Inspired Editors?
I am almost at the end of G. K. Beale’s (rather frustrating) book The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism. In his chapter on Isaiah’s authorship (in which he takes the traditional view), he says something that sort of jumped out at me. This is in the section where he tries to answer the question of whether or not the single authorship of Isaiah is nullified by minor updating or editing. Here is what he says,
“It is certainly possible that there were scribes of Isaiah who wrote down some of his discourses, so literary style may vary within the book. Furthermore, later inspired editors could have done some minor editing of Isaiah’s prophecies. But the conceptual essence of each prophecy should be seen as stemming from what the historical Isaiah said or wrote in his lifetime; each prophecy is like a footprint left by Isaiah, even if later scribes or editors may have filled in a little tread here and there” (2008, p. 157, my emphasis)
He goes on to say that this is not very different from what happens in the Gospels. Here are a few questions:
- What does it mean that an unknown editor is inspired?
- Is talk of inspired editors only possible because now we have a canon and, in hindsight, we know they were inspired?
- Is “editorial inspiration” a bona fide argument in Evangelical views of inspiration or is this just Beale’s notion?
I raise these questions because at some point you will need to start talking about textual variants and the LXX (e. g. Jeremiah). How then does one decide what is inspired and what is not?
Tags: G. K. Beale, Inspiration, Isaiah
