Take the great 16th century reformer Martin Luther, for instance. Most would argue that Luther — who argued for “scripture alone” — had a high regard for the Bible. Yet, he was quite critical of some of it.
For instance, Luther argued …
(1) God’s prophets in the Old Testament were sometimes in error,
(2) the book of Kings is more reliable than the book of Chronicles,
(3) the book of Esther should have probably been left out of the Bible,
(4) not all the Gospels are of equal value,
(5) the writer of Hebrews erred when he said that there is no possibility of a second repentance,
(6) the author of James “mangles scripture” and the whole book should be burned like worthless straw,
This is the second post in the guest series “Who is Satan?” by Arcamaede. An index for all posts in the series is here.
~ Steve
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Associations of the serpent in the Garden of Eden with Satan are problematic. Even if we were to view the Garden story as history (which I do not), we are faced with a contextual interpretation issue: the text of Genesis does not make a connection between Satan and the serpent. In fact, the story gives us a clear indication that the serpent is just a snake (albeit a talking one and apparently a walking one).
The fireworks continue between BioLogos and the esteemed Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology and President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, God’s chosen Arbiter of Faithful Readings of the Scriptures, and official representative of the spirit of biblical interpretation on earth, Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. The latter has responded to Karl Giberson’s own response to an unreadably ignorant lecture recently given by The Great Baptist Paraclete.
A lot of the specific furor has been over Mohler’s original charge (it was no bland statement) that Darwin’s important trip aboard the Beagle was undertaken in search for evidence for an already assumed evolution. Giberson’s objection to this mischaracterization of history and Darwin’s motives is duly noted, but I myself am not so sure that Giberson’s stance that Darwin was still consciously nursing his “childhood faith” when he left aboard the Beagle is quite right, either.
This is the first post in a guest series by Arcamaede, who has contributed previously. Hope you enjoy it!
~ Steve
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This is the article that just wouldn’t die. It has been several months in the making and due to ever increasing materials on the topic, it has been broken into six pieces. I highly suspect it will evolve even after publication.
This article has been inspired primarily by my own curiosity into the origins, meanings, and application of all things “ancient.” I don’t see the material herein as conclusive or by any stretch of the imagination complete. This series is a result of my efforts to learn and grow in both knowledge and understanding.
I need to state my position from the outset that I see God as a reality which human words fail to encompass or describe as He is. I understand evil arises as a product of social interactions between humans and does not have an existence outside of them. Satan is a personification embodying those destructive interactions.
At the suggestion of a certain rather busy diplomat, I decided to treat this trending ditty as a Theologically Interesting Lyric. It is indeed theologically interesting, because it dovetails into my recent discussions about contrasts in the OT writers’ conceptions of God and those of some of the NT writers.
First the song: “Pray for You” by Jaron and the Long Road to Love. In order to avert the potential spambot activity they would attract I have elected not to reproduce the lyrics here, but here they are in case you don’t want to watch the video:
[Hard link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atBg9zLI2bA]
Potential humor aside, when I first saw this my first thoughts were of just how anti-Christian in spirit such sentiments were. Jesus told us to forgive, turn the other cheek, walk the other mile, etc. My mind searched for a Scripture that would point out how invoking the Lord’s name to do what is evil is condemned and an affront to God.
My good friend Cliff Martin describes the experience of people like myself who have followed the truth even when it took us outside the borders of the evangelical reservation and found that its gate-keepers enforce stringent import restrictions on items we acquire outside its borders – of course, he does so using the perhaps more apt biblical analogy of the shibboleth.
Speaking from experience, Cliff writes:
As I take a few steps back from the accepted traditional theology of the evangelical church to which I belong, that very church keeps nudging me to step further away. I am asked to keep my concerns to myself. When I try to warn my friends that the edifice of Christianity is supported by pillars of styrofoam, I am told things would go better for me if I would just keep it to myself. I am told that the personal rejection I endure on so many fronts is my own fault. I come on “too strong”, they tell me.
Let me interrupt here. Knowing as I do how tactfully and respectfully Cliff engages in conversation with those he disagrees with (read the comments on his blog posts!), I find it hard to imagine the label “too strong” being applied to him in any bad way, at very least in any way that wouldn’t also apply to the very evangelical polemicists he is talking to. More likely the label these people are reaching for is “too credible and unnervingly likable”, but regardless, he is passionate because he believes that these conversations are important. As he continues:
You’re afraid your faith has flown. As someone whose faith has undergone quite a transformation since I began my biblical studies, I understand the sting of feeling misled and finding that many things once trusted implicitly have proved illusory.
There are undoubtedly whole swaths of my faith that remain unexplored as a result of its being something that was handed down to me and that I grew up believing unquestioningly. The examined part of my faith, which has nowadays grown to encompass a large part of it, is based upon what I know of the man Jesus. I make no claims to have found the “historical Jesus”, but what we know of his impact is enough to entice me to follow as much as possible. For me as a student of history, and ancient history especially, I have no illusions that the Gospel accounts should present a uniform and flawless picture; I expect discrepancies and other incongruities. So while I certainly don’t deny or devalue the necessity of doubt, recognizing the Gospels as fully human testimonies and interpretations of the teachings and life of one Jesus of Nazareth doesn’t itself strike me particularly as an exercise in doubt, but rather as a calculated first step in trying to discover how a particular man impacted the people of the first century.