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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
He's not addressing them because he can't.
Consequently he has to do a limbo dance to get things to fit.
Eutychus, conned by conservative evangelicalism? Have a slurp of coffee and get over it. These days I'm happy to share in common with con evos what they share with the rest of Christendom but beyond that ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Essentially I am doing Luke the courtesy of assuming that he really meant what he said in the first four verses of the gospel and that he is at least trying seriously to write something like a proper history of Jesus' life, even if it's not quite what we'd expect from a modern impartial historian writing a carefully balanced PhD thesis.
And anyone who disagrees with your interpretation doesn't? Oh, and don't bother answering me until you answer the question that I asked you 8 months ago (then again about 6 months ago) and you slunk off and ignored.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
Stejjie, I checked out the blog you refer to and well, it seems to be in the same ball-park as my argument apart from the suggestion that Joseph might get accommodation as a visitor in something other than an inn. I note the additional notes at the end refer to examples of pretty exactly both the scenario I'm suggesting and the reasons I'm offering.
it does seem from the blog that the basic point is correct - that the word basically means guestroom in an ordinary house rather than a separate inn/hotel. It also seems that I'm far from alone in finding it incredible that Joseph gets sent so far to enrol where he doesn't live. The house plan in that blog is pretty much what I envisaged. Main difference, which wouldn't bother me, is the suggestion that the stable per se might not have been used, but a manger within the people accommodation.
Thing is the traditional 'inn-terpretation' also involves assumptions beyond Scripture, most notably simply the idea that you send people to enrol uselessly far from where they live.
What huge extra problems are created by my proposal, please?
It's not a major scriptural problem; Joseph still basically goes to Bethlehem because he is of Davidic lineage; just that he lives there because of that, and he happens to be away from home when the enrolment comes due. He still goes to 'his own city' in a completely straightforward sense.
Yes I've offered possible explanations of things Luke doesn't mention; I fully recognise that they are speculative - but I also think they're more likely than the basic irrational idea at the heart of the 'inn-terpretation', that the authorities would waste Joseph's time and their own sending him to enrol in a useless place.
I am, mind you, detecting something a bit worrying in responses to what I've said. It does seem that quite a few of those responding actually also agree that the traditional 'inn-terpretation' is stupid and wrong, and that sending people to enrol at an irrelevant place is stupid. BUT - they are still insisting that Luke gives us the stupid version rather than the sensible one!
And I'm struggling a bit with the motivation for that except that they seem to be saying "So the Bible is wrong and we don't have to take it seriously". They don't want to accept a sensible interpretation or reading because that would spoil their case!! This seems even more dubious than some of the motivations that have been attributed to me....
PS; I also noted a link from that blog to another post about dating the census, which would appear to be relevant....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
The precise meaning of the word "inn" is a complete and utter red herring when it comes to determining whether Joseph's habitual place of residence at the time of Jesus' birth was, against every immediate indication of the text, Bethlehem.
Now can we get back to discussing inspiration?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Essentially I am doing Luke the courtesy of assuming that he really meant what he said in the first four verses of the gospel and that he is at least trying seriously to write something like a proper history of Jesus' life, even if it's not quite what we'd expect from a modern impartial historian writing a carefully balanced PhD thesis.
And anyone who disagrees with your interpretation doesn't? Oh, and don't bother answering me until you answer the question that I asked you 8 months ago (then again about 6 months ago) and you slunk off and ignored.
Well I'll have to answer this for everybody else whether MT will listen or not. But really it's just to repeat the point I made back in that post - it's hardly taking Luke seriously as a historian to basically suggest for example that he uses a census as a 'McGuffin' to make a point he wants to make for theological reasons rather than that he puts the census in because that's what his sources told him actually happened. If people are approaching Luke that way, no they're not taking him seriously.
Given how long ago that question you asked now is you'll have to ask it again, I'm afraid, MT. I've somewhere between very little and no hope of finding it in threads so long ago, and I wouldn't like to trust my memory on it. I do recall that I did have an answer, just never got round to posting it while the thread(s) in question was still alive.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
The precise meaning of the word "inn" is a complete and utter red herring when it comes to determining whether Joseph's habitual place of residence at the time of Jesus' birth was, against every immediate indication of the text, Bethlehem.
Now can we get back to discussing inspiration?
I too would like the thread to get back to discussing inspiration....
But the meaning of the word 'katalymati' is quite relevant to whether Joseph's residence was Bethlehem. If it is rendered 'inn' that makes it pretty much unavoidable that Bethlehem is not Joseph's residence; rendering it more accurately 'guestchamber' carries at least a very much more likely implication of a guestchamber in Joseph's house and of his being resident in Bethlehem. And I'd suspect myself that if it had never been rendered 'inn', nobody would be interpreting it as anything other than a guestchamber in Joseph's house in Bethlehem.
And I'd hardly accept that 'every immediate indication of the text' is against Joseph's residence in Bethlehem when the very first thing it says is that one about everybody going to their own town to register and implies that Joseph is one such going to his own town in a quite ordinary sense.
And Matthew does portray Joseph living in Bethlehem....
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
With reasoning like that, I can't help thinking that if the word incontrovertibly meant "inn" you'd be arguing that the clear implication was that Joseph owned a chain of inns and so it was unsurprising that when in his home town he would stay at his own inn... you are clearly arguing from the assumption Joseph habitually lived in Bethlehem above any other consideration.
If Luke had believed Joseph to be a usual resident in Bethelehem it seems far more likely that he would have said so in so many words instead of invoking his lineage to explain why he had to travel there.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
FWIW I have some sympathy with Steve Langton on two points:
1. There's a conflation of 'reconciling texts' with 'reading stuff into texts' that I don't really like. Supposing I have two accounts of an event, A and B, and so I try to reconstruct the event as something like C which contains elements of A and B. Now I may be wrong about C, but if I assert that C is what happened, it doesn't follow that I'm reading C into A, just that I'm using A as once of my sources for C.
