Brand new book on an important topic: How do we move beyond the Bible? Should we? Better yet: Since we have to, how do we move beyond the Bible into our world but do this biblically? This is the concern of Zondervan's new Counterpoint book edited by Gary Meadors: Four Views on Moving beyond the Bible to Theology (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)
.The book is of deep interest to me because of my book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible
, which addresses the same themes under the model of "discernment." Today I want to set up the book and then move into the first model of "going beyond" by my former colleague, Walt Kaiser, with his "principlizing method."
, which addresses the same themes under the model of "discernment." Today I want to set up the book and then move into the first model of "going beyond" by my former colleague, Walt Kaiser, with his "principlizing method."The Bible is from 3500-2000 years ago; how does a book that old still speak? New issues confront us -- like euthanasia. We no longer do some things in the Bible that are blatantly clear -- like Sabbath and food laws and greeting with a kiss and washing feet. We face issues no one in the Bible thought of -- like nuclear proliferation and systemic exploitation at a level the world has never seen. Some things the Bible affirms or only soft shoes we feel stronger about -- like slavery.
What to do? That is why a book like this is important.
Kaiser opens up with asking how an ancient text can be "applied" to our world (by the way, the word "apply" carries an approach to all sorts of hermeneutical issues, not the least of which is cross-cultural translation and belief the original form contains the content for all time).
Kaiser defines "principlize": "To restate the author's propositions, arguments, narrations, and illustrations in timeless abiding truths with special focus on the application of those truths to the current needs of the Church" (22).
Kaiser warns of the regula fidei and urges finding the big idea -- to find the subject of the text; he urges us to avoid imposing NT on the OT; find important terms. Then he urges that we push for propositional principles. Turn it into "we" and "present tense." He also speaks of the Ladder of Abstraction that moves from particulars up to generalizing principles and back down to particulars.
So Kaiser urges us to move from particulars to the general principle and then deduce similar particulars in our world.
His examples include euthanasia (Bible is against it in particulars and principles), women in the church (he's on the side of the angels on this one), homosexuality (traditionalist), slavery, abortion and stem cell research.
Kaiser sees perfection from Genesis 1 to Revelation along the lines of germs and seeds but not necessarily fullness. So Kaiser says the NT authors didn't go beyond and neither should we.
But there is a potent problem: one cannot principlize from a nonabolitionist text to abolitionism (as Webb says in his response). There is also a dangler in Kaiser's approach according to Vanhoozer: in which sense can Kaiser speak of "development" in the Bible?
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RJS,
My initial comment to Mr. Frye was quite sincere. IF you understand inspiration in that direction, one can believe that the scriptures can contain timeless principles that the authors themselves did not understand entirely.
But please don't confuse inspiration and inerrancy.
I'm not really on either side of this debate -- meaning I think both area bit off base.
ChrisB,
That's what I get for responding without reading the entire conversation carefully. But with respect to your original comment to John, I don't think that inspiration renders the question moot. Only a misinterpretation of inspiration renders the question moot.
The word inspiration is used in a very specific context in 2 Tim. 3:16 and context. Taken in that context it does not imply that there is any meaning beyond that intended by the authors. It is in fact a very utilitarian context is it not?
The method described here (moving from particulars to principles and back to our particulars) is an approach which sounds good but is fraught with difficulty in actually pulling it off. Even what might seem to be a simple example is not so simple. If we read Numbers 7 we might extract from the particulars of the offerings and the totals given in 7:84-88 the general principle that 12 x 1 = 12. With a little more work we may even get all addition for whole numbers. How do we determine, however, whether or not we got the principles from the text or had the principles to begin with and simply saw instances of them in the text? If we already had the principles then we didn't get them from the text. This might be even more evident in those texts where the numbers, at least on the surface, don't add up as we would expect (the reigns of Kings might be an example). I've yet to see a commentator question mathematics in such cases. Of course some might say I'm missing the point since the general principles sought here aren't mathematical but ethical. Unfortunately, it seems to me the mathematical case is simpler. How can I know whether a text is teaching against slavery or I see in it an argument against slavery because I already know that slavery is morally wrong?
John Frye has hit it on the head I think - now that I've actually had time to read and think about this.
The problem with Kaiser's approach is that it is too specific to the text. We can move from a text to principles and bring those to our times - but that isn't enough. There are issues we wrestle with for which there is no biblical precedent of any sort. Perhaps I will have to read the essay, but I don't see how he can favor women in the church and oppose slavery using his method. I also don't see how he can have anything at all useful to say about stem cell research.
There seems to be careless logic here by some in thinking that *theopneutos* in 2 Tim 3:16 means that "timeless truths" must result. How does that follow? To say that the writings (*graphe*) are God-breathed does not require that they are timeless in the sense of unearthed 'principles' waiting to be dug out solely by Enlightenment-driven methods of interpretation, but that the documents are from God through human authors. If timelessness is the intended essence of the writings, why in the heck are we deluged in both OT and NT with almost countless historical, culturally-bound details that are in no way timeless? As someone noted above, why didn't God just give us *The Divine Book of Timeless Principles* and be done with it? The idea that the revealed Story with all its cumbersome earthiness and time-boundedness can do by the Spirit its own powerful work in our lives without our vaunted hermeneutical wizardry seems oblivious to many.
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