Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Biblical Inspiration

  • Bible Translation and Fundamentalism from a Wesleyan Perspective

    Dennis Bratcher, of the Christian Resource Institute, has an exceptionally good article on neo-fundamentalism, with a focus on the TNIV and Bible translation, looking particularly from the Wesleyan tradition. (He is Nazarene). There has been a frequent tendency amongst Wesleyans to borrow theology from the Calvinists, but not to go as far on certain points. I would note also that sometimes Wesleyans who are not part of the charismatic or pentecostal groups borrow some theology back from those sources, often without careful consideration of how it all fits together.

    I have encountered people with cobbled together theologies made up of mismatched elements from the Calvinist, charismatic, and Wesleyan traditions. Now often United Methodists are loose enough about their theology to make it sort of work. But Bratcher calls on Wesleyans to at least ask how this might be view from a Wesleyan perspective.

    I’ll leave the rest to him. Go and read.

  • Reading Part 6 (On Inerrancy)

    I somehow got the idea that the inerrancy series to which I linked yesterday was in five parts. A comment from the author let me know that I was wrong on that point, and how I got the idea I do not know, consider that the statement “*Part 6 will conclude with reflections on why the doctrine of inerrancy is important.” occurs at the end of the notes to part 5. But such is life in the blogosphere.

    You can now read part 6, and it does tie the package together. I would like first to quote portions of the author’s comment to my previous post here to set the stage. After gently reminding me of the sixth part, he said:

    I don’t want to give the impression that some people, such as yourself, are “too far away” to connect with. This was a paper I wrote for seminary last year, and given the space limitation I had to narrow down my argument rather strictly. To engage every possible position on inerrancy was not possible within the scope of the paper, but I believe I had something original to say to those who claim some sort of “limited inerrancy.”

    This is a good point which I did note. Now I don’t find that the premises he lists at the beginning of part 6 catch me. When he says “The Bible’s claims about its own integrity are a matter of faith and practice” as the second premise, I’m not sure I’d agree, but then I’m truly not one of the limited inerrantists whom he is addressing, and thus I might not evaluate that statement properly. I reject inerrancy in all its forms and I have problems with the term “infallibility” in many contexts. I’ll write more about that below.

    I have been frequently shocked by positions held by people who do claim to accept inerrancy. There seem to be people out there who profess some form of belief in inerrancy who are more liberal in their handling of the scriptures than I would be able to accept. One of these points is the late dating of the book of Daniel, which I have grave difficulties reconciling with inerrancy. I commented on this point in Earnest Lucas’s fine volume in the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series, in which he doesn’t specifically affirm a 2nd century date for Daniel, but does argue that one can affirm inerrancy and yet hold to a late date. I’m supposed to be the liberal on this issue, and I accept a mixed dating, with a historical Daniel and some fairly old stories supplemented by later Hebrew additions.

    You said “it’s a bit odd to use either a proof-texting approach or the approach of systematic theology to determine what the Bible must be.” I’d like to clarify that the argument I presented makes no claims to what the Bible must be (or must not be). My argument is more modest in that I’ve only argued what the Bible claims to be. Whether or not the Bible is what it claims is an entirely different point, and I’ve yet to present any argument regarding that.

    On this point, I understand the objection to my comments, but in the broader picture, the doctrine of inerrancy seems to me to result from systematic theology more than it does from observation of the Bible. In fact, the claim of inerrancy produces a considerable effort in explaining those elements of the Bible that don’t appear to fit the picture. I’m not only talking about explaining errors or reconciling contradictions, but also looking at the process. The synoptic gospels, for example, display signs of copying from one to another. The simplest explanation for stories with slight variations is that they are the same story remembered or passed on with slightly different details. The doctrine of inerrancy forces one to explain how the details really worked. An extreme version of this is Lindsell’s explanation of the cock crowings and denials that reconciled the stories in the gospels. Now one can’t be absolutely certain that Lindsell was wrong, but it seems very improbable that he was right. (I see a reference to this here. I don’t have a copy of The Battle for the Bible on hand to check the accuracy of that reference, however.)

