Fernando Canale
We know that someone is the author of Scripture. Yet, how do we know who the person or persons were? In answering this question, we begin by paying close attention to what biblical authors have to say about the origin of Scripture. Extensive Old and New Testament evidence tells us that biblical authors considered God to be the author of Scripture. The classical passages used in the formulation of the biblical doctrine of Scrip-ture are 2 Timothy 3:15-17 and 2 Peter 1:20-21.
Paul’s statement on the origin of Scripture is brief and general: “All Scripture is inspired by God [pasa graphē theopneustos]” (2 Tim 3:16, NAB). While our word “inspiration” comes from the Latin equivalent, “divinitus inspirata,” Paul uses the word “theopneustos,” which literally means “God-breathed.” We have no idea about what a “divine breathing” could mean when literally applied to the generation of Scripture, yet we may attempt to understand it metaphorically. Thus understood, the text is saying that God is directly involved in the origin of Scripture, although it does not explain the mode and particulars of divine operation.
Peter’s remarks on the origin of Scripture are more nuanced, analytic, and specific. By stating that “men spoke from God being led [pherom-enoi, “being moved”] by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21), Peter explicitly underlines the fact that human beings have written Scripture under the leading of the Holy Spirit. In short, both God and human beings were in-volved in the generation of Scripture.
Yet Peter carefully and forcefully qualified the intervention of human agents. “Knowing this first: every prophecy of Scripture does not come into being [ginetai] from [one’s] own interpretation [epiluseō]s” (2 Pet 1:20). Given the context in which he uses the Greek word epilusis, Peter may be arguing that even when human beings were involved in writing Scripture they did not originate the explanations, expositions, or interpretations of the various subject matters presented there.
In a follow-up sentence Peter explains that “not by the will of man was ever a prophecy brought about/derived [from pher]ō, but men spoke from God, being led [pheromenoi] by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21). Peter again denies the human origin of Scripture by excluding the will of human beings. What did human beings do? They spoke (elalēsan), proclaimed, and communicated the explanations, expositions, and interpretations that originated in God as author. Speech and writing are expressions of thought. Thus, God’s direction accompanied the writers of Scripture not only when they wrote but also when they spoke. What they said was the manifestation of God’s thoughts and actions.
Notably, while Peter and Paul unequivocally affirm God’s direct involvement in the generation of Scripture, neither explains the concrete ways in which the divine and human agencies interfaced, nor details their specific modus operandi. Scripture nowhere addresses this problem. To provide answers of our own is to embark on a theological task, for theology searches for understanding.
The statements of Paul and Peter teach rather significantly that God is the author of Scripture, of all Scripture (2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:20-21). Theologians should find a way to understand how this took place, and, at the same time, account for the human side that appears in the way in which Scripture was conceived and written.
The various answers given to this question throughout history have become leading hermeneutical presuppositions. They decidedly influence the entire task of exegetical and theological research, even to the point of dividing Christianity into two distinctive schools of thought across denominational lines.