The New Testaments Witness to the Old Testaments Inspiration*

THE NEW TESTAMENT’S WITNESS TO THE

OLD TESTAMENT’S INSPIRATION*

Virgil Warren, PhD

I. Significant Silence  

            The New Testament raises no objections to the Jewish canon as we have it today in thirty-nine books. That observation holds despite the differing ways the Jews counted the books, despite the religious and geographical divisions among the Jews, and despite additional Jewish books that grew up between the testaments, especially the Apocrypha.

            A.  The first-century canon

                  1.   Methods of enumeration

                        a.   Twenty-two. Palestinian and Alexandrian Jews counted twenty-two sacred writings (equal to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet). They obtained that number by grouping the twelve minor prophets together1 and by regarding Ezra and Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles respectively as units. Judges and Ruth, and Jeremiah and Lamentations were counted together as one book.

                        b.   Twenty-four. 4 (2) Esdras 14:45 (A.D. 85-96) gives twenty-four (the number of letters in the Greek alphabet). The differing totals of twenty-two and twenty-four came from whether Ruth and Lamentations were attached to Judges and Jeremiah or listed separately.

                        c.   Twenty-seven. At a later time, the number twenty-seven was used occasionally (corresponding to the twenty-two Hebrew letters plus the five letters with terminal forms). In this numbering, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles became six volumes.

                  2.   Kinds of classification

                        a.   Unitary. Several classifications of the Jewish scriptures were in use during the ministry of Christ. General terms such as the Law,2 hallowed writings,3 and holy scriptures4 grouped all the books together.

                        b.  Bipartite. A two-part division of the Old Testament was indicated in the expressions Moses and the prophets5 and the Law and the prophets.6

                        c.   Tripartite. A more formal classification was the tripartite division of Torah (Law), Nebi’im (Prophets), and Ketubim (Writings, or Hagiographa), as in the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus (cir. 132 B.C.). 7

                        d.   “Four-Pentateuch.” Sometimes the twenty-two books were divided into four “Pentateuchs”: (1) the five books of Moses; (2) five books of history: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles; (3) five books of poetry: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon; and (4) five books of prophecy: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther were counted separately.8

                  3.   Practices of classifying

                        a.   Affected by numbering of the books. In the tripartite division, Jewish writers were not always consistent where to books like Ruth and Lamentations. In the number twenty-two, Ruth and Lamentations were among the Nebi’im as attachments to Judges and Jeremiah, and so were in the Prophets. Under the twenty-four count system, they were among the Ketubim and separate from Judges and Jeremiah.

                              In his Contra Apionem 1:8 (cir. A.D. 100), Josephus adopts another form of the tripartite system, cataloguing the books historically: (1) five books of Moses; (2) thirteen books of the prophets; and (3) four books of hymns and wise counsels. The first class equals the Pentateuch; the last group must be Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, the rest of the books grouped with the Prophets.

                        b.   Affected by the categorizing of the books. Other variations were caused by the number of categories into which the twenty-two books were divided. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Est              her were not classified in the “four-Pentateuch” system, Josephus listed them among the prophets, and they were in the Kethubhim in the common tripartite division. In the “four-Pentateuch” system 1 and 2 Chronicles were called history; by Josephus they were listed in the prophets; under the threefold division they were in the Kethubhim. Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings were among the prophets except in the four-division list, which made them history. The Book of Daniel was counted with the prophets except in the tripartite division, which numbered it among the writings. Nevertheless, changes of classification and enumeration did not affect the actual contents of the first-century canon.

                  4.  Religious divisions

                        a.   Samaritans. Having a common Jewish canon has been questioned in light

of the Samaritans’ use of only the Pentateuch.

                        b.   Sadducees. Special attention has been fixed on the Sadducees because some of the early Christian fathers have reported that the Sadducees, too, accepted only the Pentateuch, a mistake which William Henry Green conjectures was caused by confusing Samaritans and Sadducees.9 Regardless of the merit of his suggestion, it is true that no other direct evidence attests the Sadducees’ rejection of the Prophets and Hagiographa.

                              In Antiquities Josephus has passages (13:10:16; 18:1:4) sometimes taken to mean that the Sadducees accepted only the Pentateuch, but the objection in those citations is to the traditions of the elders. In Matthew 22:23-32 Jesus’ reference to Exodus 3:6 in his defense of the doctrine of resurrection need not imply their rejection of everything but the Pentateuch. He may have sought to show that the doctrine of resurrection pervaded the scriptures from earliest times. A reference from Moses’ writings would have been of special force because God used him to establish the whole Old Testament economy. In addition, the passage Jesus quoted may have given him an advantage in debate because it probably had not figured in previous arguments with Sadducees about resurrection.

                                         Their denial of resurrection (Acts 23:8) does not prove the rejection of those scriptures that speak of it (e.g., Daniel 12:2), any more than disbelief in angels proves their rejection of the Pentateuch (Mark 12:18).10

                              The Talmud mentions a Sadducee that quoted the Book of Amos. Rabbi Gamaliel, arguing with a Sadducee in Talmudic sources, uses Isaiah and the Song of Solomon. The Sadducee in reply does not object to the books Gamaliel used, but argues for another interpretation of the passages.11 The other sects of the Jews leave no indication of a variant list of inspired writings.

                  5.  Geographical groupings

                        a.   Alexandrian. The position is sometimes taken that Alexandrian Jews used a larger canon than the ones in Palestine. The main argument is the presence of the Apocrypha in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament made in Alexandria. Showing various Apocryphal writings in the LXX depends on the manuscripts available to us. None earlier than A.D. 350 have survived. So, a period of six hundred years lies between those copies and the translating work during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.).12 Over such a long time the Apocrypha may have been inserted by other Hellenistic Jews (or Christians), not necessarily as scripture but as Jewish religious writings.

                              The best manuscripts of the Septuagint do not contain the same extra books. Vaticanus (fourth century) contains no Book of Maccabees. Sinaiticus (fourth century) omits Baruch, which is deemed canonical by Catholics, but contains 4 Maccabees, which they reject. Alexandrinus (fifth century) even has 3 and 4 Maccabees and 1 Esdras, not received by Rome. Those manuscripts are uniform about canonical books. The addition of 1 and 2 Clement in Alexandrinus, and Barnabas and Hermas in Sinaiticus are other important examples that support the proposition that the canon, whether New Testament or Old, cannot be constructed from the contents of manuscripts. Direct testimony is the only reliable source.

                              Philo (cir. 20 B.C. to A.D. 50), an eminent scholar and philosopher, is the only Alexandrian Jew whose writings have come down from antiquity. He never cites the Apocryphal books, though he repeatedly quotes them (even as inspired) and mentions every one of the twenty-two Old Testament books except Esther, Ezekiel, Daniel, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.

                              The fact that Alexandrian Jews wanted to maintain good relations with Jews in the Holy Land establishes a strong presumption against their using a different canon. Such a deviation would have been unorthodox and divisive. Furthermore, according to The Letter of Aristeas, it was Palestinian Jews that translated the LXX at Ptolemy’s request.13

                        b.  Palestinian. After giving the numerical divisions of the twenty-two sacred books, Josephus in Contra Apionem 1:8 says,

“It is instinctive in all Jews at once from their birth to regard them as commands of God, and to abide by them, and if need be, to be willing to die for them.”

His statement not only indicates that the various Jewish sects accepted one canon, but that “all Jews” everywhere in the world had the same books, especially since Josephus is arguing against a Gentile assailant.

                        c.  In comparison. Josephus prefaces the above remarks with a statement about the respect Jews had for their scriptures:

            “How firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation, is evident by what we do: for during so many ages as have already passed no one hath been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them.”14

The words of Philo the Alexandrian are comparable: “They have not changed so much as a single word in them. They would rather die a thousand deaths than detract anything from these laws and statutes.”15 Such reverence for the twenty-two books is incompatible with an enlarged canon.

                              The prologue of Ecclesiasticus uses the terms law, prophets, and the rest of the books when speaking of both Palestinian and Alexandrian scripture without making any distinction between them. In the second century A.D., the Alexandrian Jews adopted Aquila’s Greek version of the Old Testament, and Aquila’s version excluded the Apocrypha. Origen, a Christian in Alexandria a little later, gave no approval of the Apocrypha. Of more direct importance on the original contents of the LXX is the statement of Cyril of Jerusalem: “Read the divine Scriptures, namely the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, which the seventy-two interpreters translated.”16

                  6.  Rabbinic disputations

                        a.   Confirmatory of an established canon. Another matter regarding the identity of the first-century canon concerns the objections raised by Jewish rabbis against certain books of the Hebrew canon, particularly Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.  Ezekiel and Proverbs also came in question occasionally. Those disputations were not over admitting any book into the canon, but over retaining it there. So, the questions were directed toward a canon already in existence.

