I tend to annoy people on both sides of the spectrum (belief in miracles spectrum, of course) [...]]]> Allan Bevere asks an interesting question today on his blog: Just how important is the doctrine of the virgin birth to you? He titles the post Must One Believe in the Virgin Birth to Be a Christian?

I tend to annoy people on both sides of the spectrum (belief in miracles spectrum, of course) because despite the word “liberal” in the subtitle of this blog I do, in fact, believe in the virgin birth as an event that happened in history, but at the same time, I’m not concerned with whether others believe it or not. Allan cites Albert Mohler, who believes it is necessary to accept the virgin birth in order to be a Christian.

Allan also stomps on one annoying tendency, the way in which some liberals tend to pounce on conservatives as less intellectual because of their beliefs. If one accepts miracles, one is less sophisticated. But I think it is only fair to point out the opposite fault in Mohler’s article, the tendency to regard liberals as less devout because of the things they don’t believe in.

Nicholas Kristof pointed to his grandfather as a “devout” Presbyterian elder who believed that the Virgin Birth is a “pious legend.” Follow his example, Kristof encourages, and join the modern age. But we must face the hard fact that Kristof’s grandfather denied the faith. This is a very strange and perverse definition of “devout.”

This is a conservative’s way of belittling an opponent, just as “intellectually unsophisticated” is the liberal’s approach. I must, however, point out that neither side is above using the other’s ammunition, and that both sides have those who avoid either fault.

In support of my belief in the virgin birth, I will be very brief. I’ve already accepted the bodily resurrection, so the virgin birth hardly seems like an issue to me. At the same time, and more importantly, I accept the incarnation as both true and as the most central doctrine of Christianity, and if I can accept that infinite God can become a human being, the idea that this might be accomplished through a virgin birth again seems pretty trivial.

In support of my belief that the virgin birth is not essential, I will again cite the doctrine of the incarnation. I believe the incarnation is absolutely critical. It’s quite possible, however, to see the virgin birth as a metaphorical statement of that doctrine, or perhaps more precisely an expression of part of the meaning of that doctrine. I don’t even claim to have any details in mind on how the virgin birth might occur. Did God create a new baby in the womb? Did God adjust the DNA? So despite believing in a virgin birth as a historical event, I don’t have a clue as to how it happened. Thus in teaching it, I probably say almost the same things as would someone who believed it was purely metaphor.

And that brings me to whale’s bellies. On The Jesus Creed we have Scot McKnight getting involved in the question of the historicity of the book of Jonah. (I’ll leave you to follow the further links there.) A miracle of preserving someone’s life for three days inside a sea creature of some sort, whether a whale or something else, is again trivial alongside the incarnation and the resurrection. But I don’t believe the book of Jonah is historical. Why? I think there’s very good evidence in the text that we’re reading fiction designed to make some very specific points to an audience in a different time and place than the one in which the story is set. I don’t have a problem with the miracle. Were I convinced that Jonah was history, nothing else in my belief system would have to change. God could manage the whale’s belly thing. I just happen to believe God did not do so. But if you want to accuse me of being intellectually unsophisticated, go ahead. Because I am intellectually unsophisticated enough to believe the miracle is possible.

Then there’s the question of Jesus’ use of the three days motif from Jonah. I will simply comment that I know one can refer to a fictional story in this fashion because I have done it myself. I’ve used a fictional story to illustrate a real event and it has generally worked just fine. Occasionally fine, fact-oriented, 21st century folks get upset with me about it, but I tell them to chill.

I want to respond also to the first comment on McKnight’s article, which is from Joe Carter. Here he wonders how we might distinguish when Jesus is using supernatural power and when he’s using the knowledge of his culture. I’d make two points. 1) If Jesus didn’t use the knowledge of his culture, could he really have been said to have lived as a human? Would not constant supernatural knowledge make him not quite truly human? 2) Is this not the common problem in reading scripture? We distinguish the cultural background from the message all the time in case after case. Surely it is not that difficult in most cases, and in many cases where it is difficult, it is not all that important.

As a reminder, my starting point was a number of comments that suggested that those who [...]]]> This is a continuation of my series on interpreting the Bible. The first post in the series is Interpreting the Bible I: Obvious Exegesis, while the most recent one was Interpreting the Bible VII: Christians Contribute to Confusion.