    My preferred approach is to sit down with the Bible and ask, “Just what does this book appear to be, and what does it appear to do?” Having gotten a start at answering that question, I will move on to what precisely it is, and then I have some basis on which to interpret and apply statements such as 1 Timothy 3:16-17 (which winds up being very important in my view of inspiration as well) or 2 Peter 1:20-21.

    Welll, I started this post with “Biblical inspiration” fatigue, as in I’ve written way too much on the subject recently. But I should still say something about what I do believe. (Note that this is not in response directly to Roger’s series. I simply feel that I should make a positive statement to connect with any criticisms, thus giving people equal opportunity to criticize my views.)

    First, I do not think a doctrine of scripture, apart from a more general doctrine of how one discovers God’s will is likely to be valid. That is sort of like a view of how a house will be laid out sole by expressing the accuracy of the measuring tape. In such a case the measuring tape can be 100% accurate, but it’s practical accuracy is limited by the people who receive the information.

    This leads to my second point, which is that as human beings, we are always speaking of God’s word as we receive it. God’s word in God’s mind is always true and absolutely accurate. If we believe that God is infinite, his word in his mind is also without perspective, or perhaps more accurately with absolute perspective. We, on the other hand, never comprehend something without perspective, and those moments in God’s presence that simply hint at God’s absolute perspective are overpowering.

    Third, I hold that this perspective issue applies to the prophet who initially receives the revelation as much as to any other human. He will not absolutely comprehend the message, and based on recorded statements in scripture as well as observations of the written product, I see no validity in the idea that God’s inspiration involves dictation. (Now please don’t assume that I think inerrancy necessarily involves verbal dictation. The vast majority of inerrantists I know do not.) My particular point here is that the prophet understands and expresses the message as a human, and thus the received communication is itself limited. I would argue further that the received message is imperfect, but I have little time to follow that trail.

    Fourth, this results in the possibility of error at any stage of the transmission other than the thought in God’s own mind. The possibility of error applies to everything that is communicated because everything communicated goes through a human mind, is then copied by a human mind, and is later interpreted and applied by a human mind–all imperfectly.

    Inerrantists of my acquaintance accept that interpreters are all fallible, and certainly fallible in faith and practice as well as history and science. They accept that copyists may have made errors, though they would maintain those are few and of small import. I simply extend that one more step. Any human mind that transmits the word of God will do so in a limited way, i.e. imperfectly.

    So why read and depend on the Bible? Well, first, I don’t “depend on” the Bible as such. But generally this question tends to make me crazy. I depend on potentially fallible materials in my daily life. I am a fallible person who makes imperfect decisions, many of which I now know, from the eminence of 50 years (!) to have been really, really bad. I deal with imperfection. It is important to me that God is perfect, but I see no need for any human to be perfect.

    Now the Bible is a core element in my reception of God’s word, but by itself it is words on paper. I must bring all elements of God’s revelation together in order to have the faintest prayer of a chance of getting anything right. And that “prayer” of a chance is precisely what I do have. For me the Bible comes in a Spirit-filled community and is guaranteed to me not by the factual content of the text, on which I may change my mind in the next several seconds, but rather on the Spirit and the community with all the gifts and wisdom that God can give us. Even so I know that we will be in error from time to time.

    But even more importantly, I think we spend most of our times in the questionable areas, things on which we can quite reasonably disagree, while most of our actual problems come in areas on which we know what is right, and yet aren’t doing it. But again, that’s another point.

  • A Defense of Biblical Inerrancy

    Since I have staked out a pretty firm position as an opponent of Biblical inerrancy, I was interested in the series A Defense of Biblical Inerrancy on The A-Team Blog. The series comes in five parts:

    1. Part 1
    2. Part 2
    3. Part 3
    4. Part 4
    5. Part 5

    Some might expect me to go into a blow-by-blow refutation of such a post, but having recently written on it extensively in my book When People Speak for God (though that wasn’t my central topic), I really only want to call attention to it and highlight a few points.

    This series is well written and very clear, though some may be concerned that the author has covered a great deal of ground in large leaps. That is, however, the nature of essays and blog posts as opposed to multi-volume works on systematic theology. He defines inerrancy as he sees it very clearly. I suspect he would not include someone like me who denies inerrancy completely in the group he was addressing. As he notes:

    Even though the paper states so, I would like to make it clear that my argument is directed to those Christians who hold that the Bible is inerrant only in some areas (such as faith and practice), but not all areas in which it makes affirmations.

