Thinking Straight about the Bible

                                                                                                                    Vol. X, No. 9, Nov/Dec 1997

Because this issue’s “Antiheritage” cites the views of the president of the second largest Baptist state university, it is appropriate that “Heritage” present those of a professor at the largest such school.

J. B. Tidwell was professor and chairman of the Bible Department at Baylor University in Texas from 1910 to 1946. In his book, Thinking Straight about the Bible, or Is the Bible the Word of God?, published by the Baptist Sunday School Board in 1935, Dr. Tidwell wrote:

These writers certainly claimed that what they say is of God. To them the inspiration is not just plenary but verbal. They were not left to choose their words promiscuously. Their individuality was preserved, but the words they used were given them of God. Not just the thought came from God, but every word with every inflection. Every verse and line and even every tense of the verb, every number of the noun, and every little particle they regarded as coming from God and demanded on the pain of grave disaster that we should preserve it in its entirety.

For the Christian, however, there is no authority more sovereign than Jesus, and it is He Who makes the most exhaustive assertion for the inerrancy, the most plenary inspiration of Scripture. Jesus’ claim even goes far beyond what Tidwell said, for in Matthew 5:18 Jesus said, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

“Jot” designates the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is the smallest of all Hebrew letters. But in specifying “tittle”, Jesus goes even further in stating the completeness of biblical inerrancy, for the tittle is defined as: “The little lines or projections by which Hebrew letters in other respects similar, differ from one another.”

Thus, not just the meaning is inspired. Not just the sentences. Not just the phrasing. Not just the words. Not just the letters. But even the tiniest curlicues on the corners of the Hebrew letters which serve to distinguish one letter from another very similar letter. And this on the authority of the incarnate Son of God!