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Symposium Issue 3 consists largely of a discussion between me and Ian Burn; hopefully he speaks for some of you, and I speak for some of you, and anyone who doesn't see their point of view represented should write and represent it themselves. I've laid it out a little differently, because Ian thoughtfully structured his critique around my seed article, so instead of the reprint of the seed article followed by the discussion I've interleaved them. I've used a distinct style so that you can hopefully work out which is which.
- Mike McMillan
Contributing Editor.
I'd like to look at some of the important concepts to do with the Scriptures, dealing with each one under three headings: Idea, Basis and Implications.
In other words, what does it mean, why should I believe it, and what are the consequences if I do?
The concepts I will cover are: Reliability, Revelation, Inspiration, Infallibility, Authority, Sufficiency, Canon and Interpretation. Obviously, all of this is just a sketch; whole books have been written on this stuff. I'll mention some of them as I go along.
Ian: The Bible often scares me and depresses me. When I look for Jesus I find an incomprehensible scowling Puritan telling me to sort my life out. Now, there are a number of reasons, but a major one is my evangelical background. It has been, and the evangelicalism I am still in contact with is, nauseatingly self-righteous. Even when evangelicals recognise this it doesn't seem to stop them doing it. There is a sense of "We have the Truth, and we are going to give it to you and it will meet your needs." Where is the humility to listen to other Christian traditions, or accept that non-Christians may also have some access to Truth? I am glad that there are people emphasising the need to listen to the unchurched and those leaving churches, but in many cases it's a bit late.
Mike: I used to read the Bible a lot, about seven chapters a day, and as a result read through it (particularly the New Testament) a number of times - to the point that it was just a semi-legalistic exercise. So I've stopped. I'm not applying what I already know properly, so why keep reading unless to find out how to apply what I already know? Which I won't, because the problem is not lack of knowledge, but my sinful nature. Continuing to read the Bible would only get me more used to understanding without applying.
Having said that, I think that all of those years of reading the Bible a lot were helpful, and I would certainly recommend Bible reading to Christians who weren't yet very familiar with the Scriptures - ie hadn't read the whole of them, and the New Testament several times.
I'm not sure where you get your incomprehensible scowling Puritan telling you to sort your life out. Not out of John's Gospel, I would suspect; perhaps across a Presbyterian pulpit in your youth? I know at least one other person (who is like you in other ways also - my friend Steve, who I may have mentioned before) who also finds the Bible depressing and confusing, for reasons I can't quite understand. Perhaps because he, too, had a lot of bad input on what the Bible meant when he hadn't read it for himself, and hasn't been able to take off those glasses when reading it subsequently. There's something to be said for sermons without much content and teaching from Christian organisations that doesn't make much reference to the Bible or claim support from isolated verses at every turn; at least it doesn't screw your view of Scripture up as much.
I'm not sure where to place myself in the context of your remarks about evangelical self-righteousness. Naturally, I hold certain ideas which I believe to be true (otherwise I wouldn't hold them), but they are fewer than they were, and I like to think that I can listen to other viewpoints and modify mine in response (even if I still end up disagreeing). As Billy Joel says on his River of Dreams album, 'Some things were perfectly clear, seen with the vision of youth/ No doubts and nothing to fear, I claimed the corner on truth . . . The more I find out, the less that I know . . . I hear the other man's words, I'm not that sure any more . . . Now with the wisdom of years, I try to reason things out/ And the only people I fear are those who never have doubts/ Save us all from arrogant men, and all the causes they're for/ I won't be righteous again/ I'm not that sure any more.' ('Shades of Grey')
More of this perhaps next issue, when we discuss strategies for discussion and change.
Ian: Sorry if I was a bit abusive. Because my faith is important to me, I don't always say what is wise in the heat of the moment.
Mike: No worries on your anti-evangelical rant; I understand, and try to avoid, the emotional power of labels. I consider myself, broadly speaking, an evangelical, but I'm not going to get defensive over quite justified attacks on a form of evangelicalism I don't hold to.
Idea: The statements recorded in the Bible as literal truth are literal truth.
The first thing to establish about the Bible, if we're even to bother doing anything else, is whether it is, in general, reliable or not. F.F. Bruce has written the classic work in this field: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?. I'll take John as a worked example and briefly sketch why I consider it a reliable, eyewitness testimony to real historical events, something upon which considerable doubt is cast with monotonous regularity. The same could be done for other books; for instance, the book of Acts is a highly accurate historical reflection of the political and geographic shape of the world at the time it claims to describe, as archaeology has repeatedly shown.
(The following is based on my pamphlet 'Dangerous Experiment with Book'.)
Basis: Firstly, it is often argued that John (and other New Testament books) were written long after the events they describe, and so are not a reliable record. This criticism has been outdated - and invalidated by the discovery of John Rylands Papyrus 457 in Egypt about 1935. This fragment (containing John chapter 18, verses 31-33, 37-38) cannot be dated later than AD 135 (The Expositor's Bible Commentary, 12 vols, ed. Frank E. Gæbelein (Zondervan, 1981), Vol 9 p 9). It was a copy, so the original is clearly earlier.
Apart from this external evidence, John contains detailed reference to many ancient landmarks in Jerusalem which were destroyed when the Romans suppressed the Jewish revolt of AD 66-70. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus says of the destruction of the wall that 'it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited' ('The Wars of the Jews', 7.1.1, in The Works of Josephus, trans. William Whiston 1736, updated edn. Hendrickson, 1987). At that time many features casually mentioned by John, such as the pool at Bethesda (chapter 5 verse 2), were totally obliterated and have only been revealed again by recent archaeology. Hence, the author must have been in Jerusalem before AD 70 to refer so casually and in such detail to these features.
