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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Inerrancy and Christianity - uneasy bedfellows?
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Johnny, can we allow that the editor may be post-Exilic, and can we allow that he may have made use of collections of myths and sagas to create a "salvation history" to demonstrate that God will save His people? Included in which myths are two creation myths to explain how things all got started?
I'd be happy to allow any of that.
I'd want to know why anyone was so keen to assume that though - re-telling a story from a different perspective is a very common story-telling technique used in hollywood today. It does intrigued me as to why it 'must' be two originally separate creation myths.
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We have modern-day native tribes in various portions of the amazon jungle which would allow some comparison.
ISTM that would be virtually impossible to do without importing our notions of the abstract. Actually, as I think about it, it may even be completely impossible.
[ 13. December 2010, 02:00: Message edited by: Johnny S ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
That's a clear allegory there, ken. A literalist can take it allegorically, because that is its obvious literal meaning!
This is tongue-in-cheek, right? "Literal" and "allegorical" are fundamentally opposed. The literal reading is that trees hand hands that they clapped. Any allegorical reading that does not imply this is NOT literal.
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pjkirk
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# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We have modern-day native tribes in various portions of the amazon jungle which would allow some comparison.
ISTM that would be virtually impossible to do without importing our notions of the abstract. Actually, as I think about it, it may even be completely impossible.
I can take this post two ways:
1 - 'importing our notions of abstract' wouldn't allow us to learn anything about their notions of abstract things. I doubt this is what you're going for though.
2 - We'll be teaching them abstraction in the process of learning about them. I am not an anthropologist, but I believe it is very much possible to do so without these repercussions you suggest.
Given how little information is available from the time, do you have any solid reason to think they weren't capable of thinking of a day as anything other than sunup to sunup? Is there anything more than mere assertion to be made from either side?
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
That's a clear allegory there, ken. A literalist can take it allegorically, because that is its obvious literal meaning!
This is tongue-in-cheek, right? "Literal" and "allegorical" are fundamentally opposed. The literal reading is that trees hand hands that they clapped. Any allegorical reading that does not imply this is NOT literal.
Not necessarily.
This may be a pond thingy MT. Brits often use literal in (what I think was it's original meaning) the sense of 'according to its natural meaning.'
Hence genre is important. Literature here is read literally - to read a poem as if it was a scientific text book is not to read it literally.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Could be a pond thing. I use literally to mean "what it means if each word (or phrase) is taken at its plain, concrete meaning."
Therefore "he was taking the piss" literally means he was obtaining for himself previously-mentioned urine. "Literally" is what you say to specifically exclude the possibility that you're being analogical / metaphorical. "No, I didn't mean he was saying one thing and meaning another. I meant he was literally picking up and carrying away a container of urine."
The idea that something can be both literal and metaphorical is an oxymoron.
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Given how little information is available from the time, do you have any solid reason to think they weren't capable of thinking of a day as anything other than sunup to sunup? Is there anything more than mere assertion to be made from either side?
Agreed. (For Jews it was sundown to sundown anyway!)
It was a tangent and now I wish I hadn't mentioned it.
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Could be a pond thing. I use literally to mean "what it means if each word (or phrase) is taken at its plain, concrete meaning."
But words always have a context.
There is no "plain, concrete meaning" of individual words of phrases outside of their context.
When I use the word 'literal' I am also including the way in which it was written down (implied in the original semantics of the word ... IIRC.)
Wow, I'm coming over all post-modern for a moment. Better have a lie down.
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pjkirk
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# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
Agreed. (For Jews it was sundown to sundown anyway!)
It was a tangent and now I wish I hadn't mentioned it.
I think it's a useful tangent, though.
We know one usage for Jews was sundown to sundown, from Sabbath, etc. Do we have any reason to believe this is the only usage?
If we are making such assumptions when we read the text, we need to be very clear about acknowledging them. Personally, I don't know if it's justifiable or not. I find it very important either way, though.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
@Johnny: I think you're making a distinction that goes too far. Many words do have concrete, literal meanings. A dog is a domestic animal of the genus canis. A manger is a trough, usually made of wood, in which fodder for animals is placed. A dog in a manger, literally, is a canis lupus familiaris in a feeding trough. To move away from that except in very narrow ways (a wolf can also be called a dog, for instance) is to become more and more figurative. The context may very well make it clear that I am talking about a person who cannot swim scaring everybody out of the pool by standing on the edge of the pool and urinating into it. But at no point does that make it the literal meaning of the phrase. Context does not confer literalness. Meaning, yes, but not all meanings are literal.
