What is the Bible?

Asher Chee |

Many people today have a great deal of misunderstanding regarding the Bible. What do we mean when we use the term “Bible”? What do we think about? Yes, you might think about that book which you are currently holding in your hands; a well-bound book which you believe contains the words of God.

What is the Bible?

I actually think that the way we use the term “Bible” today is very unhelpful because it conjures the idea in the minds of many people that the Bible is one book—an unfortunate misconception that has led to many other misconceptions. Quite a while ago, I was telling a friend that she should not rely solely on the testimony of one witness, since it would be biased and one-sided. She replied: “What about the Bible? It is only one book; one witness. So why should we trust it?” And there, I think, is where we find the beginning of all our problems regarding the term “Bible”.

Turn to the contents page of your Bible. As you can observe, the Bible is not just one book and one witness, but a collection of multiple writings, each written by different writers over a span of about 2,000 years. When all these writings come together, they form a powerful testimony of how God has used different people in different times to bear a consistent witness to him across the generations. By the way, our English word “Bible” was actually derived from the Ancient Greek word biblia, meaning “books”, which is the plural form of the noun biblion, “book”. In other words, even the term “Bible” was originally intended to convey a plurality of writings. Unfortunately, it has since lost that nuance in modern times.

So, what is the Bible? The Bible is a collection of multiple writings produced by God through multiple writers. In the New Testament, these writings are referred to by the Greek noun graphē, which is commonly rendered as “scripture” in English translations. On its own, graphē literally means a written thing; a piece of writing. In the New Testament, graphē always refers to biblical texts. This is why many translations consistently render graphē as “scripture”, a term for texts which bear spiritual or religious significance. By the way, since the scriptures were thought of as multiple writings, it is not be surprising that graphē very often occurs in the plural form: graphai, “scriptures”.

Interestingly, although the Greek noun biblion was available to the New Testament writers, they never used it to refer to the Bible as we do with our English word “Bible”. Rather, they used biblion to refer to an individual “book” of the Bible. During biblical times, books did not exist in the codex form as we have them today. Rather, they used scrolls, which is what biblion refers to in that context. In Luke 4:17, Jesus was handed “a book [biblion] of the prophet Isaiah”. Notice that Jesus was not handed a book of the Bible; such a thing did not exist back then. That book which he was handed contained only the Book of Isaiah. Nobody had the scriptures compiled neatly into one book like we have in our Bibles today. Each book of the Bible was written separately in its own biblion. This reinforces the point that we should not be thinking of the Bible as one book, but as multiple writings.

The Scope of the Bible

But which writings comprise the Bible? That is a question about the biblical canon. The term “canon” comes from the Greek noun kanōn, which is a measuring stick; a standard by which a length is measured. A biblical canon is a definition of which writings comprise the Bible. Turn again to the contents page in your Bibles. That is the canon of your Bible. You see that there are two primary divisions: Old Testament and New Testament.

At this point, I should point out that the use of the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” is an invention of man. We will come to that later on. Obviously, there was no “New Testament” during the time of Jesus, since the books of the New Testament were not yet written. Nonetheless, Jesus and his fellow Jews still had a biblical canon; they still had a set of writings which they considered to be their Bible. These books comprise what we call today the “Old Testament”.

The Jewish (“Old Testament”) Canon

How many books are there in the Old Testament? Look back at the contents page of your Bible and count the number of books in the Old Testament; how many are there? Yes, all your Bibles, if they are standard Protestant Bibles, have 39 books in the Old Testament.

During the time of Jesus, the Jews accepted 24 books as scripture; as part of their Bible. These 24 books are actually the same as the 39 books in our Old Testament; the difference in number is due to the way the books were counted. Some biblical books which we today count as separate books were actually originally one book, and it was only at a later time that these books were counted separately from one another:

The first Christians, following Jesus, accepted every book in the Jewish Canon as God-produced scripture. We do not find anywhere in the New Testament that Jesus or the first Christians disagreed with the Jews about what was and what was not a part of scripture. Rather, Jesus and the first Christians interacted with the Jews on the basis of a common canon of scripture.