    Since I don’t view the Bible, as such, as inerrant in any area, perhaps I’m simply too far away from his point of view to connect at all. The standard difficulties occur. First, as I argue in my book (p. 16ff), it’s a bit odd to use either a proof-texting approach or the approach of systematic theology to determine what the Bible must be, when we have the Bible itself which we can examine, asking questions like just how it came together, how the prophets or other authors got the words that they wrote, how much those words are impacted by the surrounding culture, and so forth. The text of scripture itself tends to deny the results of systematic theologians; the Bible simply doesn’t operate the way they seem to think it should. How, for example, should one believe that all the words in the Bible are the words of God when the Bible clearly identifies many of them as the words of other people, often people who should not be believed? I know that sounds like an unsophisticated response. The inerrantists are sure to point out that they are not so stupid as to assume that when the inspired writer says that Satan, for example, says something, that must be true. It must, of course, be true that Satan said it. But even so that points to the Bible being something quite different than “the words of God” and suggests a more sophisticated approach.

    Second, the procedure of taking any Biblical text and applying it to all of the Bible, such as the usage of the favorite 1 Timothy 3:16-17, is questionable at best. Roger, our A-Team blogger, avoids this, but only partially, claiming that 1 Timothy 3:16-17 would apply to the Old Testament. I assume then that he would extend that application to the New Testament in forming his doctrine.

    But the process of canonization was not complete, even for the Old Testament at the time 1 Timothy 3:16-17 was written, so the assumption that the statement can be applied to the entire corpus of scripture is just that–an assumption. It happens to be an assumption that I would tend to agree with, though I understand God-breathed differently, but it is an assumption nonetheless. And would I agree with it in reference to the same canon? That is hard to tell.

    I would point out also that it is not primarily textual criticism that has brought inerrancy into question, but in one major way I think it should. In general, other higher critical methodologies are more of a challenge to inerrancy, as is historical study of the ancient near east. Because inerrancy as commonly defined applies to the autographs, textual criticism doesn’t really impact that definition.

    Or does it? I find it very odd that inerrantists claim that in order to have authority the Bible must be 100% without error. Even a slight error as the original author writes that autograph is fatal. Yet “essential accuracy” is what is required of those versions of the Bible that we have today. So apparently if manuscripts of the book of Acts differ by 10%, as the western text does from the Byzantine and Alexandrian texts, that’s OK. It’s textual variation. Through textual criticism we know what the text was to a very high degree.

    Now that is an assumption as well, because we have applied generally good principles of textual criticism and come up with the text that we have, but what about the poor early Christians who had the wrong text. Was it important that various Christians had differing texts for the book of Acts? Generally, inerrantists tell me know, pointing out that the variants are not doctrinally important. That’s a questionable point in itself, but is not critical here. The argument is that as long as it wasn’t done by the author, that 10% variation is not important. Even though it’s important that there was an inerrant autograph somewhere, nobody actually needs that inerrant autograph in order to have the truth–according to the inerrantists own arguments. I admit I just don’t get that argument.

    So let’s take a specific variant. According to 2 Kings 24:8 Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he began to reign. According to 2 Chronicles 36:9 he was 8. Now I like this variant because it is so obviously trivial. But it’s an interesting one from the point of view of inerrancy. In both Chronicles and Kings we are probably dealing with a compiler/editor who created the autograph. According to the doctrine of inerrancy, this variant is unimportant if it is the result of a copyists error. But supposing that the compiler of Chronicles, the one more likely to be wrong in this case, actually slipped up and wrote eight rather than eighteen in the autograph. Would that invalidate the truth of all of scripture? I find it astonishing that one can suggest that it’s critical if the error was made by the author, but unimportant if made by a copyist. The result in terms of the Bible I read, is the same.

    Obviously, I’m brushing past huge amounts of the argument in the series. I did want to call attention to it, however, because I think it’s a good summary of the other side on this issue.

  • Pope Benedict XVI on Creation-Evolution Controversy

    My sister e-mail me a link to this article on to me via e-mail.

