This post argues that the inspired word of God of the apographa or the derivatively inspired word of God in a faithful translation such as the King James Bible has always existed in part in a non-written form alongside the preserved written word. The Scripture’s itself describes at least three ways in which inspired Scripture exists apart from the written text: 1. in the mind of the listener, 2. in the memory; 3. by God’s implantation.
- In the hearing by those who cannot read.
Turretin addresses the issue of the value of Scripture for those who cannot read, or in other words, to whom the written word is meaningless. The illiterate either because of life circumstances or by age, not yet able to read, can nevertheless know the written word of God simply by hearing it. Reading is not necessary to know the content of holy Scripture. He writes,
“Although the Scriptures formally are of no personal use to those who cannot read (analphobetous), yet materially they serve for the instruction and edification such as the doctrines preached in the church are drawn from this source.” Turretin, Institutes, 59.
And this is true because,
“The Holy Spirit (the supplier [epichorega] by whom the believer should be God-taught [theodidaktoi], Jer. 31:34; Jn. 6:45; 1 Jn. 2:27) does not render the Scripture less necessary. He is not given to us in order to introduce new revelations, but to impress the written word on our hearts, so that here that the word must never be separated from the Spirit (Is. 59:21). Turretin, Institutes, 59.
Whether by reading or hearing, it is the Holy Spirit that “impress[es] the written word on our hearts.”
2. In the memory
Scripture tells us to hide God words in our hearts or, in other words, to memorize the Scripture, to make the Scripture a part of our intellectual construct. When a written text is not available, the saint is able to draw upon the Scripture they have memorized for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, enabling his memorized word to be as profitable as would have been the written word.
Dt. 6:6, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:”
De. 11:18, “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.”
Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”
Romans 10:8, “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
Col. 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
As a sidebar note, it’s interesting that memorizing large sections of Scripture is also taken up in popular secular works. Ray Bradbury’s dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451 where books are illegal, closes with displaced scholars preserving entire volumes by putting them to memory. Speaking of men called by the books they memorized, Mr. Simmons says,
I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil pollical book, Gulliver Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Dr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we are, Montag, Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucious and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson, and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We also have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 144-145.
3. In the heart implanted by God
Hebrews 8:8-12 is a repetition of the New Covenant from Jer. 31:31ff. The Hebrew word rendered “covenant” is בּרית beriyt.. The word which Paul employs is – διαθήκη, diathēkē. It never means a compact or agreement between equals and remotely and secondarily means a “will, or testament” or “a bond in blood.”
The first of the “better promises” of Hebrews 8:10 is located in the unconditional, covenantal language, “I will put.” What is better is putting God’s laws into the mind and writing them on the heart? In the former clause the Hebrew has, “I will put my law in their inward parts;” the law shall be within them, no longer an external code. In the latter, the “fleshy tablets of the heart” are contrasted with “the tables of the Law.” This is the first of the “better promises.”
The second of the better promises is in Hebrews 8:11: The second promise is the universality of the knowledge of God. The inward acceptance of God’s will involve the knowledge of God. In the new covenant all were to be “taught of God” (Isaiah 54:13, John 6:45) and independent of the instruction of a privileged class. Priesthood of the believer. But God promises a time when there will no longer be reliance upon scholars and the theologically elite – scribes and Pharisees to teach people about God. Communion with God through his word will be embedded in the heart and mind relieving the need for the scholarly elite to tell you what God says.
Of special note is the unilateral, unconditional impartation of the word of God in the heart. Further probing of the ramifications of this impartation as this juncture serves as experimental theology, not designed to shape doctrine but to generate thinking and further inquiry into the eschatological nature of Scripture.
We therefore conclude that Holy Scripture exists apart from the written text impressed on the heart of the illiterate by the Holy Spirit, by inculcation in the mind by memorization also in complete unity with the Spirit, and in a preliminary manner through the eschatological implementation of God Himself in the heart as the consummate work in the believer of the New Covenant through the bloody sacrificial death of Christ. Practically, it is hoped that such an experimental rendering of Hebrews 8:10-11 and the dialogue such a text engenders will contribute to a burgeoning contemporary apologetic for historic, orthodox, bibliology.
Standard Sacred Text.com 