I figured I’d write this post mainly for one reason: To have a link ready for the next well-meaning (or not-so-well-meaning) person who says, “But what about ‘All Scripture is God-breathed’?!”
Every time someone lobs 2 Timothy 3:16 like it's a divine mic drop, I picture God whispering, “That’s... not what I meant.”
Quoting “all Scripture is God-breathed” to defend biblical inerrancy is like quoting a fortune cookie to prove your life has a plot twist coming. The breath of God isn’t confined to parchment and leather binding—it’s still exhaling, especially in the uncomfortable questions.
Bravo for this breakdown. Theology should come with a wrestling mat and a helmet, not a silencer.
Blessed be the curious, for they shall inherit the nuance.
I'm with you on everything but Paul didn't write it. We just don't have proof one way or another. As you point out, the practice of pretending to be someone else is debated so it's not an absolute. I think your argument still stands without having to resort to a maybe on scholarship of the letter. I think I would resort to the old "the simpliest explanation makes the most sense" logic here. I have a hard time thinking someone fakes being Paul, writing to a real person, decades later and that letter circulating enough to be thought legitimately Paul for centuries.
Thanks, Dustin. It could have been written by Paul to the historical Timothy. I see the evidence pretty compelling that it's pseudepigraphal, but as you said the other points would still stand. Thanks for your comment!
While I appreciate your perspective, it's important to recognize that the practice of attributing works to prominent figures was indeed common in the ancient world, including in the context of early Christian letters. Scholars widely agree that pseudepigraphy—writing in the name of another—was a recognized literary practice.
Notably, evidence suggests that letters attributed to Paul and John may have been written by later followers who sought to preserve and propagate their teachings in a way that resonated with contemporary audiences. This was often done out of respect for the original authors and their authority, not merely deceit.
Moreover, the historical context and the way certain texts were preserved and circulated through early Christian communities support the view that such practices were more normative than exceptional. The belief that a letter could carry the weight of a great apostle’s authority, even if penned by someone else, aligns with the intentions of those early communities. Therefore, while we may debate specific letters, the occurrence of pseudonymous writings in the New Testament isn’t merely possible—it reflects a well-established trend in ancient literature.
Good points, Scott! I maybe could've unpacked it better as I think about it. I don't know the intent of the original author for sure. I just think most people assume Paul wrote the pastoral epistles and I think it helps to remember he likely didn't. (I find this most important when they get into gender role stuff that Paul touches on elsewhere but not nearly as strongly.)
I am in a lengthy discussion with a friend regarding inerrancy. None of the popular arguments are logically coherent. For the most part people believe in an inerrant Bible because they want it to be for reasons good and bad. Take a look at the young earth creationist’s “scientific” evidence. Trying to prove that allegory is science requires some heavy lifting.
For sure. I've said a few times on here that the Bible is THE issue for evangelicals. It's more or less a Deity for most of them. It gets scary when that god starts to reveal itself to be flawed. I know because I've been there.
I actually think you've hit the nail on the head here, Joe. The Bible becomes the thing we worship, and not God. But I like how Andy Stanley points out that the movement that became Christianity started without any book, at all. It was genuine and caught fire because of the radicalness of its ideas, not because it came with a handbook.
I once had a lovely, well-meaning woman argue with me that I couldn't use anything besides the King James because "scripture says not to change a jot or a tittle." She couldn't grasp that the KJV is in itself a translation. Sigh.
- There are many different versions of "Scripture" in print, now. Which one is the unchangeable, inerrant one? (How do you know?)
- Even if we agreed that there was an inerrant version, many different sects of Christianity prove that it can be interpreted in many different ways, how are you sure you're interpretation is the correct one?
- Sometimes I think there is a misconception of the unchanging nature of God's word, and I'm not sure "the Bible" is God's word. "In the beginning was the word" (like, long before the Bible, beginning), "and the word was God", saying to me, that the word is not necessarily written in a book.
The way I have come to see it is like this. In this world, we are aware of physical laws, such as gravity, and inertia, etc. These laws are unchanging. Then there's are man's laws, such as the speed limit, that are laws man provides to protect folks from doing stupid, life ending things. I see God's word and His laws as being like the laws of spirituality. These are the characteristics of the virtues, such as knowledge, love, patience, etc. Those laws do not change, however, the books that are revealed by those great figures in the Bible like Abraham and Moses and Christ, provide the laws for man that are subject to change, but are provided so that man doesn't hurt himself, navigating those universal laws.
- Ricky Gervais once said something along the lines of. If you destroyed every book in existence today, in a few hundred or thousand years, you'd have science again, but all the religions would be completely different than what we have today. I tend to disagree. I think that in even less time than it would take to recreate the science books, our understanding of the virtues would be recreated as well. Would the books and stories used to describe them be different? Of course, but would the point be the same? IMHO, yes.