2. This is purely subjective, but I don't think the census is a plot device*. If I'm writing a story and need the characters to be in a place where there's no earthly reason for them to be, then I might resort to contrived coincidence (and for a New Testament writer there's always the option of invoking an angel of the Lord), but I don't think I'd use something that wasn't possible at all.
* It's certainly not a MacGuffin. The MacGuffin, if there is one, would be Jesus.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
FWIW I have some sympathy with Steve Langton on two points:
1. There's a conflation of 'reconciling texts' with 'reading stuff into texts' that I don't really like. Supposing I have two accounts of an event, A and B, and so I try to reconstruct the event as something like C which contains elements of A and B. Now I may be wrong about C, but if I assert that C is what happened, it doesn't follow that I'm reading C into A, just that I'm using A as once of my sources for C.
Fair point and not every attempt to 'reconcile texts' will necessarily involve 'reading stuff into texts' and there may well be times when the former is necessary.
I guess I'm somewhat nervous about it with regards to Bible texts, though, as I've grown to see the different texts as having been written in the way they are for particular purposes (which, I would argue, includes the theological as much as the historical). I think there can be a danger of seeing those differences as problems to be erased, rather than possible clues to what some of those purposes might have been.
Could it be argued that in the case of Matthew and Luke's nativity stories, part of the problem is not that we have two versions of the same stories (like we might have, eg, differing accounts of the Feeding of the 5000 in the gospels), but effectively two different stories? Yes, Matthew and Luke are talking about the birth of Jesus, but they're effectively telling completely different stories about that event, which makes it that much harder to reconcile them.
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I think there can be a danger of seeing those differences as problems to be erased, rather than possible clues to what some of those purposes might have been.
This is what I'm coming around to.
I notice both Steve and Jamat brushing off difficulties as "not a problem" (sic). Apparent contradictions are taken as a sort of deliberate puzzle to be solved. I've mentioned before the tour de force I once sat through of a bible teacher reconciling all the Gospel accounts of the resurrection. Very impressive at the time, but somehow left one unsatisfied afterwards.
It's like trying to reconcile Paul's account of his doings at the beginning of Galatians with what Acts tells us.
If you have headspace for the idea that both accounts could be "inspired" without necessarily being factually accurate in all points it makes life a lot easier and the explanations a lot less contrived - and sets up less of a stumbling block for people initially swayed by the contrived explanations when they later look so ridiculous.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
FWIW I have some sympathy with Steve Langton on two points:
1. There's a conflation of 'reconciling texts' with 'reading stuff into texts' that I don't really like. Supposing I have two accounts of an event, A and B, and so I try to reconstruct the event as something like C which contains elements of A and B. Now I may be wrong about C, but if I assert that C is what happened, it doesn't follow that I'm reading C into A, just that I'm using A as once of my sources for C.
Fair point and not every attempt to 'reconcile texts' will necessarily involve 'reading stuff into texts' and there may well be times when the former is necessary.
I guess I'm somewhat nervous about it with regards to Bible texts, though, as I've grown to see the different texts as having been written in the way they are for particular purposes (which, I would argue, includes the theological as much as the historical). I think there can be a danger of seeing those differences as problems to be erased, rather than possible clues to what some of those purposes might have been.
Could it be argued that in the case of Matthew and Luke's nativity stories, part of the problem is not that we have two versions of the same stories (like we might have, eg, differing accounts of the Feeding of the 5000 in the gospels), but effectively two different stories? Yes, Matthew and Luke are talking about the birth of Jesus, but they're effectively telling completely different stories about that event, which makes it that much harder to reconcile them.
But it should still be possible if both are historically accurate, which I think is J and SL's point, and of course the reason this thread is here. The question under debate is not really "how did Jesus' birth occur" but "are the birth narratives literally and historically accurate?". J and SL's understanding of the nature of Scripture forces the answer "yes" and so harmonisation is necessary, not to tell us about Jesus' birth, but to protect Scripture from appearing erroneous.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Indeed. The next questions are: a) what did "historically accurate" mean for a 1st-century writer b) was that a consideration for all authors of the NT (let alone the OT)?
On the face of it, Luke makes a stronger claim to what we might understand by historical accuracy than Matthew, while the editorial approach of John seems quite obviously to be governed by theological rather than purely forensic considerations - not to say that it doesn't reflect historical fact, but objective reportage is not its primary consideration.
[ 28. January 2018, 07:53: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
Steve - a few points from the last posts you've written since my last post to you:
1) It still isn't about that (deleted) inn.
2) I noticed at the end of the blogpost I linked to the mention of the paper that goes along with the idea you're holding out here. I'm still not convinced, mainly for the reasons I and others have set out in our previous posts.
3) Again: if Joseph isn't going to Bethlehem primarily because he's a descendant of David (as you and the author cited at the end of that blogpost both argue), why does Luke explicitly state that as the reason for the journey to Bethlehem in v4? Please answer this question, because it seems to be the hole in this theory: why does Luke, whom I agree seeks to make this an accurate record of what happened (the mix up with the census date notwithstanding), come straight out and say this if it wasn't the case? It rather takes away from your claim that you're trying to:
quote:
[do] Luke the courtesy of assuming that he really meant what he said in the first four verses of the gospel
4) I'm not sure it's fair to privilege the historical aspects of the text over the theological aspects, as you seem to do by dismissing the census as a "Macguffin". Yes, Luke is clear that he's trying to set out a historically accurate version of events; but surely this is also a work of theology (or theological-history, or historical-theology)? Yes, Luke's concerned about what happened and presenting that as accurately as possible; but I would strongly suggest that he does this so that we can know who this Jesus who came into history is and what he has done for us, for his people and for the world.
5) I take exception to your suggestion that those of us arguing against you on this are essentially saying "So the Bible is wrong and we don't have to take it seriously". Far from it! I want to take it utterly seriously - if nothing else, it's my job as a preacher to do that (but that's not the only reason). But taking the Bible seriously suggests, to me at least, taking the actual text of the Bible seriously, working with what we have even if it's difficult or uncomfortable or implausible or doesn't necessarily fit with other bits. To you, it seems, this passage only has true value if a plausible explanation can be found that makes it fit better with Matthew's account (even if that means leaving out bits that are quite explicit in the text). I'd rather, as I've said before, take seriously what Luke or whoever has actually written and try and think and pray about why they've written that and what they want us to grasp from that - not just worry about why it doesn't "make sense" or seem "historically plausible".
