Why (and how) were the private conversations and inner thinking in the Bible documented in the first person?
1. Given that there were neither voice/video recorders nor “mind readers” (to read the individual’s inner thinking) at the scenes, and that the various Books in the Bible were written by a third, fourth or fifth party many, many years later; why (and how) were the private conversations and inner thinking in the Bible documented in the first person? This is particularly puzzling for the Old Testament (except Moses’ five Books) because in the New Testament, it can still be explained that perhaps the resurrected- but- not- yet- ascended Christ returned to give a detailed account of the inner thinking / first-person private conversations of every incident to the disciples with the aim to document them subsequently, whereas there was none so available for the Old Testament. 2. This question has puzzled me for years. In the OT and NT time, the authors had no voice/video recorders. Indeed, many books were written years after the incidents. Many of the authors were not even present at the scenes. How then, were the authors able to write down in first person the individual’s conversations and inner thoughts with such vivid details, be it a trivial (between commoners by the roadside) or a major incident? Why were the authors able to put special emphases on certain first-person words and phrases as if they had pre-viewed the whole gone-by scene via a voice/video recorder? It is as if these recorders could even play the first person’s unspoken inner thinking, be it that of a king in the heat of a battle who subsequently got killed and was not able to tell anyone else his fleeting thoughts; or that of a certain staunch non-believing Canaanite till death (and therefore he would not have communicated his inner thinking to the author); or that of the casual utters of a commoner who would not have enjoyed the luxury of a scribe around him to record his very thoughts about God or someone else…..? 3. Narrowing down to the many first person conversations in the four Gospels, it appeared that there was someone who stuck close to Jesus all the time, carried a huge amount of papyrus and scribbled every thought, teaching and conversational detail. It is noted that the four Gospels were, however, written quite a number of years later. Did the authors make use of these great big piles of daily journals saved up during the days of Jesus, or simply they wrote by memory? If by memory, would the details of the private conversations not have faded over the years? Would it then not have been more logical for the teachings/conversations to be recorded in a third-person narrative manner? 4. Some have answered me that the first-person stance gives emphasis on the conversations as if you are watching a drama and - you will therefore remember it. Well, exactly this is what triggers the questions in me – had all these first person conversations been made up? (On a side note, there also appears to be many contradictions throughout the Bible with regard to the first person conversations recorded under the same event). 5. Indeed, almost 10 out of 10 Christians kind of answered me the same with : “Do you doubt that the Bible is not God-breathed……; You should reflect because your question shows your lack of faith….; Can God not work something supernatural to help the authors write something they never knew…….; That’s only the absent-minded you, I can recite every details of mine and my counterparts’ conversations from weeks or even years ago……”. While I do not deny that their answers contain certain truth, the impression I always got though, was that they really did not know. The “God-breathed” answer was an easy way out. I almost always felt like being bible bashed and I needed to watch out to whom I ask. 6. The Bible is strewn with the same “issues” throughout, particularly the Old Testament. I cite a few examples below for both the OT and NT to illustrate what puzzles me : Old Testament : 6.1 1 Samuel 18 : 21 – “I will give her to him,” he thought, “so that she may be a snare to him and so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him….”. (Saul on contemplating to give his daughter Michal to David). - How would Saul, in his prideful self, reveal his inner ulterior motives to a scribe for subsequent documentation in the book of Samuel for all to see? 6.2 2 Kings 4 (The Widow’s Olive Oil) - The whole chapter reads like the scripts of a drama, with all the detailed first hand conversations provided. Which third person (and indeed the book was written quite some time after the incident) would have been able to document in first person the exact details of each and every conversation? New Testament : 6.3 Jesus at Gethsemane and subsequent trials : - Jesus sweated like blood and asked God to take away the cup. It is unlikely that Jesus sat down and spent time reciting to the sleepy apostles word by word His sweating like blood and His every chain of thoughts including His petition. Unless despite His suffering from loneliness, sadness and disappointment with the apostle at the time, He still deliberately wanted them to record his sweating / petitioning details. It should be noted that it was dark and the sleepy apostles were unlikely to have carried around pocket scribbling materials. There was not much time left before the soldiers arrived anyway. - A whole group of witnesses (i.e., Pilate, Pilate’s wife, Pilate’s followers and/or some of the priests/Parisees) with good ears and in close proximity to the main protagonists needed to have believed and dared to gather later during the post-crucifixion persecution period to tell the authors every conversation detail. Otherwise, the conversation details between Judas and the chief priests, the private conversation details between Pilate and his wife on her dream of prosecuting an innocent man, the conversations between Pilate and the chief priests, the trial conversations with Jesus etc could not have been detailed in such vivid first person stance. Jesus was seized and He could not have been allowed to detail all His conversations to his appointed authors while he was being humiliated, punished and incarcerated. And even if some Pharisees/Pilate followers eventually did believe and recited all the conversation details to the authors, the conversations should more appropriately be recorded in the third person because there had bound to be conflicts among the individuals’ recollections. But the Bible was written in the first person as if transferred exactly from a voice recorder? - For the records to be in the first person, it seemed as if the authors had the authority of a detective to interview each of the protagonists to weed out the irrelevance and record the crux of the private conversations in first person details as seen in the Bible? 