Sansblogue

Verbal inspiration, a question

February 3, 2012 tim No comments

I’m sure people who claim the verbal inspiration of Scripture have an answer, but I’m puzzled. Jesus says in Mat 19 and Mark 10 that “Moses”¹ gave permission for divorce “because of your hardness of heart”. Does this mean that Jesus considered Deut 24 to be Moses’ own teaching? Please do not answer on behalf of others, or offer facetious answers, I am not trying to be “clever” just to understand how the claims of verbal inspiration work. Many of my students and fellow church members hold the idea, but I can’t get my head around it.

Or “he” presumably refering back to the Pharisees “Moses” in Mark. [↩]

Biblical, interpretation none

The Facts of the Matter

February 2, 2012 tim 2 comments

Do not thump the book of G’Quan. It is disrespectful.

Many discussions around the Bible founder on the shoals of factual accuracy. The “facts of the matter”, and claims that they are either accurately or inaccurately reported, generate much heat (and for those who like good knock down arguments¹ delight). This should not surprise us, for since the Enlightenment, we have worshiped “facts”.

Indeed respect for the facts has served us well. Truth is found when the facts are reported and marshaled into arguments accurately.

Yet, always, but especially in matters of relationship, there is another sort of truth. Faithfulness too can be truth. In fiction when a character acts in ways which ring true to their nature (as built up elsewhere in the story or the corpus) and to the relevant aspects of the world as we know it (remembering that willing suspension of disbelief plays a role in all poetics) we say the story is “true”. Likewise when the other things all good fictions communicate, the attitudes and elements of worldview “fit” with (i.e. are faithful to) what we believe, we say the story is true. Similarly, in the ancient world,² when an ambassador spoke a message that represented faithfully what his lord would have intended, his words were true. This would have been so even if the message was in fact contradicted by a written communication that spoke differently – if the lord would indeed have spoken differently in the changed circumstances.

To expect the Bible to conform to the first sort of truth, in a world which lived by the second, is mere fundamentalism (a thoroughly modern system).

Of course, to interpret a text which seeks to be faithful requires more skill and judgement than to interpret one which aims at the facts. And isn’t it interesting how often “the facts” serve to support and sustain the status quo?³

Amanda at Cheese-Wearing Theology has posted this month’s Biblical Studies Carnival, in what ways is the “world” (of bibliobloggery) it presents true?

What H. Dumpty described as “glory”. [↩]
Before modern technologies made swift or even almost instant communication at a distance possible. [↩]
At least until the pressure for change becomes almost irresistible, at which point somehow those flighty facts change sides. [↩]

Blog, interpretation, Teaching Bible none

More on the Bible and marriage

February 2, 2012 tim 2 comments

From a webpage titled: History of Winnie the Pooh

Gavin (at Otagosh) posted a fairly long response to my piece Biblical marriages. Since he took the trouble to reply at some length as a post, I’ll do the same.

His critique starts

Then Tim makes an amazing statement: “In terms of the teaching of Scripture it is clear that Gen 2 is a privileged text (Jesus and Paul both cite it when discussing marriage).”

Genesis 2 is a privileged text? In what sense? Both Jesus and Paul cite other texts too. Or, to be more specific, Paul and the Gospel writers cite other texts.¹

Well, yes, evidently both Jesus and Paul² also refer to other parts of Scripture. A full treatment of what the Bible says about marriage would need to treat them and yet other texts (that neither of these use) also. But still it seems to me, for a Christian reading of Scripture the fact that both Jesus and Paul (more than once) cite Gen 2 does make that passage a somewhat privileged locus for seeking a biblical understanding of marriage.³ No, Gavin, I cannot accept that all texts, or passages, are equal. Like most people⁴ I have a “canon within the canon, though it will be different for different purposes and I think that (as I began to here)⁵

From a webpage titled: History of Winnie the Pooh

Gavin continued:

There were no “red letter” options available to indicate Jesus’ actual words, quotation marks had yet to be invented, and speaking of “invented”, much (please note that I’m not saying all) of the material attributed to Jesus has clearly been put into his mouth.

This seems to assume that when I say “Jesus” my interest is historical. There is a terrible tendency in modern thought to value history and “facts”. But I am not a historian, I am a theologian, my primary interest is not in reconstructing a plausible history but in the character “Jesus” who inspires and is the centre of the New Testament. This Jesus whether or not “invented”⁶ does make special use of this passage.

This section of the post concludes:

Tim’s decision to anoint Genesis two as “privileged” is entired [sic]⁷ theological and subjective.

