IS THE BIBLE
A HUMAN BOOK?Reviewed By E. L. Bynum
Southern Baptist Leaders Launch
An Attack Upon The Verbal
Inspiration Of The Bible"Is The Bible A Human Book? Fifteen Baptist Leaders
Speak Out" -- Edited by Wayne E. Ward and Joseph F.
Green, Published by Broadman Press 1970, 159 pages.It would be difficult to find a book written by a number
of Baptists that is more filled with heresy than this 159-
page book. Broadman Press and these "Baptist Leaders"
have let go a broadside against verbal inspiration. A close
look will show just how far the Southern Baptist
Convention has gone in rejecting the inspired Word of
God. Of the fifteen authors, eight are pastors, five are
from five different Southern Baptist Seminaries, one is
with the Baptist Home Mission Board, and one is a former
congressman and former president of the Southern
Baptist Convention. The editors say, "For the first time,
a cross section of recognized Baptist leaders spells out
what they really believe about the Bible . . . " These
fifteen men, from different areas of the SBC, undoubt-
edly represent the growing liberal power in the SBC.This Book Should Be Withdrawn There are still thousands of good people in the SBC who
still believe in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. As
the liberal, modernistic influence ascends in power,
many SBC church members and pastors are becoming
more and more concerned over the drift from Biblical
Christianity.
During the (June 1970) SBC meeting in Denver, Gwin
Turner, a Calif. pastor, led a successful drive to force
Broadman Press to withdraw Vol. I of the New Broadman
Commentary. This volume dealt with the creation
account as "myths" and not historical facts. Many SBC
delegates, who were tired of the modernistic attacks
against the Bible being financed with their offerings,
joined pastor Turner in voting out this liberal commentary
on the book of Genesis. (The rewritten Vol. I is little if any
better, than the original Vol. I).
Every Bible believing Southern Baptist ought to unite
and demand that "Is The Bible A Human Book?" be
withdrawn from circulation. This book is filled with
modernistic blasphemy.
In the preface of the book it is stated, "These writers do
not necessarily agree with each other or with the editors
on all points. Each one has been completely free to deal
with his topic in light of his own understanding and con-
viction . . . Each contributor, therefore, is responsible for
his own chapter and cannot be held responsible for any
other part of the book." There seems to be very little evi-
dence of any disagreement among the writers. No SBC
leader who believed in verbal inspiration was allowed to
write a chapter for this book. We seek in vain for even one
page defending the verbal inspiration of the Bible.
The first paragraph printed on the jacket of the book
reads as follows: "For the first time, a cross section of
recognized Baptist leaders spells out what they really
believe about the Bible--how God inspired it, how it is
different from other books, and how human factors show
up in it." It is stated in the preface "that the nature of the
Bible has been the topic of lively discussion among
Southern Baptists during the last ten years or so. This
discussion, is so lively today that it can be called a de-
bate." It is clear after reading this book, that only one side
of the debate is given, and the wrong side at that!
Lest we be accused of drawing the wrong conclusions,
we shall give many direct quotes from the book.· Chapter 1, Could God Trust Human Hands?, by
James Flamming, pastor of First Baptist, Abilene, Tex.
Page 9. He sees a contradiction in the accounts of
creation in Genesis 1 and 2. He prefers to believe that God
did not dictate two accounts. He contends that these
stories were carried by word of mouth until the days of
David and Solomon, then were written down.
This denial of Mosaic authorship clearly contradicts
what Jesus said. "And beginning at Moses and all the
prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures
the things concerning himself." Luke 24:27. "For had ye
believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he
wrote of me." John 5:46. Do you believe Jesus Christ or
do you believe the modernistic statements of Flamming?