6.4 Luke 7 : 39 - “When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself , “ If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is – that she is a sinner.”. (Jesus dining at Pharisee Simon’s house when a woman wept and poured perfume on His feet). - It was an inner thought of the Pharisee. If he did not speak it out, only Jesus, by His power, knew what the Pharisee was thinking. For the thought to be written in the first person, the Pharisee would need to have subsequently believed to tell Luke the author to record his inner thinking in the book of Luke. Otherwise, it would have to be Jesus who told Luke immediately after. But the Bible is filled with similar inner thinking throughout. Would Jesus have spent time tirelessly reciting to each of the authors other peoples’ inner thinking one after another on a daily basis? 7. It is very difficult to explain for the Old Testament. 8. For the New Testament, the answer to 6.3 and 6.4 above (i.e., the New Testament first person records) may be that Christ, after rising from death and while still on earth, took time to recite to the apostles everything. But that raises 2 further questions : (1) Would the arisen Christ use His precious limited time on earth to labor with reciting/dictating to the authors His and others’ every inner thinking and conversation of so many gone-by events when He apparently would have far more important and urgent things to do? And; (2) If the arisen Christ actually did so, then the recorded inner thinking and conversational details should be identical among the group of apostles/disciples. Why then, for the same event, would these first person records differ from author to author, as noted in the four Gospels?
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Asked March 17 2014
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Philip Wong
Community answers are sorted based on votes. The higher the vote, the further up an answer is.
Seth Freeman
The first thing to remember is that the culture back then operated completely different than ours. It was an oral culture where stories were primarily passed VIA word of mouth. It was not uncommon for people who have entire portions of the OT memorized. I think the first part of the answer is that stories and events were actually orally passed on more accurately and in a more detailed manner then we transcribe events today. If my wife called me and asked me to pick up 10 things from the grocery store on the way home, I would make sure she texted me the list so I wouldn't forget. That wouldn't have been an issue in their culture. Secondly, and most importantly is that the inspiration of Scripture is a foundational element to Christianity. The Bible is not like any other piece of literature in existence. It alone is actually inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself. While each author wrote to a specific audience for a specific reason and had a unique personality, their writing was in some fashion influenced by the Holy Spirit. The inspiration of Scripture is not a cop-out, it's a core foundational belief of the Christian faith. Once you deny inerrancy, your left without any sort of solid ground to stand on behind your beliefs.
Walrus theCat
God-breathed may be the easy way out, but it's the only way out. "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. " - 2 Peter 1:20-21
Shantkumar S. Kunjam
This is one of the fundamental question, and I agree with Seth Freeman. I would like to add these few things. You have given so many examples where it would be very difficult for any human writer to obtain those information as firsthand witness. And most of the record in the Bible is as if written by firsthand eye witnesses. Let us take the very first sentence of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This statement is written in such a way that only eyewitness would write. And we know that no human being was there when it happened. There may be billions of year gap between the time of actual happening and the time of writing down as it is found in the Bible. So what shall we do with this record? Many people have rejected it as a false statement. Or let us take the statements in the N.T., "All things were made through Him." (Jn. 1:3). "For by Him all things were created" (Col. 1:16). "through whom also He made the worlds" (Heb. 1:2). When the creation of the world took place we can confidently say that neither John, Paul, nor the writer of the book of Hebrews was there to witness the creation. The question is where did they get there eyewitness information from? The examples you have given in your question are very minor things comparing the example I have given. There are some other very important things. The Bible says that there is eternal death and there is eternal life.(Jn. 3:16). None of the writers of the Bible has had any personal experiential or eyewitness knowledge of them. What shall we do with that information? Many have rejected this information also. Another very important information that Bible gives is that Jesus died for our sin and for the sin of the world. What to do with this information? What does it matter if my sin is forgiven or not forgiven? The Bible claims there is one true God, and the Bible also claims that no one has ever seen that God. Then why to believe this information? This one is also rejected by many. The Bible claims that God, the Father is the revealer (Mt. 16:16-17), Jesus Christ, the Son is the revealer (Mt. 11:25-27), and the Holy Spirit is the revealer (Jn. 16:13-14). It is claimed in the Bible "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." (2 Tim. 3:16), "but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Pet. 1:21). What shall we do with this information? Again many people have rejected this. There is story told that a very ill famed robber accepted Jesus Christ and got converted to Christianity. Many of his close friend robbers made fun of his conversion. One time they came to him and asked about Christianity. They asked, Where was Jesus born? Who was His mother? Etc. This man replied that he did not know anything about those things. He only knew that once he was a great sinner, but Christ died for him and that now he has the assurance of eternal life in Jesus. I do not know which thing is important for you, To personally know Christ and to experience the new life in Him, or the knowledge of how those people got those information? I have personally experienced Christ and the life He has promised. Other informations are slowly being revealed. There are many many things that I still do not know. I am patiently waiting for the Lord's timing. By the time I am satisfied by what I know.
