Moreover, even in the first century and into the second, several leaders in the early church, including a few authors of the New Testament literature, viewed at least some of the New Testament literature as being divinely authoritative and divinely inspired, since they contain the teachings of Jesus and/ or were either written by an apostle or

It is fine to disagree on nonessentials as long as charity is present and accusations are absent.

What is our takeaway from this? If Paul can rejoice because the gospel was being preached by those believers who stood against him, we should be quick to rejoice when those with whom we disagree on nonessential matters are proclaiming Christ.

Ammianus Marcellinus was the last major Roman historian. Writing in the latter half of the fourth century, he had witnessed the brutal acts of the Romans and, though he was a pagan, condemned the intolerance of the Emperor Julian toward the Christians.14 Having also witnessed how Christians acted toward one another when they had disagreements on

A portion of these will think of the inspiration of Scripture in terms that are not far from divine dictation, though they deny the theory. For them, the nature of God would not permit even the slightest deficiency of detail in anything attributed to being the “Word of God,” despite the observation that the New Testament often refers to the

This book has attempted to bring light to another possible cause: compositional devices that were commonly employed by ancient authors. These devices can easily account for more than 90 percent of all differences between the Gospels, although this does not mean compositional devices are responsible for all of those they can explain.

We do not suggest the psalmist is mistaken when saying God was asleep (Ps. 44:23). Neither do we think the teacher believed that Wisdom is an actual woman who shouts in the streets and square, encouraging people to listen to her and warning them of the consequences of neglecting to do so (Prov. 1:20–33). Nor do we think Jesus was in error when

The Gospels are ancient biographies of Jesus, largely rooted in the testimonies of eyewitnesses and those who had known them. The Gospels do not belong to the genre of modern biography. The importance of this statement makes it worth repeating: the Gospels do not belong to the genre of modern biography.

Views of Scripture that are incongruent with what we observe in Scripture are all too common and often result from top-down approaches to forming a doctrine of Scripture. These approaches often prefer to harmonize differences, sometimes even to a strained extent.