Israel's Journey to Know God: Biblical Inspiration

Wineskins Contributor・04/19/19

“What is the Bible and what do we do with it?” This is a question that one of my favorite scholars, Peter Enns, asks and attempts to answer regularly. Some may be tempted to say that the answer is simple: The Bible is the inspired word of God and its purpose is to tell us what to do. You know the old adage, the Bible stands for, “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.” Silver bullets are nice. The problem is, they’re few and far between. In this instance, this supposed simple answer to a supposed simple question is inadequate to address something as complex as the Bible. We may be inclined to ask what it even means that the Bible is inspired by God. Further, can the 66 books in the Protestant Bible really be described as “basic instructions”? Better yet, could the first five books in our Bibles be described as purely instructive, even if just for Israel? Surely so! After all, they are referred to as “the law” and the purpose of laws is, at least in part, to tell us what to do.

            What we will see in this series is that the Bible is farfrom a collection of literature simply meant to give us instruction.Specifically, we will see that not even the Torah can be thought of in purelyinstructional terms. The Torah, like the rest of Scripture, is a depiction ofhumanity’s journey in coming to know God and its ultimate purpose is to pointus to the Word of God, Jesus Christ. The Old Testament in general is atheological journey. It is written, arguably, over the course of roughly 1,000years and covers events that span even farther. Different thoughts about Godare represented, much of which are drastically influenced by culture andcircumstance. These thoughts can stand in tension and even in contradictionwith one another at times. Understanding this reality is essential tounderstanding the Torah specifically, the Old Testament more broadly and theentire Bible ultimately.

            My assertions inevitably lead to discussions of biblicalinspiration. What does it mean that the Bible is inspired? Some hold to what iscommonly referred to as inerrancy.[1] Advocates of this positionstate that, in the original manuscripts, every single word was unilaterallydictated by God.[2]In this paradigm, the Bible is accurate in all it addresses, whether that bescience, sociology, theology, morality or anything else. Therefore, in theentirety of the Bible what we have is unilaterally dictated revelation from God.God would never lie, and would certainly never be mistaken, so everything presentedin the Bible regardless of subject is wholly accurate, or so the argument goes.Every piece of literature in the Bible, then, is not at all human reflection onthe Divine or an interpretation of Divine revelation but is rather, again,unilaterally dictated revelation from God himself.[3] Consequently, the Bibledoes not contain any errors: All depictions of God are cohesive, all science isirrefutable, and all thoughts are consistent with one another. We do not find contradictingthoughts about God within the pages of Scripture, as all revelation inScripture must be internally constant.[4] This is the essentialpremise of the doctrine of inerrancy. And this is how many Christians in theWest have thought about the Bible since arguably the Protestant Reformation.

            To put it bluntly, I do not think inerrancy is the bestway to think about the Bible. I do not think the Bible God gave us is “inerrant”as modern theologians have come to define the term. Upon examining Scripture onits own terms and in its own context, I believe we find something muchdifferent. As opposed to Scripture being exclusively God’s communication to us,it is rather both God’s communication to us and human reflection on thatcommunication. This means that not all ideas about God in Scripture,particularly in the Old Testament, stand in unison. Depending on the time andcircumstances in which a text was produced, the biblical authors demonstrate arange of ideas and thoughts about God and the world.

Astime goes on throughout Israel’s history, God progressively reveals himself tohis elect people. Their theology develops over time and is eventually muchdifferent come Second Temple Judaism than in the days of the patriarchs. Asthey come to know God more fully, the Israelites inevitably see him differently.It is similar to how a child sees her father; her perspective will change asshe comes to know him, but he is still the same person. God doesn’t change, butIsrael’s thoughts about him do. I will demonstrate this throughout the series.

Fornow, there are two indispensable implications to what I have said concerningbiblical inspiration:

1) There is a humanelement to Scripture. It is both a human and a Divine product. The Bible is ultimatelyfrom God and is God’s gift to the church, but that reality alone does not predicatefor us particular nuances regarding the doctrine of inspiration.

2) As I have made clear,ideas about God throughout Scripture can change. Jesus is the perfectrevelation from God and all previous revelation must bow to him. I have writtenmore about that here.

            This article will serve as a short introduction to variousother concepts we will explore in the coming days:

1) The concept ofprogressive revelation and Israel’s not-so-unique place within the ancient NearEast. What do other ancient Near Eastern documents tell us about Israel’sScriptures? What does the presence of theological diversity and ancientcosmology within the Torah tell us about the Bible itself?  

2) Yahweh as being Godamong gods. Do other deities exist? Monotheism was not always present withinIsraelite theology.

3) Retribution theology.Israel eventually comes to question the idea that God always rewards those whoare obedient and punishes those who are disobedient. Do good things happen togood people and bad things happen to bad people?

4) Sacrifice. How dothoughts about sacrifice change throughout Israel’s history? Does God desire animalsacrifices at all?

5) God is perfectly revealedin Christ. What does that mean for us concerning violent depictions of God inthe Torah and rest of the Old Testament?

“Whatis God like?” This is the question humans have had on their minds from thebeginning of civilization. We still ask that exact question! Israel’stheological progressions and diversity demonstrate for us that even they wereasking that very question. It is in Christ that we find the answer all ofhumanity, including ancient Israel, has searched for. I hope you will befascinated, as I am, by examining Israel’s journey in coming to know God. And Ihope this series will help to give us all a better sense of the nature and purposeof Scripture, that being to point to Jesus.

WhenI look at ancient Israel as God’s people, I see much of myself. I struggle withGod: I ask questions and have doubts. My thoughts about God have changed sincemy childhood. Nonetheless, I still trust in the righteousness of God. He is thesovereign creator of the universe and Jesus Christ is Lord of all. I’m notalways the follower of Jesus that I should be, but his grace is enough in the absenceof my perfection. Israel was the same way; God fulfilled his covenant throughthem, despite their imperfection, when he brought about the Messiah that wouldbless all the nations of the world.

[1]. Yes, there arethose who give credence to the term “inerrancy” while defining it in a plethoraof ways, most of which are not compatible with its most popular definition.Thus, I am using the term here as it is defined in the Chicago Statement onBiblical Inerrancy.

[2]. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,Article VI.  

[3]. Ibid., ArticleIII.  

[4]. Ibid., ArticleV.  a