Inspiration and Participatory Bible Study

I recently added Understanding the Bible – With and Without Inerrancy to the Energion Publications YouTube channel, and I believe this can be helpful to people in their Bible study.

I am the interviewer for this video, and am talking with two very good friends, Alden Thompson, who was my undergraduate advisor, and Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., a friend since the mid-1990s when we met on the old CompuServe Religion Forum. Both have since spoken at conferences that I’ve organized.

The purpose of this video was not to settle the issue of inerrancy, which is unlikely to occur, but instead to discuss how each of these scholars use their view of inspiration as they interpret scripture. One interesting result is that while the emphasis is different, much of what they’d say about scripture is very similar.

How you perceive the text can be important in how you understand the text, and especially in how you are transformed by the text. Participatory Bible study should be study for transformation.

Neither would be accurately described as either liberal or progressive. This is a discussion between two conservatives, both of whom have a high view of scripture (they discuss what this means), regarding one potential dividing point.

Note: This post was adapted from a post that originally appeared on Threads from Henry’s Web and is used by permission.