The Canon and Inspiration of Scripture
How the churches came to recognize their Scriptures, and what they mean when they call them inspired.
Two questions sit underneath every other dispute about the Bible, and they are easy to confuse. The first is the question of canon: which books belong in Scripture, and on what authority is that list closed? The second is the question of inspiration: in what sense is a given book the word of God rather than merely a word about God, and how does that divine origin relate to the genuinely human authors who wrote it? A reader can hold a very high view of inspiration and still disagree sharply with another believer over whether Sirach or Wisdom belongs in the Old Testament. Conversely, two communities can share an identical list of sixty-six books and still differ over whether inspiration entails inerrancy in matters of history and science.
By the end of this lesson
- **Distinguish** the question of canon (which books belong) from the question of inspiration (in what sense the books are God's word), and explain why a community can hold a high view of one while differing on the other.
- **Map** the major traditions' Old Testament canon lists—Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox (including the wider Ethiopian canon)—and identify the deuterocanonical books at issue.
- **Attribute** canonical positions to their own confessions and councils: the Council of Trent, the Westminster and Belgic Confessions, the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Augsburg Confession, the Synod of Jerusalem, and the Chicago Statement.
- **Explain** the difference between locating canonical authority in the Spirit-led judgment of the Church and treating the books as self-authenticating and merely recognized by the Church.
- **Compare** competing accounts of the scope of inspiration—comprehensive inerrancy versus infallibility in matters of salvation—and trace how each reads the 'God-breathed' language of 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
Scripture
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