It's All or Nothing

[Pastor Justin Johnson]

So, I started my OtBOF study yesterday and had a great discussion. One of the sticking points that folks had was a discussion around the "All or Nothing" approach some people have to the Bible. By this I mean the idea that you have to believe all and everything in the Bible or the whole thing is wrong.

Where did this idea come from? Why do some Lutherans believe this?

We had a great discussion around this which is going to lead to chapter 2 of the book, I see us going to the Jonah discussion. What are your thoughts?

[The Rev Dr Keith A. Spencer]

To believe that Jonah wasn't really swallowed by a fish does not automatically mean that one doubts the resurrection or that Jesus was the Son of God, walked on water, gave sight to the blind, or fed more people in an afternoon with a handful of food than our food pantry does in a year with several thousand dollars in support. I have heard some posit the argument "if something in the Bible is not literally true, the perfect blow by blow account of an actual historical event, then everything is up for grabs," for most of my life. I ask myself "why?" Why do we do this to ourselves? Where is this holy rule that says so? Who tells us such a thing and by what authority do they teach? Why do we construct such a limiting framework for ourselves? Why do we force a modern understanding of history and truth into an ancient culture in which our ideas of history would be incomprehensible? That Paul likely didn't write all of the letters attrributed to him in the New Testament has been accepted by most Biblical scholars for many years - the changes in nuance of language, the addition or subtraction of key phrases and so forth - likely some of his followers/friends wrote some of them and attrubted them to Paul - a practice that we might find shady, but that ancient writers of the Bible would have been completely cool with. Standard practice two thousand years ago.

Also, science is not ipso facto in a battle with faith for our very souls. Try reading "The Faith of a Physicist" or other works by people of faith who happen to be scientists. Without further muddying the waters, to suggest that the two accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 may have been borrowed from other ancient cultures and God injected into them replacing the pagan gods of those cultures isn't heresy either.

If folks want to take the "all or nothing "approach to Scripture with respect to it representing a perfect history of absolute facts, ignoring cultural nuance and literary forms, so be it, if it works for you. I have met a number of people content with that understanding. But don't stake the rest of the world's faith on it or call into question that faith because whatever you base that particular literal belief on does not come directly from Scripture itself, or the teachings of the Lutheran Church, which leaves some thread of tradition or personal revelation as the root cause, I suppose, though I an open to other possibilities.

[Bobbie Steinhauer]

My experience as a woman of faith, requires me to understand a little bit about the culture of the of the writing of the Bible. I know that women were important to God, they were prophets and leaders and called to serve in profound ways. This wasn't relevant to the men recording the Bible. So, I have to accept that some of my story, as a woman called to the service of Jesus, was simply ignored by the culture, not by Jesus.

I have often wanted to hear Jesus' birth story. I want to know did Mary cry out? How long did she push? Was it fast or did it take days? Was she in labor when they arrived? Who helped her with the birth? Surely it wouldn't have been Joseph, more likely the inn keepers wife, but we will never know who the first person to touch and look into Jesus' eyes were. Because these were matters of women, unimportant to the men who wrote the story. So, it is necessary that I accept that though God worked through these authors, they were still impacted by their culture.

If I didn't accept that and know that there was more to the stories, I would simply be disillusioned by Christianity. So, because of my belief that I can, through historic study, put into context why women were forgotten. It allows my faith to be strengthened. This is a different all or nothing perspective, but for me it fits under the same idea.

[The Rev Dr Keith A. Spencer]

Has anyone had the issue raised in their classes about how there isn't just one version of the Bible when we talk about "The Bible?" That scholars don't agree on translation particularly when some of the Hebrew is obscure? That we have to have footnotes in places, like the issue of the final Chapter of Mark - where does it end? (I believe Pastor Johnson touched on this). That translators have had to compare a number of ancient Biblical texts and then informed choices when those (the texts) disagree.

[Pastor Justin Johnson]

We actually made the discussion part of the class and then had fun looking at different translations during the Bible study. Bobbie our Bible study leader last week brought in 6 translations for the Jeremiah text and we had a lot of fun finding the almond rod translations which most of the time said "branch." When we went to a Bible Dictionary/Commentary we learned that it was indeed a rod, like the one Moses had. Which led to a whole bunch of other discussions.

