Scripture and origins ~ [open] thread for all. Bring snacks as we're running low...

[Assyrian]

Hello, Busterdog --- nice to meet you!



When the Greek schools of thought were going strong, Philo of Alexandria wanted to reconcile the writings of Moses with Greek philosophy.

Obviously a literal translation of Moses' writings had to be subordinated to another type of interpretation.

And the Allegorical Method was born --- with two major faults:

1. It does not interpret Scripture.

• ...it will be noted at once that its habit is to disregard the common signification of words and give wing to all manner of fanciful speculation. It does not draw out the legitimate meaning of an author's language, but foists into it whatever the whim of fancy an interpreter may desire.

2. The basic authority in interpretation ceases to be the Scriptures, and becomes the mind of the interpreter.

• Interpretation then is subject to the doctrinal position of the interpreter, the views of the church to which he belongs, his educational background and upbringing, etc.

Info taken from Things to Come, by J. Dwight Pentecost.

I used to line up pretty closely with the Antioch school myself. The problem is the NT is so full of allegorical interpretations of the OT. We have Eve being made from Adam's rib 'flesh of my flesh' as an allegory of the sexual union. We have the snake interpreted as Satan. Crossing the Red Sea and Noah's ark are allegories of baptism. Circumcision is interpreted spiritually rather than physically. The temple the sacrifices the passover lamb are all about Jesus. Hagar and Sarah are allegorized as the two covenants. The bronze serpent speaks of Jesus being lifted up on the cross. He is the manna from heaven. Even the rock that Moses struck water from was Christ.

 

[AV1611VET]

The problem is the NT is so full of allegorical interpretations of the OT.

Hi, Assyrian ---

I vaguely remember you from when I first came here, but I don't remember us ever talking.

Nice to meet you - (again).

Yes --- the Bible is full of allegories and types --- but the Bible always interprets itself, and doesn't leave one wondering who's what and what's what.

When the New Testament speaks of the Flood as being a type of something, it doesn't mean that the Flood didn't take place, it simply means that the Flood wasn't just some random act done by God.

He has a purpose for everything.

Using today's technology, I like to refer to these things as LINKS instead of types.

The greatest Old Testament link to Jesus Christ is the Tabernacle. Everything in that Tabernacle points to Jesus; from the boards overlaid with gold, to the 60 fence posts on the outer fence.

 

[shernren]

Predictive prophecy does not agree with your apparent world view. I think I am correct in this that you simply don't believe there is predictive prophecy, but maybe I am wrong. That should be cognitive dissonance.

I never said that I don't believe there is predictive prophecy. I said that prediction isn't the point. The fact that you think prediction is the point comes from a modernist perspective in which objective events are everything. Believe me, I've been there. I used to be a big fan of the Left Behind series, and of guides to the prophecies of Revelation and the end-times and other such stuff.

In a way, it's a mirror-image fantasy of creationism. Creationism is the idea that the point of Genesis is mainly that events X and Y and Z happened so-and-so years in the past. Fundamentalist eschatology is the idea that the point of prophecies is mainly that events X and Y and Z will happen so-and-so years in the future. The Bible is a book from God, but it's really a textbook of chronology (not even history) past and future, a gnostic way to peek around the insides of a grand conspiracy of events linked through time and space. The point of the Bible is that certain events happened and other events will happen - and if those events in the past did not happen as described, or those events in the future will not happen as foretold, then the Bible is pointless and God isn't worth our time and we should all be atheists.

But this is really a reaction to our modern society's emphasis on chronology and the reification of natural order and mere events. For what comes to mind when you think of God's power? You think of rules of nature being broken, time and space being bent, and all the poor scientists trailing behind hopelessly lost - if God wants to show off He has to break creation and what better way to do that than to send information backwards in time? The way to show off as a prophet of God is to predict who will win the coming Australian elections, or when the world will run out of energy, or the next big craze for TV programming after the hopelessly derailed runs of reality TV.