                        b. Individual objections. Those exceptions were raised by individual rabbis, and merely emphasize the virtual unanimity of the Jewish people on this matter. Popular opinion had long been settled, and the “official” decisions left the matter as they found it.

                  7.  New Testament data

                        a.  Terminology relevant to a literary unit. The New Testament itself testifies to the Old Testament as a literary unit. In Acts 8:32, Luke says of the Ethiopian eunuch, “Now the passage of scripture he was reading was this . . . .” The singular scripture speaks of a body of literature that contained the passage.17 Scriptures also refers to a set canon when Luke records that Paul entered the synagogue at Thessalonica “and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures.”18 The definite article specifies a particular group of writings.19 Paul introduces his Roman epistle saying that “the gospel of God” was “promised before through his prophets in the holy scriptures” (Romans 1:20). The Law, though used variously, often refers to the entire Old Testament: “In the Law it is written, ‘By men of strange languages and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people; and not even that way will they listen to me, says Lord says.’”20 The quotation is from Isaiah 28:11, not the Pentateuch. In 2 Timothy 3:15, Paul commends the young evangelist for knowing from a baby “the sacred writings that can make you wise to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”  Jesus told the Pharisees, “The Law and the prophets were until John; from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached.”21 An expression similar to Law and prophets occurs in Luke 16:29: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them” (cp. 16:31). Jesus tells his disciples after his resurrection,

“These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything must be fulfilled that are written in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms about me” [Luke 24:44].

All these terms testify to a literary unit recognized without definition.

                        b.  “From Abel to Zachariah.” Of interest in this connection is the statement

                              of Jesus in Matthew 23:35:

“That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.”

The reference is most probably to Zechariah (variant spelling of Zachariah), who was stoned at the order of King Joash “in the court of the house of Yahveh” in the ninth century B.C.22 All the righteous blood includes at least the martyrdoms recorded in scripture. Jesus seems to have been thinking of the Old Testament in the literary sense, because Zechariah was not the last martyr chronologically speaking. In the seventh century Uriah ben-Shemiah was murdered with the sword during the reign of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah, king of Judah. Christ’s statement seems to presuppose a canon whose books were arranged in a fashion similar to that used in the modern rabbinic Bible, where 2 Chronicles stands last, being the final book of the Kethubhim, the third division of the Hebrew scripture under the Masoretic, tripartite system. Jesus’ reference to Zechariah provides confirmatory evidence that the Jews of his day possessed a distinct group of sacred writings.23

                  8.  Early Christian testimony

                        a.   Inconsistent in practice. Certain early Christian writers used the Apocrypha, introducing it at times inadvisedly with the formula as the Holy Spirit says.24 That practice has led some critics to claim that books introduced that way were considered scripture. But even as the contents of manuscripts are no criterion for canonicity, so also the usage of uninspired men does not form a good basis for judging even their own views of the canon, because conviction and practice do not always correspond. Their own direct testimony found in formal listings and express approvals must provide final judgment; they never approve apocryphal books in such lists.

                        b.   Actual belief. An indication of the attitude of early Christians toward apocryphal works is reflected in the hesitancy of some to accept the Book of Jude. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Didymus among others, assumed that Jude used the Assumption of Moses, an apocryphal work no longer extant.25 Jerome mentions that those doubts had arisen because Jude used apocryphal literature authoritatively.26 Whether Jude cites the Assumption of Moses and the Book of Enoch or cites them authoritatively is not the point. The date of writing for these apocryphal books is uncertain. Furthermore, Jude may be putting his approval on a bit of authentic oral tradition rather than on a written expression of it. The best approach supposes that Jude cited these works for illustrative purposes. The point is that some early Christian writers, having assumed that Jude cited these works authoritatively, could not harmonize using apocryphal books with their view of inspiration: inspired men do not base their message on uninspired sources.27 They regarded the citing of apocryphal literature as a reason for rejection. That test of inspiration they applied also to their own writings and considered their denial of personal inspiration to be consistent with their own use of apocryphal writings.

            B.  The argument from silence

                  1.  Silence of Jesus

                        a.   In light of his denunciation of the Jews for ignorance, false interpretation, and disobedience. The New Testament witnesses that the Old Testament is inspired since it records no time when Jesus or any of his followers ever rejected the canon that their fellow Jews accepted. That observation amounts to more than an argument from silence; it is an argument from lesser to greater because Christ addressed himself to lesser things than the correctness of the canon. He charged the Jews with ignorance of the Law (Matthew 12:7); he denounced their false interpretations of it (Matthew 23:1-33); he accused them of disobeying it (Mark 7:8-13); and he condemned their traditions that made it void; but he uttered not a word of censor for adding books that had no right to be in it.

                              Ignorance, false interpretation, and disobedience presuppose a content known and understood, and a normative standard of obedience. On the lips of the Son of God who came to reveal, give understanding, and lead people to obey the Father, there is the implication that the Law in whose name he came was from God, not from human tradition.

                        b.   In light of his objections to Jewish tradition. The Jews had developed a labyrinth of oral tradition that they added to the Law by rabbinic custom. Those glosses Jesus publicly opposed because some of them conflicted with the scripture itself.

“You leave God’s commandment and hold fast to human tradition.” He told them, “Full well do you reject God’s commandment you can keep your tradition. Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Let him that speaks evil of father or mother certainly die’: but you say, “If a man says to his father or his mother, ‘What you might have been profited from me is Corban (that is to say, Given to God)’; you no longer let him to do anything for his father or his mother; making God’s word void by the tradition you have delivered. You do lots of things like that” (Mark 7:8-13).

But Jesus’ objection to those traditions lay deeper than the fact that they often contradicted God’s word: they were not God’s word; they were heavy burdens grievous to bear, placed on people’s shoulders by religious leaders who were not willing to keep their own rules (Matthew 23:3-4). People have no right to contradict God’s commands; neither may they add imperatives to his revelation. God legislates his own laws, and any addition to them contradicts his silence.

                              The presence of uncanonical writings in the Jewish canon would have been a more serious error than oral tradition; the false and the true would have had equal authority. The Jews at the time of Jesus’ ministry did not account their traditions as equal in authority to the Law. They considered them a separate set of regulations to serve as a protective hedge around the Law. If Jesus was so concerned about those human traditions, he would surely have viced concern over a faulty canon, one that falsely claimed to be from God. If the Spirit saw fit to record Jesus’ objection to traditions, we would expect some corrective note about the canon. In light of his condemnation of ignorance, false interpretation, disobedience of the scriptures, and his denunciation of human traditions, his silence on the canon is significant.

                  2.  Silence of the Jews

                        a.   In light of their major indictments. Even as the New Testament contains no criticism from Jesus about the Jewish Law, it reveals no opposition to him by the Jews for rejecting any part of their sacred writings. Throughout his ministry the Sanhedrin kept close watch on his actions and teachings. They were quick to cry of blasphemy against him; they saw implications in his self-designation “the Son of God” (John 10:25-39). Caiaphas and the Pharisees plotted his death on the grounds that his ministry would take away their leadership and dissolve the Jewish state, which was under Roman control (John 11:48-49). Their holy temple would lose its significance under a system which taught that God accepts those in any place who worship God in spirit and truth.28 Against Jesus and his followers they even raised the objection that Jesus would change the customs which Moses had delivered (cp. Acts 6:14), but they never accused him of saying those customs were not inspired. It was that combination of his claim to change them and his defense of their divine origin that brought against him the fury of the religious leaders.

                        b.   In light of their trivial objections. Commissioned observers continually objected to Jesus’ disregard for the tradition of the elders;29 yet he refused to accede to their criticisms (Luke 11:45-52). They censored his actions,30 opposed his ministry, heckled his teaching, but never did they accuse him of denying the inspiration of any of their holy scriptures. In light of their opposition to him on comparatively unimportant things, the silence of the Jews is significant on this important issue: the inspiration of the Law.