    Pope Benedict XVI said the debate raging in some countries — particularly the United States and his native Germany — between creationism and evolution was an “absurdity,” saying that evolution can coexist with faith.

    The pontiff, speaking as he was concluding his holiday in northern Italy, also said that while there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory could not exclude a role by God.

    Now while I agree that there is much evidence for evolution (I think “scientific proof” is a poor use of terms), I have to say that I don’t think the debate is an absurdity. For folks like Dr. Kurt Wise (author of Faith, Form, and Time, who believes as an article of his faith that he must take Genesis 1-11 as accurate scientifically and historically, it does make a difference. I might call him bullheaded, but I shouldn’t call him stupid. Given that one assumption, the debate isn’t absurd, because from his point of view, the Bible must be false if evolutionary theory is true.

    I don’t have that same problem, because I don’t understand the Bible as a whole, or Genesis 1-11 in particular in the same way that he does. Yet while I continue to have a very low regard for scientific arguments in favor of young earth creationism, as I’ve indicated in several recent articles, and I object to young earth creationists identifying their one interpretation of Genesis as “the Christian faith,” it is obviously quite possible for people with substantial IQs to disagree.

    From the point of view of Catholic Biblical interpretation, it may, in fact, be absurd to come to a problem. I know that my wife, who was raised Catholic, never even saw this as an issue. I lack the knowledge of Catholic doctrine to comment intelligently on that fit. One assumes that Pope Benedict does not suffer from that deficiency, and that one can take his statement that the argument is absurd from that perspective as fairly definitive.

    The primary debate, however, is not between Catholic theologians. It is rather between Christian fundamentalists and some conservative evangelicals and other protestants for the most part. And there we have a simple divide.

    Tim LaHaye, in his book How to Study the Bible for Yourself states as his first rule of hermeneutics (p. 159), “Take the Bible literally.” In my copy of his book I have circled that statement and simply written “WRONG!” And there’s the key point of the debate. I don’t like the literal-figurative continuum as a single way of discussing how to take Biblical meaning. I prefer to discuss the types of literature involved, and what one might expect to get from those particular forms. As commonly understood, however, “literal” generally means “in the most concrete sense possible,” thus suggesting 7 literal 24 hour days, and accurate recording of all generations in the genealogies, for example. “Taking the Bible literally” in that sense of the word will result in support for young earth creationism.

    The controversy is real, and not absurd, however shocking certain positions in it may seem to any one of us.

  • Reacting to Biblical Criticism

    How does Biblical criticism relate to faith? How does one relate this to the work of the Jesus Seminar, for instance? Scot McKnight has an excellent answer in his post A Letter to a Question-full Christian (HT: Pseudo-Polymath). McKnight doesn’t deny the differences in the gospel texts (the main issue at hand), but he also uses some common sense explanations about how such things occur, and how that might relate to historicity.

    I do disagree with one sentence:

    No one dies for a myth, or at least they shouldn’t.

    I believe it is precisely for the myth that people are willing to die. But I am absolutely certain I am using the word “myth” in a different sense. If Jesus was simply a guy who died and was raised, there would be nothing to believe in. Think about his life. There is nothing there that has not at least been claimed of someone else, and except for the virgin birth, you can find similar experiences in scripture–martyr’s deaths, even resurrections. None of that convinced us that Jesus was God.

    We commonly use the term “myth” to as a sort of synonym for “wild fictional tale without historical foundation.” (OK, I exaggerate slightly, but allow me the fun.) I’m referring to the part that “ostensibly relates historical events usu. of such character as to serve to explain some practice, belief, institution, or natural phenomenon, and that is esp. associated with religious rites and beliefs” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary). The point is that we give greater meaning to the story of Jesus than the apparent physical happenings would warrant, even were all of them proven true. In my view nothing in the record would make us decide Jesus was God. We would probably decide he was the most impressive of prophets.

    But the myth that grows around him, that builds in the meaning and relates it to me now. Thus history can be flexible–not absent, but malleable–as Christians understand the mythos that results from Jesus.

