Archives for “Bibliology”
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,
- Brief question about inerrancy The question that must be asked of inerrantists is this: Is it Scripture or man’s wisdom that is the ultimate basis for Christians’ belief system? If you answer that Scripture...
- Inerrancy vs. Infallibility This is the fourth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. In the discussion of the mode of the Bible’s inspiration I pointed out that the Bible...
- Inerrancy: A Snowball’s Chance (A preliminary note to the reader: Different believers use different definitions of the term “inerrancy.” When I use that term below I am referring to the hypothesis that the Bible...
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.
Related posts:- Finding God’s hand in Scripture All Christians generally agree that the Bible was written down by humans, and most agree that in some way their writings are reflective of their individuality; the question comes in...
- Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in...
- Chaos in Genesis and Germanic mythology Dr. Enns has recently reminded us that the Ancient Near East conceptualized the beginning of creation as a battle between order and disorder, the gods vs. chaos. We see the...
Michael Patton, a man I respect immensely, has just reminded his readers that, “The palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity.”
This is a principle based in logic, of course. As a case in point (which was probably also his post’s inspiration), he brings up many Christians’ emphasis on the love of God disproportionate to their acknowledgment of the wrath of God. He defends the Reformed view of God’s nature and character by his playfully caricatured example of an objection:
“God’s love? Oh yes, give me two helpings of that. God’s wrath? Pass. I don’t have enough room and it does not sound good. God’s grace will be great, but I will have to skip the atonement—too bloody and odd. Predestination? Sovereign election? No way!”
In the end, he admits that, “For the most part, I find Christianity very palatable. Grace, love, righteousness, our future hope, the restoration of all things, etc. are all doctrines that I would gladly take from a smörgåsbord. But,” and this is his main point,
Related posts:- Disputing Calvinism: vessels of temporary, conditional wrath? I wanted to share this excellent article that answers, mostly via Scripture, many if not most of the arguments of Calvinism. In an admirable show of the author’s critical thinking, while...
- Is full preterism a new doctrine? (revised) Who said this? But the things which took place afterwards, did our Saviour, from his foreknowledge as THE WORD or GOD, foretell should come to pass, by means of those...
- I love “Historical Jesus” podcasts A fascinating discussion from two conservative evangelical scholars on the subject of the historical Jesus took place on last weekend’s episode of Unbelievable. Adam Bradford, defending his book The Jesus...
Most of the hullaballoo surrounding Knapp-gate seems to have blown over for the time being, but its implications and the probability of similar future incidents continue to grow.
Undeniably, a crucial aspect of Christians’ discomfort with Jennifer Knapp’s stance is that she is “unrepentant” as a lesbian. That charge only works from outside, however, in that from her standpoint, homosexuality is not sin at all. This is considered to make her situation even worse — she’s living in denial! Surely she’s being selective in her use of Scripture, twisting it to make it mean what she thinks it should based upon her experience!
But is interpreting Scripture based upon prevailing sensibilities so unparalleled among her critics? Take, for example, the clear teaching in both the Old and the New Testaments, coming from the mouth of Jesus in fact, that charging interest on loans (called usury in Bible-ese) to fellow believers is a reprehensible, inexcusable practice. Lending money was considered a form of charity and as such undeniably played into Jesus’ fury at the “moneychangers” in the temple and in the social situation of the earliest believers in Acts who shared all possessions.
Related posts:- When disgust eclipses compassion: evangelicals and homosexuality In a recent post I defended believers whose genuine compassion causes them to show concern about homosexuality among believers. Unfortunately, there is another common response to homosexuality, often accompanying and...
- The authority of Scripture This is the sixth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. Preliminary Remarks The purpose of these next few posts is to examine my perspective of the...
- Thinking “Outside the Box” about the Bible My friend Cliff Martin has written one of the best, most concise descriptions of the nature and purpose of the Bible that I have ever had the privilege of reading....