II. Logical Implication  

            The New Testament bears implicit testimony to the inspiration of the Old Testament when it witnesses to a unity in the progressive revelation of the Bible, that Jesus and the apostles considered the Old Testament as authoritative, that the power of predictive prophecy is attributed to the Old Testament, and that the Old Testament is viewed as the word of God.

            A.  Unity of the Bible

                  1.  Unity of the Old Testament

                        a. Circumstances of its writing. The New Testament regards the Old Testament as a literary unit. That, coupled with the circumstances of its writing, implies its inspired unity. The Hebrew scriptures came from more than forty men during thousand years, at home and in exile, during peaceful prosperity and in ruthless military subjugation, in times of religious apostasy as well as times when Yahveh was worshiped in truth. These men prophesied in the face of death, not yielding to fear for their personal welfare. A unified message under such different circumstances is inconceivable without supernatural intervention, revelation, and direction in the overall writing and in each part. In a real sense, the whole was written by one Writer.

                        b.   Mechanical uses of the Old Testament. The unity of the Law is implied in phenomena related to obvious quotations of the Old Testament, factual allusions, and verbal reminiscences.31 In citation forms, where specific authorship is not mentioned, authorship appears insignificant; the sheer fact that “it is recorded in scripture” is sufficient.32 Many such references use the impersonal forms of graphō: “it is written.” These and nearly all the other impersonal citation formulas are in the perfect tense, connoting linear or stative, instead of punctiliar action.33 The lasting truth and importance of the citation are even more emphatic when periphrastic perfects are employed: “it has been written.”34 To say “it is written,” without needing to specify “by whom,” is to say in one word that the Old Testament is a divine unit, an authoritative whole, a writing of continuing worth. Only a “library” of divine unity may be cited anonymously as a basis of religious authority.

                              The unity of the Old Testament is implicit in the practice of paralleling similar passages from several books. Paul in Romans 15:9-12 assembles four quotations which show “that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy”:

                              “I will praise you among the Gentiles,

                              and sing to your name.”

                                       Again he says,

                              “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.”

                                       Again,

                              “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles;

                              and let all the peoples praise him.”

                                       Again, Isaiah says,

                              “There will be a root of Jesse

                              that arises to rule the Gentiles;

                              the Gentiles hope on him.”

In these quotations, the apostle uses passages from all three sections of the Hebrew scriptures: the second quotation is from the Torah (Deuteronomy 32:43); the first and third from the Kethubhim (Psalm 18:49 and Psalm 117:1); and the fourth from the Nebi’im (Isaiah 11:10). Together they provide a fourfold foundation for a worldwide faith. Paul’s combining them presupposes the unity of the Old Testament that faith has been built on.

                              In Hebrews 1:5-14 the author combines seven scriptures on the claim that the Son is superior to angels. The quotations come from Deuteronomy, 2 Samuel, and five Psalms. His purpose is to emphasize, which is possible only if writer and readers agreed on the authoritative unity of the Old Testament.35

                              Several times in quoting passages from the Old Testament, one citation formula introduces more than one citation. Matthew 21:5 uses the rubric Now this is come to pass that what the prophet might be fulfilled. Then he quotes Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9 as if they were one scripture. Mark introduces his account of John’s ministry with a combined quotation from Malachi and Isaiah, although his citation formula mentions only Isaiah. In 2 Corinthians 6:16-18 Paul runs together verbiage from Leviticus, Exodus, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Hosea with the expression as God says. Such a practice makes evident the writer’s view that the Old Testament books are united because they were spoken by God.

                              Jesus’ threefold breakdown of the Old Testament (Luke 24:44) into law, prophets, and psalms, is most likely another way of saying Torah, Nebi’im, and Ketubim. If the Book of Psalms stands metonymically for the Hagiographa, there is strong implication for the unity of the Writings, an implication applicable to the other scriptures (24:45), from which Jesus taught concerning the fulfillment of prophecies relating to himself.

                              By the time of Christ’s ministry, the individual psalms had become a collection spoken of as a book.36 Written as they were by many authors from Moses on for nearly a thousand years,37 their unity as one book epitomizes the unity of the Old Testament.

                              In Hebrews the author uses the Old Testament in a striking way as he argues that a Sabbath rest remains for God’s people. After paraphrasing Genesis 2:2, he concludes from greater to lesser that if God, the Creator of the universe, rested from his work of creation, man, whom he created, may rest when he finishes his own work within that creation (Hebrews 5:3-10). To that major premise he adds a minor premise from Psalm 95 that Joshua, in leading the Israelites into Canaan, did not fulfill the human rest implicit in the divine rest. To that historical and revelatory enthymeme, the author supplies the conclusion that there yet remains a rest for faithful people.

                              The writing of Genesis 2:2 and Psalm 95:11 was separated by “so long time” of four hundred years. The possibility of constructing from scripture an enthymeme under such circumstances implies the divine origin and unity of all the Old Testament, because a truth claim must inhere in scripture per se. Not only so, but what the writer by the Spirit infers from the divine rest (that there is also a human rest) is itself directly asserted in Psalm 95:11, which he also quotes.38 So, there comes into view an accordance between the content of a logical inference from one passage and the direct affirmation of another: logical validity resides in the divine truth of the Old Testament.39

                              Factual allusions to the Old Testament illustrate the unity of the Jewish economy and divine intervention into the events and the record of them. That God had a hand in those events could be known only by men in contact with him. Stephen was accused before the Sanhedrin of teaching that Jesus would destroy the temple and change the customs Moses had delivered. In his defense Stephen summarized the first half of Hebrew history, choosing events that emphasized the divine origin of the Mosaic Law, as well as the origin and purpose of the temple. In lining himself up with Moses, he denied any opposition to his Law and showed that they, not he, were opposing the Law of Moses. It was not so much that Moses had given the Israelites the Law, but that God had given Moses the Law, the same Moses who prophesied the coming of “the Righteous One” when he declared that God would raise up to them from among their brethren one like himself. The Jewish people could take no pride in their heritage, because they resisted Moses and the Law God gave him for them, even as they were now resisting “the Righteous One” Moses prophesied. As a people they were “uncircumcised in heart and ears” despite “the circumcision of the flesh” that God had given their ancestor Abraham as a promise of a progeny to inherit the Holy Land and as a token of their covenant relationship with God. That relationship they and their forefathers had broken by persecuting the prophets God had sent to lead them to Christ and by refusing the Moses to whom they gave lipservice as a ruler and judge over them. What they asserted in their desire to protect his customs by persecuting Christ’s followers, they denied by disobeying his command to hearken to his “like-me.” The history of their people should have forewarned them against hastily rejecting one who came with such power as Jesus demonstrated in proof of his Messianic claim, because that history had a Messianic teleology. The history and its future significance were contained only in the Old Testament, and the records themselves were a part of the very program they recorded. As God’s hand was in the history, so was his influence in the records that preserved its purpose.40 

                              Verbal parallels of the Old Testament writings occur frequently in the New Testament. Numerous examples occur where a writer combines in one statement the expressions of two or more books. In cleansing the temple, Jesus declares, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” The first clause is a quotation from Isaiah 56:7. The second is a condemnation cast in the wording of Jeremiah 7:11: “Has this house that is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes?” It is inconceivable that Jesus did not have Jeremiah’s statement in mind when he made his own. He equated the authority of the two sources he used.

                              Peter’s sermon on Pentecost contains quotes and verbal parallels of Psalms, Isaiah, and Joel. His summary statement in Acts 2:39 draws from Isaiah and Joel: “Because the promise is to you and your children and all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God will call to him.” His words reflect Isaiah 57:19: “Peace, peace, to the one that is far off and the one that is near” and Joel 2:21: “There will be those that escape . . . among the remnant . . . that Yahveh calls.” Whether deliberate or unconscious, the wording betrays the belief that we can site the Old Testament at random because it is a contextual whole.

                  The “Magnificat,” “Benedictus,” and the “Nunc Dimittis” of Luke 1-2 are prime examples of interweaving Old Testament imagery and expression. In the scope of ten verses, Mary’s “Magnificat” draws twice from 1 Samuel and Job, once from Psalm 41, 89, 103, 107, 111; Isaiah, and Micah (Luke 1:46-55). Zacharias’ twelve verses reflect Psalm 41, 105, 106, 111, 132, Isaiah, and Malachi (Luke 1:68-70). In the brief blessing the aging Simon pronounced on the infant Jesus, he used Isaiah three times in four verses (Luke 2:29-32).

