Rembrandt's The Evangelist Matthew Inspired by an Angel.

Biblical inspiration is the doctrine in Christian theology that the authors and editors of the Bible were led or influenced by God with the result that their writings may be designated in some sense the word of God.^[1]

Etymology[link]

The word "inspiration" comes from the Latin noun inspiratio and from the verb inspirare. Inspirare is a compound term resulting from the Latin prefix in (inside, into) and the verb spirare (to breathe). Inspirare meant originally "to blow into", as for example in the sentence of the Roman poet Ovid: "conchae [...] sonanti inspirare iubet"^[2] ("he orders to blow into the resonant [...] shell"). In classic Roman times, inspirare had already come to mean "to breathe deeply" and assumed also the figurative sense of "to instill [something] in the heart or in the mind of someone".

In Christian theology, the Latin word inspirare was already used by some Church Fathers in the first centuries to translate the Greek term pnéo. When Jerome translated the Greek text of the Bible into the language of the common people of Latium (the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome is located), in the passage of the 2 Tim 3.16-17 he translated the Greek theopneustos as divinitus inspirata ("divinely breathed into"). (In English that passage reads: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God [theopneustos], and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.")

Theopneustos is rendered in the Vulgate as the Latin divinitus inspirata ("divinely breathed into"), but some modern English translations opt for "God-breathed" (NIV) or "breathed out by God" (ESV) and avoid "inspiration" altogether, since its connotation, unlike its Latin root, leans toward breathing in instead of breathing out.

The Church Fathers often referred to writings other than the documents that formed or would form the biblical canon as "inspired".^[3]

Basis[link]

This section improperly uses one or more religious texts as primary sources without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them. Please help improve this article by adding references to reliable secondary sources, with multiple points of view.

The Bible contains many passages in which the authors claim divine inspiration for their message, or report the effects of such inspiration on others. Besides the direct accounts of written revelation, such as Moses receiving the Ten Commandments, the Prophets of the Old Testament frequently claimed that their message was divine by the formula "Thus says the LORD" (for example, 1 Kgs 12:22–24;1 Chr 17:3–4; Jer 35:13; Ezek 2:4; Zech 7:9; etc.). The Second Epistle of Peter claims that "no prophecy of Scripture ... was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet 1:20–21).

An exception common to all the different views of inspiration is that, although the New Testament Scriptures quote, paraphrase, and refer to other works including other New Testament documents, the Septuagint (the Jewish translation of the Torah into Greek, later books were translated anonymously and later included in the Septuagint), including the Apocrypha, and the Greek writers Aratus, Epimenides, Menander, and perhaps Philo, none of the various views of inspiration teach that these referenced works were also necessarily inspired, though some teach that the use and application of these other materials is inspired, in some sense.

Second Timothy 3:16-17 is cited by many Christians as evidence that "all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable ..." (English Standard Version – see similar language in the King James Version and the New International Version, among others). Others offer an alternative reading for the passage, for example, theologian C. H. Dodd suggests that it "is probably to be rendered" as, "Every inspired scripture is also useful..."^[4] A similar translation has been included in the New English Bible, Revised English Bible, and as a footnoted alternative in the New Revised Standard Version. The Latin Vulgate can be so read.^[5] Yet others defend the "traditional" interpretation, calling the alternative "probably not the best translation".^[6]

Views[link]

Roman Catholic[link]

The Catholic Church holds the Bible as inspired by God, but does not view God as the direct author of the Bible, in the sense that He does not put a 'ready-made' book in the mind of the inspired person.^[7]

As summarized by Karl Keating,^[8] the Roman Catholic apologetic for the inspiration of scripture first considers the scriptures as a merely historical source, and then it attempts to derive the divinity of Jesus from the information contained therein, illuminated by the tradition of the Catholic Church and by what they consider to be common knowledge about human nature. After offering evidence that Jesus is indeed God, they argue that his Biblical promise to establish a church that will never perish cannot be empty, and that promise, they believe, implies an infallible teaching authority vested in the church. They conclude that this authoritative Church teaches that the Bible's own doctrine of inspiration is in fact the correct one.