That the author was an eyewitness is convincingly suggested by the many small, irrelevant details of Jesus' disciples and associates, including those with whom Jesus had only casual contact, such as Nicodemus (chapter 3 verse 1) and Annas (chapter 18 verse 13), and details like the barley bread used to feed the 5000 people (chapter 6 verse 9) and the fragrance of the ointment that 'filled the whole house' (chapter 12 verse 3). The distinguished scholar B.F. Westcott of Cambridge rightly says, 'The age of minute historical romance had not yet come when the Fourth Gospel [John] was written, even if such a record could possibly be brought within that category' (The Gospel According to St John, 2 vols, by B.F. Westcott (John Murray, 1908), Vol 1, p xliv.) In other words, it is either the record of an eyewitness or realistic fiction centuries before realistic fiction was invented.
Nor can it be convincingly claimed to be 'mythic' literature. The outstanding scholar and literary critic C.S. Lewis writes of one stage in his reluctant movement from atheism to Christianity: 'I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythic taste' (Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis (Fontana, 1959), p 188). This from a man who was thoroughly familiar with the features of myth and legend; one of his three first-class honours degrees was in classics. He writes elsewhere, 'I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this' ('Fern-seed and Elephants' in Christian Reflections, C.S. Lewis (Fount, 1981), p 194).
Professor Paul Merkley, of the Department of History at Carleton University, Ottawa, says relevantly, 'The question is this: On what basis do we generally believe what a historical testimony tells us? The answer is: we believe when and insofar as we have confidence in the author of the testimony. . . . His credentials as a witness come down to these two: a) Was he there? and b) would he lie to us (or could he have been deceived?)' ('The Gospels as Historical Testimony', Paul Merkley, in The Evangelical Quarterly, vol 58 no 4 (October 1986), p 323.)
No other New Testament writer condemns lying as much as John. Nor did he stand to gain anything by lying - quite the reverse. All his apostolic colleagues, starting with his brother James, were executed for saying the things he said; he himself was exiled for doing so. There never even looked like being any wealth or power to be gained. The eleven demoralised followers of Jesus would have lost nothing and gained a great deal by quietly going home and pretending they had never met him - if their testimony was not true.
As for deception: we are talking about sceptical, down-to-earth men who took a great deal of convincing (as the last few chapters of John show), and who observed Jesus closely for roughly three years. Again, it is remotely possible - but extremely improbable. (This may be seen as using a document to argue its own reliability. But the issue here is whether John was deceived, and that is not an issue which affects the reliability of his evidence regarding the length of time spent with Jesus or the skepticism of his colleagues.)
Implications: If the Bible is even generally reliable in its assertions about the events which occurred, we need to take these assertions seriously and ask ourselves, What does it mean that these events occurred? In the case of John, I find these conclusions inescapable: that Jesus is the way in which God has made himself known to us, and that through him (and him only) we are reconciled to God and brought near to him to know him. This is not the place to go into an extended exploration of these ideas, but they open up, in turn, far greater implications.
Ian: You assert that there was nothing to be gained for the apostles in asserting falsehoods and so losing their lives. People do things for reasons other than power or wealth. Some people do things for fame, or posterity, or because they seek martyrdom, or just out of a search for meaning in their lives. There is little more powerful than a cause to die for. To quote from Willard Gaylin, Rediscovering Love (1986, p 23):
"In Androcles and the Lion, Shaw makes his most profound statements about faith and commitment. Lavinia, the Christian martyr, is determined to die. The Captain, who is enamoured of her, tries every means of persuading her to go through the token conversion required by the Roman state. It is not necessary, the Captain tells Lavinia, that she believe, but simply that she says she does, for after all he really does not 'believe in Jupiter and Diana, no more than the Emperor does, or any educated man in Rome.'
"She answers the Captain saying that what might have been called her faith 'has been oozing away minute by minute while I have been sitting here, with death coming nearer and nearer, with reality becoming realer and realer, with stories and dream fading away into nothing.'
The Captain: Are you going to die for nothing?
Lavinia: Yes, that's the wonderful thing. It is since all the stories and dreams have gone that I have now no doubt at all that I must die for something greater than dreams and stories.
The Captain: But for what?
Lavinia: I don't know. If it were for anything small enough to know, it would be too small to die for."
Mike: I used to be a Romantic myself, but couldn't sustain it; you end up very uptight about things that don't matter. On second thoughts, Willard Gaylin may or may not have missed Shaw's point; Lavinia is not dying for something because she wants to die for a cause; that would be 'stories and dreams'. She is dying for her faith because her faith, underneath all the stories and dreams, is more real than them. It was cloaked in them while the issues were not clear-cut, but when it became a matter of actually dying she realised that the stories and dreams were not the substance, but there was a substance which she couldn't articulate, though she knew it was real. Possibly I have missed Shaw's point (it's some time since I read the play), and I certainly haven't addressed yours: Won't people die for a cause?
True enough, but I think it needs to be an existing cause. Also, the point remains that if they were seeking fame or even martyrdom, they were still consciously asserting things which they knew to be untrue (and insisting that they were merely instruments of Jesus, refusing marks of respect, and fleeing as much as possible from persecution, to boot). It still looks a little odd.
Ian: Besides asking if John was there and if he lied, let me add another two categories. Did he forget? and Was he honestly mistaken?
Was he really sitting taking shorthand while Jesus gave His Holy Week discourses? If he wasn't, was his memory really so good that he could recall them word-perfect at a later date? Personally I doubt it.
Mike: In my original piece, I did have some words on the possibility of John's having been forgetful of the true events, or honestly mistaken. I cut them for space reasons, and also because, frankly, I thought them less than conclusive. I appear to have misplaced the file, fortunately, as that has forced me to rethink and come up with some partly new stuff:
Idea: the Bible's content comes, in some sense and at least in part, from God. It is not simply, or at least not only, human reflections on the idea of God.
Basis: To build on the previous section, I will use some remarks of Jesus taken from John. Note that, if John's descriptions of the events of Jesus' life are accurate, and I am right in saying that this means Jesus is the revelation of God, then his statements carry a lot of weight.