                  The Book of Revelation contains no formal quotation of an Old Testament book. As New Testament apocalypse, the book looks forward prophetically rather than backward historically. Nevertheless, it breathes the atmosphere of Old Testament prophetic writings, whose nature it shares. Westcott and Hort in their Greek New Testament use uncial letters for quotations and verbal parallels of Old Testament passages. Moulton collaborated with these textual critics in formulating the list on which the uncial passages are based. In the complete listing, given as an appendix to the Greek text, there are 1078 quotations and reminiscences of the Old Testament in the New.41 Of that total, 243 appear in Revelation. Its snatches of Old Testament verbiage follow and overlap one another with such unintentional ease that formal analysis is nearly impossible at times. In 15:3, for example, John uses wording found in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Psalm 111, Jeremiah, and Amos. In 19:6 he picks up expressions from Psalm 93, 104, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Amos. Such unstudied combinations from various points in the Old Testament are powerful proof of the unity of the thirty-nine books, because unity is assumed as a settled matter, rather than one that needs demonstration.

                  2.  Unity of the Old Testament and the New

                        a.   Harmony of the New and the Old. The possibility of believing both the Old Testament and the Messiah points up the unity of their message: “When he rose from the dead, his disciples remembered he said that; and they believed the scripture and what Jesus had said” (John 2:22). The continuity of the Law and the ministry of Christ is also implied in Paul’s sermon at Antioch of Pisidia when he declares that the rulers of Jerusalem rejected Christ because they did not “know the prophets” (Acts 13:27). Christ himself said in a debate with the Pharisees, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have life; and these are they which testify of me.”42

                        b.   New Testament message based on the Old Testament. The inspiration of the Old Testament is implied in the unity that the New Testament ascribes to it. Its inspiration follows from the New Testament writers’ claims to inspiration together with their contention that the message they preached grew out of the former revelation. Paul claims inspiration in Galatians 1:11-12:

“I make known to you, brothers, regarding the gospel that I preached to you, that it is not after man. For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.”43

In the same epistle (3:23) he bases the Christian gospel on the Mosaic Law when he declares that the Law was a “tutor” to prepare people for Christ.44 It was the literary “voice in the wilderness,” added to the original Abrahamic promise to detect, repress, and increase the awareness of sin. In that the Law served as an introduction to an inspired message, the Law itself was inspired.

                        c.  New Testament fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The whole field of prophecy-fulfillment assumes the unity of the prophecy and its New Testament fulfillment. That assumption underlies the citation of Isaiah 7:14 as a prediction of the virgin birth, of Micah 5:2 in connection with Messiah’s birthplace, of Zechariah 9:9 regarding his triumphal entry, of Zechariah 12:10 with respect to his death, and of Psalm 16:8-l1 for his resurrection. The fact that a new covenant was to replace the Law of Moses is also brought to light by the writer of Hebrews to show that the transition from the Law to the gospel was prophesied in the Law itself.45 No clearer proof of continuity between new and old could be imagined.

                              The expression must be fulfilled adds the certainty with which the prophecies of the Old Testament were to be fulfilled in the New. Referring to Isaiah 53:12, Jesus declared, “For I say to you, what is written must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was reckoned with the transgressors’: for what concerns me has fulfillment” (Luke 22:37). After his resurrection he taught the apostles, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled that are written about me in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” (Luke 24:44). An emphasis on the certainty of fulfillment is also an emphasis on the unity of Old Testament prediction and New Testament fulfillment.46

                              Peter draws attention to the inspiration of the prophets when he says that they, realizing there was a meaning in their words, were not aware of what that meaning was:

“Concerning that salvation the prophets sought diligently who prophesied the grace that would come to you, searching what time or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ that was in them pointed to when he testified beforehand about the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow them. It was revealed to them that not to themselves, but unto you, they ministered these things, which now have been announced to you through the one that preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven, things angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:10-12).

To communicate a unified message when they were not fully aware of its meaning, these men had to speak “from God, moved by the Holy Spirit.”47 The “Spirit of Christ” was in the prophecy; Christ was in the fulfillment.

                        d.   Old Testament types and New Testament antitypes. In close relation to prophecy-fulfillment is type-antitype. Their significance is the same48 although the form of presentation differs: prophecy comes in verbal forms; type comes in in objective forms. Prophecy carries an intentional meaning all its own, whereas type uses historic things, persons, rituals, even words per se to “typify” beyond their first application. Preordained representation is the essence of type. Predictive assertion is the essence of prophecy. They are one in their forward thrust and in having an originally intended meaning.49

                              Differing as they do in the form of presentation, the degree to which they were originally understood also differs. Though not always aware of the meaning of their predictions,50 the prophets were conscious that they were prophesying. But types were concealed, not only as to their ultimate design, but also as to whether they had a significance beyond their immediate representation. In Hebrews 9 the author indicates that there was typical import to the structure and contents of the tabernacle. He declares that the annual entrance of the high priest into the Holy of Holies with blood offered for himself and his people signified that the way into the holy place (heaven?) had not yet been made manifest. That signification is attributed to the Holy Spirit. So in a more subtle manner types indicate, as do prophecies, the inspiration of those who recorded them.51

                        e.  Use of the term scripture. 2 Peter 3:15-16 says,

          “Our beloved brother Paul, also according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you; as also in all his epistles, speaking of these things; wherein are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsteadfast twist, as they do also the other scriptures to their own destruction.”

The word other in connection with Paul’s claim of inspiration classifies in one category (“scripture”) the writings of the Old Testament and the epistles of Paul. The inspired character of the latter Peter applies equally to the former.52

            B.  Authority of the Old Testament

                  1.  Christ’s use of the Old Testament

                        a.   In self-defense. Unity within and between the two segments of God’s progressive revelation carried with it the implication that the Hebrew scriptures were inspired. A second argument to that same effect is the fact that Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God, used the canon of the Jews as his authority. In more than half the times when Jesus defended his actions or his teachings, he used the scriptures of the Old Testament. Sometimes he alluded to them only in the process of his defense. When questioned about his eating with publicans and sinners, Jesus replied that he had come to call these sinners to repentance, adding the quotation from Hosea 6:6a, “I desire mercy more than sacrifice” (Matthew 9:10-13). On other occasions he used the Old Testament as the basis of his argument. On the resurrection Jesus countered the Sadducees by referring to Exodus 3:6. Perhaps the best illustration of Jesus’ attitude toward the Law comes from his defense against Satan himself in the wilderness. He quoted without comment three times from Deuteronomy. In so doing he demonstrated to all who read the account of his temptation that no greater authority need be cited by any man as a bulwark against temptation. As a man even the Son of God could rely on the inspiration of the scripture in such a dark hour.

                        b.   In answer to Jewish doctrinal questions. In answering doctrinal questions about the Jewish religion, Jesus rested his case on the authority of the Law, setting a precedent for everyone in religious disputations. When asked by the Jews whether the Mosaic system permitted divorce for any cause, he answered that it was a temporary concession God made to hard-hearted men, but he added that God’s original intention was one woman for one man, and cited the creation account in verification (Matthew 19:3-12).

                  2.  Christians’ use of the Old Testament

                        a.   In self-defense. The apostle Peter, speaking before the elders of Israel, used Psalm 118:22 in his defense when arrested with John for healing the impotent man at Gate Beautiful and for preaching the resurrection of Jesus Christ to the crowd who gathered there (Acts. 3:10-11). Paul before Felix declared his belief in “all the things that are according to the Law and written in the prophets.” Before Herod Agrippa II, he said,

“Having obtained God’s help, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come: that the Christ must suffer and that he first by the resurrection would proclaim light to the people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22-23).

These men on trial for their lives sought refuge in the authority of the Old Testament.

            Especially significant was the fact that they did so by the guidance of the Holy Spirit according to one of the permanent elements in the first commission to the Twelve:

“Behold, I send you out like sheep among wolves; be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of people; they will deliver you up to councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry how or what you will say, because it will be given you in that hour what to say. For it is not you that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you. Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.”53

                        b.   As a basis for their teaching. That the Law and the gospel have a common element of inspired truth appears in basing New Testament doctrine on Old Testament teaching. Paul argues in Galatians 3 that salvation is by faith. He uses Abraham (who lived before the Law was given) as his example of a person who was not saved by meritorious works of law (3:15-22). He shows from Habakkuk 2:4 that even those who lived under the Mosaic economy were, in reality, saved by faith: “the righteous shall live by faith.” James contends for salvation by obedience on the basis of Abraham’s active response to divine command (James 2:21-23). Paul founded his instruction about Christian stewardship on the passage from Deuteronomy that an ox that treads out the grain should not be muzzled (Deuteronomy 25:4) and on the Levitical principle that the priest at the altar should live of the altar (1 Corinthians 9:8-14). The place of women in the Lord’s work is associated with the order of the creation and the fall in the Genesis record (1 Timothy 2:11-15). Only a law of divine origin is of value in presenting a message that claims divine origin.

