A couple of weeks ago I had a brief post asking why the scientific theory of evolution was a challenge for faith, but a scientific theory explaining weather was not a problem. (See here for the post: God, Science, and Evolution (RJS)). One of the comments on that post leads me to a new question - this one on the Bible, authority, and the role of church tradition in our interpretation of scripture. The commenter said:
What I would find interesting would be a discussion of the kind of categories of biblical literature that we might question now, in terms of their wooden historicity, in light of the weather topic being discussed here.
This is an excellent topic for discussion. And note - the question is not "What parts of the Bible can we discard" the question is "How do we interpret scripture." The Bible is true - it is the "Word of God" and yet it is contains many kinds of literature, composed in very different historical contexts. We all use judgment in interpretation. There is no such thing as uninterpreted scripture.
What kinds of Biblical literature might not be strictly historical? Can the Bible contain truth told through story? Does it matter?
Lets consider a few examples as I see them.
A place for story.
Genesis 1-11 is primeval history, not "real" history - and in this sense it tells truth in mythical form. There are many clues within the text that point in this direction. More to the point - the intent of the author was not in historical fact, but in making a specific theological point of some sort. Walton's book on Genesis One is an important contribution here.
Is Job history or story? I think that Job is story - much like some of the parables of Jesus. There are many clues within the book that point to such a genre. This does not make it false or a lie. After all, if Jesus used story to convey important truths - certainly the OT can also contain truth in story form.
How about Song of Solomon? Why is this considered not historical but Job is considered historical in much of our church?
Jonah? I have no strong position here, as I don't find "three days in a fish" as a one-off miracle sufficient reason to doubt a historical root in the book. But there are other features that seem to point to a story rather than history.
Thoughts on Daniel?
The form of historical story telling
The historical books in the OT have roots in history - in my opinion very deep roots. Nonetheless there are indications that the books are not straightforward historical reporting.
This is true in Genesis 12-50. There is a general historical flow, but a number of stories repeat very similar themes and there appears to be fleshing out of detail. But in many times and places this is the accepted form of telling history.
The role of composition, culture and contemporary expectations are also apparent in comparisons of 1,2 Samuel, 1,2 Kings, and 1,2, Chronicles. This is not "straight" historical reporting. Stories are given a particular slant and told for a reason. Does this cause problems for our understanding of scripture - or does this inform our understanding of scripture?
Do such examples also influence how we look at the gospels - and even the book of Acts?
The influence of world view and cultural assumptions.
The books of the Bible present the world in the context of the culture of the day. This can be seen in the way that Genesis 1 is framed in ancient near east cosmology, in assumptions about the root causes of disease, in the assignment of mental illness to demon possession. Even weather, including drought and famine fall into this category. Our culture has a very different view of many of these phenomena with solid empirical reasons for those views. We don't really find the study of meteorology, embryology, medicine, or
earthquakes to be deep problems for faith - even though these lead us
to views that differ from that assumed in scripture. How do we know when a statement is simply a reflection of the culture, incidental to the point, and when it is crucial, part of God's truth?
So - back to the original question.
What kind of categories of biblical literature that we might question now, in terms of their wooden historicity?
What do you think and why?
If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.
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Angusj,
Well said (#23). I embrace the concept of inerrancy as a theological construct. That is, it makes sense. But once you grant inerrancy to the original autographs (which is the prevailing evangelical view), then what? No one owns or has seen one inerrant biblical text (except in theory the original writers). Scholars and pastors must work with "what is" as any apparatus in the Massoretic and Greek text makes evident. I keep wondering why evangelicals have posited such a theory of inerrancy. What were they trying to do...really? Once inerrancy is posited, then all kinds of shenanigans take place as scholars and pastors scramble to make the Bible fit into Enlightenment categories that it was never designed for.
I've just got my new computer up after the last one crashed, so I've missed this dialog over the last two days.
When I originally posed the question that RJS quotes here, I was specifically thinking about how we seem to reconsider the historicity of certain parts of the Bible, only when we're forced to - through discoveries in geology and evolution for instance.
This seems to me a rather short-sighted and perhaps intellectually dishonest way to address the issue.
