ectypal.net

even apart from prophecy, an inspired text can be argued to point toward or to provide an indication of a doctrine presumably unknown or historically and culturally unattainable by a human author but known to God. The trinitarian nature of the Godhead, unknown to the Israelites and presumably unknown to Moses except by a special revelation, can be adumbrated in Genesis chapter 1, not a prophecy, but simply because the text indicates the divine creative operation which is, by definition, trinitarian. Moses, arguably, could not have been responsible for placing this doctrine into the text—but the auctor primarius, God, simply reflected his own nature in speaking, through Moses, about himself, his Spirit moving on the face of the waters and his creative word. The capability of an inspired text pointing beyond the historical letter is, therefore, clearly an issue related to hermeneutics—specifically to the way in which a text is assumed to “work” in relation to the larger body of Christian doctrine.