Last thoughts

I made it! I read through and blogged the whole Bible. Here are my closing thoughts, in no particular order.


Was it worth it?


This project started as a whim; a bubble of an idea inspired by my shiny new Kindle (which I still love). I probably averaged around 45 minutes per day of reading, writing, and background research (not counting the time spent reading books about the Bible), so there were many times when I wanted to just drop the whole project and reclaim my time. 


But overall, it was worth it. Independent of the subject I chose to study, it was good to set a goal of blogging daily and follow through on it. Having a project that required daily output provided a good opportunity to show myself how much I could accomplish in a year. I have no idea how many words I wrote, but I am guessing it averaged at least several hundred per day. To just pick a number, 300 words a day for a year is over 100,000 words, enough, according to the internet, to make an average length novel.


As for choosing to read the Bible, it was as good a topic as any, and probably better than many. I learned a lot about the Bible's origins and its content. Given that I live in a predominantly Christian culture, knowing the Bible is useful. To some degree, the benefits have been immediate; there were at least two times this year that I understood a literary allusion that would have gone over my head if not for my Bible project.


Was it interesting?

Overall, no. The Bible has some good passages and stories, but those, for the most part, are the sections that you are already familiar with (Judges and selected passages of the prophets provide the main sources of surprisingly interesting text).

However, a lot of the Bible is dull and repetitive. If we could have skipped the detailed descriptions of buildings (temple, tabernacle, a palace or two) and the clothing of priests, we could have cut at least a couple weeks off of the readings. Probably a month. Another week could be dropped if genealogies were skipped. Dropping the passages that were word for word reproductions of other parts of the Bible would get back at least another week (Chronicles and Samuel/Kings, I am looking at you; synoptic gospels, you also get a glance).

Much of the rest of the Bible contains repetition that is more justifiable. Although the histories of Chronicles and Samuel/Kings sometimes share text verbatim, at other times they give different perspectives on the same issue. The same can be said for the gospels, prophets, and letters of Paul (in short, the vast majority of the Bible). But still, much of the repetition seems to provide little or no value.

In short, God needs a better editor.


Did this project change my opinion of the Bible?

To be honest, I haven't the foggiest idea. It did not fundamentally change my opinion of the Bible, but it's hard to remember the details of the opinions that I held then for comparison to those I hold now.

For example, I am strongly of the opinion that the authors of the books of the Bible believed that they were communicating messages they received from God. The prophets probably really saw visions (even though, like with dreams, most of the details were filled in during the retelling). The people who wrote books in the names of others probably really thought that the person they were attributing their words to would have held the same ideas in similar contexts. However, I cannot remember what I felt about this topic last January.

The gist of my opinion of the Bible as a holy book has not changed. It can still be summed up with "Is this the best you can do?" As the words of different people trying to find their place in the world, the Bible is a fascinating piece of literature. As a holy book, something meant to convey universal truths and/or instruction, it is a failure.

I have heard or been told many times that the words of the Bible are convincing. That if non-believers would just read the Bible with an open heart and an open mind, they would come away seeing its truth. Those people obviously have not read the Bible. I started this project with, I believe, a heart and mind as open as a doubter could have and have come away only strengthened in my opinion one of the worst things a doubter could do to convince them of the truth of the Bible is to seriously read the whole thing.

What stuck out the most?

I have been harping on this a lot lately, but I feel the need to take one last opportunity to say how selectively the Bible is used, both within the Bible and by modern day readers of the Bible.

Within the Bible, the authors of the New Testament books selectively apply the Hebrew scriptures. Suppose we are generous and grant that the authors of the Hebrew scriptures were writing words with double meanings that even they would be surprised at. Even then, when you look at the original context of the fragments of Hebrew scripture quoted by New Testament authors, you can see that most of the time, those fragments, which seem so applicable when quoted, are surrounded by other verses that have no applicability to the point the NT author is trying to make. Sometimes, they even contradict the point those authors are trying to make.