Page 11. He accuses Mark of not cross checking his
references. He claims that Mark made mistakes in
quoting from the Old Testament. He says, "If God could
use Mark with sixth grade grammar, and an occasional
misquote from the Old Testament, maybe he can use me
too!" On this page he also suggests that Mark's Gospel
may be just a summary of Simon Peter's preaching while
in the city of Rome, and that the mistakes may have been
made by Peter and not Mark. Note that this puts Peter in
Rome, although there is not one verse of Scripture or any
reliable history that Peter ever was in Rome. This is only
Roman Catholic tradition!
Page 12. He denies the last 12 verses of Mark as having
a rightful place in the Word of God.
Page 17. Subhead: "Is Biblical Perfection Possible?"
"This much is sure: the Bible was not written by or for
perfect people. Yet we are often unwilling to accept God's
stance of freedom and trust in an imperfect world. We
search for a perfect authority to cover our own weakness
or put it in another way, an ‘untouched-by-human-weak-
ness’ authority."
Page 18. "Perhaps the best word to describe the result
of inspiration of Scripture (cf. II Tim. 3:16) is trustworthy,
for God believed that man was worthy of his trust to write,
preserve, and interpret the problems and potential of the
God-man relationship."
The best Flamming can say about, "All scripture is
given by inspiration of God..." (II Tim. 3:16) is "trust-
worthy." Apparently from his above statement, the one
inspired to write, is no more trustworthy than the one who
is to interpret. In his conclusion the author says: "The
Bible is a divine-human book. Erase the divine side of the
equation, and you argue against the witness of the
centuries that the Bible is the Word of God. (Incidentally,
whether the Bible is the Word of God or contains the Word
of God seems to me just so much theological shadow
boxing.)"
Is the Bible the Word of God, or does it contain the
Word of God? If the Bible is the Word of God, then it is all
His Word and does not contain error. If the Bible merely
contains the Word of God, then it may contain the errors of
man. We say that the Bible is the verbally inspired,
infallible Word of God, in spite of Flamming.
· Chapter 2, The Humanity of God, John R. Claypool,
pastor, Crescent Hill Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky.
Pages 19,20. On Gen. 1:26, "made in the image of
God," the author comes to this amazing conclusion that
"God resembles man!" He states: "We can thus gain
some insight into God's nature and ways of working by
observing human nature and the way men fulfill their
natures."
He quotes favorably from Karl Barth and the "Inter-
preter's Bible."
Page 27. He seems to find some kind of a contradiction
between I Sam. 8 where Israel demands a king, and I Sam.
9, where God chooses Saul to be King. Of this event Mr.
Claypool said: "What we have here are obviously
opposite interpretations on the same event. To assume
that a single Intelligence dictated both of those accounts
makes a mockery of any kind of rational understanding.
On the basis of this and many other conflicting accounts
alone, many serious students of the Bible have rejected
the dictation theory and all of its claims to literal
infallibility and inerrancy. I join them in this rejection, but
for reasons deeper than errors in Scripture. The nature of
the God who has power but is love is the crux of the issue
for me." Claypool uses the favorite tool of modernists, as
he uses an undefined love to throw out an inspired,
infallible Bible.
Page 28. He contends that inspiration is necessary for
reading today, as it was in writing by the prophets. He
further says: "The ultimate authority in a living religion
can never be something as static as a book or an institution
or even a human being . . . This is why it borders on the
heretical to speak of the Bible as the final authority in all
matters religious. This makes the power of ultimacy out of
God's free hands and posits it in a form that men can
manipulate and guarantee, and the biblical name for such
a practice is the sin of idolatry!" This is utter nonsense!
Page 29. "This is why the mistakes and errors and
conflicting opinions of the biblical record do not invalidate
it for me but rather testify to its authenticity." There are
other liberal errors on this page.
Page 30. "Is the Bible, then, a human book? By all
means, the answer is an affirmative one."· Chapter 5, Words, Parables, And Pictures, Scott L.
Tatum, pastor, Broadmore Baptist, Shreveport, La.
