You might find this interesting from Randal Rauser:
https://randalrauser.com/2019/07/four-or-more-steps-to-making-sense-of-biblical-violence/
I also look forward to your thoughts on “Cross Vision.”
Thanks.
I am in 100% agreement with this view: God’s Truth is eternal. We look to the views of wise & inspired humans in past history to guide us to act in accordance with God’s unchanging Truth.. However, while that Truth does not evolve, the interpretation of the language in which it is couched most certainly does. This can be marked in two time scales: the centuries over which the language itself changes, and also the years an individual human matures and processes the symbols these words evoke.
I didn’t mean to claim that it is a mistake to honor Jesus with the title, ‘Christ the King’. As a child, I associated that title with the fabulous Camelot and good King Arthur. But as I matured, I realized that, outside of the world of fantasy, kingship most often just signified the accumulation of power over other human beings. Shouldn’t we be more aware of Jesus’ command and set aside a “Suffering Servant” day? Don’t think that would catch on, tho.
Al Leo
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It has caught on in some quarters … as we commemorate the Maundy-Thursday service in holy week and wash each other’s feet. Maybe that’s mostly an Anabaptist thing, but I doubt it. I’ve heard of other churches doing it too … I think.
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Our Baptist church was observing Maundy Thursday when I started going, though they seem to have stopped. But that was the first I’d even heard of Maundy Thursday, having grown up Baptist.
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I’m not surprised - it was Baptists I had in mind with my hesitation. It’s a hit-and-miss thing among Mennonites too. You’ve probably already separated yourself from 99% of everybody in even just recognizing the label. It wasn’t all that long ago as an adult for me before I realized it wasn’t a “Monday-Thursday” service just assuming there was something about all the weekdays in it that I didn’t understand.
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Apologies I’ve ben more occupied than usual… dealing with numerous various significant crises. Hope to get back to you with an adequate response.
Briefly, though, my embrace if traditional inspiration/inerrancy is essentially threefold…
1- Jesus reflects this kind of attitude toward Scripture. As much as Dr. Enns and others want to emphasize the human element of Scripture to the degree that it obscures any practical significance to divine nature, I simply don’t see that as being the attitude Jesus demonstrates. Every time Jesus engages with Scripture, he presents it authoritative, and unquestionable, and as God’s words, not (merely) human. When he says, “Scripture says,” he might as well have said, “God said,” they sound practically equivalent to me. When he references the “The Lord said to my Lord” passage, he refers to David speaking in the Spirit, but more significantly he took that “revelation” as something that had to be true. He didn’t do the “Enns” approach of, “David was making those words based on his own cultural approach, but let’s reimagine what this might mean to us…”. He seemed to say that what David had revealed through the Spirit meant that what was revealed there was absolutely true and binding on us. This is my impression of every time Jesus used the Old Testament. He didn’t use them as interesting illustrations, or the views simply of ancients that may or may not be interesting or useful. He referenced them in such a way as to suggest that knowing scripture ended debate. You can certainly further, deepen, expand, apply what Scripture has said, but may not change a jot or tittle of it.
When dealing with debates about the Sabbath, marriage, or resurrection, he referenced Scripture as having an absolute and unquestionable truth - that properly understood, it gave us the correct answers to these questions. His oft repeated, “Have you not read,” or “it is written” gives this reader the clear implication that, to paraphrase his words, “if I am in error (on some topic), it is because I don’t know the scripture.”
I don’t get the impression from Jesus that he would ever suggest, “You are in error because you are believing and following Scripture. You would do better to reject this (part of) Scripture as erroneous.” Maybe that I am not truly following it, that I’m not following all of it, maybe that I am misinterpreting it, that I am not following it to its full conclusions, that I have ignored part in deference to following some parts of it, sure… But I simply don’t see Jesus suggesting I would ever be erroneous for following Scripture, so long as it is properly understood.
I find an element of Lewis’ “trilemmma” in regards to Scripture - the way Jesus handled it and demonstrated we should, I feel like I’m stuck between believing 1- that he really didn’t think it was so authoritative, but he simply lied or glossed over that for whatever purpose (perhaps just to go along with the culture and not make waves - because, if there’s one thing we know about Jesus, we know he was most hesitant to shake up the status quo to bring people closer to the truth…), 2- Jesus erroneously had this belief and trust in the absolute authority and truth of Scripture because, hey, he was a first century Jew, and he didn’t know better, or 3- his attitude toward Scripture is true.