Related posts:“Just think of the natural sciences as they increasingly develop into a comprehensive knowledge of the world. A short time ago no one could have conceived of this development. What then do you suppose the future holds, not only for our theology, but for our evangelical Christianity? … There are those who can hack away at science with a sword, fence themselves in with weapons at hand to withstand the assaults of sound research and behind this fence establish as binding a church doctrine that appears to everyone outside as an unreal ghost to which they must pay homage if they want to receive a proper burial. Those persons might not allow themselves to be disturbed by the developments in the realm of science. But we cannot do that and do not want that. Therefore, we must make do with history as it develops.”
- Thinking “Outside the Box” about the Bible My friend Cliff Martin has written one of the best, most concise descriptions of the nature and purpose of the Bible that I have ever had the privilege of reading....
- History and faith A commenter on the previous post raised an interesting point that leads me into something I’ve been wanting to explore here. He wrote: I don’t see why it would be logically...
- The return of the evolutionist — for real this time! My friend Mike Beidler‘s not busy enough being a military diplomat in the Middle East right now. You know, things going so swimmingly, he doesn’t have anything at all to...
Can one be consistent in accepting both the common form of inerrancy as described in the Chicago Statement and universal common descent?
This question is something I struggle with when I observe people try to sell other believers on evolutionary theory without openly acknowledging the ways in which their own rejection of the idea of a single pair of progenitors has resulted in an often subtle yet usually profound modification of how they understand the Bible to work. I, too, have been tempted on numerous occasions to begin the presentation of my case by positing a (purely hypothetical) scenario in which accepting that early Genesis was unhistorical does not result in a revised or nuanced bibliology; if not outright dishonest, I feel that this approach is nonetheless misleading, perhaps even disingenuous, and a setup for problems later.
Related posts:- Lamoureux: links and labels Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation,...
- Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in...
- Why the debate over creationism matters Recently I have been involved in a couple conversations with folks who aren’t really “informed” (I use the term loosely) creationists but have been hounded enough by creationists/biblical literalists who...
The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch.
Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his weekly viewing of The Truth Project. He just completed Lesson Five. More so than the previous lessons, Lesson 5 focused on a critique of mainstream science, and evolution in particular. Bear in mind that Mike is about as fair-minded as they come, but he is shocked by Del Tackett’s blatant misrepresentations of clear facts and doesn’t hold anything back in his detailed analysis. Make sure you check it out, especially if you’ve seen TTP and didn’t notice anything wrong!
(Thinking about what Mike has told us about Lesson 5 has really gotten my dander up. You’ve been warned.)
Related posts:- Thinking “Outside the Box” about the Bible My friend Cliff Martin has written one of the best, most concise descriptions of the nature and purpose of the Bible that I have ever had the privilege of reading....
- The return of the evolutionist — for real this time! My friend Mike Beidler‘s not busy enough being a military diplomat in the Middle East right now. You know, things going so swimmingly, he doesn’t have anything at all to...
- When Christianity undervalues truth Using an analogy especially interesting to me as an historical linguist, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations reminds us of the power of understanding that the Christian faith isn’t quite as unique...
As my 200th post, I’m going to give you a little insight into my background, how I think, and what led me to where I am right now. Of course I don’t think I’m really all that “screwed up”, but for those who do think I am, I thought I’d give you a bit of an explanation.
________________________________________________
While growing up in three different Southern Baptist churches, being involved mostly with other Christians living the Christian life, I saw little that made me think anything was missing about my own faith.
In high school I recognized the dangers of Fundamentalism (proper) through experiences with one of my school curricula, the Independent Baptist-based A Beka Book Publications. There writ large I saw a host of devout, well-meaning Christians who believed things that I found wholly incredible, despite the fact that by normal evangelical standards my church was quite conservative. I was amazed to think that this type of self-described Fundamentalists would think that I was teetering on the edge of damnation for believing the way I did. I knew that I, at least, was sincere and well considered in my beliefs, and that my relationship with God was as authentic as it could be and none the worse for rejecting what these sincere Christians believed.