                              Philip began with the “suffering servant” poem of Isaiah 53 and preached Christ to the Ethiopian eunuch. In the two Sabbath-day sermons Paul delivered at Antioch of Pisidia, he proclaimed the resurrection of Christ on the basis of Psalm 2:7 and 16:10, and the universal outreach of the gospel on Isaiah 44:6 (Acts 13:33-37, 46-48). The faithful Bereans are commended for their noble attitude because they examined the scriptures daily to see “whether these things were so.” Many of them therefore “believed” (Acts 17:11).

            C.  Power of predictive prophecy

                  1.  Nature of the case

                        a.  Involvements. The Holy Spirit is the agent of inspiration. Jesus promised his disciples that God would send them another Comforter (John 14:16), who would guide them into all truth (John 16:13) by quickening their memories, filling their minds (John 14:26), and telling them the things to come (John 16:13). He would declare to them the future, so as the agent of inspiration he is the agent of prophecy.

                              Predictive prophecy is not human prescience. The Old Testament prophets were not just smart men with keen insight into the implications of current trends. The things they prophesied were too minute in detail, too general in scope, too far in the future to be foreseen in current events. The apostle Peter says: “No prophecy of scripture is of personal prognostication, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man.”54

                        b.  Consequence. Any assertion crediting an Old Testament writer with the power of predictive prophecy implies the inspiration of that writer since people unaided supernaturally cannot foretell the future: “Men spoke from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20b).

                  2.  Phenomenology

                        a.   Scope of the prophecies. Zechariah prophesied the spear thrust on Calvary 550 years ahead of time.55 In the eighth century B.C. a Jew prophesied the hope of salvation for Gentiles,56 a fact that Christ’s own apostles were slow to see.57 Fourteen hundred years before the coming of Christ, Moses stood among people without a country and prophesied that from among them God would raise up his successor.58 Prophecies of such detail, scope, and far-distant fulfillment must be the product of inspired men.

                        b.  Speakers of the prophecies. The New Testament cites some thirty predictive prophecies as the words of Old Testament writers. Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Joel, and Malachi59 are cited twenty-two times by name in such quotations as Matthew’s reference to Isaiah at the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist:

                  “For this is he that was spoken of through the prophet, saying,

                        ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness,

                       “Make ready the way of the Lord;

                       Make his paths straight.”’”60

At other times the New Testament does not identify the origin, as with the first prediction fulfilled in the New Testament:

“Now all this is come to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying,

                        ‘Behold a virgin will be with child and

                        she will bring forth a son,

                        and they will call him Immanuel’” [Isaiah 7:14].

Referring to the person without exact identification adds Micah and Asaph to the men endowed with the power of predictive prophecy.61

                  What applies to the prophets also applies to what they wrote. The New Testament quotes nearly fifty predictive prophecies without mentioning authorship human or divine. Such a practice reveals first the acceptance of the passages as prophecy, and secondly the inspiration of the men who wrote them. Of special interest is Galatians 3:8, where Paul not only personifies scripture, but gives it the ability to prophesy:

“And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘All the nations will be blessed in you.’”62

Neither scripture nor the men who wrote it can foresee except by the Spirit’s power to transcend temporal limitations.

            D.  Revelation as divine origin in origin

                  1.  Nature of the case

                        a.   Distinction between inspiration and revelation. Revelation makes known what is not knowable by the person who received it. The writer need not understand the meaning of the message, because he has still been made aware of the facts themselves (cp. 1 Peter 1:10-12). Revelation makes known; inspiration (“God-breathedness”) emphasizes the source of revelation.63 Even as revelation means the act of making known as well as to the fact made known, so also inspiration emphasizes both the divine source of the message and the state of the person who received it. Revealed speaks of the message only; inspired (as an English term) speaks of both the message and the person. The prophet’s state of inspiration enables him to communicate to others without error or omission the facts he has received in revelation. So, though revelation and inspiration apply to much common ground, inspiration applies to communicating the message to the ones the agent of inspiration wants to deliver it.

                        b.   The argument. Any passage said to be God’s words expresses revelation and implies inspiration since a revelation given to one man and intended for others does not fulfill its purpose if it is improperly communicated.

                  2.  Examples

                        a.  Where the original passage was not God’s words. Jesus answered the question about divorce by citing the creation account:

“Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’” [Matthew 19:4-5]?

The passage is Genesis 2:24-25. The last speaker is Adam in 2:23, and the next two verses come without any indication of who is speaking.64 A reader might well suppose these verses were words that Moses injected at that point. However, Jesus ascribes them to God as an answer to Adam’s previous statement: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she will be called woman because she was taken out of man.”

                        b.   Where the original passage was God’s words. Peter, rising to defend the charismatic phenomena on Pentecost, quoted Joel 2:28-32 as prophetic of that occasion. In the declaration of Acts 2:17, “‘It will come to pass in the last days,’ says God,” Joel’s prophecy does on include “says God.” Although the speaker in Joel is expressly Yahveh (2:19), Peter, speaking under the power prophesied by Joel, ascribes to God the words he quotes from “Joel’s” prophecy.65, 66

III. Direct Assertion 

            Direct assertion means that no inferences from the New Testament statements are needed to reach the claim in this essay. The claim itself is stated: the Old Testament is the message of the Holy Spirit written; it is inspired.

            A.  Specific scriptures attributing the Old Testament to the Holy Spirit

                  1.  Inspiration and the Holy Spirit

                        a.  The evidence. Inspiration is the supernatural influence present in the authoritative communication of a divine message and active in direct assertions, judicious selections, and accurate narrations.67 We have already shown that the Holy Spirit is the agent of inspiration.68

                        b.  The argument. Directly ascribing an Old Testament passage to the Holy Spirit, with or without mentioning the human writer, states that writer’s inspiration.69

                  2.  Passages in point

                        a.   Mentioning the human writer. As Peter addressed the assembly of apostles

                              about appointing someone to replace Judas Iscariot, he said:

                        “Brothers, it was needful that the scripture should be fulfilled which the Holy

                        Spirit spoke before by David concerning Judas:

                        ‘Let his habitation be made desolate,

                        And let no man dwell therein’;

                  and

                        ‘Let someone else take his office.’”70

The Holy Spirit was the agent; David was the instrument.71

                        b.  Without mentioning the writer. The writer of Hebrews goes beyond the practice elsewhere in not even specifying the human author:

                  “Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit says,

                        ‘Today if you hear his voice,

                        Do not harden your hearts as in the provocation,

                        As in the day of the trial in the wilderness;

                        As I swore in my wrath,

                              “They will not enter into my rest.”’”72

This scripture is from a psalm that has no indication of authorship in its heading. The writer sees fit to document his citation as the words of the Holy Spirit.

            B.  Scriptures attributing the Old Testament to the Holy Spirit

                  1.   Examples with reference to persons

                        a.   2 Peter 1:16-21. In an appeal for his readers to remember the faith they possessed and to be established in the truth of its message, Peter relied on the message of the prophets made sure by the experience of himself and others. They had not followed fables in presenting the power and presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter cited the certainty of his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration and the inspiration of those who had foretold the sufferings and glory of Christ. These ancient seers did not devise cunning fables, because prophecy in the scriptural sense did not come because clever men decided to try to prophesy.  They were “moved by the Holy Spirit” to prophesy, and their prophecies were fulfilled in the presence of men like Peter. They who had hearkened to the prophets had now heard the voice of God himself: “This is my beloved Son.”73

                        b.  1 Peter 1:10-12. That the message of the prophets was not their own invention is evident in their ignorance of its import, in their desire to understand its meaning, and in their attempt to know the time and kind of time when it would be fulfilled. The Spirit of Christ testified beforehand to the sufferings of Christ, and announced afterward their significance through the messengers of the gospel. Both those who prophesied and those who preached were guided by the same Spirit sent forth from heaven.

