does the Bible claim to be inspired by God?
2 Timothy 3:16 states, "The whole Bible was given to us by inspiration from God and is useful to teach us what is true." This is perhaps the most-cited verse in support of the doctrine of inspiration. Yet there are few verses more debated than that.
One part of the debate relates to the phrase, "The whole Bible." Here the Greek literally 'every Scripture', makes the beginning of the sentence read as either Every Scrputre is inspired by God and is useful..." or "Every inspired Scripture is useful..." The latter reading, therefore, would refer only to whatever passages or books of Scripture are inspired. The former reading would indicate that all Scripture is inspired. Greek language experts are divided over which is the most proper translation.
The word "Bible" is another key part of the debate. Taken from the Greek, "graphe", it literaly means 'writing' or 'book', but the context of previous verses generally implies that "graphe" refers only to the Old Testament. Some commenators maintain that those two phrases could also refer to Christian writings, but that assumption ignores the context of the verses, which does not consider that the concept of a 'New Testament' did not exist before at least late in the second century.
It is remarkable that support for the doctrine of inspiration could rest on a verse that is both enormously vague and confusing.