The Rev Dr Keith A. Spencer said:

Has anyone had the issue raised in their classes about how there isn't just one version of the Bible when we talk about "The Bible?" That scholars don't agree on translation particularly when some of the Hebrew is obscure? That we have to have footnotes in places, like the issue of the final Chapter of Mark - where does it end? (I believe Pastor Johnson touched on this). That translators have had to compare a number of ancient Biblical texts and then informed choices when those (the texts) disagree.

[Rollie Smith]

Hullo Bobbie,
I hope that you and your family are well. If you don't mind me saying so, I feel a wee bit of kinship with you in that we both have posted pictures of our families. I don't know if anybody else has, it's just that we are the only two that I know of who have done so.
I realize how knowing the history can help in understanding the Bible. I have a few books by William Barclay, two on Mathew and one on Luke, and these have been a big help for me because he explains so well the customs and the culture of day that the Gospels happened
I too have often wondered about Mary, I love her response to the angel when she said “may it be done to me according to your word." . What an awesome statement of faith! I can see what our Lord saw in her. Did you see the movie the Nativity Story that was out maybe two years ago? It really help me to see her as a real person. And I don't know that what I'm about to say can be born out by scripture, but I think a big huge advantage that the “last Adam” (Christ 1 Cor 15:45) had over the first Adam was that Christ had a mother, a mother's love and a mother's tender care. Poor old first Adam, fresh out of the dust, never had a mum. To those who interpret 1 Cor 15:45 as Christ being the new human prototype, I would say that having a mother was a big factor in making the new prototype better than the first prototype. But again, this is but my opinion, and I'm not so sure I can stand on scripture on this. Anyway, Bobbie, I do enjoy your efforts in getting people to look more at the women in scripture, and if you do get up a study guide, please don't do it just for the women, us guys need our eyes opened to the women's rolls, perhaps even more so than the women.

[Rollie Smith]

Rev Dr Keith
In our BOF class at Holy Cross in Athens, we have numerous versions, including but not limited to the RSV, the NRSV, the NIV, the Amplified, the Good News Bible, the KJV and the NKJV, and maybe the Message. For the Exodus 3 study I even brought in my 5 books of Moses by Everette Fox. It is interesting to hear* the Word in different versions, and it does help me get things I never got from reading just a single version.

* and I do enjoy hearing the Word read. I read the Bible a lot silently, but hearing it read by another is something almost comforting. There have even been Sundays when I serve at the 9 AM service when often they leave out the Old Testament Lesson that I hang around for the 11 AM service just to hear the Old Testament Lesson read aloud and then leave.

[Verle Reinicke]

I have contended for quite some time now that Fundamentalism is an attempt to outrationalize the rationalists. Much of this lies in the Enlightenment, which was, in part, a reaction to the failure of the church in Europe beginning in the 17th or 18th centuries. Descartes' "Cogito, ergo sum" was a different wayto come at truth or reality. I'm not much the philosopher, but numbers of thinkers at this time began the kind of thinking some might call secular. There was a certain emphasis away from God to the human and human reason. The American political system is the product of the Enlightenment. Not all of this is bad: one might ponder Ps. 8 which can be understood to sing the praises of human beings and the honor and dignity with which God invests in us. The ability to think and all the other gifts given to human beings are lauded. However, the direction the Enlightenment took often was that God was put on the back burner in favor of the human.

The Enlightenment afforded an opening up of deeper looking at things. It opened up the ability for us to look and study things critically. When applied to the Bible (and this started in Germany among other places in the late 18th Century), it meant that it was subjected to a very probing look as to how it was put together, who really wrote the texts, when was it actually written, the discovery that with the Torah, for instance, there were multiple layers of composition and several writers involved. This latter would shatter the notion that Moses was the one who wrote those first five in the Old Testament. They looked carefully at the texts, comparing existing manuscripts, and the like. Some of the work done was interesting and helpful in our understanding of the Bible. Some of it was wild and a lot inbetween. Much of it was controversial. The Bible had not been looked at or thought of in this way until then.

