13. Illumination – This word refers to the supernatural help of the Holy Spirit that enables individuals to properly digest biblical truth. This divine help is not restricted, or chiefly related, to the intellectual comprehension of Scripture, for the Bible is written for the common populace; the Holy Spirit primarily enables individuals to be convinced of (internal affections) and moved by (external obedience) biblical truth.1

14. Inerrant – This term means “without error.” The doctrine of inerrancy affirms that the Holy Spirit guided the biblical authors in order to ensure that the original autographs, when properly interpreted, of the Old Testament and New Testament are error-free in everything they affirm.

15. Limited Inerrancy – This view asserts that certain parts of the Bible are free from error and possibly even inspired by God, but other parts of the Bible have some factual inaccuracies. For example, it is common to identify as the Word of God those sections that relate to salvation and for issues that relate to science and history to be deemed more prone to error. Other limited inerrantists affirm that the entire Bible is inspired by God even though it contains errors. For many, this latter perspective is a logical contradiction.

1 Douglas Kennard adequately substantiates this view in his “Evangelical Views on Illumination of Scripture and Critique,” JETS 49/4 (2006): 797-806.

16. Perspicuity of Scripture – This phrase is used to support the idea bulk of Scripture, especially in its most essential teachings, is able to be understood by the common person; biblical truth is even able to be grasped by children. While dispersing the Bible into the general population, the Reformers emphasized this doctrine in order to respond to the Roman Catholic Church claim that Scripture is unfit for the common interpreter. Since God is the ultimate teacher, Luther argued that “a man ought not presume that he speaks more safely and clearly with his mouth than God spoke with his mouth.”

17. Progressive Revelation – This teaching claims that God’s revelation throughout history progressively intensifies in specificity. For example, the sacrificial system, a vague shadow, looked forward to the ultimate and clearest expression of revelation, Jesus the Christ. Having stated this, it must be noted that the explicitness of God’s redemptive communication does not affect the quality of it; all words in both testaments are equal in their accuracy and inspiration.

18. Propositional Truth – Some argue that truth, especially in reference to God, cannot be known in statement form because God is beyond descriptions and humans are limited; at best, they argue that truth is an inexpressible experience that cannot be sufficiently articulated. A proposition is a truth-statement about reality. Those who believe in propositional truth believe that humans can discover and know certain statements of truth, even in the areas of theology and philosophy.

God is Love

19. Septuagint – This Latin word means seventy. For this reason, the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Old Testament, is abbreviated by the Roman numeral LXX. One theory asserts that seventy Jewish scholars were summoned in the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. by the Greek King of Egypt to translate the Old Testament into Greek in order to add to them massive collection in the Library of Alexandria.

20. Sola Scriptura – This Latin phrase means “by Scripture alone.” The Reformers proclaimed this teaching in order to expose and refute the abuses within the Catholic Church that were justified by the source of tradition. Sola Scriptura affirms that the Bible is the most authoritative source of truth. The Reformers were not opposed to other epistemological sources (tradition, science, intuition, culture, etc.), but these sources are subordinate to the Bible.

The Reformation Wall is a monument in Geneva, Switzerland that honors many individuals from the Protestant Reformation (Theodore Beza, John Calvin, William Farel, and John Knox).

21. Special Revelation - This word revelation derives from the Greek word apokalupsis. It refers to God’s disclosure of Himself to others. Special Revelation refers to God’s manifestation of Himself to specific people at particular times and places. This revelation can be experiential (dreams, visions, mighty acts, etc.), personal (apostles, prophets, Jesus), or written (the Bible). Unlike General Revelation, God’s special communication is redemptive in nature; it can also be instructive and purifying.

22. Textual Criticism – This discipline primarily aims to acquire the original message of ancient works in light of the non-existence of their autographs. Biblical textual scholars study the earliest and best available copied manuscripts (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc.) in an attempt to establish or reconstruct what the original autographs actually said.

These documents, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, were first discovered in 1947 within the Qumran Caves in Israel. They contain almost all of the Hebrew Old Testament and date from 250 BC to 50 AD. Before this discovery, the earliest available Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament were from the 9th century AD.

23. Textual Updating – Some scholars uphold that the original biblical autographs were updated, revised, or lengthened by later scribal authors and editors within the faith community

24. Textual Variant – A textual variant type of variation (wording, spelling, word order, etc.) that occurs between the available textual manuscripts.

The yellow marks are textual variants. Notice, if the same type of variant is made in more than one manuscript, it does not count as an extra variant.

25. Theophany – The Greek word (theophaneia) literally means "appearance of god." Christians utilize the term to refer to the instances in Scripture where God, who is spiritual in essence, revealed Himself to others via a physical or visible mode in order to impart revelation.

Example: God spoke through a burning bush (Exodus 3).

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