Emmanuel Anto
These are indeed baffling thoughts that need God-inspired open-minded responses! Thanks for posting them! With regards to your capping questions: Following Jesus' resurrection, His major concern was the propagation of the Gospel that He brought unto the ends of the world as seen by the words of The Great Commission. I believe He considered the the ability of His disciples to accurately recall and put to record the accounts of His earthly ministry which was why He told them " But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (John 14:26 KJV)"! With the Scripture in mind, I believe that The Holy Spirit could have (can, and still does the same today) not only reminded them of the details of every account, but also taught/revealed to them what the thoughts of the individuals involved in those accounts were, for the purpose of accurate accounting and for our instruction in knowledge and righteousness today! (This is also applicable to the OT in explaining how the thoughts of different individuals could have been known and documented without them having ever uttered it to any one)! With regards to the differences that are evident in the different accounts of the gospels, close observation will show that they do not actually contradict one another, but rather contain extra information/revelations that one or another account may not have included! These individual differences are possible when been narrated for documentation by the writers of the separate gospels as a result of the individual differences not just in the listening capacity to inspirations from The Holy Spirit and subsequent narration, but to the areas of concentration of the discuss of the narrator as clearly seen in John's high tendency to FOCUS ON LOVE in the reporting of His accounts (which was all gotten @ the same time, from the same events along with the other disciples/apostles, having the same Holy Spirit helping their memory) which is not exactly the same focus of the other narrators! In as much as these differences with regards to additions and not contradictions occur, the end goal of oneness in the accounts is met, and also the Mercy and Wisdom of God has granted us separate accounts of the same incidences not for repetitive reasons but for our Instruction in Righteousness. I earnestly do hope that this, I hope not too elongated response has helped you in coming into the quiet acceptance of the Truth that be it thoughts or words, or intents of the hearts of all individuals in both the OT and the NT, they all are revealable (and hence documentable) by The Inspiration of The Holy Spirit which is indeed and after all's-been-said-and-done, The Author of All Scriptures. Thank you!
Philip Holmes
An honest search for truth will lead you to study the scriptures for your answer. Acts 17:11 states, "Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." During this time, the New Testament hadn't been written. So the Bereans were searching through the Old Testament Scriptures, which by the way, foretold of the coming Savior, Jesus, even hundreds of years before. How can the Old Testament prophets speak of a Savior so many years away with accuracy the way Isaiah did? (see Isaiah 53; Isaiah 42:1-4 is confirmed by Matthew (Mt 12:15-21); and Isaiah 11:1-11). There are many other examples of Old Testament prophecies that were pin-point accurate in their predictions of the coming Savior. The only answer is Divine Inspiration...God speaking through the prophet(s) to give us revelation of Himself. The same is true of the New Testament. The authors, even though human, were given Holy Spirit inspired ability to write God's Words for us. I often think of it this way: an ink pen must have ink to be useful. The Holy Spirit is the ink, and the apostles who wrote the New Testament were instruments in the hand of God to write His revelation of Himself to us. The connection of God's inspiration to the first person issues you pose is not hard to understand. The same Holy Spirit that enabled Jesus to know what was on the mind of the Pharisee, is the same Holy Spirit that revealed how and what the authors were to write, even though for most of them the writings came many years after the events. This all comes down to a matter of belief. Is the God of the Bible (along with His Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) God or not? The same prophet Isaiah stated in 44:6, "This is what the Lord says- Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last- apart from me there is no God." Chapter 45 continues to reiterate that there isn't any other God but the Lord.
David Gibbs
My opinion is the question is a very incisive and discerning one. 1. How were the inner/ private thoughts known (Cain) 2. How were the private & hidden actions of individual persons known (Samson, David & Bathsheba, Jonah and Daniel) 3. Why are some books written in the first person (Paul's epistles) and others in the third person (Pentateuch)? Who are the authors of those books that are written in the third person? These are not easy questions to answer. And it is not enough to say the the bible is inspired by God. I definitely believe in the inspiration of the bible but exactly how does inspiration work? Clearly inspiration in the gospel of Luke (who interviews and researches his material) works differently than it does in say the book of Revelation (supernatural visions) and still differently in Psalms (personal feelings and experiences) or Proverbs (compiling advise from parents and elders). David
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