I hope that I have shown that the first is entirely true, but perhaps to be expected of a theologian, and that the second is true only in the most general sense. I gave a reason that Gavin did not like, and in a short post failed to present any of the others, perhaps I have begun to rectify that lack above.

Gavin then quotes something I wrote and rejects it. I wrote:

“in this (as in everything else) human sinfulness warps and twists God’s intent. All of the ‘biblical’ marriages listed in the graphic reflect this.”

Gavin replied:

The problem is that, as Tim knows full well, the documents themselves contain little or no condemnation of these customs. If there’s warping and twisting going on, wouldn’t you assume that this would be signalled within the text?

Well, Gavin and I might assume that, but the fact is that biblical narratives though they frequently recount the most terrible breaches of God’s desires (as expressed in the texts themselves) seldom mark them as such, we cannot rely on such explicit markers. But then the simple fact that no Bible character (with the arguable exception of Jesus) is presented without faults, sins and failings might suggest – and certainly does to my theological reading – that the Bible sees humans as sinful, warped and twisted. Nice middle-class liberal moderns may not like it, but we are all broken and in need of repair.

On the charge of biblicism that Gavin closes with, perhaps I’d be happy to plead guilty.

I am sorry, I have spent half an hour playing with HTML but cannot reproduce gavin’s emphasis in these quotes, something to do with the way this theme handles blockquotes :( [↩]
See below, I’ll continue to use these convenient shorthand designations despite Gavin’s scorning of them. [↩]
Much like a blog post getting lots of links would privilegeit in Google’s algorithms ;) [↩]
Except raging fundamentalists. [↩]
Though of course in a longer treatment I should have added other reasons, like the claim that Genesis serves as a preface to both the Torah and Scripture as a whole, and the further claim that the early chapters are particularly “laden” with significant teaching, and the claim that Gen 2 is “about” marriage and is one of few Old Testament texts that are… [↩]
I know why I put quotation marks round the word, since i seriously doubt that the gospel authors or the traditions that may stand behind them intended to “invent”, but why does Gavin use scare quotes here? [↩]
PS3/2/12 now corrected in the original post. [↩]

Bible abuse, Bible: NT, Family, interpretation, Mark, Matthew none

Biblical marriages

February 1, 2012 tim 5 comments

Facebook does not seen good at giving attributions, so I don't know who produced this, if it was you write to me and I'll gladly attribute it :)

I’ve seen several peopl, including Rowland Crowcher, post this ”infographic” on Facebook. Since I’ve spoken quite a bit on “Family in the Bible”, and am due to speak to a leaders group from the NZ Christian Network on the “Theology of Marriage” really soon it makes me hopping mad!

In one sense the graphic is “true”. The Bible does present all these, and more (some arguably worse) patterns of marriage. It is also true that God chose to work in and through many of these. Just looking at Abraham (the “father” of the three monotheistic religions) or Jacob (aka “Israel”) makes it clear that God does not turn aside from some convoluted and perverse human arrangements in choosing who to use as a channel of grace.

But, do any of these represent “a biblical view of marriage”. Hell no! It is time for some stakes in the ground. In terms of the teaching of Scripture it is clear that Gen 2 is a privileged text (Jesus and Paul both cite it when discussing marriage). This passage, and the teaching of Jesus and Paul make some basics clear:

Marriage:

was ordained by God
is the union of a man and a woman

produces and nurtures the next generation
provides necessary partnership

However, in this (as in everything else) human sinfulness warps and twists God’s intent. All of the “biblical” marriages listed in the graphic reflect this.

See some of my earlier posts for background to this one:

I am aware that what I have written in the very short and angry post here will be understood by some people as endorsing particular views on the currently hot and vexed topic of “Gay marriages”. It does. Gay marriage is an oxymoron since not only is marriage the partnership of a man and a woman, but also intended to produce as well as nurture the next generation. However, the view endorsed above says nothing about either Civil Unions, or about the possibility of blessing (or even solemnising) them in churches. As far as I am concerned that seem to be separate issues, and ones on which my view of marriage does not entail any particular position. I wish that we (Christians of all stripes, marriage activists of every opinion, and especially the authorities of both states and churches) would just sit back and separate the two things and issues.

Bible abuse, Family, Gender, Genesis, interpretation none

Extract from “Teaching Theology to Children”

January 31, 2012 tim No comments

Here is an extract from the long video I linked to the other day. The extract covers reasons why we should teach theology to adults and children together.