But that is not the Biblical emphasis on prophecy. Prophecy isn't about God saying, "Look, I know something you don't!", it's about "Look, I am doing something here." The emphasis is not so much on God's knowledge as God's action, or more precisely God's action. For example:

"Remember this, fix it in mind,
take it to heart, you rebels.
Remember the former things, those of long ago;
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like me.
I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say: My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.
From the east I summon a bird of prey;
from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose.
What I have said, that will I bring about;
what I have planned, that will I do.
Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted,
you who are far from righteousness.
I am bringing my righteousness near,
it is not far away;
and my salvation will not be delayed.
I will grant salvation to Zion,
my splendor to Israel.
(Isaiah 46:8-13 NIV)

In a prophetic passage like this, what is God's point? Is it not: "I will grant salvation to Zion / My splendor to Israel"? God emphasizes "the former things, those of long ago" as much as the things that are to come. Whether the person writing this is writing before, or after, the "bird of prey" has come is immaterial (note that I have not said that it is impossible for the writer to be writing this before, but it is immaterial). What matters is that the writer recognizes God's hand in the coming, and God has shown him that the event spoken of here is not just a purposeless event as some would see it but an event of divine purpose - whether or not other humans know about the event itself.

Think about it. If the emphasis of prophecy was the prediction of future events, why is it so terrible at doing just that? Countless generations of Christians have thought that they were living in the end-times, including our own - if the purpose of end-time prophecies was to tell us when the end-times will come, then the prophecies have been worthless for all those Christians. Countless generations of Christians have thought that some societal structure or evil person of their time was the anti-Christ - if the purpose of prophecies about the anti-Christ was to tell us who s/he/it will be, then the prophecies have been worthless for all those Christians. The prophecy of Immanuel read in context is not about salvation from sin and God Incarnate, it is about Ahaz being wiped in battle, and to this day Israel thinks that it, not Jesus, is the Suffering Servant. For every interpretation of prophecy that results in a successful prediction there are myriads which don't - what of those? Has God's word returned to Him void then? And given all those failures, how can we then be confident that our interpretation of the prophecies could possibly be correct, given the many before us who were more pious and that much more wrong?

All that follows from the idea that prophecy is about predicting events in the future like some sort of cosmic TV guide - "Miracles up next. 2007AD: Antichrist shows up. 2010AD: Rapture. 2012AD: UN moves to Iraq. 2018AD: Malaysia wins the World Cup. Actual time of broadcast may vary slightly." If prophecies are just a TV guide to the future, then every Christian who didn't tune in missed the point completely, even Christians much holier and more attuned to the Scriptures than we are. (There is an obvious parallel to creationism here: for if Genesis 1-11 was really about how the world was created, then every Christian who did not believe the right cosmological theory about that creation has missed the point, what with "stretching out the heavens" and all.) But if the point of prophecy is to emphasize not chronology but God's hand in history, then surely every Christian has been right to recognize God's hand in his or her time, no matter whether prophecies could be rightly linked to those events or not. And prophets are not simply Christian fortune tellers: they are those who recognize God's hand in their time and amplify that truth for anyone who will listen, whether or not the event they see God's hand in has happened, is happening, or will happen.

My simple argument is that it is not about what the text says in large part. The argument is about simply overlooking where our minds become uncomfortable with Biblical statements at variance with our worldview. The prophecy discussion makes that point clear.

But of course there are plenty of Biblical statements that support my view. Moses and Jesus were both known as great prophets even though predicting the future was a very small part of their ministries, and Jonah was a successful prophet even though the future he predicted never came true. The Bible itself offers plenty of examples against your interpretation of things.

I appreciate the effort you take to diagnose me with cognitive dissonance. It must be taxing to be optimistic about a world in which everybody who disagrees with you must be blocking off half the Bible and all their brains. But no thanks - my cognitive facilities are just fine, submitted to God, and every new day is a fresh opportunity to praise God for the revelation of Scripture and the beauty of an evolutionary nature. My mind has never been more comfortable with the beauty and truth of the Bible.

 

[busterdog]

I never said that I don't believe there is predictive prophecy. I said that prediction isn't the point. The fact that you think prediction is the point comes from a modernist perspective in which objective events are everything. Believe me, I've been there. I used to be a big fan of the Left Behind series, and of guides to the prophecies of Revelation and the end-times and other such stuff.

Prediction is a limited point. We agree on the importance of prophecy in reflecting the times.

Elsewhere in the thread, however, is an outright denial of the predictive capacity of scripture. Above, we have the argument that such things are anachronistic and uncomprehending of the political motivations of such "prophets" or compilations pretending to be prophets.

This is a very narrow slice of theology.

But, denying the reality of such things does yield a couple of things: 1. dropping words like "anachronism" on a supposedly Christian site deserves a response that calls this what it is; 2. it is worth recognizing that there isn't a meaningful common ground in hermeneutics when this level of disrespect is so gliby meted out; 3. denying the predictive capacity of scripture is not consistent with "taking scripture seriously" and it is disingenuous or dissonant to pretend otherwise; 4. predictive prophecy is a clearer test for determining whether we are really having a meaningful conversation about origins than origins itself.