As a reminder, my starting point was a number of comments that suggested that those who take the Bible less literally are thereby less serious Christians. These suggestions were not coming from conservative Christians, but from non-Christians. In some cases, I question the motivation of such suggestions. I believe that Richard Dawkins, for example, prefers to debate hard-line fundamentalists, and so would like to dismiss the rest of us from the Christian faith.

What I believe I have done so far is to show that interpreting the Bible, broadly called hermeneutics, is a bit more complex than these folks would like, and that just taking the Bible literally, as best as I can understand what they mean by “literally,” is not the way Christians have read the Bible historically. I have further noted that even basic exegesis, which I define as looking for the text as it was intended to be understood by the original audience, is more complex than these folks let on.

Those who are eagerly waiting for me to solve issues such as the violent passages in the Bible or gay and lesbian marriage will still have to wait. While I will discuss those issues, my primary purpose here is to look at the method. I believe that our discussions of the Bible would be much more profitable if we would simply think and talk more about how we come to our understanding, rather than simply trying to defend that understanding. Two people may mean very different things by saying that a concept is “Biblical.”

Let me reiterate here, as I believe has been demonstrated previously with the help of commenters, that the issues I’m discussing do not hinge on belief in inerrancy. Belief that the Bible is inerrant does not limit one with reference to determining what type of literature a particular passage is.

I want to clarify this further by using a couple of examples. Two controversial books amongst conservatives are Jonah and Job. There are quite a number of people, even conservatives, who will claim that these books are fiction. To make that claim doesn’t mean that the books contain error. Rather, it means that they intentionally present whatever it is they present in fictional form. Now there are those who regard fiction itself as evil, but that is a different argument.

Let’s say you have a historical novel, written with the intent of accurately portraying a certain place and time in history, but doing so using fictional characters in a fictional narrative. What would constitute an error? Well, if one introduced an historical event connecting to the story, and placed this event at the wrong time, it might be an error. Suppose one had an historical building, and it didn’t exist at the time in question. That might be an error as well.

The key in all of these points would be the author’s intent. Such an author might well introduce a house or a small street that was not historical, but wouldn’t presumably introduce a new city hall. There are things that the historical novel wishes to convey that are facts, and there is a story to be enjoyed along the way. Similarly, C. S. Lewis is not in error in the Screwtape Letters if there is no demon named Screwtape, nor is he in error in the Chronicles of Narnia if there is no Narnia.

I find this comparison to be of interest in the books of Jonah and Job, because I think we often get to argument about little houses and back streets in the story, while missing the big things.

In Jonah, I frequently hear discussions of two major issues: First, was Jonah really swallowed by a “great fish” or a “whale”? Second, was Nineveh really so big it would take three days to walk across it. (Those who know some Hebrew may laugh a bit at the particular rendering there–I’m using the form in which I normally hear the question.) But are those really the questions?

I would suggest several themes in the book of Jonah:

1. God can call you to uncomfortable places and missions on which you would rather not go.
2. Even when you’re going the other direction, God is likely to take note.
3. Intervention may be uncomfortable–note how Jonah ends up on shore.
4. God offers repentance even to people I may hate.
5. God is gracious and merciful, even to the worst of sinners.

… and a few more, none of which are really impacted by whether the story is fictional. All of these points have annoyed someone at some time, and indeed according to the story, they annoyed Jonah, and presumably were controversial amongst the readers of the book. I am not here trying to argue these points. I’m simply saying that finding fiction in the Bible is not the same thing as finding error.

I consider Job even more interesting. If the book is historical, then we have an individual who suffered because God allowed him to be attacked and tormented. This may, of course, be extended by analogy or in principle to others. On the other hand, if the story is fictional, then one would have to assume that Job is presented as a type of sufferer, and that it is quite possible that God might call on me–or you–to suffer to make a demonstration for him. Are you concerned that bad things seem to happen to good and bad people alike? Here are some bad things that happen specifically to good people.

Now you can get that second idea while reading Job as historical, though I have heard some folks argue that this is something that happened only once (they forget about Jesus, apparently), but I think that if you read it as a fictional account, you are forced to the conclusion that it applies broadly in principle–God’s servants may be called to suffer in the fight against evil, and they may never know just why. Note that Job never receives an explanation of his suffering.

