Comments on: So What Should We Do with the Bible? – Guest post by Marla Taviano

By: Rediscovering the Church » Highlighter day

Rediscovering the Church » Highlighter day — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:55:53 +0000

[...] So what should we do with the bible? by Marla Taviano (this is still my most-read post) [...]

By: Peter P

Peter P — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:20:38 +0000

Nicely worded Tim.

I personally do believe in the six day creation, but that’s less important to me than believing that the six-day creation was POSSIBLE for God.

Thanks for chiming in!

By: Tim Jones

Tim Jones — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:55:37 +0000

We take our own enlightenment very seriously… so we enter into debates about things like creation, inerrancy and proper biblical interpretation…

We split hairs over questions like “Did God create the universe in 6 days?” but we neglect the real issue:

Has our intellect and our reliance on human wisdom brought us to a place of doubt about whether or not God COULD create the universe in 6 days?

If we believe that He COULD, but we hesitate to believe that He DID… why?

Are we embarrassed by that kind of faith? Do we fear that naturalists, humanists and atheists will sneer at our foolishness?

Or do we think that we’re really that smart?

Just wondering?

By: Helen

Helen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:12:17 +0000

I second number 3 whole heartedly.
The Bible is inerrant. Our interpretation of when poetic symbolism is used and when a literal interpretation is necessary isn’t. It is Jesus who saves, not our interpretations. THANK GOD! Because there have been so many splits over interpretations over the last 2,000 years, who’d be safe?

By: Tim Alley

Tim Alley — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:36:34 +0000

I have a question on the inerrancy question. The question is, is scripture inerrant (i.e. without flaw) in our English translations or only in the original written text? Is the Bible as originally written God’s Word or the words of man trying to describe what was impressed upon them by God or simply the descriptions of God by flawed men.
I believe that, in this point Peter is correct, that if we teach in our churches and schools and tell our children that the NIV or KJV or Living Bible or any other “translation” or “version” is inerrant, we do them a GREAT disservice. Inevitably, any translation or version of scripture will over time become less than accurate to the readers due to changes in human society and therefore the understanding in connotations of words. However, the contradictions and “errors” in our english translations, will in a vast majority of situations be eliminated through a proper understanding of who the passages were being written to, what their purpose in being written was, the culture of the time and meaning of the words being used to the writer and the readers. Therefore, I would say before one begins to attack or discredit the inerrancy of scripture or the accuracy of the accounts of scripture it would be useful to understand the original text and not just an english version of the original text.

By: Mark Traphagen

Mark Traphagen — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:04:28 +0000

Gabe,

With all due respect, I’ve read your comment over several times and still can’t understand clearly what your point is.

I *think* (but am not sure) that your comment in your second paragraph is implying that I have given up on literalist inerrancy because some people “lack faith.” That is not at all what I was saying. My observation was NOT that we should abandon inerrancy because it takes too much “faith.” I was pointing out that telling people there are no scientific/historical inaccuracies, no contradictions in the Bible sets them up for a big fall when they are exposed to data not filtered by churches and pseudo-scientific Christian organizations and find out it just isn’t so. My protest is that saying the Bible can only be God’s word if it was written in the same way we would write a modern history or science textbook is not only unnecessary, it is dangerous: when people find out that isn’t true, many fall away from the faith.

Instead of accusing me of “shoving God in a box,” why don’t you deal with the data? Why don’t you respond to my example (I’ve got plenty more where that came from. My experience in similar debates online is that inerrantists never will deal with the actual data. When pressed, they retreat into pious doctrinal statements, or imply they have “faith” and I don’t.

By: Jane

Jane — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:19:26 +0000

I wasn’t being sarcastic with the atheist comment; I’ve heard similar things from atheists in the past, usually with a smug tone. “There are contradictions in the Bible, therefore God doesn’t exist.” If you google “contradictions in the Bible” you will find several pages of that nature by atheist writers who are using things like the Esau’s wives thing or the different number of angels at the tomb to say the whole Bible is a fraud.

If we tell our children that, and the enemies of our faith tell them that, and then they find apparent or real contradictions in the Biblical text, what will they decide? That kind of scorched-earth approach does seem to be faith-destroying.

The two accounts of creation study has shown up in several places I’ve read. Off the top of my head, there’s a VERY detailed comparison in Gary Rendsburg’s “The Book of Genesis” course from The Teaching Company, and I know it was mentioned as early as in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.

By: Emily Kay

Emily Kay — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:40:16 +0000

I know I’m not Jane, but I just wanted to comment on the “two accounts of creation” theory. I went to a small, Baptist university and they taught this theory in my Old Testament class. Ruffled quite a few feathers, to say the least. I was neither convinced nor impressed. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why Scripture had to be viewed under the lense of literature and why it had to conform to traditional story structure. I tend to agree with Tim Alley’s comment and explanation of the subject.

By: Peter P

Peter P — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:52:36 +0000

I’ve been watching and monitoring the comments on this post and I have three things to say:

1) I would love to add some amazing wisdom, but I’m not sure I have any and I’m not going to wade into a discussion without really having deep convictions and the ability to prove my point.

2) Thank you for keeping it all fairly civil. It’s a great discussion and I hope it continues in the same vein.

3) I am just so thankful that even though some of us may disagree with each other on some of these things, we are still all saved. God is so graceful and merciful that we don’t have to have perfect theology to be saved, salvation is a free gift to those who hear and believe. Ironing out some of these points as we learn and grow is good but I thank God that we have that shared bond of being part of God’s family as we discuss and try to understand the deeper things of God.

Feel free to keep the conversation going, I think it is useful and important!

By: Gabe Taviano

Gabe Taviano — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:27:22 +0000

Read through the comments, and had to jump in and remark on what Mark was saying when he suggested in his second point that “One of the major reasons many of us have begun looking for alternatives to literalist inerrancy is we have seen how it has destroyed the faith of so many around us.”

When we start looking at the faith of other sinful human people and stating that the Bible can’t be literal just because of how their faith is lived out, we’re starting to play some dangerous games.

We’re talking about human beings, not robots. Free will is HUGE when you start looking at the inerrancy of scripture and try to match it with how it plays out in a sinful world. Look at some of the scholars that have fallen in sin, after spending years and lots of money to go to seminary to gain a better understanding of God to share with others.

God is so much “OTHER” than us, that sometimes we just can’t take being human I guess. The Word that God has given us does not depend on how much like God we can become. If that were the case, why would He have bothered? If that’s our view, then I’m sure we wouldn’t be in awe when we look at the heavens and admire the Creator. We might see a star falling and think He isn’t in control. Or that we think the sky would have looked better if that one little star would have stayed in place.

Enough of the nitpicking and trying to shove God in a box I say. His Word was given to us so that He can be glorified through us, and that our lives can better resemble Christ’s while here. Some parts were written through interpretation by humans in the culture they were in, and some weren’t up for their interpretation. I believe God would have allowed those that He had write it fudge a little if He wanted them to. No matter how much we nitpick, we start “thinking” that we’re making God smaller and more recognizable. Not possible, many have tried.