                  2.  Examples referring to the written documents

                        a.  2 Timothy 3:16-17. At the outset of this essay, we gave reasons for identifying the first-century canon with the Old Testament we have today.74 The argument also said that the New Testament witnesses to a definite literary unit called the scripture.75 The exact books in that canon show up in New Testament quotations, factual allusions, and verbal reminiscences from Old Testament writings—except for three books that New Testament writers found no occasion to cite: Ruth, Ezra, Lamentations.76 But even these three are approved, being commonly attached to books that are cited.

                              On the background of that evidence, the importance of Paul’s statement to Timothy becomes evident: 

“Every scripture, inspired of God, is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, instruction which is in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished for every good work.”77 

The King James Version translated the first part of this quotation, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The different placement of is comes from its having to be supplied since it is omitted in the Greek. The King James Version, by placing is immediately after scripture, makes the inspiration of the Law a direct affirmation. The arrangement of the American Standard is perhaps more powerful, because it states the fact as a presupposition already settled without a need for emphatic assertion.

            The two versions also differ in saying “all scripture” and “every scripture.” Though pasa is singular and usually translated “every,” “all” may be justified with proper nouns as seen in the expression all Judaea in Matthew 3:5; scripture may be considered a proper noun. Every scripture particularizes what all scripture generalizes; but whether general or particular, the sense is the same: the Old Testament is inspired.

            “Inspired of God” (ASV) and “given by inspiration of God” (KJV) are loose translations of a passive verbal whose exact meaning is “God-breathed.” Inspired, a word of Latin derivation, is not strictly accurate, because it implies the wrong word picture. The figure is not that God breathed into the already-existent writings of the Old Testament. God “breathed” the writings themselves; he exhaled them, so to speak. He did not adopt what was human in origin. He gave to men what was from himself: the Old Testament is God-breathed.

                        b.  John 10:34-36. Standing in front of a mob ready to stone him for blasphemy, the Son of God made his defense from Psalm 82:6:

“Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, “You are Gods”’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and the scripture cannot be broken), do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”

The expression and the scripture cannot be broken is the basic element in what Jesus said. It is the authoritative fact from which he concludes that his enemies err in trying to stone him because of the term he used for himself.

                        Reasoning from the general to the particular, Jesus makes a statement of threefold importance. “The scripture” is an identifiable, organic whole that has the attribute “not able to be broken.” Secondly, scripture is a literary term as made obvious by its fundamental meaning (“writing”), and by being distinguished from the expression word of God preceding the parenthetical note. Thirdly, the scripture cannot be broken declares the character of the whole Jewish canon, because Jesus argues from general to particular: the authority of the whole that Psalm 82:6 pronounces includes this authoritative particular. We could expect no stronger proof for the inspiration of the Old Testament than this verdict of God’s own Son: “the scripture cannot be broken.”78

Summary and Conclusion

  I. Summary

            A.  Silence

                  The silence of the New Testament on such an important matter as the Jewish canon is presumptive evidence that their canon was correct in the estimation of Christ.

            B.  Implication

                  The inspiration of the Old Testament is implied in the New Testament’s usage of it as a literary unit, authoritative whole, and prophetic document.

            C.  Assertion

                  In addition to the presumptive argument from silence and the implication of unity, authority, and prophecy, the case for the inspiration of the Old Testament is sealed by direct assertions in the New Testament.

 II. Conclusion

            A.  Certainty of the case

                  The New Testament evidence for the inspiration of the Old Testament is quite conclusive. The difficulty is not finding proof for the proposition but systematizing the amount of material into a coherent presentation. The abundance, rather than the scarcity, of evidence is the problem that the topic presents.

            B.  Areas for further study

                  1.  Insufficiency of quotation to prove inspiration

                        Attempts have tried to weaken the force of the evidence and confuse the points of proof that appear above. Of importance in this respect is the fact that quotations, allusions, and reminiscences of the Old Testament do not in themselves prove inspiration. In response, we stress the manner in which these quotations are made, which shows the reason they are cited.

                  2.  Insignificance of the silence of Jesus

                        Some have claimed that the scope of Christ’s work would not have included a pronouncement of confirmation or rejection on the official list of writings the scribes used in the synagogues. That claim misunderstands the canon and the purpose of Jesus’ ministry. God himself determined the canon, not the scribes in the synagogues. Evidence of that basis for the canon can be presented, and the need for Christ’s pronouncement on the Jewish canon can be demonstrated.

                  3.  Accommodation

                        Others have charged that Jesus accommodated himself to the current viewpoint, so that his statements may not express his personal attitude toward the Old Testament. Whereas it is true in a sense that he accommodated himself to the circumstances of incarnation, a study of biblical accommodation makes plain that he did not accommodate himself to the ignorance and errors of the day. The ethical implications of his so doing can be shown from his own teachings to be a denial of his Messiahship.

                  4.  Kenosis

                        The doctrine of kenosis also bears on Christ’s testimony to the canon. By over-emphasizing his “emptying” in becoming incarnate, some have tried to deprive him of his deity. If the Son of God lay by his glory to the extent that his testimony on the canon is inconclusive, then his testimony on salvation would also be inconclusive. A study of the scriptural idea in kenosis can offset that whole argument against Christ’s witness to the inspiration of the Old Testament.

                  5.  Extent of inspiration

                        Not only does the New Testament witness to the inspiration of the Old Testament, but it also witnesses the extent of that inspiration. The Christian scriptures view the Jewish scriptures as verbally inspired.

Endnotes

            1In his trial before the Sanhedrin, Stephen cites Amos 5:25-27 under the rubric as it is written in the book of the prophets.

            2John 10:34 (Psalm 82:6); 12:34; 15:25 (Psalm 35:19; 69:4); 1 Corinthians 14:21 (Isaiah 28:11-12); Galatians 3:11 (Habakkuk 2:4).

            32 Timothy 3:15 (ἱερὰ γράμματα [hiera grammatica]).

            4Romans 1:2 (γραφαὶ ἅγιαι [graphai hagiai]).

            5The Pentateuch comprised the first part; the rest of the books made up the second. The expression occurs in the following passages: Luke 16:29, 31; 24:27; Acts 26:22; 28:23. Moses and the prophets occurs only in Luke’s writings.

            6Matthew 5:17; 7:12; 11:13; 22:40; Luke 16:16; Acts 13:15 (?); 24:14; Romans 3:21.

            7Note also that Christ’s expression in Luke 24:44: the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms stands as a metonymy for the whole, and occurs instead of the usual term the writings because it was the most important member, especially since Jesus’ purpose in this resurrection appearance was to teach the disciples all the things he fulfilled about himself.

            8See William Henry Green, General Introduction to the Old Testament. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), p. 208.

            9Ibid., p. 123.

            10Ibid.

            11Ibid., pp. 123-124.

            12R. C. Foster’s booklet The Battle of the Versions. (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Christian University), p. 32.

            13Ibid., p. 33.

            14Josephus, Contra Apionem 1:8; trans. William Whiston. The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus. (Philadelphia: John E. Potter and Company).

            15William Henry Green. op. cit., p. 126.

            16Ibid., p. 127.

            17John 2:22; 7:38, 42; 10:35; 17:12; 19:28; Acts 1:16; 8:32; Romans 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; Galatians 3:8, 22; 4:30; 2 Timothy 3:16; James 2:8; 4:5; 1 Peter 2:6; 2 Peter 1:20.

            18Acts 17:2. See also Matthew 21:42; 22:29; 26:54; Mark 14:49; Luke 24:27, 32, 45; John 5:39; Acts 17:11; 18:24, 28; Romans 1:2; 15:4; 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4.

            19All the usages of scripture, singular and plural, are accompanied by the article except four: John 19:37; 2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 2:6; 2 Peter 1:20.

            201 Corinthians 14:21. The other examples are John 10:34; 12:34; 15:25.

            21Luke 16:16. The Law and the prophets also occurs in Matthew 5:17; 7:12; 11:13; 22:40; John 1:45; Acts 14:14; 28:23; Romans 3:21.

            222 Chronicles 24:20-22. An obvious corruption of the text occurs in Matthew’s account at this point since Zechariah “son of Berechiah” would indicate one of the minor prophets (Zechariah 1:1), whose manner of death we do not know. Luke’s parallel account (11:50) omits son of Berechiah. The text of Matthew in Codex Sinaiticus firsthand omits the phrase, as do some ancient evangelisteria and Eusebius (twice). Originally, Matthew probably read “from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zechariah, whom you slew between the sanctuary and the altar.”

