God.
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
God.
John 1:1
:) OK, I should've known it would come down to this. As usual we're dealing with a matter of interpretation.
Why is it then, that in church we always talk about reading a passage from the "Gospel according to Mark," for instance? Shouldn't it just be the "Gospel according to God"? Why bother naming numerous sections in the Bible after their various human authors, if they didn't actually write them? There were something like 40 (human) authors and 66 books written over a period of ~1500 years.
"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,"
Hebrews 1:1
"for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,"
2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture was inspired by God, yes. But that inspiration was recorded through men, and, like all men, they were imperfect - Even if they were prophets, and even if they were inspired. God did not sit down at his desk one day and write the Bible.
In addition, we have lost the original texts (in archaic Greek and Hebrew). We rely on the work of numerous men before us in properly translating and recording the texts and assembling what we have now. Anyone who's ever tried to translate anything knows that it's hard to do a good translation, and again we rely on fallible men to have done so and done so correctly.
Finally, there are numerous different versions of the Bible out there. How is this possible, if the Bible is the Word of God, by definition perfect and therefore in need of no changing? Is there one version that's better than all of the others?
DFS