StrongerBible

theopneustos

θεόπνευστος

GreekG2315“God-breathed, inspired by God, ...”

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2Ti 3:16
Compound of
theosθεόςGod1346G2316
pneōπνέωto blow7G4154
Word studyResearch-gradetheh-OP-nyoo-stosadjective

What theopneustos means

breathed out by God: produced by God's own breath, said of Scripture

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyStrong

This word appears only once in the Bible, when Paul tells Timothy that all Scripture is theopneustos. It is a made-up compound, joining the word for "God" to the word for "breathing," and it means that what God breathes is where Scripture comes from. The picture is not of God reacting to a book someone else wrote, but of God breathing the words out, the way a person's breath carries their speech. The point of the word is the origin of Scripture: it traces back to God himself.

The shape of the word points to something God did, not something Scripture does on its own. So the most careful sense is passive: Scripture is breathed out by God, not breathing God out. That is the reading the ancient church writers settled on and the standard reference works follow today.

At the same time, the breath in view is the same breath the Bible elsewhere uses for the breath of life (נשׁמה), the breath God blew into the first human and that animates living things. So a faithful reading hears more than a bare claim about where the words came from. The same breath that gave life can still give life through these texts, which is exactly why Paul goes on to call Scripture useful for teaching, correcting, and training. The word claims that Scripture comes from God; it does not, by itself, settle the harder questions of how God worked through the human writers.

2Ti 3:16

What scholars say about theopneustos

The dominant verdict, given its classic defense by B. B. Warfield against Hermann Cremer, reads theopneustos as a passive verbal adjective: Scripture is breathed out by God, a claim about its origin. Warfield's case rests on the shape of the word (the suffix attaches to the passive breathing stem, with God as the agent) and on the overwhelming analogy of other compounds joining "God" to such adjectives, the great majority of which are passive ("taught by God," "sent by God," "written by God"). The standard reference works (BDAG, LSJ, Louw-Nida, TDNT, Spicq, EDNT, Moulton-Milligan) and the major commentaries (Knight, Mounce, Marshall and Towner, Johnson) all adopt the passive reading. A persistent minority, from Cremer and Heinrich Ewald through Edward Goodrick and most recently John C. Poirier, argues the word leans active or life-giving (Scripture breathes out God's Spirit, or Scripture is animating). The conceptual background is the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish picture of the divine breath that creates, animates, and speaks (Genesis 2:7; Job 32:8; 33:4; Psalm 33:6; Wisdom 7:25; 15:11), elaborated by Philo and Josephus. The mediating commentators hold the passive form while letting that life-giving resonance stand.

Where scholars disagree about theopneustos

Whether theopneustos is passive (Scripture is breathed out by God, a claim about its origin) or active/effect-oriented (Scripture breathes out God's Spirit, or Scripture is life-giving).

  • majorityPassive: Scripture is breathed out by God. The shape of the word makes God the one breathing, and the same form in related compounds (taught by God, sent by God, written by God) is overwhelmingly passive; the ancient church writers use it this way without exception.; B. B. Warfield, "God-Inspired Scripture" (1900); reprinted in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (1948), 245-96; BDAG (3rd ed., 2000), s.v. θεόπνευστος; George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles (NIGTC, 1992); William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (WBC 46, 2000)
  • minorityActive or life-giving: the word leans toward effect rather than origin, so that Scripture breathes out God's Spirit or, in the sharper recent form, Scripture is life-giving. The narrow family of breathing compounds includes real active uses, and several rare ancient occurrences carry an animating, life-giving texture.; Hermann Cremer, Biblisch-theologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed. (1883), s.v. θεόπνευστος; Edward W. Goodrick, "Let's Put 2 Timothy 3:16 Back in the Bible," JETS 25 (1982): 479-87; John C. Poirier, The Invention of the Inspired Text (LNTS 640; T&T Clark, 2021)

How to read the clause in 2 Timothy 3:16: as a statement, "all Scripture is breathed out by God and useful," or as a description, "every God-breathed Scripture is also useful."

  • majorityStatement reading: the verse asserts that all Scripture is God-breathed, then adds that it is useful. A survey of comparable constructions found nearly all of them work this way, and this is now standard across the major commentaries.; Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996); William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (WBC 46, 2000); I. Howard Marshall with Philip H. Towner, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC, 1999)
  • minorityDescription reading: the verse describes every God-breathed Scripture as also useful, treating "God-breathed" as a qualifier rather than the main claim.; J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (BNTC)
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • B. B. Warfield, "God-Inspired Scripture," The Presbyterian and Reformed Review 11 (1900): 89-130; reprinted in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (1948), 245-96article
  • BDAG (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., 2000), s.v. θεόπνευστοςlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon), s.v. θεόπνευστοςlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 33.261lexicon
  • Eduard Schweizer, "πνεῦμα, πνευματικός," in TDNT (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament), vol. 6dictionary
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. θεόπνευστοςlexicon
  • Hermann Cremer, Biblisch-theologisches Wörterbuch der neutestamentlichen Gräzität, 3rd ed. (1883), s.v. θεόπνευστοςlexicon
  • Edward W. Goodrick, "Let's Put 2 Timothy 3:16 Back in the Bible," JETS 25 (1982): 479-87article
  • John C. Poirier, The Invention of the Inspired Text: Philological Windows on the Theopneustia of Scripture (LNTS 640; T&T Clark, 2021)monograph
  • George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles (NIGTC, 1992), on 2 Timothy 3:16commentary
  • William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (WBC 46, 2000), on 2 Timothy 3:16commentary
  • I. Howard Marshall with Philip H. Towner, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC, 1999), on 2 Timothy 3:16commentary
  • Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (Anchor Bible, 2001), on 2 Timothy 3:16commentary
  • Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996), on πᾶς + noun + adjective constructionsgrammar

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of θεόπνευστος

nominative f s

θεόπνευστος

2Ti 3:16