Did God Dictate the Bible? What “Inspired” and “Inerrant” Really Mean
Jimmy Akin | 10 Oct. 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqCaplcxtvA
2:19 I would say, the Protestants who are the clearest would have said that:
- Apostolic tradition not found verbatim in the Bible was binding on Christian conscience, when we had St. Paul in person having visited a church
- also up to its inclusion, verbatim or by inspired change of phrase in the Bible
- possibly a bit longer for some items, that are now however as lost as ... Latin is to the vernacular.
They would argue, and a Pole or Polish named German has argued that by now the writings of the NT are our most direct access to Apostolic Tradition. Anything else is more tenuous or even totally uncertain and needs to be "tested against that standard"
This is false, since it contradicts the promises in the Bible.
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world
[Matthew 28:20]
But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
[John 14:26]
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him
[Luke 24:27]
So Jesus, His Bride the Church, His Mother Mary, His adversary the Antichrist are all prefigured in the OT somehow, and possibly some kind of replacement for Shebna as well ... but not all of this is explicitated as fulfilment notices in the NT text. But these words of Christ cannot be lost to the Apostles, see John 14, and to their successors to the end of time, see Matthew 28. Therefore there is today a Church with certain access to traditions not found verbatim in the Bible.
3:26 You are aware that the paragraph 3 of Dei Verbum, at least up to the mention of Abraham, is a Young Earth Creationist text?
It could be tenuously compatible with Day-Age or Gap Theories, but Adam still has to be a creature from 6000 or 7000 years ago for the text to be plausibly true.
Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents.
From the start is actually the Biblical phrase "from the beginning"
insuper protoparentibus inde ab initio Semetipsum manifestavit.
Qui respondens, ait eis: Non legistis, quia qui fecit hominem ab initio, masculum et feminam fecit eos? Et dixit:
[Matthew 19:4]
So, Deep Time has the exact same problem with DV § 3 as with this passage. The compatibility was not expressed in the 1909 judgement. After that judgement, signed by the Day-Ager Fulcran Vigouroux, a Catholic theologian or even lay theologian insofar as they are an accepted phenomenon, is still free to say "no, they aren't millions of years, since that contradicts Matthew 19:4" (or for that matter from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, Romans 1:20).
Now, apart from this, the next sentence rules out the Evolutionist scenario of mankind pretty completely.
Then after their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved (see Gen. 3:15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the human race in His care, to give eternal life to those who perseveringly do good in search of salvation (see Rom. 2:6-7). Then, at the time He had appointed He called Abraham in order to make of him a great nation (see Gen. 12:2).
An unbroken and unaltered oral tradition of the Genesis 3 events from Adam to Abraham is simply not realistic if that time spanned 100 000 years, most of which were spent as roaming hunter-gatherers who might have to leave children behind or kill them (confer what some say of the transition from Palaeolithic to Neolithic). And without writing. It is however perfectly possible on the conditions outlined by Father George Leo Haydock:
Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. (Haydock)
Eight minimally overlapping generations from Adam to Moses or six from Adam to Abraham who was able to preserve writing in the baggage of the caravan, no problem for what DV § 3 just said. 100 000 years on the run from dangers and scarcities and to resources tenuously hoped for with difficulties to preserve all children in life as opposed to handing them over to death, not just losing them to disease or accident ... no, that's not how God makes sure a promise and the circumstances surrounding it are correctly recalled. Just as God didn't preserve oral tradition purely oral keeping the first Church Father for now, 2000 years later.
5:57 As far as I'm concerned, the dictation theory is not condemned, unless one hold Vatican II to be Ecumenical.
Cardinal Franzelin didn't personally hold it, but he couldn't stamp it as heretical. And knew it. I actually learned this from the Deep Timer Vigouroux.
I'm aware that St. Thomas Aquinas, at least back in Sentence commentary or ad Gentes held the dictation theory.
7:19 Comparing the dictation theory to channeling is like comparing Samson's final feat to a murder committed by a demon possessed person.
