23 October 2022
By now I'm sure some of you are wondering where I stand on things like the inspiration of the Scriptures.
Western minds approach the task by trying to determine the nature of something (inductive analysis) and/or it's function (deductive analysis). It has to be nailed down one way, or another, and both if possible. Hebrew minds would never consider that approach. The thing itself doesn't warrant that kind of exploration. Their first question is to ask what God requires of us in regards that thing. If we can settle that question, nothing else matters.
During my college years, I was exposed to conflicting theories about the Bible. For a time, I was caught up in the so-called "conservative" side of that question -- using words like infallible, verbal plenary inspiration and propositional truth. It was very popular among my peers. It was also dangerously close to worshiping the book itself. Obviously I found that stand was impossible to maintain when I began to understand Hebrew intellectual traditions. But just so you'll understand, I also reject the "liberal" side of that issue, as well. I do not regard the Bible as just another collection of human literature. The Bible is different from all other books, past present and future.
I reject the notion that this is a question of what Scripture is (it's nature) or how it works (it's function) to the satisfaction of abstract intellectual analysis. For me, it's a matter of application, not classification. God says I should treat the message of His Book differently from anything else humans have to say. The message demands my respect. That's as much clarification as is needed.
The whole business of trying to make a formal statement about it is the wrong approach, if you ask me. Still, I should try to answer the questions that so many people have asked me. As always, I'm not trying to tell you what to believe. This blog rests firmly on the assertion that I have a testimony, and it may be useful to you. If not, it won't change my testimony in any way if you ignore me, or if you object to what I have to say. All I can offer is what God has put in my hands. Unfortunately, there is a big pile of nonsense I have to dismantle in order to turn around and build the real answer.
Fundamental statement: My faith does not rest on the Bible. My commitment is not to ink on paper. It does not rest on any particular translation of the ancient documents, either. I am wholly committed to a living Person that I find standing behind the words. That Person left a record of His dealings with humanity, by prompting His servants to write about it. It was never a part of His plan to invest that written record with magical powers. It cannot speak to you the same regardless of the context. You cannot confine it to objectivity; it's alive. This fallen reality in which we live simply does not permit any kind of objective perfection, either conceptual or concrete. Our fallen realm of existence is deceptive; everything is contextual.
That written record of God's revelation was captured in a particular language, within a specific culture and historical setting. The records were handled with the particular brand of care and reverence arising from the Hebrew culture, and that brand of reverence and care was not the same as ours. They saw nothing wrong with updating geographical references to keep up with current usage. They saw no need to preserve the ancient names. Those changes were not "errors"; they were edits. The documents were the property of the Covenant community, and they served the community's needs of the day. They didn't believe in copyright; they didn't even bother keeping track of the identity of the authors in many cases.
The Bible is a Covenant document; it belongs to that Covenant. It means nothing outside of the Covenant. If it doesn't unite with your convictions, it's just a bunch of words.
God didn't inspire His servants word-for-word except in a few cases. Indeed, when He wrote something with His own finger on stone tablets, He allowed those tablets to be lost eventually. Whatever purpose they served was temporal; the tablets had a distinct shelf-life that ended at some point. He specifically warned that physical objects of that sort often became a barrier to genuine faith, because people started worshiping the thing itself. He wanted the attention focused on Himself, not the things He used to gain that attention.
Jesus told a Samaritan woman that the Temple in Jerusalem was just a symbol, and that His Father would eventually destroy it because people had gotten way off track on what it should have meant. The only temple that matters is inside your own heart -- "in spirit and in truth". The Bible has suffered a similar misplaced obsession. The modern conservative evangelical doctrine about Scripture was picked up from the Pharisees, not from Christ. Put your faith in Christ, not the written record.
Over the centuries, the various documents included in the Book were subject to both intentional editing and plenty of accidental errors in copying. There are some parts of the text about which we cannot be entirely sure that we know what was originally written. For example, the Hebrew people simply did not have a penchant for numerical precision, and their writing lacked numerical characters. Thus, we are left guessing about the actual math in many places.
Finally, the text of Scripture has suffered some from malice. The Pharisees had a distinct ideological agenda, and most of our "best" Old Testament manuscripts come from their hands. They claimed a reverence for accuracy in transmission, but Jesus pointed out their lies quite often. The typical reverence of evangelicals for the Masoretic Text is misplaced; that's an artifact of the Pharisees who didn't have a clue about God. How many evangelical scholars will tell you that the Apostles had a tendency to quote from the supposedly "questionable" Septuagint?
And there are plenty of debates over the text of the New Testament itself. There are several passages in dispute. The ideological battles will never be resolved. Then again, there is an awful lot of Scripture that is not in dispute.
I take the position that the phrase "God's Word" cannot be confined to ink on paper, or electrons on a screen. God's Word can exist only in your heart; what is represented in artifacts is simply a record of His Word. I've stated often enough that I don't accept the notion of "propositional truth" and I'm quite certain the ancient Hebrews wouldn't either. If God's Presence does not burn in your soul, the accuracy of verbal transmission would have no meaning in the first place. If God's Presence does burn in your soul, then you are already equipped to discern what the writings should mean to you. The holiness God seeks is your desire to please Him, not your clinical precision in quoting one copy or another of that record.
Finally, there's the never-ending debate about which translation is the best or the "right" one to use. This question has spawned some of the nastiest battles, and some of that warfare is inherent in how the translators approached the task. The mere act of translating inevitably changes what the text says; you cannot avoid that. You should be quick to question what any English translation says.
What are we supposed to do? How do we proceed to serve a God whose legacy in this world includes a collection of documents with so many questions? Do you decide to trust some agency that claims to be His "true legacy" on the earth? Which church tradition is the right one, since they all claim exclusive authority? At least one major institution claims primacy over the Bible, and refuses to submit its policies to what Scripture says, asserting that it was the source of Scripture in the first place.
All you really have are your own convictions. I'll say it again: My faith does not rest on the Bible, but it is most certainly informed by the Bible. Instead of those fancy words, let's just say the Bible is trustworthy. Thus, my basic statement is that we are accountable to God for what the Bible says to us. It's His book in the first place, and we must use it according to how He gives it to us. How you approach the Bible is between you and God. A major element in how we decide to fellowship and serve together must of necessity include the element of how people answer this question. I cannot pretend that there is only one right answer, but I must not get entangled with people who can't tolerate my approach. They will only hinder my mission, and I will hinder theirs.
Does your faith require some human authority to serve the Lord? Then choose one and submit. My faith won't allow me to take that road. What I'm trying to do is offer you one more option for answering the call of faith. This is full disclosure. I'll question anyone's assertions about what the Bible actually says, and you should certainly question mine.
In our moral warfare against sin, our battle cry is "Covenant and conviction".
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