Back When The Bible Mattered: A Review of “Revelation and Inspiration” by B.B. Warfield

There was an age in Christian scholarship when the Bible was more than just a symbol of Christian faith, it actually mattered. Since the “Battle for the Bible” has come and gone many Christians have safely returned it to their shelves to collect dust Monday through Saturday. And theologians, in turn, spend their time, these days, musing about their own ideas and philosophies. But in reading from the old 19th century Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield I was reminded that the Battle for the Bible is not over. His book Revelation and Inspiration (volume one in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield) is a testimony to the importance of the Scriptures for today.

Warfield writes with thoroughness and conviction regarding the importance of Scripture. He deals frequently with the critics of inspiration. It is interesting to note just how many so-called theologians in his own day were denying this doctrine (not unlike our own). The book starts off strong by turning to consider what Scripture itself says about its nature, concluding that Scripture’s own testimony points us to inspiration and inerrancy. But Warfield is by no-means for the light-reader.

The content of the book is solid, but halfway through the work he devotes himself almost exclusively to refuting one or two specific long-forgotten theologians and analyzing the usage of specific Greek words from the Scriptures across a series of ancient texts. It is very easy to get bogged-down in the content and feel overwhelmed. This reader took a very long time to finally complete the reading. Nonetheless, I am glad to have read it. For Warfield’s focus, his thoroughness and single-minded devotion to the subject of Scripture is a breath of fresh-air in the ever mind-numbing philosophizing that most theologians spend their time doing today.

I commend Warfield to those of you who dare to endure his stringent focus.