[ 13. December 2010, 04:36: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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mousethief
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# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
So while I agree totally with your comments about the need for community controls I don't think that alone helps with this particular group. [1] Like it or hate it the western world lives after the Reformation. We just have to deal with that. [2] There is no 'one traditional, historic church'. [3] If you don't like what the RC church teaches you can just join another church. [4] Therefore, ISTM, all church communities, historic or popular, are largely self-selecting.
I am interested if you think that [2] follows from [3]?
quote:
IMO arguments over inerrant vs infallible etc. are missing the point. It is commitment to scripture as the rule of faith which is the key.
Scripture as interpreted by whom? Some people think Scripture is clear that homosexual hanky-panky is sinful. Others just as sincerely think that it says no such thing. How can Scripture be the rule of faith if people can derive such different "rules" from the same book?
quote:
I'm still admitting that a high view of scripture can lead to similar divisions, but there is more hope for those with a high view of scripture.
This would have to be proven, not merely asserted.
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We know one usage for Jews was sundown to sundown, from Sabbath, etc. Do we have any reason to believe this is the only usage?
If we are making such assumptions when we read the text, we need to be very clear about acknowledging them. Personally, I don't know if it's justifiable or not. I find it very important either way, though.
Okay, if you are going to push it then we get that definition from Genesis 1 v 3. The text itself defines a day as an evening and a morning. However, in introducing the sun on day four also causes the reader to question what a morning or evening was like before the sun.
Those are all assumptions that come directly from the text and do not have to be imported.
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
@Johnny: I think you're making a distinction that goes too far.
Possibly.
Ken and B62 can speak for themselves - I was just trying to shed some light on how the term is often used slightly differently in the UK.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Could be a pond thing. I use literally to mean "what it means if each word (or phrase) is taken at its plain, concrete meaning."
But words always have a context.
There is no "plain, concrete meaning" of individual words of phrases outside of their context.
When I use the word 'literal' I am also including the way in which it was written down (implied in the original semantics of the word ... IIRC.)
Wow, I'm coming over all post-modern for a moment. Better have a lie down.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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pjkirk
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# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We know one usage for Jews was sundown to sundown, from Sabbath, etc. Do we have any reason to believe this is the only usage?
If we are making such assumptions when we read the text, we need to be very clear about acknowledging them. Personally, I don't know if it's justifiable or not. I find it very important either way, though.
Okay, if you are going to push it then we get that definition from Genesis 1 v 3. The text itself defines a day as an evening and a morning. However, in introducing the sun on day four also causes the reader to question what a morning or evening was like before the sun.
Those are all assumptions that come directly from the text and do not have to be imported.
My point isn't that I think the text refers to epochs, or anything but 24 hour days. My point is more that we need to make sure we're not reading our perhaps unfounded beliefs as to what they believed. Obviously this isn't a new thing, but when you make a statement like that they didn't have any concept of a day beyond sundown-sundown, it needs some definite support.
Biblical scholars certainly attempt this constantly, but for us, reading English translations and canned commentary, it's trivially easy to go too far with our assumptions. Given the fractured nature of debate here, and the many pages of text all based upon poor usage or statement of assumptions that we see on threads, this is perhaps more important than it otherwise would be.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Johnny, can we allow that the editor may be post-Exilic, and can we allow that he may have made use of collections of myths and sagas to create a "salvation history" to demonstrate that God will save His people? Included in which myths are two creation myths to explain how things all got started?
I'd be happy to allow any of that.
I'd want to know why anyone was so keen to assume that though - re-telling a story from a different perspective is a very common story-telling technique used in hollywood today. It does intrigued me as to why it 'must' be two originally separate creation myths.
I'm glad to hear all of that. I'm taking stock of the thoughts expressed so far, particularly those pointing out that the word inerrant is problematic and potentially used as a club both ways. I think it was the conservative evangelical scholar F F Bruce, when quizzed in the US whether he believed that the Bible was inerrant, said "I prefer to say true".
There is truth as meaning, and truth as facticity. Both may point to the Way, the Truth and the Life. Faith is not propositional, nor is it free from propositions. I think what I am feeling for is a way of expressing that within evangelicalism which allows all of us the necessary freedoms to explore, reverently, the truths of scripture which point to the Living Word, and enable some of the divisive baggage to be shed.
I'm sorry if I created additional baggage here by my use of words. That was inadvertent and you can be sure the lesson has gone home. In nonconformist terms, I'm pretty irenic even when getting a bit argmentative.