Reading the whole Bible also highlights how selective modern day readers tend to be when they quote the Bible. The worst source of offence is the psalms. Time and time again, I would read a psalm and see some familiar verses just to learn that they are surrounded by verses about God's wrath, requests for revenge upon enemies, etc. But this tendency is not limited to the psalms. Familiar verses are often surrounded by verses that are not just unfamiliar but which are downright at odds with modern beliefs about God and/or Christianity.

I was also amazed to discover how non-biblical much modern Christian thought is. This includes modern beliefs that have little to no biblical basis (e.g., most beliefs about heaven, hell, and angels) and ideas that are expressed in the Bible and ignored by modern believers. The later category is harder to give an example for since most examples are noticed by some people and ignored by others. Thus, some Christians both listen to and try to live by Jesus' words on wealth redistribution while others would likely be surprised to learn they are there.

This ties in with the final thing that stuck out to me: it would be hard to build a coherent belief system that truly took all of the Bible into account. This is to be expected in a book that is large in words, historical scope, and variety of authors. However, for those who believe that the Bible does contain a coherent belief system, this ought to be more worrisome than it seems to be. Almost any belief a Christian holds is challenged somewhere in the Bible. Yet few and far between are the Christians who avoid the trap of certainty.

This tendency is even worse, in my opinion, when some churches claim to know that other churches are flat out wrong. For most conflicts about biblical validity of beliefs within the church, the Bible allows both sides to make a case. Very, very few things can be said to have unambiguous biblical support when the Bible is considered holistically.

Would I do it again?

No.

Well, maybe. There are Bibles which order the texts chronologically. I might be interesting to read through one of those. But I probably wouldn't bother to blog it.

In any case, if you base you beliefs on the Bible and haven't read through the whole thing, you definitely should do so. Even if you don't expect to understand it all (and you certainly shouldn't expect to), it's good to know what you are basing your life on.

Making your case Biblically

What standards do believers have for making a Biblical case? Reading the Bible only reinforces my impression that the Bible can be used to justify many different (and contradicting) theological opinions.

A friend of mine once said that if there was even one verse in the Bible that supported a position, then that was sufficient support for that position. But by that standard, you could justify nearly anything. Certainly, as I pointed out to my friend, if one verse makes a sufficient case, then you could easily amass enough verses to make a very strong case for slavery. You can also justify contradicting positions until the cows come home. (A particularly annoying subset of these easy justifiers are those who argue that if you disagree with their type of Christianity, you are no better than a pagan.)

Other people go to the opposite extreme and say nothing but the most general themes can be taken from the Bible. If something is not a theme throughout the whole thing (or, at least, throughout the whole NT, for Christians), then it cannot be taken as an absolute. This, in some ways, is the more honest position, but it rather leaves a lot on the floor.

So I ask the believers, what are your standards for making a Biblical case that a certain belief is consistent with the Bible? Fellow non-Christians, feel free to comment upon what standards you would and would not think reasonable for a believer to a accept a belief based on Biblical justification. 

Why is an ultimate meaning meaningful anyway?

Everyone wants their life to have meaning. That much is obvious. 

Or is it? I suspect that a lot of what people mean when they say that they want their life to have meaning is that they do not want to end up with regrets: regrets about what they did or did not do; regrets about having wasted time; regrets that they did not fulfill their potential.

The search for meaning then, is the search for ways to minimize the chance of regrets. But having found an awesome meaning, there is still the chance that you may eventually come to see it as worthless. You may realize that it is wrong. You may realize that it has no worth. You may just get tired of it.

It seems the only way to defend against this fear is to find your One True Meaning. Your absolute meaning. But one of the terrifying things about a world without God is that there is no absolute meaning. Every meaning is relative to some context: yourself, your culture, our world. 

But even if we could figure out an absolute meaning, is it really that great? Consider this thought experiment. An all knowing computer, one that can be said to have the best interests of yourself and all of humanity in mind, gives you your life's purpose. Would you suddenly be satisfied?