So you note here that the issue is not whether the text is in error or not, or whether one takes it literally or not, but rather just what are the literary characteristics, what is meant by them, and just how that might apply. If I could delete one statement from the vocabulary of Christian conservatives it would be: “I take the Bible literally.” If I could delete one statement from the vocabulary of liberal Christians: “I don’t take the Bible that literally.” Both are misleading. (As I note in my review of his book How to Study the Bible for Yourself, Tim LaHaye makes this his first rule of hermeneutics. Needless to say, I disagree; in fact, I regard it as one of the worst rules.)

If I might pound this point into the ground a bit, some interpreters, including LaHaye, have applied this to the book of Revelation. But just what should one take “literally” in the book of Revelation? Personally, I tend to take the introduction quite literally when it uses a variety of literary indicators to show that John saw a vision. Once we’re in a vision, I take things as a vision, which may have varying degrees of attachment to physical things, and I believe that is the correct way to take them. Even where there are likely literal connections, such as with the churches, or with a number of symbols, the vision context warns us to look for more than meets the eye. Revelation 12 & 13, for example, while containing symbols that may be attached to specifics, also provide a very good general appreciation of the battle between good and evil, and numerous principles for living in the midst of such a battle. The literal/non-literal dichotomy is terribly inadequate to the task of understanding such a passage.

Some may be wondering how one would take the vision framework non-literally. There are many commentators who would treat the “vision” as a literary device used to present a set of symbols. It is quite possible to understand it in that way, though I disagree. In fact, I think assuming an ecstatic state, in vision, for some of the writing of Revelation will explain some literary and linguistic peculiarities, but that is a completely different topic.

Now I would maintain that conservatives, liberals, and those between are all susceptible to coming up with ad hoc interpretations that allow one to avoid the impact of a text, or to make a text have an inappropriate impact. Let me start with a controversial one.

Leviticus 18:22 is commonly presented as a text demonstrating that homosexuality is sin and unacceptable. (Note that “I don’t take it that literally” doesn’t seem to work here. It’s pretty literal.) I like to present people with Leviticus 19:33-34, which says to treat an alien living among you as one of your own citizen. Now I’m not arguing what applies here and what doesn’t. Both are literal commands given in the same general body of law. A valid approach would be to ask just how commands given to Israel in Leviticus apply to others.

But avoiding all of those issues, it’s very interesting to watch people’s responses to this connection. First, it is almost universally assumed that simply because I present Leviticus 19:33-34 I believe that Leviticus 18:22 is not applicable. Liberal audiences often assume that because they want to; conservative audiences assume that because they can’t imagine why I would present them with such an alternative text if it isn’t to undermine the impact of the first text.

But the real question here is why and how either text should apply. I would suggest that there are similar tasks of interpretation and application that need to be used in both cases. In actuality, however, with most lay audiences I find that these two texts apply according to cultural inclinations. Those who favor gay and lesbian inclusion exclude 18:22 and very often the same people are delighted to include 19:33-34. Those who oppose homosexuality accept 18:22 as applicable, but will explain that 19:33-34 was for a different time and place.

I would suggest that the processes of interpretation and application for both are complex, and that in neither case is the best approach simply trying to interpret the individual text. If your question is how should our nation treat aliens residing in the country, I doubt you will find clear direction as to what the law should be. If the question is how you, as an individual Christian, should treat aliens, I think you will find many scriptures that you can group together in finding the proper principles to guide your behavior. Similarly with homosexuality, I think the approach that says, essentially, “How many texts are there that forbid homosexual acts, and how can I (or can I not) explain them,” is precisely the wrong approach. A better approach to any question is to try to discover God’s ideal, and then look at how we might approach that.

To continue with my examples, however, let me look at another passage:

³²Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. ³³With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. ³⁴There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. ³⁵They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. — Acts 4:32-35

Here again you have a verse that can split interpreters right in the middle! Out of the characteristics of the early church just what are we supposed to apply today. Many of my more liberal brethren are pretty happy with the common ownership thing, and there being nobody in need in the church. They will take various attitudes toward the rest, such as whether this should be done entirely by the church, testimony to the resurrection, and so forth. There are many who would make Christianity a matter of the distribution of wealth, without any regard for the testimony to the resurrection.

On the other hand, I can cite my own uncle, Don F. Neufeld, an interpreter in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, associate editor of the SDA Bible Commentary and editor of the SDA Bible Dictionary. In a personal conversation he was quick to point out to me that this practice was quickly abandoned by the church and didn’t appear to be the norm in Paul’s congregations, for example. This strikes me as an example of finding trajectories in scripture, something I think is quite appropriate, yet is often criticized as too subjective.

