Audio Transcript
Happy Labor Day to those of you listening in the States! I hope you are enjoying some well-deserved rest. Today, on this holiday, we ask this: Why are the Bible citations in the Bible so sloppy? That’s the question today, about a text in our reading later this week. Jessie wrote in to ask it.
“Pastor John, hello to you! I have always been intrigued and a little confused by Hebrews 2:6, where the writer quotes the question, ‘What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?’ but doesn’t directly attribute it to Psalm 8:4. It almost sounds like the author is saying, ‘I remember reading a verse somewhere, but I’m not exactly sure where it’s from.’
“I’m left wondering: Did the author genuinely forget the source, or is there something deeper going on here? This phrasing feels odd because it seems to undercut the credibility of referencing Scripture — if the author can’t remember exactly where a quote comes from, does that mean the reference isn’t trustworthy? Is this just a casual, impromptu way of handling Scripture, or is there something more intentional happening that we might be missing?
“As a reader, I’m trying to understand the author’s purpose in phrasing it this way. Does it challenge the precision we expect in citing Scripture, or is it a subtle way of showing a deeper trust in the Scriptures, not as isolated texts but as part of a larger interconnected story? I’d love to hear your thoughts on what we can learn about handling Scripture ourselves.”
What’s most impressive about this question is that it contains some pretty good answers. This happens a lot. People think about their questions, and they chip in possible answers. So, let me try to see what I can add here.
How do we quote the Bible?
I think it’s helpful to keep in mind that the chapter divisions that we have in our Bibles did not exist until the thirteenth century after Christ. They were added by Stephen Langton, a lecturer at the University of Paris, in the early 1200s. And the verse divisions were added about three hundred years later, which implies that, for over a thousand years (if you can imagine), including the time of the New Testament, all the preaching, all the theological debates, all the personal uses of the Bible were carried on by quoting Scripture in fairly loose ways because there was no precise way to locate the statements.
So, even today, those of us who are immersed in chapters and divisions of Scripture in verses — we often have to remind ourselves that we don’t remember where they’re coming from. We say to people, “I don’t know where it is; I just know it’s there.” And that does not diminish the credibility of the Bible when we talk like that.
However, we need to qualify what I just said slightly, because the Psalms — which is what we’re talking about here: Psalm 8 quoted in Hebrews 2 — were different in that they did have numbers, evidently, from the very beginning when they were gathered into one book. Luke 20:42 talks about “the Book of Psalms.” And we know that the Psalms were numbered in that book because, in Acts 13:33, Paul refers to “the second Psalm,” and he quotes Psalm 2. And it’s interesting, I think, and I think significant for Jessie’s question, that two verses later, in Acts 13:35, Paul says, “Therefore he says also in another psalm . . .” Right after saying Psalm 2, he quotes “another psalm” — indefinite. So, it appears that Paul knows the Psalms have numbers, but he doesn’t feel the need to give those numbers every time he quotes a psalm.
How does Hebrews quote the Bible?
The question that Jessie asks has to do with the book of Hebrews, of course — specifically 2:6, where the writer says, “It has been testified somewhere,” and then quotes Psalm 8. And Jessie wonders if this indefiniteness is owing to a lack of memory or some other reason.
I think it would be helpful (at least, it was for me in thinking about this) to notice how this writer introduces Scripture quotations in the rest of his book. It’s interesting. Maybe the most significant observation is that he never cites Scripture by giving a specific location, not even as close as giving a numbered psalm. Instead, he uses references like these:
- No introduction at all and just starts quoting Scripture
- “It is said”
- “Moses said”
- “In the law”
- “God said through David”
- “The Holy Spirit says”
All of those are his ways of introducing Bible quotations, but the most common way to cite Scripture in the book of Hebrews is simply to say, “He said,” which is really remarkable when you think about it: “He said.” (In the context, we know it’s either God or Christ that he’s quoting.)
“God’s guidance in the process of inspiration doesn’t mean that human writers are omniscient, all-knowing.”
What’s plain is that this writer regards the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, as the very words of God. He quotes them that way over and over. He makes that explicit by simply quoting God or the Holy Spirit or the Son of God. So, he basically agrees with Paul’s statement in 2 Timothy 3:16 that all Scripture, the whole Old Testament, is inspired by God.
Then add to this the vast knowledge that this writer has of the Old Testament. Oh my goodness! The book of Hebrews is basically one extended meditation on the Old Testament Scriptures. And when you read the litany of the people mentioned in Hebrews 11:4–38, you realize how extensive this man’s knowledge of the whole Bible is.
Do casual quotes matter?
So, putting it all together — namely, (1) the absence of chapter and verse divisions, (2) the consistent reference to God as the one who’s speaking in the Old Testament, and (3) the extensive knowledge that he has of the Old Testament — it seems to me that there is little evidence to suggest that this loose way of referring to Psalm 8 in Hebrews 2:6 is evidence of carelessness or forgetfulness.
There’s just no reason to think that he is being careless here. And I might add that, even if he did forget the number of the psalm, it would not undermine our belief in the inspiration of the Bible. God’s guidance in the process of inspiration doesn’t mean that human writers are omniscient, all-knowing. Rather, it means that God protected them from any error in what they intended to communicate.
There’s an example of Paul forgetting something in 1 Corinthians 1:14 that illustrates the point. And he shows in the very process of his forgetting how he, with God’s guidance, corrects any possible misunderstanding of the point. Here it is; this is 1 Corinthians 1:14–17:
I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized [by me or into] my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize.
Paul just has to say, “Okay, I was going to tell you what the limits were, but really I don’t remember what the limits were. I just know they were small.”
So, our confidence in the inspiration of Scripture need not rely on the writers being able to remember matters that don’t affect the meaning of their texts. It is a precious thing to have in our hands a book that has been given to us by God, inspired with his meaning, preserved over the centuries for our faith. It is a precious and great gift, and I hope you immerse yourself in it every day.