The Apostolic (“New Testament”) Canon

Later on, the first Christians, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, accepted additional writings as God-produced scripture. Take a look at what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:18:

1 Timothy 5:18 For the scripture says: You shall not muzzle an ox treading grain, and The worker is worthy of his wages.

Now, who or what does Paul say is speaking here? “The scripture”. What does the scripture say? Two things. Firstly: “You shall not muzzle an ox treading grain.” That is in Deuteronomy 25:4: “You shall not muzzle an ox while he is treading grain.” The Book of Deuteronomy is in the Jewish Canon; that means that Paul and the first Christians would have considered it scripture, so it is perfectly understandable that Paul writes “scripture says” when he quotes it.

However, look at the next thing which Paul says that “the scripture says”: “The worker is worthy of his wages.” Where is that found? Those are the words of Jesus recorded in Luke 10:7. Observe this, now: Paul writes “scripture says,” and then he quotes both Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7. What does that imply? As early as the time of the Apostle Paul, the Gospel of Luke was considered to be scripture in the same sense that the Book of Deuteronomy is scripture!

We find another example of this in 2 Peter 3:16:

2 Peter 3:15–16 ... Just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you as also in all his letters, speaking in them concerning these things, in which are some things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and unestablished twist, as also the rest of the scriptures, to their own destruction.

What does Peter say the unlearned and unestablished people twist? The letters of Paul. But notice what Peter says about the letters of Paul: “which the unlearned and unestablished twist, as also the rest of the scriptures.” The word “rest” here indicates that the Apostle Peter places Paul’s letters in the category of scripture. In other words, Peter considers Paul’s letters to be scripture in the same sense as the other writings which the first Christians have already considered “the scriptures”.

By his sovereignty, God led the first Christians to recognize a total of 27 such writings as scripture in addition to the books of the Jewish Canon. These 27 books comprise what we know today as the “New Testament Canon”, or what I prefer to term as the “Apostolic Canon”.

The Nature of the Bible

So, what do we believe about these writings which comprise the Bible? Well, I am sure most of you might know the flagship turn-to passage for this:

2 Timothy 3:16 Every scripture is god-breathed and beneficial for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training which is in righteousness.

Several of your translations say: “All scripture is inspired by God.” (NASB, HCSB) As Christians, many of us are used to thinking that the writers were inspired. We say things like “God inspired the Apostle Paul to write this and that.” But that is not what the text says, is it? No, the text does not say that the writers were inspired; it says that the scriptures are inspired.

What inspiration does not mean

Some of us, when we think about the inspiration of scripture, have the idea that one fine day, the Holy Spirit possessed the Apostle Paul, and he started to write the letters which would then become scripture. No, that is not at all what happened; that is not what inspiration means. When we read Paul’s letters, we do not find evidence of possession. Instead, we find Paul writing what he really wants to write to these people.

As normal human beings, how we write is the result of our life experiences and writing styles. Sometimes, you can read a piece of writing and you can tell, “Ah, I know that so-and-so wrote this!” Sometimes, a teacher can read an essay submitted by one of her students and say, “Ah, I know for sure that he did not write this!” That is the result of differing writing styles. Furthermore, what we write is also determined by the situation: why we are writing, whom we are writing to, our thoughts and emotion at the time of writing.

Likewise, Paul and the other writers of scripture wrote as normal human beings. How they wrote was a result of their life experiences, and what they wrote depended on the situation in which they were writing, and reflected the thoughts and emotions that they were experiencing when they were writing. When we read different books of scripture, we also find differing writings styles. The books written by Paul share a writing style which differs from the writing style found in books written by John. This further militates against the idea of scriptural inspiration by divine possession. The writers of scripture wrote exactly what they wanted and how they wanted; they were not paranormally influenced by the Holy Spirit.

What inspiration does mean

Now, with that misunderstanding out of the way, let us move on to the next misunderstanding. Again, some of your translations say: “All scripture is inspired by God.” Now, is that really the case? Were the scriptures really inspired by God? Okay, now some people are going to spread false rumours that I do not believe in the inspiration of scripture, but wait, do not take me out of context here!

Let us think about what it means to say that God inspired scripture. The word “inspire” means “to breathe into” something. So, when we say that God inspired scripture, what we are really saying is that first, the writers wrote something, and then God said, “Oh, good!” and he breathed into their writing his authority and power, and poof, it becomes scripture! But that is not what the text says.