'Jesus answered them [the Jews], "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods', to whom the word of God came - and the Scripture cannot be broken - what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?"'
Here, Jesus answers an accusation with an appeal to Psalm 82:6, which he refers to in three ways. He calls it 'your Law', associating it with the binding nature of the first five books of the Bible written by Moses, though it is not contained in them. He calls it 'the word of God', claiming that it is spoken by God; and he calls it 'the Scripture' (that is, the Writing) and insists that it 'cannot be broken'. The implication (when you take it with other statements of Jesus which refer to 'the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms', as in Luke 24 and elsewhere) is that all of the Old Testament is to be considered a revelation from God.
I could use many other quotations, both from Jesus and from New Testament writers, since they used hundreds of quotations from the Old Testament and without exception treat it as having authority as a communication from God; in fact, in verses like Romans 9:17 and Galatians 3:8, Scripture and God are closely identified, so that what one says, the other says. For more of Jesus' teaching on the Old Testament, see: Matt 22:43 (authority), 26:56 (reliability), 19:2-5 (factuality), Luke 24:27, 44 (unity).
This leaves the New Testament, and again it is in John that this is mentioned. In 14:26, speaking to the men who would write much of the New Testament and authenticate the rest of it (eg 2 Peter 3:16, which classifies Paul's writings as 'Scriptures'), he says the Holy Spirit will 'teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.' Further, in 16:13, he promises (again to the apostles) that the Spirit of truth will guide them into all truth, taking things from Christ and making them known to the apostles. It is difficult to see this as anything other than a promise of continuing revelation to and through the apostles, the result being the New Testament.
Implications: if the Bible comes from God, it has more reliability, importance and authority than if it does not. In fact, since it claims to come from God, it has very little validity if in fact it does not come from God.
Ian: The assumption you are making is that all the writers are referring to the same Scriptures. It's also circular. Scripture declares itself to be Scripture because it is Scripture. If I wrote you two letters each declaring the other to be Scripture would they both be?
Mike: The reason I assume that all the writers are referring to the same (Old Testament) Scriptures is that these were already a recognised, unified body of literature at this time. When Jesus refers to the Law, Prophets and Psalms he is making a well-understood reference to the whole of the Old Testament canon, and the other writers could simply refer to 'the Scriptures', meaning the Old Testament, and be understood. This is part of what makes Peter's almost casual classing of Paul's writings with 'the other Scriptures' so remarkable.
At first glance it does seem circular, but most of the references are in fact New Testament writers (who I have already argued deserve to be listened to on other grounds) talking about the Old Testament, or about parts of the New Testament other than the one they were currently writing (indeed, parts written by other people entirely). So, they already have some authority to claim to be speaking from God, and use this to claim that other people were speaking from God, and I think we are justified in taking this claim seriously.
Idea: the Bible not only comes from God but was brought into being by God, working through human writers.
Basis: the Old Testament, and particularly the Prophets, repeatedly make use of the phrase 'This is what the Lord says'. However, in 2 Timothy 3:16 is the remarkable claim that 'all Scripture is breathed out by God' (sometimes translated 'inspired'). This means that the Bible is not only a record of the interaction people had with God, and so contains a number of his words (revelation); it goes further, and claims that God is the ultimate source of all the content of Scripture.
As a writer myself, I am familiar with this kind of process. I have been given books to write in the course of my profession on topics of which I know little or nothing. I have been supplied with the information, and have then used my ability as a writer to present it in a way which communicates to the intended audience. This is the idea of inspiration: God provides the content, but the human writer provides the form (which is why different human writers have identifiably different styles of writing Scripture). Peter describes the process this way: 'Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.' (2 Peter 1:20-21.) The word for 'carried along' is used in Acts 27 of the ship 'carried along' by the wind, with some steering control remaining but with the overall direction firmly set.
Implications: see under Infallibility and Authority.
Ian: In general I agree, but there must be a wide range of types of inspiration, from the "Thus saith the Lord" of the Prophets, to the Psalmist (speaking God's words) praising God, to Ps 137:9 where 'God' declares to be happy those who bash in the heads of Babylonian babies!
Mike: That does seem logical; there are certainly different levels of how evident the involvement of God is, ranging, as you say, from the places where the prophet speaks as God speaks, to the places where the genuine but ungodly opinions of humans are recorded in the Scripture (such as most of the advice of Job's friends and also the Psalm 137 passage you refer to, where it is the Psalmist, not God, speaking - C.S. Lewis has some interesting words on it in Reflections on the Psalms, incidentally). In fact, direct lies of Satan are recorded in Scripture. But Paul says that all Scripture is 'God-breathed', in other words, whether it is directly quoting God's words or quoting words which are directly opposed to God, it is his will which has created it as Scripture, and it is therefore useful for teaching etc (even if its use may be in teaching how not to do things). If we have different levels of inspiration, we may end up with different levels of authority, and be able to throw out the bits we don't like simply because it doesn't say 'Thus says the Lord'. (Human nature being what it is, of course, this will never actually be made the criterion. After all, there is plenty in Leviticus with 'This is what the Lord says' attached to it that people simply throw out, while other things which are never presented as other than the words of men, not even necessarily godly men, will be retained, because the real criterion they are applying is whether it conforms to the values they already hold. This is the wrong way round, and would seem to me to make it rather pointless to have a Scripture at all, if it isn't allowed to tell you anything you haven't already worked out for yourself.)
Idea: The Bible, when it was originally written down, did not make any assertions which were contrary to the truth (either deliberately or accidentally).
Basis: this follows naturally from inspiration. If all of the content of Scripture comes from God, and God is perfect, then the content will share in that perfection, within the limitations of the finite authors through whom it is transmitted (and the copyists who afterwards copy their works, which is a process which introduces many errors).
