Picking and Choosing -- Following the Bible
Back when I was teaching theology at a Bible College -- I got in trouble for how/what I taught -- I was having a conversation with another faculty member (one more conservative than me, which wasn't difficult even then) and the topic of biblical interpretation/inspiration came up. I asked something to the effect of: Do you believe that every part of the Bible is equally inspired, that is, should we consider let's say Esther or Leviticus as equally authoritative as the Gospels? This colleague answered in the affirmative without any hesitation.
But reality is -- we all pick and choose what we consider appropriate and authoritative. I didn't read A.J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically, but that book is, as I understand it, the account of one man's attempt to live the Bible literally -- and I mean literally. He found 700 commands, and tried to follow them all. It makes for a difficult life, to be sure.
So, maybe the starting point for all of us is to admit that we all pick and choose, or as Scot McKnight likes to put it: "adapt and adopt." Scot is more conservative than me. I'm reading his The Blue Parakeet, as noted in an earlier post, and he raises the question of how to apply Scripture. That is, if we pick and choose, how do we decide?
Scot writes:
We may say we take the Bible literally, but few if any actually literally follow it to the letter.
So the question is, if we "don't follow Jesus literally," how do we "pick and choose what we want to apply to our lives today"? He answers: "I want to know what methods, ideas, and principles are at work among us for picking what we pick and choosing what we choose." (p. 122).
This is an important question that has major implications -- as Scot points out in the book -- for how we talk about women, society, homosexuality, and sexuality in general. If we assume that there is within Scripture a "that was then and this is now" element, how do we decide? It requires discernment.
I'll be posting some more, but I'd be interested in knowing how you discern what was then and what was now.
But reality is -- we all pick and choose what we consider appropriate and authoritative. I didn't read A.J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically, but that book is, as I understand it, the account of one man's attempt to live the Bible literally -- and I mean literally. He found 700 commands, and tried to follow them all. It makes for a difficult life, to be sure.
So, maybe the starting point for all of us is to admit that we all pick and choose, or as Scot McKnight likes to put it: "adapt and adopt." Scot is more conservative than me. I'm reading his The Blue Parakeet, as noted in an earlier post, and he raises the question of how to apply Scripture. That is, if we pick and choose, how do we decide?
Scot writes:
Why talk about this? Because it is the claim that we follow Jesus alongside the obvious reality that we don't follow Jesus completely that leads us to ponder how we are actually reading the Bible. (The Blue Parakeet, Zondervan, 2008, p. 122).
We may say we take the Bible literally, but few if any actually literally follow it to the letter.
So the question is, if we "don't follow Jesus literally," how do we "pick and choose what we want to apply to our lives today"? He answers: "I want to know what methods, ideas, and principles are at work among us for picking what we pick and choosing what we choose." (p. 122).
This is an important question that has major implications -- as Scot points out in the book -- for how we talk about women, society, homosexuality, and sexuality in general. If we assume that there is within Scripture a "that was then and this is now" element, how do we decide? It requires discernment.
I'll be posting some more, but I'd be interested in knowing how you discern what was then and what was now.
Comments
I'll get back to you (or not).
In the meantiime, this came up the other day at home (History channel or NGO Banned Bible II?):
Lilith.
The idea that Adam had a wife prior to Eve may have developed from an interpretation of the Book of Genesis and its dual creation accounts; while Genesis 2:22 describes God's creation of Eve from Adam's rib, an earlier passage, 1:27, already indicates that a woman had been made: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The text places Lilith's creation after God's words in Genesis 2:18 that "it is not good for man to be alone". He forms Lilith out of the clay from which he made Adam, but the two bicker. Lilith claims that since she and Adam were created in the same way, they were equal, and she refuses to submit to him...
Would this be banned today???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilith
If we are debating the authority of Scripture or parts of Scripture, is not the discussion of extra-biblical stories of Lilith kind of off the point?
That being said, how about this: any story, regardless of its source, can be adapted to disclose truths about the relationship between God and humanity, providing the interpreter reads the story and articulates its through a heart inspired by God.
As the UCC'ers say, the Book does not end with a period, but with a comma, because God is still speaking.
John
Even so, I believe that the Spirit is capable of overcoming any obstacle to the transmission of the Word.
John
I didn't think so..
Bob asked,
"I'd be interested in knowing how you discern what was then and what was (sic?) now."
Wasn't this "unchosen" by men sometime then?
My faith in scripture isn't quite strong enough to ignore all of written and oral history.
As for what came before, I am not certain that there is any evidence that the extra biblical story of Lilith was ever connected with either of the two stories of the creation of humanity contained in Genesis.
What intrigues me on a spiritual level is why the authors of the Torah reclaimed for Scripture these two traditions, and why both, and why do so in such a overt manner, with no attempt to fold one story into the other.
Do the stories preserve separate truths both of which must be acknowledged or risk being dangerously incomplete? If so then which truths require both stories in order to be told completely?
John
John
But the myth as relayed in Wikipedia is interesting as a medieval myth showing a awareness of issues relating to gender equality.
John
I had great faith in the past, but not mature enough I guess.
