2 Tim 3:16πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος καὶ ὠφέλιμος

every scripture is inspired and profitable

Many scholars feel that the translation should be: “Every inspired scripture is also profitable.” This is probably not the best translation, however, for the following reasons: (1) Contextually: (a) Among those who see the Pastorals as authentic, the argument has been that Paul would not need to assert the inspiration of scripture to Timothy. Indeed, that the author might be doing so here has been used as an argument against authenticity. But it is possible for the Pastorals to be both authentic and for the apostle to be making an assertion: He has a habit of reminding Timothy of truths he already knows, such as that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and that Paul himself was a minister of the gospel to the Gentiles. Thus, as Fairbairn points out, “it could not be superfluous to impress upon him a sense of the divine character of Old Testament Scripture.”⁵⁵ (b) If the author were merely asserting the profitableness of scripture, then what would be the basis for his very forceful command in 4:1–2? Could he “solemnly charge [Timothy] in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, [to] preach the word” if he had simply asserted that scripture is profitable?

(2) Grammatically: (a) The fact that v 16 is asyndetic (i.e., begins without a conjunction) cannot be due to new subject matter, but to the solemnity of the statement because the author had been discussing the holy writings in v 15. Thus seeing θεόπνευστος as predicate fits in better with the solemn tone established at the beginning of the verse. (b) Since the copula is lacking, it needs to be supplied in English. And the most natural place to supply the equative verb is between the subject and the first word that follows it. It is in fact significant that an author typically leaves out the copula when he assumes the audience knows where it naturally should go. (c) The fact that καί means “and” twelve times as often as it means “also,” as well as the fact that it is unnatural to translate it adverbially as “also” between two adjectives in the same case, argues for a predicate θεόπνευστος. (d) Since the article may be anaphoric when referring back to a synonym, and since the author has been discussing the scriptures with three different synonyms in this context (vv 15, 16, and 4:2), it seems likely that the article is anaphoric in 4:2 when he declares, “Preach the word!” (κήρυξον τὸν λόγον). If the writer had said that only inspired scripture was profitable in 3:16 and then tells his reader(s) to preach all scripture (= “the word”), it might be a misleading statement, for [Timothy] might inadvertently preach some scripture that was not inspired. But since the writer leaves λόγον unqualified apart from the fact that it referred back to γραφή of v 16, it is perhaps likely that he meant to make an assertion about all scripture in v 16, viz., that it is inspired. (e) Finally, what bears on the relation of adj. to noun most directly: In the NT, LXX, in classical and Koine Greek, the overwhelming semantic force of an adj.-noun-adj. construction in an equative clause is that the first adj. will be attributive and the second will be predicate. There are almost 50 instances in the NT and LXX in which the second adj. in such a construction is predicate and the first is attributive (39 of which involve πᾶς before the noun; most in the LXX) and none on the other side. The evidence is so overwhelming that we may suggest a “rule”: In πᾶς+ noun + adjective constructions in equative clauses the πᾶς, being by nature as definite as the article, implies the article, thus making the adjective(s) following the noun outside the implied article-noun group and, therefore, predicate. In the least, the evidence renders translations of this verse such as the NEB’s (“every inspired scripture has its use”) highly suspect.

 Wallace, D. B. (1996). Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (pp. 313–314). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.