I may be mistaken, and I recognize other interpretations others have, but my own belief is grounded on recognizing Jesus as an absolute authority, the son of God incarnate himself, and thus I try to emulate the attitude he had to Scripture, which I understand to have been one of deference himself - even the son of God was in submission to this word and had to fulfill what was written therein to fulfill all righteousness.
Secondly, I recognize this approach to Scripture to have been the attitude of all the other writers of the Scripture - Psalm 119, for instance - I read it, and I think it safe to say that the attitude of Psalm 119 is the polar opposite of that which Dr. Enns endorses. Paul, too - as much as Dr. Enns wants to suggest that Paul played loose and creative with Scripture - I seriously doubt Paul would have endorsed this description. All Scripture being God-breathed, Peter’s description of inspiration and the ability of some to twist the scriptures, etc., all further confirm to me the idea that Scripture is absolutely authoritative is the basic belief of Jesus, the apostles, and the O.T. Prophets.
The attitude described throughout the OT toward Scripture further affirms this to me - “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Or consider…
“the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.”
This comes across to me as the attitude of a people that took the words of the “book” as absolutely authoritative to them. Needed to be applied, understood, interpreted, and translated, of course, but nonetheless absolutely authoritative and simply not to be questioned. These aren’t Moses’ personal ideas, or whatever - they are God’s commands right from his mind to us, however they were transmitted.
So, for me, the first pillar of my own belief is Jesus own attitude toward Scripture. Secondly, this is confirmed through the attitude I find throughout the rest of Scripture.
Thirdly, simply confirming the two above and finding that it “resonates” with logical and philosophy, is the simple fact that for any particular non-empirical, spiritual or supernatural truth-claim, there simply are only two alternatives. Either it was revealed by someone who knows (who exists on that side of the “veil”), or it is sheer baseless speculation. Will we have a resurrection to eternal life, for instance? Unless God has revealed this in some tangible, discreet, concrete manner in some form or fashion, then this particular truth claim is sheer fantasy. Leaving aside the logical possibility that God could be revealing lies (which puts us in the same position, essentially, as having no revelation), there simply are two logical possibilities: Either God has revealed at least some discreet, inerrant “truths”, or every religious belief ever about anything is sheer speculation.
You’ve often appealed to the sense of “justice,” and of God being “just.” May we use that as an example?
Do you believe that God’s definitions, sense, and principles of “justice” are identical to yours? I assume you would acknowledge that God must have at least some understanding of justice which differs than yours.
And, we must acknowledge, that although the idea of “justice” in general is rather universal, the specific principles and outworkings of what is and isn’t just have experienced tremendous diversity across the ages. Ghengis Khan had his notion of justice, Frederick Nietzsche had his, Jefferson Davis his, Kim Jong Il had his. If you have “permission” to edit Scripture and reject those parts that you find unjust, ought not King Richard I of England or Joseph Stalin or bin Laden or Pope Urban II have the same right to weigh Scripture according to their own cultural and experientially informed definitions of justice?
Again, this isn’t a direct argument for inerrancy, but I am more arguing against the only alternative. Whatever remains, however improbable… I see Jesus affirming Scripture as absolutely trustworthy, and the rest of Scripture doing so. Then, I recognize the only alternative to this is complete ignorance of God’s nature and character and morals, and this affirms the belief I began from Christ and Scripture.
There is far more to it than just that, but even this “short” introduction is getting a bit long, but there is my own ideas, for what they’re worth.
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In other words, plenty of other people throughout history and geography would have different views than yours of what “justice” entails - some of whom, their understanding of “justice” would not take find the issues surrounding the conquest as objectionable as you do. The authors of Joshua and Numbers included - questions of inspiration and inerrancy entirely aside - they certainly seemed to have a different view of justice than you do, one that did not have the same objection to the content attributed to God therein.
So briefly, on what specific basis do you claim that your human views of justice are more superior than those of other humans of different cultures? There are certainly some things we can derive from common grace and basic wisdom - but then there are numerous impasses across cultures on various specific points - including the rightness of such punishing deaths. If you simply claim your view superior, some would call this cultural imperialism.
It also seems that if we remove any divinely inspired or revealed standard of justice, then we also remove any final basis by which we could critique another culture’s moral code when it significantly differs from ours.
But then, we would need to be just as ready to have our own culture’s moral code so critiqued by said divine guidance, no?
