Let me begin by saying that I appreciate all the comments I have gotten thus far about my approach to Scripture. You have been insightful and challenging which is the exact reason I put it out there. I was not exactly trying to “get your goat” as Shannon said, but at the same time I was interested in seeing how a controversial view like that would be handled. I am searching for an approach that can answer the contradictions found in the Bible in a reasonable way (I am sorry, but many of those books out there like Hard Questions from the Bible or whatever just don’t do it for me). I am still working on an approach to the Bible that accepts it as God’s Word, but allows for human influence. Regan posed the question that really is the chink in the armor of such a view: “How do you determine what is from God?” Once you start relegating certain parts of Scripture to human invention, what keeps you from dismissing the Bible as a whole? My anonymous contributor talked about undermining the text leading to “walking on shifting sand”, or as I always have been taught, “heading down a slippery slope.” And all of those things are considerations that must be handled. So let me see what I can do.

I hold that there are tensions in the Bible that fall into one of two categories. First, is the obvious—contradictions. If at one point the Bible says the sky is Blue, and at another point it says that the same time and place it was lavender, we have a contradiction. We see them in various places—differing Gospel accounts, differing numbers in the OT (sizes of armies, shekels, etc.), differing accounts of who actually killed Goliath. For the most part, we can reconcile them by citing sources, points of view, etc. In other words, we blame the human element in Scripture for that. The other category we call paradoxes—two things that are seemingly at odds, but that are true. God’s grace and judgment, forgiveness and holiness, the Fear of Yahweh and fellowship with Him. These are harder to explain (being that they are paradoxes), but we see that they can exist together.

Here is where the problem arises for me—when contradictions and paradoxes overlap. We know that God is love, but he is also holy and cannot stand to be around the profane. Thus, we see the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood, etc. We say, yes they got what they deserve for living a life of evil. But what about the Canaanites? What did they do to deserve being ousted from their homeland? Why were they to be completely wiped out? Just so the Israelites could have a home? I have to say, that bothers me a little. I see this sort of mentality grating against both God’s love and His holiness. In other words, the narrative seems to be contradicting what the rest of Scripture reveals about God. One might say, well this Scripture says something different about God and must be accepted too. I will concede such a point, but ask, “What are we to learn about God from this? Is He arbitrary, biased, cruel?”

I suppose a lack of sufficient answer up to this point led me to considering my view of the Bible that perhaps God did not order the annihilation of the people of Canaan. And if that is the case, I wondered what else had the writers atributed to Yahwe that might not have been. Maybe that was the wrong way to go, but I thought I would go somewhere and see what I found. I found that I could accept it there, but that I did have that nagging voice saying, “Who makes you the arbiter of Scripture?” So I throw the question back to you all: “How do you determine which parts of Scripture are human and which are divine, or do you not accept the human influence at all?” And for those that are wondering, the answer to such a question will determine whether I accept the Bible as the revelation of God for salvation, faith, etc. But it would be nice to know! :)

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Questions

So, I was watching the TN FL football game Saturday night and all I can see are those ugly orange shoes that the TN players are wearing. But that isn’t the point of this post.

Anyway, right before the second half starts, the sideline reporter says to Zooke, the head coach of the Gators (paraphrased with my own sarcasm added), “So, your quarterback is playing well. Are you going to run the ball at all in the second half?” What is the coach supposed to say? “No, we are going to pass on every down. We only gained 54 yards on the ground in the 1^st half. The running back had his chance. Too bad.” Of course not. Even if they were going to pass on every down, they wouldn’t tell the sideline reporter.

It leads me to a pet peeve of mine. Stupid questions.

You hear them on the sidelines of sporting events—“Coach why did you lose by 45 points tonight?” The answer is usually obvious—the other team is way better than us, and we can’t play offense or defense.

You hear them in the Miss America pageants—“If you could wish for one thing for the world, what would it be and why?” The answer is always world peace.

You hear them during interviews—“So, are you for the war in Iraq or not? If you say “yes” you are a warmonger, if you say “no” you think it is great to have a homicidal maniac in power.

You hear them from people you know—“How are you doing?” They don’t really want to know; they’re just being cordial.

Stupid questions lead to stupid answers and stupid conversations.

What happened to good questions? Questions that make you think; questions that don’t have pat answers; questions that actually mean something. A good lesson writer can ask those questions that get the people thinking and responding. But those questions are hard to come by.

I see that Jesus was always asking good questions. Normally when people posed questions to him, he answered in kind. Their questions were meant to trap Jesus or paint him in a doctrinal corner. But Jesus made them do the thinking. He asked the good questions. Socrates asked some good questions and made people think about their own presuppositions before he tipped his hand.

Imagine, someone making a statement, say on a forum or blog, that you disagree with and instead of reacting, you asked some insightful questions to mine out some more of their thinking and the things that lie behind their beliefs.

Imagine, someone is caught in a sin and instead of running to an indictment first asking how something might have happened, or perhaps what you could do for the injured party or to restore the offending party.

Imagine someone complaining about some arbitrary thing in the church, and instead of taking sides asking questions to see what lies behind their complaint.

As one who is quick to give his opinion about things, I would like to see myself and others around me ask good questions first, and then respond second. It is a call to humility, a call to understanding, and a call to patience.

Approaching the Bible

I finshed my response, and couldn't wait. So here it is.

