[Split] Bible discussion split from Iranian woman to be stoned for adultery

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I can see how an atheist would delight in german rationalism because it gives you all a false confidence that you are right and their is no God. But what I don't get is how you personally accept their half truths as (pardon the pun) gospel. Are you so ingrained in your beliefs that you lack the ability to measure their assertions against orthodox apologists?

I have never heard of the german rationalists but I have studied apologetics and I have found the orthodox apologists wanting in terms of what satisfies my rational process and world view. On what basis can you simply say their truths are half-truths? Just like Photon said people can come from the same background, look at the same information and come to vastly different conclusions. Nobody is attacking anyone, defensive posturing or critcizing beliefs by lumping them into schools of thought that you disagree with is not a valid argument. I could say the same for you. Are you so ingrained in your beliefs that you lack the ability to measure the assertions of your faith against those who would question your beliefs etc? I think you are perfectly able to do so, you have just come to a different conclusion that satisfies your beliefs.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Wiggum_PI

The accuracy of the New Testament manuscripts is 99.5% in comparison to Homer's Illiad which is 95% accurate. If the bible is to be discredited, then what about other ancient texts?

Nobody is saying that ancient texts are wholly accurate. Nobody is taking the Illiad as a basis for three of the world's largest and dominanting religions and applying it to their lives and prosetylizing it, using it to justify their actions, using it to influence government and state action, etc.

Accuracy is not the rubric by which validity of the work is judged. You just have to decide for yourself whether you believe or not that something is divinely inspired and guided into the form you have today and therefore you can take as valuable to you...or not. Hopefully, you will at the same time examine the Bible at length to try to rationalize all the different facets and contradictions within it to try to figure out just what makes your religion and come to your own conclusion instead of accepting it blindly. When a great part of Christianity is the observance and discipline of your conduct and daily actions based on quoted scripture, it's not really WWJD anymore, it's what does Leviticus tell you (and should that be applied?), what does Paul tell you (and should that be applied?), etc. and if there is validity and applicability to those strictures.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Also, aren't all extant sources from around 100 years after the death of Jesus? The authors of the synoptic gospels and John (the different one) were a generation or two separated from the events they were documenting. Until then, information in the community (which appeared to be expecting eschatological return within their lifetimes) appears to have been transmitted by word of mouth - you know how well the telephone game works or how things are easily exaggerated when one is trying to convince someone else of something.

And in the case of the gospels, written in a different language than Jesus or his followers spoke. The authors of the gospels were educated enough in Greek to be able to write a coherent narrative.

And Paul never claims to have known Jesus and gets all his doctrine through revelation, even distancing himself from the disciples (well in one case distances himself, in another case says he spoke with them).

[photon]

Originally Posted by Wiggum_PI

The accuracy of the New Testament manuscripts is 99.5% in comparison to Homer's Illiad which is 95% accurate. If the bible is to be discredited, then what about other ancient texts?

What do those percentages mean? Accurate with respect to what? How were they arrived at? Who claims this 99.5%?

And I don't know what you mean about the Bible being discredited, discredited in what way? That it's a collection of books written sometime between 40 and hundreds of years after Jesus' death? No one discredits that. That the writings were part of the foundation of what would become the world's most powerful religion? No one discredits that.

As I said, acknowledging the changes in the manuscripts over the centuries doesn't discredit Christianity in general, or else there would be no Christian scholars who research and publish and teach the Bible from a historical critical point of view.

[Wiggum_PI]

Originally Posted by photon

What do those percentages mean? Accurate with respect to what? How were they arrived at? Who claims this 99.5%?

And I don't know what you mean about the Bible being discredited, discredited in what way? That it's a collection of books written sometime between 40 and hundreds of years after Jesus' death? No one discredits that. That the writings were part of the foundation of what would become the world's most powerful religion? No one discredits that.

As I said, acknowledging the changes in the manuscripts over the centuries doesn't discredit Christianity in general, or else there would be no Christian scholars who research and publish and teach the Bible from a historical critical point of view.

The 99.5% comes from biblical scholars. They cross reference any discrepancies between manuscripts.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Wiggum_PI

The 99.5% comes from biblical scholars. They cross reference any discrepancies between manuscripts.

Which biblical scholars? Do you have a source for that percentage?

The only time I've ever seen that 99.5% number used is by apologists saying that it came from Bruce Metzger, when Metzger said no such thing.

