Скачать или смотреть The Preservation of the Revelation: Inspiration

Inspiration of Scripture is defined as the supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit on the Scripture writers, ensuring their writings accurately record revelation or result in what is truly the Word of God. Divine revelation is the communication of truth originating from God (vertical), while inspiration relates to the relaying and preservation of that truth for humanity (horizontal). Inspiration is deemed necessary because it confirms the nature of God’s special revelation and safeguards it from the erosion and modification inherent in oral tradition.

The biblical authors provide uniform testimony of the Scriptures’ divine origin. New Testament authors affirmed that the prophets spoke from God as they were "carried along by the Holy Spirit". Jesus consistently upheld the authority and permanence of Scripture, stating that "the Scripture cannot be broken," and at times basing arguments on minute textual details like the tense of a verb. Furthermore, New Testament writers, such as Peter, grouped their own epistles with "the other Scriptures," indicating that they viewed their works as having the same inspired nature.

Various theories attempt to explain the nature of this process. The intuition theory views inspiration as a natural, permanent endowment, characterizing writers as religious geniuses. The illumination theory holds that the Holy Spirit only heightens the authors’ normal powers, increasing their perceptivity regarding spiritual matters without communicating special truth. The dynamic theory emphasizes the Spirit directing the writer’s thoughts or concepts, allowing their unique personality to influence the choice of words. In contrast, the dictation theory teaches that God told the biblical authors precisely what to write. The verbal theory insists that the Holy Spirit’s influence extends intensely to the selection of every word used.

Formulating a comprehensive model of inspiration requires integrating the didactic material (the Bible’s teaching about its own nature) with the phenomena of Scripture (the characteristics the writings display). The methodology that prioritizes the supreme authority of the Bible emphasizes didactic material to define the doctrine's formal nature, concluding that inspiration is verbal, extending even to the choice of words. The phenomena are then used to understand the precise meaning of that verbal inspiration. This is achieved by understanding that the Holy Spirit directs the writer’s thoughts precisely, leading them to use the exact word God intended, although the degree of specificity or detail in the concept may vary according to God's purpose.

Reformed Theologian GPT: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-XXwzX1gnv...
https://buymeacoffee.com/edi2730