Subtitle: Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are (Book title by: Bart D. Ehrman)

Excerpt: The Bible’s divine Author and its inerrancy are more important than the humans who penned it, emphasizing the need to accept the canon as written by God for a strong Christian faith.

Author: Jeff Hilles

A reader recently recommended this book (“Forged: Writing in the Name of God”) to me as the definitive explanation of how man has corrupted the Bible. Reading the Amazon description, it would seem the New York Times bestselling author provides documentation on why many of the books of the Bible “were not passed down by Jesus’s disciples, but were instead forged by other hands—and why this centuries-hidden scandal is far more significant than many scholars are willing to admit … Ehrman’s Forged delivers a stunning explication of one of the most substantial—yet least discussed—problems confronting the world of Biblical scholarship.”

My Simple (many would say simple-minded) Response

Thanks for the referral, but honestly, I wouldn’t care if you said Fred rather than Matthew was the author of the book by that name and the book of John was written by Harry. My faith goes beyond the contributions of human authors, whoever they may be. I believe, as many Christians do, that the Author of the Bible was God Himself, penned by man, and frankly, any man will do as scribe.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

The Deeper Point

Constant challenging by secular Christians (and many others) regarding “who really wrote the Bible” is a recurring theme in deconstructionist and secular theology. And that should be no surprise to anyone.

Satan, along with our own sinful nature, logically attacks the foundation of the Christian faith, which is God’s love letter and instruction manual to humanity. If that Book can be successfully undermined, it opens Pandora’s box of options to create one’s own, customized religion based on what we choose to believe (i.e., conditional morality) rather than what God commands.

The methods of attack differ, yet they all aim to achieve the same goal. Some offer evidence that there were different original authors, such as the book titled in this post. Others argue that nefarious forces influenced decisions regarding the final Protestant canon. And then there are those scholars who spend their careers analyzing areas where man has supposedly added his dirty fingerprints into the original autographs of Scripture.

Accepting the Bible as written by God means acknowledging its inerrancy; any perceived contradictions or contentious areas are due to human misunderstanding of an omnipotent God, not errors in Scripture. Acknowledging that worldview complicates the Biblical interpretations of social concepts such as homosexuality, abortion, and complementarianism, along with beliefs like a singular path to Heaven, the reality of Hell, and the pervasive nature of sin.

Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. - 2 Peter 1:20-21

Biblical Christians, as crazy as it may sound to the rest of the world, believe …

• The Bible was written by God, not man.
• The Bible is without error in all that it presents regarding our faith and conduct as Christians.
• The choice of what went into the final canon was made by God, not man.
• The Bible was protected down through the ages such that what we hold today is 99%+ of the original autographs.

Once one accepts these four foundational beliefs on the subject of Scripture, all discussion related to human intervention falls aside, and one is left with the challenge of trying to understand the mind of God. If one rejects any one of these four beliefs, the creaking sound of Pandora’s box can be heard in their mind and heart. Deconstructionism and/or secularism have found an entry point … helping to make the believer impotent in service to God and/or the unbeliever sealed as they face a future Hell. This may not be a pretty reality or well received by many who focus exclusively on the theology of “love thy neighbor” as their sole extraction from the 750,000 words written in the Bible, but the truth of God’s Word remains unchanged regardless of the desires of mankind.

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. - 1 Corinthians 2:9-12