It is important to be aware of the limitations on infallibility. For instance, if a writer states something from a human point of view which is, strictly speaking, not accurate because of the limitations of his knowledge, this is not an 'error' but a way of speaking. You and I, though we believe with Copernicus that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice-versa, still speak of the sun 'rising' and of the seasons being caused by the angle of the sun's rays to the earth, whereas in fact 'the angle of the earth to the sun's rays' would be a more accurate. From our point of view, however, the sun does 'rise', just as a car does 'get larger' as it approaches us.
Rounding of numbers is another human device which is widely recognised as not being 'inaccurate'. If I say that a book contains 7000 paragraphs, where it actually contains 7058, nobody accuses me of lying unless I say it contains exactly 7000.
This principle can even extend to ways of reporting. We are used to a scientific model of reporting, which requires that everything be in its exact order and sequence, but real-life eyewitness reports are not like that. This is especially the case when the story is being used to make a point. Ian Burn has [previously] raised the conflict over the time of death of Jairus' daughter. Matt 9:18 says she 'has just died' when Jairus approached Jesus, while Mark 5:23, 35 that she was 'dying' and that news was later brought that she was 'dead'. As John W. Haley remarks in Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible (Baker, 1977, p 10), Matthew 'does not follow any chronological series of events or instructions, but groups together things of the same kind, and shows by a series of living pictures what Christ was in all the various circumstances through which he passed'. In other words, Matthew didn't actually care about exactly when the girl died, only that she was dead when Jesus arrived and he raised her to life again. This is the important point, and his story is not a blow-by-blow description but a picture of Jesus. In the same way, we don't see Lindy Chamberlain suing the film company which made Evil Angels because not every word and gesture was exactly as she made it and in exactly the right order; she would only do so if she were fundamentally misrepresented.
Implications: we can trust what the Bible says about events and also their interpretation and the lessons drawn from them. We can say with confidence that these events happened, and these words were spoken, and we can also believe the interpretations drawn about them. We will not be relying on a deception or a mistake if we do this.
Ian: Basically, there are far too many discrepancies in the text for me not to emphasise the fallenness of the human authors in the writing as opposed to the inspiration of God.
I think in these sorts of arguments "liberals" read liberal authors making their points and criticising evangelicals and vice-versa. Perhaps both sides should read each other's arguments in the original now and then.
The following points are from Athol Gill's Life on the Road, a study of the Gospels which attempts to ascertain what contemporary Christian discipleship should look like. Gill is the Professor of New Testament at Whitley College, University of Melbourne.
Gill argues that the gospel writers were writing for very different audiences, and wrote their gospels using the stories of Jesus to emphasise different truth.
For example, Matthew's story of Jesus stilling the storm (8:18-27) starts similarly to Mark's (from 4:25). Matthew (8:19-22) then inserts two discipleship sayings which Luke records in quite a different place (9:57-61) before carrying on with the story of the storm on the lake as Mark does. Matthew has taken a miracle story and turned it into a lesson in discipleship. So if Jesus said those things where Matthew says he said them, why doesn't Luke or Mark record them? Or why doesn't Matthew have them where Luke does? One could assume that Jesus said the same thing twice in different contexts, and that the various authors chose not to include them at one of those points for whatever reason, or that they didn't know he said such a thing at such a point. This for me stretches credibility. It's something that would only be done by someone who believed that the Bible was true in a literalist, chronological, rational sense. I find it more believable that the gospel authors took the stories and sayings of Jesus and arranged them in particular orders to make particular points. While the stories and sayings may well be true in themselves, their context (which is set by the fallible human authors, not Jesus), completely changes their meaning in each Gospel. It's not denying that, in J.B. Phillips' phrase, the Gospels have the "ring of truth", just that the authors were playing in different and sometimes discordant keys.
You dismiss my point about Jairus' daughter as being peripheral to the main point of the story. I would still maintain that one version of the story is factually inaccurate, and in a rational (orthodox?) sense, not true.
Some similar examples:
Let me extend the metaphor; not only are the gospel writers not in the same key; sometimes their tuning's a bit off!
Mike: Did you notice that a lot of the points Professor Gill makes are the same as ones I was making? I agree that the Gospel writers were writing for different audiences, and used the stories of Jesus to emphasise different truths, but don't see this as a problem in the sense you are arguing. Certainly, in the, as you say, 'rational (orthodox?) sense' one of the versions (or more) will be 'inaccurate'. But truth exists in many layers and at other levels than minute detail. I don't see that, considered in their literary and historical context, these stories are 'inaccurate'by which I mean that the apostles themselves, and their contemporaries, would not have so regarded them. The fact that they use the same story to make different points is not significant if we consider that there is inherently more than one point to be made (life being complex as it is). If a post-Enlightenment conservative evangelical wants to try to get around it some other way, that's his problem. Such a one, however, would probably point out that the request of James and John being made through their mother still leaves it as their request, and that Mark 1:14-15 can be seen simply as Mark's summary of Luke 4:14-44 (Luke being more longwinded than Mark), and I don't have much difficulty with this either. Bethlehem was Joseph's ancestral, not personal, home town, and so forth.
We could play the game of example and counter-explanation ad nauseam, however, and leave the main issue unresolved. This seems to me to be:
Perhaps this is the really important issue, since authority depends heavily on the whole reliability/inerrancy/inspiration cluster. You can reduce inerrancy quite a long way and still have authority, but if you reduce it too far you lose reliability and inspiration as well, and at this point authority more or less vanishes, and we are left with a book no more authoritative than one we can write ourselves.
This will cause problems, almost inevitably, for a 20th-century person, since our whole society teaches us that 'history is bunk' and that tomorrow will not be like today, but even far better (cf Isaiah 56:12). In technology, and closely associated areas such as agriculture, this is generally true, although there are certainly exceptions. But to apply this to matters of wisdom, faith, ethics and morals is no more than chronological snobbery. There is more than adequate evidence that wisdom has not increased along with knowledge in the 20th century. This doesn't stop people believing implicitly that the ideas of today are better and more 'right' than the ideas of yesterday, and as for the ideas of 2000 years ago . . . I like T.S. Eliot's response to the idea that we need not listen to people of the past because "we know so much more than they do": "Exactly," he said, "and they are what we know."