The divisions in the church are often caused by the language we use, but some of them are based on real differences. Pinching a few words from the Beegees, words may steal our heart away from the love we seek to express. In discourse, "words are all we have". In life, the sharing of our lives may take place in the much wider and more profound means we think of as loving our neighbour as ourselves. It's easy to forget that when we're rapping.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
This thread is reading FAR too much like the seminar I had at work this morning...
Context certainly is tremendously important. I mean, quite recently I've written something about Christmas trees and I can't imagine it's what you'd expect without knowing the context.
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I am interested if you think that [2] follows from [3]?
Possibly, but since we cannot turn back time the question is moot.
The current RC church is as much a reaction against Protestantism as vice-versa and the same for the Orthodox (East vs. West). The 11th century and 16th century represent forks in the road. This means that both paths deviated from where they were originally going.
We have to deal with the reality of now rather than pretending that the past didn't happen.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Scripture as interpreted by whom? Some people think Scripture is clear that homosexual hanky-panky is sinful. Others just as sincerely think that it says no such thing. How can Scripture be the rule of faith if people can derive such different "rules" from the same book?
Interesting example to choose MT. I assume you whole-heartedly support the position of the RC and the Orthodox on this one do you?
The fact that evangelicals are arguing over this proves something very significant - they can! I think it is very hard to argue against the fact that the debate among the RC and the Orthodox on this subject was not largely provoked by all those Protestants with the freedom to discuss it.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
This would have to be proven, not merely asserted.
I suppose all my evidence is largely anecdotal.
I can speak of decades of experience of the ecumenical movement in the UK. This was largely a waste of time. Lots of denominations pretending that they had something in common. In reality that only thing uniting them was how few people attended their churches (particularly young people - it always seemed to be out getting the yoof). Ecumenical groups would arrange joint events which included hundreds of churches and (on one memorable occasion) when it is was held at my church less people turned up than would do normally at our Sunday morning service. This is what I mean by the sham unity that happens when denominations get together without submitting to one another's denominational authority. I actually had a fair bit of respect for the RC Priests involved - they never pretended there was any unity - they were friendly but clear, that the only way to belong to the church was to join their self-legitimising authority claim.
On the other hand I can also talk about lots of genuine cooperation with evangelical churches of sorts of persuasions - Anglican, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Uniting (here in Oz), Methodist .. etc. - where we disagree majorly on issues such as baptism or charismatic expressions. However, the fact that we all take scripture as our yardstick does make a real difference. It means that I can still think they are wrong (on certain issues) but that we both accept the same authority. That means that we can talk about anything. On any issue it is possible that we could change our minds. Unity is impossible if most of the key topics are off limits because "my church says so."
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Johnny S
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# 12581
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
My point isn't that I think the text refers to epochs, or anything but 24 hour days.
One thing we can be certain of is that the text does not refer to 24 hour days. I think you have just coined the original anachronism.
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
My point is more that we need to make sure we're not reading our perhaps unfounded beliefs as to what they believed. Obviously this isn't a new thing, but when you make a statement like that they didn't have any concept of a day beyond sundown-sundown, it needs some definite support.
True, but as I said the text explicitly defines a day as morning and evening. I think the burden of proof rests on you to show that a significantly more abstract concept of time was common.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
We have modern-day native tribes in various portions of the amazon jungle which would allow some comparison.
They are the product of as many centuries of cultural and technological development as we are, and their culture is no more likely to be like that of our common ancestors than ours is. Especially seeing as open tropical rain forest is actually quite a recent habitat for humans - those hunter-gatherers have some ancestors who lived in cities.
Even if you adopt a rather crude technological determinism - "those folk in South America are using stone tools and living in reed huts so they must think the same way our stone age ancestors did" - what has that got to do with the ancient Hebrews?
The Hebrews at the time of the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel weren't illiterate stone-age hunter-gatherers. They were literate bronze-age semi-nomadic herders, participating in (though politically marginal to) a large-scale Middle Eastern civilisation that had stone buildings and cities and seagoing ships and long distance trade and a written history that already went back for nearly three thousand years!
[ 13. December 2010, 12:18: Message edited by: ken ]
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Johnny S:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
@Johnny: I think you're making a distinction that goes too far.
Possibly.
