Wow! I’d heard that about the book of James, but the other three?! Not too surprised by that selection, though Hebrews does surprise me a little. If I also recall correctly, wasn’t Luther pretty much a raging antisemite by today’s sensibilities? And Hebrews has much fodder for the clear superiority of the new covenant over and against the old one. It’s pretty much almost the go-to book in that regard.
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I wondered how bad it really was… yeah it’s bad
In addition, “their rabbis [should] be forbidden to teach on pain of loss of life and limb.” Still, this wasn’t enough.
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@Mervin_Bitikofer Check out some noteworthy trivia from Justo González
The Diet of Spire of 1529—the same in which the Lutheran princes protested and were first called Protestants—approved the imperial decree against Anabaptists.
What followed is no laughing matter
The martyrs were many—probably more than those who died during the three centuries of persecution preceding Constantine. The manner of their death varied from region to region, and even from case to case. With ironic cruelty, many were drowned. Others were burned to death, as had become customary with heretics centuries earlier. Some were tortured to death, or drawn and quartered. The stories of heroism in such difficult circumstances would fill several volumes. And still, the more fiercely it was persecuted, the more the movement grew.
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Well, relying on that source for lazy people:
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- Ever foolishly argued over Scripture with a Jew, James White, a Roman Catholic, or a YEC?
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I had a dream where I forcefully told Douglas Wilson that reasonable people can disagree about the Bible
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You ignore the fact that the apostle admonishes us to judge – it’s just a different Greek verb, and it means to assess or analyze and reach a conclusion. Assessing teaching as false comes under that admonition.
So-so; it fails to assess what counted as heresy in the first half-millennium of the church, which was pretty much always something to do with Christology. Later it was broadened to cover everything in the Creed.
From my reading of Augustine it’s pretty plain that he would define “error” far differently than those today claiming inerrancy.
I was asked to give the message in morning chapel once in grad school; the above is the text I was given. I tackled it from the point of view of a believer in Corinth whom Paul had baptized . . . and forgotten.
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I remember the first time a professor handed us a Koine Greek text that had no chapter or verse markings. I turned out to be from Luke, but without verse numbers it was actually harder to recognize!
The next time he did that it was from St. Eusebius.
That was actually a common thing among Roman/Western theologians at the time. I recall a history text that asserted that if in the century prior to Luther if a poll had been taken, Revelation would have been dropped from the canon.
There was actually a cardinal who agreed with Luther on Jude and Revelation, so it was not really a big deal at the time; it was made so at Trent.
Hebrews took a long time to be accepted as canonical. I remember reading records from Orthodox notes on various small councils where in one it was accepted only after one bishop pointed out that its troubling passages would be subject to the same rule as troubling passages in already-accepted books: interpret according to the Gospels.
Young Luther or old Luther? Nazis didn’t like Luther because through much of his life he counted as a “Jew-lover” and could be quoted that way.
What changed was that he expected that once the Gospel was made available in common language Jews would understand it and convert in droves. When that didn’t happen it was a severe disappointment and disillusionment that slowly turned him bitter.
That was an argument that carried the day in Alexandria especially. Athanasius relied quite a bit on Hebrews in arguing against Arius, who apparently wasn’t too keen on the book.
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Moral: never piss off a German peasant who drinks heavily when upset.
The contrast with the young Luther is sharp enough it can be hard to believe they were the same person; young Luther was nearly a champion of treating Jews well.
I have long believed it too bad that Luther’s view on one of those didn’t prevail from the second century onward; a great deal of mischief has been perpetrated in and on the church due to that final book.
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Agree to disagree with that analysis.
Live long and perspire.
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And all this time I had no idea that either Augustine or Luther were Americans…
“It is from those books alone of the Scriptures, which are now called canonical, that I have learned to pay them such honor and respect as to believe most firmly that not one of their authors has erred in writing anything at all. If I do find anything in those books which seems contrary to truth, I decide that either the text is corrupt, or the translator did not follow what was really said, or that I failed to understand it…it is only to the canonical Scriptures that I owe such a willing submission that I follow them alone, and believe of them that their authors were not in error anywhere at all in them.” (Augustine, letter to Jerome)
I do not reject them. But everyone, indeed, knows that at times they have erred, as men will; therefore, I am ready to trust them only when they give me evidence for their opinions from Scripture, which has never erred. This St. Paul bids me to do in I Thess. 5:21, where he says, “Test everything; hold fast what is good.” St. Augustine writes to St. Jerome to the same effect, “I have learned to do only those books that are called the holy Scriptures the honor of believing firmly that none of their writers has ever erred. All others I so read as not to hold what they say to be the truth unless they prove it to me by holy Scripture or clear reason.” (Martin Luther, “Defense and Explanation of All the Articles)
“I have learned to ascribe the honor of infallibility only to those books that are accepted as canonical. I am profoundly convinced that none of these writers has erred.” (Luther, Contra malignum)
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Oh man…honestly?
Bill, most here are Christian and accept the new testament and the gospel. If you are going to refute the book of Revelation, then you had better string together some biblical evidence supporting your claim there.