If I bristle, I think I can be excused given the fact that the importance of this issue is pretty far up on the list, even if it is not in the same class as the resurrection itself.

I am not pointing specifically to people or posts. That would invite too much long-winded debate. Again, our agreement on the predictive capacity of scripture is appreciated.

 

[artybloke]

The Bible is not, never was, never will be a book of prediction. There is no "prediction" in it. That people many years after it was written use verses that originally meant something else to refer to something in their time is known as "reinterpretation."

Turning the Bible into something no better than the horoscope column of the local newspaper is "not taking the Bible seriously." Chiliasm is a heresy, and had been recognised as such from the early church to now.

It ill serves the poets, chroniclers, scribes and prophets who spent so much time and effort to be understood among their own people, to so distort their message as to turn it into a happy hunting ground for Left Behind fanatics and dispensationalist chiliasts. I see no difference between dispensaltionalists like Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye and the nonsense peddled by DaVinci Code enthusiasts.

Both are making the Bible into nonsense.

 

[jeffweeder]

I agree with ya concerning the left behind thing, this is misinterpretation, BUT tell me is Jesus right in predicting that he will come back again?
Theres a heap of prediction---like his first coming.

 

[artybloke]

I agree with ya concerning the left behind thing, this is misinterpretation, BUT tell me is Jesus right in predicting that he will come back again?
Theres a heap of prediction---like his first coming.

No, Jesus is not predicting it - Jesus is promising it.

If prediction is about saying "x will happen at that time and in this way," there is no such thing in the Bible.

The Bible promises, cajoles, warns about consequences, talks about future hopes using poetic and symbolic language - but it does not predict. Its truth is not dependent on this or that event having happened.

And as far as I'm concerned, Jesus has already returned. He is present in all those who follow him.

So he's already fullfilled his promise. He doesn't need to come down on some white charger and prove how "mighty" he is.

 

[jeffweeder]

And as far as I'm concerned, Jesus has already returned. He is present in all those who follow him.

So he's already fullfilled his promise

That is clearly not what he meant as the Holy Spirit came at pentecost and indwelt the believers.--This makes REV and the epistles promises of him returning (as he left) obselete.-2pet 3, 1+2 thess for instance.

we will go off track here, to Eschatology forum you must go if you would like to continue.

 

[artybloke]

Not really - I can't be bothered, frankly. "Eschatology" tends to get very silly very quickly.

 

[jeffweeder]

we can always discuss it privatly if you wish dear brother....peace to you

 

[AV1611VET]

Both are making the Bible into nonsense.

Artybloke,

[bible]Isaiah 45:1-4[/bible]

Here's a man, mentioned by name, 150 years before he was born.

What do you call that?

 

[shernren]

Prediction is a limited point. We agree on the importance of prophecy in reflecting the times.

Elsewhere in the thread, however, is an outright denial of the predictive capacity of scripture. Above, we have the argument that such things are anachronistic and uncomprehending of the political motivations of such "prophets" or compilations pretending to be prophets.

This is a very narrow slice of theology.

But, denying the reality of such things does yield a couple of things: 1. dropping words like "anachronism" on a supposedly Christian site deserves a response that calls this what it is; 2. it is worth recognizing that there isn't a meaningful common ground in hermeneutics when this level of disrespect is so gliby meted out; 3. denying the predictive capacity of scripture is not consistent with "taking scripture seriously" and it is disingenuous or dissonant to pretend otherwise; 4. predictive prophecy is a clearer test for determining whether we are really having a meaningful conversation about origins than origins itself.

If I bristle, I think I can be excused given the fact that the importance of this issue is pretty far up on the list, even if it is not in the same class as the resurrection itself.

I am not pointing specifically to people or posts. That would invite too much long-winded debate. Again, our agreement on the predictive capacity of scripture is appreciated.

So prediction is a limited point, but anybody who disagrees with you about it has no right to talk to you about the Bible?

Interesting.

 

[Assyrian]

Hi, Assyrian ---

I vaguely remember you from when I first came here, but I don't remember us ever talking.

Nice to meet you - (again).

Hi AV nice to see you in OT

Yes --- the Bible is full of allegories and types --- but the Bible always interprets itself, and doesn't leave one wondering who's what and what's what.