The Greek word rendered “inspired” in these translations is the adjective theopneustos, which is made up of two parts: (1) the noun theos, the normal word for “God”, and (2) a derivative of the verb pneō, meaning “to breathe out; to blow”. Hence, theopneustos literally means “god-breathed”, and that is how several other modern translations render it (NIV, ESV). So, what Paul means when he says that scripture is theopneustos is not that God “breathed into” a certain portion of writing and made it scripture, but that in fact scripture is something that God “breathed out” from himself!

So, technically, “inspired” is not really a good English term to render theopneustos. However, because of common use among Christians today, that is a term we are stuck with. So, we should still use the word “inspired”, but just as in the case of the term “Bible”, we should be very careful about what it means and what it does not mean when we talk about the inspiration of scripture with our fellow Christians: it means that scripture is something that God breathed out from himself.

How God breathes out scripture

So let us put these two truths together:

So, as those writers were writing those things from their own free wills, that was God breathing out scripture. But how does that work? How can this be? How can it be that these human writers wrote what they wanted and how they wanted from their own free wills, but what they wrote was exactly the way God had intended?

Well, we must remember that God is absolutely sovereign over all things that happen, including the production of the scriptures. As we have already seen, how and what a person writes is the result of a whole array of factors. Hence, by his sovereignty, God directed the life of each writer of scripture, such that he would have certain life experiences, develop a certain writing style, and he sovereignly arranged circumstances such that that writer would find the need to write certain things to a certain audience in a certain way, conveying certain thoughts and emotions, and whatever else that might go into how that piece of writing would turn out. That is how these human writers can write out of their own free wills, but the result is exactly as God had intended.

The production of God through the Holy Spirit

By the way, the the pneu part in theopneustos—which is the “breathed” part in “god-breathed”—is related to the Greek noun pneuma, which is commonly rendered in English translations as “spirit”. However, pneuma means “wind; breath”. What we call the “Holy Spirit” in English is actually called the Hagion Pneuma in the original Greek text of the New Testament. If not for the popular traditional habit of referring to the Hagion Pneuma as the “Holy Spirit,” we might be calling him the “Holy Breath” or the “Holy Wind” in English today!

So, one thing that is meant by theopneustos is that scripture is god-spirited, or produced by God through the Holy Spirit:

2 Peter 1:20–21 Knowing this first, that every prophecy of scripture did not come from one’s own unravelling, because prophecy was not ever carried by the will of a man, but being carried by the Holy Spirit, men spoke from God.

Peter is speaking here about how “every prophecy of scripture” was produced. Notice first of all, that “men spoke.” They spoke out of their free wills, flowing from the thoughts and emotions that they were experiencing at that time, using their particular writing or speaking style and choice of words. However, as they were doing so, they were speaking “from God.” And how did these people speak “from God”? They were “being carried by the Holy Spirit.”

Other biblical passages also speak of scripture as the production of God through the Holy Spirit:

Hebrews 3:7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice...

The writer to the Hebrews writes that “the Holy Spirit says,” and then he quotes the words of Psalm 95:7–11: “Today, if you hear his voice, etc.” What does this imply? For sure, the words of Psalm 95 were breathed out by God, but more specifically, they were produced through the Holy Spirit.

The next two examples are even more interesting:

Acts 4:24–25 Having heard, they raised a voice unanimously to God and said: Master, ... who spoke from the mouth of your servant David through the Holy Spirit: ‘Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain? ...

Acts 4:24–30 records the prayer of the first Christians when they heard that the Jewish authorities had forbidden the preaching of their message in Jerusalem. “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain?” Those are words from Psalm 2. Notice who they attributed the words of this Psalm to: “(1) who [God] spoke (2) from the mouth of your servant David (3) through the Holy Spirit.” Firstly, they recognized that God was the one who spoke: “who [God] spoke.” Secondly, they recognized that David was the one who articulated these words: “from the mouth of David.” Thirdly, they recognized that as David was speaking what he wanted to speak, he was doing so “through the Holy Spirit,” and that was how God was breathing out scripture.

Matthew 22:43–45 He said to them: Then how is it that David, in spirit, calls him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies underneath your feet? Therefore, if David calls him Lord, how is he his son?

