A Protestant Bible Bind

Protestants often criticize Catholics for relying on Sacred Tradition for certain beliefs, like Mary’s bodily assumption. But Protestants rely on Sacred Tradition for some of their beliefs as well, even though they do so unknowingly.

Take, for example, the belief that there is to be no new public revelation after the death of the last apostle until the second coming of Christ. This cannot be accounted for by Scripture alone. Only Sacred Tradition can account for such a belief.

There’s another belief that Protestants hold dear that cannot be accounted for by Scripture: verbal inspiration. Verbal inspiration is the belief that every word recorded in Scripture—both the Old and New Testaments—is inspired by God (“God-breathed”), which means each word in Scripture is supernaturally a proper effect of both God and the human author.

Contrasted with verbal inspiration is what we might call generalinspiration (also known as dynamic theory)—the belief that Scripture is inspired merely in what the authors assert to be true. Scripture does seem able to account for this belief. Recall that Jesus tells his apostles that the Holy Spirit will teach them “all things” and bring to their remembrance all that he taught them (John 14:26).

I argue that verbal inspiration doesn’t fare as well. Why is this important? If verbal inspiration of the books in the New Testament is a belief that can’t be accounted for by Scripture alone, then a Protestant has two options: either say this belief is not binding on Christians, since Protestants believe that Scripture alone is the infallible rule of faith, or affirm the binding nature of Sacred Tradition. Neither of these is desirable for a Protestant.

So is verbal inspiration a belief that can be accounted for by Scripture alone?

Perhaps the most promising text that Protestants appeal to is 1 Corinthians 2:13. There, Paul writes, “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words” (NIV). It would seem that Paul is teaching that the very words he and the apostles use to convey spiritual truths are from the Holy Spirit, and thus inspired (God-breathed). And if that’s the case, then “verbal inspiration” would be a belief that can be accounted for by Scripture alone.

However, it’s commonly recognized that the second part of this passage can be rendered differently. The above translation is taken from the New International Version. But consider how the New Revised Standard Version renders it: “And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.” A commentarial note in the New International Version even acknowledges this as a possible translation.

With this translation, it’s not so clear that the things taught by the Spirit are the words. Rather, that which is taught by the Spirit could well be the understanding of “what God has freely given” them—the spiritual truths taught to those who possess the Spirit and thus are spiritual.

So I think this appeal to 1 Corinthians 2:13 is interesting to consider but a bit of a stalemate concerning whether it accounts for the verbal inspiration of the New Testament writers.

Even if we grant for argument’s sake that 1 Corinthians 2:13 is speaking of the words taught by the Spirit, it could account for the verbal inspiration only of the words of an apostle. Notice that Paul says “we have received,” and “we impart this in words.” Who’s the “we”?

Our Protestant friends can’t say “every Christian,” as that would make the words of every Christian inspired. So they must admit that Paul is referring to the apostles. Therefore, the words of an apostle would be inspired.

This reasonably could apply to those epistles that Paul didn’t write with his own hand but dictated to someone like Silvanus or Timothy, since the words recorded would have been the words of Paul (see 1 Thess. 1:1, 2 Thess. 1:1). A problem, however, arises for the Gospel of Mark, along with Hebrews and potentially James, 2 Peter, and 2 John.

Early Christian testimony affirms that the content of Mark’s Gospel is from Peter. But it never speaks of this relation in a way that Peter dictates to Mark what to write, such that the words in Mark’s Gospel would be Peter’s. Consider, for example, Papias of Hierapolis’s description of how someone named “the presbyter”—a first-century eyewitness—explained it, recorded by Eusebius:

“This also the presbyter said: Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he remembered of the things said or done by Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but afterward, as I said, he followed Peter, who adapted his teaching to the needs of his hearers, but with no intention of giving a connected account of the Lord’s discourses, so that Mark committed no error while he thus wrote some things as he remembered them. For he was careful of one thing, not to omit any of the things which he had heard, and not to state any of them falsely.” These things are related by Papias concerning Mark (Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.15, emphasis added).

This testimony of Papias (A.D. 60-130) comes from a fragment from his five-volume work called Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord. Notice that it speaks only of Mark remembering what Peter preached concerning Jesus’ life and ministry and then putting it into words.

Irenaeus of Lyon re-affirms this testimony given by Papias. In his work Against Heresies, Irenaeus writes,

Matthew composed his Gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, whereas Peter and Paul proclaimed the gospel in Rome and founded the community. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, handed on his preaching to us in written form (3:1, emphasis added).

Notice that Irenaeus doesn’t say Mark took Peter’s words by dictation. He handed on Peter’s preaching, which implies that the words we find in Mark’s Gospel are his, not Peter’s.

Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150-215) is another witness to this tradition. In his Hypotyposeis (“Outlines”), a part of which is recorded by Eusebius, he writes,

And so great a joy of light shone upon the minds of the hearers of Peter that they were not satisfied with merely a single hearing or with the unwritten teaching of the divine gospel, but with all sorts of entreaties they besought Mark, who was a follower of Peter and whose Gospel is extant, to leave behind with them in writing a record of the teaching passed on to them orally; and they did not cease until they had prevailed upon the man and so became responsible for the Scripture for reading in the churches (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.15).

Notice that Peter’s teaching was passed down orally.

Now, as is the case with all the Gospels in relation to Jesus’ words, it’s unreasonable to expect that Mark would have been relaying the very words (ipsissima verba in Latin) of Peter. Rather, he would be expected to relay only the ipsissima vox (“the very voice”)—the substance of Peter’s preaching.

Given the likelihood that Mark’s words were not Peter’s very words, a Protestant can’t infer from 1 Corinthians 2:13 that Mark’s words would have been inspired, even if they did relay in some sense the preaching and teaching of Peter. So the belief that Mark’s words were inspired cannot be accounted for by Scripture alone. We’re going to need Sacred Tradition for that.

There are other books in the New Testament the verbal inspiration of which cannot be accounted for by Scripture alone. The Letter to the Hebrews is one such book. Scholars generally agree that we don’t know who authored it. Given that we don’t know if an apostle authored it, Scripture can’t even account for its inspiration in general, much less its verbal inspiration.

Similarly, there is legitimate debate as to whether the epistles of James, 2 Peter, and 2 John were written by the apostles with those names. James is often said to be neither James the Son of Alpheus nor James the Son of Zebedee (cf. Matt. 10:2-3), but another James, 2 Peter is argued to have been written by someone other than the apostle Peter, and 2 John is said to have been written by John “the presbyter” or “elder.” If we were to go with such scholarship, then not only would we not have scriptural support for their inspiration in content, but we also wouldn’t have biblical grounds to say the words were inspired.

So, assuming that 1 Corinthians 2:13 can account for verbal inspiration of the apostles, when it comes to verbal inspiration of Mark; Hebrews; and potentially James, 2 Peter, and 2 John, a Protestant who fully assents to such a belief violates the principle of sola scriptura, since he would be believing something pertaining to God’s revelation that cannot be accounted for by the sole infallible rule of faith.