Related posts:- The place of fear in our bibliology The other night, a friend and I reiterated our independent observations that, despite all nuances, what ultimately stands behind most of American Christianity’s implacable dedication to inerrancy is fear. Dr. Jim...
- Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in...
- The Truth Project and critical thinking The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch. Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his...
This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship
Related posts:When the cosmos is understood in this way—as divine speech to humanity—then it is no longer possible to characterize Christian debates about science as a conflict that pits “God’s inerrant word in Scripture” against “errant human science.” Rather, any conflict between Scripture and science should be understood as a conflict between “human interpretations of God’s word in Scripture” and “human interpretations of God’s word in nature.”
When we understand the situation in this way, then in any apparent conflict between Scripture and science it is just as likely that we’ve misunderstood the biblical evidence as that we’ve misunderstood the science … in fact, one could make the theological argument that we’re more likely to misunderstand the Bible, as an instance of special revelation, than to misunderstand the general revelation available to everyone in creation.
- The nature of inspiration and the purpose of Scripture This is the third of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. We can summarize the previous discussion by saying that 2 Timothy 3:15-17 teaches that these writings...
- Finding God’s hand in Scripture All Christians generally agree that the Bible was written down by humans, and most agree that in some way their writings are reflective of their individuality; the question comes in...
- The place of fear in our bibliology The other night, a friend and I reiterated our independent observations that, despite all nuances, what ultimately stands behind most of American Christianity’s implacable dedication to inerrancy is fear. Dr. Jim...
I have recently been asked what I would consider a “liberal” Christian.
Well, for one thing, although I buck at calling myself as a liberal Christian, I recognize that I am more “liberal” than many others on certain issues. I think from a typical evangelical POV, a “liberal Christian” is thought of as not caring enough about sound theology; this makes me extremely uncomfortable given my hard-won theological views.
Another angle that might help is in evaluating one’s disposition toward traditional teaching. Please allow me to offer a categorization I’ve noticed, most phases of which I feel I have passed through, so bear in mind the probability of personal bias. Also note that I am aware I have not described every variety of Christian belief system.
Related posts:- History and faith A commenter on the previous post raised an interesting point that leads me into something I’ve been wanting to explore here. He wrote: I don’t see why it would be logically...
- Herman who? Someone every Christian needs to know I come from a Christian tradition that downplays or contradicts basic principles of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) on a regular basis. The starting assumption is that the Bible is God’s Word...
- Why Christian activism seems liberal Elsewhere I have blamed futurist eschatology for minimizing the Church’s call to focus on social issues and address the needs of the poor. But there are more causes than that...
Dr. Enns has recently reminded us that the Ancient Near East conceptualized the beginning of creation as a battle between order and disorder, the gods vs. chaos. We see the chaos of the natural world represented as an antagonist in the Genesis cosmogony. The forces of chaos are never quite given the dignity of a name, but the functionless void upon which the curtain opens in Genesis 1.2 and God’s actions of appropriating already existing material in that chapter clearly demonstrate that He is not tasked with creating a world from scratch but with the more typically king-like duty of bringing order out of disorder, as John Walton has been arguing.
But this “cosmic battle” between order and chaos is by no means a peculiarly ANE leitmotif. Although separated by hundreds of years from the ANE, Germanic mythology as it shows up in the Scandinavian stories is characterized by the same dualism. As fitting for a people thriving in a harsh environment, the mythology of the Scandinavians as represented in Old Icelandic (“Old Norse”) literature shows this motif in the form of the continuous struggle between the gods and the ancient, formidable, grotesque giants, the frost giants in particular for obvious reasons. The world itself was born of chaos: from the gap between the realm of fire and the realm of ice a mountainous frost giant Ymir was formed, the father of all giants from whose body the earth was made after being slain by the gods (there is good evidence that many of these motifs go back to common Indo-European mythology). The delicate balance of power between the cruel and pitiless forces of nature and the order maintained by the gods is evident in Snorri’s highly entertaining rendition of “Thor and Utgard -Loki” (also called “Thor’s visit to Jotunheim”): while the two gods and accompanying human are clearly somewhat at the mercy of the giants in Jotunheim (“Giantland”), the prospect of encountering the wrath of Thor’s hammer keeps the giants from exploiting their better position.