But enough of my sermonising on here... I'm off to sermonise at church (poor souls!).
[ 28. January 2018, 08:47: Message edited by: Stejjie ]
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
What is fact? There was an interesting experiment here a few years ago at the annual conference of magistrates*. They watched a staged motor vehicle accident and having been asked beforehand both to write a general description and to answer particular questions. The responses differed greatly. This was from people whose office required them to make assessments of fact and of credibility of witnesses before them. Not just every now and again, but as an essential part of their day's work.
*Magistrates in NSW are full-time judicial officers but at the lowest rung of the judicial ladder and exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction. After some hard work a couple of decades ago by the then Chief Magistrate, their reputation and ability have both increased dramatically.
[ 28. January 2018, 10:15: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Gee D, there is a short Alfred Hitchcock film called "I saw the whole thing" that uses this premise.
Stejjie, you'd be welcome to come and sermonise at my church any time! In fact I wish I could find more like-minded people in this neck of the woods.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
I'm leaving a major reply for now to do, I hope, a proper considered job, but
by Stejjie;
quote:
4) I'm not sure it's fair to privilege the historical aspects of the text over the theological aspects, as you seem to do by dismissing the census as a "Macguffin". Yes, Luke is clear that he's trying to set out a historically accurate version of events; but surely this is also a work of theology (or theological-history, or historical-theology)? Yes, Luke's concerned about what happened and presenting that as accurately as possible; but I would strongly suggest that he does this so that we can know who this Jesus who came into history is and what he has done for us, for his people and for the world.
I think you may have misunderstood that. It wasn't me who rather dismissively referred to the census as a 'McGuffin', that was somebody else. My point was precisely that the census isn't a 'McGuffin', a mere device. And that Luke doesn't put it in his account as a mere device but because he, at any rate, believed it was the real reason taking Joseph to Bethlehem. Which in turn would mean he thought he had it from a reliable source.
Some in this discussion have seemed to think that Luke and Matthew might, in effect, make things up to serve the theological point they wanted to make. Me, I'm happy that they themselves, at any rate, believed the accounts they have given us. The issue is how to interpret the accounts.
Does the census affect Joseph because as a Davidic descendant he is expected to go to Bethlehem even though he doesn't live there? Simply as a real world practicality unlikely, to say the least. Or does the census affect him because he does live there? Much, much more likely. And Luke is clear that the effect of the census was people going 'each to his own' city, and he implies that is what Joseph does - goes to his own city. And given the practicalities, would the Romans actually register him in Bethlehem if he only had the ancestral connection rather than a current one? Wouldn't that be rather pointless?
As regards dating the census, I note that
1) As mentioned in Acts 5; 37 - quoting the original Gamaliel! - Luke is aware of the Judas the Galilean revolt triggered by the 6CE Quirinius census, so probably wouldn't be confused about it; but also
2) He gives John the Baptist's mission as starting in the fifteenth year of Tiberius; that is at latest 29CE - and Jesus starts his mission at that time. But if born in 6CE, Jesus would not then be 'about thirty years old', but only 23! I can't see Luke making that kind of error, whether about Jesus' age or about the relationship of his age to the census....
And there's that curious phrase about this being the 'first' enrolment.
Like I said, I'll hopefully be back with more - and Eutychus, I do think this is relevant to the OP issue of 'inspiration'.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Gee D, there is a short Alfred Hitchcock film called "I saw the whole thing" that uses this premise.
Thanks - I could remember something, perhaps a film, perhaps another experiment, but not the detail
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Like I said, I'll hopefully be back with more
I personally would like you to start by answering Stejjie's question 3 above: quote:
if Joseph isn't going to Bethlehem primarily because he's a descendant of David (as you and the author cited at the end of that blogpost both argue), why does Luke explicitly state that as the reason for the journey to Bethlehem in v4?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Does the census affect Joseph because as a Davidic descendant he is expected to go to Bethlehem even though he doesn't live there? Simply as a real world practicality unlikely, to say the least. Or does the census affect him because he does live there? Much, much more likely. And Luke is clear that the effect of the census was people going 'each to his own' city, and he implies that is what Joseph does - goes to his own city. And given the practicalities, would the Romans actually register him in Bethlehem if he only had the ancestral connection rather than a current one? Wouldn't that be rather pointless?
Perhaps to a modern mind it would look both unreal and pointless, but at a time where people were classified by their tribe or family, what would be more real and have a point?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Gee D
quote:
Perhaps to a modern mind it would look both unreal and pointless, but at a time where people were classified by their tribe or family, what would be more real and have a point?
Except that the big 'point' is going to be taxation, and you tax the guy where he lives, not the length of Wales away.
Another relevant film - Kurosawa's "Rashomon".
by Eutychus;
quote:
I personally would like you to start by answering Stejjie's question 3 above:
quote:
if Joseph isn't going to Bethlehem primarily because he's a descendant of David (as you and the author cited at the end of that blogpost both argue), why does Luke explicitly state that as the reason for the journey to Bethlehem in v4?
But is he giving that as the sole reason for the journey (despite Joseph living elsewhere) or is it adding a further explanation, relevant to the situation, of why Bethlehem is Joseph's 'own city'? Although I've not perhaps stressed it enough, Joseph has reason to be away from home at this point simply while he sorts out the issues around Mary and her unexpected pregnancy. And as a tekton/builder this need not be unprofitable because it is known work in his trade was available in the area.
As a question - are you asserting that this really was the only reason Joseph, living in Nazareth, ends up in Bethlehem, or just that Luke believes it's the only reason despite the gross improbability?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
What we have to consider, Steve, is the reason WHY Luke stresses this aspect.
One imagines it is important to him for theological reasons as well as 'historical' reasons.
Is to stress the lineage aspect - Jesus (humanly speaking) being in the line of David?
