Ipsissima Verba or Vox. What is the reformed position? And a question on john.

blakerussell · #1 (**permalink**) 09-20-2009, 09:51 PM

So, I'm not fluent in foreign or dead languages, so if there's anyone like myself that can't understand the question I just asked, I'll pose it in english.

"Ipsissima Vox is a Latin expression meaning "the very voice", and describes the view that the New Testament Gospel-accounts capture the concepts that Jesus expressed, but not exact words. Ipsissima Vox is contrasted with Ispissima Verba, meaning "the very words". (coming from theopedia)

What's the reformed position? Ipsissima verba or vox?

I do suppose this question is laced with a bit of trouble I'm having with the gospel of John. I've studied this gospel fairly intensely and have started studying the synoptics more intensely as well and I've noticed what many have noticed before me.

I do suppose a couple of quotes I've recently read have been unsettling. Here they are.

"The synoptists may give us something more like a perfect photograph; St. John gives us the more perfect portrait... the mind of Jesus Himself was what the fourth gospel disclosed, but... the disciples were at first unable to enter into this, partly because of its novelty, and partly because of the associations attaching to the terminology in which it was necessary that the Lord should express Himself. Let the synoptists repeat for us as closely as they can the very words he spoke; but let St John tune our ears to hear them." -William Temple

Another paraphrased quote (not sure who it's by) goes something like this-
"It's hard to tell where Jesus words end and John's begin"

Anyhow, those quotations are just a bit disconcerting from me. Even a child can see that the voice of Christ is seemingly different in John than it is in synoptics. Why is that?

So I guess I have two questions kind of garbled into one subject.
Thanks, Blake.

rbcbob · #2 (**permalink**) 09-21-2009, 11:33 AM

From:
The Inspiration of The Bible

by A.A. Hodge (1823-1886)

3. What is meant by "plenary inspiration"?

A divine influence full and sufficient to secure its end. The end in this case secured is the perfect infallibility of the Scriptures in every part, as a record of fact and doctrine both in thought and verbal expression. So that although they come to us through the instrumentality of the minds, hearts, imaginations, consciences, and wills of men, they are nevertheless in the strictest sense the word of God.

4. What is meant by the phrase "verbal inspiration," and how can it be proved that the words of the Bible were inspired?

It is meant that the divine influence, of whatever kind it may have been, which accompanied the sacred writers in what they wrote, extends to their expression of their thoughts in language, as well as to the thoughts themselves. The effect being that in the original autograph copies the language expresses the thought God intended to convey with infallible accuracy, so that the words as well as the thoughts are God's revelation to us.

That this influence did extend to the words appears--1st, from the very design of inspiration, which is, not to secure the infallible correctness of the opinions of the inspired men themselves (Paul and Peter differed, Gal. 2:11, and sometimes the prophet knew not what he wrote), but to secure an infallible record of the truth. But a record consists of language.

2nd. Men think in words, and the more definitely they think the more are their thoughts immediately associated with an exactly appropriate verbal expression. Infallibility of thought cannot be secured or preserved independently of an infallible verbal rendering.

3rd. The Scriptures affirm this fact, 1 Cor. 2:13; 1 Thess. 2:13.

4th. The New Testament writers, while quoting from the Old Testament for purposes of argument, often base their argument upon the very words used, thus ascribing authority to the word as well as the thought.--Matt. 22:32, and Ex. 3:6,16; Matt. 22:45, and Psalms 110:l ; Gal. 3:16, and Gen. 17:7.