    McKnight’s conclusion is great:

    Now, here’s where I have come: I believe in the Gospels and what they say about Jesus not simply because I have learned that they can be trusted on the basis of historical methods and inquiry, but more importantly because God has spoken to me through those records, because I have found Jesus to be utterly saving and wonderful, and because the Spirit who speaks to me is the Spirit who has spoken to others — beginning with the apostles who put down these sayings and events into words in such a way that the Church — the Church that is led by the same Spirit — has constantly told just this story about Jesus. It is the only story of Jesus I know; it is the story of Jesus that tells my story. Faith, my friend, is always involved in everything we confess in our faith, including the truthfulness of the story about Jesus. [emphasis mine]

  • Absolute Theology; Flexible Science

    One of the interesting things I note about creationists of various stripes is that they display a tremendous flexibility in interpreting physical data, they generally take hold of one approach to Biblical interpretation and nothing can move them. One of the clearest explicit statements of this position comes in the first three chapters of Kurt Wise’s book Faith, Form, and Time, and especially the second chapter “The Biblical Standard.” The entire section is titled “God’s Word on the Matter.” Wise is to be congratulated for stating his foundation honestly.

    One of the critical issues for Wise is the meaning of “kind,” to which he dedicates a chapter (“After Their Kind”). This is an area where old earth creationists and young earth creationists share a common problem. I’m not planning to delve into the whole area of baraminology, which I think will ultimately be fruitless, but simply to use it as a starting example of theological inflexibility combined with a view of the data that is so flexible it could almost be described as “formless and void.” I blogged about this some time ago, and simply noted that if one took “after their kind” phenomenologically, something that many very conservative Biblical interpreters will advocate for certain obviously non-scientific Biblical statements, one has no problem.

    “After their kind” simply states what we observe to be the truth on a day to day basis. Interpreting this phrase to mean that there is somewhere a barrier that genetic variation cannot cross is a variety of theological inflexibility. Inflexibly holding to a particular view of “after their kind” creationists are then forced to be hopelessly flexible with the physical data in order to create boundaries that do not appear to exist.

    I was reminded again about this when reading the Summary of Reasons To Believe’s Testable Creation Model and a response to it, and even a negative response from the young earth side. It’s especially interesting to see the young earth and old earth people tear one anther apart over Biblical interpretation. Old earth creationists are more flexible in their Biblical interpretation and more willing to hear scientific evidence, but they are still demonstrate the quality I’m discussing.

    It is not just the literary genre of Genesis that is taken as obvious, though that is the starting point. A certain set of Christian doctrines is also beyond discussion, and the assumption is made that if Genesis is not taken as narrative history, those doctrines will also fail.

    Let me just take an example from the Answers in Genesis document 10 Dangers of Theistic Evolution. (I have taken the document form ChristianAnswers.net, but its origin is on AiG.) It would be fun to take this document apart point by point, simply because it so blatantly misrepresents evolution in general and theistic evolution in particular. Today, however, I want to note only one point, from their point #6:

    Theistic evolution does not acknowledge Adam as the first man, nor that he was created directly from “the dust of the ground” by God (Genesis 2:17). Most theistic evolutionists regard the creation account as being merely a mythical tale, albeit with some spiritual significance. However, the sinner Adam and the Savior Jesus are linked together in the Bible – Romans 5:16-18. Thus any view which mythologizes Adam undermines the biblical basis of Jesus’ work of redemption.

    Even in theistic evolution, there will be a “first man” somewhere, and there is no difficulty whatsoever with calling that first man “Adam.” Of course “created directly from ‘the dust of the ground’” is precisely where the disagreement is, but while they include that special item in their objection, they don’t explain how “directly” as opposed to “indirectly” harms the doctrines of the incarnation and redemption, which is what they are trying to defend. I have no numbers on how many theistic evolutionists regard Genesis as a “mythical tale,” but as someone who is a bit cautious with literary terms, I certainly don’t call Genesis 1 “myth” even though it has some elements of myth. Rather, it is theology, and specifically liturgy. As such, it not only has some “spiritual significance,” it is designed to present spiritual truths and to pass them on from generation to generation through worship.

