Philo, a prominent Hellenistic Jew who wrote in the
second quarter of the first century AD, had something like this in mind for the
inspiration of Scripture.
A prophet possessed by God [theophorētos]
will suddenly appear and give prophetic oracles. Nothing of what he says will
be his own, for he that is truly under the control of divine inspiration [enthusiōn]
has no power of apprehension when he speaks but serves as the channel for the
insistent words of Another’s prompting. For prophets are the interpreters of God,
Who makes full use of their organs of speech to set forth what He wills.
(Philo, The Special Laws, 1:65)
However, the matter is not so simple. The term theophorētos
means to bear or carry a god, to be possessed by a god, and enthusiōn similarly
refers to being possessed by a god or to being in a state of ecstasy. These terms
are closer to what comes to the mind for many of us living in the twenty-first century
when we think of Scripture being “God-breathed.” So it is worth observing that
Philo did not use the term theopneustos here or elsewhere, which would
suggest complete divine control is not being implied in theopneustos in
2 Timothy 3:16. Moreover, since even the teaching of the church were thought by
some to be theopneustic, understanding theopneustos as proceeding
from God, word-for-word, precisely as we have it may be to go further than
Paul intended for it to be understood. (Michael R. Licona, Jesus, Contradicted:
Why the Gospels Tell the Same Story Differently [Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Zondervan Academic, 2024], 184)