Page 51. "The New Testament is a collection of the
writings of human beings. In spiritual experience, these
writings have been discovered to be divine. Jesus was a
man. His disciples discovered him to be divine."
Page 52. He quotes Dr. Elton Trueblood favorably.
Page 53. "When Paul wrote letters to the people in
whom he was interested, he did not realize that later
generations would regard his writings as sacred 1
Scripture. He was expressing himself as a missionary
friend, a gospel preacher, and a fellow human being. His
letters were very personal--warmly human, like Jesus."· Chapter 7, Stories That Teach, Wayne E. Ward,
professor of Christian Theology, Southern Baptist
Seminary, Louisville, Ky.
His entire chapter seems to be establishing the thought
that the Bible records of creation, and the fall were
stories.
Page 79, under subhead, "The Historical References
in These ‘Stories’ that Teach" the author says: "One
more important point should be considered in these
‘stories that teach,’ especially these great stories of
creation, sin, and judgment in Genesis. They are clearly
NOT straight forward historical narratives like the
records of the kings of Judah and Israel, or even the
accounts of the patriarchs, or the Exodus, or the
crucifixion of Jesus."
Page 78. "Some people are determined to make the
(1) The apostle Paul considered his writing to be authoritative. See I Cor.
14:37; II Cor. 10:1-16; Gal. 1:6-12 and II Thess. 3:6-14. Peter placed the
commandments of the apostles (himself included) in the same class with
"the holy prophets" (II Pet. 3:2). In I Tim. 5:18 Paul puts the book of Luke
(10:7) on the same level as Deuteronomy (25:4), calling them both
"[S]cripture[.]" I Timothy was written about five years after Luke, and at that
time Paul recognized Luke as Scripture. Peter puts the Epistles of Paul on the
same level as "the other [S]criptures," in II Pet. 3:15,16. In Rev. 22:18-19, we
can see that John considered the book of Revelation to be divinely inspired.
In view of the above references, we can safely say that Mr. Tatum is wrong
when he says that Paul did not regard his writings as Scripture.
‘serpent’ in Genesis 3 a literal snake . . . Such interpreters
insist on taking the tree of knowledge of good and evil
literally, and even spend pages debating whether it was
an apple, a pomegranate, or some other fruit. Obviously,
the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ is a moral name,
not an actual fruit tree." It should be obvious that this
kind of interpretation is modernistic to the core. Once you
have explained away the serpent and the tree, it is only
one more step to explain away Eve, the garden and the fall
of man. This is exactly what many do with this passage.· Chapter 9. The Bible And Human Science, John M.
Lewis, pastor, First Baptist Church, Raleigh, N.C.
Page 96. "Many Bible students recognize that there
are two accounts of creation in Genesis. The first, from 1:1
to 2:4a, appears to have been written later than the
second, which is from 2:4b to 2:25. The older account in
Genesis 2 is more primitive and childlike in its concepts
and picturizations of God. Here man is created before any
other living creatures. But the stories were not given as a
scientific account of creation as such. If one tries to take
these accounts as literal scientific truth he does violence
to the real intent of the Bible itself. If one attempts this,
which account is to be taken as scientifically accurate,
Genesis 1 or 2? The order is exactly opposite in each. Both
cannot be scientifically accurate at the same time."
Page 98. He discusses Usher's chronology and utterly
rejects it while seemingly accepting the fantastic guesses
of modern day science as to the age of the earth and man.
He says: "The study of ancient fossils and rocks first
began pushing the origin of the world back by millions of
years. Archaeology began unearthing civilizations
thousands of years older than the Babylonian culture
where Abraham lived. The findings of geology, archae-
ology, paleontology and astrophysics have now pushed
the age of the world back into billions of years. Yet at first
the church rejected the scientific research on the question
of time and the age of the world." There are hundreds of
Bible believing scientists, with plenty of scientific
credentials who would gladly argue with facts that Lewis
is wrong on this. 2· Chapter 12, What Is Inspiration?, W. Boyd Hunt,
professor of Theology, Southwestern Baptist Seminary,
Fort Worth, Tx.