You see my concern, I think. I may as well be candid and admit that I am more strongly motivated to defend inerrancy (in some form) because authority depends upon it than because it is inherently believable, although obviously I have what I consider good reasons for believing it. I also may as well turn it round and state that it seems that many people (and I see no reason to suppose that you are one) are more strongly motivated to attack inerrancy in order to get rid of authority than because it is inherently not believable, though they too have what they consider other good reasons not to believe it.
Ian: People don't try to live their lives by Evil Angels. They do by the Bible. Jesus himself goes into the level of detail associated with Jairus' daughter in rebutting the questions of the lawyers and Pharisees. Again I would state that if you change the order and context of the Jesus stories you change the complete picture. I think you're saying that the stories are jigsaw pieces and it doesn't matter which way they go together, it still somehow makes the same picture. While in some ways that's right, in other ways it's wrong. If someone writes a biography of me and says I went to Christchurch before I went to Auckland, readers will conclude that the former influences the latter in a completely different way from the true way, which is the reverse.
Mike: Fair enough, but this is only true if they are claiming, baldly and outright, "Ian went to Christchurch before he went to Auckland". If they are making some other point which is not dependent on chronology, and it is more logical for the point they are making to mention Christchurch first, it is entirely legitimate to do so; in fact, I think every biography I've ever read does this at some point, and some do it repeatedly. Although in some ways the Bible is different from other literature, I don't think this is (or needs to be) one of them.
The point about the same level of detail being used to rebut the Pharisees is well taken. All I can suggest is that Jesus had the right to say (because he knew) that the exact details were significant, and we don't necessarily have the same right. I can't, offhand, think of one where narrative sequence was the issue, either.
Idea: the Bible is not only a book which can be productively followed, but is a book which ought to be followed.
Basis: if the Bible comes from God, who has all wisdom and all knowledge, and is a reliable and indeed inerrant record of his dealings with humankind and his instructions to us, it is not only reasonable to follow it; it is unreasonable not to follow it. In fact, large portions of it consist of commands from God, and if God is truly the ruler of the universe and these are truly his commands, then we must obey them or accept the consequences.
Implication: the commands of Scripture are the commands of God.
Ian: Yes, but which commands do we obey when? If we never personally feed the poor or tend the sick, are we disobeying God, who commands these (Matthew 24)? A bigger role for the Spirit please.
Mike: Which commands we obey when is a huge vexed question, and Stimulus has printed an extensive article on it by Jonathan Boston (in Vol I, No 3, August 1993). Clearly, the Bible is not a set of rules which one can memorise and apply both rigidly and effectively in every conceivable situation; life (and the Bible) is much more complex than that, as Bill Gothard and others like him forget to their detriment. Nor (and this is more important than you may think) are we naturally inclined to obey the commands of God in any case, which is certainly one of the places the Spirit comes in, enabling us to will and to act in accordance with God's purpose. However, if we don't know, or don't admit, that the Bible sets out the purpose (commands) of God, we are hindered in this, and this was what my brief summary of the idea of the authority of Scripture was aimed at. I would also say that the Scriptures are the primary means by which the authority of God enters into our (moral) lives; while the Spirit is very much involved in the process of obeying God's commands, we shouldn't be waiting for some (I believe) imaginary "voice of the Spirit" to tell us whether to obey a command or not. A story from a sermon I heard recently will illustrate this. Dr Donald J. Barnhouse, the great expositor, was sitting in his study and talking to his daughter when his wife came past and asked the daughter what they were talking about. The little girl said, "I'm trying to get Daddy to tell me what to do." At this, Dr Barnhouse said, "No you're not. I've already told you what to do. You're trying to get me to change my mind." I think this is the trap we can fall into if we insist that we need to listen for the "prompting" of the Spirit before obeying God; especially if (as I believe) most "promptings of the Spirit" are our own imperfect conscience, preconscious mind etc, what we are really looking for is to be able to do what we want to do with God's "authority". Miss Barnhouse had a disadvantage: She couldn't pretend not to hear her father's voice clearly speaking to her. If she was going to disobey and not admit it, she would have had to deliberately misinterpret his words. She couldn't put words into his mouth which he never spoke.
Sorry, I get a bit worked up on all that, partly because I've done some very silly (though in the main, fortunately, not sinful) things myself in my life on the spurious authority of a self-manufactured "voice".
Idea: the Bible is adequate for the purpose for which it was written and for the issues with which it concerns itself.
Basis: this idea is seen most clearly in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, which states that 'All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be complete [mature, lacking nothing], thoroughly equipped for every [morally] good work.' Paul parallels this elsewhere when he says in passing in Romans 15:4 that 'everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope', and he makes more or less the same point in 1 Corinthians 10. He was referring to the Old Testament, but the same applies to the New Testament.
We need to realise, when we talk about Scripture being 'sufficient', what it is sufficient for. It is not sufficient to teach me the skills needed in my job, which is based around technology unavailable in biblical times (or even to teach Paul or Jesus the skills needed in their jobs, tentmaking and carpentry, which were based around contemporary technology). But it is sufficient to teach me how to treat my employers or employees, my fellow workers, my family, and members of the wider community in which I live. It is sufficient to teach me how to be saved, and how to live after I'm saved.
Implications: we don't need any further input on these issues which doesn't come directly or indirectly out of Scripture. Other input may still be helpful, but it is not actually essential.
Ian: Reading this I get the feeling that all we need to do is broadcast Scripture to everyone everywhere and hope they learn how to live from this, and how to find salvation. We ourselves with our works of charity and evangelism should in no way presume that God can use us to teach others or be a path towards salvation, because the Bible is sufficient. All our living after salvation should not seek to affect the world but merely to obey the Bible, as we (generally in isolation or under the sway of some charismatic personality) understand it. Again a greater role for the Spirit both acting independently and through humanity. Please!