Personally, while I would not reject the meaning from this omniscient being, I would not accept it just because that being was omniscient. A meaning from outside of yourself is not your own meaning until you choose to internalize it and make it home. 

Now, I know some people will counter that their God is not only all knowing. Their God is loving. Their God is Love. But so what. The hypothetical meaning provided by God is still a meaning from outside of yourself.

Even for an absolute meaning, if you have to internalize it before it actually becomes, well, meaningful to you, then there is always the chance that it could lose its significance, like any meaning of your own manufacture. Yes, it might be the right meaning for you. It may be the meaning that brings you the most happiness, but really the fact that some all knowing being gave it to you does not make it any more significant than any meaning you found on your own; it just shortcuts the evaluation process. 

In short, I don't think that "all is meaningless" is necessarily a negative conclusion. It is better to acknowledge now that permanent satisfaction cannot be grasped, that even the best of meanings can become meaningless, than to have it hit you full force when that satisfaction is lost.

The meaning of meaning

I promised some thoughts on Ecclesiastes and the idea of everything being meaningless. I now present them to you.

First, let's look at the way different translations deal with what was, in the New Living Translation, communicated as "meaningless". We will take Ecclesiastes 1:2 which lays out this idea. Here's what we get from our comparisons:

• NET: "Futile! Futile!” laments the Teacher, “Absolutely futile! Everything is futile!
• NIV: "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless."
• NLT: "Everything is meaningless," says the Teacher, "utterly meaningless!"
• BBE: All is to no purpose, said the Preacher, all the ways of man are to no purpose.
• NASB: "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."
• NRSV: Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
• NKJV: "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
• MSG: Smoke, nothing but smoke. [[That's what the Quester says.]] There's nothing to anything--it's all smoke.

These varied translations make it clear that the idea being conveyed in the Hebrew is more complicated any of those words convey. There are subtleties of meaning. All of the aspects above are, so it would seem, present, but none of them alone captures the essence. That same page also has this translation footnote (passage references removed for brevity):

The noun הֶבֶל is the key word in Ecclesiastes. The root is used in two ways in the OT, literally and figuratively. The literal, concrete sense is used in reference to the wind, man’s transitory breath, evanescent vapor. In this sense, it is often a synonym for “breath” or “wind”. The literal sense lent itself to metaphorical senses: (1) breath/vapor/wind is nonphysical, evanescent, and lacks concrete substance thus, the connotation “unsubstantial”, “profitless” or “fruitless”, “worthless”, “pointless”, “futile”, (2) breath/vapor/wind is transitory and fleeting – thus, the connotation “fleeting” or “transitory” and (3) breath/vapor/wind cannot be seen thus, the idea of “obscure,” “dark,” “difficult to understand,” “enigmatic”.

I bring this up to point out that, while "meaningless" is a perfectly acceptable translation, it seems to me the author is really trying to emphasize that everything is impermanent. The world is ever changing. Everything you work for in this world will someday be gone. It is futile to grasp it, to try to hold it in place.

Another aspect of this is that the world is uncertain. The future, like the wind, cannot be controlled. Attempts to control the future will result in failure and unhappiness. We do not know which way the wind will blow, so we should not make plans that depend on it behaving in the way we wish.

So where does that leave us. Everything is transitory, uncertain, changing, you could even say meaningless (in so far as meaning implies some sort of absoluteness and stability). But joy can still be found in the present moment. There is joy in what life is even if that is disappearing even as you enjoy it. But that joy comes from seeing things as they are, not as they could be.

When looked at this way, the message of Ecclesiastes is no longer that life is meaningless, in the sense that there it has no value and is not worth living. Instead, the message is much more akin to Buddhist ideas of impermanence and mindfulness. While still not satisfying to those who want their lives to have some sort of fixed cosmic meaning, this interpretation of Ecclesiastes presents its message as liberating rather than depressing.