Thus I’m forced to ask - what specific definition of “justice,” which by what person or culture’s understanding or definition, would you use to critique those parts of Scripture you find “unjust”? I’ve noted your observation that you would reject anything in Scripture you found “unjust”, or the like - but “justice” is not simply a clear, universal, unambiguous term that carries no disagreement. Atilla the Hun, Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Alexander, Caesar, they all have their own specific understandings of “justice” that will differ from yours. So my question back to you at present is that - which, specific, cultural or personal definition or formulation of justice are you using to critique what you find in Scripture, and how have you decided that to be the correct standard among the multitude of others?
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Perhaps I’m less busy than Randy at the moment, so I hope y’all don’t mind my butting in, to reply for myself at least - and still looking forward to Randy’s own reply later. There is much to agree with in your (short!?) reply. I’ll just pick up on this one thought for now.
Regarding justice, the undisputed diversity of detail notwithstanding, I suggest that there is only so much elasticity in the concept, if Paul’s admonition in Romans 1 is to have any meaning at all. We are expected to be able to judge for ourselves that cheating others out of things, or punishing the innocent are bad things to do … any culture, any time, anywhere, by anybody (even God). So yes, we do have the tools to judge other cultures and ourselves.
If God had not given us at least some sense of what a core of justice is like then his appeals to us to “taste and see” his own goodness would be a meaningless gesture (not that we would be in any position to “judge” it as such since all orientation of good or evil would be nothing more than mindless adherence to the whims of whatever notions of deity we had.) So I think it is essential that there is a transcendent good and that our God revealed in Christ operates by it and expects us to do the same within our much more limited understandings.
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We do Maundy Thursday foot washing and talking about serving others as a family. The Anglican church I went to in college had a foot-washing service during Holy Week.
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Quite correct - and hence why every culture has some concept of justice, even as the specific details change, and thus I concur with your description above.
The “devil” is in those details, though. Does justice demand self-sacrifice for breaches of honor, as former generations of Japanese believed? Does it demand whole families share in the guilt of the fathers, as many other cultures believed? Is it right to withhold any and all retributive punishment, as our culture seems to largely embrace over against what seem most other historical beliefs of other cultures?
However, it seems self-evident that there is enough diversity of opinion on the topic at hand to recognize therein lies the problem: as to what is or is not just - whatever elasticity there is or isn’t, there is enough diversity that allows the culture of the ancient Hebrews, as recorded in books as Numbers or Joshua, to have a view of justice that is in very great tension with that which Randy I understand to be proffering. And there are plenty of cultures and individuals across history whose ideas of justice would fall closer to the former than that of the latter. Hence, the dilemma remains.
However, I think it also self-evident that, if we are sinful and he is not, if he is perfect and holy in his justice and we are not, then there will be some areas where we “taste and see his justice,” and do not like what we taste. If God is holy and we are not, then de facto, there will be some times and places where we submit our beliefs and standards of justice to his, embrace his, and repent of ours.
There’s a balance somewhere - Lewis made a similar observation somewhere I’ll try to find. I can’t remember the details, but basically it reflected that on the one hand, it would make no sense if what God saw as black we saw as white, and there was absolutely no overlap, for the reasons you noted above… but on the other side, neither should we expect that, just because we found something offensive, that we should immediately judge ourselves to be in the right and the other person (whether God or another person) to be immediately morally bankrupt since I equate my understanding of proper morality to be the standard by which all good and evil ought be judged.
I think Randy’s perspective would suggest that what we’re talking about in the conquest is so extreme, from his perspective, that it falls into the former category. and of course, I disagree on that particular point. I think that is the basic crux of our divergence.
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Shame on me for not remembering that we Catholics do focus on Jesus’ command to be as suffering servants with the foot washing ceremony during Holy Week. But, at least to me, it kinda gets lost with all the other ceremonies leading up to Easter. After giving this matter some deeper thought, I see that our church has done a credible job in undertaking an almost impossible task: comprehending the absolute total devastation that Jesus’ disciples must have felt when witnessing the agonizing and degrading death of their Messiah whose destiny, they firmly believed, was to lead Israel to a glorious future.
While it is impossible to ‘transfer’ the experience of one human being to another by means of language alone, actually participating in the proper remembrance ceremony may be the next best thing. As an acolyte (altar boy), my participation in these Holy Week services probably molded me to a greater extent than I will ever realize.
Al Leo
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Hope that wasn’t cause and effect…
May be time to check out " Odor. Eaters…"
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Haha! I don’t remember them actually doing foot-washing though… but it was the first time they did communion up front where people had to come up instead of having it brought to us, so that was a nice change – I kinda wish we did it that way all the time.