Ken and B62 can speak for themselves - I was just trying to shed some light on how the term is often used slightly differently in the UK.
mousethief, Johnny is right about some pond differences in the colloquial use of the word, and you are right to point to precision. In the context of this discussion, I'm more than happy to accept your precision. But here from the Wiki article on biblical literalism is the kind of thinking I meant to convey about literalism. I've emboldened the key section - not to sure about the part which precedes it!
quote:
Biblical literalism (also called Biblicism or Biblical fundamentalism) is the interpretation or translation of the explicit and primary sense of words in the Bible. A literal, Biblical interpretation is associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical hermeneutical approach to Scripture, and is used by many conservative Christians today. The essence of this approach focuses upon the author's intent as the primary meaning of the text. Literal interpretation does place emphasis upon the referential aspect of the words or terms in the text. It does not, however, mean a complete denial of literary aspects, genre, or figures of speech within the text (e.g., parable, allegory, simile, or metaphor). Also literalism does not necessarily lead to total and complete agreement upon one single interpretation for any given passage.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
The Noah's Flood thread and the Gen 6:1-4 thread in DH are providing some interesting illustrations, of inerrant hermeneutics in action. Sure theoretical classification is somewhat difficult. Perhaps the examples speak more to my personal unease than any particular definitions?
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Just like the last two times we discussed this, can I suggest that people read The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which is probably the nearest there is to a conservative evengelical consensus on what they mean by "inerrancy".
In their "exposition" or explanatory notes:
quote:
We affirm that canonical Scripture should always be interpreted on the basis that it is infallible and inerrant. However, in determining what the God-taught writer is asserting in each passage, we must pay the most careful attention to its claims and character as a human production. In inspiration, God utilized the culture and conventions of his penman's milieu, a milieu that God controls in His sovereign providence; it is misinterpretation to imagine otherwise.
So history must be treated as history, poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are, and so forth. Differences between literary conventions in Bible times and in ours must also be observed: Since, for instance, nonchronological narration and imprecise citation were conventional and acceptable and violated no expectations in those days, we must not regard these things as faults when we find them in Bible writers. When total precision of a particular kind was not expected nor aimed at, it is no error not to have achieved it. Scripture is inerrant, not in the sense of being absolutely precise by modern standards, but in the sense of making good its claims and achieving that measure of focused truth at which its authors aimed.
The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by the appearance in it of irregularities of grammar or spelling, phenomenal descriptions of nature, reports of false statements (for example, the lies of Satan), or seeming discrepancies between one passage and another.
For what its worth, I'd be prepared to sign up to that statement (with some reservations about one point only).
But I'd also recognise also that I was interpreting some of the articles differently from the way the original writers intended - or some of them anyway, I suspect that there is deliberate ambiguity in some of the articles - for example the one about creation and the flood which says that science cannot overturn the Bible's teaching on creation, but does not say what that teaching is, and so allowed both young earth creationists and sensible people to sign the original document ![[Biased]](wink.gif) - an almost Anglican fudge.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Thanks ken. I'm not in DH a lot and hadn't read that before. I'm giving it some study and thought. Initially, the area that strikes me as well worth discussing is this one
quote:
Article III.
We affirm that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.
We deny that the Bible is merely a witness to revelation, or only becomes revelation in encounter, or depends on the responses of men for its validity.
That raises quite a lot of questions in my mind, as well as a fair measure of agreement. But it's late and I'm out for most of tomorrow, so maybe I'll write Thursday.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
ken
After reflection. I think my central understanding of scripture - which I believe is a high view - is reflected in this excerpt from a very recent post of mine on the Noah's Flood thread.
"Creation is a reliable witness examined by unreliable enquirers. A high view of scripture says pretty much the same about scripture, despite the fallibilities of its human authors and editors."
Spelling that out, I believe that scripture is a Divinely inspired and reliable message, mediated to fallible people via the witness of fallible people. And that mediation is intentionally helped by the Divine inspirer, through the work of the Holy Spirit. That actually seems to me to be a reasonable view of the meaning of 2 Tim 3:16
"16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
The little "is" is worth a comment. It doesn't say "was" God-breathed, which is I think the implication of inerrancy arguing - or maybe infalliblity arguing - or maybe both? It says to me that the process in ongoing when we read, or hear.
Looking back at the extract I quoted above, and looking at the whole document you referenced, I really don't get this sense of the vital "dunamis" of the Holy Spirit in the way scripture is conveyed to us and works within us. Without that eternal and present-in-time "dunamis" I am concerned that scripture may be reduced to "only words", both to those who believe and those who don't.
Not that the words are not inspiring - I find that I am inspired by reading them. But that notion that the "God-breathed inspiration" somehow inheres to the words themselves strikes me as misleading about what is actually going on.
We have preserved the words in Christianity because of our abiding belief that they are used by God specially to communicate Himself, and the Truth of Himself, to us.
Not the whole Truth. But as John's Gospel puts it, "given so that we may believe ... and in believing may have life in His name".
ken, I'm right at the edge of what I can express coherently here. I'm hoping that what comes from the keyboard to you is a decent communication. I'm only too aware of its fallibility.
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