I wasn’t baptized in Bible drills from the cradle. My dad’s military discipline and our loose‑Lutheran heritage meant reverence and order were in the air, but nobody force‑fed me Scripture. My real entry point came at 13, rocked by my uncle’s death and starving for meaning; that grief shoved me through the church doors, where I began inhaling chapter‑and‑verse and soon landed in circles that treated each line like ammo. Somewhere along that path I finally asked why the text carried such solitary, drop‑the‑mic authority in the first place.
For the first millennium‑plus, the Church trusted a braided cord of authority: Scripture wrapped inside creeds, councils, sacraments, and communal discernment. Nobody whipped out 2 Timothy 3:16 as a mic‑drop; they leaned on the lived wisdom of the Body to settle disputes. Then the Scientific Revolution bulldozed the field. Newton and friends rewired the cultural brain around lab‑grade certainty—proof you could weigh, measure, replicate. Suddenly faith, with its mystery and metaphor, looked flimsy.
Cue the theological counterpunch. Protestants and eventually Rome itself scrambled to anchor Christianity to something that felt just as bullet‑proof as physics, landing on the printed page. Inspiration morphed into inerrancy; “profitable for teaching” got recast as “error‑free in every jot and tittle.” By the 19th‑century, the Bible had become the Church’s scientific specimen: airtight, infallible, unassailable.
That shift still shapes the arguments I hear online—whether it’s someone forwarding Fox‑news devotionals or well‑meaning friends clobbering LGBTQ+ folks with Leviticus. We inherited a modern strategy, not an ancient mandate: trading communal, Spirit‑led discernment for a paper Pope that promised lab‑style certainty.
Understanding that history gives me permission to hold the text with reverence and humility—honoring its voice without pretending it was ever meant to carry the entire weight of divine authority solo.
Every time someone lobs 2 Timothy 3:16 like it's a divine mic drop, I picture God whispering, “That’s... not what I meant.”
Quoting “all Scripture is God-breathed” to defend biblical inerrancy is like quoting a fortune cookie to prove your life has a plot twist coming. The breath of God isn’t confined to parchment and leather binding—it’s still exhaling, especially in the uncomfortable questions.
Bravo for this breakdown. Theology should come with a wrestling mat and a helmet, not a silencer.
Blessed be the curious, for they shall inherit the nuance.
🙏🏼
These post are so incredibly helpful Joe….u keep verbalizing things that I’ve been thinking for years, I just didn t know quite how to process it.
Thank you, Mike
Thank you!
Automatic restack.
😊🙏🏼
I'm with you on everything but Paul didn't write it. We just don't have proof one way or another. As you point out, the practice of pretending to be someone else is debated so it's not an absolute. I think your argument still stands without having to resort to a maybe on scholarship of the letter. I think I would resort to the old "the simpliest explanation makes the most sense" logic here. I have a hard time thinking someone fakes being Paul, writing to a real person, decades later and that letter circulating enough to be thought legitimately Paul for centuries.
Thanks, Dustin. It could have been written by Paul to the historical Timothy. I see the evidence pretty compelling that it's pseudepigraphal, but as you said the other points would still stand. Thanks for your comment!
While I appreciate your perspective, it's important to recognize that the practice of attributing works to prominent figures was indeed common in the ancient world, including in the context of early Christian letters. Scholars widely agree that pseudepigraphy—writing in the name of another—was a recognized literary practice.
Notably, evidence suggests that letters attributed to Paul and John may have been written by later followers who sought to preserve and propagate their teachings in a way that resonated with contemporary audiences. This was often done out of respect for the original authors and their authority, not merely deceit.
Moreover, the historical context and the way certain texts were preserved and circulated through early Christian communities support the view that such practices were more normative than exceptional. The belief that a letter could carry the weight of a great apostle’s authority, even if penned by someone else, aligns with the intentions of those early communities. Therefore, while we may debate specific letters, the occurrence of pseudonymous writings in the New Testament isn’t merely possible—it reflects a well-established trend in ancient literature.
Good points, Scott! I maybe could've unpacked it better as I think about it. I don't know the intent of the original author for sure. I just think most people assume Paul wrote the pastoral epistles and I think it helps to remember he likely didn't. (I find this most important when they get into gender role stuff that Paul touches on elsewhere but not nearly as strongly.)
Excellent work!
Nice to see logic applied and not dogmatic, uninformed nonsense
🙏🏼
Yep!
:)
Thank you!!!!!
😊
Dan Miller on Straight White American Jesus did several weeks worth of episodes regarding inerrancy, it was eye opening.
Thanks for this perspective.
interesting...
Amen!