    Creationists seem to think that if humanity took a considerable period of time to appear on the scene, then it is impossible for there to be a fall. But the fall, as described in Genesis, can very easily be understood as a fall from grace in a primitive state. Without the efforts of artists to make it look sort of like a modern nudist camp (with only two people and with trees and hair positioned strategically), all that Genesis implies is a primitive state in which the first humans managed the garden. There is an element here of the rural vs the urban that suggests that the story comes out of the period of early urbanization. One notes that after making himself into the ultimate bad guy, Cain heads off and builds a city (Genesis 4:17). None of this requires that the fall of humanity not be a historical event, though personally I think that this passage should be read with even more flexibility.

    Note that in the same document even progressive creationism (see their point #1) is regarded as dangerous. Thus the extremely strong evidence of an old earth must be disregarded totally in order to maintain a set of beliefs, including a literal garden of Eden, a historical moment of the fall, a “direct” creation of the man, and so forth. All of this is required in order to maintain the belief that Genesis 1 is narrative history.

    And yet with a little bit of flexibility, one could maintain the garden of Eden, as there must be a first human being, and there is nothing to require that God didn’t communicate with that human and direct him to some location. There is also nothing to say that God did that, outside of the Bible read as narrative history, but that’s beside the point. One could then have a historical rebellion by that first couple, followed by, of course, the story of redemption. Evolution does not interfere with the picture at all, unless of course one is incredibly rigid in reading literary materials.

    Essentially if the creationists would exhibit any of the flexibility they show in reinterpreting scientific information when they turn to their Bibles, they would find it easy to construct a doctrinal picture that would be in accord with orthodox Christianity. Unfortunately, for them, facts produced by researchers in the field and the lab are to be treated with less respect than their literal, detailed, interpretations of Biblical texts.

    It’s not the Bible that’s the problem here so much as people who refuse to let the Bible speak in its own way in its own time. In ancient times it spoke to a pre-scientific culture. It could speak today in a scientific culture, but for it to do so, one must be ready to restate its principles in the context of new knowledge and new discoveries. Otherwise it simply becomes a barrier to knowledge.

  • Links on Biblical Inspiration

    A discussion of my book When People Speak for God is taking place on the Compuserve Religion Forum. At the same time, Amazon.com has dropped the price to $12.23 ($17.99 suggested retail).

    I have also just written some notes on Justin Holcomb’s book Christian Theologies of Scripture over on my Participatory Bible Study blog. While this book didn’t have an impact on mine, as I received my copy too late, I consider it an excellent resource for those interested in studying the inspiration of scripture.

  • The Importance of Literary Genre

    Yesterday I wrote about the importance of teaching and preaching on the doctrine of creation and also the “how” of creation in our churches. It’s important for us to understand what we believe about this. My personal view is that theology and Bible study tells us about God’s relationship to us and the natural sciences tell us about what is and how it came to be in terms of natural processes. But whether you agree with me on this or not, I suggest that now is not the time to be silent and hope the argument will go away.

    The key element I mentioned in that post is literary genre, and I did so because it is a critical starting point in Biblical interpretation. One can read the Bible as literature and even treat one type of literature as another when doing so. As an example, one could read Job either as history or as literature. In terms of spiritual application, there would be only a small amount of difference. But if one is looking for propositional truths, it is important to understand first what the intention of the author was in whatever passage you’re studying.

    The gospels make a good illustration for this point. Many debates about historicity simply shoot past one another because each speaker is making different assumptions about what type of literature the gospels represent, and what one can expect from that. At one extreme, the gospels are seen as pretty much pure theology, with any possible historical facts one may glean as incidental. At the other extreme one can view the gospels as pure history, describing the life of Jesus accurately, with theology being derived from the events and not the written presentation. I happen to think gospels are their own literary genre, with a number of variants when one includes non-canonical gospels, and that the historical value is considerable, though not the primary focus. But if one reads the gospels as histories, one might expect information that is not present, such as careful chronology. The various attempts to reconcile the chronology and create a life of Jesus from the four gospels demonstrate the difficulty.

    As modern readers, we are used to having the major literary genres identified for us. When I want a science fiction novel, I go buy a book that is identified as such. I don’t have to read it to identify it. The title page or the jacket blurbs generally tell me what I need to know. In ancient times there are no such blurbs. In many cases, I believe we could easily identify modern types of fiction if they were presented to us. We would probably have some difficulty with historical fiction or with fictionalized biography, for example, but generally we’d get a pretty good idea. Why? Because we have read quite a number of examples of each genre.