Related posts:- Why Genesis 1 was written Not that I have all the answers, of course. I thought I’d reproduce a summary of my current thoughts on the issue that I formulated in an interesting comment exchange...
- N.T. Wright on “unfaithful”, “flat” readings of Genesis The BioLogos Foundation hits another home run by soliciting and sharing this gem: Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, while no fundie, is generally regarded among scholars and many evangelicals as...
- Contextual interpretation in Genesis: Cain’s mark I suppose it goes without saying that approaching the Bible as contextually bound literature leaves you asking different questions and giving different answers. In the comments of one my posts...
A commenter on the previous post raised an interesting point that leads me into something I’ve been wanting to explore here. He wrote:
I don’t see why it would be logically necessary that [the Bible] is 100% true. However, if we allow that it isn’t, then how are we to determine which parts are true? There is no way of knowing, which is damning [for the whole book]. An empirical test would be nice, but as we all know there is no such thing.
How we “determine which parts are true” is especially important in regard to the Bible’s supernatural claims. Being natural and living in a natural world, we find these claims almost impossible to evaluate. Hence, we tend to allow the truth of the spiritual claims of Scripture to piggy-back on the verifiable claims: typically, as the verifiable claims fare, so confidence in the unverifiable fares. This is obviously inductive reasoning, and not a very robust form of it either: conceivably, one could read a set of verifiable events in a newspaper, create out of whole cloth any number of stories detailing supernatural events supposedly related to those newspaper events, and publish a book integrating both the newspaper and the manufactured fantasy stories. Obviously, no one need seriously entertain the bogus claims’ truthfulness simply because of the truthfulness of the verifiable claims.
Related posts:- The Bible and the need for proof In his latest post, Mike mentions a Facebook conversation with someone puzzled by his rejection of inerrancy; I was involved with the conversation as well. As Mike described, this individual...
- The Bible’s text has a history Recently I mentioned to some friends the fact that Mark 16.9-20 should not be used as a proof text for anything given the near certainty that it was a later addition...
- The Truth Project and critical thinking The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch. Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his...
In his latest post, Mike mentions a Facebook conversation with someone puzzled by his rejection of inerrancy; I was involved with the conversation as well. As Mike described, this individual raised the common IYCBIAYCTAOI objection (if-you-can’t-believe-it-all-you-can’t-trust-any-of-it), asking, “Why do you believe the Bible is true?”
I responded by asking, “What makes you think it’s necessary that the Bible (as in the entire thing cover-to-cover) be ‘true’ (by which I assume you mean perfectly conforming to and accurately depicting objective reality)?” It’s this question I want to explore in this post.
Among other things, he responded that unless the OT (for instance) is 100% accurate, we cannot bear witness to Jesus. But this is manifestly false: the first century apostles evangelized to Gentiles who had no reason to accept the OT’s reliability, which wouldn’t even have been available to them in print, since copies of Scripture were not carried around for distribution in the first century. Yet somehow, these Gentiles believed the witness of Jesus’ apostles anyway. Moreover, early believers didn’t even have a New Testament to witness to Jesus; hearsay and word of mouth were all they had to go on. I contend that we’re no better off — nor worse off — than they are. We too are dependent on the testimony of fallible humans who have experienced God in Christ, and by faith we trust Him to lead us through fellow believers’ human testimony.
Related posts:- Thinking “Outside the Box” about the Bible My friend Cliff Martin has written one of the best, most concise descriptions of the nature and purpose of the Bible that I have ever had the privilege of reading....
- History and faith A commenter on the previous post raised an interesting point that leads me into something I’ve been wanting to explore here. He wrote: I don’t see why it would be logically...
