Two New Testament (NT) texts have become classic descriptions of God’s involvement in the production of the Old Testament (OT). Paul’s second letter to Timothy and Peter’s second letter. In 2 Timothy (3:14), Paul urges Timothy to remain steadfast in the doctrine he has learned, having confidence both because of the person from whom he learned it and because of the grounding in Scripture he had from childhood. Paul states: “Every Scripture is divinely inspired and useful for instruction.” Here Scripture is translated by the Greek word graphe; that it denotes the OT is clear from the fact that the reference is to the books that Timothy has known from his Jewish childhood. Paul’s letters were, at the time, not considered scripture and the Gospels were yet to be written.

The Greek word for “divinely inspired” is theopneustos, which can mean “breathed by God.” Scripture is then something that has been breathed by God – in other words, the very breath of God himself. The expression, therefore, clearly denotes the divine origin of Scripture; it bypasses consideration of any human causality that may have been at the origin of Scripture and concentrates upon a familiar OT theme, namely that the breath or spirit of Yahweh is an expression for the forceful action of God.

If 2 Timothy (3:16), in attributing the origin of Scripture to God, bypasses any human factor that may have been involved, the same cannot be said of the second text, namely 2 Peter 1:21. The readers of 2 Peter are assured that the doctrine of the coming of the Lord is not a myth; for the Lord’s majesty has already been seen momentarily at the transfiguration, an event that gives greater strength and credibility to the prophecy of Scripture. Peter states this: “No prophecy of Scripture can be understood by merely human power and outside the salvation community, for it was not the will of man that brought prophecy in former times; rather being impelled by the Holy Spirit, men though they were, spoke under the agency of God”.

Again, it must be understood that both Peter and Paul were not referring to their own writings but to those of the Jewish OT. Our ideas, however, about the divine inspiration of the NT are derived from the ideas that the early Church had about the OT. The OT tells us about the covenant that the Jewish people had with Yahweh. The NT tells us about the NEW COVENANT.