Double-Authorship of the Bible: Communicator, Message, Receiver

Who was the author of the Bible?  To effectively answer this question, one must first look at the area of communication and its principles.  We must ask these questions, “Who is the communicator?  What is the message?  Who is the receiver?”  In defining these three basic dimensions of the law of communication we will define the communicator as the one behind the text, or the author – the one conveying his/her intentions;[1] the communicated message of the communicator is found inside the text, we will call this the meaning of the text as text; and the receiver as the one who is in front of text.  In applying this rule of communication to the Bible, Graeme Goldsworthy says,

“The first question arises as to who the sender or communicator is.  Is it God, whose word we believe the Bible to be?  Or is it a number of different human beings whom we believe actually wrote or compiled the documents as we have them in the Bible?  If we assume, on the basis of the Bible’s own testimony about itself, that God effectively revealed his word to the human authors, we need to clarify what we understand about those involved in this double-authorship, and the relationship between them.”[2]

Communicator:  

The Bible claims double authorship: human and God.  Although the main communicator is God, he conveyed his message through the power of the Holy Spirit to human authors.  Again, Christian presuppositions include the acceptance that God is there, that he communicated with us through the Bible, and that, therefore he is involved in the authorship of the Bible in such a way that it really does say what he intends.  To this we must add the fact of our being created in the image of God, so that we are made to be able to receive and understand God’s communication.[3]  Concerning the communication or message from the communication (i.e., God’s word), Goldsworthy again states,

“When we talk about God’s word we have something of a dilemma.  There are two distinct, if related, ways of identifying God’s word.  We speak of both Jesus Christ and the Bible as God’s word.  Putting an upper-case W on Word when we speak about Jesus as the Divine Word may remove some ambiguity, but we need to understand the relationship between the two.  Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.  He is the revealer, communicator, and savior.  How we understand Jesus will affect the way we understand the communication of God in the Bible, but we only understand Jesus as the Word through the Bible.”

 Message & Receiver:

In understanding properly the message of the Bible, God spoke through human authors in the development of his Word to tell the story of the true Word, who is Jesus, who is the Word incarnate, who is the revealer, communicator, and savior.  Goldsworthy says this about the receiver of the Bible (i.e., God’s people),

“Our presuppositions about humanness and the relationship of humanity to God will affect the way we understand ourselves as interpreters of the Bible.  We cannot avoid the question of human sin and its effects on our ability to receive and to know the truth.  Biblical assertions about the effect of sin on our minds are not our only concern.  What the Bible says about the effect of salvation on our minds is integral to hermeneutics.  Hearing and understand the address of God to us is part of the saving process.  The relevance of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to hermeneutics then becomes an issue.  What, then, can we say about receivers who do not acknowledge the truth and authority of the Bible?  Can they in any sense understand it truly?  Some would say that the difference between believer and unbeliever is in submission to the authority of the word.  Others argue that submission brings enlightenment and understanding that rebellion forgoes.”[4]

[1]Goldsworthy, Graeme. Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics: Foundations and Principals of Evangelical Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 31. 

[2]Ibid.

[3]Ibid.

[4]Ibid., 35-36.