Let's look at the possible reasons for Luke emphasising this before we start making scale-models of Northumbrian 'bastle houses' and transplanting them to 1st century Palestine and introducing all the other red-herrings you have supplied us with on the thread so far.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Joseph was a carpenter, but not the sort that makes chairs. The Greek tekton would be either an architect or the guy who works with achitectural wood, such as roofing beams. the protoevangelion of James has Joseph as a builder. As this does not contradict the Gospels and reinforces a meaning of tekton there is no reason to doubt that.
Building jobs even today are semi nomadic, you go to where the work is so it is entirely possible that Joseph was based in Bethlehem and taxed there whilst working away in or near Nazareth. All we need to do is look for architectural evidence of large construction projects going on in that region at that time.
Unfortunately, history and archaeology goes against this. Josephus is sketchy on Galilee, and most of Herod's building projects, the Temples of Jerusalem and Caesarea Maritima, Jericho, Masada etc. were in Judea, not Galilee.
It is possible that Joseph was a semi nomadic builder, but for probability we have to look elsewhere. The reason that Joseph was in Nazareth and taxed in Bethlehem is elusive.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
Beat me to it, Gamaliel...
I think it's quite clear, whether or not that actually was the primary reason Joseph went to Bethlehem, it seems fairly clear to me at least that that's the reason Luke wants to see. It's not about where Joseph lived before the census, where his home was; it's about the "line-of-David" thing.
Bear in mind that this isn't the first time in the nativity story that Luke has mentioned David, nor is it the last. In 1:27, we're told that Joseph was "of the house of David", pretty much the first thing we're told about Joseph by Luke. When Gabriel announces speaks to Mary, he says that "the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David". In 2:4, Luke mentions David twice: the first time when he states that Bethlehem was the "city of David"; the second in the phrase we're debating, when he says that Joseph travelled there "because he was descended from the house and family of David" (and remember: that's the second he's told us that about Joseph). And then when the angel announces the news to the shepherds, he/she says, that the Messiah is born "in the city of David".
Clearly, the fact that Joseph is from the line of David, and that Jesus is born in the city of David, is hugely important to Luke - why else would he mention it so many times, why else would he tell us twice about Joseph's ancestry?
(I would hazard a guess that anyone who had David - Israel's greatest king - as an ancestor would know it and would claim it, however distant it was; particular, as GeeD says, in a culture when tribes and ancestors were of great importance. So I'm not sure I buy the argument that Joseph wouldn't know whom his ancestor was.)
Given the importance Luke places on Joseph and Jesus' links back to David, it seems natural that he would give Joseph's ancestry as the primary reason for the journey to Bethlehem - regardless of where Joseph lived. This is what matters: not the apparent logistical and logical impracticalities that we might think of; Joseph travels to Bethlehem because Messiah is to be born in city of David, of the line of David, because Messiah will be the one to restore the throne of David (though it will look very different from what people expect).
So I still don't understand the need to second-guess what Luke is saying here with apparent reconstructions, assumptions about impracticalities and all the rest of it. It's certainly a very strange view of inspiration that suggests we need to do all this...
[x-posted with balaam]
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Of course by this time there are lots of descendants of David. But in the unsettled circumstances of Palestine/Israel/Judea at that time, I don't think anyone would find it wise to make a point of asserting their royal lineage by going expensively out of their way to register in a former royal city rather than just register where they normally live. Eliab appeared to be suggesting exactly that unwise act.
Not exactly.
The text can be interpreted as Joseph, along with everyone else, being required by law to undertake a long pointless journey to register in his ancestral town. In which case, I think a careful reader would have to say "That seems stupid, and contrary to how we think Roman bureaucracy actually worked, and so I have to conclude that there are probably historical errors here, but nonetheless, that's what Luke appears to be saying".
My point is that Luke isn't necessarily saying all of that. He could be saying that, on the occasion of the census, Joseph made a personal decision to undertake the journey, for reasons connected with his ancestry. There's nothing (as far as I can see) which either compel or rule out this possible reading, but it avoids the apparent stupidity in the conduct of the census that you were concerned about.
As to Joseph's decision being irrational - well, maybe. I agree that the journey would have been just as unnecessary, and no less long or and arduous, if Joseph chose it than if Roman law compelled him. But the crucial difference is that it would be the sort of irrationality that people do, in actual fact, do quite often.
Imagine reading a story about, say, a modern American couple, wife heavily pregnant, stranded out in the wilds of Western Europe, taking great pains to travel to the US to register for a Presidential election (which they could have done by post) so that their baby would be born on American soil.
Lots of us would read it and think "Well, I wouldn't have done that", but very few of us would read it and think "FFS, no one would ever do that!", because we know that some people would. It would hit exactly the narrative sweet spot of being unusual enough to be noteworthy, without being so strange as to be implausible. The interpretation of Luke's account that has Joseph choosing Bethlehem to go to for personal reasons at a significant time is similar in effect.
Your alternative, which is that Bethlehem was Joseph's permanent place of residence, unlike either of the interpretations above, does not accord very well with Luke's broad account. Nothing else in the text suggests a family home in Bethlehem, nothing in the text addresses the (rather remarkable) question why Joseph and his pregnant wife should suddenly find themselves excluded from his family home, and nothing supports any conclusion that after the birth, Joseph ever went back to Bethlehem to live. Luke's nativity story is followed directly with an incident that took place 12 years later, which explicitly says that Joseph was living in Nazareth at that time, and strongly implies that his custom of travelling from Nazareth to Jerusalem had taken place in every one of the intervening years.
Reading Luke as if he were saying that Bethlehem were Joseph's actual, permanent, home, at any time of his life, is simply not a natural reading of the text. There is a better reading that avoids the absurdities that you have raised - however that better reading doesn't assist in harmonising Luke's account with Matthews's.
You could say, of course, that you prefer your account because it better accords with that of another writer, and that this is a legitimate way to read scripture - but I don't think you can do that and still say that you interpret scripture like you would any other book (because we don't usually read other books so as to rule out the very possibility of contradiction between different writers).