Ill start by highlighting a reference supporting the general Christian belief…
Revelation 12.9 The great dragon was hurled down–that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
Now the big problem for you is that TEism claims Genesis is allegorical…the serpent talking with Eve is a metaphor.
That further supports the Christian view and puts your statement above in a pickle in that you appear to deny both YEC and TEist Christian doctrine on this.
thats a Wrestlemania smackdown if ive ever seen one…oh hang on, isnt smackdown an American term?
According to Webster’s, the first official time that the word was used came in 1997 in the WWE by Dwayne Johnston (The Rock)
Yes. Show me where in the Hebrew Bible the serpent is identified as a satan. Hint, in the Hebrew Bible satan is a title and not a name.
No you need to show the Biblical evidence for this. Revelation 12:9 is based on 1 Enoch (a non-canonical work). And there are multiple different ways to interpret Revelation.
No it doesn’t and repeatedly telling you so doesn’t appear to sink in.
Edit to add. Using allegorical methods has a long history and certainly pre-dates evolution.
Christian doctrine is a much wider tent than you seem to realize. Adam you continually strawman your version of what you think is non-YEC doctrine.
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I was taught when I was young that the Bible is inerrant.
Later:
I found the Bible never claimed that for itself.
I saw a few undeniable errors.
I learned that there are multiple canons, so even asking “which Bible” is needed.
And I reckoned that a belief in inerrancy is neither required nor helpful in following Jesus.
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Our Sunday school recently began reading “Stuck Together - the Hope of Christian Witness in a Polarized World” by J. Nelson Kraybill.
In early chapters of the book, the author wrote of the ways that Hebrew scribes and scholars interacted with their own scriptures back in Jesus’ day. They saw it as a text with tensions (a “text in travail” with itself, as has been said), and they had various camps that would debate those tensions, as one can also get a feel for from watching the series “The Chosen”. Kraybill speaks of two main camps in Jesus’ time: That of Rabbi Shammai, and Rabbi Hillel. The former was all about the letter of the law (the Torah). These would be your “every jot and tittle” folks. The latter camp was much more interested in the spirit of the law. Kraybill quotes the Babylonian Talmud here:
For three years there was a dispute between the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel, the former asserting the law is in accordance with our views, and the latter contending that the law is in
accordance with our views. Then a heavenly voice went forth and said, “Both are the words of the living God, but the law is in accordance with the rulings of the House of Hillel.”Since, however, both are the words of the living God, what was it that entitled the House of Hillel to have the law decided in accordance with their rulings? Because they were kindly and modest, they studied their own rulings and those of the House of Shammai, and not only that, but even mentioned the opinions of the House of Shammai before their own.
Also in the Talmud we read of a potential convert who …
wanted to convert to Judaism. This happened not infrequently, and this individual stated that he would accept Judaism only if a rabbi would teach him the entire Torah while he, the prospective convert, stood on one foot. First he went to Shammai, who, insulted by this ridiculous request, threw him out of the house. The man did not give up and went to Hillel. This gentle sage accepted the challenge, and said: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this - go and study it.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31)
I really love these illustrations - because we can identify which of these camps Jesus also aligned more with, in how he responded to similar challenges. His answer wasn’t to banish all opposing camps of thought as being outside any consideration, but to embrace the camp that itself did a better job of keeping the various camps in sight. And we even see this lived out in Jesus choice of disciples who themselves came from an astoundingly wide variety of camps of thought. Jesus scorned those boundaries and pulled people in from scandalously different polarizations.
It isn’t that he didn’t favor one side in particular (Hillel) - but he didn’t use that to ostracize the people of other opposing camps. He may have opposed misled quests for some imagined ‘purity’ but he allowed for relationships to persist across all those lines with any who would have him.
I think that’s a great model for the church today. People can get all bent out of shape trying to attack or defend “inerrancy” with respect to all sorts of jots and tittles; but it seems unnecessary to get hung up on the minutia (the “dill and the cumin”) when there are very much bigger fish to fry (that have actual impact on what we do with scriptures today): E.g. - the foreigner: are they something to be feared, lest they infiltrate ‘our’ culture and ‘pollute’ our heritage - whatever we deem those things to be? Or is the alien to be welcomed and cared for since we ourselves were once aliens in the House of Egypt? Even the first testament is in travail with itself over large and real questions like these - and can be specially curated by either side to build a case in its favor. Christians have a final written testament that helps (or should have helped) to resolve that particular question with a particular finality - and yet did so while preserving the original tensions found in the original text - yes - there were/are concerns and motivations in play that should not be forgotten in one’s headlong rush to venerate just one camp as the victor (even if rightly so).
I look forward to the rest of Kraybill’s book to see if he has insights about holding these loose camps (relationships) together, even while adjudicating truths among them that often favor one particular side. That’s a million dollar question for me right now: how can falsehood be vanquished and truth venerated without vanquishing relationship?
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Just the way Christians should be treating each other, while discussing theology.
/ sarcasm
Sounds like a valuable read these days. Thanks for the quotes.
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