Authorship of The Bible - Divine Authorship

Divine Authorship

Both Jews and Christians have, in different ways, regarded the Bible as being the "Word of God". In many Christian liturgies, the words "This is the word of the Lord" will follow a Scripture reading. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) asserts that the Bible's authority depends "wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God".

A few of the books of the Minor Prophets indicate divine origin, as well as the book's transmission through a human prophet. Hosea 1:1 has (possibly as a heading), "The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri...", while Joel, Micah and Zephaniah all commence in a similar fashion. James L. Mays suggests that it was the theological understanding of the final redactor that the book as a whole is the "word of Yahweh".

The exact way in which the biblical authors were transmitting God's word remained debated: inspiration (the usual position held in modern Christian theology), or dictation (the position held by Orthodox Jews regarding the Torah, the holiest part of the Jewish bible).

Many evangelicals in particular appeal to 2 Timothy 3:16 as indicating the Bible's divine authorship. In the ESV translation, this reads "All Scripture is breathed out by God...", while the NIV renders it "All Scripture is God-breathed..." Robert L. Reymond argues that Paul was "asserting the divine origin of the entirety of Scripture", although Paul was specifically referring to the Old Testament.