Originally posted by Coletti
Do you believe we can say any books of the bible are inspired by God? Can any book of the bible be considered scripture? And what does scripture mean?
1) I cannot answer this question unless you define what you mean by 'inspired by God.'
In your definition (which I will explore before answering this question), please let me
know if you see any difference between the Gospels's having been inspired by God and
(e.g.) Mozart's 40th Symphony.
2) Yes, but that depends on what you mean by Scripture (see 3 below). As I understand it,
you do not seem to be discerning between Scripture and 'inspired by God.' That is, is it necessary
for something to be 'inspired by God' in order to be Scripture, and is the fact that something
is 'inspired by God' sufficient for being called Scripture.
This question is part of the reason why I object to your claim that the Bible 'states that itself
is inspired.' The early Christians used the Septuagint (this we know), yet you reject seven
books of the Septuagint even though the formed 1500 years of tradition. Also, even though
I Timothy says that 'All Scripture is God-breathed,' if you believe that it was written by St
Paul (which I don't), the later texts (at least the Gospels and certainly Revelation) wouldn't
have even been written down yet and couldn't possibly be the referent for such a claim. The
body the ratified the current canon did so in the 4th century. Believing that the current canon
is correct necessitates believing that the people who ratified the Bible were acting under God's
direct influence (and, if you believe that, then how can you dismiss the notion that Roman
Catholics have that the Council
still acts under such an influence?).
3) It can mean two things, I suppose. In a purely functional sense, it can mean any body of
writing which defines the official canon of a faith -- the Jewish Scripture, the Christian Scripture,
the Moslem Scripture, the Mormon Scripture. The second definition would be that which you
find to be 'inspired by God,' (i.e., worthy of a capital 'S' in your mind).
For my part, any production of human-kind has the
potential to be revelatory and is
worthy of Scriptural consideration. Of course (obviously) I turn to canons like any other person,
and (obviously) the Christian canon is the one I know best. However, I think it is a damn shame
for someone to exclusively see God's revelation in a single corpus (whichever one). I think there
are many ways to get close to God -- studying only one body of Scripture limits your field of
vision and closes your mind to the infinite wisdom, beauty, majesty, and wonder of the Divine.
That is not to say that one body of Scriptural literature may speak most immediately and clearly
to you; naturally, it is very probably that one would. However, I do not believe that any human
being is sufficiently qualified to say 'Corpus X is defintely and wholey the Word of God, and Corpus
Y is definitely not,' and, as such, I find such claims to be arrogant, meaningless, and unsupportable.
I have no objections to someone's saying 'I find Corpus X communicates more about the Divine
than Corpus Y
to me.' However, such opinions are rare and definitive, declarative
statements are commonplace.
Nemesio
P.S., What precisely did you feel that I was making contradictory statements about? Please cite
my specific sentences where you feel that my statements were equivating.