7:39 St. Luke's words beginning his Gospel and my view that most of Genesis (after creation of man in each of the accounts) came to Moses that way looks like authors doing their own research.
I'm not sure how exactly St. Thomas reconciled this with dictation theory, or if he meant it for only certain books.
Now, Franzelin says, not only did God preserve each author from any actual error of fact, even, as far as the original manuscript is concerned, je remercie bien l'abbé Fulcran Vigouroux et son Manuel Biblique ou Cours d'Écriture sainte à l'usage des séminaristes, but ... by the way, I get the info when I look up my citation that the opposite view was held by Iacobus Bonfrerius, but not who contradicted him:
Eos vero Ecclesia pro sacris et canonicis habet, non ideo quod sola humana industria concinnati, sua deinde auctoritate sint approbati : nec ideo duntaxat, quod revelationem sine errore contineant; sed propterea quod, Spiritu Sancto inspirante conscripti Deum habent auctorem, atque ut tales ipsi Ecclesiæ traditi sunt.
May even have been the Council at the Vatican itself (1869—70). Meaning, whatever "liberty of otherness" the author had as to wording, he displayed the liberty of chosing obedience in each sentence he wrote. He was responding to God's own initiative.
One can of course resume Mary's response with a quote from Columbine High "She said yes", but the actual wording is more carefully chosen, and She was inspired by the One She received, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum (whatever caution She felt She needed was also fulfilled: She gave the apparition no authority to go beyond the actual and pious words).
I think the relation between God's initiative and human response is very similar.
7:43 If an English speaking Pope makes a ruling that fasting is relaxed for people in hard labour outdoors when it's raining cats and dogs, presumably no one will interpret "raining cats and dogs" any different from English usage. It's not a parallel to stars falling from the sky.
To give a very real example, Hebrew uses "and" for more than strictly just coordination of two propositions that are both true on their own.
8:36 Let me propose a parallel.
In Mathematics, discoveries can be inspired both by God, by the Devil, by the subconscious and so on.
B U T I would say a Mathematician is in this other but similar sense inspired if he looks for and then finds what he (rightly) considers the perfect formula.
A certain Pythagoras thought he was inspired by a demon of Delphi for a^2 + b^2 = c^2. Where a and b are sides adjacent to the right angle, opposite the angles A and B, and c is the hypotenuse, opposite the right angle C. His freedom was looking for the right way to express sth. His inspiration was actually finding it.
13:23 I don't expect Moses to articulate the dimensions of the Ark in metres, but in cubits, which was a measure used in his time. With some variations.
I am not sure if Noah had a different measure, and it was then translated, or if Noah also used cubits, which I think is correct. But I don't know that. Noah's cubit would then have been within the general scope of Moses' knowledge of different cubits, but not necessarily identic to any one of them. Like if a measure had been originally in English feet and they were lost, an author familiar with French and ancient Roman feet would have been correct to accept the same number for the feet as his original English source. Since the English foot is indeed shorter than the French (used up to Lewis XVI, who replaced feet with meters) and longer than the Roman one.
If by precision you means precisely things like precision of measure, or of chemical formula (I tend to hold "waters above the firmament" refer to dihydrogen, its "instant water", just add oxygen and a spark and you get classic H2O), I totally agree with you.
This is by the way one of the reasons I'm fairly positive the "tower" could have been meant as a spacecraft (and God put it on hold until Wernher von Braun, to spare an as yet small and Flood and Ice Age traumatised mankind a further trauma from failed launchings in the Neolithic, but with some radiactive explosive, if Nimrod could just have found it) and that the building materials mentioned in verse 3 of the same account, could as per their names have referred to sth else than what we usually call bricks and bitumen ... I think the change for "bricks" could have come about when or rather after chalk vessels were replaced by ceramic vessels.
But just as Moses doesn't give a to us precise definition of the cubit, so also St. John doesn't even for back then in the text give a precise definition of gematria by what alphanumeric system, Hebrew or Greek. Latin is obviously not fully alphanumeric, until by now recently it is, through ASCII.