No one's ever done a complete comprehensive cross reference of all discrepancies across all manuscripts as far as I know.

Plus determining accuracy isn't just a "count the # of copies game". The quality of each manuscript must be determined, it's obvious that if you had 10 manuscripts, and 8 were copies of a bad manuscript while one was a good one saying the text was 90% pure was meaningless.. worse than meaningless, completely misleading. So just because 99.5% of the extant copies agree doesn't mean that's an accurate representation of the original, it just means that 99.5% of the copies agree.

And even if the 99.5% number is accurate that's still based on extant copies, which are centuries removed from the originals, which we don't have. And centuries of copying by hand will introduce errors, unintentional and intentional, small and large.

But that 99.5% number I doubt very much, since textual critics (the scholars who study such things) say that there are more differences among the manuscripts than there are words in the NT.

[Wiggum_PI]

Originally Posted by photon

Which biblical scholars? Do you have a source for that percentage?

The only time I've ever seen that 99.5% number used is by apologists saying that it came from Bruce Metzger, when Metzger said no such thing.

No one's ever done a complete comprehensive cross reference of all discrepancies across all manuscripts as far as I know.

Plus determining accuracy isn't just a "count the # of copies game". The quality of each manuscript must be determined, it's obvious that if you had 10 manuscripts, and 8 were copies of a bad manuscript while one was a good one saying the text was 90% pure was meaningless.. worse than meaningless, completely misleading. So just because 99.5% of the extant copies agree doesn't mean that's an accurate representation of the original, it just means that 99.5% of the copies agree.

And even if the 99.5% number is accurate that's still based on extant copies, which are centuries removed from the originals, which we don't have. And centuries of copying by hand will introduce errors, unintentional and intentional, small and large.

But that 99.5% number I doubt very much, since textual critics (the scholars who study such things) say that there are more differences among the manuscripts than there are words in the NT.

Go to this Website: http:////www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6068

[photon]

Originally Posted by Wiggum_PI

Go to this Website: http:////www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6068

That site references Geisler for the 99.5% number, and Geisler is the one who says Metzger estimates it at 99.5% when Metzger doesn't. So that reference to 99.5% is wrong. Or not wrong, just made up.

Plus the article they quote for the statistic is published by Moody which is an institution that starts from a position of inerrancy.

Originally Posted by Moody

Moody Bible Institute believes strongly in the factual, verbal, historical inerrancy of the Bible. That is, the Bible, in its original documents, is free from error in what it says about geography, history and science as well as in what it says about God. Its authority extends to all matters about which the Bible speaks.

So their position is backwards.. rather than examining the evidence and deciding if something is inerrant (or historically or scientifically accurate) and coming to a conclusion, they decide on what they believe and then work backwards to try and find evidence to support it.

Moody clearly denies evolution, so I'd question their scholarly integrity... or at the very least I'd examine anything from there with a bigger grain of salt than usual.

[Azure]

Yeah, Moody.

Don't think I would listen to anything from them considering their past history. Publishing the Chick Comics for one.

[photon]

Lol seriously? No way, no serious institution would publish Chick Comics.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by photon

Lol seriously? No way, no serious institution would publish Chick Comics.

Oops.

I was under the impression that they did for some reason. Seems like Chick Publications publishes them.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

So it is about power, really. The elite having control over the populace so that their standard of living is higher, because of the power that religion can have. If this is what you're saying, I agree, BUT, what I don't understand is why we sit around and debate about something we cannot change in our counterpart's belief system. You know you can't change what I believe, why do you continue to bemoan the issue? What are YOU trying to achieve? Will it give you peace for me to agree with you? Isn't the world a better place having all kinds of different beliefs?

Who's bemoaning? Im not trying to change anyone's mind, but if it happens, great.
Debate is healthy, without it we allow total control.
Education is also healthy, without it we have ignorance.
I don't think any of us really care if you change your mind and it certainly wouldn't create anymore peace than I already have. Isnt the world a better place when people are actually allowed to disagree, have varying opinions, and discuss everything "based on the facts".
So...lets get the world educated, and allow everyone to debate freely.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by photon

Even the Christian scholars who don't take an inerrant view of scripture have the goal of excluding god eh? All the religious educational institutions that have classes with a historical critical approach in their divinities programs are all trying to remove god... fascinating.



Nope, that's not what they "see". What they "see" is far more deep and nuanced than that.



