What Is—and Is Not—Inspired

Inspiration is a difficult concept for Christians. What or who is inspired? Evangelical Christians will certainly say that the Bible is inspired. However, this is a very problematic position. Often such claims do not even refer to the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible but to the English translation, preferably the so-called King James translation from the 17th century. As far as the original text of the Bible is concerned, it is extant in many ancient manuscripts with thousands of variant readings, of which many are still debated among text-critical scholars.