Goodrick on Inspiration

I introduced you all to Goodrick a few weeks ago. Here is an excerpt from the same book. I’m almost finished with this book (it was a school assignment). Our professors, Ray Lubeck, told us this was not the best introduction to the discussion of inspiration. I was a bit annoyed. If it’s bad why use it? He answered the question by saying that Goodrick raises some incredibly difficult questions for evangelicals subscribing to the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture.

That was putting it mildly. Going through this book is a wonderfully frustrating experience. Coming away from this reading, I am convinced that every student researching the topic of inspiration must, at some point, engaged with Goodrick on the issue. Here is an excerpt from chapter 4, “Your Bible is Inspired with Very Little Pollution” (I took the liberty of adding in some contextual notes so you can better understand his argument):

Just as the Bible indicates that copies of the autographs [the proper term for “original manuscript”] are inspired because they are graphe [the Greek word used in 1 Timothy 3:16, meaning writing or scripture] and every graphe is inspired, so also can a translation be inspired.

Going back through the fifty appearances of graphe in the New Testament, we ask if any of them clearly refer to the Greek Old Testament, which of course, is a translation. Henry Barclay Swete lists some 160 quotations from the Septuagint in the New Testament. An examination of their context reveals that thirteen of these quotations are called graphe.

New Testament……………………..Septuagint

Matthew 21:42 (cf. Mark 12:10-11)……Psalm 117:22-23)
(118:22-23 Eng.)
John 13:18………………………..Psalm 40:9
(41:9 Eng.)
Romans 4:2………………………..Genesis 15:6
Romans 9:17……………………….Exodus 9:16
Romans 11:3-4……………………..1 Kings 19:10, 14, 18
Galatians 3:8……………………..Genesis 12:3
Galatians 4:30…………………….Genesis 21:10
1 Timothy 5:18…………………….Deuteronomy 25:4
James 2:8…………………………Leviticus 19:18
James 4:6…………………………Proverbs 3:34
1 Peter 2:6……………………….Isaiah 28:16

Adding Luke 4:18-19, 21 and Acts 8:32-33, the two passages previously mentioned in chapter 3, brings our total to thirteen. There can be no question that the New Testament teaches that the Septuagint is graphe and that every graphe is inspired.

The Swete book he references is “An introduction to the Old Testament in Greek“

Goodrick, Edward W.Is My Bible the Inspired Word of God? PP. 83-84