Interestingly, this strikes me as a mirror image of your position with regard to moral questions. I've previously argued that we ought NOT to read authoritative scripture "as other books" - and that in cases of ambiguity, it is legitimate to read the Bible on the assumption that the true meaning is the morally correct one, if a more plausible "natural" reading is grossly immoral. You took the contrary view, and thought that the most natural reading of the text should be preferred. What's changed?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
All I can say is that my experience of both people and bureaucracies requires none of the gymnastics about where Joseph habitually lived to make sense of Luke's account. Plus what everyone else said.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Thing is the traditional 'inn-terpretation' also involves assumptions beyond Scripture, most notably simply the idea that you send people to enrol uselessly far from where they live.
Actually that's in scripture, as I previously noted. Luke tells us that everyone (pantes) traveled (eporeuonto) for the census. From poreúomai, which is derived from poros or passageway. It literally means to go from one place to another. Luke uses the same word to describe the family's annual Passover trip to Jerusalem and for going along the road to Emmaus. In other words, it means travel, often between cities.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I am, mind you, detecting something a bit worrying in responses to what I've said. It does seem that quite a few of those responding actually also agree that the traditional 'inn-terpretation' is stupid and wrong, and that sending people to enrol at an irrelevant place is stupid. BUT - they are still insisting that Luke gives us the stupid version rather than the sensible one!
And I'm struggling a bit with the motivation for that except that they seem to be saying "So the Bible is wrong and we don't have to take it seriously".
I can't speak for anyone else, but my motive is the straightforward translation of "eporeuonto". You've yet to offer a reason for translating this term any differently than usual.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
There's a conflation of 'reconciling texts' with 'reading stuff into texts' that I don't really like. Supposing I have two accounts of an event, A and B, and so I try to reconstruct the event as something like C which contains elements of A and B. Now I may be wrong about C, but if I assert that C is what happened, it doesn't follow that I'm reading C into A, just that I'm using A as once of my sources for C.
You can certainly do that. You run into difficulties if A and B disagree about certain important things, which is the situation with Luke and Matthew's competing nativities. Not just different details, but details that cannot both be true. In most historical accounts you weigh the accounts and try to figure out whether it's more likely that Herodotus or Æschylus (to return to an earlier example) is right about a certain fact. This is different from what SL and Jamat are doing. They feel forced to insist that both Herodotus and Æschylus are right in every detail, and have to contort the translation and invent highly speculative fictions to make this come out.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Yes. That game is not worth the candle. As I've said before, the same guy who did the sleight-of-hand 'reconciliation' of the resurrection accounts has also written a book explaining why all the judges in the eponymous book were all heroes of the faith at virtually all times (think Jepthah and his vow), because that's what Hebrews called them.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What we have to consider, Steve, is the reason WHY Luke stresses this aspect.
One imagines it is important to him for theological reasons as well as 'historical' reasons.
Is to stress the lineage aspect - Jesus (humanly speaking) being in the line of David?
Let's look at the possible reasons for Luke emphasising this before we start making scale-models of Northumbrian 'bastle houses' and transplanting them to 1st century Palestine and introducing all the other red-herrings you have supplied us with on the thread so far.
It may take me a week to answer everything you've all thrown at me since my previous post! At least please ease up on new stuff while I tackle it all....
On this particular one
1) I'm nothing like "making scale-models of Northumbrian 'bastle houses' and transplanting them to 1st century Palestine". I'm just making the point that houses of that basic kind were common over a very long period all the way from the Middle East to medieval England - though also with differences, mud-brick in Palestine and stone in North England for example. My illustrated source that I referred to earlier was actually for a house centuries before 1CE but was specifically said to be typical till into and beyond the NT period. The blog Stejjie referred to showed an NT period example, didn't it?
2) Actually I do get that Luke is making a theological point and selecting accordingly. Likewise Matthew. Though given what they are reporting here, events thirty years before Jesus started his ministry, one wonders whether either had very much more than they actually give us. IF Luke knew some of what Matthew records I can see reasons why he might omit it in view of his audience even though it makes the Bethlehem/Nazareth transition a bit clumsy.
3) Yes Luke is stressing the lineage aspect; but not, I submit, to the extent of making things up to make the point. And in interpreting what he does say I'm assessing, among other things, which interpretations actually make sense; I'll come back to that....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
by Croesos;
quote:
Actually that's in scripture, as I previously noted. Luke tells us that everyone (pantes) traveled (eporeuonto) for the census. From poreúomai, which is derived from poros or passageway. It literally means to go from one place to another. Luke uses the same word to describe the family's annual Passover trip to Jerusalem and for going along the road to Emmaus. In other words, it means travel, often between cities.
......
I can't speak for anyone else, but my motive is the straightforward translation of "eporeuonto". You've yet to offer a reason for translating this term any differently than usual.
According to a quick check of usage recorded in Young's Analytical Concordance, 'poreuomai' is a general word for 'go', and the 'travel' involved can vary all the way from indeed going to a different country to the phrase 'go in peace' which might hardly involve any physical movement at all, or the paralysed man lowered through the roof picking up his bed and going home, most likely within the same village or not so far away, to the centurion's "I say unto one, 'Go' and he goeth...." which might well be in the same house. Not to mention 'Go and learn what this means, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice"' - again hardly about the physical travel involved at all.
You're pretty much talking as if 'all/pantes' going to 'their own city' means absolutely everybody being uprooted and travelling absolutely miles, with more than a little disruption to the economy at large! But 'poreuomai' seems in fact to be a general enough word to include those who go no further than the local town with a tax office, or down the road to the tax office if they actually live in town. And so I can't see that I'm "translating this term any differently than usual".
Have you suddenly become a hyper-literal fundamentalist??
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Eliab;
quote:
Interestingly, this strikes me as a mirror image of your position with regard to moral questions. I've previously argued that we ought NOT to read authoritative scripture "as other books" - and that in cases of ambiguity, it is legitimate to read the Bible on the assumption that the true meaning is the morally correct one, if a more plausible "natural" reading is grossly immoral. You took the contrary view, and thought that the most natural reading of the text should be preferred. What's changed?