Mike: That's an absolutely fair reaction to the standard evangelical position on sufficiency, which I now believe I mouthed without thinking it through. If we look more closely at the text in question, it appears to be saying that the Bible supplies us with adequate information to be saved, and that it is able to make people wise for salvation (not that it necessarily will; many of Paul's Jewish contemporaries knew the Scriptures by heart and were never saved). It also says that it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, in order that the person of God may be fully equipped to do every good work. This has several implications.
To achieve all this, we don't need modern management, modern psychology or modern sociology (although we can use them if they are helpful). We already have an adequate resource for this task in the Scripture. Tapping the resource is going to be another question, but the resource, as a resource, is not lacking.
Idea: the Bible is limited to a certain number of books, which we know.
Basis: this follows from sufficiency; if the Bible is enough, we don't need any more of it.
The canon, or set of books, that we have was established by a process over a period of time, though the first-century Jewish Synod of Jamnia and several Christian councils over the first four centuries are sometimes said to have 'fixed' it. In fact, there was a considerable process involved, and the main criterion came down to, Is this book recognised by the Church at large as having been written by someone under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? In other words, is it inspired, inerrant, and authoritative? A very broad consensus developed early on, when Christianity was persecuted and its books burned, and it was important to know which books ought to be preserved and which could be handed over as 'Scripture' in the hope that the imperial soldiers wouldn't know the difference. (Generally, they wouldn't have.) The councils recognised a state of affairs which already existed on the grounds of whether a book could be shown to be the writing of an apostle, consistent with other already accepted books, and from the appropriate time in history. The Roman and Syriac churches developed their canons more or less independently, but finished with the same list, which is some testimony to the quality of the process.
F.F. Bruce has a book called The Lost Books of the Bible in which he explores the excellent reasons that various books were excluded from the canon.
Implication: the Bible we have is the Bible we ought to have.
Ian: Why were some books accepted by the Church at large as canonical at one point and later rejected, eg the letter of Clement? If some books can be "fixed" and then "unfixed", why can't others? Why should we accept the wisdom of third and fourth-century Christians in "fixing" the canon over the wisdom of other times? This is the sort of "chronological snobbery" you despised before.
Mike: I presume you're referring to the inclusion of the letters of Clement in the Codex Alexandrinus, which is actually fifth century. This is not in itself evidence that they were considered "canonical" literature; Dionysius, a second-century bishop of Corinth, is quoted by the early-fourth-century historian Eusebius as saying that they were read in the church "from time to time for our admonition", but I'm sure we've both heard plenty of things read from the pulpit for people's "admonition" which nobody present thought were Scripture. (Unfortunately, in some churches this is true when what is read is Scripture, but you know what I mean).
The Council of Carthage in 397 was the first council to even mention the canon, and it simply said that nothing should be read in the church under the name of the divine Scriptures except the canonical writings, and then listed the New Testament canon as we now know it (as something already in existence, a fait accompli; the council did not create it). Some years earlier, Eusebius quoted the even earlier Origen (died about 254) when proposing three categories of Scripture:
The criteria for Eusebius' list (early third century) were orthodoxy and canonicity, ie acceptance within the church. The Antilegomena (narrow sense) were only disputed because the early church fathers hadn't directly testified to them as Scripture (at least, as far as was known; it must be remembered that Christian writings were illegal for quite some time, and were burned if discovered by the authorities, as indeed were the Christians).
So it really wasn't a matter of "fixing" and "unfixing". There were various books used by the early church, but the church as a whole never asserted anything to be canonical that is not in our present canon (or to be uncanonical that is in), and never has done, though some books have come under doubt at some times and some places. This is exactly what "chronological snobbery" is not. It would be chronological snobbery to suddenly say, in the twentieth century, "What did the people in the second/third/fourth century know anyway? We don't think it's canonical. And so what if almost everyone in between thought it was?"
Although it is often the case that, in the twentieth century, we have more information available to us than people of earlier times, this is simply not so in this instance. Eusebius, for instance, drew on a great many documents which we know of only through his references, and which came from men of his own place and only a little removed from him in time (in times when thinking did not change as fast as it does now, also, so although he and Origen were 200 years apart, think of perhaps five years as a comparison). Only chronological snobbery would suggest that we are in a better position to assess them than he was.
Interpretation depends very much on a person's view of the Bible. For instance, if I believe that the Bible is human reflection on God, I can treat it as a source of ideas, like any other ancient manuscript, but won't feel bound by those ideas - or bound to examine them particularly closely. If I believe that the Bible 'becomes' the Word of God, that 'God speaks' rather than 'God has spoken', my interpretations will be open to much variation and subjectivity. However, if I believe that everything in the Bible is from God, and that it is spoken once for all time, and that God, being an ideal communicator, has not hidden mystical meanings but made clear statements on the issues of life, then I will deal with it more or less along the following lines (from my leaflet 'Principles of Bible Interpretation', available from the Think-Link address).
1. Don't make a text mean what it never meant.
No text can have a meaning today which differs from the author's original meaning. It may, however, have a different application.
2. Don't command what Scripture doesn't command as if Scripture commanded it.
We are not bound by what happened in the Bible, only by what is commanded in the Bible. For example, descriptions of elders and deacons in the New Testament church do not mean that we are required to have them in our churches. Even less are we bound to honour the Christian subculture's prejudices as if they were Scriptural commands. This is not to say that, for example, smoking and gambling are not unwise things for a Christian to be doing and contrary to teachings on stewardship and so forth, but we should not give people the impression that the Bible forbids or condemns these things in the same way as, say, adultery (or self-righteousness).
3. Don't teach as doctrine what Scripture doesn't teach as doctrine as if Scripture taught it as doctrine.
For instance, to make the premillenial (or postmillenial, or amillenial) view a test of doctrinal purity is to place an interpretation of Scripture in a position which should only be held by an explicit teaching of Scripture.
