For "Inerrancy" Post Above : Post Comments Here
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Sorry, I'm having problems with Blogger - it refuses all comments for post above. If you still have a comment, let's try posting them here. Thanks for your patience. DF
Posted by David Fitch | 11:59 AM
COMMENTS:
OK Comments seem to be working ... DF
12:01 PM
Thanks for your post David. Just for myself and not for arguments sake or anything, I was wondering should we be willing to die for scripture or actually for the truth, witness, authority (what have you) that it contains? For instance, N.T. Wright, all the way back in '93 in NTPG coined the now very popular five act conception of biblical authority. But in a lecture that you can get from Regent College's bookstore he also says that the authority of scripture is actually not its own but God's. Maybe what I am getting at is whether or not the issue of inerrancy is an authority issue as well. Does inerrancy as a doctrine keep us at arms lenght from the embodyment and acting out of the narrative that Scripture proclaims? I'm still not so sure that it is best to say that I would die for the bible. Should we instead say that we would be willing to die for our faithfulness to Jesus, as we know him from Scripture and through our life in the Church? I'm just searching for a way of balancing our allegiance to God with our formation through his Word, if we are willing to die for and abstrated "bible" I dont see how that is different than a die hard commitment to inerrancy. I think that I am probably not understanding what is meant by you(?) and Hauerwas by being willing to die for the bible. The bible seems secondary (albeit a huge second) to dying for our witness to Jesus and God's kingdom. Overly long thoughts perhaps, but no one else is responding so ...
I hope others get in on the conversation, you have important things to discuss. I greatly appreciated your book and have been talking it up when I can. Have a great week and I look forward to reading your next post.
Grace and peace
eric
10:38 PM
Great post, David, and I am looking forward to more in your series. I am hoping to write a length about this topic on my own blog in the near future. I wish I had more time to comment here--but I'll try to come back later. I find your discussion very thought provoking.
BTW, you really ought to switch to Wordpress. They have free blogs, which are a little generic but work great, or you could upgrade to your own site. I'd be willing to help you move, although I am no expert by any means!
8:44 PM
Eric ... so well said ... and an interesting take on the "I'm willing to die for it" I take Hauerwas as trying to keep as indeluably welded together the Scriptures, our history and language as Christians and the (referential) reality of Jesus Christ. I don't necessarily see NT Wright's statement as being that much different. Thanks for the imput ... I'd love to meet along the way (please e-mail me if you're nearby Chicago and hav time for a coffee)
... and hannah im ... yeah I'm going to redo the whole blog this summer ... I need to ... thanks
9:08 PM
Hey David, appreciated that post thoroughly.
That is one thing that i have struggled with. So many hold to scripture alone (so they say) but all i see that as meaning now is we hold to scripture AND our doctrines on scripture. I think the real question has always been what are our doctrines of scripture, not questioning scripture at all.
I did a whole series of posts on the bible late last year, it riled up some heavy discussion, and i think a lot of it was caused out of my inability to explain myself or what was going on in my head. In trying to react against ideas like inerrant i would just say that 'the bible has errors' but that didn't go over well either and that is only swinging everything back in another direction that i'm not comfortable with either.
You seem to be coming to a good balance here and i'm looking forward to upcoming posts.
12:55 PM
David,
Thanks for the response. Alas, I live in Alaska not Chicago. My wife and kids and I may be driving through on our way to NJ this autumn so you never know. Another way to think of the question of dying for the bible is to think of us dying for the embodiment of God's kingdom that is held out in Scripture. Maybe that is what is meant by being willing to die for the bible. In the the US being willing to stand for the bible is usually thought of in terms of saying we believe it is true (or inerrant). We are willing to die for a doctine of scripture. But honestly that simply buys into the dicotomies of the modern world/enlightenment: public/private, sacred/secular etc. A great giveaway if you will. Because really who in the modern (western world) wants to kill you because you think the bible is inerrant? I have never met anyone who does. But if the church truly lived out the gospel we might step on toes and have to die for out witness to God's kingdom (and please realize I am speaking to myself first of all here).
We are looking for a way that the bible forms who we are and what we do that is rooted in the church and God's kingdom and not in modernity's search for scientific certainty.
eric
10:56 PM
Eric ... awesome stuff ... if you're coming through let's make an effort to connect .. DF
7:27 AM
I catch the drift of the "die for it" point, but am not quite sure I am willing to let that be a totalizing description of the authority of the Bible.
Great comments. I hate to sound like a broken 2nd century record, but I still keep going back to Justin and Irenaeus on this point. Both of them quote from the OT and NT rather fluidly, as if the word for word transcription isn't that important all the time (in some contexts, it is, and there are times that Irenaeus, like Paul, will make points based on specific lexical and syntactical points).
But they tended to thinking of the authority of scripture in a different way: The NT canon serves as a boundary marker for the orthodox community. You are in or out based on what texts you submit to. The Fourfold Gospel canon, for example, became an identity marker for the people within what used to be an apostolic community, but now was an "apostolic text community."
I like to think that one way out of the inerrancy mess is to extract and employ the use of scripture that is modeled for us fairly clearly in the 2nd century. It is a really rich application of tradition and authority to the problem of worshipping and witnessing in an antagonistic culture. The text itself never became an idol for Irenaeus, what was important for him was to articulate precisely how the text mediates knowledge of Jesus through the apostolic tradition. This was worth fighting for. To teach people within the church how to read properly, and to expose the tradition-less reading patterns outside the church that led to heretical practice and belief.
11:56 AM
Oh, and I have a new NT blog up:
www.ekthesis.blogspot.com
11:57 AM
I think that the topic of "inerrancy" is a smoke screen for the real question of "Did God write the bible or did man write the bible?". The doctrine of inerrancy is a byproduct of thinking that God had a part in writing the bible. If you drop that notion then the inerrancy debate is no longer needed. I'm not sure why people want to cling to the notion that God wrote this book. I guess it helps add weight to our own religion as we try to make it "compete" against all the other religions. That is probably why the Old Testament authors had the 10 commandments delivered by God on stone tablets. It gives the text more authority to think it is a divine product. The problem is that this isn't a contest and if one group actually wins then we all actually lose.
11:36 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home