Anyone who disagrees is "they"? I can see how it's easy to classify everyone who disagrees as "they" when you lump them all together with such simple (and incorrect) characterization of the scholarship.

In which group would you include Origen I wonder? As a scholar that tried to help understand and explain the supposed conflicts? Or as an atheist who tried to remove god? Because Origen frequently mentions differences among the writings and disputes the Pauline letters' authorship.



All the Christian biblical scholars who work from a historical critical perspective exclude these conclusions eh?

I wouldn't call these conclusions, they're claims. Claims that have little in the way of support.



"You all".. always a great foundation for discussion.

This is the funny thing, some Christians just can't even conceive that someone could look at things and come to a different conclusion than they do. So instead, accusations of delighting in what must be false evidence to confirm a pre-conceived conclusion. If I don't come to the same conclusion, I clearly must lack the ability to measure the orthodox responses.

First, I've never made any claim to being an atheist.

Second, I didn't start from a position of non-belief and grabbed onto something to defend it, I started from a position of believing exactly as you do. I've read very little that you've ever posted that I could not imagine myself writing not too long ago.

It was when I started to actually read the Bible, to actually research church history, to learn that I was forced to question what many Christian denominations say the Bible says. My position isn't a matter of desire, I didn't WANT to not believe in the Bible, I was forced into it. That's part of why I participate in threads like this, part of me still wants to believe and hopes to find something that will change how I see things.

Now contrast this:



with



This. Usually if someone asks for something starting out with such negative language and accusations will result in conflict rather than discussion...



The wiki article on this has a decent summary and lots of links to resources and books:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors...uline_epistles

First of all I will answer your question:

Origen was born in 184 AD to well-to-do Christian parents. He became a respected teacher at a young age. At 17 his Father was killed for his faith and all the family's wealth was taken from them. A year later due in part to Clement running from the persecution he became president of the Alexandrian Catechetical School. He was obviously very intelligent which was helped by having parents who could afford to provide him teachers. He studied under the pagan Ammonius Saccas who was the founder of Neo-Platonism. He had a huge collection of books including the complete library of the gnostic Ambrosius. He vigorously opposed some gnostic beliefs while embracing others. He wrote it is said about 6000 books in his life time with the help of his students whom he would dictate to or use to make copies of his work. His beliefs lead him to live an extreme ascetic life: He walked barefoot; He slept on the bare ground; He even castrated himself. The scriptures didn't tell him to do those things. That probably came from the gnostic belief that the flesh is wicked and can't be saved.

Origen believed souls existed from eternity past and that they transmigrated to a higher or lower life form after death, depending on one's deeds. He believed everyone including the devils would eventually be saved after some punishment and instruction by angels. He denied a physical resurrection which by itself would explain why he rejected certain of Paul's epistles. Origen has been called "the Father of corrupt bibles" but, I'm not sure if that is because of his translations and practice of conjectural emendation or because of what his school produced in the century following his death.

Regarding the link you provided it only mentions two ancient authorities who questioned the authorship of some of Paul's epistles: Origen and Marcoin. I've discussed Origen already. Marcoin actually only accepted 11 of the 27 New Testament books into his canon. He only accepted 1 of the gospels(Luke) and he edited it himself before accepting it into his canon. It should be telling that both Origen and Marcoin were excommunicated by their own religious communities at some point in their short lives. They both rejected certain books of the Bible because they conflicted with their personal teachings.

Apparently according to your article most modern scholars reject or have serious doubts about the authorship of some of Pauls epistles but, I see no examples of denominations altering their Canons in light of this witness. I also am not aware of any of the new translations omitting some of Paul's epistles. With two or three new translations coming out every year you would think someone would stick to this new revised Canon. I see no movement in that direction.

I also wonder why modern scholarship would have more credibility than the scholarship 1600 years closer to the source? I mean wouldn't there be a net loss of information over that time? Most likely some of the churches still existed that these letters were written to. There is no doubt that more of the early writings of the church Fathers still existed which would have referenced Paul's writings. Obviously the copies of the originals were nearer to the source as well. In the absence of new compeling evidence wouldn't the early scholarship carry more weight?

What have I missed that cause you to say with any certainty that Paul didn't author some of the books that is credited to him within the Canon of scriptures? Could you tell me in your own words rather than just providing a link? Thanks.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Marcoin actually only accepted 11 of the 27 New Testament books into his canon. He only accepted 1 of the gospels(Luke) and he edited it himself before accepting it into his canon.

