Evangelicals often equate the Scripture
“cannot be set aside” (NEB for ου δυναται λυθηναι) with the claim that its meaning cannot
possibly be wrong. Such a view, it is widely supposed, implies Scripture is inspired
and inerrant.
Those who oppose reading
inspirationist implications into Jesus’s retort often claim that Jesus is
arguing on the Pharisees’ terms and that we cannot assume he affirms those
terms. By claiming that “scripture cannot be set aside,” Jesus is trapping the
Pharisees on the terms of their own unbending hermeneutic, so as to cut off the
branch on which they are sitting (e.g., see Loader, Jesus’ Attitude towards
the Law: A Study of the Gospels, WUNY 2/97, Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1997:472).
It is they (the Pharisees) who claim, as warrant for their elevation on
the Sabbath laws above all exceptions, that “scripture cannot be set aside.”
Honesty should keep us, however, from going down this route. While there
certainly is an element here of Jesus beating the Pharisees at their own game
(cf. Jn 3:6-12; 5:31-46), it appears more likely that he agrees with them at
the level of presupposition.
There is still, however, an
obvious problem with the typical Evangelical reading of Jn 10:35, in that it
fails to recognize that Jesus is speaking about Scripture’s legal
inviolability, rather than about its factual integrity. The inviolability of
the scriptural commandments is connected with their foundation role for halakhic
matters, rather than with the text’s supposed divinity or inspired status. A
legal body obviously can treat certain laws as inviolable, without in any way
suggesting that the text in which those laws are imbedded is divinely inspired
(cf. Jn 5:18 [λυειν το Σαββατον [!]]; 7:23.) Douglas Farrow (The Word of Truth and Disputes about Words.
Winona Lake, IN, 1987:105) writes,
λυθηναι as it
occurs in this verse is often translated ‘to be broken’, but this has
frequently proved misleading. Arndt and Gingrich classify this occurrence under
a heading based on these meanings: destroy, bring to an end, abolish, do
away with; and with respect to commandments, laws, and statements—repeal,
annul, abolish. While many want to see in John 10:35 an affirmation that “every statement of
Scripture stands immutably, indestructible in its verity, unaffected by denial,
human ignorance or criticism, charges of errancy or other subjective attack,” that
is not quite the point of saying that Scripture is ου δυναται λυθηναι. Christ was not
concerned here with the factual verity or accuracy of Scripture, but with the
authority of its voice and the binding nature of its testimony.
To point to the
inviolability of the Jewish Law, therefore, is to make a legal remark,
rather than a bibliological remark. That this is so is shown by the fact that
Jesus uses the expression “your law” to refer to a passage from Psa 82. If his
point had been bibliological, we might have expected a reference to “David”
rather than to “your law,” as the latter is usually used only for the
Pentateuch. (John
C. Poirier, The Invention of the Inspired Text: Philological Windows on the
Theopneustia of Scripture [Library of New Testament Studies 640; London:
T&T Clark, 2021], 112-13, emphasis in original)