Progress Update on Pattern Analysis

Today I met a short-term goal: I have now analyzed 30% of the Bible using the Pattern Analysis methodology. My goal when I started this effort a year ago was to take a sampling of every book of the Bible with a minimum of 10% of each book or three chapters, whichever is more comprehensive. I am very close to completing that goal with today being another milestone. Hallelujah!

Over this past year I had to substantially enhance the Pattern Analysis model to accomodate the new patterns that I was seeing. With this improved model, I can say that every verse that I’ve looked at has fit into one or more literary patterns. That is, I am not seeing any evidence at this time where an editor (the technical name is a redactor) has modified the biblical text. All the variations that people use to support the theory of a redactor are, at least in my analysis so far, the Holy Spirit’s use of emphasis.

The current model that I am using may be seen in part at Pattern Analysis Handbook. That handbook is currently undergoing scholarly review and will hopefully be published in 2017. You may email me at Tom@ThomasBClarke.com for more information and/or notification of availability.

*** Update on 1/21/2018 ***:
While I have now completed 35% of the Bible, I have decided to postpone publication for some period of time because I want to be absolutely positive that the approach that I have been seeing is correct. I expect my various writings about Pattern Analysis will be controversial because people who do not believe the Bible was inspired by God will attempt to punch holes into this methodology. Thank you for your patience—if you wish, I will be very glad to add you to my mailing list as the various teachings and workbooks become available.
Tom

The Bible: Why a Verbal Plenary Inspiration is Important to You

Never heard about a verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible? I had not either but it makes total sense to me. It is the understanding that the Bible was verbally inspired by God and it is the absolute authority (plenary) of His Word. From this view we can make the faith statement that, “The Bible is totally reliable.”

Imagine yourself a ten or twelve year old girl, having been told that your father loved you but never fully believing it or hearing it or even reading it. Daddy has been away for a very long time and never communicates directly. Mommy only tells you that your father loved you and still loves you. She tells you stories and may even write you notes, but they are not his words. You desperately want to hear it from the man who fathered you, a man you do not know.

This is what has happened to the Church. For well over one hundred years, theologians have audaciously presented to Bible students the thought that the Holy Scriptures have been modified by men. For example, they suggest that some man named Matthew took his portion of the ‘canon’ from either another man named Mark or some other manuscript called a Q or Quell.

These theologians are now our pastors, having been trained and are now teaching the people in our churches that the book of Matthew was passed on from someone else. To them, it is not authoritative. They present theories such as historical criticism and source criticism that report about God’s love. These words are not trustworthy because they do not directly come from the original source.

These theories are not just about Matthew, they involve every book of the Bible. These theories promote statements such as “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Timothy 3:16 NASB) but they take away the Bible’s profound impact. They also promote the thought that some man (or men) called a redactor modified the text, placing it into the form we now have before us.

Dear ten-year-old girl, please know that when the Bible refers to God’s immense love for you, it is spoken through the Holy Spirit. He is the embodiment of God. He loves you, not some other man or some other deity saying this about God, but God himself.

For example, Daniel 9:4 records a portion of a prayer by Daniel:

I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments … ”

There are two ways we can look at that single verse:

• a man acting as a narrator who recorded that prayer, or
• the Holy Spirit that took the words of prayer for all mankind.

I suggest to you that the Bible is much more than the words of some narrators which have been modified by men over the years. Instead, it is the Word given to you personally through the Holy Spirit so that you can know His character. This Daddy has not been away for a very long time. This Daddy communicates continuously, for the one who has an ear. He truly loves you.

All Scripture is Breathed Out by God - Part III

Today I read an article by another author that does not give credit to the Holy Spirit for inspiring the Bible. This author suggests that the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each modeled their descriptions of the resurrection story based on the writings of Moses. He was discussing the rhythm of the verses, not the individual writings. The article was interesting but it left out one key ingredient: the role of the Holy Spirit in inspiring the Bible.

How easily we talk today about Paul's writings or John's writings without mentioning the Holy Spirit. Or we ponder questions like, "Who wrote the book of XXX?" (fill in the XXX with the book of your choice) without a word about the Holy Spirit.

Certainly some books identify an individual: “I, John, your brother … was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” (Revelation 1:9). Or consider “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus …” (Romans 1:1). I would be naive to suggest that a human being was not involved in recording the inspired words.

The important thing, I suggest, is the recognition of the source. As we saw in the first post in this series, 2 Timothy 3:16 states, " “All Scripture is inspired by God …”.

Then we looked last time at Hebrews 3:7—preceding the quote of Psalm 95, that verse states, “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today if you hear His voice, … ’”. This verse does not give the name of a human author, just the Holy Spirit.

We see that again in Acts 1:15,16 where it states,
“At this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together), and said, ‘Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.’”
This verse does not state that David foretold this. Instead, it gives recognition to the Holy Spirit who used the mouth of David. There is a big difference.

When others hear us speak about authorship of one portion of the Bible or another, we may know about the inspiration of the Holy Spirit but they may not. To those on spiritual milk, or even those who have yet to make that journey, PLEASE, let us help them. The power of the Scriptures takes on much greater authority when we mention that the Holy Spirit inspired it into the hearts of Paul or John or anyone else.