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I do remember one time we did foot washing at church. The funny thing about is is that it was scheduled and announced, so I am sure everyone showed up with freshly scrubbed feet, fresh socks and nails trimmed to have their feet washed. Best time to do a foot washing is after a church picnic.
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Since the “Age of Enlightenment”, Science has been seen to interact with religious Faith in a number of different ways. Some scientists (e.g. Richard Dawkins) claim that science has replaced faith. There is good evidence that this view is flat out wrong. It is much more useful to follow Einstein’s dictum that Faith without Science is blind, but Science without Faith is lame. I would (respectfully) like to point out that, in your quote above, the first part of the Einstein view certainly applies.
I am assuming that a good percentage of Christian Fundamentalists agree with your view that: (Moses’ words in Genesis) are God’s commands right from His mind to us, however they were transmitted. Of course there are ways that ideas (or commands) are transmitted from one human mind to another. I am using language and the internet to do so at this moment. But even if we accept the assumption that God’s ideas can be transmitted to the human mind, it would be totally miraculous that this occurred regardless of HOW this was accomplished.
Your statement that the words in the O.T. "need to be applied, understood, interpreted, and translated" is, of course, quite true, but your further view that these operations are “absolutely authoritative and simply not to be questioned” ignores any assistance that science can give in a genuine search for the truth.
While I recognize the very human desire for a solid anchorage for our beliefs, I believe that DOUBT rather than INERRANCY provides a surer path to TRUTH. I see the discussions in this Forum as proving that this applies in searching for truth in religious faith as well as in scientific endeavors.
Al Leo
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Thanks for outlining the basis for your view, Daniel. Sorry to hear that you’re facing some crises. I hope they resolve in a way that shows God’s hand and heart.
I would describe my way of reading the Bible with the same first two points: following the examples of (1) Jesus and (2) biblical writers. Our difference, of course, is how we each see Jesus and those writers using Scripture. It seems to me that you’ve allowed too few of Jesus’ engagements with Scripture to influence your distillation of Jesus’ view of Scripture. I’m left wondering how you deal with all the places where Jesus and biblical writers don’t seem to stick to your restrictions.
To give an example of each, I’m not sure how you deal with Jesus’ approach in the last three “You have heard… but I say” statements in the Sermon on the Mount. You touched on the first two on murder and adultery, and I agree they fit your framework of “deepen, expand, apply.” But the ones on oaths, retaliation and treatment of enemies (highly relevant in this thread!) haven’t been addressed, and these are the ones that seem to venture into the forbidden territory of “change.” Even without direct quotes, and with continuity with some Old Testament texts, Jesus challenges other texts.
The way Jesus sides with one voice over another voice in the Old Testament leads to my second example. Regarding biblical writers, what do you make of how the book of Joshua depicts the people obeying everything Moses commanded (Joshua 1), even as they promptly make treaties with Rahab and the Gibeonites and allow everyone in Rahab’s house to intermarry with Israelites? It looks to me like their enthusiastic embrace of the conquest commands in Deuteronomy 7 and 20 squeezed out the most problematic element: identifying the enemy solely by nationality and location. The most detailed conquest story (of Jericho and Ai) seems focused on subverting this demarcation by showing Canaanites who are good Israelites and Israelites who are as bad as Canaanites. They fulfill it all while turning it upside down.
I can see how just focusing on the effusive praise that Jesus and biblical writers have for past revelation could lead to a view that they simply took it all as written. But when I see the radical way they transformed the very words they praised, it doesn’t look so simple. They’ve set an example that can’t be followed mechanically: it requires creativity and passion.
Finally, I still can’t see how the logic of your third point works. But I’ve said enough about that before. For my own third point, I’d be more comfortable giving conscience a greater voice in showing what is good and what leads us astray. I don’t see our heart as any more compromised by sin than our mind, so I don’t see value in elevating what seems logical over what seems good. If a system for reading Scripture paints God as monstrous, it is broken and harmful. The system must change, even if the changes make things messier and less systematic.
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Wow, Mr Fisher, if this is brief!..but thank you. this is the sort of thing that requires a bit more reflection, and I’m not likely to get that for a few days. I hope your work is going well. I’ll try to think over and read this well.
Blessings.
Randy
brevity has never been my strength. 
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Mine, either. No problem. I am sorry for the delay; things are also hectic here. It is a beautiful July in Michigan, though, and I’m enjoying the trips to and from work. I hope you are doing the same.
