Is My Bible the Inspired Word of God?

by Edward W. Goodrick

Book Overview

Evangelical Christians vigorously defend the Bible as the inspired Word of God, yet we limit that term just to the autographs--those original writings of the Scriptures that no longer exist. What does... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0880702877
• ISBN13: 9780880702874
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Multnomah Books
• Length: 114 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Helpful answer to sensible question

Christians say that the original autographs of the bible are inspired, infallible and inerrant, but all of these have disappeared. So the obvious question is "But is my bible the inspired Word of God?" Goodrick gives an excellent answer to this question which will satisfy nearly everyone, but not those who would like to hold an inerrant bible in their hands. He says: 1. Yes the original is inspired, inerrant, infallible. 2. What we have today is 99% or even more the same as this inspired,inerrant, infallible original. If you know the bible well, and are honest you will admit that the bible we have today has discrepancies and apparent contradictions in a very small number of places. If you are familiar with your bible, you will know that there are a few puzzles with your bible which may be transcriptional errors, or may be only apparent contradictions because we don't have all the facts. We also have minor wording and meaning differences between the various bibles we have [including minor differences between various versions of the King James]. But none of these affects any Christian doctrine. We can have complete confidence that the bible as we have it today in all major versions is substantially the same in the vast majority of cases as the inspired original. But there is value in limiting what we call inspired, inerrant and infallible to the original, because of the small number of differences between the versions we have today. We dare not make a pronouncement that a particular one is THE Bible, because of *our* fallibility, not the bible's. Worth reading if you have been asking this question.

A Clear Analysis of Bible Translation and Interpretation

It is amazing how complex many Christians make the doctrine of verbal inspiration to be ! Goodrick approaches this matter in a simple, common-sense approach that should blow away all the fog and confusion brought into the subject. I think the first reviewer missed the whole point, when Goodrick says that the 'meaning' of the original autographs are inspired, he does not deny verbal inspiration - what he means is that the words by themselves have no meaning, they only take up meaning in sentences - so we have to take in the context of the words. Goodrick gives us confidence that all translations (even the most erroneous) "contain the word of God, Nay is the word of God" (a quote from the KJV translators). What struck me the most from this book is the assertion that most pollution comes from amateurs who interpret Greek and Hebrew based on wrong exegesis, many times modern teachers will 'analyze' the wording and come up with new 'hidden' revelations that are actually misunderstood grammatical structures ! I highly recommed this book to anyone interested in Bible translation and interpretation.