- The Bible made flesh I have read summaries of the incarnational model of Scripture as developed by Peter Enns, late of Westminster Theological Seminary, but too little of Enns himself. I think this recent...
Using an analogy especially interesting to me as an historical linguist, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations reminds us of the power of understanding that the Christian faith isn’t quite as unique as we all like to think:
We often see that naive mono-linguists think their language is unique in its ability to express deep thoughts. Well of course they do — they have never mastered another language. A good way to cure this parochial blindness is to do comparative studies. Using comparative linguistics researchers have learned more about the very nature of language than by studying any one language in depth.
He draws a correlation (the same one I drew a while back) between comparative linguistics, which shows that the Indo-European languages are related by a common source language, and comparative biology, which shows us that all life is related by a common ancestor. He goes on:
Related posts:- The Truth Project and critical thinking The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch. Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his...
- Proving Christianity with inerrancy In a discussion involving my rejection of inerrancy, a frequent commenter mentioned the inerrantist objection, ”Without [our Bible] can we confidently walk up to a non-believer and ask him to believe our own...
- The place of fear in our bibliology The other night, a friend and I reiterated our independent observations that, despite all nuances, what ultimately stands behind most of American Christianity’s implacable dedication to inerrancy is fear. Dr. Jim...
The BioLogos Foundation hits another home run by soliciting and sharing this gem:
Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, while no fundie, is generally regarded among scholars and many evangelicals as fairly conservative in his theological outlook (e.g., he affirms an historical Fall of some kind), so this is good to hear from him. I found it interesting that Bishop Wright clearly affirmed Walton’s model of Genesis 1 as a statement of God’s authorship and control of the universe recounted in the form of an analogy to a temple dedication. He echoes Walton when he warns that taking a “flat” view of Genesis as simple history just because it’s what our culture expects is in a real sense a dishonor to the text itself.
Related posts:- Why Genesis 1 was written Not that I have all the answers, of course. I thought I’d reproduce a summary of my current thoughts on the issue that I formulated in an interesting comment exchange...
- Chaos in Genesis and Germanic mythology Dr. Enns has recently reminded us that the Ancient Near East conceptualized the beginning of creation as a battle between order and disorder, the gods vs. chaos. We see the...
- Indiana Jones and the Fall of Man Commonly in Christian theology, the agreement between Adam and God (the Adamic covenant) and the agreement between the Israelites and God (the Old Covenant of Moses) are contrasted (the Noahide...
The other night, a friend and I reiterated our independent observations that, despite all nuances, what ultimately stands behind most of American Christianity’s implacable dedication to inerrancy is fear. Dr. Jim Kidder, in so many words, makes the same point. The following quote certainly rings familiar.
For many people, this is not a scientific issue, it is a moral one. Even when having conversations with my wife, it is not uncommon for her to say that she understands the evidence and accepts it but that the ramifications make her uncomfortable. Indeed, both the ID side and the new atheists write that “Darwinism” is dangerous. The reasons are similar but the motives are different. Both argue that it leads one away from faith.
This is where I’m so baffled. Have these people not encountered the risen Christ in a dynamic way? I assure you as one who’s come through this process, letting go of inerrancy is an act of faith in the One who should be standing behind our beliefs, whom we have encountered in some meaningful way. Why should acknowledging that even the ancient believers whose testaments to God’s work became our Bible might not have been omniscient nullify what most evangelicals claim as the heart of our faith, our relationship with God? From where I stand, slavish, ritualistic belief in a set of rigid propositions strikes me as much more a “religion” than a “relationship” (to evoke a phrase I have always despised).
Related posts:- The Truth Project and critical thinking The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch. Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his...
- History and faith A commenter on the previous post raised an interesting point that leads me into something I’ve been wanting to explore here. He wrote: I don’t see why it would be logically...
- When Christianity undervalues truth Using an analogy especially interesting to me as an historical linguist, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations reminds us of the power of understanding that the Christian faith isn’t quite as unique...
