The Word of God in the Words of Humans

It is customary for many churches to include in their worship services the phrase "Thanks be to God" when the reader of a particular Scripture passage says "This is the Word of the Lord"
at the end of their reading.  In others churches one hears the response of "Thanks be to God and to His name be glory and praise," or "Thanks be to God for giving it to us, and to God's name be glory and praise."  I have also heard the response "Thanks be to Thee oh Christ."


Unless some of us participate in these responses automatically or by rote, these responses are intended to indicate that the phrase "This is the Word of the Lord," is reflective of the belief in the Church that the words of Scripture are not merely human words, but rather words which communicate the mind and will of God in the life of the community and of individual believers.
In essence, then, it is reflective of the notion that the Bible is the "Word of God."


While this writer (yours truly) believes that the writers of Scripture did not take it upon themselves to write, but rather that it was God's initiative that prompted them to write,
that God utilized the human resources of culture, language, and life circumstances in order to convey the message that God wanted us to hear.  In other words, this action of God, which some call "divine inspiration," took place and was mediated in human history.  By this is meant that the message which God wanted us to hear was not given in a historical vacuum, but rather in a
particular cultural and historical context.  Subsequently, we end up with divine or divinely inspired words filtered through the language of frail humans.


The above mentioned, then, leads us to another approach to reading the Scriptures.  This approach is called "Higher Criticism," in contrast to the approach that we had previously examined, i.e. "Textual (or Lower) Criticism."  There is nothing really higher or lower about these approaches to biblical studies.  The terms "higher and lower" just point out the differences in approaches.  Textual Criticism, as we have seen, compares the various manuscripts (hand-written copies of the original documents) to determine which of the manuscripts most closely and accurately describe the contents of the original documents on which the Scriptures were written.  Higher Criticism (some refer to this approach as the historical-critical method)  raises questions of authorship, date, purpose of writing, sources of information, and styles of writing used by the writers of Scripture.


In this article, we will deal with the question of authorship.  We ask questions such as did Jeremiah really write the book which carries his name or was it written by someone else that attributed it to Jeremiah?  Did Matthew write the Gospel account that has his name or did someone else write it in order to give it authority, prestige, status, and validity?


The fundamental question for us is does it really matter who wrote the particular books of the Bible?  Is our faith affected or diluted by the particular author?  Does it really matter if Mark's Gospel account was written by Mark or Pancho Pasteles (Joe Blow)? 


Please share with us your perspective on the importance or non-importance of who the author was that wrote the particular book of the Bible.  Is this issue important for Christian faith and godly living?  Tell us why you think that it is or it isn't. 


Grace and peace,
Juan Ayala-Carmona