by VM44 4 Replies latest watchtower bible
When the NT letters written by Paul and others were first read about 2,000 years ago, were they considered "inspired" by God?
What about the books of Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John, as well as the book of Acts? Were they considered "inspired" right from the beginning?
At some point in time these works made the transition from being ordinary to being inspired, how did that happen?
If something truly was "inspired" wouldn't that be known from the start?
Interesting point. The books of the Bible gradually became more and more respected until they were viewed as inspired by its followers. Ironically, the WT's literature is exactly the opposite: when it first comes out JWs view it as inspired, but after a few months (sometimes years) it's simply the writings of imperfect men overshadowed by the "newer" light and tossed in the trash, or worse after enough time has passed the WT views it as dangerous to read.
There are whole books on the canonizing of the Bible, much dealing with the NT. Basically, it took centuries to really finalize which books were popular and acceptable to the church and didn't obviously break with any traditions/teachings. Some books were just known to be not really "old" enough to support the claims that they were written by apostles or others of the first century.
Many scholars insist that only Paul's letters were written before 70 A.D. and that none of the other writings were actually written by the person whose name appears as the author. (Possibly, Revelation was written by someone named John, but not necessarily the apostle.)
I think that OUR idea of inspired, the fundamentalist idea and the 1st century idea are quiet different.
I think that all scripture that speaks of God is inspired by God in the sense that the person/people that wrote them were insipired by their faith to write about God.
Then we have the case of prohecies, that is a different animal and mmust be viewd as such.
Then we have the passages that speak to what MAN THOUGHT that God wanted, accepeted and what God's "will" was.
The bible, both OT and NT, is a collection of works with VARIOUS motifs, to say that ALL were inspired the SAME way would be incorrect.
It has been argued that a big factor in the NT canonization was apostolic connection. The books that made the cut were from the apostolic era. For the most part the books of the NT are well attested and often quoted by 2nd Century writers. As for when they became "inspired" - good question. Apart from the Revelation of John, the NT writers rarely claim inspration.