This chapter is one of the rankest pieces of modernism
that we have seen for a long time. It is very evident that he
does not believe in verbal inspiration. A large part of this
chapter is an attack upon the Fundamentalists position on
inspiration. He is entirely committed against what he
calls "dictation" of the Scriptures by God. He does give
some of the Bible references that indicate inspiration, but
he does not quote them, explain them or refute them. He
rejoices in neo-Evangelicalism as shown by this quote on
page 122. "Meanwhile the older fundamentalism has
tended to give way to neo-Evangelicalism. G. E. Ladd,
(2) For information on qualified scientists that believe in a young earth and
the Bible account of creation, write to: Institute for Creation Research,
P.O. Box 15666, San Diego, Calif. 92115 and the Bible Science Association,
P.O. Box 1016, Caldwell, Idaho 83605.
professor of New Testament at the Fuller Theological
Seminary, now defines the Bible as ‘the Word of God
given in the words of men in history’."
The author speaks of "primal authority of the Bible"
and "the Bible's supremacy," which all serves as
theological double talk in order to pay lip service to the
Bible while denying the verbal inspiration of the
Scriptures.
Page 122. "For all practical purposes, the canon of
Scripture is closed. No one really expects the matter to be
reopened for the exclusion or the admission of a book. No
procedure for such an effort is even conceivable." It
seems that the author in speaking of "practical
purposes," is not dealing with what should or should not
be done, but rather is thinking of what seems practical.
However, the Bible is being changed constantly. Through
the devious work of textual critics and translators, words,
verses and even most of some chapters has been changed.
In other instances, words and sections are added to new
translations, without any explanation whatsoever. They
can get by with this changing of the Word of God, because
there are too many professors like Boyd with their loose
views on inspiration.
Page 123. "Illumination, then, stresses that inspira-
tion has to do with the continuing and abiding work of the
Holy Spirit in the world and not with the STATIC BOOK.
This emphasis is a much needed corrective to the tradi-
tional tendency to identify inspiration solely with the
original production of the Bible." What wickedness some
people will try to blame on the Holy Spirit!
The "static book" is in reality the unchanging Bible.
But these men are not satisfied with a "static" or
unchanging Bible. It must be changed and interpreted
in the light of modernistic theology. This writer, along
with several others, try to make a case by insisting that the
inspired writers were not perfect men. We know of no one
claiming they were perfect. However, this would not keep
them from being inspired of God and moved upon by the
Holy Ghost to write the Bible as the perfect Word of God.
The God of the smart professors, was so dumb, he didn't
know what the Bible should say in the 20th Century, so
these professors have to say it for him. How convenient.· Chapter 13, What The Bible Means To Me, Brooks
Hays, former President of Southern Baptist Convention,
former U.S. Congressman from the State of Arkansas.
(The good people of Arkansas had sense enough to retire
him from that job via the ballot box.)
Page 131. "To avoid being guilty of ignoring my own
exhortations against uncritical treatment of the Bible, I
must say at the outset that I do not accept all of the Bible
as literally true. (I do not believe, for example, that God
ever ordered the slaughter of one's enemies.) I do accept
it as the Christian's authority for faith and conduct. It is
part, but not the whole, of God's revelation of His will . ."
Page 134. On this page Mr. Hays says of "literalists
who claim ‘verbal inerrancy’ of the writings . . . this is
antibiblical--for it tends to make an idol of printed pages.
Bibliolatry is as dangerous as any other form of idolatry."
