Final Reflections 6 - The Bible

Okay, I figure that this one is going to take the longest to flesh out, so I had best get started on it...
I do, however, want to clarify something before I even get this thread going... This is emphatically not a debate thread. There are plenty of debates about the Bible (both here and elsewhere) and are there for those who wish to engage in them.
Rather, this is my final reflection regarding what the Bible is, what it has meant to me over my life, etc. Since this is a reflection, I will avoid going into all the detail(s) that I would were this more of an academic thing. I provide this partially for myself and partially as a testimony for anyone who wanted to know what I think/feel about such things.

If you're interested, read on. If not, its okay and no one's feelings are hurt.
Although I am hopeful that this will not become debate oriented, if it provides discussions for people and helps people to engage the Bible, I am all for it.

~Paxi

I understand the Bible to progress in sections, dispensations if you will. In each, the final product is the cultivation both of what God has said to His people as well as the community's attempts to understand/respond to what God has said. It is a holy dialogue, if you will.
Regarding the specific nature of what the Bible is, I see myself as being somewhere between the theologies of Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann. I hold two things in tension, claiming that they are, in fact, resolvable:
1) That every book, indeed every part/strand of the Bible was written by a human voice and, therefore, is subject to all that that entails.
2) Scripture is special, in that it is not just human writing (in a similar sense to how Christians affirm that Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine). For me, the word "mystery" is very important. That being said, I affirm that every book, every part, indeed every word is inspired and contains the Word of God... there are no parts of the Bible that we are free to disregard. In every single part, we need to be open to what God is saying to us in the words.

The Word of God is always, always more than the individual words written (or spoken). I regard two extreme reactions to be in error:
1) Though I am comfortable affirming the notion of Biblical inspiration, infallibility, etc... I also an obsession with plenary inspiration and word-for-word inerrancy to completely miss the point of what the Bible is... this Biblicism is not only relatively recent to Christian thought but also can lead to an idolatry of sorts, where the Bible becomes worshipped. Christ Jesus is the only one for us to worship, and it is our faith in Jesus (not the Bible) that saves us.
2) Never-the-less, while interpretation and context are always key, the Bible is never wrong. Although it is written by human voices, there is always something that God is trying to tell us in each part. As the New Testament itself affirms, all Scripture is inspired and serves a purpose (be it edification, teaching, description, etc).

So, I very much see through two lenses simultaneously:
*all criticisms are to be affirmed in how we study the Bible, this means realizing that sometimes the authors see things differently from each other and this means realizing that our context now is not always their context then
*Above all, the most important thing is the Kerygma, the proclamation of the Word, the gospel of Christ Jesus.

put differently:
the written words are sacramental, they bring us into the presence of the Logos, the Word of God;
the Logos, the Word of God can never be strapped down and constrained by human words.

It is finished, all that God has to reveal is contained in the Bible -
God is still speaking, the Bible has a fresh translation, interpretation and meaning to all people in all contexts, in all cultures in all times.

Understanding what I am saying will be easiest for those who are more or less in line with all the great "B" theologians... Barth, Bultmann, Brunner, Bonhoeffer, etc etc.
For those "more conservative", I understand my view of Scripture to be in line with much that Martin Luther had to say about it (for example, the Bible is the manger in which we find Jesus... both are important but it is Jesus who is most important).
For those "more liberal", I fully admit that in our context, to our ears, that there are parts which at first glance appear to be repulsive, sexist, etc. My challenge here is that we still need to be open to what God is saying in those passages too. Under no circumstances do I believe that we are free to pick and choose what we like/dislike.

So, here we go...

Assuming God is speaking through those passages, but perhaps we also need to be open to the fact that not every word in the Bible is from God.

I'm with you so far, Paxi. That's all in line with my own thinking.

__________________

I see nothing wrong with anythign you've said thus far, Paxi (by wrong, I merely mean something different than my own view, please forgive the wording).

__________________
I am the way, I am the light

I am the dark inside the night
I hear your hopes, I feel your dreams
And in the dark I hear your screams
Don't turn away, just take my hand
And when you make your final stand
I'll be right there ,I'll never leave
All I ask of you
Believe
-Believe by Savatage and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Don't fear tomorrow
And don't fear the night
It's where God repairs sorrows
That enter your life
-TSO

For the children are the architects of the future, and we are the architects of our children.
-Paul O'Neill

The world isn't the way it's supposed to be. That's why there's us. Champions. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.

-TV's Angel


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Well...

I was going to make this complicated and go into a lot of detail (but alas, I lack the energy).

Anyways, a sketch then, if you will...


*Dispensation 1 (Gen. 1-3a)
(God and humanity coexisted in peace in paradise... we have _no clue_ how long because we do not know how The Fall affected everything... much speculation, little proof. Oh well... Importantly: 1) God created all things and people perfectly 2) There was coexistence 3) Humanity fell and every since we have been facing the consequences...)

Of course... this could have been millions of years for all I know. Afterall, the Hebrew word 'Adam means humanity while the word 'yom' (used for "day") actually means an unspecified amount of time. Plus, we really don't know how the Fall affected everything, is it too much to believe it affected nature and even time itself? All people really need to harmonize (d)evolutionary science with Genesis is a bit of theological creativity.


*Dispensation 2 (Gen. 3b-11)
(Era of Great wickedness, demons and Devils walked the earth freely, there were giants, chaos reigned... possibly also vampires, and "half-breeds", that is, the offspring of humans with celestial beings... Once again, who knows how long... but God put an end to this evil era and began again...Although removed from Earth, these deep dark ancient satans wait patiently to return. Though the Tower of Babel incident has greatly impeded our human attempt to resurrect the satans of old, their legacy can be found in the darker pages of certain ancient religions.)

We are only told what we need to know about each of these two... knowing more of the latter could lead to the invocation of evils unknown [having once screwed around with occult crap, I know more about evil than I wish I did] while knowing more of the former could jip us out of what we may experience in heaven, in eternal paradise.


So yea, Paxi is a liberal dispensationalist... go figure.

Everything in the Bible is true and some of it happened.

See also Bastiaan van Iersel, The Book of the People of God, 10 Concilium 25 (1965).

As long as the "everything in the Bible is true" is given equal weight with "some of it happened", I agree.
In other words, while one could go through and point out all of the "these didn't literally happen" things, this is permissable - though not always helpful.
And some do it to the detriment of proclaiming the Kerygma (which, even in Bultmann's "demythologization", he retained the Kerygma).