The Invention of the Inspired Text: Philological Windows on the Theopneustia of Scripture

John C. Poirier examines the “inspired” nature of the Scripture, as a response to the view that this “inspiration” lies at the heart of most contemporary Christian theology. In contrast to the traditional rendering of theopneustia as “God-inspired” in 2 Tim 3:16, Poirier argues that a close look at first- and second-century uses of theopneustia reveals that the traditional inspirationist understanding of the term did not arise until the time of Origen (early third c. CE), and that in every pre-Origen use of theopneustia the word clearly means “life-giving.”
The bulk of this volume consists of a detailed investigation of theopneustia, as it appears in the fifth Sibylline Oracle (2×), the Testament of Abraham, the Anthologies of Vettius Valens, Pseudo-Plutarch’s Placita Philosophorum, the Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, a fragment of Numenius, and the Corpus Hermeticum, as well as in a pair of inscriptions: one at the Great Sphinx of Giza and one at a nymphaeum at Laodicea on the Lycus. Poirier also shows that a rendering of “life-giving” fits better within the context of 2 Tim 3:16, and that that meaning survived late enough to figure in a fifth-century work by Nonnus of Panopolis. He analyses whether any other biblical passages can bear the weight of the doctrine of scriptural inspiration, and briefly tracing the rise of that doctrine among the Church Fathers; and culminates in addressing the implication of rethinking the traditional understanding of Scripture.