And now I'll actually review the books

As mentioned in my last post, I recently finished two books about the Bible. Karen Armstrong's The Bible: A Biography and Stephen L. Harris's Understanding The Bible. In this entry I am going to actually review the books.

Armstrong is quickly becoming one of my favorite non-fiction authors. This is because, in addition to writing about interesting topics, she is a truly superb story teller. In this book, Armstrong weaves together history, the revelations of Biblical scholarship, and the Bible itself to form the story of the Bible's writing and canonization and the different ways it has been perceived throughout history.

At a high level, all of the content in this book is in the Harris textbook, but this book is a much more interesting read. It also has a different balance. Where Harris mostly focuses on the origins and content of the Biblical texts and spends very little time on the process of canonization and the subsequent history of the Bible, Armstrong spends time on all of those things. Overall, Armstrong's book was a quick, entertaining, and educational read. If you read only one book about the Bible, I recommend this one.

The limitation of Armstrong's style is that it does not allow for much detail. She limits herself to the most generally agreed on claims of Biblical scholarship and does not spend time discussing different theories or their merits. When there are legitimate differences of opinion within the scholarly community, she limits herself to the common kernel (e.g., when discussing books with a disputed date of composition, she limits her claims of composition date to a general period).

To get those sorts of details, you are going to need a textbook. The textbook I have read and am recommending is Harris's Understanding the Bible. However, I do not think that it is particularly special. I chose it because it covers both testaments in one volume, was well rated on Amazon, and was available at my local library. Any textbook that meets those criteria will probably meet your needs.

The text includes some chapters of overview and some chapters providing historical background. However, the bulk of the text is devoted to a discussion of each book of the Bible plus the Old Testament apocrypha. Although you will certainly get more out of this book by reading the whole thing, these core chapters are structured so that each can be read on its own. For each book, there is a discussion of the historical circumstances surrounding the composition, the date (or possible dates) of composition, a discussion of authorship, a discussion of literary genre (where appropriate), and a discussion of the content of the book. Harris provides some justification for why scholarly opinion has settled as it has, and he provides an extensive bibliography for each chapter that can be used for those who want to examine the different views in more depth.

One of the most useful things I got out of both of these books was the overview of Jewish thought, especially how it evolved after the Hebrew canon was closed. I think that people who have not been educated otherwise often assume that Jewish thought stopped after what was recorded in the Bible. I know that people who use the New Testament as their main reference on Jewish thought at the time of Jesus have an unfairly negative view of the Jews of the time. Learning a little about the actual history of Jewish thought shows how many of the tenants of Christianity which people now claim were novel innovations actually followed quite directly from the thoughts of the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus and his followers.

Finally, a quick note for those who know me in real life: I own both of these books and would be happy to lend them out (although I am still actively using the Harris book for my project).

Some books need pre-review notes

As part of my project to blog my way through the Bible, I have been reading books to educate myself about the Bible. At the same time, I have been looking for books that I can recommend to others since I know that not everyone enjoys reading text books (weirdos =P).

I have finally found two books that I can recommend. The short, sweet, easy to read book is Karen Armstrong's The Bible: A Biography. As far as I have found, there is no book that really gets the depth that I want without being a textbook, so I am also recommending a textbook: Stephen L. Harris's Understanding The Bible.

Before I get into the details, I want to explain in a bit more depth why I think every Christian should read these kind of books. (I assume that non-Christians who find the Bible an interesting topic of study do not need this persuasion.)

If you are a Christian, you probably read the Bible in a primarily devotional manner. You see the books as applying to you and your life. You interpret the books of the Bible in light the whole (e.g., seeing the Old Testament as pointing to Jesus). This is all well and good. If the Bible really is the work that you think it is, then these are proper ways of reading it.

