Scripture says they were "moved by the Holy Spirit."
Are you talking about 2 Peter 1?
Verses 19-21:
quote:
19 We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things.
21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
If we compare that to Luke 1:
quote:
1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us,
2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.
3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,
4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
We can see that the description Peter uses, that prophecy never had its origin in the human will, does not fit with how the author of Luke claims he got his information, because he says that it did have its origin in the human will, i.e. he researched the history himself.
So, either Peter's qualitifaction for what is prophecy does not apply to the book of Luke, or the book of Luke is not prophecy.
Only the prophets used that phrase but all the writers are considered to have been inspired.
So then, there are two things: Scripture and prophecy, right?
And they are both "inspired", whatever that means.
Are their inspirations different or the same?
When it is said that God preserved every word they wrote it isn't meant to imply something as direct as dictation as I understand it, just that when they wrote it they were moved to use words that said exactly what He wanted them to say.
What is the
qualitative difference between "saying exactly what He wanted them to say" and "He dictated to them what to say"?
There's a minor difference, perhaps, in how the author "heard" what to write, but the end result is the same, no?
I don't know but dictation would only apply if they were writing at the moment they got the information which I don't think was ever the case.
Then allow some leeway in what is meant by "dictation". Or we can try to find a better word.
Luke got his knowledge from the eyewitnesses, he was also an eyewitness himself at times on the trail with Paul as he describes in Acts; other gospel writers were eyewitnesses and used each other's writings to fill in the blanks as well. To believe all this is inspired is simply to believe that God guided and protected the writing of it, which is apart from how the knowledge was acquired.
Can you accept that the above is quite different from: "Jesus wrote the Bible"?
The difference you make between how Ezekiel and Luke were inspired isn't a difference in how they were inspired in the writing of their text but a difference in how they learned what they learned.
Okay, but I contend that "how they learned what they learned" is actually "how they were inspired" so there actually is a difference between the two authors.
we do not know HOW God inspired the scripture, that isn't revealed to us, but we know that it is, not just by blind faith because we've been told it's inspired, but by various qualities of the scripture itself, such as the fact that every word has important implications for doctrine.
Interesting. So with Leviticus 11:20:
quote:
20 ‘All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be regarded as unclean by you.
What is the important implications for doctrine in stating that flying insects only have
four legs instead of the six legs that we can see them having?
™ Version 4.2
(1)