All Scripture is Breathed Out by God - Part II

In the first post of this series, we looked at 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is breathed out by God" (ESV). I concluded that message by stating, "When you read this book we know as the Bible, think of it as the Holy Spirit's writings for you." In this posting, we'll look at Psalm 95 and the related verses in Hebrews 3:7-11.

Unlike many of the psalms that state, "A Psalm of David" or "A Psalm of Asaph", Psalm 95 does not identify a person's name. That psalm is among a collection of similar psalms from Psalm 93 through 100. Each one begins with either a song to the Lord or a recognition of His majesty. From that standpoint, they appear as man looking higher toward the Lord, signing praises about Him and knowing His awesome power. Again, no man is identified at the beginning of the psalm.

The first part of Psalm 95 is a song. In modern times, songs have been recorded that celebrate the words of the first seven verses.

The first part of Psalm 95 establishes that the entire psalm is written to the believing community, the so-called sheep of His pasture.

In the second part of Psalm 95, verses 7-11 were quoted in entirety in the book of Hebrews:

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
   on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers put me to the test
   and saw my works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
   and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
   they have not known my ways.’
11 As I swore in my wrath,
   ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
Hebrews 3:7-11 ESV

I am currently studying the book of Hebrews at a Bible Institute named Psalm 19 Ministries. The institute director, Iris Godfrey, pointed out the importance of the first part of Hebrews 3:7, shown above. She noted that with, ‘Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says’, we need to understand that the voice behind Psalm 95, and for that matter the whole Bible, was the Holy Spirit. Read it again for yourself. It was not David, it was not a priest, it was not any other man, it was the Holy Spirit. That is what the text says.

The Holy Spirit breathed Psalm 95!

As an aside, I believe that the book of Hebrews is a great way of seeing hidden things in the Bible. If you were only familiar with the Old Testament writings, you would not understand the last portion of Hebrews 3:11, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ Likely, you would think of rest as the land of milk and honey that was promised to the Israelites before and after leaving Egypt.

I believe this portion of Hebrews 3 is attempting to expose the hidden meaning of the word rest. Surrounding Hebrews 3:7-11 are two themes. In v3:1-6, the theme is God's house; in v3:12-4:11, the theme is rest. In a chiastic sense, these two themes are being compared and equated. In other words, the promised land of Moses' time is now replaced with a new land, the land of the Kingdom of God, the land where Jesus reigns, and the land where the sheep can follow into God's home. That home, I suggest, includes each and every temple within us, those who believe. John 14:2,3 defines that temple as a room, meaning a room in our heart.

If man wrote the Bible, subtleties such as the new meaning of rest would never have been written. Only our God could have done that. The Holy Spirit inspired the entire Bible.

All Scripture is Breathed Out by God - Part I

Do you recognize patterns easily? Can you sense when something is typical based on your prior experience? Or more exactly, can you discern when something is dramatically different from what is expected?

February 24, 2015

I've lived in Upstate New York since 1957. That's a long time. During those many years, I've come to recognize our weather patterns. Today, the first day of February, is often in a transition from our January thaw to the frigid winter conditions of February. This year is no exception. March and April are months of change in a more dramatic way with spring flowers just beginning to show. Freezing rain is a problem we sometimes encounter—we seem more likely to get those in late fall and early spring although I recall a significant storm in January about sixteen years ago. Its all part of the patterns.

An ice storm in July would be really freaky. We typically receive lake effect snowfall in the winter from Lake Ontario as an inch or two each day. Some of those lake effect snowfalls can be massive events. But not in the summer. That is not our pattern.

In the Bible there is a verse that is often quoted from 2 Timothy 3:16. Using various translations, the first part of that verse reads:
All Scripture is inspired by God (NASB)
All Scripture is breathed out by God (ESV)
All scripture is given by inspiration of God (KJV)
All Scripture is God-breathed (NIV)

The pattern is the same regardless of the translation. Even The Message, which is a paraphrase, reads,
Every part of Scripture is God-breathed (MSG)

As you read the Bible, you begin to recognize patterns. The gospels are very different from the Psalms. The writings attributed to Paul are not like the prophetic books. Winter is different from summer.

Reading further in the Bible, we start to see repetitions in the Word that take on another form. The heart of God begins to take shape. Jesus hidden in the old, revealed in the new.

For example, love as we see it in the writings that begin with Matthew is still love in those prior writings—we have to discern how love was displayed in the old and then presented in the new. It is the same love.

These various translations seem to get it correctly in 2 Timothy 3:16. The Lord was the source, not man, of the content that we now know is the Bible. Through the Holy Spirit, God somehow breathed or inspired each word, sentence by sentence, in its original language: Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. It was the same spirit poured into different men at different times with the same heart of God.

When you read this book we know as the Bible, think of it as the Holy Spirit's writings for you. They are not just the words that Paul, Matthew, or Moses wrote—if we focused on that approach, we would perceive discrepancies. Think of these as words of the Holy Spirit, breathed into imperfect men, translated by other men, and now read by an imperfect you. It is that same heart of God and His same voice.