You'll have to remind me of the details of that - maybe by PM if it's not relevant to the current thread.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos;
quote:
Actually that's in scripture, as I previously noted. Luke tells us that everyone (pantes) traveled (eporeuonto) for the census. From poreúomai, which is derived from poros or passageway. It literally means to go from one place to another. Luke uses the same word to describe the family's annual Passover trip to Jerusalem and for going along the road to Emmaus. In other words, it means travel, often between cities.
......
I can't speak for anyone else, but my motive is the straightforward translation of "eporeuonto". You've yet to offer a reason for translating this term any differently than usual.
According to a quick check of usage recorded in Young's Analytical Concordance, 'poreuomai' is a general word for 'go', and the 'travel' involved can vary all the way from indeed going to a different country to the phrase 'go in peace' which might hardly involve any physical movement at all, or the paralysed man lowered through the roof picking up his bed and going home, most likely within the same village or not so far away, to the centurion's "I say unto one, 'Go' and he goeth...." which might well be in the same house. Not to mention 'Go and learn what this means, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice"' - again hardly about the physical travel involved at all.
All true. If only Luke had given us some context about where all these people were going, like if he wrote that they were going to "their own cities" ([h]eautou polin). ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Seriously, we have Luke portraying "everyone" going to their own cities, Joseph making a trip at the same time for the same purpose, and an explanation as to why Bethlehem qualified as Joseph's "own city" ("because" [dia to, literally 'due to'] "he belonged to the house and line of David"). I'm not sure how much clearer an author could have made it.
Missing from this passage is any explanation of what Joseph was doing in Nazareth if he didn't live there, or why he returned to Nazareth after the post-birth trip to Jerusalem if his own town was really Bethlehem. We expect authors to explain things that need an explanation and accept that they don't explain things that require no explanation. For Luke, Joseph traveling to Bethlehem is something he felt required an explanation (i.e. it was out of the ordinary for Joseph to do this), whereas Joseph's presence in Nazareth is apparently seen by Luke as self-explanatory enough to simply be assumed.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Have you suddenly become a hyper-literal fundamentalist??
Just reading the Bible "like any other book", as someone suggested upthread. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
Supplementary to my previous....
Did a bit of further checking in Young and online. First point, the word 'eis/to' can actually also mean 'in' - over a hundred times in the NT.
Plus Luke actually uses a different Greek word for Joseph's 'going up' - the word 'anabainoo' which as near as I can judge is not a general word for 'going' but seems to convey a concept of 'going up to' even without other prepositions.
What's basically going on here seems quite clear; everybody goes 'each to his own town' to be registered. And Luke uses a general description which can cover everything from the people who live in the town and just walk down the street, through those for whom it is the nearest town to their village/farm/etc so they go to it, through to those who are away from home at the time and have to go quite a distance. He doesn't, and doesn't need to, make clear separately all those various possibilities. He just uses a brief generalised description of what happened.
He certainly does not mean that literally "everybody/pantes" might have to go miles and miles to a place that isn't 'their own town' in the usual sense in order to be enrolled, with all the disruption that would entail.
And then in describing Joseph he does use a word that means 'go up' and implies distance - but Joseph is still included, in effect, in those who are going to "'their own town' in the usual sense"- "So went up Joseph also (kai) ... to Bethlehem". Because that is 'his own town in the usual sense'.
And again, clarification please - do you believe that it's seriously likely lots of people really had to go to enrol at places they don't live and have only distant connection to? Or are you saying Luke thought that and wrote his account accordingly even though it's almost (99.lots more 9s %) certainly not true of the real world situation? Or what?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Plus Luke actually uses a different Greek word for Joseph's 'going up' - the word 'anabainoo' which as near as I can judge is not a general word for 'going' but seems to convey a concept of 'going up to' even without other prepositions.
Yes. Ancient writers often used this to denote a change of elevation. One "goes up" (anebē) from Nazareth to Bethlehem or from Jericho to Jerusalem. One "goes down" (katebainen) from Bethlehem to Nazareth or from Jerusalem to Jericho. This was an important distinction in antiquity, when most travel was by foot and the difference between uphill and downhill gave you some warning about what to expect.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
What's basically going on here seems quite clear; everybody goes 'each to his own town' to be registered. And Luke uses a general description which can cover everything from the people who live in the town and just walk down the street, through those for whom it is the nearest town to their village/farm/etc so they go to it, through to those who are away from home at the time and have to go quite a distance.
A general term was used because not everybody would be going uphill or downhill on different journeys with different destinations.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
And then in describing Joseph he does use a word that means 'go up' and implies distance - . . .
Well, at least enough distance that the elevation is a factor.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
. . . but Joseph is still included, in effect, in those who are going to "'their own town' in the usual sense"- "So went up Joseph also (kai) ... to Bethlehem". Because that is 'his own town in the usual sense'.
Nope. It's because if you want to travel from Nazareth (elevation 347m) to Bethlehem (elevation 775m) you have to literally "go up". Seriously, which one of us is reading the Bible 'literally' here? I admit the "going up"/"going down" distinction isn't one that's common in modern usage, but it's not unknown (river travel, for instance) and if you're going to read a work you should be somewhat familiar with common idioms of its native culture.
Also, "in the usual sense" is not in any of the Biblical translations of Luke 2:3 I've come across. Which Greek words did Luke use to convey this meaning?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
Sorry, my bad! Should have realised that you'd nit-pick about 'going up' and completely miss the major point. Of course I know that the going up bit is about the different elevation....
The major point is that the reality of a census is that people go to register sensibly and conveniently, both for themselves and the authorities, in the town where or near which they live. They do not go to register in a place the other end of the country where they don't really belong and have to stay in an 'inn', and register in a place which will actually be inconvenient to the authorities for taxation and other such purposes.
Luke describes this in general terms; he doesn't fussily consider all the possible options, he just says everybody registers in their own town and uses a general word for 'going' to describe their doing so. Obviously a lot of these people, if you are being fussily and inappropriately literalist, are not 'going to' the town, because they actually live within it. They just go down the road to register. Luke's wording is general enough to include that possibility.