Protestant[link]

Evangelical[link]

Evangelicals see the Bible as a truly human product whose creation was superintended by the Holy Spirit, preserving the authors' works from error without eliminating their specific concerns, situation, or style. This divine involvement, they say, allowed the biblical writer to reveal God's own message to the immediate recipients of the writings and to those who would come later, communicating God's message without corrupting it. Some Evangelicals have sought to characterize the conservative or traditional view as verbal, plenary inspiration in the original manuscripts, by which they mean that every word (not just the overarching ideas or concepts) is meaningfully chosen under the superintendence of God.

Evangelicals acknowledge that there is textual variation between accounts of apparently identical events and speeches, which would seem to have God saying different things. Some of these differences are accounted for as deviations from the autographa that were introduced by copyists, while other cases are considered intentional deviations that were inspired by God for particular purposes (for instance, the Gospel of Matthew was intended to communicate the Gospel to Jews, while the Gospel of Luke was intended to communicate it to non-Jews).

Many Evangelicals consider biblical inerrancy and/or biblical infallibility to be the necessary consequence of the Bible's doctrine of inspiration (see, for example, the Westminster Confession of Faith or the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy), though not all do.

Criticism[link]

At times this view has been criticized as tending toward a dictation theory of inspiration,^[9] where God speaks and a human records his words. C. H. Dodd wrote:

The theory which is commonly described as that of "verbal inspiration" is fairly precise. It maintains that the entire corpus of Scripture consists of writings every word of which (presumably in the original autographs, forever inaccessible to us) was directly "dictated" by the Deity… They consequently convey absolute truth with no trace of error or relativity… No attempt will be made here to formulate an alternative definition of inspiration… That I believe to be a false method. There is indeed no question about the original implications of the term: for primitive religious thought the "inspired" person was under the control of a supernatural influence which inhibited the use of his normal faculties.^[9]

The Evangelical position has been criticized as being circular by non-Christians and as well as Christians such as Catholic and Orthodox authors, who accept the doctrine but reject the Protestant arguments in favor of it. These critics claim that the Bible can only be used to prove doctrines of biblical inspiration if the doctrine is assumed to begin with.^[8] Some defenders of the evangelical doctrine such as B. B. Warfield and Charles Hodge, however, moved away from such circular arguments and "committed themselves to the legitimacy of external verification" to inductively prove the doctrine, though they placed some restrictions on the evidences that could be considered.^[10] Others such as Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, and John Frame have accepted circularity as inevitable in the ultimate presuppositions of any system and seek instead to prove the validity of their position by transcendental arguments related to consistency.

Modernist Christianity[link]

The Modernist (Liberal Christianity) and Progressive Christianity view typically rejects the idea that the Bible is divinely inspired in a unique way. Some advocates of higher criticism who espouse this view even go so far as to regard the Bible as purely a product of human invention. However, most form critics, such as Rudolf Bultmann and Walter Brueggemann, still regard the Bible as a sacred text, just not a text that communicates the unaltered word of God. They see it instead as true, divinely inspired theology mixed with foreign elements that can sometimes be inconsistent with the overarching messages found in Scripture and that have discernible roots in history, mythology, or ancient cultural/cultic practices. As such, form critics attempt to separate the kernel of inspired truth from the husk that contains it, doing so through various exegetical methods.

Neo-orthodox[link]

The Neo-orthodox doctrine of inspiration is summarized by saying that the Bible is "the word of God" but not "the words of God". It is only when one reads the text that it becomes the word of God to him or her. This view is a reaction to the Modernist doctrine, which, Neo-orthodox proponents argue, eroded the value and significance of the Christian faith, and simultaneously a rejection of the idea of textual inerrancy. Karl Barth and Emil Brunner were primary advocates of this approach.

See also[link]

• Biblical canon
• John Calvin's view of Scripture
• Revelation
• General revelation
• Progressive revelation (Christian)
• Supernatural revelation
• Thought inspiration
• Verbum Domini - apostolic exhortation of the pope Benedict XVI.