I have heard many other explanations for common ownership, most aimed at keeping the early church from being too socialist. So here we have otherwise conservative interpreters finding the exit ramp in the middle of this verse. But liberals need not crow, because Christian unity, power, and mutual support is inextricably linked to the testimony of Jesus risen from the dead, and I think it would be difficult to build a case that the author of Luke-Acts would think it possible for it to be any other way.

(I am aware that liberals do not necessarily deny the resurrection, though many do deny a physical resurrection. I am called liberal, and I personally accept a physcial–or bodily–resurrection. Nonetheless I believe that it is a liberal weakness to attempt to separate good works from the incarnation, and that is a weakness I see as ultimately fatal to Christianity.)

The issue, I think, is our attitude in approaching scripture. There can be quite a variety of approaches to understanding scripture, and none of them are necessarily related to whether we take scripture seriously. What I would say characterizes a distinctly Christian approach to (Christian) scripture is the attitude of openness to correction. Each approach to interpretation can be used as a means of avoiding things I don’t like, i.e. of making scripture simply the excuse for what I wanted to do anyway.

Liberal and conservative Christians don’t differ so much on the basic desire to avoid certain passages as on which passages they avoid and how they go about avoiding them.

(I will continue next time by trying to look faithfully at some of the violent passages in the Old Testament. Don’t get impatient–this series will go on for a long time. Apologies to those who want a quick answer; I don’t believe in quick answers.)

(For those interested, he is [...]]]> I want to discuss inspiration just a bit, partly because it is relevant to my next post on Biblical interpretation (I hope to post it later today), and partly because there is someone on Twitter who is spouting a great deal of nonsense with regard to parallels and borrowing.

(For those interested, he is @BibleAlsoSays, he claims to be “Religion’s Nightmare,” and he has a rather routine web site by the same name. If you are a believer, don’t worry about going to the non-believers side. You’ve likely heard all these accusations before.)

But my purpose here is to take a quick look at the way in which we debate inspiration, particularly, but not exclusively, when we’re using the term “inerrancy.” I would note that the problem I’m discussing remains the same in any discussion in which some form of inspiration beyond an ordinary text is claimed of scripture.

I recall an e-mail discussion I had with a Muslim lady some years back. She seemed to believe I was a sincere Christian who might be willing to look at something better. We exchanged several e-mails, but her final attempt to persuade me can be summarized as: The Qur’an provides you with a clear and absolute answer for every question and aspect of life.

Now I don’t know enough about Islam or the Qur’an to say just how many Muslims would agree with that, though I have heard it from more than one Muslim, so I know it is not a unique argument. What ended our discussion was my response. I told her that I didn’t find that to be an attractive quality in a holy book. She was quite stunned.

You see, to her it was obvious that a book that answered all of her questions and gave her absolute ground on which to stand must be divine.

I hear the inverse of that argument quite frequently. There is some aspect or another of the Bible that someone thinks is inconsistent with divine revelation. They bring this to me, sometimes repeatedly, because it is so obvious to them that it is the nail in the coffin of my faith, and they are quite stunned when my faith doesn’t merely rise from the supposed coffin–it never got in it in the first place.

The problem, stated simply, is this: What are the proper characteristics of divine revelation, and how do you make that determination? In each of these cases, someone has determined what divine revelation must or must not be, and thus their argument is conclusive. Well, it’s conclusive if you accept their assumption.

Now some of you might be questioning me on another point, which is just how parallel the parallels are, and just how “copied” the copied scriptures are. This is a good question. While one may find strong parallels to the stories of creation and the flood, one also finds significant differences.

It is my contention, for example, that the Genesis account was not copied from the Babylonian or Sumerian accounts, but that the author was aware of other creation accounts and intentionally contradicted them. One need only compare the function of the wind in Enuma Elish to Genesis 1:2 to get my basic point.

But in addition, while one may demonstrate a parallel in certain places, it is much harder in others. Where in the ancient world do we find poetry comparable in style and theme to that of Isaiah 40-66? Where do we find struggles with God that are truly like those of Jeremiah?

But valid as those points are, I don’t think they get to the basic point, which is that we impose a set of assumptions of what a sacred text should be on various sacred texts, which would result in nothing more than selecting the sacred text that we find most helpful to the needs we feel. But is that a valid argument for truth?