However, there is value in understanding the Bible from literary and historical perspectives. The advantages are both of principle and of practicality. The advantages of principle are pretty simple, and you probably either agree with my perspective or not: If you are basing your life on what you read in the Bible, you have a duty to understand when and why it was written. Otherwise, you are basing your beliefs on a weak foundation and quite possibly lying to yourself.

The practical advantages are, I think, less controversial. Understanding the literary and historical origins of the Bible helps readers in a number of ways. Understanding the history behind the Bible and its composition helps it make more sense. For example, Ezra and Nehemiah are clearer when you know about the Bablyonians' exile of the bulk of the people of Judah.

Understanding the literary forms used in the books of the Bible open your eyes to the subleties of those literary forms. The apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelations are easier to understand if you know about the genre they belong to. The wisdom books make more sense if you understand the larger tradition of wisdom literature (both Jewish and non-Jewish).

Knowing the origins of books of the Bible can clear up confusing or contradictory passages. For example, knowing that the last chapter of Romans is generally considered to be a genuine Pauline fragment from a different letter makes the awkward seam at that point less confusing.

One more thing for the Christians before getting onto the reviews. If you worry that reading these books will threaten your faith, you shouldn't. These are not books written by atheists or skeptics. They are written by authors who respect the Bible. They do not try to push a non-believing agenda. Both, especially the Harris book, often go out of their way to reconcile the best research with belief. That said, these books are based on the best contemporary research. They clearly point out that many traditional beliefs about the Bible and its origins are flat out wrong. If you find books like that, honest, respectful books that may challenge particular beliefs, to be threats to your faith, then I would urge you to consider the possibility that a challenge may do you good.

This is getting rather long. I'll put the reviews themselves in a separate post.

(Note also that I have decided to start linking to books and, since I would always link to Amazon any way, I am using Amazon associate links.)

Gospel chronology

Some people assert that the gospels have no contradictions. Others acknowledge that the authors of the gospels were each trying to convey different theological messages and adherence to the facts was not really something they were aiming for.

The gospels themselves provide plenty of evidence against the first view. Downright contradictions, inconsistent orderings, and strange omissions all make it clear that these authors were working from a small set of common stories which were supplemented with different claims. Now, I am not claiming that the gospel authors made up the rest, although that is a possibility. They may have just come from different traditions which, over time, had diverged.

The situation gets worse if you try to reconcile the gospels with what we know of the historical events at the time. DeistPaladin has a couple a great videos which show the result of attempts to reconcile the gospels with history.

Enjoy!

Other Bible versions

Mentioning the Brick Testament reminded me of the alternate representations of the Bible out there. For your amusement:

• The Brick Testament
• The LOLCat Bible
• Conservapedia's Conservative Bible Project (warning: I think the authors might take this one seriously)

What others am I missing?

April in review

April was bloody and violent, at least the book of Joshua was. Other than that, we had more repetition. The Gospel of Luke had some variety compared to Matthew and Mark, but was still similar enough to often be tedious.

Book review: "And God Said" by Joel M. Hoffman

I recently finished And God Said by Joel M. Hoffman. In this book, Hoffman explores some of the terrible translation errors that have worked their way into translations of Biblical Hebrew. Some of these mistranslations have theological significance. Others make the text harder to comprehend. Others give up the beauty of the original for translations that are textually reasonably but poetically junk.

Despite the fascinating premise, I noticed some serious flaws right off the bat. As a friend of mine put it,

So, yeah Hoffman, tends to be a bit... uneven. It's like he knows what he's talking about and yet is simultaneously full of shit. It's kind of strange. I think he's probably the sort of person who just never questions himself.

I think that assessment is right on.

What Hoffman does well is explore the meaning of a word or phrase. For each word or phrase that he chooses to examine, he looks at it in all the different contexts it appears. Based on those contexts, he explains why the common translation conveys the wrong meaning. He then tries to find a better translation; these discussions tend to flop. He acknowledges that there is no perfect translation for many of these phrases, so he sets out a number of alternatives and chooses between them. The problem is that this choice often displays his own bias as to what aspect of the original is most important.