In the early 20th Century, numbers of scholars and Bible thinkers decided to write about their criticism of the critics. It resulted in "The Fundamentals" written by many authors. I've started reading them, and they are thoughtful. The writers know the critical approach inside and out, but they reassert a more literal and traditional reading of the texts. Out of that writing arose what we call Fundamentalism today. Among other things in the more popular expression of Fundamentalism were certain things that were necessary to be present in order for one to be called a Christian. Among them were a literal/inerrant reading of the Bible, belief in the Virgin Birth of Jesus, a bodily resurrection and others. I think there were about seven of them in all.

In the United States, this approach took hold and spread all over the land. I think that there is no religious group or tradition has been able to escape Fundamentalism. It made religion easier and simpler. It gave a sense of the Bible as trustworthy. It became a kind of litmus test for many, and it survives to today. I had a brief conversation a year or so ago in the parking lot of a rest area on the interstate. A man was passing out pamphlets and talking to people. It happened that we were parked next to each other, and, as I was getting in my car, he accosted me asking me if I was saved. I said that I was because I was baptized. He said that that was not good enough. I said that it was. He countered again, and finally I said emphatically, "YES IT IS!!" and got in my car and drove away.

Fundamentalism as we know it is afraid of thinking. In some ways it can be likened to certain expressions of pietism, which emphasizes the heart over the mind. That is very ironic because the writers of The Fundamentals were thinkers and could argue their case very well in the face of "modernism."

Douglas John Hall, emeritus professor of religion at McGill University, Toronto, says that rationalism measures everything: it quantifies everything. It creates closed systems, which are manageable and safe. Fundamentalism, to my ken, is that kind of closed system, but it's safe and predictable. It makes for a good black and white world. Faith can't be measured or quantified. It doesn't fit any of the systems that reason can create. You can't really say in any reasonable way what faith is. It's not unlike some of the stories of Jesus in the gospels. Sometimes he declares salvation or healing when there seems to be no demonstrable evidence which might point to faith. Faith is not always obvious or identifiable. However, if you have these "fundamentals" against which you can make judgments as to whether one has faith or not, then it becomes easy. But it is a rational system. The Fundamentalists are not asserting the independence of their thought over against reason. They have used reason in their own way to make faith something that has certain markers, without which one cannot be called a Christian.

As for the Bible, literalism and inerrance, are no more than rationalistic ways of asserting the authority of the Scriptures. You can define clearly what the Bible is, and you protect it against assaults of reason and criticism. The American Lutheran Church (1960s) had literal and inerrant language in its constitution. When the new church was formed in 1988, there were those who wanted that language in the consitution again. Fortunately, that was resisted. Those two words don't really fit in very well with a Lutheran understanding. It is another case where human efforts are imposed on the Bible. I love the passage in Is. 55 which talks about the Word of God accomplishing what it will because that's the way God wants it. Human efforts at hemming it in with words like literal and inerrant force the Bible to be something it is not.

Certain literal views will persist, and part of what Book of Faith can do is open the Bible up again, and let it be what it is, a gift from God but thoroughly through human agency. Inspiration (cf. Peter) is not so easy to tack down. It certainly defies a neat simple definition. The Bible can, in some ways, it seems to me, to be seen as incarnational. The Bible is another way in which God comes among us, asking us to part of the conversation and working the new thing he is doing. Don't we see it? (Is. 43:19) The Book of Faith can help us to see again.

[DanielTurner]

Well, me and my friend Mollie were studying last night and noticed that Paul makes the comment "but I speak to you by indulgence, not by command." If Divine Inspiration is real that still does not neglect a human element to the scriptures. I found Karl Rahner's first chapter in Inquiries to be helpful in understanding the issues concerning Scriptural criticism.

[DanielTurner]

Oh, and that's in 1 Corinthians 7:6. I was using the Douay Rheims translation. King James uses the word permission rather than indulgence. NIV says, "I say this as a concession, not as a command." The point is that Paul is admitting his own role in authorship.

DanielTurner said:

Well, me and my friend Mollie were studying last night and noticed that Paul makes the comment "but I speak to you by indulgence, not by command." If Divine Inspiration is real that still does not neglect a human element to the scriptures. I found Karl Rahner's first chapter in Inquiries to be helpful in understanding the issues concerning Scriptural criticism.

