Was the Bible Written by Humans?

Last updated on: March 27, 2025 at 8:25 am by Randy Alcorn

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Was the Bible Written by Humans? 2025-02-28T11:28:13-08:00 Randy Alcorn

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I’ve heard critics of biblical inerrancy say, “I believe the Bible was written by human beings, not God.” This statement shows a fundamental ignorance of what people who affirm biblical inspiration and inerrancy actually believe.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who believes God wrote down the words of Scripture Himself. True, He did inscribe on stone tablets the words of the Ten Commandments, which Moses later wrote in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. But that’s a very small portion of Scripture. Likewise, I’ve never had someone tell me they believe God dictated the Bible word for word, other than in small portions where we are told God actually did so, for instance to Isaiah (Isaiah 38:4-6) and John (Revelation 2:1-3:22).

Exodus 34:27-28 is often cited as a contradiction proving the Bible is in error. It’s worth a brief (yet somewhat related) digression to note that Exodus 34:1 indicates, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.’” (See also Deuteronomy 10:1-4.) Critics point out that later in this same chapter we’re told, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write down these words.’” So was it Moses or God who wrote down the words?

If you read the passage in context verse by verse (as critics never seem to do), “these words” are the words God has previously spoken that were in fact recorded by Moses in Exodus 34:10-26. This does not include the Ten Commandments, as anyone knows who reads it, but is rather a series of ceremonial and judicial instructions. Here it is in the NASB, where I’ll add in brackets what or who is being referenced:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words [v. 10-26], for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he [Moses] did not eat bread or drink water. And he [God, as stated in verse 1] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Appropriately, the NASB inserts a footnote after this final pronoun “he,” reading “Or He, i.e., the Lord.” We know from the context that the “he” of verse 28 refers to God, because of what is revealed in verse 1. So in verse 28 we’re told that Moses wrote the contents of the previous verses, “these words,” and we’re also told that God wrote the Ten Commandments on the tablets, just as He said He would at the beginning of this text. No contradiction.

Now, back to critics who argue “The Bible was written by humans, not God.” When I say of course humans wrote the Bible, sometimes the response is, “Oh, so you admit that the Bible was written by human beings?” My reply is, “I don’t admit it; I affirm it! It’s a core part of what I believe.”

It’s like someone saying, “So you admit Jesus was human?” Admit it? I shout it from the rooftops and cling to it! I love that Jesus was and is fully human and fully God. I also love that the Bible came from God and from human beings. That may seem hard to wrap our minds around, but it’s fully compatible in God’s plan. He has given us a perfect living Word, His Son, and a perfect written Word, the Bible, each fully human and fully divine.

Someone asked me, “Why can’t we believe the Bible was written by imperfect human beings?” Actually, those of us who affirm the Bible’s inspiration do believe the humans who wrote it were imperfect! They were sinners, fully capable of errors in logic and communication, just like the rest of us. But we also believe that in the specific case of the books that form the Bible, God supernaturally worked in the human writers to guard them against error while composing the biblical text. So while they could say other things that were wrong when not supernaturally inspired by God, they could not do so while writing God’s Word. The biblical writers were not passive stenographers; they wrote from their minds and hearts, in their own styles, yet God made sure what they wrote was also God-breathed, the result of His creative breath.

In this regard the Bible tells us, “No prophecy of scripture ever comes about by the prophet’s own imagination, for no prophecy was ever borne of human impulse; rather, men carried along by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Peter 1:20-21). This doesn’t mean the biblical writers were perfect and without error in other aspects of their lives, or even in their sermons and writings that aren’t part of the Bible. Rather, it means that God specifically guided them to write Scripture, and in doing so protected them from error.

The biblical authors spoke in their own style, with their own vocabulary (for instance, the apostle John’s terminology and style is noticeably different than the apostle Paul’s). But those of us who believe this passage affirm that the writers were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” in their writing, with the result that they “spoke from God.”

“But that would require a miracle.” Of course! Who would suggest otherwise? To believe that the original biblical manuscripts were without error is to believe in a miracle. But that shouldn’t be an obstacle to Christians whose entire faith is based on God’s many interventions in human history in miraculous ways.

Just as it took a miracle for God to bring about the implantation of a blastocyst (newly conceived human being) who was Jesus (the living Word), fully human and also fully God, so it took a miracle for God to guide the words written by the biblical writers so that they were in fact the words of human beings, yet also the words of God.

To claim Christians don’t believe human beings wrote the Bible is like claiming that since we believe Jesus is God that means we don’t believe He was born of a woman, or that He’s human. In fact, we believe both, and the two are not mutually exclusive. So it’s no more of a stretch for me to believe that God supernaturally gave us His flawless Word through the writings of otherwise flawed human beings, than that He supernaturally sent His eternal Son to become a flawless human child born to a flawed (though wonderful) human named Mary.

To state or imply that those believing in biblical inspiration and inerrancy claim God wrote the Bible and humans didn’t is a straw man. It’s a false accusation that’s popular to say because it’s so easy to disprove.

Humans wrote the Bible, and God inspired the Bible so that the words humans wrote were the words of God.

If the original “God-breathed” biblical manuscripts contained errors, this would mean that God is capable of error. It would mean He didn’t inspire all of the Bible, only parts of it. But the claim is that “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Since the Bible is by definition a whole and not a part, it’s contradictory to say one believes “the Bible is inspired” while believing parts of it are in error.

Some say the Bible shouldn’t be allowed to testify for itself by making claims about its own inspiration. While defendants in courtrooms don’t always testify on their own behalf, they are permitted to do so. In some cases, their testimony proves critical. Any jury should listen to their claims and determine whether or not they are credible. Sometimes jurors find the defendant to be more credible than other witnesses, who sometimes haven’t told the truth.

If God’s Word were not fully true, it could not be fully profitable and helpful—indeed it could be harmful—because what if one ended up believing, and acting on, an uninspired portion of Scripture?

William Tyndale was arrested largely for his efforts to translate God’s Word into the language of the common people. In 1536, after seventeen months in prison, William Tyndale was strangled, then burned at the stake.

In 2016, 480 years later, four Wycliffe Bible translators were murdered in the Middle East for putting God’s Word into the languages of the common people.

Who would be willing to be put to death for translating God’s Word if they thought that portions of it were false? Would anyone be willing to die to get God’s Word into people’s hands if they believed “some of it’s true and some of it isn’t; good luck figuring out which is which”?

Doctrine and Theology

inerrancy

inspiration

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