There was no canon at that point, so to say Marion only accepted 11 of the 27 books is misleading. Marcion chose those 11 not out of 27, but out of many gospels, letters, and apocalypses.

The whole idea of a "canon" of Christian writings may have even originated with Marcion, certainly the earliest list of writings that the list's author thought were authoritative was from Marcion.

After that various lists circulated for hundreds of years before settling on the set used by many churches today (not all though, there's still disagreements about which NT books are canonical). Of course each person's list is going to reflect their outlook on various doctrinal questions, that's why there were generations of many different lists.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

It should be telling that both Origen and Marcoin were excommunicated by their own religious communities at some point in their short lives. They both rejected certain books of the Bible because they conflicted with their personal teachings.

This makes no sense. "Sorry we're excommunicating you because you rejected certain books of a canon of scripture that hasn't even been made yet."

They were rejected by those who had a different view, and accepted by those who accepted their view or held the same views, the same as proto-othodox writings and authors were rejected by those who held different views.

All of which is interesting but hardly relevant, the authorship of Paul's letters isn't disputed because of the authority of Marcion or Origen.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Apparently according to your article

It's not my article, it's just a convenient summary of the issues with lots of references.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

most modern scholars reject or have serious doubts about the authorship of some of Pauls epistles but, I see no examples of denominations altering their Canons in light of this witness. I also am not aware of any of the new translations omitting some of Paul's epistles. With two or three new translations coming out every year you would think someone would stick to this new revised Canon. I see no movement in that direction.

Why would there be? It's "The Bible", not "The list of what we currently think is right".

Scholars and people willing to accept a more nuanced view wouldn't remove the pseudepigraphic letters because there's no point, and those with a literalist view would never accept the possibility of such a thing anyway.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I also wonder why modern scholarship would have more credibility than the scholarship 1600 years closer to the source?

Modern scholarship just goes by what is written, it's not like they have access to more information. But they have access to much better technology, much better methodology, much better communication. It wasn't nearly as organized or developed back then.

When Jesus was walking the earth, no one beyond a few followers and locals knew or cared. Who would care to examine the claims of some guy named Paul or some gospel authors when they were going on about someone no one else had heard of or written about? And by the time enough cared for scholarship had begun, a century or more of proliferation of writings and copies had taken place.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I mean wouldn't there be a net loss of information over that time?

Not necessarily, more copies means more information, not less. Not necessarily GOOD information though

The question is is there enough loss of information to make something like the authorship of a letter indeterminable. You can't both argue that there is enough information loss to make authorship impossible to determine AND argue that there's little enough information loss that there's zero change to the meaning and intent.

We're in a much better position to evaluate that information loss though, if you wanted a copy of a letter to study back then you had to have one commissioned, which was another copy with its own set of errors, making the problem worse. Now scholars can have access to detailed images of every single copy, and computers to analyze and index and cross reference every word.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Most likely some of the churches still existed that these letters were written to. There is no doubt that more of the early writings of the church Fathers still existed which would have referenced Paul's writings. Obviously the copies of the originals were nearer to the source as well.

But unless they traveled to each church and viewed or took that original they wouldn't have access to it. If they went and viewed it they wouldn't have it for reference. If they took it then the church would be left with a (flawed) copy. Don't view the problem in light of our fast travel, perfect copies, and instant communication.

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

In the absence of new compeling evidence wouldn't the early scholarship carry more weight?

But new and compelling evidence is exactly what there is. No one 1600 years ago could take all the existing copies of all the letters of Paul in Greek and analyze their vocabulary. Or at least they couldn't within a reasonable amount of time and get someone to pay for it. Today a large number of scholars can spend significant portions of their adult lives analyzing doctrinal positions of Paul's letters and comparing and contrasting them, all communicating their findings back and forth and discussing and working out the issues and finding a consensus. That simply wasn't possible 1600 years ago, things were too slow, far less literate people, far less educated people...

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

What have I missed that cause you to say with any certainty that Paul didn't author some of the books that is credited to him within the Canon of scriptures? Could you tell me in your own words rather than just providing a link? Thanks.

First it was common in those times. Many authors wrote about the problems of pseudonymous writings (things written in an author's name, but not by that author).

