Ooh, great stuff. I’m anxious to know the other 3 views/contributors. Kaiser, Webb (trajectory hermeneutic?), and two others? Thanks again, Scot, for your Blue Parakeet book that offers a way forward. I keep going back to it and pointing others to it with various parakeet passages. I’ll be waiting to see where your discernment method fits in with these 4 views.

“So Kaiser urges us to move from particulars to the general principle and then deduce similar particulars in our world.”
ISTM that Jesus made the general principle of the scriptures pretty clear in Matt 22 …
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Nevertheless, how we apply the command to love in our own contexts isn’t nearly so clear. This is the challenge that NT Wright calls “to work out a fifth act”.

Mr Patton over at Parchment and Pen posted a similar discussion this week. He provides an interesting visualisation of various approaches. Kinda helpful I think:
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/11/orthodoxy-theological-maturity-and-the-development-of-doctrine-from-theological-dna-to-maturaty/

Seems this book may raise the same concerns as Phyllis Tickle’s “The Great Emergence”. Have you had a look at that writing?

Daron, yes, I’ve read Phyllis’ book; this book is a completely different kind of book.
Going Beyond the Bible is by biblical experts who have a hermeneutical approach that differs from the others and they are like iron sharpening iron.

“There is also a dangler in Kaiser’s approach according to Vanhoozer”
Was that intended to be “danger”?

My question is: Did biblical authors write knowingly that their manuscripts contained “timeless truths” to be discerned by later readers? Or, did they write particulars for their era and audience? With Tom Wright’s observation, I think we end up investing authority in our keenly discerned principles and not in the text itself because the text without the principles does not address us. Is this really where we want to go? Even writing this I feel like the flea on the elephant because I highly respect a scholar like Walt Kaiser.

If there was such a thing as “timeless truths”, why weren’t they just put directly into the Bible? Sure would have saved us all a lot of work and heartache. I suspect that his “timeless truths” are timeless only for people living at the start of the 21st century.

Scot,
Do you see any development in Kaiser’s ideas since Toward an Exegetical Theology? If not, then going beyond the Bible and going beyond Kaiser are somewhat similar notions.

From where does the accountability come in an approach like this? It is simple to see a passage in scripture – “Slaves obey your earthly masters” – and apply it because it is explicit (I’m not qualitating this just pointing out that it happens because it is simple). The principle behind such a claim, though, isn’t spelled out nearly as “clearly”. How then do Christians come to consensus on principle? Does the Ladder of Abstraction help in this process?

John Frye said: “Did biblical authors write knowingly that their manuscripts contained “timeless truths” to be discerned by later readers?”
Does inspiration render that question moot?

ChrisB,
Only if you’ve already decided what inspiration means.

“I like it when they say a movie is inspired by a true story cause that’s weird. It means the movie isn’t a true story it was just inspired by a true story. ‘Hey, Mitch, did you hear the story about that lady who drove her children into the river and they all drowned?’ ‘Yes I did and that inspired me to write a movie about a gorilla.’”
Mitch Hedberg on “inspired”

Travis,
If it might, then the conversation should stop until you figure out what inspiration means.

Thanks, Joey. Utterly unproductive.

Well, I’m glad we can have a sense of humor about things. Utterly uptight? I jest.
To be more “productive” even if the original writers didn’t think of their work as particularly inspired, their contemporaries did:
2 Peter 3:15-16 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Inspired might be an unhelpful word since it isn’t a word that scripture uses to describe itself. In the very least Peter infers that Paul’s writings are on par with scripture (Torah, Prophets, etc.). Maybe a better question is, Were the scriptures “inspired” only for their immediate audience or is there a biblical case for there being “timeless truth”?

Joey-
“Were the scriptures “inspired” only for their immediate audience or is there a biblical case for there being “timeless truth”?”
If only for their audience, then the NT would not have seen the OT has having timless truth.
Why do I feel that this is turning into a discussion similar to what “the definition of “is” is”.

