“…why go to such lengths in defining the concept of inspiration and explaining its various implications? Because the number of men who, especially during the last century, and in the last decades with renewed force, have denied and are denying the truth of the inspiration of the Scriptures, has been on the increase and also because the element of doubt in conservative circles, fostered by the idea that a subjective certainty alone would serve as a defense, has caused some uneasiness.

“Inspiration is that miraculous, supernatural process by and through which God, specifically the Holy Spirit, at specified times and for specific purposes, caused certain men, the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles (and evangelists) of the New Testament, to write down in words of human speech both such historical incidents as they were already familiar with and such other accounts of persons and events, together with immediate revelations concerning future events and the mysteries of salvation, as are a matter of His divine omniscience and wisdom alone, so that every possibility of error, not only in every main proposition with its discussion, but also in every subsidiary remark and incidental reference, was eliminated from the outset, while still in this breathing-in, which must be claimed for every word of the original documents, both the natural characteristics and temperaments and the acquired abilities of the various writers were employed in such a way as to produce that variety of style which gives to the Bible its wide and varied appeal.” — Paul Edward Kretzmann

Level of Difficulty: Advanced: Focus and/or background knowledge will enable you to get the most out of this book.

Book Contents

• 1 The Inspiration Of The New Testament
  • Evidence for Inspiration
    • 1 The Choice and Mission of the Men
    • 2 Specific Promises of Christ
    • 3 Testimony of the Writers
  • External Evidence
• 2 The Freer Manuscripts And The Oxyrhynchus Papyri
• 3 The Koridethi Manuscript And The Latest Discoveries In Egypt
• 4 When Was Jesus Born?
• 5 The Earliest Christian Congregations At Rome And At Antioch
• 6 The Chronological Sequence Of The Pauline Letters
• 7 The Place And Time Of The Captivity Letters
• 8 The Last Twenty-Five Years Of Peter’s Life
• Copyright Notice

Publication Information

• Lutheran Library edition first published: 2021
• Copyright: CC BY 4.0