Religion in Daily Life (c) By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min. Rector, All Saints' Church 9601 Frankford Ave. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19114 (215) 637-5225 Written 10 August 2001 http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

"Larry King, CNN talk-show host, was asked, "Did you ever sit down and read the Bible cover to cover?" Larry replied, "The answer's no, because I don't know who wrote it" (Bob Jones, "It's Good to Be King," World, July 28, 2001). Regarding who wrote the Bible, people think differently about its origin.

One way to think about the Bible's origin is to say God wrote it. Marcus Borg wrote, "[Some] sees it as a divine product . . . They say that the divine origin of the Bible is the basis of its authority." Father Eugene Maly calls this "the so-called 'divine dictation' theory." Father Maly elaborates, "According to this theory, God alone is responsible for the contents of the Bible. The human authors were merely recording machines, or robots, who wrote down what God . . . dictated to them" (Good News Bible: Catholic Study Edition, xii). Rabbi David Wolpe faced the question: "Did God write the Bible?" He answered in part, "The Bible [The Torah] as a whole makes no claim for divine authorship." Although some Christians quote such passages as 2 Timothy 3:16 ("All scripture is inspired by God"), retired Episcopal seminary professor Dan Stevick reminds us, "'The Bible' itself (Old Testament or New) did not exist as a single literary unit" until generations after the writing was done.

Another way of thinking about the Bible's origin sees it "as the human product of two ancient communities. The Old Testament is the product of ancient Israel, and the New Testament is the product of the early Christian movement. As the product of these two communities, the Bible tells us about how they saw things-how they thought about God and told their stories" (Borg). In the Encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus, Pope Benedict XV wrote, "The individual authors of these Books worked in full freedom under the divine inspiration, each of them in accordance with his individual nature and character." Rabbi Wolpe said, "Over the past several hundred years, the convergence of a mountain of evidence points to the human component of the Bible."

Behind today's controversies about the Genesis creation stories or the social laws in Leviticus are these two ways of thinking about the Bible's origin. As an Anglican (Episcopalian), I see the Incarnation of God in Christ as the model of how God works. The divine and the human were present in Jesus of Nazareth. Both God's friendship (grace) and the reality of natural elements are present in the sacraments. Likewise, the divine and the human are present in the Bible through which God speaks to us today.

I e-mailed this to you last summer, but it was just published in the local newspaper (The Northeast Times). Because of some correspondence I've had with a reader recently, I think that the subject is one worth considering again. EC