14 The Fundamentals Nor is that original parchment so remote a thing as some suppose. Do not the number and variety of manuscripts and versions extant render it comparatively easy to arrive at a knowledge of its text, and does not .competent scholarship today affirm that as to the New Testament at least, we have in 999 cases out of every thousand the very word of that orig inal text? Let candid consideration be given to these things and it will be seen that we are not pursuing a phantom in con tending for an inspired autograph of the Bible. II. EXTENT OF INSPIRATION 1. The inspiration of scripture includes the whole and every part of it. There are some who deny this and limit it to only the prophetic portions, the words of Jesus Christ, and, say, the profounder spiritual teachings of the epistles. The historical books in their judgment, and as an example, do not require inspiration because their data were obtainable from natural sources. The Bible itself, however, knows of no limitations, as we shall see: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The historical data, most of it at least, might have been obtained from natural sources, but what about the supernatural guid ance required in their selection and narration? Compare, for answer, the records of creation, the fall, the deluge, etc., found in Genesis with those recently discovered by excavations in Bible lands. Do not the results of the pick-axe and the spade point to the same original as the Bible, and yet do not their childishness and grotesqueness often bear evidence of the human and sinful mould through which they ran? Do they not show the need of some power other than man him self to lead him out of the labyrinth of error into the open ground of truth? Furthermore, are not the historical books in some respects the most important in the Bible? Are they not the bases of its doctrine ? Does not the doctrine of sin need for its starting
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