It is obvious to anyone who has thought about the matter that the Bible is not the “words of God.” It includes words attributed to Satan, to say nothing of words to which human authors like Paul have explicitly assigned their names.
But even when it comes to the possible metaphorical senses of “Word of God,” there are important questions to ask. If you think of it as having that status, if you think the label is appropriate, is it because of something done at the front end, or something about the words themselves, or something that happens between the text and the reader?
The question in the image above may be useful for getting at that issue. Is the Bible the “Word of God” even if no one ever reads it?
Or to put it another way, if the Bible falls amid a forest of books and no one picks it up and reads it, does it still make a sound?
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