[The Rev Dr Keith A. Spencer]

The more I read in the field of the history of Israel the more I am comfortable with the idea that large chunks of the OT either
(1) probably never happend (but may contain echoes of traditions and experiences of some event)
Take for example the Exodus narrative as we now it recorded in Scripture.
(2) have some basis in historical fact greatly changed through the pens of those writing with religious/political agendas

And my faith is pretty cool with it.

[Dwight DuBois]

We were given a parable (of sorts) in today's news that speaks to the question, "Did Jesus really say what's recorded in the Bible?" and "If he said it, why are his words recorded differently in different books?" The parable:

A 19th-century watchmaker named Jonathan Dillon claimed that he was repairing Lincoln's pocket watch when news arrived of the shots fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the start of the Civil War. He recalled inscribing:

"The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try."
He recounted the story to a reporter from The New York Times in 1906 and his family has kept the tale alive since then.

The Smithsonian Institution acquired the watch in 1958 but forgot the story. A great-great-grandson of Dillon's told them about it last month and on Tuesday, Smithsonian officials had a watchmaker open the device. It turns out that Dillon's remembrance wasn't perfect. While there was a hidden message in the watch, the actual inscription is:

"April 13 - 1861," the first line reads, "Fort Sumpter (sic) was attacked by the rebels on the above date. J Dillon." The second part repeats same date, states the location as Washington and says, "Thank God we have a government."

The story recounts the simple truth that we don't always remember exactly what we said, let alone what we heard someone else say. Mr. Dillon apparently 'elaborated' on his memory in the aftermath of the war, adding the implication about the end of slavery.

This is not to imply that Jesus' words are not to be trusted. As others have said here, we don't worship the Bible (and exactly what is written in it), we worship the God to whom the Bible points. The interpretation of what is said there is always fluid. And for that I give thanks, for it gives God the freedom to continue to speak to us over time as the context of our lives change.

[Sue Stover]

This has been an interesting conversation to follow! I believe it reflects the wrestling with what I hope turns out to be one of the best contributions the ELCA makes to "the interpretation of Scripture." It has to do with how we understand the term "inspired." The ELCA Constitution states that we view the canonical Old and New Testaments as "inspired by God's Spirit speaking through their authors." I like that statement, because it feels "open" enough to comprehend nuanced interpretations of the word "inspired." Try this: Respond to the following statements as "True, in my opinion," or "False, in my opinion":
* The Word of God inspires me (inspires us, inspires the Church).
* The writers of the books of the Bible were inspired by God.
* The general concepts or messages conveyed by the writers of the books of the Bible were inspired by God.
* The text, or specific individual words, of the original 66 canonical books of the Bible, in their first (original) languages, were inspired by God.
* The people who hand-copied the books of the Bible in its original languages were inspired by God.
* The translators of the Bible into other languages were inspired by God.
* Today's translators and scholars of the Scriptures are inspired by God.
* Every word of every version in every language of the Scriptures is inspired by God.

Doesn't it all depend upon how we define the word "inspired"? And what does "truth" or "true" have to do with "inspired"? Can "truth" reside in analogies, myths, and even texts that differ in various versions?

What I appreciate about the ELCA's interpretation methods of Scripture is an open-mindedness to questions, to pondering, to dialoguing about God's Word. I imagine a visual aid--2 pots of soil, one of which is clay, tamped down hard, dry, shrinking from the edges of the pot, infertile. The other pot's soil is slightly moist, rich, aerated, fertile--I could easily dig into the soil and sift through it with my fingers. The hard, infertile soil is the literal interpretation of Scripture. The moist, fertile soil is the ELCA's approach, also called the Living Word of God.

My experience in Bible conversations recently has been that people feel a new freedom in Christ when they can come to the Bible without having to chalk up their questions to, "I guess you just have to believe this," [whether it makes sense or not.] Rather, being allowed to raise questions, point out discrepancies, and recognize the mere humanity woven along with the Spirit through the Scriptures is almost a mountain-top experience for the people coming from the hard-clay soil.

I'm interested in responses--is anyone else witnessing this new freedom?