Education, Teaching, Theology, Video none

Gmail annoyance

January 31, 2012 tim 5 comments

Miniature of men harvesting wheat with reaping-hooks, on a calendar page for August. Queen Mary's Psalter (Ms. Royal 2. B. VII), fol. 78v (from Wikimedia)

As part of my preparation for leaving Carey I’m moving to Gmail. On the whole I find the web interface nearly as good as (if quite different from) Thunderbird especially given the limitations imposed by the choice of living in the cloud. However, I am not yet a convinced cloud dweller,¹ so I wanted the “offline” feature. That meant installing and using Chrome (I use Google for my diary too). That’s OK, Chrome is hardly bloatware :) BUT while in FF mailto links open Gmail in Chrome they persistently ask me why I have not installed and set up Outlook Express !?* :(

I’ve searched the rabbit warren of user comments that serve Google instead of an organised help feature, to no avail. Apart from a couple of third party² plugins there seems to be no way to remove this weird “feature”.

I thought Chrome was supposed to be nearly as tweakable as FF or even (God forbid) IE³ but no, as a matter of simple basic functionality Chrome is a locked down Microserf shop. Weird!

Being often out of Internet contact – I have a 3G phone but don’t use the data services because of cost, and because 90% of the time I am not within cell phone coverage. [↩]
And lacking any seeming “official” acceptance. [↩]
Which at least back in the Dark Ages when I last used it, let me set up other email clients. [↩]

Digital life, Utilities none

Teaching theology to children

January 26, 2012 tim No comments

The workshop Barbara and I did for the NZ Baptist Gathering in November is now available as a video (along with other sessions). It is here. Do make any objections, ask any questions, or whatever :) it’s a topic we care about!

Children's stories, Family, Theology none

New Ice Cream Flavour: Plum and Licorice

January 22, 2012 tim No comments

You can tell I'm no food stylist ;) but what matters to me is taste and this new flavour is superb :)

The Fig Ice-cream was toppled from the position of family favourite very quickly by fig and licorice, even the scoffers who laughed to scorn my claim that this was a great ice-cream when I sampled a professional attempt at the Gisborne food festival a few years ago were converted. But now after weeks of testing there’s a new favourite, Plum and Licorice.¹ It’s made just like the fig ice-cream except a load of prunes and finely chopped licorice are used instead of figs. As you will note the name is a marketing ploy, since some of the testing panel were hesitant about prune ice-cream, even the thought of prune and licorice failed to impress :(

However, under its marketing name “Plum and Licorice”² this brand new, and according to a Google search world-first ice-cream is now an established favourite.³

Recipe: Plum and Licorice Ice-cream

1.5l Cream
300-500g Prunes
300g Licorice
3 eggs
Vanilla extract
Sugar to taste

Cut the licorice into small chunks, the smaller the better. Put the licorice, prunes and egg yolks into a food processor and zap them.⁴ In one bowl whip the egg whites till stiff, in another whip the cream to firm peaks. Fold the fruit mix into the cream and add the egg white.

Freeze. It may help if you stir with a fork when the mix has begun to freeze but frankly the fruit and licorice content should stop large crystals forming.⁵

The favourite ice-cream is judged on the basis of a litres/person-day score. Plum and Licorice now beats all previous contenders. [↩]
Despite initial consumer resistance, spouses are often a chef’s toughest critics. Which is quite fair because they also suffer the chef’s toughest meats ;) [↩]
Actually to be 100% transparent, Google books does suggest that one ice-cream company may have tried prune and licorice, but this depends on an abstruse point of exegesis, and the absence or disuse of an “oxford comma” in the report. If they did actually reject prune and licorice, and not both prune and licorice separately, then they missed a fine and delicious ice-cream. But I’m claiming the report was written suggesting the rejection of each of the single flavours and not of the combined delight! [↩]
The longer you can bare the noise the smaller the licorice lumps in the final ice-cream, though the initial cutting actually has even more effect on this, so for small nuggets cut small! [↩]
Having all the ingredients really cold before you start really helps the freezing process. [↩]

Recipes, Sweet ice-cream, icecream, plum and licorice, prune and licorice

Two ways to read: suspension of disbelief

January 10, 2012 tim 6 comments

Until more complex theories of aerodynamics were developed accepting the possibility of "the flight of the bumblebee" required a suspension of disbelief - Photo by by stuant63

Yesterday I was asked: If Noah lived before the law was revealed to Moses, how did he know how to distinguish “clean” and “unclean” animals?

It is still holiday time (it’s the summer in NZ, though with all the rain and cold in recent weeks you wouldn’t believe it) so my answer was less full than it ought to have been:

Hmm… on Noah, Moses and the animals, there are two likely lines for an answer (a) the story of Noah is being told after the delivery of the law and so the telling reflects those categories; (b) there was perhaps a cultural practice of distinguishing clean and unclean animals even before the law was revealed to Moses (as there was already such a practice of not eating pork).