All Christians generally agree that the Bible was written down by humans, and most agree that in some way their writings are reflective of their individuality; the question comes in with the nature of divine influence. Where do we draw the line between the human and the divine in Scripture?
Proponents of inerrancy posit that all information in Scripture was directly contributed by God; the specific form of the information as presented is normally regarded as reflective of the personalities and writing styles. A softened version of this view, which I myself held until fairly recently, was of theological concordism, the belief that despite errors in the authors’ understanding of peripheral matters, all pertinent information in Scripture was (directly or indirectly) contributed by God.
Related posts:- The Bible made flesh I have read summaries of the incarnational model of Scripture as developed by Peter Enns, late of Westminster Theological Seminary, but too little of Enns himself. I think this recent...
- Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in...
- On judging Scripture (and finding it wanting) — TIL #4: “Pray for You” 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...
Commonly in Christian theology, the agreement between Adam and God (the Adamic covenant) and the agreement between the Israelites and God (the Old Covenant of Moses) are contrasted (the Noahide and Abrahamic covenants are given varying significance depending on who’s talking). Many, such as those holding firmly to the Westminster Confession, argue that the Adamic covenant was a “covenant of works”, the Mosaic covenant was “of grace” at heart but administered through works, and that the New Covenant is thoroughly a covenant of grace. It’s almost as though God kept trying different ways to maintain a relationship with humanity, and finally managed to get it right with Christianity.
Reading the Eden story as an historical account gives us the impression that there was a covenant with humanity that got broken. Successive attempts at reconciling God and man were necessary, each in the form of a new epochal covenant that had to hold up at least temporarily until Jesus came and brokered the final version. But we get a slightly different picture if we understand the early Genesis accounts as etiology, an origins story, offered by later Israelite theologians to replace the errant myths they were familiar with, some lingering from their ancient past and others absorbed from surrounding cultures.
Related posts:- Case Study: the Fall This is the seventh in a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. The traditional doctrines of the Fall and of Original Sin teach that the first human’s first...
- Self-preservation, the Fall, and redemption In my explanation of man’s depravity from the view of a recurring, individualized (non-historical) Fall, I have argued that mankind’s natural separation from God was in origin a result of...
- N.T. Wright on “unfaithful”, “flat” readings of Genesis The BioLogos Foundation hits another home run by soliciting and sharing this gem: Bishop of Durham Tom Wright, while no fundie, is generally regarded among scholars and many evangelicals as...
The question that must be asked of inerrantists is this: Is it Scripture or man’s wisdom that is the ultimate basis for Christians’ belief system?
If you answer that Scripture is the foundation of our beliefs, you must also believe that even our beliefs about the Bible should be scriptural, free from the impositions of man’s so-called wisdom. Please tell me then, inerrantists, where you can find in Scripture that the Bible, meaning the canon as canonized by the Catholic Church, is inerrant.
Experience tells me that I will be directed to 2 Timothy 3.16-17. But this won’t work for multiple reasons. Number one, it’s only talking about the OT at best, since there was no “all Scripture” apart from the OT at the time it was written. Do you want to argue (as someone I know has) that this applies to the NT because 2 Peter apparently calls Paul’s writings “scripture” (Gk. graphe)? Laying aside the fact that graphe is the typical word for “writing” in Greek and not Scripture with a capital “s”, we have the significant issue of 2 Tim. not actually saying “inerrant”, “no errors”, “perfect”, “the very words of God” or anything approaching it; therefore, “inerrancy” is man’s imposition on the actual text of Scripture. What will happen here is that the inerrantist will claim that “inspired”/”God-breathed” means “error-free”, because God cannot lie. But this is where man’s wisdom comes in: the Bible nowhere says that “God-breathed” means “God dictated”, and no one except for an unhinged Fundamentalist claims the Bible is actually divine dictation, so they then must come up with the idea that God insured the accuracy of the perceptions of those to whom He revealed truth in Scripture. This is pure human speculation. It is not in Scripture. It is an extrapolation based upon man’s wisdom that has no biblical support. Therefore, the inerrantists’ belief system is based not upon Scripture, but upon the human philosophical proposition that God wouldn’t let authors of Scripture misinterpret any truth pertaining to science, history, or theology. Sure, it’d make sense for that to be the case, but it’s just not there in the Bible, and it violates no Scripture to believe that God’s inspiration entailed something a little less extravagant.
