The Origin of the Dictation Theory of Inspiration

In the Post-Reformation era, a century after the deaths of Martin Luther, John Calvin and the first and second generation reformers, the doctrine of inspiration of the Scriptures evolved into a dictation theory of inspiration, in which the biblical writers were the very "hands of god" and through the instrumentation of the Holy Spirit, every word they wrote in the bible was without error and had been preserved without error. Karl Barth summarized these 17th century theologians well when he wrote "Should there be found even the minutest error in the Bible, then it is no longer wholly the Word of God, and the inviolability of its authority is destroyed" [CD I/2 p524]. This 17th century dictation theory was similar to the Islamic dictation theory of the Qur'an, and it was not limited to the original autographs of the bible, but even the extant copies were absolutely without error (even though some manuscripts had erroneous variants that could easily be corrected). For these Post-Reformation theologians, the Bible had replaced Jesus Christ had ceased to be the revelation of God.

In the Church Dogmatics I/2, §20.2 (c.f. pp. 524-526), Karl Barth provides many examples of 17th century theologians who affirmed a dictation theory of inspiration. (Barth's primary sourcebook for the following quotations was Heinrich Heppe's Reformed Dogmatics, which is a Protestant version of Lombard's Sentences.) Here are four examples that Barth cites as evidence:

• "since if the true reading and pronunciation of the prophets is finally shown by the Massoretic scribes, then we would have been built up upon the foundation of the Massoretic scribes, and not upon the foundation of the prophets." (Polan, 1609)
• "There is no error, even in minor matters, no lapse of memory, and there cannot be any place with falsehood in the entirety of Holy Scripture" (Lutheran theologian Abraham Calov, 1612 – 1686)
• "It must be held that the Holy Spirit dictated in unmediated and extraordinary fashion, everything which was, and was to be, written. Both things and words, matters which the authors previously did not know or could not remember, as well as things which they did truly know, both historical and particular details, and universal dogmas both theoretical and practical, they learned these things, whether by sight, by hearing, by reading, or by meditation" (Dutch Calvinist theologian Gisbert Voetius, 1589 – 1676)
• "For if a single small verse of Scripture has been written with the unmediated flow of the Holy Spirit coming to a halt, then it would be easy for Satan to remove it (i.e. the inspiration of the Spirit) from a whole chapter, from a whole book, finally from the whole text of the Bible, and in consequence to take away the whole authority of Scripture" (Lutheran Johannes Andreas Quenstedt, 1617 – 1688) [1]

It may be possible to find spurious earlier examples, or find an example that is contemporaneous with the first reformers, but it was until the 17th century that dictation theory became the widely accepted nouveau theory.  

Inspiration Theory before the rise of Dictation Theory

Prior to the 17th century, the earlier Reformers including John Calvin, Martin Luther and others allowed for the bible to have a capacity for error (Barth's phrase) due to the human nature of the biblical writers that did not corrupt the revealed truth witnessed by the human authors of the bible. John Calvin believed the bible had a capacity for error and believed the the original autographs of the bible contained errors that did not undermine its true witness. In CD I/2, Karl Barth quotes another example from Martin Luther "There are two entities: God and the Scripture of God, which are no less than two entities, creator and creature of God." [2]. 

Before the Reformation theologians generally affirmed that the bible was without error, but this meant that the bible didn't intentionally deceive the reader, not that it was absolutely free from every kind of error imaginable. Barth provides a helpful quotation from Augustine that exemplifies the point that the bible was written by finite human authors using imperfect human words that cannot dictate the transcendent eternal god (c.f. Isaiah 55:8ff, Philippians 4:7):

"For who can speak (the truth) as it is? I venture to say, my brothers, perhaps not even John himself spoke it as it is, but rather as he was able? Since man has said of God, and indeed has been inspired by God, but he is nevertheless still man. Since he has been inspired, he has said something; if he had not been inspired, he would have said nothing. But since man has been inspired, he has not said everything there is to say, rather, man has said what he could" (Augustine of Hippo) [3]

"First, there is the truism that we cannot expect or demand a compendium of solomonic or even divine knowledge of all things in heaven and earth, natural, historical and human, to be mediated to the prophets and apostles in and with their encounter with divine revelation, possessing which they have to be differentiated not only from their own but from every age as the bearers and representatives of an ideal culture and therefore as the inerrant proclaimers of all and every truth. They did not in fact possess any such compendium. Each in his own way and degree, they shared the culture of their age and environment, whose form and content could be contested by other ages and environments, and at certain points can still appear debatable to us. “Man has said what he could”. This means that we cannot overlook or deny it or even alter it. In the biblical view of the world and man we are constantly coming up against presuppositions which are not ours, and statements and judgments which we cannot accept. Therefore at bottom we cannot avoid the tensions which arise at this point. We must reckon with the fact that this may be possible in points of detail, and we must always be ready for it. Instead of talking about the “errors” of the biblical authors in this sphere, if we want to go to the heart of things it is better to speak only about their “capacity for errors.” For in the last resort even in relation to the general view of the world and man the insight and knowledge of our age can be neither divine nor even solomonic. But fundamentally we certainly have to face the objection and believe in spite of it!"

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"But the vulnerability of the Bible, i.e., its capacity for error, also extends to its religious and theological content" [4]