I realize historicity is a broad-ranging term. That's why I narrowed it to "wooden" historicity. I guess one way we could put it is that it would be anachronistic of us to think the Holy Spirit, or even a biblical writer inspired by the Holy Spirit, is fact-checking like an editor from the New York Times would. They just didn't think along these lines in the Ancient Near East, for instance.
Someone in here wrote something like "let it be all true or not at all." That seems to me an incredibly childish (and unfair) way to frame the issue. It creates (perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not) an us versus them, you're either fully with us, or not at all, kind of dichotomy. And it also makes the Bible into something that I firmly believe it never claims to be (even if you look at it from a macro-canonical point of view).
Someone in here also suggested that by categories we mean "genres". I think this is partly true, but not completely what I was getting at. In other words, I don't necessarily think that genre specifics alone explain all the reasons why some texts might not be factually accurate to the satisfaction of a 20th century fact-checker.
Let me throw this into the discussion: what if various parts of the Bible are true (in terms of theological points), but only factual to the degree that anything could be true while framed within a worldview perspective that has limitations. I'm a rather strong believer in the idea that God is very content to let us understand things, only in part, and that our worldviews frame realty in ways that only behold the totality of truth in part.
I push back against this idea that some aspects of biblical framing are somehow *magically futuristic*, somehow spoken outside the confines of a particular writer's worldview. I contend that this is largely impossible. Not because God CAN'T do it, but because that's just now how God has made us - individually and as a collective. Progressive revelation exists not just because God rolls it out over time, but also because it has to wait on our worldviews to catch up, so to speak.
Thoughts?
Darren,
Glad you're back on-line. I was trying to get at most of your points here in the way I framed the post. Your point here - that we need a robust view of how to view scripture rather than a reactionary view (only reacting to new discoveries) is an excellent one.
Next Thursday I will get to the second part of your question - on the role of tradition.
As BenB mentioned, the Exodus, as it is written, is in conflict with today's body of archaeological discoveries and understanding. According to these discoveries, the city-states that the Israelis supposedly sacked were actually destroyed from within (inner revolts). As these city states imploded in on themselves, there was a population boom in the wilderness were the nation Israel eventually arose from.
Do we dismiss all the archaeology as bogus because it interferes with our understanding of the bible? Or do we seek to understand the bible out of this new and better understanding of Jewish history?
This is Old Testament though. We are safe withing the New Testament, right?
Well, let's look at John's gospel. In the third chapter we have the story of Jesus and Nicodemus. Did this story really happen? Did Jesus really say the we must be born again?
Jesus spoke Aramaic not Greek. The Greek word anò„then has the double meaning that makes this discourse make sense (it could mean either 'again' or 'from above'). Throughout the rest of John, this word means 'from above', but here, in this exchange, Nicodemus misunderstands Jesus to mean born 'a second time' or 'again'. This understanding can only occur in Greek. It is not possible in Aramaic. And this whole event depends on this misunderstanding happening.
So how are we to understand this? Is it historical or story? This, as well as other data from John, makes this gospel contradict the synoptic gospels (for instance, the day of the Crucifixion - synoptic have it occurring on the Passover, John has it occurring on the day before the passover).
So is John historical fact or a theological story?
And if John is a theological interpretation of the life of Jesus and not fact, can the conservative evangelical faith that says, "all is fact or none is", survive?
RJS,
This is a great post.
I think I have tried to explain my struggles and/or views of inerrancy before. I agree with what ChrisB (#10) said about inerrancy being tied to inspiration--it is tied to God being a co-author with the human author.
I still think inerrancy is an authorial intent issue. If the authors (Author) of Genesis or Job or Jonah didn't intend those books to communicate in a literal/factual/historical way then forcing them to do so contradicts their level of inerrancy.
Are you comfortable with this view of inerrancy?
If ANE authors wrote history in a different way and from a different worldview than us--we can't say it is inerrant and then make it speak to whatever we want. There is just too many opportunities for abuse cause we end up making it say what we want it to say.
It seems to me that many proponents of the total inerrancy of scripture really mean "my interpretation of scripture is inerrant". So any other interpretation is deemed an error and then the house of cards crumbles because total inerrancy requires it be all true or none.
Job being a parable is fine. What I often wonder about is stories like the flood and Adam and Eve and the genelogies of Jesus? If they were just parables and there never was a Noah, what does that mean for Luke?
Respectfully,
Cam
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