Related posts:- Proving Christianity with inerrancy In a discussion involving my rejection of inerrancy, a frequent commenter mentioned the inerrantist objection, ”Without [our Bible] can we confidently walk up to a non-believer and ask him to believe our own...
- Mr. Sola Scriptura weighs in on inerrancy 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,...
- The Bible and the need for proof In his latest post, Mike mentions a Facebook conversation with someone puzzled by his rejection of inerrancy; I was involved with the conversation as well. As Mike described, this individual...
My friend Cliff Martin has written one of the best, most concise descriptions of the nature and purpose of the Bible that I have ever had the privilege of reading. He also makes some interesting remarks about the usefulness and validity of orthodoxy, something I’ve discussed here and there on this blog.
I strongly suggest that you go over to Outside the Box and read it. But in case you’re too lazy, and because it so well expresses my own current thoughts, I’m going to reproduce a substantial part of it right here.
Related posts:My friends who read the Bible as if it were the very inspired words of God see themselves as standing on the solid high ground of Fundamentalism, and see me as skidding down the slippery slope of that dreaded disease of Liberalism.
- The Truth Project and critical thinking The most dangerous shyster is the one who has convinced himself to believe his own pitch. Over at The Creation of an Evolutionist, Mike is continuing to blog through his...
- Brief question about inerrancy The question that must be asked of inerrantists is this: Is it Scripture or man’s wisdom that is the ultimate basis for Christians’ belief system? If you answer that Scripture...
- The Bible as literature and what that means to us Mike Beidler pointed me to an article entitled “The Bible as Human Literature” that culminates in the provocative question, “If Jesus is really raised from the dead, what do we...
My conversation with Damian continues in his post Inspiration, Fallibility and Canon and in the comments of that post. If you are unaware of why we even feel a need to talk about the canon, I certainly encourage you to read his post to see some of the questions with which you may not have adequately dealt. The discussion has certainly helped hone my beliefs on the matter, and I think engaging in it honestly might do the same for others. I posted the following as a comment, although I’ve revised/expanded/cleaned up wording here and there for this post.
Within the post, Damian wrote,
The authority, for Steve, seems to be in the List and in the sufficiency of the list. It is not the texts (which are fallible), but rather the list (which is sufficient).
I buck a bit at the idea that I consider there to be authority in the canon itself. I do think that the list is sufficient, but not for any particular expectation of authority (this needs to be defined) as much as for exhaustiveness of a certain subject, namely the Heilsgeschichte, at least as defined by the Church. After all, it was the Church that wrote Scripture in the first place. I’m not saying all redemptive history need have been complete by the time the books of Scripture were written (in fact, I don’t believe it was), but that the Church that created the canon recognized that the books in their list were sufficient in illustrating the trajectory and roadmap for the culminating events of salvation, as well as how we’re supposed to live until/after then. Early texts that expound upon the spiritual ideas of canonical books, such as Clement, are invaluable for recovering the faith as it was delivered to the saints, but then again, in many ways, so is Josephus, in documenting a/the fulfilment of Jesus’ eschatological expectations.
Related posts:- The canon and revelation Damian at Castle of Nutshells, one of the most thoughtful bloggers I read regularly, has recently written on the topic of the canon. Specifically, he asks (without answering), is the...
- Brief question about inerrancy The question that must be asked of inerrantists is this: Is it Scripture or man’s wisdom that is the ultimate basis for Christians’ belief system? If you answer that Scripture...
- The authority of Scripture This is the sixth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. Preliminary Remarks The purpose of these next few posts is to examine my perspective of the...