There are many examples of this happening. Third Corinthians was written in the 2nd century in the name of Paul to combat views that Jesus was not flesh and blood at all that were circulating then. Another is the Sibylline oracles where Christian authors took the writings of a pagan prophetess and inserted references to the coming of the Messiah to support their cause. Or another when Paul(?) in Colossians tells his readers to also read his letter to Laodicea, of which there are no copies.. except when someone helpfully writes one in Paul's name in the 2nd century. There's tons more.

So it was a common phenomenon. It's not implausible at least that some of the writings claiming to be written by Paul aren't.

One thing used is vocabulary. Everyone has a vocabulary that they use. The pastoral epistles have a significantly different vocabulary than the rest of Paul. Over 35% of the words used in the pastorals don't appear anywhere else in Paul, and more than 2/3rds of those words are words common to 2nd century Christian writings. Even specific meanings of words vary, the meaning of some words Paul uses in the pastorals is different than how he uses the same words in the other letters.

Another is style. Same thing, except with patterns of words and common phrases and the thousand other things which you can identify in someone's style. Paul generally wrote short simple sentences but the author of Ephesians and Colossians both wrote long and complicated sentences. Almost 10 percent of the sentences in Ephesians are over fifty words, while Galatians (undisputed) has only one.

Another way is by the actual theological content.

2nd Thessalonians for example tells people to stop thinking the end has already arrived, that there will be clear signs, while 1st Thessalonians has a different theme, calming people who are worried that Jesus hasn't returned yet and that some of them have died, that the dead will be raised first and to be vigilant because the end will come suddenly.

Or the author of Colossians disagrees with Paul's view on baptism. Paul clearly says that baptism is dying with Christ but the resurrection has not yet happened, 1 Corinthians is all about the future resurrection because the Christians there thought they had already experienced a kind of resurrection and were already ruling and reigning. Colossians specifically says though that "When you were buried with him in baptism you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. (2:13)".

The pastoral epistles deal with a different structure of church than Paul describes in 1 and 2 Corinthians, one that seems to be closer to the 2nd century of church than the apostolic era of Paul.

There's mountains of books and scholarly works on the subject.. not a case of people trying to disprove belief in god, just people trying to better understand this piece of writing. This isn't meant to be exhaustive, it's just touching the surface.

[Beerfest]

Ive not really followed this thread, but the tags on this thread rule.

[Textcritic]

Damn.

Why am I always so late in coming to these parties?

I read about half of the posts in this thread; I simply do not have the time to slog through them all.

I find that when entering discussions about the Bible, what tends to complicate things is the wide ranging and varied opinions and misconceptions that lay people tend to hold with regards to what the Bible is, and what it ought to be. If anyone is all that keenly interested in the Bible, where it came from, how it developed, why it is such an influential book, and how and why religions have come to read and teach it the way that they do, allow me, first to make a book recommendation. James L. Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now (New York / London / Toronto / Sydney: Free Press, 2007), is my current favourite popular book on the subject. I also recommend that you check out Prof. Kugel's own webpage: www.jameskugel.com, which has some good additional resources. An especially good read there is the downloadable appendix that he wrote to the book, entitled: "Apologetics and 'Biblical Criticism Lite'", in which he launches into a very good critique of the current establishment of biblical scholarship.

So then, what is the Bible? Most would answer that question simply enough by pointing to the 66—plus or minus a couple dozen—books of their leather-bound Thompson Chain Reference that rests upon the shelf. When in actual fact—as photon and some others have already pointed out—there are several "Bibles" within Judaism and Christianity, and their presence along with the sensitive issues behind canonization renders the idea of THE BIBLE somewhat inert. The Bible is a collection of various "Scriptures"—which I would define simply as ancient, sacred writings—that have been arranged according to a foundation of pre-existing theological and philosophical premises. More often than not, the theological premises upon which the individual pieces of writing were collected, edited and preserved will supersede the original intent and content of that book.

For example, the common Christian conceptual framework applied to the story of Adam and Eve from the book of Genesis is founded upon two principles: first, the doctrine of original sin, and second, the initiation of the messianic promise. Both of these ideas are completely alien to the story itself, and both reside on a set of underlying principles and ideas that have been developed over hundreds—sometimes thousands—of years. This is why the common garden snake from the narrative is transformed into the personification of evil, and why the etiological point in Gen 3:15 is trumped up in Paul's writings, and mistranslated to refer to the victory of God in Christ, in Rom 16:20.