4. Don't be dogmatic where Scripture is vague.
If the Scripture allows for several different views, each of which is held on reasonable grounds by sound, believing scholars, we have no right to claim that our own particular view is the only correct one. It may be; but we can't know that from the Scripture (since others genuinely interpret it otherwise) and there is no other valid way to know. This is not to deny that we should hold an opinion and both know and state why we hold it; but we should also state that it is an opinion, and that others have different opinions, and attempt to be fair to these others, their opinions, and their reasons for holding them.
5. Don't be vague where Scripture is dogmatic.
There is a 'faith once for all delivered to the saints' (Jude 3), and we have no right to compromise it because others, ignoring or distorting or mishandling or doubting the Scriptures, have denied it.
6. Don't teach a Scriptural principle from a part of Scripture which doesn't clearly contain that principle.
This gives people a bad model of handling Scripture. It is not allowing the text to speak for itself, but hanging what you want to say on the text. If it is worth saying there will be a text which presents it clearly. Teach it from that text and not from another.
7. Don't avoid a clear Scriptural principle which you or your audience will find difficult.
The truth is not always popular, but it is always true. If you seek to please men, you are no longer a servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). Nor are you serving them or yourself by denying or distorting the truth of Scripture which will judge you and them in the last day.
8. Don't interpret a text without careful reference to its context.
This includes immediate context (words around a word, verses around a verse, passages around a passage), book context (the overall themes and thrusts of the book), and canonical context (the Bible as a whole and the other texts it contains which reflect on your text).
9. Don't use the rare and obscure to interpret the frequent and plain; use the frequent and plain to interpret the rare and obscure.
God has told us clearly and repeatedly what it is most important for us to know. If something only appears in one obscure or disputed passage and there is no corresponding teaching elsewhere in Scripture, it probably isn't very important and certainly shouldn't form a foundational doctrine.
10. Don't move from a doctrinal position to an interpretation of a text. Move from an interpretation of a text to a doctrinal position.
If you are a committed Calvinist, Arminian, Dispensationalist, Charismatic, Premillenialist, or Postmillenialist, or have any other all-embracing doctrinal model, try not to see every text through that presupposition. Let the text lead you to its true meaning; then see if that fits your model. If not, you may need to alter or abandon your model. This would be a lesser tragedy than abusing Scripture.
1. Observe. Rather than start interpreting, or even worse, applying the Scripture straight away, begin by observing what it actually says. Be very basic here; often the very obvious is the most important. Make a written list of all the observations (not interpretations) you can make from the Scripture you are looking at.
2. Structure. This is a useful step especially if you are studying an extended passage of Scripture (which is a good idea). Work out the flow of thought in the passage. This will help you see the main point, and avoid drawing a conclusion from a passing remark which wasn't the intention of the author in writing the Scripture.
3. Interpret. What do the individual words mean? There are all sorts of tools to help you out here, which are not unbelievably expensive (especially when you consider how important it is to know what God says in the Scriptures). What does it mean in context? (See above.)
4. Apply. Truth does you no good if it sits in a book. Take it out of the book and do something with it - something consistent with the interpretation you have carefully arrived at, of course.
1. Pray.
Someone perceptively remarked to me once, 'That verse about "Create in me a clean heart, O God" reminds me that the one I've got needs replacing.' It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Php 2:13). Scripture itself teaches that you are powerless to apply Scripture consistently. Ask for help.
2. Prepare adequately.
Observe, structure and interpret before trying to apply. Observe, structure and interpret before trying to apply. I will say it again: Observe, structure and interpret before trying to apply.
3. Profit from Scripture.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us what Scripture is for. 'All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful (profitable) for:
so that the person of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.
As you apply Scripture, ask:
4. Practice what you have discovered.
Don't be content with the gap between your life and Scripture. Do something about it! Often, the text will tell you what to do. Reflect also:
Biblical change is not just to stop doing something wrong, but to start doing something right instead (see Ephesians 4:25-32 for some examples).
5. Persevere.
The world, the flesh and the devil are not really that enthused about your applying Scripture. They may give you a rough time. Keep at it.
- as a One-off event? This was Moses' mistake when he struck the rock a second time; he thought God had given him a formula (see Ex 17:1-7; Nu 20:1-12).
- as a National or personal promise? As a Christian I can't claim participation in the promise of the land of Canaan given to Israel. Likewise - and this is a very common error - I cannot claim a promise made to Moses, David, Jeremiah etc personally as if it had been made to me. I can trust their God, who is also my God, to be the same as he always was; but this is different from indiscriminately applying promises specifically given to them without regard to this fact. So, I can ask God to help me speak as he helped Moses; but it is arrogance and ignorance if I take his promise to help Moses in this way and 'claim' it as if he is obliged to do the same for me. (In any case, God is never obliged to do anything for us; his promises are just a description of how his grace is going to operate.) This is true even if I was reading the Bible and got a subjective impression that God has 'quickened' this word as a 'rhema' for me. There is nothing in Scripture to justify such a use of it or to substantiate this jargon. Subjective impressions do not determine what Scripture means - context does.
- as a Cultural standard? What is offensive in one culture may be required in another. Only a thorough knowledge of culture and of Scripture will allow us to decide sometimes how much is limited to a temporary, local situation and how much is universal. Some things are clearly not cultural; Paul, in a very different culture from his own, says that God 'commands all people everywhere to repent' (Acts 17:30b).
- as something now Ended? In the same Scripture from Acts, Paul indicates that God has not always dealt with people the same way throughout history. (This is clear whether or not you hold to the systematic development of this idea into the theological approach called Dispensationalism.) The birth, death and resurrection of Christ made a great many features of the Old Testament system obsolete, as Hebrews tells us (Heb 8:13). Some claim that with the passing of the apostles some features of New Testament church life have also ended. Certainly, authoritative new revelation about Jesus has, since there is now nobody left among us who met him in the flesh (see 1 Co 9:1).
