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[God] inspired the writers of Scripture, but He didn't make them into something they weren't, i.e., they were men of their time and their culture, with the physical and mental limitations common to the human condition

Well, hallelujah! Your view certainly agrees with the Orthodox teaching on the Bible:

From the Dogmatic Tradition of the Orthodox Church posted on the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOARCH). It starts with

The Holy Bible (or Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments) is the most authoritative part of the Sacred Tradition of the Church...

As for the authorship, it goes on to say that the Bible is a product of cooperation of man and the Holy Spirit. This represents the so-called "synergistic theory."

The Church rejects Philo's so-called "mechanical theory" which states that the biblical authors were "possessed" by the Holy Spirit, but they don't offer any proof or any reason even why that theory is wrong.

The Bible itself certainly often speaks of "trances" of various biblical personalities (i.e. Abraham, Peter,etc) .

Combine this with the Hebrew belief that spirits (or gods, idols, demons, devils) exert control (this comes from a Hebrew root of the word demon/god/spirit) to rule, and that in Judaism the Spirit of God is not a Person, but the power of God, and Philo's view (being Jewish) is perfectly legitimate and there is every reason to believe that the early Christians subscribed to the same view, as they did to the demonic etiology of so many physical and mental diseases.

After establishing that God leads and men follow, the articles states

God leads, and man follows; God works, and man accepts God's work in him, as God's coworker in subordination to Him. So it is with divine inspiration in the case of the Bible: the Holy Spirit inspires, and the sacred author follows the Holy Spirit's injunctions, utilizing his own human and imperfect ways to express the perfect message and doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

In this sense, we can understand possible imperfections in the books of the Bible, since they are the result of the cooperation between the all-perfect and perfecting Divine Author, the Spirit, and the imperfect human author. Biblical textual criticism is completely normal and acceptable by the Orthodox, since they see the Bible in this light. Nothing human is perfect, including the Bible, which is the end product of human cooperation with the divine Spirit.

There are some problems with this view, however.

If God leads, and the authors are willing sub-ordained co-workers with God, God is still in charge of the project and the author of it, and if the product contains errors, then it's the author's fault, unless God wants us to have faulty scriptures, and I don't believe there is any evidence of that (alhtough OT God does send "deceiving spritis" to confuse people, and the disicples believed in it)

And if the Bible contains (human) errors, then it is neither authoritative—except by fiat—nor inherently reliable!

Naturally, this view probably won't go down with the frothier Biblical literalists, who seem to think that each verse of Scripture is of equal value to every other verse; some agree with you that the Bible should be read on the level of a science textbook, only they think it's correct on that level.

If you allow one error in the Bible, who is to say what is correct? Of course, that's why we have the Holy Tradition, which "fills in the gaps" as unwritten authority, and something that was known to the Church form the beginning, everywhere and always, as they say.

The 300-year old struggle to form a canon agreeable to the whole Church shows that this is not the case. For one, books such as 2 Peter were hotly debated and contested as for several centuries.

In Constantinople, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch, seocnd in honor to the Pope, as late as the 9th century AD, the Book of Revelation, for example, was listed as "questionable" alongside Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas (both of which appear as canon in the oldest extant complete Christian Bible, the mid 4th century AD Codex Sinaitucus)!

It may be of interest here to mention that Revelation is the only book of the Bible the orthodox Church never reads from in public.

The scriptures cannot be the most authoritative and yet full of errors. There is an inherent contradiction in this view.

I think God would have done a much better job at communicating.

The scriptures cannot be the most authoritative and yet full of errors. There is an inherent contradiction in this view.

I don't see a contradiction -- it's simply that there is nothing more authoritative (well, Tradition, but -- like the Jews -- I see Scripture and Tradition as unified). The image I rather favor is that humanity (and the world) suffered a catastrophe, and managed to survive, in spite of wounds and injuries, clinging finally to the Ark of the Church, clutching what scraps and tatters and small belongings that could be salvaged.

I think God would have done a much better job at communicating.

Yes, if I were God, I would have done things differently too, I imagine! ;-)

St. Augustine writes to St. Jerome: For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the Ms. is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. [Letter 82]. I am consoled by the "or I myself have failed to understand" ;-)

Good morning, Maryz and Kosta50!

Kosta50, thank you for the link to the Dogmatic Faith of the Orthodox Church. I now understand your position on the Bible, since for the Orthodox the source of doctrine is Tradition, and the Bible is part of that Tradition; as opposed to the Roman Catholic which speaks of a twofold deposit of Faith: Scripture and Tradition; or the position of many Protestants of sola scriptura which I find very unbiblical.

In the article on the Orthodox Faith what I suspected to be the case was confirmed, namely the emphasis of the Orthodox on the theosis (communion with God or “deification”) of man through the Incarnate Logos, as opposed to a hyper-emphasis in the West (seemingly or really) on atonement.

Under Section IV, The Doctrine of the Church, there are the following beautiful statements:

Christ saved humankind through what He is, and through what He did for us. Beginning with St. Irenaeos, the Greek Fathers continually reiterate the statement that the Incarnate Son of God "became what we are (a human being) so that we may be deified," says St. Athanasios. By assuming our human nature, the Incarnate Logos, a divine person, brought this humanity to the heights of God. Everything that Christ did throughout His earthly life was based on the presupposition that humanity was already saved and deified, from the very moment of His conception in the womb of Mary, through the operation of the Holy Spirit. (Section IV, a).

I agree wholeheartedly. In my opinion, or according to my theologoumenon :) , this lends itself well to the position of Scotus because the primary mission of Christ here is not seen as the redemption, but rather the bringing of man into communion with God ( theosis )—after the fall, sin becomes an obstacle to that mission and thus redemption becomes a necessary part of this mission. From this perspective the mission of Christ as Mediator uniting God and man through his hypostatic union is quite capable of standing on its own, even if sin never entered the world.

In fact a little further on the article goes on to say: Jesus had the following obstacles to overcome in order for Him to accomplish the work for which He came (theosis): the obstacle of nature, the obstacle of sin, the obstacle of death, and the dominion of the devil. The obstacle of nature was overcome with His Incarnation; the obstacle of sin and death was overcome by the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus. The dominion of the devil was overcome by Christ's descent into Hades (Hell). (Section IV, c).

From this perspective the primary reason for Christ's coming is theosis, man's communion with the Triune God. The article rightly mentions "the obstacle of nature" which would still exist if sin had not entered the world. In other words, man can not enter communion with the Infinite God except by a Mediator who possesses the divine and human nature. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus, "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6).

Mind you, I’m not trying to dogmatize my opinion—even if I am relentless;-) it still remains my opinion. However, I must that I am edified by the fact that the Orthodox Christian perspective, which is far more positive in terms of Christ’s loving mission to elevate man into theosis, tends to be more coherent with the position of John Duns Scotus who, as a Franciscan, underscored Divine Love and the faculty of the will (love) in both God and man. Scotus often gets a bad rap because some of his so-called “disciples” (Ockham, for instance) were what we now call voluntarists and unfortunately gave rise to the Protestant revolution of the sola fide doctrine, something which Scotus would never have accepted (see the short video on this subject by Fr. Peter Fehlner, FI.

I wonder if the western focus on redemption among Catholics isn't in part the result of the Roman Catholic Church's situation after the 16th century with all the Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists and their offspring. Just a thought, I'm no theologian, but I'm even less an historian.