Bible Course for the Laity - 2004, DVK, Bangalore

Full Reports on the Bible & Theology Course - 2004

1.4   The Bible as the Story of Our Salvation

The Bible is the story of not only God's revelation but our salvation also. The Old Testament records God's great promise of salvation. The New testament demonstrates the fulfillment of that promise. God's self-revelation as well as the human response to it are manifest in both words and deeds in the bible. For example:- The Old Testament records: "God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets." The New Testament notes: "He spoke in His son Jesus Christ, in whom all the earlier revelation finds its perfect fulfillment." (Heb 1:1-2a) All throughout the Bible, God reveals Himself and saves human beings; thus, the Bible is a salvation history. Oscar Cullmann, the German theologian, says: "Christ is the Mid-point of the salvation history, and in Christ is found the fullness of God's revelation and salvation."

1.5   The Two-Fold Authorship of the Bible

Why do we offer greater respect and reverence to the Scripture than any other book? The reason is the Bible is the inspired word of God (2 Tim 3:16-17). It means that God Himself is the author of the Bible (2 Pet 1:20-21). In traditional Christian understanding, the Bible is a book written ultimately by God through the pens of human writers, who are mere instruments in the hands of God. In this understanding, biblical inspiration is seen as mere dictation. According to this theory, God "dictated" every word of the Bible to the sacred writers, and thus God becomes the literary author of the Bible.

If we hold this theory, we fail to explain the marked differences in style and tone between various biblical books. Also, this theory leads us to a doctrine of verbal inerrancy; that is, the Bible is free from all errors, be it historical, biological, geological, or scientific. However, there are a number of errors in the Bible, both historical and scientific. Therefore, we cannot accept the theory of dictation. This prompts us to explain the divine authorship of the Bible in other ways. Both God and the men are real authors; God is the author of the Bible in the sense that God is the "originator" or "founder" of the Bible, and human authors are its "literary authors". Some scholars even make the distinction that God is the primary author and the biblical writers the secondary authors of the Bible.

1.6   Divine Inspiration & The Creative Role of Sacred Writers

We understand that the Bible is both the Word of God and the words of men. It is the language of both God and man. Inspiration does not take away from the human author the responsible use of his human faculties, nor does it relieve the human author of the processes that every author must do, such as collection of material, study and judgement of it, editing it, writing in into the manuscript (2 Macc 2:26-28; Qoheleth 12:9-11; Lk 1:1-4). Yet, the human author places all these acts under the interior influence of God. The Second Vatican Council describes the inspiration of the Bible in the following words: "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while He employed them in this task, made full use of their powers and faculties so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more" (Dei Verbum, art. 11). The word "inspiration" is derived from the Latin verb "inspirare", meaning "to breath into". Therefore, this word denotes some special influence of God upon the human writers of the Bible. According to 2 Tim 3:16-17, the Scripture is "breathed by God"; that is, the Scripture is the product of the creative breath of God, or it is the product of a specifically divine action. This action of God on human authors is part of a mystery, and no human being will ever be able to fully explain the process involved in the divine human authorship of the Scripture.

The Bible is the supreme rule of our faith and life. It is our source for inspiration; It is our guidance on how we should live. This is why the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation emphasizes very clearly the importance of the Bible when it says: "The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord." (Dei Verbum, art. 21) St Jerome says: "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ." Billy Graham said: "The Bible is the constitution of Christianity." Listen to the words of Laura B. Richards: "No person can be considered well educated unless he or she possesses some knowledge of the Old Testament and the New Testament."

This ends Module-1 of the "Bible Course for the Laity - 2004".

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