I will discuss one of the phrases in detail to give you a taste for what the discussions are like. The first topic Hoffman explores is the phrase commonly translated as "heart and soul". He has this to say about it:

The combination "heart and soul" or some variation of it, appears nearly forty times in the Bible, further emphasizing how important these two ideas were in antiquity. But here's the problem. The Hebrew words for "heart" and "soul," the words in Deuteronomy 6:5 that Jesus quotes, are levav and nefesh, respectively. And they are severly mistranslated. In fact, the translations miss the point entirely.

Looking at these words in the contexts they are used, both individually and together, Hoffman concludes that levav seems to represent the seat of both emotions and reasons in people. "Heart" is a bad translation because it excludes the rational element. "Brain" or "mind" fail because they tend to emphasize the rational over the emotional.

In a similar treatment, nefesh fares even worse. It is often translated as "soul". However, looking at the word in context shows that while nefesh is related to the essence of that which gives life, it is generally connected with the physical essence such as blood, breath, and flesh. Looking at levav and nefesh together, Hoffman concludes,

While nefesh was everything about life that could be touched, levav was its counterpart, representing everything about life that could not be touched.

Given this meaning, it is clear that "heart and soul" completely fails to convey the essence of those two terms.

As I said, the book tends to flop in its attempts to provide a better translation. What he comes up with in this case is "mind-body," as in "the mind-body connection". This translation is certainly better than "heart and soul", but it has connotations of its own that Hoffman does not really explore.

Hoffman follows this same pattern with other terms and phrases: look at it in context, determine what ideas the word conveys, compare it against the standard English translation and find it lacking, and try to find a better translation.

The other topics he covers are

• The words used for various rulers and leaders, including those commonly translated as "king" and "shepherd". "Shepherds" in antiquity were way more awesome than the modern conception of shepherds.
• The words that give rise to the disturbing translation "My sister, my bride" in Song of Solomon: The word translated as sister was probably meant as an indicator of equality.
• The word that is commonly translated as "covet" in the 10 commandments: It certainly meant more than just covet. It probably meant a particular type of taking.
• Words used to refer to women: The word translated as "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14 most certainly did not mean "a woman who has never had sex".

What lessons can someone reading the Bible take from this? First, that even the best modern translations have lots of errors. Some of these are minor, some major. Some are cruft left over from the King James Version, some are due to the inherently difficult nature of translation.

Second, we should not take small fragments such as words or phrases too literally without taking the time to look into the text in the original language. Since most of us do not have the background or time to do this, we should, instead, just be very careful when we analyze particular words. For example, when I was analyzing the word "hate" in Luke 14:26 in today's reading, I was very careful to say

I think that Jesus really does mean to convey some of the negative connotations of the word hate

Rather than saying that Jesus really meant for his followers to literally hate their friends and family, I wanted to convey that there was likely a negative aspect to the feeling he wanted his followers to hold even though I do not know that the original Greek had any negative connotation at all (well, actually I do, but I looked that up after the fact).

Finally, we should realize that translations never capture all levels of the text. No translation can capture all of the levels of meaning (word, phrase, passage, aesthetic, poetic, idiomatic). Thus, we are always missing out on something when we read the translation.

March in review

March review, only a few days late! =)

Repetition, repetition, repetition. That was the theme of March. The New Testament readings came from the Gospels of Mark and Luke, both of which had significant overlap with the Gospel of Matthew. The Old Testament readings came from Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These contained more new material thank the New Testament readings, but were still highly repetitive (and yet, despite all that, I still don't know the details of how to kill a sacrificial animal). The psalms continued to rotate between psalms of despair, psalms of praise, and psalms begging for help. The proverbs discovered more ways to say "godly = good, wicked = bad".

April does not look to be much better, at least not until we finish Deuteronomy and Luke.