Page 136. "Messengers to the Southern Baptist Con-
vention in 1904 had to listen to a sermon which contained
the following calls to arms: ‘We must not rest till Roman
Catholics are driven out of the Western Hemisphere just
as the Spanish soldiers were driven out of Cuba.’ But in
1969, Roman Catholic theologians were saying to Baptist
leaders meeting with them at Wake Forest's Ecumenical
Institute that their church has been inspired and helped
by the Baptist emphasis upon Bible study. We no longer
seek to destroy--only to influence them--and in turn we
seek the noblest influences of their church for the good
they can do us. Bible truth will produce the reconciling
factors. Pope John is entitled to much credit for this
influence in the Catholic community." Brooks Hays and
his kind will make it easy for the anti-Christ to set up his
one-world ecumenical church.This Book Is Filled With Rank Modernism This only a sample of the anti-biblical statements to
be found in this book. It is grievous to repeat these errors
without space to refute them, but this would take a book.
What have we learned about the beliefs of these leading
SBC pastors and professors? 1. We have learned that we
cannot trust the creation accounts in Genesis, because
there are supposedly two conflicting accounts. 2. We
have learned that I Samuel cannot be depended on. 3. We
have learned that there are errors in the Scriptures. 4. We
have learned that to believe that the Bible is inspired and
inerrant, is to be guilty of idolatry (worshiping the Bible).
5. We have learned that the Bible is not the final authority
on anything. 6. We have learned that Paul had no idea that
his writings were inspired of God. 7. We have learned that
there was no serpent, tree or fruit in the temptation. 8. We
have learned that the earth is billions of years old and that
man has been around for millions of years. 9. We have
learned that those who read the Bible should and do have
the same inspiration as the ones who wrote it. 10. We have
learned that the Bible is not "static", but changing. 11.
We have learned that Baptists need the "noblest
influences" of the Catholic church. 12. We have learned
that God never ordered His people to slaughter any nation
or people.
This is only a part of what we have learned from this
book, that Broadman Press, the SBC publishing house,
has dared to print. Any Baptist publishing house that
would publish such a book, should take down the word
Baptist, and should refrain from receiving any Baptist
money. If they were honest with truth, they would do so!What A Change Since 1925 In 1925 the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a
Statement of Faith, based largely on the New Hampshire
Confession of Faith. Article 1 of that Confession entitled
"The Scriptures" presents quite a contrast to the modern
view expressed in the book under review. These modern
day writers speak of the Bible being the words of men and
God. They speak of the errors, mistakes, etc., to be found
in the Bible, but notice Article 1, adopted by the Southern
Baptist Convention of 1925:
THE SCRIPTURES "1. We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men
divinely inspired and is a perfect treasure of heavenly
instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its
end, and truth without any mixture of error, for its matter;
that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us;
and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world,
the true center of Christian union, and the supreme
standard by which all human conduct, creeds and
religious opinions should be tried."
In half a century, the SBC has come a long way. Almost
all of it in the wrong direction. In 1925, they had a Bible
that was "truth without any mixture of error", and
in the 70’s they have a Bible that is filled with error. From
a book divinely inspired of God, they have come to "a
human book." The Bible hasn't changed but Southern
Baptist leaders have, and what a change!!What Can Bible Believing Southern Baptists Do? The SBC cannot and will not be cleaned up. Church
history does not contain one instance when a movement
was infiltrated by apostasy, of that group being cleaned
up. Noble souls have spent a life time trying and have
failed. Tithes and offerings given to a Southern Baptist
Church will help to feed the ecumenical modernistic
monster that has taken over the house. Even designated
giving to more fundamental causes among Southern
Baptists will only free money that can go to pay the way of
modernistic seminaries and universities that are
destroying the faith once delivered to the saints. Those
who stay in, give their name, their influence and their
money to destroy true Christianity. No amount of ratio-
nalizing can ever justify disobedience to the Word of God.
God's Word is plain. "Be ye not unequally yoked
together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness? and what com-
munion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath
Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth
with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of
God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as
God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I
will be their God, and they shall be my people. Where-
fore come out from among them, and be ye separate,
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will
receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be
my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."--II Corinthians 6:14-18
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