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Even if I took the opposite position, and embraced the idea that Jesus himself in fact discarded, changed, or rejected OT teaching in view of something new that he himself was establishing, I cannot see how this could be understood as giving precedent for us to do the same. The incarnate, eternal son of God comes into the world and modifies and/or annuls one of his preivous laws, why would I ever think that gives me carte blanc permission to do likewise?
Even so, I simply don’t see them that way - there are various understadnings of the last 3 of his sermon topics - but given the lengthy introduction to that section that, at face value, certainly seems to communicate he wants us “not to think” he is abolishing the previous laws, then given from the first 3 points that the “you have heard… but I say” formula clearly does not automatically mean “previous is annulled and not in force, I’m telling you the correct answer…” Then I simply can’t think any of them are blanket annulments or instance of complete repeal. I don’t think “eye for eye” means we should abandon all such laws that require proportional punishment in the law court, and rather set up legal precedent that if I sue someone for $1,000,000, then I automatically should get paid $2,000,000 without going to trial. Rather, I see him there communicating that the basic principle - good, right, appropropriate - of proportionality in punishment, does not translate into personal vengeance. Similar to the others, though I grant they are complex.
Here, however, I would agree with you largely - I don’t see Jesus as carte blanc ignoring or annulling anything that was in the law (there is discussion as to whether “hate your enemies” was even intended to be a summary of the law or if this is his reproach of an attitude that contemporary Judaism had inferred.) Rather, he is using the previous revelation to clarify - using the tried and true method of “letting scripture interpret scripture.” Just as I still attempt to do myself. Even limiting myself to the Old Testament, I see King David showing genuine deference, love, kindness, and mercy to his deepest enemy, even while (I understand) he was praying imprecatory psalms against him, and while “turning the other cheek” in certain real manners, he was nonetheless taking measures to defend himself.
So, if you’re suggesting that Jesus was using Scripture to interpret scripture, in essentially the same way I attempt to do - embracing all of it as absolutely authoritative, but recognizing that no single verse can be expanded into a platitude that automatically covers every sense, situation, or nuance; and genuine truth and godliness must be arrived at by wrestling with all God’s revelation, letting some aspects nuance, shape, qualify, clarify others, just as the love or mercy Joseph showed for his enemies or David his enemies or Israel showed to Rahab qualifies and nuances the other statements and actions of justice, judgment, imprecation, etc…
Then I think we are in large agreement.
Thus I could read “you’ve heard it said, love your neighbor, hate your enemy…” as a simple and obvious overview and summary of much of the OT experience and law, but nonetheless, Jesus was reminding his hearers of something they should have known by reading the OT on their own. Simultaneously with whatever struggle and hatred of sin and cry for justice and necessary wars and all the rest you should have toward evildoers and enemies - you simultaneously need to love them. Just like our heroes of the OT did.
(This, by the way, is a very, very critical distinction I think our military Christian combatants or law enforcement officials need to have - what it means to love the enemies they are about to put bullets into. I don’t say it lightly. That is a very vital and important thing to consider and to balance carefully.)
Thus, to your other observation…
I simply don’t see them as transforming said words. As I think you suggested yourself, if I read you properly (and if so I wholeheartedly agree), Jesus himself in this sermon wasn’t really introducing anything radically new, rather, he was wrestling with everything that had already been written, embracing the truth of all of it (with the effusive praise you note), but coming to some much better conclusions than his hearers or their teachers. But point is, as I read it - he didn’t introduce anything brand new, and he wasn’t setting anything aside. He was rather taking other parts of the law that his hearers had apparently quite conveniently forgotten and used them to further interpret the more “popular” things they were living.
If I found a group of Christians that were arrogantly full of themselves, talking about how glad they are they aren’t as bad as some other sinners over there… I could imagine myself saying something along the lines of …“You have heard it said, ‘God gave them over to shameful lusts…’ but I tell you that we are the chief of sinners.” And I wouldn’t be denying anything, but rather taking all scripture seriously, but emphasizing the parts this crowd seemed to have forgotten to qualify the parts they seem to know quite well.
I would agree that I was using Scripture creatively, with passion, and that I wasn’t follow the NT mechanically. But I would not say I “transformed” anything therein. “Transform” suggests a bit too much to me. Every sermon wherein anyone applies anything true from scripture to a new situation, or explains one passage in light of another, would fit in this approach I’m seeing. But I would never say that someone (no fundamentalist/evangelical like me, at least) is “transforming” what was written into anything new - or if we do so, I need to be reproved for so doing-- rather we’re rediscovering the various consequences and seeing new application or implications of what was written before. I think it a very important and critical important distinction.