You can count on me being fully on board with the Bible containing imprecisions of expression you would not expect in a modern scientist.
13:26 "They didn't have science back then"
Did they know water freezes when sufficiently cold? If they did, they had science.
I hate it when someone restricts science to modern views in science. I actually flunked an exam in general linguistics, not a big one, on an essay question where I refused to call Roman views on how sounds in Greek and Latin relate as "pre-scientific" just because they were pre-Grimm. I'd prefer flunking it again over adapting to the examiner's preference.
This is especially disingenious because you presumably would defend CCC § 283 which rightly or wrongly identifies science (in some sense) and what wisdom taught King Solomon. It very wrongly identifies modern studies in science pretended to change our ideas of cosmology, cosmogony, anthropogony with wisdom.
14:02 Expressions are not all literal.
Nevertheless, narratives are literal narratives of events, unless otherwise clearly implied from context.
Whether the prodigal son actually contains a factual biographic notice, known to Our Lord through omniscience, or not, that is not the point being made.
"If I could only eat the husks" however sounds like what a slave would feel if treated according to the advice of Columella. And swineherds are a feature of nearby Gadara, across the Sea of Galilee.
"Hand of God" is not literal in reference to God as God. It is metaphoric about the Divinity, as well as prophetic about the Humanity assumed in the Incarnation. Fine. This doesn't make Firmament a literary device. Whatever is meant, something is meant which is factually real.
Does Inerrancy Cover More Than What Scripture Asserts?
Jimmy Akin | 8.XI.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmtmiqr-Fq0
1:34 He is quoting 1915, 18 June, Laurentius Janssens, O.S.B.
I. Utrum ad solvendas difficultates, quae in epistolis Sancti Pauli aliorumque Apostolorum occurrunt, ubi de «Parousia», ut aiunt, seu de secundo adventu Domini nostri Iesu Christi sermo est, exegetae catholico permissum sit asserere, Apostolos, licet sub inspiratione Spiritus Sancti, nullum doceant errorem, proprios nihilominus humanos sensus exprimere, quibus error vel deceptio subesse possit?
Resp. Negative.*
Obviously, I hold that the precursor of the Man of Sin appeared as hoi katekhontes were taken away in 1918 (in Yekaterineburg and from Hofburg, Vienna). So, this negative response was very well timed as appearing just before the Roman Emperor was taken away ...
I hold Lenin to be that precursor, unless Henoch and Elias wake him and he returns, in which case he may be the Antichrist in person. Bela Kun was a similar type on the Austro-Hungarian side.
However, he is quoting the next question:
II. Utrum prae oculis habitis genuina muneris apostolici notione et indubia Sancti Pauli fidelitate erga doctrinam Magistri; dogmate item catholico de inspiratione et inerrantia Sacrarum Scripturarum, quo omne id quod hagiographus asserit, enuntiat, insinuat, retineri debet assertum, enuntiatum, insinuatum a Spiritu Sancto; perpensis quoque textibus epistolarum Apostoli, in se consideratis, modo loquendi ipsius Domini apprime consonis, affirmare oporteat, Apostolum Paulum in scriptis suis nihil omnino dixisse quod non perfecte concordet cum illa temporis Parousiae ignorantia, quam ipse Christus hominum esse proclamavit?
Resp. Affirmative.**
As for the context, let's be precise, there is definitely an ignorance as to day and hour, precisely because the Antichrist has exactly 1260 days. Because he will fudge the exact moment they begin.
But during the 3 and 1/2 years it will be very clear that we are in those final years, and I think it is already clearly probable, not least from St. Paul and 1918, removal of the katekhon, that we are in the final decades before that.
The Lateran V ruling was while there was a katekhon by the name of Maximilian I. Obviously, the item mentioned by St. Paul implied that the final days couldn't be imminent then. I consider that as one possible cause for the ruling, apart from it being a rule for a specific class, namely preachers. An essayist has more right to be wrong, I mean C. S.. Lewis even believe the Theory of Evolution, when writing chapter III of Miracles ...