In defining what the Bible is, one can never stray too far from the very highly developed interpretive matrices that are imposed upon the texts. The Bible is an idea as much as it is a book, and this idea will change and nuance according to whatever interpretive community that happens to retain the Bible as "the Word of God". In recognizing this, one must also acknowledge the enormous flexibility in what the Bible has become, and what it will be in the future. Even within the past 20 or 30 years, large segments within my own Evangelical tradition have subconsciously adapted and altered their own understanding of much of what is in the Bible; hence changing what the book itself in effect actually is.

I'll give you another example: Last year, my pastor preached a series of messages on the book of Ephesians, which is a rather famous piece of writing (that was pseudonymously attributed to Paul, but actually penned some time in the early–mid second cent. C.E.) for its antiquarian ideas regarding women. It struck me as I listened to his sermon on this one sensative passage from Eph. 5:21–33 just how different his message today is from that which I commonly heard growing up, not 25 years ago. Now, in the spirit of equity, the commands of "Paul" for wives to be "subject to your husbands" (v. 22), and for husbands to "love your wives" (v. 33) is applied evenly to both sexes, where not so long ago this passage was read much more plainly.

*It is interesting, as an aside, that in this portion of Ephesians women are not EVER instructed to love their husbands, only they are required to pay them their due respect. This is a bit that is often missed by preachers and even some commentators, but I find it highly significant, and reflective of the culture within which this letter was written, in which women usually were not permitted to choose their own spouse, and were practically always under the power of a man; whether it be her father or her husband.

We tend to take for granted how we think, conceptualize and as a consequence, how we read all kinds of literature. The ways in which we read, understand, receive and interpret texts has in fact changed in the course of the last several hundred years, which in turn changed from how it was over the last several hundred and thousands of years before then. Because we live in a hyper-literate culture, because we have an absurd amount of access to information, and because we receive this information almost entirely visually has had an effect on how this information is processed. Where the inerrentists perhaps make their most glaring mistake is in assuming that the texts which they treat as Scripture, and in which they read and interpret as "plainly" and straight-forwardly as possible was always understood as such. Quite to the contrary, one of the common characteristics of Scripture in the ancient world and all the way until the Renaissance was to read Scripture symbolically and cryptically: most often, what the text says on the surface is secondary to what the text actually means, and usually it was that underlying "hidden" message that was of primary importance. It was through this method that the author of Daniel 9 (which was NOT written by Daniel!) came to conclude that the prophecy of Jer 25:11–12 and 29:10 was not for an actual physical exile of 70 years, but rather that this was a period of 70 weeks of years or 490 years! It was by the same approach that Paul quite legitimately applied the words of Deut 9 out of context and directly to Jesus in Rom 10:5–9.

One of the real powers inherent within the Bible was always its adaptability to these sorts of exegetical techniques that much of the Christian church now frowns upon. It was precisely because the Bible's meaning was always so flexible that it achieved its longevity. One of my fears, as a Christian, is that the excessively rationalistic programme of biblical literalists and inerrentists will render the Bible itself utterly inert. In their efforts to "conserve" what they consider to be the basic doctrines of the faith, they are playing a dangerous game of progressional cultural ignorance. If the Bible is to have any contemporary value, and if it is to remain an authoritative religious source, then this flexibility must be retained, and the doctrines of inerrency, infallibility, and literalist or plain approaches must be abandoned.

I have a fair bit more to say about this, but will leave you with that, for now.

[troutman]

What the text says on the surface is secondary to what the text actually means, and usually it was that underlying "hidden" message that was of primary importance.

+1

. . . the idea of a worship that is not of the symbol but of its reference, which is of a mystery of much greater age and of more immediate inward reality - Joseph Campbell

[Textcritic]

The second point that I should like to make is that the Bible is quite often read under a cloud of cultural ignorance that greatly affects its meaning and application.

What I mean by this is simply that the cultural and socioeconomic circumstances that governed Scripture production and transmission are quite foreign and contrary to the modern worldview. The vast majority of the biblical texts were composed and edited in the context of a sacrificial cultic environment, in which the Jewish second Temple and its institutions were THE primary element in religious observance, doctrine, and practice. As such, there are a great number of Scriptures that are subject to a "Temple theology" that has virtually disappeared. Even in the New Testament, nearly half of the Christian canon (Mark, Luke-Acts, Galatians, Philippians, I–II Corinthians, Romans, I Thessalonians, Philemon, and Hebrews) was likely composed before the Temple of Herod was finally destroyed by Roman legions in 67 C.E. I cannot underemphasize the importance that the Temple had in both Judaism and in the seminal roots of Christianity, and the fact that the very memory of the Temple is fragmented and idealized means that the writings produced in its shadow are also highly susceptible to misinterpretation. In the wake of its destruction, both Christianity and Judaism transformed themselves from religions of the "presence" (shekinah in Jewish ideology and parousia in the Christian concept) to religions of the book. Canonization itself was a product of the crisis that occured with the destruction of the Temple, albeit, it was a lengthy process.

