The Bible vs the scriptures
review of Misquoting Jesus that I thought Ehrman was using the word 'Bible' in multiple senses: to refer to individual copies of works given by divine inspiration, and to refer to the non-material entity, the Word of God, to which Christians often ascribe complete inspiration and truthfulness. The point of my distinction is that educated Christians down the ages (Jerome, Calvin) seem to have made a distinction between the copy in front of them (which might be in error) and the communication they held to come from God, which they did not see as in error.
It has been occurring to me that the confusion in Ehrman (and many others) arises from a disjunction between the language used in creeds and in popular Christian discourse.
I've been looking through Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Ferguson, eds,Reformed Confessions Harmonized (Baker, 1999) which lays out synoptically various reformed confessions. The word that is completely absent in treatments of scripture is of course 'Bible'. The same is true ,The phrases that tend to be used are 'the Word of God', 'the Scriptures', 'Holy Scripture' (capitalization varies and I haven't checked early mss or edns of these creeds).
I suspect that more recent creeds (e.g. UCCF, InterVarsity, CampusCrusade) tend to use the word 'Bible' more prominently, though the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy uses the word 'Bible' less than 'Scripture(s)'. I'd be interested in knowing whether a shift has indeed taken place and, if so, when and why it took place.
I am tending to think that the word 'Bible', though advantageous in some settings, too readily focuses those considering doctrines of scripture on particular material manifestations of the word of God. Would anything significant be lost if we focused our discussions about doctrine and textual criticism on the terms 'scripture(s)' and 'Word of God' and reserved the term 'Bible' exclusively for material entities?
It has been occurring to me that the confusion in Ehrman (and many others) arises from a disjunction between the language used in creeds and in popular Christian discourse.
I've been looking through Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Ferguson, eds,Reformed Confessions Harmonized (Baker, 1999) which lays out synoptically various reformed confessions. The word that is completely absent in treatments of scripture is of course 'Bible'. The same is true ,The phrases that tend to be used are 'the Word of God', 'the Scriptures', 'Holy Scripture' (capitalization varies and I haven't checked early mss or edns of these creeds).
I suspect that more recent creeds (e.g. UCCF, InterVarsity, CampusCrusade) tend to use the word 'Bible' more prominently, though the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy uses the word 'Bible' less than 'Scripture(s)'. I'd be interested in knowing whether a shift has indeed taken place and, if so, when and why it took place.
I am tending to think that the word 'Bible', though advantageous in some settings, too readily focuses those considering doctrines of scripture on particular material manifestations of the word of God. Would anything significant be lost if we focused our discussions about doctrine and textual criticism on the terms 'scripture(s)' and 'Word of God' and reserved the term 'Bible' exclusively for material entities?
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