The Testimony of Jesus

Idea or Word Inspiration

The view of inspiration in the resolutions of the General Conference has been the teaching of the church, so far as we know, throughout its history. This is well expressed by Uriah Smith, for more than forty years on the editorial staff of the Review and Herald, in its issue of March 13, 1888: TOJ 86.1

“The questioner says, ‘Is not a word a sign of an idea? and how then can an idea be inspired, and the signs that transfer the idea from one mind to another be uninspired?’ TOJ 86.2

“Answer.—If there was but one word by which an idea could be expressed, this would be so; but when there are perhaps a hundred ways of expressing the same idea, the case becomes very different. Of course, if the Holy Spirit should give a person words to write, he would be obliged to use those very words, without change; but when simply a scene or view is presented before a person, and no language is given, he would be at liberty to describe it in his own words, as might seem to him best to express the truth in the case. And if, having written it out once, a better way of expressing it should occur to him, it would be perfectly legitimate for him to scratch out all he had written and write it over again, keeping strictly to the ideas and facts which had been shown him; and in the second writing there would be the divinely communicated idea just as much as in the first, while in neither case could it be said that the words employed were dictated by the Holy Spirit, but were left to the judgment of the individual himself. TOJ 86.3

“Much of what the prophets have written in the Scriptures are words spoken directly by the Lord, and are not their own words. In these cases, of course, the words are inspired. In Sister White’s writings she often records words spoken by angels. Such words, of course, she gives as she hears them, and has no discretionary power in regard to the terms to be used, or the construction to be followed. These are not her words, and are not to be changed. But much of what the penmen of the Bible have said they might have written in different phraseology, and the truths uttered have been inspired truths to the same extent that they are now.... TOJ 86.4

“When John on the Isle of Patmos heard the voice of majesty and love addressing him, as he was wrapped in the Spirit, the voice said unto him, ‘What thou seest write,’ not, ‘Write the words that I shall give thee.’ Revelation 1:11. And when John says, in verse 12, ‘And I turned to see the voice that spake with me,’ he might have said, ‘And I turned to see who was speaking with me,’ and this would have been just as much inspiration as the former. These examples will illustrate what we mean by saying that the words may not be inspired, while at the same time the ideas, the facts, the truths, which those words convey, may be divinely communicated. TOJ 87.1

“The same method of reasoning which opposers adopt in regard to Sister White when they ask if her amanuenses, and the historians she quotes, were inspired too, the infidel uses against the Word of God itself. We call our English Bible an inspired book; but the English is a translation from the original Hebrew. Other translations have been made, and the translators differ much in the phraseology of their translations; whereupon the infidel asks, Are these translators all inspired, too? And he asks it on just as good ground, and with just as much reason, as those referred to above ask the same question with reference to the writings of Sister White.” TOJ 87.2