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Warfield, B. B. (1977 reprint). Inspiration and Authority of Bible, with a lengthy introductory essay by Cornelius Van Til. ISBN 0-8010-9586-7.
• Sproul, R. C.. Hath God Said? (video series).
• Geisler, Norman, ed. (1980). Inerrancy. ISBN 0-310-39281-0.
• C. H. Dodd (1960). The Authority of The Bible.

Further reading[link]

• Chafer, Lewis Sperry (1993) [1947]. "Inspiration". Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Kregel. pp. 61–88. ISBN 978-0-8254-2340-6. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZFCoSSKTffcC&pg=PA61. 

External links[link]

• "The Authority & Inspiration of the Scriptures" by B. B. Warfield
• "God-Inspired Scripture" by B. B. Warfield
• The Inspiration Of Scripture by Loraine Boettner
• The Divine Inspiration of the Bible by Arthur Pink
• "The Protestant Rule of Faith", chapter 6 of the introduction from Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, which argues for the traditional doctrine over and against the Modernist doctrine.
• Bibliography for and on-line articles about inspiration
• Scholarly articles on Biblical Inspiration from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library
• Catholic Encyclopedia, Modernism
• Ten reasons why I believe the Bible is The Word of God by R. A. Torrey

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Peter Sturges Ruckman (born November 19, 1921) is an Independent Baptist pastor, teacher, writer, and founder of Pensacola Bible Institute, an unaccredited school in Pensacola, Florida (not to be confused with Pensacola Christian College). Ruckman is best known for his assertion that the King James Version constitutes "advanced revelation" and is the final, preserved word of God for English speakers.^[1]

Biography[link]

A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Peter Ruckman is a son of Colonel John Hamilton Ruckman (1888–1966) and a grandson of General John Wilson Ruckman (1858–1921). Ruckman was reared in Topeka, Kansas, attended Kansas State University, and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama. Ruckman married Janie Bess May of Sawyerville, Alabama, and they had five children together.^[2]

Ruckman entered the U.S. Army in 1944 and became second lieutenant, although he never saw action. At the end of World War II, he volunteered to serve with the occupation forces in Japan and while there studied Zen Buddhism. Ruckman claimed to have had paranormal experiences during this period, including (in his words) "the experience of nirvana, which the Zen call samadhi, the dislocation of the spirit from the body....Looking at my moral life following that experience, and my desire at times to commit suicide, I realize I had produced a passive state that was an entrance for spirits." Ruckman returned to the United States "uneasy, unsettled, full of demons." Drinking heavily, he became a disc jockey during the day and a drummer in various dance bands at night. Sometimes verging on suicide, he began to hear voices, and he met with a Jesuit priest to explore the possibility of joining the Roman Catholic Church.

On March 14, 1949, he was converted to Christianity after talking to evangelist Hugh Pyle in the studios of WEAR radio in Pensacola. Ruckman then attended Bob Jones University (BJU), where he received a master's degree and Ph.D. in religion.^[3] In 1959, after several separations, Ruckman's first marriage was dissolved. Ruckman has since been divorced again and married a third time.^[4]

Ruckman is the pastor of Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola, and his writings and recorded sermons are published by his Bible Baptist Bookstore.^[5] Like his father, Peter Ruckman early demonstrated artistic talent, and he often illustrated his sermons in chalk and pastels while preaching.^[6]

Proponent of King James Version supremacy[link]

Ruckman "presents the most extreme form of King James Onlyism," "uses the strongest language," and "presents the most strident form,"^[7] although according to Roy E. Beacham and Kevin T. Bauder, Ruckman's first book on the Bible translation controversy demonstrated "unmistakable dependence" on an earlier work, James Jasper Ray, God Wrote Only One Bible (1955).^[8]

Ruckman insists that the King James Version of the Bible, the "Authorized Version" ("KJV" or "A.V."), provides "advanced revelation" beyond that discernible in the underlying Textus Receptus Greek text. Arguing that the KJV is more authoritative for English speakers than the Greek and Hebrew texts, he believes the KJV represents the final authority for modern disputes about the content and meaning of the original manuscripts. For instance, in his Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence, Ruckman says, "Mistakes in the A.V. 1611 are advanced revelation!" Likewise, he advises where "the perverse Greek reads one way and the A.V. reads the other, rest assured that God will judge you at the Judgment on what you know. Since you don't know the Greek (and those who knew it, altered it to suit themselves), you better go by the A.V. 1611 text."^[9]