    And this brings up the common problem in determining the genre of Biblical documents. If we don’t specifically try to shift our viewpoint, we will likely try to force Biblical documents into modern categories, and do so by looking at their characteristics in comparison to what we read most. This will not result in an accurate picture. I experienced this personally in starting to study Biblical languages. As I moved further and further into ancient literature I found that there were other categories and styles than I was used to in my reading. The Bible felt more at home in that environment than when I tried to read it from a modern point of view.

    So one obvious way to learn to recognize Biblical genres is to read a variety of ancient literature. That will expand your viewpoint and give you more points of comparison to more types of literature. I would suggest this process to anyone who is interested in understanding the Bible better. You are going to need to read a variety of things. For protestants, adding the apocrypha to your reading will help a great deal. There are other collections of ancient literature, however, that are also very helpful in getting perspective.

    Let’s just consider one indicator that we commonly use in recognizing genre. Let’s call it the “wicked witch” indicator. By this I mean that we recognize a story as some literary form other than narrative history or a true/true-to-life story because things just don’t work the way the story says they do. If I start a story, “Once upon the time there was a wicked witch who lived in a broken down shack far out in the woods . . .” you will not be under any illusions that I am telling a modern, true-to-life story. (Apologies to any witches who read this. I’m willing to bet you don’t live in broken down shacks far out in the woods.)

    Now consider the following from the Bible: “The trees went out to anoint a king over themselves . . .” — Judges 9:8

    We know immediately that we are not going to read narrative history. Why? Trees do not behave that way. What follows is known as the parable of the trees.

    Now one more example, this time from the apocrypha: “It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In those days Arphaxad ruled over the Medes in Ecbatana.” — Judith 1:1 (NRSV)

    I suspect this one is nearly as easy to identify as the parable of the trees. Why? Because even based solely on the Biblical text, surely available to the author of Judith, we know that:

    • Nebuchadnezzar did not rule over the Assyrians
    • Nebuchadnezzar (first or second) did not rule in Nineveh
    • Arphaxad comes from Biblical genealogies, not from the Median kings

    So here we have historical data that is clearly created using available names and countries. All of these are real, but they’re combined in impossible ways. It’s very likely, based on this, that the author of Judith had no intention of his book being taken as actual history. His readers with no more than the various historical books of Hebrew scripture, could have seen what he is doing.

    Notice that we have twice identified a piece of literature as not being historical because in some sense things just don’t work in the way described.

    To be continued . . .

  • Linking my own Stuff/Book

    I’ve been a bit delinquent here on Threads for the last week or so. There’s a good reason for that. My next book, When People Speak for God is near the final step and should, in fact, go to the printer on Monday. The way we do things, that should mean availability for people to get actual copies (I’ve got definitions on the brain) about 10 days later.

    I want to link to a couple of posts I’ve done elsewhere, but first just a note on the book. This isn’t new and original material. I have written several essays that I published on the web in my pre-blog days, and a number of additional blog entries since then. I also tend to discuss Biblical inspiration, the gift of prophecy, God speaking to people, and people claiming that God told them certain things when I’m teaching in person. A number of readers on of the internet material have suggested I get it in print, as reading 50-60 pages at a shot on the internet annoys them. Those who attend my classes often ask me for something they can read for more information on what I teach about inspiration. Thus far I’ve referred them to URLs, often an unsatisfactory option.

    Print-on-demand technology allows me to create a book such as this for what appears off-hand to be a relatively small audience. My original plan was to collect the essays, write a couple of connecting or explanatory notes, add topical and scripture indexes, and publish. Ah, the wishful thinking! I may be the boss but I’m an incredibly cruel and evil boss. Thus when I looked at the collected essays I said to myself, “This won’t do at all. Get thee to work!” (Note that the archaic language is not an indication of divine inspiration.)

    A few months of off and on work later, the resulting volume is 276 pages (243 pages + front matter, glossary, topical and scripture indexes), and based on word counts I’m guessing it’s about 1/3 new material. The backbone is my essay Inspiration, Biblical Authority, and Inerrancy, which you can check out on the web. Added to this is material on the modern gift of prophecy, and practical considerations for handling the situation when someone claims divine authority for their words. You’ll find almost all the existing material in this book (bar the 1/3 new stuff) if you add to that the Biblical inspiration category on this blog and on my Participatory Bible Study blog.