The Pharisees kept the letter of the law; Jesus' teaching brought out the principles behind it, which they had not kept. An essential part of moving from interpretation to application is discovering the principle behind something written to deal with a situation existing 2 000 or more years ago and seeing how the principle applies to you today. For instance, in John the Baptist's day having two shirts marked you as someone wealthy, with more than enough for your needs, which opens up the implications of Luke 3:11 rather wider than giving old clothes to the op shop.
Check again on ONCE: is it a One-off, a National or personal command (like 2 Timothy 4:13, 'When you come, bring the cloak. . .' ), a Cultural command, or one whose force has Ended (like 'Do not wear clothing made of two kinds of material', Lev 19:19)?
Again, who is being warned? Does the warning apply to you, or only ONCE?
Be very careful of promises. Many of them are for all believers, but many are not. Distinguish them.
It may be a good example (like Onesiphorus in 2 Timothy 1), a bad example (like Phygelus and Hermogenes in the same passage), an example where you can't be sure from the text whether it is good, bad or indifferent (and so should be incredibly careful about applying it), or even not really an example at all, but just something that happened - a One-off. Usually in the Epistles and sometimes in the historical books (as in 2 Samuel 11:27- 'but the thing David had done displeased the Lord') you will be told if it is meant as an example, and if it is good or bad. Of course, everything Jesus did was good, although not everything (eg claiming to be God) is an example. Not everything in Acts should be taken as a good example, and a lot of it isn't necessarily an example at all, but just what happened (eg Stephen the 'deacon' beginning a preaching ministry).
If it is none of these things, then don't try to apply it. If you had, you would have misused Scripture; as it is, you have ESCAPED.
Ian: This is all very mechanistic. You are assuming one can objectify oneself out of one's social and personal context and biases; and that you can understand all the social and particular situations of the authors and their readers. You're like the Greek philosopher who believed he could move the world if he had a lever long and strong enough and a place firm enough to stand. Your objectivity is the place you stand and the tools of historical and biblical knowledge are your lever. The world is your social context you're trying to remove. Don't be so arrogant, it can't be done. I have respect for the knowledge, patience and persistence of people pursuing this approach, but I have not the optimism/naivity to believe that this approach or even Scripture itself is "sufficient" on its own. Only God is sufficient, who uses the Bible mysteriously (as well as rationally) to communicate with us. To enter into this mystery we need to experience, read it ourselves, not just for understanding but as a sacrament, and hear it read to us in community and perform it and have it performed. Thus is God incarnated in us, and us in God, and then we become the mission of God, rather than having to do the "mission" as an activity separate from the rest of our lives.
Mike: I'm sorry, you've misunderstood me. I'm not claiming that using this approach means we will get it right every time and always know the correct interpretation (though some believe that, and I agree with you; they're arrogant and naive). Nor is the understanding enough (a point I've already touched on), and I'm right alongside you on the need for more than individual Bible reading, for the working out of God's communication in God's community. However, all my objective/rational approaches do have a point, and it is this: God's communication to us in the Scriptures is a written, and hence at least in part an objective and rational, communication. It is inappropriate to use nonobjective, non-rational approaches to understand the objective and rational aspects of his communication (just as the reverse is true; there are aspects which are non-rational, and which rationalism kills).
Further, the objective/rational aspect of Scripture is large and significant, so it is a large and significant mistake to dismiss this aspect. Certainly, my techniques (which were originally designed to teach to people who hadn't ever handled the Bible this way) are very mechanistic. So is any technique when it is being taught: playing scales on a musical instrument, for instance, or even learning to read. Modern educational theories (which are proving their inadequacy daily) to one side, it is almost invariably necessary to go through the hard slog of technique and rules if you're ever going to have a hope of using the skill "naturally" and easily. There are a few jazz musicians who can play with marvellous technique although they never learned to read music, but they had to have great natural talent and spend many hours practising regardless - and they are the brilliant exceptions. In the field of biblical interpretation, I'm not a brilliant exception, and to have any hope of coming out with anything even vaguely in line with God's intention, I need the technique.
This is not to say that without advanced academic technique we are helpless, and ordinary people never have any hope of understanding the Bible. Much of the technique has as its main purpose this: to correct the thinking of people who've always been brought up with a mystical or semi-mystical approach to the Scriptures (which really does mean that most people can't understand them), and underline the idea that, in most cases, an ordinary sensible reading is going to be the correct and helpful one. The idea that the Scriptures are clear to ordinary people is based on the idea that they are literature which in many ways is like any other literature. However, this also means (as they are literature written in a culture far removed from ours) that, as with other literature from cultures other than our own, some things will not be obvious and we need to put some work in.
My basic recommendation is: Take the interpretation that seems both sensible and straightforward. If there seems to be a conflict between the 'sensible' interpretation and the 'straightforward' interpretation, talk to someone who has access to the many excellent and relatively inexpensive tools for the better understanding of Scripture which we now have (and which give us even more of a responsibility to interpret Scripture well). Pick someone who is, themselves, sensible and straightforward and who will admit to not knowing, to not being sure, or to holding an opinion which is just an opinion and which others disagree with. It may be that the reason the straightforward interpretation doesn't seem sensible is that there's some cultural factor you're unaware of which makes an interpretation seem 'straightforward' in the 20th century which was unthinkable in the first. Alternatively, the straightforward interpretation may be the correct one, and it may not seem 'sensible' because your assumptions about right and wrong are coming out of a 20th-century, not a biblical, base.
What I mean is that the problem may be either with your cultural understanding (which is an inevitable problem, but merely a matter of difference, not right or wrong), or your culture's morality (which is a matter of right and wrong, and should be resolved in favour of the Scriptures). Unfortunately, in some cases the distinction itself is not clear, and you just have to make a judgement call in good faith and live with the consequences.
Contributions to Symposium, including the editor's, do not necessarily represent the opinion of anybody else other than the contributor.
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