            23It is beside the point that the books of scripture may have stood separately, rather than together in a continuous scroll, because literary arrangement comes from a foregone conclusion. Of more importance is the consideration that Jesus could have purposely chosen the martyrdom of Zechariah because it illustrated so well the godlessness of men that would murder a prophet of God in the precincts of God’s temple of God; Jesus was standing in the temple when he spoke. He had just mentioned the temple and the altar in this denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees (vv. 16-21). The Pharisees had tried to stone Jesus himself in the temple area (John 8:59; 10:31). Nonetheless, the possible implications of his statement “from . . . Abel unto . . . Zechariah” are worthy of note.

            24George L. Robinson, “Canon of the Old Testament,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1939) I, 561.

            25Donald Guthrie, Hebrews to Revelation (Vol. III of New Testament Introduction. 3 vols.; London: The Tyndale Press, 1966), p. 239.

            26Ibid., p. 238.

            27For a brief discussion of views concerning Jude and apocryphal writings, see Henry Alford’s The Greek New Testament (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1859), IV, 194-98.

            28Cp. John 4:21, 23-24; Matthew 26:61 (John 2:19-21); Matthew 27:40; and Acts 6:14.

            29Examples are healing on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:9-14; Mark. 2:1-12; Luke 6:6-11; 13:10-17; 14:1-6; John 5:1-16; 7:19-24); eating with publicans and sinners (Matthew 9:10-13; Mark 2:15-17); “harvesting” on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5); eating with unwashed hands (Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-23; Luke 11:37-41).

            30Examples are cleansing the temple (Matthew 21:23-32; Mark 11:27-33; Luke 20:1-8; John 2:13-22) and letting people praise him after the triumphal entry (Luke 19:37-40).

            31“Obvious quotations” means passages that, by formula or other means, introduce Old Testament passages recognizably as quotations even by someone not familiar with the language of the Law. “Factual allusion” refers to events, persons, or things without using the wording of the original. “Verbal reminiscences” are expressions in the Old Testament.

            32See 1 Peter 2:5-6. Scripture here is anarthrous, directing attention to its nature, rather than to its phenomenology.

            33Γέγραπται [gegraptai] occurs in Matthew 4:4, 6, 7, 10; 11:10; 21:13; 26:24, 31; Mark 1:2; 7:6; 9:12, 13; 11:17; 14:21, 27; Luke 2:23; 3:4; 4:4, 8, 10, 17; 7:27; 10:26; 19:46; 20:17; 24:46; John 8:17; Acts 1:20; 7:42; 13:33; 15:15; and 23:5. See also the next endnote.

            34Luke 22:37; John 2:17; 6:31, 45; 8:17; 10:34; 12:14, 16; 15:25; Acts 13:29; 24:14; 1 Corinthians 15:54; 2 Corinthians 3:7; 4:13; and Galatians 3:10. Compare λέγω in Acts 13:34, 40.

            35The passages are Psalm 2:7; Deuteronomy 32:43 (LXX; cf. Psalm 97:7); Psalm 104:4; 45:6-7; 102:25-27; and 110:1. Note also Hebrews 2:12-13.

            36Cp. Luke 20:42 and Acts 1:20.

            37The Book of Psalms contains contributions from David (Psalm 1), the sons of Korah (Psalm 44), Asaph (Psalm 50), Solomon (Psalm 72), Heman (Psalm 88), Etham (Psalm 89), Moses (Psalm 90), and others not named. They were written during the nine centuries in which these authors lived. Their time for composition nearly equals that of the whole Old Testament.

            38A rest for God’s people is not only an inference from God’s resting; Psalm 95:11 asserts that there is a Sabbath rest for God’s people. The Hebrew writer connects the two facts already revealed, showing that the first implies the second. Although the human rest is directly promised in Psalm 115:11, Hebrews 4:10 shows that the writer also draws that fact independently from the divine rest itself. It is the writer’s attitude toward the Old Testament that is at point here rather than whether the Old Testament also directly affirms in another place what was inferred from Genesis 2:2.

            39Note that Psalm 95 as a Davidic Psalm is not known apart from Hebrews 4:7; so, the four hundred years is a loose number for the time between the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and the Davidic authorship of Psalm 95.

            40In Antioch of Pisidia also, Paul shows the Messianic thrust of Jewish history.

            41Brooke Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), pp. 601-18.

            42John 5:39; note also Acts 24:14.

            43Galatians 1:11-12. For other claims and accounts of inspiration, see Acts 2:4; 7:29; 1 Corinthians 7:40; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; Revelation 22:17-20; 1 Peter 1:12. To these we may add the indirect claims by the apostles who wrote Gospels (Matthew, Luke, and John) and recorded the promises to apostles (which included themselves): Matthew 10:20; (Luke 24:48); John 14:26; 16:7-15; Acts 1:4-8.

            44See Romans 10:4; Acts 22:14-15; and Paul’s statement before Herod Agrippa II in Acts 26:22-23.

            45Jeremiah 31:31-35, cited in Hebrews 8:8-12.

            46Take care not to understand the phrase must be fulfilled as indicating some kind or degree of determinism. That determinism is not the point is evident in Matthew 26:53-54, where Jesus forgoes using his power to deliver himself from enemies who were about to kill him: “Or do you think that I cannot ask my Father, and he will even now send me more than twelve legions of angels? How then would the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” Other passages where must emphasizes the certainty of fulfillment are Matthew 17:10 (= Mark 9:11); Acts 1:16; 17:3.

            472 Peter 1:21. 1 Peter 1:10-12 also asserts inspiration since the Holy Spirit provides the message. However, it affords a line of implied evidence because the prophets themselves did not know the fulfillment of their own prophecies.

            48That no difference exists between type and prophecy is evident from the use of the formula in order that the scripture might be fulfilled for both forms of prediction.

            49The meaning of a type is intended by the writer, not added later by the interpreter.

            50See endnote 47 and the discussion it is attached to.

            51Other examples of types abound, including such “verbal” types as perhaps Matthew 2:15, “Out of Egypt have I called my son” (Hosea 11:1); Matthew 2:17, “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted, because they were not” (Jeremiah 31:15); Matthew 2:23, “he should be called a ‘Nazarene’” (Isaiah 11:1 in the Hebrew); Hebrews 1:5, “I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?” (2 Samuel 7:14). The Hosea reference has a different connection with Matthew’s point since Jesus was Messiah for, and part of, “Israel,” which Hosea calls a son at Israel’s exodus. Jesus returned to Palestine to fulfill his role among his people rather than grow up in Egypt and carry on his role there. 2 Samuel 7:14 does not make Solomon a type of Christ. “Seed” is an inclusive term for David’s whole lineage. Solomon as one part of the seed built the temple, but Jesus as the later Son was the seed the Hebrews is talking about.

            52Cp. 1 Timothy 5:18, where Paul combines under the term scripture a passage from Deuteronomy 25:4 and a proverb of Christ in Matthew 10:10 and Luke 10:7, which existed in these written accounts by the time Paul authored 1 Timothy.

            53Matthew 10:16-21. That this element was a permanent one is evident in 10:22: “he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved.” Note also that in Peter’s defense before the Sanhedrin, Luke records, “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them . . .” With reference to Paul the same thing is said in Acts 13:9.

            542 Peter 1:20, 21a. The American Standard and King James Versions read at this point: “no prophecy of scripture is of (any) ‘private interpretation . . .’” The marginal reading is “special” interpretation. Peter is not saying that people have no right to read the Bible for themselves, because (1) he is talking about the origination of a prophecy [(1) cp. 1:21, (2) ἰδίας ἐπιλύσεως” [idias epilyseōs] = genitive of source, (3) γίνεται [ginetai] ≠ ἔστιν [estin], not the attempt to understand one already in existence. That Peter is talking about the origination of prophecy is clear from the word came in the next verse: “for no prophecy ever came. . . .” (2) The word for indicates the reason that it is not of “private interpretation”: it did not originate by human will; hence, not of private interpretation equals not by human will, and both expressions refer to the origin of prophecy. (3) What is “interpreted” is not the prophecy in scripture, but the trends of history, whose uncertain implications are the only source that people unaided supernaturally can use to predict the future. People’s vague guesswork Peter denies is the nature of “prophecies of scripture,” that is, “prophecies in the scripture,” or “scriptural prophecies.” People cannot predictively prophesy in the “scriptural” sense by just deciding to (“came by will of man”); they have no way to know what the future holds. They can only do the next closest thing: prognosticate, the other kind of prediction.

