the Holy Spirit didn't write the Bible

These things run through my head from time to time. They're never the main thing going on in my life, but they're these true and plain things that I haven't taken time to write. I don't really know if anybody does. So here's one...

The Holy Spirit didn't write the Bible.

Ok, if you're a fundamentalist, you're ready to rend your garment and spit on my face. If you're a normal person, you're either saying, "huh?" or "uh, yeah, no duh."

The thing is, sometimes people get this weird idea that the Holy Spirit sat down once upon a time and decided to write a book, which later came to be known as the Holy Bible. And the problem is that the people who believe this don't talk about it as if it's a mystical thing, a ghost writing a book. They talk about it like it's a real book straight from the pen of God to the paper between the covers of their Bible sitting on the front seat of their car.

If you have this idea I think I can help you out. You probably were told that the Holy Spirit did indeed write this book, and that's what makes it flawless. And you were told that it's imperitave to memorize as much of it as you can, and to live by it. And you were told that it's important that you don't interpret or make judgments on it, but that you should just read what it says and do exactly that. Because the Holy Spirit wrote it. And the Holy Spirit is God. God said it. You believe it. That's it. Period.

And you were probably given tips on how to handle objections, really good objections like, why are there discrepancies between the different gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)? I won't go into those in detail because I'm sure you can easily find a good long list somewhere on the Net.

But this one about the obvious discrepancies is really important. The thing is, you were told that this one is easy to explain: the gospels were faithful accounts written by four different men from different vantage points. This is like if four eyewitnesses were describing an elephant, and could only be present at one place at a time, they would have very different accounts, but taken together, a reader removed completely from the elephant would get a good picture of what an elephant is. And that's a really good explanation if you ask me. But what happened to the Holy Spirit writing it? The problem is that the Holy Spirit has no vantage point. The Holy Spirit is everywhere. Omnipresent is your word for that. So if the Holy Spirit wrote it, you wouldn't need different versions that you hve to compile. If the Holy Spirit wrote it, then there's no vantage issue. But if men wrote it, there is.

The thing is, I believe you. The gospels were "written by four different men". Like you said. Not the Holy Spirit. And I'm sure they are faithful accounts, like you said, too. Stick with you story. They are human accounts. There's not a Holy Spirit account of "what really happened".

What seems most reasonable to me is that this Holy Ghost, or Wind of God, the same spirit that animates all life, brought clarity and truth and light and inspiration to some men in the first century who wanted to write about God and Jesus as they had encountered them. And so they did. And as a result, we have this collection of early human letters that we can read and appreciate and compile our own images of who and what God is. As we encounter Him.

And the same goes for Paul's writings, and James, and Peter, and even all the Old Testament stuff. The Spirit is way more mystical and flexible and way more generous with men than we've oft been told.