    To my non-Christian friends I would simply note that if you’re looking for a book in which I argue for divine inspiration, this isn’t it. This book only discusses that issue peripherally. It is strongly rooted in the Christian tradition. I do argue against the doctrine of inerrancy from within the Christian tradition and discuss a number of related issues. I simply don’t want somebody to think this book is something it’s not.

    I’ll probably blog more about that down the road. In the meantime, I wanted to point out that while I’ve neglected this one, some of my blogs have been active.

    On my wife’s devotional blog I posted this entry yesterday, reminding all those of us who are Christians that we may be the one and only “translation” of the Bible that some folks may read.

    The Running Toward the Goal podcast offered Elgin Hushbeck’s latest, titled Irrational Nobility. It includes some arguments that may annoy non-Christian readers. Elgin would enjoy it if you went and argued with him. You can also check out the transcript of that program here if you prefer reading to listening.

    On my Participatory Bible Study blog, I posted on what the author of Hebrews believed was a difficult message. Elsewhere I’ve been just as quiet as I have here.

  • Pious Assertions About the Bible

    There is a whole category of assertions about the Bible that I call “pious,” that reflect people’s desire to respect the Bible and uphold its authority, but that are often inaccurate and poorly considered. I would ask whether a statement can be truly pious and respectful if it is also not true. My suggestion is that we consider carefully whatever statements we make about the Bible to be certain that the reflect what the Bible actually is and its purpose in the Christian community.

    For example, there are exaggerated statements of obedience. “I do everything the Bible says,” someone announces. Do they really? That’s quite unlikely. There actions are probably more nuanced than that, but it just sounds so good to claim that you do everything the Bible says. Every theological position I know of has some element to limit certain commands to particular times or places, as well they should. But further very few of us, at best, could claim to always carry out God’s will for us in everything, can we? Perhaps we should say something more like, “I do my best to obey God’s commands as they apply in my life” or “I do my best to follow God’s will with his help or strength.” That sounds more like respect, combined with honesty.

    A second category is those statements that treat the book almost like a person. At our daughter’s wedding the little Bible boy was a fairly lively individual. He was carrying my very most favorite Bible, a Cambridge NRSV with wide margins, two markers, and decent sized print. I have a number of full sets of sermon notes in the margins of that Bible. My daughter wanted him to carry it. During rehearsal, he grabbed it, folded it over backward, and started beating the altar rail with it. May I say that it got on my nerves? But my distress was due to my love of books, and to my desire to have that particular book in good condition, not out of fear that God might be angry at the mistreatment of the book. I have encountered people who are afraid to mark their Bibles, write in the margins, or even carry them under tough circumstances. There’s the standard admonition to put the Bible on the top of any stack of books. But the bottom line is that your actual Bible is still just ink and paper. It’s the divine inspiration, the message, that is holy, and that will not be damaged even if the original is flushed down the toilet.

    Finally, there are the bad analogies. My favorite is the “boy scout manual.” Whenever someone gets that saintly smile on their face, and tells me that the Bible is just like the scout manual, I am pretty sure they’ve either never read the scout manual or never read their Bible–usually the latter. The Bible is actually almost, but not quite totally unlike a scout manual. I say “almost” because the Bible is a book with paper, ink, covers, and so forth. Après church has a good post related to this here (HT: Wayne Leman of Better Bibles Blog).

    The problem is what I call the “Sunday School” answer. We know we’re supposed to respect the Bible as God’s Word. We know it’s important. But often in the modern Christian community we don’t actually know what’s in it, so we can’t make our own accurate statements of why it’s important to us. Thus we use just any comment that sounds pious and respectful, so we can appear to respect the Bible without the effort of digging into it.

    For me, the Bible is an important companion as I commune with God. Over the years my times of prayer and Bible study have become more and more blurred. That’s because I see prayer as communion with God, and I see Bible study in the same way. God speaks to me through the Bible. My understanding of his will is enlightened by the Bible.

    There’s a good old statement that does well for me: Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path. — Psalm 119:105