Damian at Castle of Nutshells, one of the most thoughtful bloggers I read regularly, has recently written on the topic of the canon. Specifically, he asks (without answering), is the canon closed? Is the authority of Scripture in the books individually or in their compilation as canon? I had a few thoughts on these ideas that got to be too long for a comment, so I decided to post it here. But please note that Damian’s posts were only a starting point: nothing I say is necessarily representative of his thoughts. It’s more me arguing with myself.
The title and topic of the first post of Damian’s that I’m considering here is “Ongoing revelation: should the canon be open?” While reading it I wondered whether there were some disconnect on either side of the colon: is there not any way to entertain the notion of an open canon apart from “ongoing revelation”? What if guidance or practical insight were continuing, while revelation of new truths was complete? As I thought through this, I came to a different conclusion.
Related posts:- The canon conversation continues My conversation with Damian continues in his post Inspiration, Fallibility and Canon and in the comments of that post. If you are unaware of why we even feel a need to talk about...
- Progressive revelation I’ve not got much to say about this, but please check out Cliff Martin’s post that describes his thinking on the unchanging nature of God, progressive revelation, and the inspiration...
- The authority of Scripture This is the sixth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. Preliminary Remarks The purpose of these next few posts is to examine my perspective of the...
I suppose it goes without saying that approaching the Bible as contextually bound literature leaves you asking different questions and giving different answers.
In the comments of one my posts awhile back, someone expressed bemusement about why God protected Cain after he killed Abel. Not striking him down is easily answerable as an early expression of divine mercy — but did He have to go and make sure nobody killed him? Would it not have been more in line with God’s general practice (especially the OT God) to respond to Cain’s plea for clemency, “Yes, they probably will kill you. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.” Think of the cataclysmic consequence of the wickedness of Cain’s line (the Flood) that God could have nipped in the bud by simply allowing vengeance to be taken on Cain. One might make an argument from within a certain theological system that this was an example of God essentially ordaining evil for His own sovereign purposes. The pernicious hermeneutical principle referred to as analogia fidei (the analogy of faith; “letting Scripture interpret Scripture”) goes about interpreting passages like these by ignoring relevant context and stringing unrelated Scriptures together along the flimsy string of theology the interpreter started with and insists upon reading into every nook and cranny.
Related posts:- Are the early Genesis stories historical accounts? Before I "took the road less traveled by" into historical linguistics, I was highly interested in ancient history, especially as it related to the Old Testament. I wanted to learn...
- Chaos in Genesis and Germanic mythology Dr. Enns has recently reminded us that the Ancient Near East conceptualized the beginning of creation as a battle between order and disorder, the gods vs. chaos. We see the...
- Case Study: the Fall This is the seventh in a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. The traditional doctrines of the Fall and of Original Sin teach that the first human’s first...
I have read summaries of the incarnational model of Scripture as developed by Peter Enns, late of Westminster Theological Seminary, but too little of Enns himself. I think this recent post clarifying his model is quite useful.
Related posts:The incarnation is essentially and inextricably a divine/human phenomenon. This means that, in speaking of the nature of the Bible, one cannot table the “human dimension” and prioritize the divine any more than one can do that of Christ and still speak of Jesus of Nazareth.
This is a very practical point, as it happens far too often that explanations of why, for example, the Bible contains very significant tensions on both the historical and theological levels, is explained in view of the ultimate “perfection” of the Bible that is deemed necessary on the basis of “priority of the divine.”
- Thinking “Outside the Box” about the Bible My friend Cliff Martin has written one of the best, most concise descriptions of the nature and purpose of the Bible that I have ever had the privilege of reading....
- Finding God’s hand in Scripture All Christians generally agree that the Bible was written down by humans, and most agree that in some way their writings are reflective of their individuality; the question comes in...
- The Bible as literature and what that means to us Mike Beidler pointed me to an article entitled “The Bible as Human Literature” that culminates in the provocative question, “If Jesus is really raised from the dead, what do we...