No, the words 'in the usual sense' are not in the text - they don't need to be. I'm just making the point that if someone is claiming the word is being used in an unusual sense, the burden of proof is on them to show an unusual sense is intended. The 'So Joseph also went to ... Bethlehem' following the point of everybody going to register 'each to his own town' implies Joseph also went to 'his own town' in the usual sense.
Luke says Bethlehem is Joseph's 'own town' because of his royal descent. Is he saying that Bethlehem is NOT also Joseph's town 'in the usual sense' that he lives there? Or is he saying that a major reason for Bethlehem being Joseph's town 'in the usual sense', ie that he lives there, is that he is of the Davidic family with lands originally in Bethlehem and presumably reclaimed by the family after the return from the Exile in Babylon?
From my viewpoint the issue here is that there is a glaring anomaly in the common interpretation of Luke - and either Luke has got it wrong, or we've got Luke wrong. I'm suggesting we've got Luke wrong - you and others seem determined to insist at all costs that Luke got it wrong and gave us a massively improbable stupid account.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Or is he saying that a major reason for Bethlehem being Joseph's town 'in the usual sense', ie that he lives there, is that [...]
But he doesn't live there! He goes there from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a special occasion, can't find a proper place to stay, and then returns to Nazareth with his family, where he stays for at least the next 12 years.
All of that is in the text. It simply isn't consistent with Bethlehem being Joseph's ordinary place of residence, at least not if you read the account as you would any other book.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
No, the words 'in the usual sense' are not in the text - they don't need to be.
And yet you put them inside your quote marks along with a quote from Luke. I suppose that's just me "nit-pick[ing]" by reading what you actually wrote rather than reading your mind to figure out what you thought you meant. I don't have to explain how quote marks work to you now, do I?
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I'm just making the point that if someone is claiming the word is being used in an unusual sense, the burden of proof is on them to show an unusual sense is intended. The 'So Joseph also went to ... Bethlehem' following the point of everybody going to register 'each to his own town' implies Joseph also went to 'his own town' in the usual sense.
Luke says Bethlehem is Joseph's 'own town' because of his royal descent.
Yes, he does. He takes the trouble to spell out for his audience that Bethlehem is Joseph's "own [ancestral] town". (See what I did there with the square brackets? Useful tool for commenting on a quote.)
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Is he saying that Bethlehem is NOT also Joseph's town 'in the usual sense' that he lives there?
It's something he doesn't comment on. He also doesn't clarify whether Joseph literally owns the town of Bethlehem, which is another possible translation of this verse. We're supposed to be able to figure it out from context, from what's included, and from what's not.
Luke tells us that:
- traveling is part of the census for everyone
- everyone's destination is their "own town", and that everyone's "own town" is something they'd have to "go" to, rather than already being there
- Joseph's "own town" is Bethlehem because of his ancestry
- Joseph's "own town" is Nazareth, without need for any kind of explanation, commentary, or gloss
I suppose we've got two possibilities here. Either Luke is a terrible writer who accidentally writes the opposite of what he means, or he means that Bethlehem is Joseph's "own [ancestral] town" while Nazareth is his "own town" [of residence].
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Or another possibility, that Steve Langton doesn't read the Bible 'like any other book' in the way he insists he does.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I'm just making the point that if someone is claiming the word is being used in an unusual sense, the burden of proof is on them to show an unusual sense is intended. The 'So Joseph also went to ... Bethlehem' following the point of everybody going to register 'each to his own town' implies Joseph also went to 'his own town' in the usual sense.
If it was his own town in the usual sense, he wouldn't have to go there, he'd already be there.
[ 31. January 2018, 00:28: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Ah, but, Mousethief, you have missed the central plank of Steve's argument, that Joseph was a peripatetic joiner/builder and so worked away from home ...
Because he reads the Bible as he reads any other book, he doesn't make the same mistake as the rest of us by drawing on references and inferences from outside the text ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Croesos;
quote:
*traveling is part of the census for everyone
*everyone's destination is their "own town", and that everyone's "own town" is something they'd have to "go" to, rather than already being there
Trouble with this is that "travelling" in the sense of going a long way will evidently NOT be "part of the census for everyone" - the overwhelming majority will 'travel' locally, even within their town. And note that the Greek preposition 'eis' is broad enough to cover that.
Wherefore it is not necessarily the case that everyone's 'own town' is a place they have to go to in a major travelling sense.
And in any case, unless the Romans in 6CE or the Herodians about ten years earlier were incredibly stupid, no census would be arranged so that [dumb wooden literally] "everyone" has to do major travelling....
The 'going' may be no more than 'down the street' to register 'in/eis' one's own town where one already is.
What Luke says is that everyone goes to his own town, and Bethlehem is Joseph's own town as a result of his Davidic descent, though when the story starts he is in Nazareth so he has to 'go up to' Bethlehem.
I shouldn't really be having to repeat this, but my basic stance is that we should interpret the Bible in what medieval and Reformation scholars would have called 'the literal sense'. In the original context this clearly does NOT mean a 'dumb wooden literalism' as practised by many fundamentalists or the excessive literalism sometimes seen in autistics.
Instead it was the technical term for one of the 'four senses' of interpretation used by those scholars; the exact terminology varied with different scholars, but 'allegorical' and 'prophetic' were usually two of the others.
These 'senses' were in effect applied quite flatly to the whole text, often producing rather odd results. The Reformers preferred to emphasise the 'literal sense' as primary and authoritative. The others would obviously be used where a text was clearly allegorical or prophetic in which case that would actually also be the 'literal sense', and you might use them on other occasions but not make them authoritative equally with or above the 'literal sense' - because that would be an artificially imposed 'eisegesis/reading in' rather than proper 'exegesis/reading out'.
Tyndale, in a passage which I'll quote again if you're still having trouble with this, makes clear that the 'literal sense' involves giving full rein to understanding that human language uses all kinds of figures of speech and literary genres and other conventions which can make it far from simple literalism; and it is the interpreter's responsibility to use his brains to work this out.