Forgive me if I’m just splitting hairs but, Rick, the NT and the OT are very different in nature and it is for that reason that the OT held such “timeless truth”.
The Torah – a book of laws and regulations for an entire people group through whom God would bless the whole world. Handed down from generation to generation from its inception to modern day.
The History – books that recount the stories of the faith – they teach us about God and His people. These stories give rise to great traditions and holidays as people seek to embrace their history as a means to their future.
The Psalms and Wisdom – self explanatory.
The Prophets – timely exhortations that show, not only history, but insight to the heart of God.
The Gospels – history and the story of Jesus and the Good News He came to share.
Acts – a book of history to show us the early church and what happened to the people of God after the resurrection.
The Epistles – letters written to specific groups of people for specific reasons and then handed off to their neighbors and fellow Christ followers.
It seems to me that each was carried on for different and important reasons. The OT was not carried on because of “timeless truth” but because of identity and mission. The NT wasn’t written for “timeless truth” but for “timely truth” through which we can gain instruction, knowledge, hope, and understanding when applied to our context. That doesn’t mean that the NT isn’t “inspired” or even scripture – I believe that it is. But it is of a different nature than the OT and believed to be scripture for different reasons (not limited to Apostleship, goodness, consistency, self-proclamation, history, and tradition).
The question here is how can we take something that was written for specific contexts and find life and authority in it for our own. I believe that we can and do.

Joey,
The idea — and essentially the word — of “inspiration” comes from 2Tim 3:16.
“All Scripture is God-breathed [ie, inspired-CB] and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…”
Paul was talking to a NT person about the OT.

Thanks, ChrisB – I had missed that reference when looking.

ChrisB,
The nature and meaning of inspiration is an essential part of this conversation. I strongly affirm what Paul says in 2 Timothy. But I’m not sure that extracting “timeless principles” is the best way to use Scripture, for the very good reason John Frye (#7) points out: once we have the principles, why keep the text? Paul says (speaking of the OT) that Scripture is useful for training, rebuking, etc so we can do good works. He doesn’t say timeless principles derived from Scripture by use of human reason are useful for training in righteousness.
Additionally, seeing the Bible as a depository of principles can lead us to interpret Scripture through these principles, and domesticate what is a wild, challenging, and life-giving narrative of redemption. It’s better to admit we don’t fully (or at all) understand parts of the biblical narrative than to shoehorn in some kind of anachronistic moral because we believe every single story has to have an obvious point recognized by all.

Chris B,
We all know that reference. I restrain the influence (perhaps unsuccessfully) to enter into the sarcasm of both sides of this exchange. And continuing on the —- even more importantly reading the letter and scripture in context including the way Paul for example used scripture (and the rest of the NT authors) demonstrates that it does not mean what modern evangelicals want it to mean.
Yes – scripture comes from God and is useful for useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. No question. But this does not mean “inerrant” in the sense of the Chicago statement, nor does it mean that interpretation is to be literal and the only use/meaning is the historical one.

You should explain things to the reader (such as “regular fidei”, “on the side of the angels”), not assume we already know them. Paragraphs can be longer than one sentence. Further explanation would be helpful on most of the topics you brought up.

Just one observation about the book in general that might help guide further discussion. Even though the book claims to be about going beyond the Bible to theology, it is actually about going beyond the Bible to ethics. Kevin Vanhoozer does deal with one theological issue (mariology), but the rest of the application includes euthanasia, women in ministry, sexuality, abortion, stem-cell research, slavery, weddings, gambling, architecture, sexuality, war ethics, and corporal punishment.
The book is a must read for anyone interested in hermeneutics and biblical application, but be prepared for a heavy does of ethics instead of theology. You can read the rest of my summary and review on my blog, but I look forward to following these posts and the discussion that develops.

Travis Greene (#21),
I appreciate your comment and you clarify what I am trying to say. The historico-grammatical hermeneutic in the hands of some evangelicals has produced an arrogant certainty that they in fact know what every line of Scripture means and how it applies to the current world. The results of that hermeneutical method parade as Holy Spirit-illuminated truth. But dare object to the “assured results” of that hermeneutic and all hell breaks loose on you. You can be excoriated not for anything you believe about the inspired text, but for not agreeing with the *particular* interpretation that someone holds dear. So, in practice, inspiration is read into the interpretation, not just believed about the text itself. So people can quote 2 Tim 3:16-17 until Jesus comes back, but what they are really defending is their merely human-produced interpretation. We must not kid ourselves that this is not the case.

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.