I would suggest that a major part of the problem here is the attempt to select a religious text as standard prior to a “selection” of faith or a faith community. In my own experience, an acceptance of scripture was not logically prior to an acceptance of Christ, even though I knew scripture.

I might put it this way: The good news (gospel) is not that the Bible is true and you ought to obey it, but rather that Jesus Christ died for your sins and rose from the dead. I become part of the body of Christ first, and then accept the scriptures because they testify of Jesus.

Now I don’t want to make this a purely fideistic approach. I do believe there is a place to discuss reliability, but that place is within the context of the body of Christ and not as a sterile issue that simply attempts to demonstrate a body of facts. But at the bottom of my belief system, unsurprisingly, is an act of faith. Without that act of faith, the rest does not seem nearly so logical.

Apart from the conviction in my heart–you ask me how I know He lives / He lives within my heart–I would not be able to get past the impossibility of the resurrection. Let me add here that those who try to make the resurrection more “possible” do nothing for me. If the resurrection is “possible” in a natural sense, then it is also meaningless.

Thus, for me, learning about inspiration has been much more of a journey in which I look at how God works. I learn more about how God speaks by looking at how scripture works–borrowing and all–than I do by reading specific texts that discuss inspiration. By looking at scripture I understand how God works.

There is one other point regarding borrowing. People who make an issue of borrowing in the ancient world seem to me to be generally unaware of literature. What we call mythological themes are repeated in literature all over the place.

To call this copying plagiarism, besides being anachronistic, is to ignore the passage of time and the contemporary standards of referencing. But saying that the Genesis story of the flood was copied from Gilgamesh, or that the first chapter of Genesis was copied from Enuma Elish ignores even modern standards. The standard movie disclaimer “inspired by a true story” might be closer to the truth.

To be effective, communication must communicate, and that involves using relevant themes. Mythological themes come from the problems of real life, and it should not be surprising at all that they are repeated multiple times.

I would add one final note, though this blog post is getting too long. In establishing parallels, one must look at both similarities and dissimilarities. One can make almost any two stories seem parallel if one is permitted to list only similarities. On the other hand, one can prove that two stories are not at all parallel if one is permitted to list only dissimilarities. You can only establish some form of true relationship when you consider both, and in addition account for universal themes.

For me, the study of parallels is a completely relaxed process of looking at how scripture communicates–a wonderful blend of human and divine. Without the human, it could not be said to communicate; without the divine it would have nothing to communicate.

In my first post in this series, I made the following [...]]]> Update (1/15/09): For those in the habit of reading posts and skipping comments, I want to note that there is an important and substantial exchange of comments between Peter Kirk (Gentle Wisdom), Jeremy Pierce (Parableman), and myself that helps clarify this issue substantially.

In my first post in this series, I made the following comment in response to a quote:

While I certainly agree that the Bible is not inerrant, the rest simply does not follow. A simplistic idea of how one gets from scriptural text to doctrinal belief is posited and then discarded. An idea of the word of God that may or may not be correct (or more importantly held or not held by a community) is assumed and then dismissed.

In that quote I kind of dismiss inerrancy from consideration and focus on the idea that one can automatically dismiss the Bible as God’s word because one has dismissed inerrancy. I will continue to make the second point–inerrancy isn’t necessary to regarding the Bible as God’s word–but I need to comment further on inerrancy.

In my experience most people think that a belief in Biblical inerrancy is a critical dividing line, and that is one is asked what difference inerrancy makes, one should answer (misusing Paul in Romans 3:2): Much in every way!

But inerrancy is something that is easy to misunderstand, and perhaps almost impossible to both understand and express in a way that is acceptable to everyone. Someone is going to claim misrepresentation somewhere, even if one uses an official statement such as the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. I’m not going to work through this statement right now, but suffice it to say for the moment that I reject inerrancy, even as defined in the Chicago Statement.

But there are many different ways of defining inerrancy, and nobody really owns the term so as to control its meaning. Should one use the more academic definition? Or perhaps the most popular view is correct.

In conversation, I usually find that folks would like to define inerrancy simply as “the Bible doesn’t have any mistakes in it.” That’s pretty simple and straightforward. But does it work? When someone nuances this position, they are often accused of some kind of weasel-wording in order to pretend that clear errors don’t actually exist.