Matthew 22:41–46 records a discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees. Take a look at what Jesus says in verse 43: “David, in spirit [that is, in the Holy Spirit], calls him Lord, saying,” and then he quotes the words of Psalm 110: “The Lord said to my lord, etc.” So, who spoke these words of Psalm 110? According to Jesus, David did. You see, Jesus does not deny that David said these words.

In the parallel account of this discussion in Luke 20:42, Jesus simply says: “David himself says in the book of psalms: ‘The Lord said to my lord, etc.’ ” The Holy Spirit is not even mentioned here. In verse 45, Jesus says again that “David calls him Lord.” In fact, it was crucial to Jesus’ argument that David spoke these words. The Pharisees were saying that the Messiah would be the son of David. Jesus had asked the Pharisees: “Whose son is the Messiah?” The Pharisees answered: “The son of David.” Jesus’ response was: “Oh, really? David himself says otherwise! Look at what David himself said in Psalm 110!”

At the same time, Jesus recognized that David spoke these words through the Holy Spirit. The parallel account in Mark 12:35–37 is even more explicit about this: “David himself said in the Holy Spirit.” (v. 36) So, do you see how the Holy Spirit works here in the production of the scriptures? No, he does not possess the writers of scripture, nor does he influence them paranormally. Rather, he guides them by his sovereignty.

The relevance of the Bible

Alright, let us return to our flagship passage, 2 Timothy 3:16: “Every scripture is god-breathed.” Let us take a look at the words “every scripture”. Most of your translations will say “all scripture”. However, it is more appropriate to render the Greek expression pasa graphē as “every scripture”.

The importance of the original texts

What is the difference? “All scripture” seems to refer to scripture as a whole. However, what I think the text is saying is that “every scripture”, meaning, each and every single piece of scripture—every single book, every single sentence in each book, even down to every single word—is god-breathed. Regarding the text of the scriptures, Jesus says: “One iota or one stroke will not pass away from the law.” (Matthew 5:18) In another place, he says: “It is easier for the heaven and the earth to pass away than for one stroke of the law to fail.” (Luke 16:17) For Jesus, even the smallest detail of the scriptures—“one iota or one stroke”—was important.

That is why it is so important to always go back to the original form of the text in which they are written, in their original languages and in their original contexts, because that is the form in which God breathed out the scriptures. That is why we must always consider the original contexts of every passage, and pay close attention to the choices of words and the grammatical constructions present in the original texts of the scriptures.

Some people ask me: “But Jesus spoke Aramaic, right? So shouldn’t we be reading his words in their original Aramaic?” My answer is: No, we should not. This is why it is so important to understand that it is the scriptures that are god-breathed, and not anything else. For sure, what Jesus said originally in Aramaic is important, but only to a certain extent. Anyway, we do not have Jesus’ words in the original Aramaic; that is, if he even spoke originally in Aramaic in the first place. Even if Jesus spoke originally in Aramaic, the writers of the four gospel accounts never found a need to record what Jesus said in the original Aramaic; they wrote in Greek, and they recorded Jesus’ words in Greek, and that was what God breathed out as scripture.

There are some instances where the four gospel accounts have parallel accounts; they record the same event, but in different words. In Matthew 11:11, Jesus says: “The lesser one in the kingdom of heaven is greater than him.” However, in the parallel account in Luke 7:28, Jesus says: “The lesser one in the kingdom of God is greater than him.” So, which did Jesus really say? Did he say “kingdom of heaven” or “kingdom of God”? Many Christians get very worked up about this, because it looks like a contradiction in the Bible. But it really does not matter what Jesus originally said. What matters is that Matthew recorded “kingdom of heaven”, and Luke recorded “kingdom of God”. Both are what God breathed out as scripture, and we do well to heed them both.

Let us look at 2 Timothy 3:16 together with its next verse:

2 Timothy 3:16–17 Every scripture is god-breathed and beneficial for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for training which is in righteousness, so that the man who is of God would be equipped, having been fully equipped for every good work.

According to this passage, what is it that is able to fully equip the man of God for every good work? “Every scripture.” Why? Because they are “god-breathed”. So, what is god-breathed and therefore what we should pay attention to is the scriptures—what was written down, and not anything else; not the writers themselves, and not even what the original spoken words were. What they recorded; what they wrote down, that was what God breathed out as scripture. Do you see now why it is so important to be clear that it is the scriptures that are inspired and not their human writers? Because then we know that the authority lies in the scriptures themselves and not in their human writers.