Other places in which cultural ignorance tends to misconstrue biblical literature is in ancient social structure: the "biblical world" was agrarian, pre-scientific, pre-rational, and most certainly NOT gender neutral. The entire Jewish sacrificial system, and the Jewish calendars are structured around planting, harvest, and the breeding and slaughter of livestock. People of the ancient world were much more intimately connected with the earth and depended a great deal more upon the the natural environment that we are at all accustomed to. Because of this, religious practices and festivals were also thus closely connected with the observance of nature, which in many ways defined them.

Finally, the fact that the people of the ancient world were highly illiterate, and learned mostly through participation, practice, or spoken instruction, this made for a profoundly different experience in receiving “the Word of God” which was ALWAYS either spoken or read, but always a performative event. Studies of thoroughly oral cultures show that the way in which illiterate societies—that is people who have no ability to read or write—conceive and process information is cognitively quite different than in “textualized” societies. It tends to be much less abstract, and much more practical, and this will frequently lead to varied and frequent adaptations within oral traditions and stories to suit the contemporary needs of their audiences. As such, it becomes perfectly understandable to see what we perceive to be doctrinal, philosophical or logical inconsistencies in the Bible, which really was not constructed with preference for such an abstract idea as consistency.

But perhaps the greatest fallacy among both biblical critics and religious enthusiasts alike, is to domesticate the ancient world, and to soften or even attempt to eliminate the great number of these cultural and social differences. This is an especially popular procedure among Evangelical biblical critics, as they strain to show how much the present, modern world is like the biblical world, in an effort to rehabilitate the Bible and project it as an eternally relevant document. One area in particular in which this has received an inordinate amount of attention, is in the transformation of the ancient, Jewish polemics against idolatry into a much more pedestrian concept. A recurring theme in Christian apologetics is the idea that "idolatry" can be defined in a modern context as quite simply prioritizing something, anything ahead of God. It is quite common to consider not only the replacement of God by money, greed, material wealth or pleasure as akin to the cardinal sin of "idolatry", rather, one can even replace God with virtues such as family, charity or hard work. This is but one example of how for many, the present world may be read back into the biblical world and vice versa. And in my opinion, this practice remains a serious impediment to a clear understanding of not only the biblical world, but of the literature that became Scripture for the Church as well as for Judaism.

[Textcritic]

FYI, I have provided a link in this post to a blog belonging to a colleague and friend of mine here. Beyond his fine collection of religious hilarity, I highly recommend reading his series of posts entitled: "Does Higher Criticism Attempt to 'Destroy the Bible'"

I got busy yesterday, and was unable to finish my thoughts on this subject. As this is a field of professional expertise and a deep personal passion of mine, I have a lot to say. I think that I will probably continue to come back to this thread and post musings whenever they come up, just in case anyone is interested in such matters.

I have already discussed very briefly the problems of defining the Bible and its function, and the undeniable influence of changing culture and competing worldviews to the enterprise of reading and understanding the Bible. I should like to continue today with a third installment, which deals with the problem of history, and the Bible's own historiographic methods.

I'm sure a number of you are well aware that for hundreds of years, Scripture's presentation of the past was widely accepted as entirely accurate and divinely sanctioned. With the emergence of rationalism, empiricism, the birth of science, modernity and critical methods, it was not until around the 17th–18th century that scholars began to read the Bible according to a developing set of literary and historical theories. Where once the Bible was immune to scholarly probing, it gradually become more widely acceptable to treat the text as one would treat any ancient piece of literature, and in so doing, the totality of the Bible's historical claims came under prodigious scrutiny, and this resulted in a nearly wholesale rejection of the Bible's presentation of the past as accurate. Without going into great detail, the "historical critical method(s)" basically attempt to assume a position of non-confessional skepticism, and procede carefully through comparing the biblical text to contemporary pieces of ancient Near Eastern literature, to the archeological record, anthropological and sociological studies, and finally, these are considered together with textual matters such as manuscript evidence, linguistic evidence, and patterns within the various genres. These methods have met with a tremendous amount of success in both increasing our general knowledge of the religious and political history of ancient Israel and Palestine. Interestingly enough, what has been gleaned from the other disciplines does not accord with the Bible's own presentation of history.