Methods of Biblical inspiration

The question often comes up (both on this blog and elsewhere): Why do I insist on interpreting the Bible as if it were literally true? Don't I know that most/many/educated Christians do no actually believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of an omniscient, omnipotent God?

I covered this a little in my introductory post,

My interpretation style will be mostly literal. By that, I mean that I will interpret my readings literally even though I realize that most Christians do not interpret the whole Bible literally. Since each group of Christians uses different criteria for choosing which parts to interpret literally, I cannot hope to make the "right" choices, so instead I will try to apply a uniformly literal interpretation to all passages presented as historical fact.

But I want to expand on this a little by looking at the discussion of inspiration in the chapter "Contemporary Theories of Revelation and Inspiration" in A General Introduction to the Bible by Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix. According to this book, the contemporary views of the Bible are three (pg 188):

• "The Bible is the Word of God -- orthodox" (i.e., the Bible is essentially the Word of God)
• "The Bible contains the Word of God -- liberal" (i.e., the Bible is partially the Word of God)
• "The Bible becomes the Word of God -- neo-orthodox" (i.e., the Bible is instrumentally the Word of God)

The first and last positions can be further differentiated by viewing the Bible as God's revelation verses viewing it as a record of God's revelation.

These views can be further broken down based on how one views the means of inspiration (pg 189):

• "Verbal dictation through secretaries (extreme fundamentalism)"
• "Verbal inspiration through prophets (orthodox)"
• "Human intuition through natural processes (liberals)"
• "Divine elevation of human literature (liberal-evangelical)"
• "Human recording of revelational events (neo-orthodox)"
• "Inspiration of only redemptive truths or purpose (neo-evangelical)"

That is the landscape, but Geisler and Nix do not consider all of these positions equally valid. They have a number of objections to the non-orthodox and neo-orthodox views. The following quotes summarize the ones I find most convincing (bold emphasis mine):

First, the non-orthodox views of inspiration do not fit the Biblical data. The Bible claims to be verbally inspired. For it is the writings (graphē) that are inspired (2 Tim. 3:16). ... [more examples]... But all unorthodox views reject verbal inspiration. Hence, whatever else may be said in their favor, they are not biblical. (pg 185)

Fifth, the non-orthodox views ultimately deny any objective basis for divine authority. This issue revolves around the question of who will be the final arbiter -- man or God. The Bible addresses this matter by saying, "Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, 'That Though mightest be justified in Thy words, and mightest prevail when Thou art judged' " (Rom 3:4). Instead, man's reason or subjective experience becomes the authority. For all non-orthodox views agree that the objective language of the Bible is not in itself the Word of God. That is, they deny the formula "What the Bible says, God says." This being the case, even after one discovers what Paul (or Peter, or John, et al.) said in the text he must still ask the crucial question: "Indeed, has God said?" (Gen. 3:1). For once we drive a wedge between the words of Scripture and the Word of God, then after we discover the meaning of a passage it is left to our reason or experience to determine whether or not it is true. (pg 186)

Unfortunately non-orthodox views often confuse individual illumination (or even human intuition) with God's objective revelation in Scripture. To do so is to shift the locus of revelation from the objective written Word of God to the subjective experience of the believer. In the case of the neo-orthodox view, it is claimed that the Bible is only a revelation when man is receiving it. Their claim that God is not really speaking unless man is hearing is clearly contrary to the repeated exhortation in Scripture to receive what God has spoken. (pg 187)

The common theme of all these objections, is that if the Bible is not taken as the verbally inspired word of God, then interpretation of the Bible quickly becomes subjective and arbitrary.

Of course, what Geisler and Nix fail to point out here is that what often leads people to accept non-orthodox views of Biblical inspiration is that an orthodox interpretation is completely at odds with our knowledge about the world and about the Biblical text itself. Thus, all interpretative positions have serious flaws, leading to the diversity of interpretation methods used today.