DE PAROUSIA SEU DE SECUNDO ADVENTU DOMINI NOSTRI IESU CHRISTI IN EPISTOLIS SANCTI PAULI APOSTOLI
18 Iunii 1915 | Sanctissimus Dominus Noster Benedictus PP. XV praedicta responsa ratat habuit et publici iuris fieri mandavit Laurentius Janssens, O.S.B.
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19150618_parusia-paolo_lt.html
3:15 "on that one, they said yes"
Fulcran Vigouroux, a Sulpician priest who signed the yes, was himself a Day Ager. This was the only aspect of his theory he had an occasion to rule "affirmative" on.
However, what was the precise question:
VIII. Utrum in illa sex dierum denominatione atque distinctione, de quibus in Geneseos capite primo, sumi possit vox Yom (dies), sive sensu proprio pro die naturali, sive sensu improprio pro quodam temporis spatio, deque huiusmodi quaestione libere inter exegetas disceptare liceat?
Resp. Affirmative.
Could in Genesis one in relation to the denomination and distinction of the six days the word "yom" (day) be taken either in its own sense as a natural day, or in an improper sense for some space of time, and is it licit for exegetes to discuss this kind of question? (Own free translation)
That's what he said yes to.
Very far from an affirmation that everyone is from now on free to take days as long ages, and no exegete can say otherwise. No. A free discussion, including the freedom to argue "whatever the general meaning, it can't mean long periods in this context" (for instance with reference to Adam and Eve being present "ab initio" in Mark 10:6 and as viewers of Heaven in Romans 1:20).
DE CHARACTERE HISTORICO TRIUM PRIORUM CAPITUM GENESEOS
Romae, die 30 Iunii 1909. | Fulcranus Vigouroux, P.S.S. | Laurentius Janssens, O.S.B.
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19090630_genesi_lt.html
"there are still folks who look at those decrees and assume that they're still in force."
Even one Fr. Robinson SSPX, also famous for being rude about the man he held to be Pope, who assumed that 1909 means that a definition making Day Age forever licit was made ....
However, the disciplinary decree does incorporate "sensus quem sancta mater ecclesia tenuit atque adhuc tenet" but I assume you will call Trent IV disciplinary as well.
The problem with that is, you don't get more infallible and magisterial in what we have so far got on Bible exegesis in general.
Is that one still in force? To you, that is, I'm sure it is.
I'll obey it and therefore in obedience to that hold that Adam had no biological ancestry (Pius XII didn't say the judgement of the Church had to be an ensuing one).
And what's more, I'm far from scientifically illiterate, I was a believer in Evolution before I was in Christ, I keep up to date with at least major and mediatised discoveries in anthropology, and I see no problem whatsoever with sticking to this. I see more than one with sticking to your CCC and its § 283, not just Biblically, but in science too.
* I. Whether to solve the difficulties, which occur in the Epistles of St. Paul and of the other Apostles, where the subject is of the "Parousia" as they say or the second coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, it be permitted to Catholic exegetes to assert that the Apostles, though under inspiration of the Holy Spirit they teach no error, however are expressing the proper / own human sense, for which an error or deceit could be the reason?
Resp. Negative.
** II. Whether, holding before their eyes, the genuine notion of the Apostolic task and the undoubted fidelity of St. Paul to the doctrine of his Master; and also the Catholic dogma of inspiration and inerrancy of the Sacred Scriptures, by which all that a hagiographer asserts, enounces, insinuates, must be taken as asserted, enounced, insinuated by the Holy Spirit; weighing also texts of the epistles of the Apostles, considered in themselves, and very well harmonised with the manner of speach of the Lord Himself, should affirm, that the Apostle Paul in his writings said nothing at all, which does not perfectly concord with that ignorance of the time of the Parousia, which Christ Himself said was that of men?
Resp. Affirmative.
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