Scholars have come to realize that the Bible—very much like the vast majority of surviving "texts" from the ancient world—functioned largely as royal or religious propoganda: the production of literature in the period was both enourmously expensive and difficult, and as a result, literature was basically entirely a product of either the state or the cult, which was usually sanctioned by the state. The Bible appears to be no different: the texts that came to form the Old Testament for the most part betray fairly obvious signs of various, and often competing, forms of partisanship. Ancient myths were reshaped and reproduced in an effort to legitimize a ruling power, or to polemicize against opponents, and most often this was framed in supernatural terms under the guise of the foreboding formula: "Thus says the Lord!" Because of this, the bulk of Old Testament history now resides under a cloud of suspiscion; a number of reputable scholars even going so far as to doubt ENTIRELY virtually every story or legend or king or prophet from before the time of the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C.E.

The principle reason for the skepticism is that there really is only a scant amount of third-party verifiable information concerning the existence of "Israel", and even less for the shape of its history from the biblical period. The sensible approach has been to start with what we do know, however, this has also resulted in offending the sensibilities of a vast number of confessional Christians and Jews who consider their history according to a divinely sanctioned design, and this is really what is at stake here: History and its representation is the framework for both Judaism and Christianity. To put it another way, since the beginning of Judaism sometime in the fourth century B.C.E., the religion has ALWAYS been integrally tied to its understanding of God's activity in the history of Israel, and the same holds true for Christianity. The earliest evidence for "Scripture" that we have comes from around the third cent. B.C.E. (think Alexander of Macedonia), and virtually all of it seems to suggest that Scripture was always founded upon some sort of ideal concerning the past. Events and figures were deeply meaningful, and entire religious establishments rose and fell upon how one understood that history.

The problem this presents for the Bible is twofold: First, the Bible by its nature (see my first entry above) must conform to a given concept of history. The Bible that you have on your shelf, regardless of who translated, published or has sanctioned it, is DELIBERATELY ORGANIZED according to a deeply engrained idea about God and his activity in history. Because of this, the Bible is really nothing more than a construct: a sweeping idea about the past that depends upon a fairly specific set of presuppositions concerning the events it purports to retell.

The second problem is that from a scholarly point of view, this idea that eventually became the Bible is actually not nearly as ancient as was once presumed. Virtually every Christian or Jew will point to the Pentateuch, or the Torah—the first five "Books of Moses"—as the virtual heart, or foundation for all of Scripture. It is widely presumed to be the oldest part of the collection, and it is also generally considered to be the most authoritative.
*This last statement requires a caveat as far as Christianity is concerned: While Christians have long adopted the position that the New Testament has "trumped" the Old, this is only as far as certain elements of doctrine or theology are concerned. By and large all mainstream Churches adhere to the position that the Pentateuch remains the foundation of Scripture, and is properly interpreted through the matrix of the New Covenant.
Unfortunately, scholars now concede that there is NO MATERIAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF A TORAH, OR EVEN OF A SINGLE, COMPLETE BOOK FROM THE TORAH PRIOR TO THE EARLY THIRD CENT. B.C.E. Lester L. Grabbe of the University of Hull has written one of the most comprehensive histories of Judaism in after the Babylonian exile, and in it, he has presented a very convincing case for the late origins of the Pentatuech, based on his reading of Ezra Nehemiah in conjunction with the material evidence from the Elephantine excavations. What these show is that while this Jewish community living in an Egyptian city had a fairly well developed concept of Jewish religious practice, there is no indication that they had any sort awareness of a “Torah” of any kind. So then, Scripture depends a great deal on both its understanding of history, and upon the perception of its own antiquity, and yet both of these ideals do not conform with an actual picture of how Scripture developed and was received.

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Definitely keep posting your thoughts, I for one enjoy reading them.

Also interested in how some of the inerrantists might respond.. I know there was a time when I would have made an appeal to consequences but I don't hold an inerrantists position anymore. I guess many would view such a radical departure from their view of their scripture as a threat to their very faith, or at least require some pretty radical changes to it.