I believe the orthodox view is the most tenable view for an outsider. The outsider acknowledges that their subjective interpretation does not provide a valid methodology for interpreting the Bible. They also acknowledge that, regardless of whether or not a Holy Spirit exists, they, as an outsider, do not have access to that interpretive method. Thus, for all its problems, from an outsider's perspective the orthodox method of interpreting the Bible is the most intellectually honest place to start.

The most defensible view for a Christian is likely the neo-orthodox view. It allows the believer to ignore the Biblcial inconsistencies with reality without abandoning the claim that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. It is still subjective, but one who believes their interpretation is mediated by the Holy Spirit can claim that they have a reasonable basis for their interpretation. Of course, the diversity of supposedly Holy Spirit mediated interpretations casts doubt on the validity of that method, but it still seems better than forcing the Biblical record to battle against reality.

February in review

2 months in, and we are about 15% of the way done. This month we read through the rest of Exodus and a good bit of Leviticus in the Old Testament and finished Matthew and got a good way through Mark in the New Testament. Leviticus has been surprisingly entertaining, but rather repetitive. In fact, the aspect of the readings which made this month most difficult was their repetitive nature. Leviticus often repeated itself and Exodus. Mark feels very repetitive, which makes sense given that Mark is believed to be one of the sources used by the author of Matthew.

As I mentioned, Leviticus has been surprisingly entertaining. Some of the laws are interesting. Some parts are entertaining. Reading these laws also shows the lack of feasibility of claims that the U.S. system of laws and justice builds off of the Biblical law. Most of the law in Leviticus is based on identifying and maintaining ritual purity. The bits that are reflected in our modern moral and legal beliefs are the claims that are so general as to not really be specific to the Biblical moral code (don't murder, don't steal, etc.).

I continue to fail to see examples of God or Jesus' love for humanity in the Bible. The few claims of that natures we see are weak. Jesus heals some people (but only if they are faithful enough), the psalmists claim that God is loving (usually in the form "God, I know you love me, so why do you let me suffer").

Proverbs was better this month. Less about immoral women and wicked people, and more good advice. Better, but still sometimes terrible, like the proverbs that imply that wealth can be used as an indicator of someone's worth).

Context!

This video has been making the rounds because it's insightful and entertaining.

January in review

We are one month in, about a twelfth of the way through the Bible. We have finished Genesis, we are a good way into Exodus, and we are about a twelfth of the way through each of Psalms and Proverbs.


The first part of Genesis contained some good myths. Some of them, like the first creation account gave lovely explanations of how our world came to be. Others, like the flood, make a mockery of the idea that God loves us. However, none of these myths have lasting explanatory power in light of our knowledge about reality.


The stories of the patriarchs and of Joseph and his brothers entertained me. They make great stories! Lots of complex human emotions and flaws and interesting plots. However, as God's perfect word, they contain many flaws. The stories lack internal consistency, and they often repeat elements.


Exodus so far shows God to be a horrible monster. God commits thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of murders to get Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave the country. But this killing is not necessary. God himself hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he can show his power by inflicting more torture on the Egyptians.


The Book of Matthew is interesting mostly in the picture it gives us of Jesus. He likes to heal people, and he has quite a temper. Thus far into the Bible, I am skeptical of the claim that Jesus loves humanity. Yeah, he heals people and provides miraculous bread, but these could all be interpreted as opportunities to demonstrate his power. The fact that he only heals people who have enough faith in him also makes you wonder whether his goal is really to heal or to show what he can do.

The Psalms have spent a lot of time talking about suffering and wanting relief. They emphasize God's power and God's anger against his enemies. Only rarely, as in Psalm 23, do we see an unambiguous description of God as loving.

The two themes I remember from Proverbs are avoid evil people and avoid immoral women. Also, evil people always lie and cheat and plot. Combine this with the sentiment given elsewhere that anyone who does not follow God is evil, and it is easier to understand why Christians think atheists must be evil people plotting to destroy humanity (muah ha ha!).

Yeah, so far, not that impressed.