Paul’s Paradigm

All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness;  2 Timothy 3:16  NASB

Scripture – What does Paul mean when he uses the Greek term graphḗ?  Before we can answer that, we need to know something about the wider meaning of the term in the first century.  graphḗ in secular Greek meant something written, copied, or published.  It could apply to letters, laws, and even pictures.  The Greek Bible and the rabbis use the term for holy Scripture, but there is a caveat.

The rabbis and Philo speak of the Holy Scriptures, but not the OT itself. The NT seldom refers to Scripture as holy. Paul has graphaís hagíais (not hieraís) in Rom. 1:2. He also calls the law hágios in Rom. 7:12. Only 2 Tim. 3:15 has hierós in relation to graphaí. The plural for the OT as a whole is common in Philo and the rabbis. The NT follows this usage (cf. Mt. 26:54). In Mt. 21:42; 22:29 the reference might be to individual passages, but normally the whole collection is in view (cf. Jn. 5:39; Acts 17:2, 11;, 18:24, 28; Rom. 15:4; 16:26; 1 Cor. 15:3–4).^[1]

graphē Emphasizing the Unity of Scripture: the Totality of OT Scripture. The use of the singular for all Scripture does not occur in Philo or Josephus and is perhaps based on rabbinic use. Paul has it in the personification in Gal. 3:8 (where the obvious point is that God himself speaks through Scripture), John in 2:22; 10:35; 17:12; 20:9, and Peter in 1 Pet. 2:6; 2 Pet. 1:20. The early church embraced this usage and included the NT canon as well.^[2]

What can we conclude?  Perhaps Emanuel Tov’s comment on the Dead Sea Scroll’s enrichment to biblical exegesis helps: “For the Qumran sectarians, authority applied to the content of the book, and differences in details were disregarded.”[3]  This seems to be the case in most sacred material in the first century.  No canon was yet established, and as we now know, even when the various canons were adopted, the actual text in those canons was still quite flexible.  It took the next several hundred years for Christianity and Judaism to assert the canonization of a particular text.  To imagine that Paul adopted a view of plenary inspiration ignores all of the evidence from the first century.  Our common assumption that the text of the Bible is fixed, sacred, and sanctified is a modern idea, not an ancient one.

What does this mean for 2 Timothy 3:16?  It means that Paul is most likely not endorsing word-for-word canonization.  He’s simply remarking, as the rabbis would, that the entire corpus of what was considered sacred material is good for teaching, training, and righteousness.  He is not endorsing every word.  How could he when the text was still fluid and various versions circulated among Jewish believers?  Paul says that this material is sacred (hierós) in the previous verse (as noted above, the only occurrence of hierós with graphḗ), but sacred (holy) is not exactly the same as inerrant, fixed, and canonized.  Our examination of the Hebrew text demonstrates the lack of textual consistency, and the fact that the Hebrew text wasn’t the only sacred material of the believing community furthers this claim.  It’s time to rethink what we mean by “the Bible.”

Topical Index:  Scripture, sacred, holy, inspired, inerrant, canon, 2 Timothy 3:16

^[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 129). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

^[2] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 130). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

[3] Emanuel Tov, “Exegesis of the Bible Enriched by the Dead Sea Scrolls,”  Scribal Practice, Text and Canon in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Brill, 2019), p. 226.