David Mc
Bob's original point is a good one. We all pick and choose.. we almost have to due to the size of the Bible and frankly our limited Biblical knowledge. We focus on the "cliff notes" and we are too limited to digest the whole thing. Thus the fork.. do we say "it can't be all known.. and pick and choose?" or do we make it a goal to know as much as possible?
Chuck
There are two different stories describing creation of humans?
Was it not written by the same source? There are no chapters in between. Not like two separate gospel chapters. I'm a wondering.
I'm not afraid to go in a ditch if that's where I'm led either by faith or skeptisism. But now I'm sounding proud. Forgive me.
One person's cliff notes are another person's ditch? Please continue minus the, Oh, I just realized what you mean by ditch.
I was thinking rut. No, there's enough trash on the internet now.
I was talking about equality and personal identity.
Oh, and now to hear some U2 clips.
David Mc
My understanding is that the whole book weaves together perhaps as many as four different primary sources and was probably assembled in Babylon during the captivity. In Babylon additional stories were sifted for spiritual content and added in - for example the Flood narrative is drawn from the Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh.
In considering the redactive history of Genesis we actually touch on Bob's original point: picking and choosing what is authoritative. It would be easy to discount and ignore based on their no being originally sourced from Moses, or even from the Jewish milieu. But if we accept the authority of the final writer(s)/redacter(s) then the source of the story, though helpful in giving a context for understanding, should not detract from the inspirational authority of Scripture. For me, the fact that a redacter/writer used non-Hebrew sources or wove in various folk traditions, only contributes of the universality of Scripture - God's inspiration is not and has never been limited to one community of believers. That ancient Jewish writers could reach beyond their milieu for wisdom and instruction about their God is awesome.
The interpretational bottom line for me is that I accept the authority of Scripture, all of it. And, while I may not be able to grasp the meaning of the story today, if I work with text long enough I feel certain that God will find a way to communicate with me through it. It occasionally happens where I must put a reading aside because I just cannot locate anything meaningful within it. That is my failing. Next time hopefully it will make more sense.
John
I'd like to compare the struggle to understand a passage similar to "letting a song sink in". Feels like it's a similar subconscious process of connecting to truth.
David Mc
Stirring the pot?
If we are debating the authority of Scripture or parts of Scripture, is not the discussion of extra-biblical stories of Lilith kind of off the point?
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I think it is exactly the point. How was our canon of scripture chosen. What was included, and what was not, and why? Who did the choosing, what was their agenda? If apostolic authorship p, and antiquity were factors in deciding what should be included, and what should not, then mistakes were made; we now know that some books were written much later than first thought, while others much earlier. Also, not every book originally assumed to have been penned by an apostel was.
So the question remains.
How do we decide?
What is the authoritative word of God?
I believe scripture must be examined alongside history, reason, tradition and revelation...
I believe that scripture is expired to the extent that it is humankinds attempt to flesh out our relationship to the holy.
Sometimes we get it right, other times we get it horribly wrong, but it is our history.
For me, the determining factor is this. Does this scripture fit with what I know to be true about God; scripture used to justify oppression, slavery, subjugation, genocide do not, and in my opinion should not be viewed as authoritative.
Stirring the pot is a good thing and I think it is the highest and best use of a blog.
But the initial question was about how we manifest in our lives the authority we grant with our words to the Bible. From there it moved into the issue of the proper content of existing Scripture. Then it moved onto whether we should add any thing into Scripture and that is where I suggested it was getting really off-topic - but hey, its a blog, and its not mine!
In your post there are really two questions: one has to do with the authority of what we call the Bible, that is the Old and New Testaments; the second question is whether other writings no matter when or where created or by whom, can be relied upon as have the same authority as Scripture.
My point about the Lilith myths had to do with a suggestion that the Lilith myth was purposely excluded from Genesis, and if so, should we consider putting it back in. My response was that the myth of Lilith as Adam's first wife was not created until the Middle Ages, at least 1500 years after Genesis was written (assuming Genesis was composed in approximately 600 BC) and therefore could not have been "left out". The story of Lilith has no more claim to a place within the Bible than Aesops Fables.
On the other hand the question of what constitutes authoritative Scripture remains open. Were some things included which should not have been? Were other things excluded which should have been included? Should we we be limited in our discussion only to those writings which existed at the time the Old and New Testaments were created? What value should we give to the Apocrypha, or the writings contained in the Pseudepigrapha, or to the Didache and the Gospel of Thomas, the Shepherd of Hermas or the Letters of Clement, all of whose age and authenticity have been generally accepted by scholars and clerics?
This discussion also leaves open the question of how much authority Christians should grant to Sacred Writings of other Faith Traditions - the Quran? the Book of Mormon?
And then perhaps there is room for a modern or even a post modern testament.
John
I should have left it to the 2 genesis stories. I agree.
Thanks for your input Bob in KS
David Mc
But, if we consider that the first use of the word "Adam," was gender neutral, or perhaps meant to contain both sexes, the passage has an entirely different meaning. If Adam was both male and female at the creation, and seperated out when God was unable to find a suitable partner, then Adam and Eve were both present at the moment of creation, and therefore coequal...
Quite a different slant on things, don't you think?
Everything else is political.
John