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Video Transcript:
Many traditional Christians believe the Bible is absolutely perfect and inerrant. As Ligonier Ministries notes, “The Bible claims to be breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16). If God is God, He does not make mistakes. If the Bible is breathed out by God, there cannot be ‘minor errors’ in the details of history.” As a Latter-day Saint I staunchly disagree with biblical inerrancy, and because this verse is so often a point of tension between faiths, I think it’s worthwhile to talk about what it actually is and is not saying.
Similar to Ligonier Ministries, GotQuestions.org claims that “The Bible declares itself to be God-breathed, inerrant, and authoritative.” The problem with this kind of claim is that the Bible really can’t claim anything about itself at all. 2 Timothy 3:16 is part of a letter that was written before many of the other books contained in the Bible, and was written hundreds of years before the Bible as we know it today was compiled. Claiming that this verse from the Bible is referring to the Bible itself is like claiming that lyrics from one song were meant to describe an entire Spotify playlist, before that playlist and many of the songs on it even existed.
Indeed, this verse does not say the Bible is God-breathed (or in some translations, inspired by God); it says all scripture is God-breathed. All scripture might include the Bible for us today, but the original author would have largely been referring to traditional Jewish scripture.
But in any case, there’s a bigger fish to fry here. Another foundational question we need to address. Does inspired mean perfect or inerrant? Bible scholar John Poirior wrote, “On the one hand, if I say I’m inspired, no one thinks I’m claiming to be inerrant. On the other hand, if Scripture claims to be inspired, then the claim to inerrancy is (supposedly) loud and clear. The rules are clearly flexible….”
The word inspired in this verse seems to carry with it a lot of baggage that, for some reason, doesn’t apply outside of the scriptures. In Poirier’s words: “the word ‘inspired’ in … 2 Tim. 3:16 is seldom allowed to function innocently. Instead, it has served as the means for smuggling a whole system of ideas into the Bible.”
But let’s go even deeper, because believe it or not, we’ve got even bigger fish to fry than the previous fish. In the original Greek, the phrase that has been translated as “God-breathed” or “inspired by God” is theopneustos. I’m not a linguist, but I do know that if you want to understand what a word in another language means, it’s super helpful to look at how that word is used in a variety of different contexts from the same time period. The problem is that this term actually only shows up in the New Testament a total of 1 single, solitary time — 2 Timothy 3:16. So we don’t have any other biblical uses to compare it with. And we’ve got to be careful because (and yes, this is foreshadowing) what this word meant in 100 AD could be very different from what it meant in 300 AD.
And this is where John Poirier’s scholarship does some really heavy lifting. He recently wrote a book as part of the Library of New Testament Studies all about what theopneustos meant during the era that 2 Timothy was written. He found that during that time period, theopneustos was used to describe sandals; it was used to describe burial perfumes and ointments; it was used to describe streams of water. Does it make sense for us to consider these sandals or ointments or streams to be inspired in the sense that they are inerrant? Obviously not. Poirior asserts that God-breathed at this time meant vivifying, or life-giving, or life-extending. That’s what streams of water do. Sandals are helpful in this sense as well. Burial ointments were meant to make deceased bodies look more lifelike and alive. Saying that all scripture is God-breathed is absolutely a compliment and an endorsement of scripture, but it doesn’t mean that it’s perfect or inerrant. It just means that it is vivifying — it brings you spiritual life.
So if this is true, why do so many translations of the Bible just translate theopneustos as inspired? Poirior found an answer to that question as well. He wrote that “the inspirationist understanding … did not arise until the time of Origen [in the third century].” Scholar Dan McClellan adds that “This was no accident. Origen makes the most ardent and sustained case in early Christianity for the unified, univocal, and verbally inspired nature of the scriptures. It makes sense that he would be incentivized to understand ‘God-breathed’ to refer to the divine source from which all the scriptures were dispensed …. Because of the rhetorical value of that reading, that’s the way that passage—and that word—have been understood ever since.”
Now, Poirier’s scholarship seems solid, and it’s published by a reputable source, but it’s still pretty new, so I wanted to get a second or third opinion. One published non-LDS scholar I got in contact with agreed that “inspired by God” in 2 Timothy 3:16 was a bad translation aimed at reinforcing biblical inerrancy when it’s just not there. Unfortunately, that scholar wasn’t comfortable being quoted, so out of respect for them, they will remain anonymous.
Another scholar I got in touch with, Rev. Dr. Angela Parker, an associate professor of New Testament and Greek, was comfortable being quoted. She agreed that 2 Timothy 3:16, quote, “…is definitely not a proof text for biblical inerrancy….”
A third scholar, Dr. Anna Sieges-Beal, told me, “[Poirier’s] translation seems fine to me … If the idea goes back to Gen 2 with God breathing into the human’s nostrils, then I like ‘God vivifies’. Seems good.”
Point being: When 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all scripture is God-breathed or inspired, it is saying that scripture is good and beneficial, but it’s not saying it’s inerrant. If you want to believe in biblical inerrancy, more power to you, but if you’re looking to support it with scripture, 2 Timothy 3:16 doesn’t look like the way to go.
Of course, this isn’t the only scripture commonly brought up in conversations with Latter-day Saints. Galatians 1:8 is another popular one, often used to argue that we believe in a different or false gospel. If you’ve heard that before, you’re going to want to watch this video. I’ll see you there.
For more info, check out:
— “The Invention of the Inspired Text,” by John Poirior (Library of New Testament Studies, published by Bloomsbury).
— “The Bible Says So,” by Daniel McClellan, pp. 29-38.