERICAN....

 

I never said Hodge didn't believe that. I said he believed that only the originals were inspired.

 

But you wrote "So this position is only as new as the mid 1800's." Are we expected to believe that you also meant that it was not an American position before mid-1800?

But for example, the Philadelphia Association in 1742 used virtually identical wording as the WCoF in their own confession. So, there were likely hundreds of Americans before Hodge stating and believing that the Hebrew and Greek scriptures were the only words by inspiration.

 

Did he say that accurate copies of those autographs in the original languages did NOT have inspired words?

 

"The Church has never held the verbal infallibility of our translations, nor the perfect accuracy of the copies of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures now possessed by us" - Hodge, Outlines of Theology, page 75.

 

I know for as long as I have been around, the normal statement has been that "we believe in the plenary, verbal inspiration of the original manuscripts." We would further explain that we have the essence of the word of God in our present bible, which happened to be the King James Version. This allowed for the errors that may appear in the various versions.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Thank you (and I kinda like the first part). But all Hodge has said here in the second part is that the manuscript copies are not individually perfect in every detail (which is demonstrably true); he did NOT say here that the words were not inspired.

 

see what you are saying, think the other way to see about same thing is that the original documents were inspired by Holy Spirit, and that God has preserved them throughout time in the best greek/hebrew source/texts copies, so that today we are able to compile/put together essential a virtually 100% accureate copy of inspired originals!

He preserved "original language texts" NOT the English versions translated off them!

 

That would fit into the fact that Paul and I am sure other Apostles wrote "other Epistles" that God chose NOT to be included into Canon as being "inspired!"