Of course the short simple answer is “we really don’t know” but people don’t like that one ;)

But it’s not as simple as that¹ behind any attempt to answer such a question lie two fundamentally different ways to read.

One way looks at the text from the outside, and reads as a “critic”. For a couple of centuries, in academic biblical studies, the most frequent way to thus “objectify”² the text has been to examine it historically to see where it came from and how it got to us. Such an approach noticing that there seems to be a “continuity error” here suggests that the text was written at some time later than the events described, and uses this and other signs to work out when and by whom. We could objectify the text in other ways, by examining it as an example of a particular genre or class of texts, against its sociological background…

The other way enters the “world” of the text, and reads it from the inside. This is to behave like a “reader” for this is how we read novels and other stories, indeed it is how we read physics textbooks too ;) In the case of Noah’s distinction my second answer (though it depends on a historical hypothesis and so perhaps looks like the same kind of answer as the first) tends in this direction. It is asking how we might explain this, not as a continuity error (the critic’s approach), but within Noah’s world (a readerly approach).

The great medieval Jewish commentator Rashi took a different readerly approach he explained it thus:

Of all the clean animals: that are destined to be clean for Israel. We learn [from here] that Noah studied the Torah. (From Chabad.org)

Each basic direction of reading offers several different options or styles. But the basic question facing a reader of any text whether to read as critic or as reader. “Readers” must offer the text a willing suspension of disbelief³ Indeed the idea of a need to suspend disbelief can be helpful in thinking about the reading (as opposed to the criticism) of all narrative. For in a laboratory report also there are elements of the narration of the experiment that are omitted, or poorly described, where the reader must suspend disbelief. Despite the variety of both critical and readerly approaches, and despite the fact that they can even share approaches (as above either can examine the text historically), on the suspension of disbelief they differ fundamentally.

[Incidentally,⁴ Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair has a really interesting meditation for Purim on "The Willing Suspension of Disbelief".]

Except the last answer, because we really do not know ;) [↩]
Make into the object of study and examination. [↩]
The phrase is Coleridge’s from the Biographia Literaria of 1817, to explain how readers might approach the fantastic or supernatural elements in his work, but has been widely used in thinking about how readers can read many sorts of fiction. (( JRR Tolkein has also nuanced it speaking about “secondary belief” based on an inner consistency to the reality described in the narrative. But that’s getting too complicated for a short blog post ;) [↩]
Though not at all a HT ;) [↩]

Genesis, interpretation, Reading, Teaching Bible none

Global Perspectives on reading the Bible – Call for contributors

January 4, 2012 tim 3 comments

Photo from Soil-net

I have read the Bible professionally, and encouraged and taught others to read it, in three continents. The situations differed, including an African and a Western University, a Baptist theological college and a Bible School in a refugee camp. I have also supervised some exciting theses that develop interesting perspectives on understanding the Bible. So I am delighted to be participating in a project Global Perspectives on the Old Testament and Global Perspectives on the New Testament, I’ll be writing on Gender-bending as a male reader of Esther and on Jeremiah, possibly taking account of my current context (fencing a piggery and building a pig house ;)

Mark is looking for more contributors, so please read the Call for Contributions below, and think about writing something, or at least repost it on your blog and so share in an interesting project :)

Mark Roncace is seeking contributors for two volumes, Global Perspectives on the Old Testament and Global Perspectives on the New Testament. Pearson Prentice Hall is publishing Global Perspectives on the Bible this year. Next, separate OT and NT volumes, also to be published by Prentice Hall, will be produced. Both books will feature much of the same material as the original Bible volume, but with added essays.

The books—designed as entry level college textbooks—gather four different essays around one biblical text. The essays are brief (about 1,000 words and need not be “scholarly”) and articulate insights from a particular geographical, social, cultural, economic, religious, or ideological context/location. Here is the list of texts/books for which he need essays.

Genesis 6-9

Numbers 22-24

Leviticus

Judges

1-2 Kings

Jeremiah

Ezekiel 1-25

Esther

Ecclesiastes

Daniel

Crucifixion narratives

Acts (other than chapter 2)

Corinthians

Galatians

1-2 Thessalonians

James

Pastorals (1-2 Timothy, Titus)

1-3 John

1-2 Peter

Please let Mark know if you are interested (mroncace@wingate.edu) in writing an essay on one (or two) of these texts and he will forward specific guidelines and a sample. In addition to scholars, Mark is particularly interested in gathering perspectives from non-professional readers. He is trying to run on a tight schedule: final OT essays are due April 1 and final NT essays are due June 1 (but remember they are only about 1,000 words).

Bible: NT, Bible: OT, Burma/Myanmar, interpretation, Reading none

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