🙌🏼
I am in a lengthy discussion with a friend regarding inerrancy. None of the popular arguments are logically coherent. For the most part people believe in an inerrant Bible because they want it to be for reasons good and bad. Take a look at the young earth creationist’s “scientific” evidence. Trying to prove that allegory is science requires some heavy lifting.
For sure. I've said a few times on here that the Bible is THE issue for evangelicals. It's more or less a Deity for most of them. It gets scary when that god starts to reveal itself to be flawed. I know because I've been there.
I actually think you've hit the nail on the head here, Joe. The Bible becomes the thing we worship, and not God. But I like how Andy Stanley points out that the movement that became Christianity started without any book, at all. It was genuine and caught fire because of the radicalness of its ideas, not because it came with a handbook.
Yes, there were Christians for hundreds of years before and official "Bible." And I got to work a lot with Andy in my last role. He is great.
"I believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Bible."
Great post.
I once had a lovely, well-meaning woman argue with me that I couldn't use anything besides the King James because "scripture says not to change a jot or a tittle." She couldn't grasp that the KJV is in itself a translation. Sigh.
Yes as an ex preacher, I've had that conversation a couple times. :)
I can think of a few more reasons.
- There are many different versions of "Scripture" in print, now. Which one is the unchangeable, inerrant one? (How do you know?)
- Even if we agreed that there was an inerrant version, many different sects of Christianity prove that it can be interpreted in many different ways, how are you sure you're interpretation is the correct one?
- Sometimes I think there is a misconception of the unchanging nature of God's word, and I'm not sure "the Bible" is God's word. "In the beginning was the word" (like, long before the Bible, beginning), "and the word was God", saying to me, that the word is not necessarily written in a book.
The way I have come to see it is like this. In this world, we are aware of physical laws, such as gravity, and inertia, etc. These laws are unchanging. Then there's are man's laws, such as the speed limit, that are laws man provides to protect folks from doing stupid, life ending things. I see God's word and His laws as being like the laws of spirituality. These are the characteristics of the virtues, such as knowledge, love, patience, etc. Those laws do not change, however, the books that are revealed by those great figures in the Bible like Abraham and Moses and Christ, provide the laws for man that are subject to change, but are provided so that man doesn't hurt himself, navigating those universal laws.
- Ricky Gervais once said something along the lines of. If you destroyed every book in existence today, in a few hundred or thousand years, you'd have science again, but all the religions would be completely different than what we have today. I tend to disagree. I think that in even less time than it would take to recreate the science books, our understanding of the virtues would be recreated as well. Would the books and stories used to describe them be different? Of course, but would the point be the same? IMHO, yes.
I wasn’t baptized in Bible drills from the cradle. My dad’s military discipline and our loose‑Lutheran heritage meant reverence and order were in the air, but nobody force‑fed me Scripture. My real entry point came at 13, rocked by my uncle’s death and starving for meaning; that grief shoved me through the church doors, where I began inhaling chapter‑and‑verse and soon landed in circles that treated each line like ammo. Somewhere along that path I finally asked why the text carried such solitary, drop‑the‑mic authority in the first place.
For the first millennium‑plus, the Church trusted a braided cord of authority: Scripture wrapped inside creeds, councils, sacraments, and communal discernment. Nobody whipped out 2 Timothy 3:16 as a mic‑drop; they leaned on the lived wisdom of the Body to settle disputes. Then the Scientific Revolution bulldozed the field. Newton and friends rewired the cultural brain around lab‑grade certainty—proof you could weigh, measure, replicate. Suddenly faith, with its mystery and metaphor, looked flimsy.
Cue the theological counterpunch. Protestants and eventually Rome itself scrambled to anchor Christianity to something that felt just as bullet‑proof as physics, landing on the printed page. Inspiration morphed into inerrancy; “profitable for teaching” got recast as “error‑free in every jot and tittle.” By the 19th‑century, the Bible had become the Church’s scientific specimen: airtight, infallible, unassailable.
That shift still shapes the arguments I hear online—whether it’s someone forwarding Fox‑news devotionals or well‑meaning friends clobbering LGBTQ+ folks with Leviticus. We inherited a modern strategy, not an ancient mandate: trading communal, Spirit‑led discernment for a paper Pope that promised lab‑style certainty.
Understanding that history gives me permission to hold the text with reverence and humility—honoring its voice without pretending it was ever meant to carry the entire weight of divine authority solo.
As always, thanks for writing this, Joe.
May I present the ultimate anti-infallibility prooftext: Jeremiah 8:8 (which no Sunday School taught, ever).
---
How can you say, “We are wise,
and the law of the Lord is with us,”
when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes
has made it into a lie?
---
That's right, the Bible says that part of the Bible is a lie. I've known this for decades, but only discovered this verse recently!