What is true of Scripture as a result of being inspired? What should divine inspiration cause us to expect from it? The answers to these questions in the early church related not just to the nature of Scripture's truth claims but to the manner in which Scripture was to be interpreted.
In this book Michael Graves delves into what Christians in the first five centuries believed about the inspiration of Scripture, identifying the ideas that early Christians considered to be logical implications of biblical inspiration. Many books presume to discuss how some current trend relates to the "traditional" view of biblical inspiration; this one actually describes in a detailed and nuanced way what the "traditional" view is and explores the differences between ancient and modern assumptions on the topic.
Accessible and engaging, The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture presents a rich network of theological ideas about the Bible together with critical engagement with the biblical text.
Michael Graves is Armerding Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College in Illinois. Among his many books are How Scripture Interprets Scripture: What Biblical Writers Can Teach Us about Reading the Bible (Baker Academic, 2021), Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church (Fortress, 2017), and The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture: What the Early Church Can Teach Us (Eerdmans 2014).