Ruckman distinguishes between the Textus Receptus of the KJV, and the numerically fewer manuscripts of the Alexandrian text-type underlying most modern New Testament versions. Ruckman characterizes those who endorse the latter as members of the "Alexandrian Cult" who believe that while the autographs were God-inspired, they have been lost, and that therefore his opponents believe there to be "no final, absolute written authority of God anywhere on this earth." ^[10] Ruckman also believes that the Septuagint was a hoax created by the Alexandrian cult in the 3rd century A.D. in order to subvert belief in the integrity of the Bible.^[11]

Not surprisingly, Ruckman's position on the exclusive authority of the KJV is strongly opposed by many supporters of biblical inerrancy, including signers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy who specifically "deny that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs [and] further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant."

Other supporters of the King James Only movement reject Ruckman's position that the English KJV is superior to existing Hebrew and Greek manuscripts,^[12] and they also criticize Ruckman because "his writings are so acerbic, so offensive and mean-spirited that the entire movement has become identified with his kind of confrontational attitude."^[13]

Other ideas[link]

Ruckman does not believe that a fetus becomes a living soul until it is born and takes its first breath.^[14] Ruckman also believes in UFOs and blue aliens with blue blood, black aliens with green blood, and gray aliens with clear blood.^[15] Further, he believes the CIA has implanted brain transmitters in children, old people, and African-Americans and that the agency operates underground alien breeding facilities.^[16] In 1997, Ruckman claimed that Attorney General Janet Reno had drawn up a list with his name on it and predicted that the "Government Mafia" would make a hit on him during "the next two or three years."^[17]

Personal style[link]

Ruckman is known for his confrontational approach. Beacham and Bauder declare that "Ruckman is without any doubt the most caustic and abusive among King James-Only partisans."^[18] James R. White states in his book, The King James Only Controversy, that to call Ruckman "outspoken is to engage in an exercise in understatement. Caustic is too mild a term; bombastic is a little more accurate.…There is no doubt that Peter S. Ruckman is brilliant, in a strange sort of way. His mental powers are plainly demonstrated in his books, though most people do not bother to read far enough to recognize this due to the constant stream of invective that is to be found on nearly every page. And yet his cocky confidence attracts many people to his viewpoint."^[19] One Ruckman letter to an opponent begins, "Dear Scumbucket."^[20] The website of Ruckman's press notes that although some have called his writings "mean spirited," "we refer to them as 'Truth With An Attitude.'"^[21] He once described the New American Standard Bible as "more of the same old godless, depraved crap"^[22] and a rival KJV-Only supporter, a "puffed up conceited ass."^[23] Although Ruckman graduated from Bob Jones University, he has referred to it as "the World's Most Unusual Hell Hole."^[24]

Pensacola Bible Institute[link]

In 1965 Ruckman founded Pensacola Bible Institute (PBI), in part, because of his disagreements with other institutions in regard to Biblical translations. Pensacola Bible Institute—unrelated to Pensacola Christian College—is not accredited by any agency recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or the United States Department of Education.^[25] It does not accept government funding nor participate in the student loan program. The school has no website other than the Bible Baptist Bookstore site.

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Ed Barclay, What about Peter Ruckman? wide-ranging fundamentalist criticism of Ruckman and "Ruckmanism."
• David Cloud, "What about Ruckman?" criticism of Ruckman by another KJV-Only proponent.
• Calvin George, "The Danger of Ruckmanism as Applied to Foreign Language Bibles".
• Jeffery Khoo, "Non-Ruckmanite Answers to Anti-KJV Questions"
• Samuel Gipp, What is a Ruckmanite? defense of Ruckman.
• James White, "A Response To Dr. Ruckman".
• James White, "The Ruckman-White Correspondence".
• Sermons by Peter Ruckman
• Books by Peter Ruckman
• Anti-Ruckman website