The ever-present speaking of God

Notice also, that the text does not say that only “some scripture is god-breathed.” No, it says that “every scripture” has this unique quality of being “god-breathed”. Therefore, every single piece of scripture without exception carries the ultimate authority of God. Do we really believe that? Sure, many Christians would say that they believe that, but in their practice, they betray their hearts to be not believing that at all!

Earlier, I said that the use of the terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” to denote the two primary divisions of the Bible are man-made and not God-ordained. Jesus and the first Christians never designated scripture as “Old Testament” or “New Testament”. However, because of this unfortunate terminology, among many other things, Christians today tend to think of the books of the “Old Testament” as antiquated, outdated, and obsolete, and they think of the “New Testament” as relevant, updated, and superseding the “Old Testament”.

Oh, how many times I have showed a Christian a portion of god-breathed scripture, but he rejects it because, “Oh, that’s in the Old Testament.” So what if it happens to be in the Old Testament? It is still God’s word, is it not? It is still god-breathed scripture, is it not? “Every scripture”—whether Old Testament or New Testament—“is god-breathed, and beneficial for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for training which is in righteousness.” Yet Christians today preach and live as if the Old Testament is less inspired—if inspired at all!—than the New Testament. When was the last time you used scripture from the Old Testament “for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for training which is in righteousness”?

“Oh, that is in the Old Testament.” Can you believe that these words are being spoken by Christians? Christ himself did not have this attitude! To Jesus, what Christians today call the “Old Testament” was the ever-present speaking of God. When Jesus and the first Christians quoted the “Old Testament”, they would often use the expression gegraptai, which is commonly rendered in English translations as “it is written”. Gegraptai is the verb graphō “to write” in the perfect tense, which denotes an action completed in the past with effects continuing into the present. Thus, by using the expression gegraptai in their quoting of “Old Testament” scriptures, Jesus and the first Christians were affirming the continuing validity and applicability of these scriptures. Although these scriptures were written a long time ago, their relevance and authority continue even to the present time.

We see this attitude of Jesus toward the scriptures also in his rebuke to the Sadducees:

Matthew 22:31–32 And about the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.

Those words which Jesus quotes are from Exodus 3:6. Notice also something interesting here: Normally, if someone were to ask, “Have you not read?” they would be referring to something that is written. Hence, the proper question should be: “Have you not read what was written?” But Jesus notice what said: “Have you not read what was spoken?” Thus, according to Jesus, when we read what is written in scripture, we hear what is spoken by God.

Notice also who Jesus said these words were spoken to. Speaking to people standing in his presence, he said: “Have you not read what was spoken to you.” These words of God which Jesus quotes, “I am the God of Abraham, etc.,” were spoken by God more than a thousand years ago to people who have long since died. And yet, according to Jesus himself, these words were also spoken directly to people at the present time.

Jesus did not have this attitude of “Oh, that was the Old Testament, so it is not relevant for the present time!” or, “Oh, that was spoken only to those people in that time and not to us, so it is not for us, and it does not apply to us!” No, Jesus saw the words of scripture as the present speaking of God, no matter when it was originally spoken or written down! That was Jesus’ attitude toward scripture, and as Christians who follow Christ, that should be our attitude toward scripture as well.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, we find the first Christians also treating scripture as the ever-present speaking of God. In Hebrews 4:7, the writer quotes Psalm 95:7–8: “Today, if you hear his voice: ‘Do not harden your hearts.’ ” These words of Psalm 95 were written hundreds of years before the Book of Hebrews was written. Yet, according to the writer of Hebrews, the “today” of Psalm 95:7 is still “today” during his time, “even after so much time,” the writer says!

In Galatians 5:13–14, the Apostle Paul exhorts Christians: “Serve one another through love.” Why? “Because the law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” This “one word” which Paul is talking about here is a law from the Old Testament: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18) And yet, Paul uses it as the basis for his exhortation. He did not have this attitude that many Christians have today: “Oh, that is from the Old Testament; it was not written for Christians, so it does not apply to us!”

Conclusion

Let me remind you that it was this same Apostle Paul who wrote these words in the New Testament: “Every scripture”—whether from the Old Testament or the New Testament—“is god-breathed, and beneficial for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for training which is in righteousness.” The question for us today is: Do we really believe that?