First off, let me say that I am not dismissing any part of the Bible. However, I understand some parts to be human invention, perhaps not of God’s direction. And Shannon is right—God chose to leave them in. Maybe for theology; maybe to understand humanity better or differently. I am not sure. But that is something to discuss. What I am proposing is not new, nor is it an attempt to say that those before me did not properly understand the Bible. I do not have an “edge” on understanding God that others (far smarter than me) did. Many others have asserted and believed the same things I do which at certain points agrees with and at other points disagrees with those who went before. That is the nature of Scripture—it is so rich and deep that one man or community will never grasp it. Yet each generation of Christians struggles with deciphering just what this corpus of literature meant and now means. With that in mind, we struggle forth.

Let me try to lay out again what I am proposing. Regan said, “How can you tell what is biased?” I would reply, “All of it is biased.” It has all been written by men of faith advancing their own view of God, religion, and the world. I don’t discount the work of the Spirit, but in the end, men are still writing and I have faith that God is guiding the process. Now Tom worries that this view dismisses God’s “commandments”. This is of course, not the case. I don’t seek to dismiss morality or God’s call to holiness. But we all know that there are things in the Bible that are very situational that we no longer (or at least should no longer) adhere to. For example, Corinthians is full of situational edicts or “commandments.”

“Any woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head.” (1 Cor. 11:5a)

“Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law says.” (1 Cor. 14:34)

I doubt many of your churches refuse women the right to participate publicly in the worship service. And when they do, are their heads covered with a veil? I doubt it. Yet, such practices undermine the Scripture. Though I am challenged that I toss away certain parts of the Bible, we all do it frequently. How about all of the Levitical laws? What about those “commandments”? We dismiss them as archaic or not applicable to the New Covenant. The reason we take such an approach to Scripture is because of the human element that is inherent in the Bible. Even Paul admits that his own preferences have made it into the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 7:12 states, “To the rest I say—I not the Lord—that if any believer…” Clearly Paul’s own understanding and application of God’s commandments made it into the letter.

My point is simple—we all interpret the Bible according to our current situation. If a particular passage or commandment seems based on a specific context, we ignore it or find ways to reapply it. I am doing the same sort of thing. The OT is full of polemic—stories intentionally crafted to further a point of view or to discount a point of view. For example, the creation accounts in Genesis 1-2 are more a response to the polytheistic ideologies that ran unopposed in the Ancient Near East than they are an exact account of what happened. If that is the case, than why couldn’t other material from the OT be along the same vein? Why couldn’t the Israelites justify their wars by assuming God commanded them? All I am saying is that some of the “Thus saith Yahweh” phrases may not be from God.

We can talk about the implications of such a view. Like, “How do we know what is from God?” Or, “Were the Israelites then wrong for doing such things?” Or even, “How can I trust my Bible?” But I will save that for another day.

Let the flogging commence.

Hello? Anybody there?

Many of you might be wondering: “Where did Sam go?” or “What happened to him?” Now I was supposed to be short on blog posts because I was in Michigan and unable to get internet access. But that is not the case. We didn’t go to Michigan because Carrie and Elijah just could not make the trip. So, we stayed at home, and I recovered from sickness, and we sort of vegged out hoping to get better. But I am back now (to normal life not from somewhere) and will attempt to engage you, my faithful readers better. I never answered the questions from my last post about the nature of the Biblical literature. I plan to tomorrow. So stay tuned.
Blog ya tomorrow.

Pacifism and the Bible

I know I don’t have a great following yet on my blog, but for those who come regularly, you will notice that I haven’t had much to say. To be honest, anything that I have had to say has gone on the forums at the GLCC Alumni site. Even then I haven’t had much time to say some of the things that I have wanted to. So, I thought I might make some observations about what I have read.

I have a few things to say about the nature of God as revealed in the Bible. The Pacifism thread of the Alumni Forum contained much discussion about God always being right, and God commanding the Israelites to do some things, and us questioning whether these were right and so forth. It seems to me that the reason that these texts in which the Israelites are commanded to destroy entire nations are so difficult is because they grate against what we consider to be the unchanging nature of God. We consider Him to be Good, Loving, etc. How could a God of that character order His chosen nation to annihilate other members of His creation? The answer, in my opinion, does not lie in the character of God but in the lens with which we interpret the Bible.

Let me introduce a concept that might be considered heretical or liberal—what if God didn’t command them? What if in these texts we have Nationalistic polemic, or what I might call Divine Approval of Israel’s actions? In other words, what better way to justify your actions than by claiming that God has commanded and ordained them? We see it throughout history—the Crusades, the founding of our country, the enslavement of entire people groups, and every other “holy war” that has been undertaken. I believe the example for such actions stems from the Biblical corpus.

This view, though perhaps controversial, ends discussions about war ever being justified because God commanded it. I don’t think God does! This was the misunderstanding of the disciples in Jesus’ time. They expected Him to lead a rebellion against Rome to restore Israel to its proper place in the world. Yes Jesus came to bring a “sword” but not to fight with, but to divide with. He brought a distinction between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. The Kingdom of God is one of power, to be sure, but of peace. The power of God’s Kingdom revolves around restoration and redemption, and not about conquering fleshly strongholds, but spiritual ones.

Just some thoughts. Let me know what you think.