In fact, however, because of the complexity of the topic and the number of different claims that are made, one almost certainly must add some nuance to the definition in order to make any sense.

The first question is simply what Bible one is referring to. Is this a particular translation? The KJV-Only advocates would claim that the KJV is without error, and they don’t accept a claim to believe in inerrancy from those who don’t make the claim of that particular translation. They will ask, “What is your final authority? Where is an inerrant document that I can get my hands on?” So at a minimum, one must specify precisely what Bible is inerrant.

One can choose between many translations, the Bible in its source languages, some particular manuscript in the source languages, or the autographs. Each of these has interesting implications. There are few claims of inerrancy for translations in general, certainly not from anyone familiar with the process of translation. The “inerrant translation” idea is almost exclusively the product of the KJV-Only movement.

Inerrancy in the original languages sounds good to those without acquaintance with the manuscripts, but quickly falls afoul of the facts of a variety of manuscripts, each with differences in the text. Thus you will only rarely find a simple claim to inerrancy in the original languages apart from some specific claim about which text outside of popular discussion. I do get this question from lay members in churches fairly frequently. Academics of whatever theological persuasion, however, know better.

This leads to two options: 1) inerrancy of a particular text, usually asserted of the Byzantine or of the majority text, and 2) inerrancy of the autographs. Since inerrancy of a particular text also provides difficulties, such as differences in the manuscripts within that tradition, such a claim is again only rarely made, or generally nuanced so as to mean “nearly 100% accurate” which amounts logically to the second claim: Inerrancy of the autographs.

With this there is the problem that we simply do not have the autographs. Nonetheless, for definition purposes, we have a precise text at a precise point of time, even if we can’t lay hands on the precise text. Opponents of the doctrine of inerrancy, including me, wonder just how important it can be to assert that an inaccessible text has a particular attribute. But that is beside the point for my discussion here.

I hope you can see why someone who asserts inerrancy must provide some further data. When they say, “Inerrancy of the autographs” they aren’t tap dancing. They’re just getting to the point of being precise enough so that someone can understand and discuss their claim.

But now we get to just what one would call an error. Here is where opponents of inerrancy outside the field of Biblical studies can get extremely impatient. What’s an error? Well, it’s a mistake! PI is 3.0 (1 Kings 7:23)? It’s a mistake! Seven literal 24 hour days? It didn’t happen. It’s a mistake!

So let’s ask another question. It says in Judges 9:8 that “The trees once went out to anoint a king over them . . .” So did the trees “go out”? (Remember, this isn’t Narnia!) Did they anoint a king? Is it a mistake? Well, such a passage can be true on a couple of levels, including whether the words were spoken by the person quoted. If you quote a liar lying, is it a lie on your part? But of course the real point in this passage is that it is a parable, and you are not intended to believe that the trees actually did this.

I chose that obvious passage that nobody would take literally, because one popular idea of inerrancy is essentially equivalent to “the Bible is all literally true.” Even “literally true” is problematic, because I have heard it interpreted to mean that the Bible is pretty much all literal (everyone has their exceptions) on the one hand, to someone who told me that “taking the Bible literally” meant “taking it as it is intended” so that he would take a passage figuratively, while claiming to take the entire Bible literally. Personally, I think he was using the very common equation of “literally” with “true” and “figuratively” with “not-so-much true.”

There’s a very popular variant of this is to take the Bible literally at any point at which it can be taken literally. Tim LaHaye in his not-so-good book How to Study the Bible for Yourself, p. 160, says:

. . . A good rule to follow is to try to interpret each passage literally. If this is obviously not the case, then as a last resort try to find the spiritual or symbolical truth it is communicating.

Obviously he followed this principle in producing his interpretations of Revelation. I don’t have his book at hand, but I believe Dr. David Jeremiah recommended attempting literal interpretation first in the book of Revelation (Escape the Coming Night). Though I cannot recall for certain that he explicitly recommends it, I know that he practices it.

Where this view of inerrancy can be best tested, however, is in passages that might easily be taken either way. These would, in my view, include Genesis 1-2, where one might quite justifiably argue various positions on the original intent, or passages that may be read as fiction or not, such as Jonah or Job. Many mainline students of scriptures would be surprised at how many people find the issue of Ruth, Jonah, Esther, or Job as fiction controversial. For some, however, having a story like that, which is not actually presented as a parable or illustration, not be true would violate their view of inerrancy.