I don't know about that. Jesus' parables leave a lot for us to figure out ourselves. Certainly if we are only exposed to one stream of interpretation we may think it is straightforward. Then we find out how other people interpret them. OT types are even more difficult. But I don't think the answer is to dismiss allegory as J. Dwight Pentecost does either. That isn't scriptural.

When the New Testament speaks of the Flood as being a type of something, it doesn't mean that the Flood didn't take place, it simply means that the Flood wasn't just some random act done by God.

He has a purpose for everything.

Sometimes the allegories come from historical events, other times the story is an allegory, a parable, to start with.

Using today's technology, I like to refer to these things as LINKS instead of types.

The greatest Old Testament link to Jesus Christ is the Tabernacle. Everything in that Tabernacle points to Jesus; from the boards overlaid with gold, to the 60 fence posts on the outer fence.

The odd thing is, I never quite took to that sort of allegorization, other than to say Jesus Christ is really precious in God's eyes and incredibly detailed planning, beyond our human understanding, went into the incarnation. (Of course there is another thread around here that looks at the symbolic meaning of the number 60 in the Ancient Near East especially in relation to the ages of the Patriarchs )

 

[gluadys]

Artybloke,

[bible]Isaiah 45:1-4[/bible]

Here's a man, mentioned by name, 150 years before he was born.

What do you call that?

Incorrect dating. This mention of Cyrus came from deutero-Isaiah, a prophet who lived in Babylon at the time the Persians under Cyrus were attacking the city.

It is not a prophecy of Isaiah, son of Amoz, who lived in Jerusalem more than a century earlier, and is the source of the first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah.

There is also a trito-Isaiah who lived in the restored city of Jerusalem after the exile and gave us the final six chapters of the book of Isaiah.

 

[AV1611VET]

Incorrect dating. This mention of Cyrus came from deutero-Isaiah, a prophet who lived in Babylon at the time the Persians under Cyrus were attacking the city.

It is not a prophecy of Isaiah, son of Amoz, who lived in Jerusalem more than a century earlier, and is the source of the first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah.

There is also a trito-Isaiah who lived in the restored city of Jerusalem after the exile and gave us the final six chapters of the book of Isaiah.

There is no such thing as a "deutero-Isaiah".

[bible]John 12:38-41[/bible]

Jesus here references both Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:9-10 and refers to them both as the same person.

 

[gluadys]

There is no such thing as a "deutero-Isaiah".

Typical head in the sand attitude toward evidence.

[bible]John 12:38-41[/bible]

Jesus here references both Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:9-10 and refers to them both as the same person.

Just as we call all the authors of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah, as if it had been written by one person.

 

[artybloke]

we can always discuss it privatly if you wish dear brother....peace to you

Frankly I'd rather eat my own face than get into an earnest discussion about the meaning of Revelation.

AV:

What do you call that?

I call it "deutero-Isaiah."

There is no such thing as a "deutero-Isaiah".

Ditto to what gluadys said.

 

[busterdog]

There is no such thing as a "deutero-Isaiah".

[bible]John 12:38-41[/bible]

Jesus here references both Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:9-10 and refers to them both as the same person.

OK, let's all say, hmmmm, Jesus used that one name. Interesting. Maybe he was right.

 

[busterdog]

The Bible is not, never was, never will be a book of prediction. There is no "prediction" in it. That people many years after it was written use verses that originally meant something else to refer to something in their time is known as "reinterpretation."

Turning the Bible into something no better than the horoscope column of the local newspaper is "not taking the Bible seriously." Chiliasm is a heresy, and had been recognised as such from the early church to now.

It ill serves the poets, chroniclers, scribes and prophets who spent so much time and effort to be understood among their own people, to so distort their message as to turn it into a happy hunting ground for Left Behind fanatics and dispensationalist chiliasts. I see no difference between dispensaltionalists like Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye and the nonsense peddled by DaVinci Code enthusiasts.

Both are making the Bible into nonsense.

Numerous witnesses in Africa say that they dead have been raised and the blind see through prayer.

You weren't there. You have no witnesses. You have maybe 50 or so years of experience in a small part of the world. Billions of people have lived over thousands of years of civilization and seen things you haven't.

Are you going to deny the dead rise and the blind see also?

And if Jesus tells people in Africa he is coming back (and He has), what does Tim Lahaye have to do with that?

 

[artybloke]

Numerous witnesses in Africa say that they dead have been raised and the blind see through prayer.

And numerous witnesses have been abducted by aliens in Montana. So?