“What is the bible like? Like a letter which a soldier wrote to his wife about the disposition of his affairs and the care of his children in case he should chance to be killed. And the next day he was shot, and died, and the letter was torn and stained with his blood. Her friends said to the woman: the letter is of no binding force; it is not a legal will, and it is so injured by the facts of the writers own death that you cannot ever prove what it means. But the lady said: I know the man, and I am satisfied I can see what he means. And I shall do it because it is what he wanted me to do, and because he died the next day.”
–quoted by yours truly in Sunday school this morning
“The Inspiration of the Bible.” Broadcast by the BBC on 29 June 1952 and first published posthumously on pp. 11-13 of Interpretation and Belief, ed. Charles C. Conti (London: SPCK, 1976).
Thanks very much for this–ed..