One of the best very short definitions of an academic notion of Biblical inerrancy is this: The Bible is without error in what it intends to convey. The problem with any short definition is that it lacks some details and nuance, but this one covers quite a lot of ground. For example, if Jonah is fiction and intended to convey certain theological truths rather than a narrative history of a certain person in a certain period, that doesn’t violate inerrancy. I have seen this stretched quite far, to the argument that one can accept inerrancy and date the book of Daniel in the 2nd century.

This argument was made by Ernest Lucas in his commentary on Daniel from the Apolos Old Testament Commentary series. He doesn’t take sides himself, but he argues that one can use either dating for Daniel and still accept the doctrine of inerrancy. This would involve understanding a great deal of prediction as history, a great deal of the story as fictional, along with the whole setting for the writing of the material. Is it possible? Indeed, most scholars believe that the setting, the story, and the predictions are all fictional, except for a very small portion that would be contemporary with, or in the immediate future of, the writer. In general, however, these same scholars don’t claim to believe in inerrancy.

I would add one more way in which one might state that the Bible is without error–by claiming that the Bible is precisely the way God wanted it, i.e. that if there is an apparent or even real error of fact, it’s in there because God wants it there. This would be hard even for me to disagree with, but I think it is so far from what anyone would hear me saying if I said “I accept inerrancy” that it would be lying for me to make the claim.

So just how does Biblical inerrancy impact interpretation, which is, after all, the topic of this series? Well, actually, as you can see, the type of inerrancy which Ernest Lucas seems to espouse doesn’t really eliminate any possible interpretation that I might claim myself. I think that it does force one to be a bit disingenuous regarding the author’s intent.

For example, if the writer of Daniel lived in the 2nd century BCE, wrote pseudonymously, invented an author and narrative or (more likely) borrowed it from folk tales, produced lengthy prophecies of the future but which weren’t really about the future, was the author lying in order to make his final prediction more convincing, or was he following literary conventions of his time? In other words, did he intend people to realize that what he wrote was largely fictional? One can debate this, but I’m afraid I would tend to support the idea that the “predictions” were developed to give weight to the rest of the book, and they would only give weight if people believed they had been written much earlier and had been fulfilled.

But in terms of Genesis 1 & 2, there is next to nothing that I would claim in interpreting this passage that could not be claimed by someone who accepts inerrancy. In other words, inerrancy and the theory of evolution need not stand opposed, provided one accepts certain literary categories for the writings in question.

Unless I get side-tracked again, which I probably will, I’m going to write on the Bible and scientific statements for my next post in this series.

Previously posted: part 1 and part 2.

Adrian is concerned with the suggestion that anything in the Bible might be culturally conditioned. Wake up and smell the coffee, Adrian! Practically all of Hebrew scriptures is about leading people from here to there. The narrative is built around the exodus, about physically moving [...]]]> So far as I know, no, they’re not related.

Adrian is concerned with the suggestion that anything in the Bible might be culturally conditioned. Wake up and smell the coffee, Adrian! Practically all of Hebrew scriptures is about leading people from here to there. The narrative is built around the exodus, about physically moving from here to there, and then that becomes a metaphor for spirituality. On what basis would one imagine that what God taught them would be anything other than culturally conditioned?

But there is explicit scripture for this as well:

I also gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they could not live. — Ezekiel 20:25, my translation

The whole context of that verse is worth studying, as is the entire book of Ezekiel. In fact, looking at Ezekiel and Jeremiah as they deal with the Babylonian exile is a theological exercise well worth the time. The exile did not occur with its theological context all ready to go. These prophets, and 2nd Isaiah after them, had to build that context in the people’s mind. The success of this enterprise is demonstrated by the survival of Judaism.

I think Paul reflects this somewhat with his concept of the law as a schoolmaster (Galatians 3:24). God’s revelation is not always intended to be eternal in the form in which it was given. Even Jesus, God in the flesh, had a temporal context in which he spoke and acted.

Dave Warnock, however, responds to this in somewhat more detail and with some excellent scriptures. I commend his post, Sub-Biblical arguments against Steve Chalke to you for study and thought.

Now that you did that (you did go and read Dave’s post, right?) let me just comment that one doesn’t honor scripture by pretending it is something it is not, and was never intended to be. One honors scripture, I believe, by taking it as it is, as much as one is able.