Reading something from a different time or culture can involve a bit more of the 'using the brain' thing. I'll come back later to the implications of this in terms of how censuses work. As far as I can see Luke writes compatibly with how censuses work, but it seems loose once a later idea has arisen that something unusual has happened in Joseph's case; and I'm fairly sure that the problem is centred on that use of the word 'inn' which necessarily implies a state of affairs that wouldn't happen in real life....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Gamaliel;
quote:
Because he reads the Bible as he reads any other book, he doesn't make the same mistake as the rest of us by drawing on references and inferences from outside the text ...
Unless you've deliberately ignored every time I've quoted that Tyndale passage, you know you're not describing my position accurately there....
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I've never seen so many pixels used in an attempt to "reconcile" two apparently contradictory texts.
Would you expend as many on reconciling Paul's account of his travels in Galatians with the account in Acts, and why?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I've never seen so many pixels used in an attempt to "reconcile" two apparently contradictory texts.
Would you expend as many on reconciling Paul's account of his travels in Galatians with the account in Acts, and why?
You're thoughts mirrored my own. Personally I incline towards the South Galatian hypothesis AND the analytical view that Galatians/Acts cannot be completely reconciled.
So far as the exchanges here are concerned, it is a lot of pixels. I've come across this before. In defence of innerancy people fight hard to find a way, any way, by which they can avoid agreeing a real contradiction. Imperfect translation, a copying error from original manuscripts, convoluted textual arguments. To take texts inerrantly is not to take them literally, or respect plain meaning. It is defence of a 'red line'.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
Perhaps strangely, it feels almost like a lack of confidence in the Bible - almost as if there can't be any loose ends, contradictions, things that don't make sense or match up to what we think is "usual" or "sensible", because then the whole thing would come crashing down. So there has to be a "sensible" interpretation instead, no matter how far that leads from the text itself (which is where things start getting through-the-looking-glass: to 'protect' the text, you end up wandering away from it).
Just a couple of things to Steve about the Luke text:
1) quote:
I'm fairly sure that the problem is centred on that use of the word 'inn' which necessarily implies a state of affairs that wouldn't happen in real life....
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) It really, really isn't. How many times must people make arguments that have nothing to do with the word 'inn' before you'll accept this isn't the 'problem'?
2) What point do you think Luke is trying to make and how do you think reading the text using your interpretation helps us to grasp that better than the 'traditional' way (whether inn or inn-less)?
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Stejjie;
quote:
So there has to be a "sensible" interpretation instead, no matter how far that leads from the text itself (which is where things start getting through-the-looking-glass: to 'protect' the text, you end up wandering away from it).
Which is exactly what I see as the problem here, only the other way round. On the way through, centuries of trying all kinds of guesswork and invention to come up with a 'sensible' interpretation of the basically impossible idea of a Joseph who supposedly lives in Nazareth being required to travel to Bethlehem just because he is descended from David.
And ironically all that effort over the years, including all the pixels all of you are currently putting into it, is defending something that quite absolutely wanders away from the text, indeed simply mistranslates it.
So when somebody suggests an interpretation that actually does follow the text, you all go through that looking-glass to insist on defending the view that really "...leads [far] from the text itself... "
Currently catching up on TV recorded while at the model railway group for the day; back tomorrow with more....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Why is it "basically impossible"? Today it is most unlikely to occur, but was that the position 2 millenia ago?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
On the way through, centuries of trying all kinds of guesswork and invention to come up with a 'sensible' interpretation of the basically impossible idea of a Joseph who supposedly lives in Nazareth being required to travel to Bethlehem just because he is descended from David.
But that is precisely what the text says. That is the literal interpretation. It is the default assumption that you are arguing away from.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by mousethief;
quote:
But that is precisely what the text says. That is the literal interpretation. It is the default assumption that you are arguing away from.
And the 'default assumption' in Matthew's account is that Joseph does live in Bethlehem where Jesus is born. To argue for your version of what Luke says, you have to 'argue away' from Matthew's default assumption, indeed 'literal interpretation'. How do you justify that?
And actually the 'literal interpretation' of Luke is that he says everyone went to enrol in 'their own city' and Joseph 'also' does the same; Bethlehem is his own city because he is of Davidic lineage. That is why he lives there. There is no reason in the text at that point to suggest that Bethlehem is Joseph's 'own city' in a radically different sense to other people's 'own cities'. It's just that Joseph has a distinct reason for living there because of his ancestry. And so long as 'katalyma' is read as a 'guestchamber' there is no need to challenge that 'default assumption'.
Only if you insist on rendering 'katalyma' as an 'inn', with the necessary implication that Joseph is going to a place where he doesn't actually live, do you need to challenge that 'default assumption' and start producing gratuitous further assumptions and suppositions outside the text to justify the idea of Joseph being sent to enrol where he doesn't actually live; and of course create problems in interpreting Matthew as well.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Why is it "basically impossible"? Today it is most unlikely to occur, but was that the position 2 millenia ago?
The fact that you put that as the question "...was that the position... ?" rather makes the point that you don't know that the 'basically impossible' was the position two millennia ago. Suggesting it was is a gratuitous assumption without real evidence.
Reality check - in this kind of enrolment people are registered where they live because it is completely useless to register them at the other end of the country where they don't live. A generalised descent from a former king is nowhere near enough to overturn that practicality without clear evidence.
And in the state of politics then, a close enough descent from David - the NT basically implies that he should have been king of the Jews rather than Herod - would surely have Joseph in danger of far worse than a pointless trip to Bethlehem...?
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
To argue for your version of what Luke says, you have to 'argue away' from Matthew's default assumption, indeed 'literal interpretation'. How do you justify that?
The alternative approach is to consider Matthew on the basis of what Matthew says and Luke on the basis of what Luke says, which despite your gymnastics is not the same thing.
If what they say doesn't match up perfectly on a factual basis, instead of expending energy constructing wild scenarios to make them do so, what is wrong (on any level) with wondering whether reading the text in such a way might be a mistake?
Reinterpreting the text of one book of Scripture on the supposed imperative of another book of Scripture so far that it breaks is the kind of approach that gives you dispensationalism.
Oh, and still waiting to hear your take on Paul's early travels in Galatians "versus" the account in Acts.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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