            55Zechariah 12:10, quoted in John 19:37.

            56Isaiah 42:1-4 (Matthew 12:18-21); 49:6 (Acts 13:47).

            57Acts 10:9-23, 34-35; 11:1-18; 15:1-6, 7-11.

            58Deuteronomy 18:15, 18 (Acts 3:22; 7:37; John 1:21, 25).

            59Not listing Zechariah here as one named in citations of his words supposes that the text of Matthew 27:9 possesses integrity. That passage names Jeremiah as the author of Zechariah 11:12-13. On details see F. C. Cook’s treatment in The Bible Commentary of Matthew 27:9, New Testament Vol. I, pp. 189-90.

            60Matthew 3:3; the other personal references to Isaiah are Matthew 3:3 (40:4); 4:15-16 (9:1-2); 12:18-21 (42:1-4); 13:14 (6:9-10); Luke 3:4-6 (40:3-5); John 1:23 (40:3); 12:38 (53:1); Acts 9:27 (10:22-23); 10:20 (65:1); and 15:12 (11:10). So Isaiah is cited personally only in the historical section of the New Testament. Jeremiah is named this way in Matthew 2:18 (< 31:15).

            61The other passages that do not specify the person prophesying are Matthew 2:5-6 (Micah 5:2), 2:23 (Isaiah 11:1 in the Hebrew?); 13:35 (Psalm 78:2); 21:5 (Isaiah 62:11 + Zechariah 9:9); 24:15 (Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11); Acts 7:49-50 (Isaiah 66:1-2); Hebrews 2:6-8 (Psalm 8:4-6); and 7:17 (Psalm 110:4).

            62Paul quotes Genesis 12:3. A similar passage is Romans 9:17 (Exodus 9:16). The other predictive prophecies with no mention of personal authorship are these: Matthew 11:10 (Malachi 3:1); 21:42 (Psalm 118:22-23); 26:31 (Zechariah 13:7); Mark 12:10-11 (Psalm 118:22-23); Luke 4:18-19 (Isaiah 56:1-2); 7:27 (Malachi 3:1); 20:17 (Psalm 118:22); 22:37 (Isaiah 53:12); 6:45 (Isaiah 54:13); John 7:42 (2 Samuel 7:12ff., Micah 5:2); 10:34 (Psalm 82:6); 12:15 (Zechariah 9:9); 13:18 (Psalm 41:9); 15:25 (Psalm 35:19; 69:4); 17:12 (Psalm 41:9); 19:24 (Psalm 22:18); 19:28 (Psalm 69:21); 19:36 (Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12; Psalm 34:20); 19:37 (Zechariah 12:10); Acts 1:20 (Psalm 69:25 + 109:8); 4:11 (Psalm 118:22); 7:42-43 (Amos 5:25-27); 8:32-33 (Isaiah 53:7-8); 13:33 (Psalm 2:7); 13:41 (Habakkuk 1:5); 13:16-18 (Amos 9:11-12); Romans 4:17 (Genesis 17:5); 9:33 (Isaiah 28:16); 10:5-6 (Deuteronomy 30:12-14); 10:11 (Isaiah 28:16); 10:13 (Joel 2:32); 10:18 (Psalm 29:4); 11:26-27 (Isaiah 59:20-21); 14:11 (Isaiah 45:23); 15:3 (Psalm 59:9); 15:9 (Psalm 18:49); 15:21 (Isaiah 52:15); 1 Corinthians 4:9 (Isaiah 64:4 + 65:17); 14:21 (Isaiah 28:11-12); Galatians 4:27 (Isaiah 54:1); Hebrews 7:17 (Psalm 110:4); and James 4:6 (Proverbs 3:34).

            63Cp. 2 Timothy 3:16, where the adjective inspired-of-God is literally God-breathed.

            64Adam is not the speaker here since the words are in the form of an injunction.

            65For those passages which credit God with the words of the Old Testament (whether given there as His words or not), see the following:

                  (a)     Lord commanded: Acts 13:47.

                  (b)    Commandment(s) of God/Lord: Matthew 15:3; Mark 7:8, 9; 1 Corinthians

                           7:19; Romans 16:26.

                  (c)     God/Lord said: 2 Corinthians 4:6; Matthew 15:4, 7-9; 22:31, 32; Mark 12:26; Luke 11:49; 20:37; Acts 2:17 (“says” is not in Joel); 7:32; 1 Corinthians 6:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16.

                  (d)    Oracles of God: Acts 7:38; Romans 3:2; Hebrews 5:12; 1 Peter 4:11.

                  (e)     God-breathed: 2 Timothy 3:16.

                  (f)     Word(s) of God: Matthew 15:6; Mark 7:13; Matthew 19:4, 5.

            66A confirmatory observation concerning the divine origin of the Old Testament comes from the use of the word through in citing the prophets’ words. The implication is that the ultimate origin of the message lay beyond the prophet through whom it was given. There are instances where through occurs with God himself (Hebrews 2:10). Although this word is sometimes used of the author of the action, it is most naturally used of the instrument of the action. Matthew 1:22, “Now all this is come to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet,” specifies the author and then says “through” of the instrument.

            67See “Revelation and Inspiration: Summary Outline” by George Mark Elliott (unpublished class notes, Cincinnati Christian University, Cincinnati), p. 91.

            68See page 13:12.

            69A line of demarcation is difficult to draw between direct assertion and logical implication. Passages attributed to God we listed last under logical implication. They dealt with revelation. Since the Holy Spirit is the agent of inspiration, texts that attribute Old Testament passages to him we list here; the ones that quote with rubrics like God said and the Lord commanded we placed under revelation. The distinction between revelation and inspiration is more theoretical than real, because revelation implies inspiration since revelation must be preserved without loss or error in order to serve its purpose. Likewise, inspiration includes revelation.

            70Acts 1:16-20 (Psalm 69:25 + 109:8).

            71Other such passages are Matthew 22:43-44 and Mark 12:36 (Psalm 110:1); Acts 4:25-26 (Psalm 2:1-2); 28:25-27 (Isaiah 6:9-10) as well as the general reference 1 Peter 1:10-12.

            72Hebrews 3:7-11 (Psalm 95:7-11). See also 10:15-17 (Jeremiah 31:33a, 34b) as well as the general reference in 9:8.

            73For further discussion on the interpretation of 2 Peter 1:16-21, see endnote 54 and the text to which it is attached.

            74See pp. 1-5.

            75See pp. 5-6.

            76See William Henry Green, op. cit., p. 143, and Westcott and Hort, op. cit., pp. 601-618. Only Ruth, Ezra, and Lamentations are definitely not cited. But Ruth being attached to Judges is approved along with Lamentations, which went with Jeremiah, and Ezra, which accompanied Nehemiah.

            77The quotation as given here follows the American Standard Version with the exception of the first two commas and the omission of also after is. The commas are inserted after the current practice of punctuating non-restrictive elements; the also is omitted because it is not represented in the Greek. That this participial phrase is non-restrictive is obvious first from the form of Paul’s argument: the profitableness for the purposes he specifies comes as a consequence of inspiration. Secondly, scripture is equated with the sacred writings of verse 15. Being equated with the sacred writings, “every scripture” must equal the canon of the Jews, whose limits, as determined at the beginning of this study, are the same as the thirty-nine books of the modern Old Testament. Furthermore, Paul would not be helping matters much if he did not proceed to specify which scriptures he had in mind. Scripture is a quasi-technical term used for the canon of the Jews. To say “Every scripture that is inspired . . .” is to say that some of the Old Testament is not inspired. Had Paul said that, he would have destroyed the purpose of his own teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.

            The only way this element could be considered restrictive is to translate γραφή as “writing”: “Every writing that is inspired-of-God is profitable (others are not).” But the constant use of the word as a name for the Old Testament makes it unlikely that Paul would have used it here in such a general way.

            78See the treatment given by Abraham Kuyper in Principles of Sacred Theology, trans. J. Hendrik De Vries (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1965), p. 432.

______________

                  *Adapted from Dr. Warren’s Th.B. paper (Cincinnati Christian University), 1968.

                                                                                                                                  christir.org