Being honest about the Bible
I normally find John Hobbins one of the most eirenic, balanced and coherent of bloggers, so I was a little surprised to find him making (what he cheerfully acknowledges) as an indefensible claim. He says:
One indefensible claim I am prepared to make is the following: that Scripture, just as we have it, in translation or in the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic copies in hand, is the Word of God and is fully and verbally inspired.
He justifies this statement by saying
That’s what happens when you are in love with something. You say indefensible things in praise of it.
He has, of course, already undermined himself by calling the versions and translations alike “fully and verbally inspired.” And then he promptly goes on to undermine it by pointing to contradictions, copyists’ errors, and inadequacies. In the process he effectively redefines “fully and verbally” and, indeed “Scripture” in ways that would give those who normally use the language of plenary verbal inspiration conniptions if not infarctions. John defines these words and phrases (as I would define “Word of God”) by reference to the actual text(s) as we have it (them). But in so doing, I’m no longer sure what the words mean, or why one should need to make these claims, when they are prompted more by doctrinal disputes and definitions than by the texts under discussion.
It is all very well to say that love is blind, and then go on to make loving statements blindly, but that may not persuade anyone else that the object of our love is worth loving, or that we see clearly. So they may dismiss our infatuation as just that, and believing they see more clearly than us the imperfections of the beloved, simply turn their backs. So, I would rather find a language that looks realistically, and still loves. Perhaps, with sincere apologies to the Bard,1 I might (tongue-in-cheek) offer the following:
NotesMy scriptures’ words are scarcely well set down;
Koran is far tidier, than its poor sort.
If texts be pure, why then its scripts are brown;
If words be clear, darkened be its import.
I have read moral fables, clear and bright,
But hateful deeds and crimes fill out its tales;
And in some traditions is more delight,
Than in the law which from its pages hales.
I love to read its words, yet well I know
that scribe and tradent have their own imposed.
I never heard how God’s words from him go;
In human tongues my Bible is composed.
But God-in-flesh, this scripture is so fine,
that human words, and life, can show divine.
- Sonnet 130 [↩]
August 24th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
God alone is infallible. To make the Bible inerrant (the same thing) is to make paper, God. It’s blasphemous and no Christian theologian worth his salt can claim it.
August 25th, 2007 at 3:39 am
I don’t agree with Jim.
To be sure, all of the terms in question, infallibility, inerrancy, verbal inspiration, the statement that the Bible is the Word of God, can be used improperly as well as properly.
By improperly/properly, I mean in non-conformity/conformity with the intended referent.
My primary concern is that we use these terms in a biblical fashion. Here are some examples of what I mean. If infallibility of the word is defined in terms of Isa 55:1-11, both stand or fall together.
Furthermore, infallibility of God’s word has to be defined in such a way that a sequence of prophecies and events like that reflected in Jeremiah 34 and 52:7-11 remains within the realm of possibility. That is, prophecy “A,” intervening event, prophecy “B,” intervening event(s), fulfillment, which does not correspond to either “A” or “B.”
Put another way, it’s not my fault that many readers, a ton of evangelicals among them, seem unable to define the infallibility of God’s word in a plenary sense, that is, with reference to both text and subtext, to use familiar lit-crit terms.
Jonah was not so stupid. He knew that when he preached 40 days until doomsday for Nineveh, there was an unspoken subtext which meant the word of God he preached was infallible, but also conditional.
It is possible to speak about the infallibility of the word of God that is faithful to the biblical witness.
Second example. Verbal inspiration. Well, inspiration is a term used in the Bible in reference to other parts of the Bible. Presumably, it can be used for all of it, with the proper qualifications of course.
But what about verbal inspiration? It was James Barr, no fundamentalist he, who mounted the best defense I’ve seen of this concept. Defensible linguistically and theologically. Are you familiar with it?
I don’t have the reference handy. I have a vague memory of having read it in a document of that instrument of the devil (please note tongue-in-cheek), the World Council of Churches.
August 25th, 2007 at 4:37 am
I updated my original post to reflect this conversation.
August 25th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Thanks John, I think we probably do similar things in practice with the scriptures which would point to us in fact having a similar doctrine. It’s just that we’re disagreeing about the language with which we describe it, in the context of the use and misuse of that language in current debates / divisions. I find that the language has become unhelpful, because it is heard as saying something quite other than what I think you are saying, and used to de-humanise the Scriptures rather than anything else.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:20 am
I LOVE the poem. Cleverest thing I’ve read all week. Thanks!