Is the Bible reliable?

[MoreCoffee]

Here Paul is teaching two different things with the same scripture. God often uses things in this world to speak of things in the unseen world. Both are true.

Ephesians 5:31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”[e] 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Both may be true and each may be true in different ways, as far as I can recall nobody in this thread has said that the stories in Genesis are not true.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I bet he did believe in a 6 day creation, but none of us will really know in this life. I'll make you a bet: (IF we both get to heaven) I'll bet you some manna. If he believed as I do, you give me some; if he believed as you do, I'll give you some. Deal?

You make an amusing suggested bet and it would be interesting to see the outcome but I am not sure that those in heaven eat never mind eat manna. I guess if one takes the banquet meal with Abraham and the Lord at the end of the ages as a literal meal then maybe the saints eat in heaven ...

 

[Restoresmysoul]

Both may be true and each may be true in different ways, as far as I can recall nobody in this thread has said that the stories in Genesis are not true.

You seemed to say that the story of the 6 day creation was just a parable or a poem or something which didn't reflect a true historical record. Are you now saying that its possible that the 6 day creation happened exactly like it was recorded in genesis?

 

[MoreCoffee]

You seemed to say that the story of the 6 day creation was just a parable or a poem or something which didn't reflect a true historical record. Are you now saying that its possible that the 6 day creation happened exactly like it was recorded in genesis?

What I wrote is that Genesis chapter one is poetry. It is not history. It is not prose. If you want to treat the stanzas of a poem as history that is up to you, and if you want to read them as if they are a matter-of-fact-account-of-what-happened-and-the-order-in-which-it-happened then you can, but you will not be doing so because the passage itself makes that necessary you'll be doing it because you choose to for whatever reasons you have for doing so. Many christians have chosen not to do that for almost two thousand years.

 

[Melethiel]

The LCMS teaches, believes, and confesses a literal 6 day creation. We don't change to make people happy.

OF CREATION
We teach that God has created heaven and earth, and that in the manner and in the space of time recorded in the Holy Scriptures, especially Gen. 1 and 2, namely, by His almighty creative word, and in six days. We reject every doctrine which denies or limits the work of creation as taught in Scripture. In our days it is denied or limited by those who assert, ostensibly in deference to science, that the world came into existence through a process of evolution; that is, that it has, in immense periods of time, developed more or less of itself. Since no man was present when it pleased God to create the world, we must look for a reliable account of creation to God's own record, found in God's own book, the Bible. We accept God's own record with full confidence and confess with Luther's Catechism: "I believe that God has made me and all creatures."

If you have a problem with that and find it shameful, your problem is with the church you attend. It doesn't change and warp its beliefs to the people around it. Fantastic news though. I'm told the ELCA accept virtually any belief; after all, they do have a church in good standing that worships a female deity, and they defy scripture on a number of things.

Luckily for me, the LCMS only requires subscription to the Confessions for membership, not to every ex cathedra pronouncement of the infallible synod. Since the Confessions do not demand a modernist reading of Genesis, and since I do believe in the authority of Scripture and not in any female deities, I'll stay where I am, thanks.

The church I was referring to was WELS, and that was one of the major reasons I left, since they DO require full subscription to every statement out of the mouth of synod.

 

[Melethiel]

You seemed to say that the story of the 6 day creation was just a parable or a poem or something which didn't reflect a true historical record. Are you now saying that its possible that the 6 day creation happened exactly like it was recorded in genesis?

Do not make the mistake of thinking that something has to be factually literal to be true. That is a very modernist and scientific way of thinking. It is the same logic which leads scientists to atheism. It is a way of thinking which is foreign to the ancient world.

 

[Sword of the Lord]

Luckily for me, the LCMS only requires subscription to the Confessions for membership, not to every ex cathedra pronouncement of the infallible synod. Since the Confessions do not demand a modernist reading of Genesis, and since I do believe in the authority of Scripture and not in any female deities, I'll stay where I am, thanks.

The church I was referring to was WELS, and that was one of the major reasons I left, since they DO require full subscription to every statement out of the mouth of synod.

Well the LCMS believes, teaches, and confesses a literal 6 day creation.

More info here: http://lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=1103

If that's sad or shameful to you, sorry. That's what we believe, and that's what we will teach. You won't win the Synod over.

 

[MKJ]

This is at the heart of it. Or rather, your question pierces right to the heart.

We all know that the higher criticism that questions the historicity of the Genesis account, carries on through Exodus and right on up to the Resurrection.

There has to be some mental gymnastics involved for us at some point to reject the historicity of the Genesis account, and not end up in the same place as Marcus Borg and Bishop Spong, and John Dominic Crossan.

I personally don't have an answer as to how I can pick and choose to accept the historicity of the empty tomb, and reject the historicity of so much of the Biblical account in general, but it is the elephant in the room that we all ignore.

Actually, I don't think we do all ignore it - we just don't think its an elephant, or even in the room.

Increasingly I am coming to the conclusion that people need to read more Aristotle, because they have a very narrow idea about how truth can be expressed, or best expressed.

Aristotle says that poetry is, if it is good poetry, MORE true than history. Why? Because it takes all of the fundamental truths which are present in historical accounts in an obscure, chaotic, and above all lenghthy way, and condenses them down and makes them manifest to the reader, clear, organized, and concise.

The idea that the creation account or genesis is wholly a historical narrative has never been obvious to Christians. Even those in teh early Church who were most inclined that way didn't understand it in the way modern literalists do. Why? because even internally, the text doesn't support such a reading.

I think that the real elephant in the room is ignoring the history of interpretation of the text, and really the history of the text itself.

 

[MKJ]

Luckily for me, the LCMS only requires subscription to the Confessions for membership, not to every ex cathedra pronouncement of the infallible synod. Since the Confessions do not demand a modernist reading of Genesis, and since I do believe in the authority of Scripture and not in any female deities, I'll stay where I am, thanks.

The church I was referring to was WELS, and that was one of the major reasons I left, since they DO require full subscription to every statement out of the mouth of synod.

I am curious - is this true of European Lutherans? In the US, it often seems like Christians, even the Catholics, are being influenced by fundamentalism.

I actually know of a few people who otherwise would have become Lutheran, but they did not because of this issue.

 

[hedrick]

I can't recall anybody in this thread saying that Adam and Eve were not real people.

I would say that. I also accept the results of mainstream archaeology, which make a literal reading of most of the OT history difficult.

 

[RDKirk]

The bible is fully reliable for what it claims to be.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. -- 2 Timothy 3

Scripture makes no claim of being a text of cosmology or archeology or mathematics or physics or physiology.

Scripture tells us what creation cannot.

There is no claim in scripture of anything that can be revealed by observation of nature, whether with the naked eye or by telescope or by microscope or whatever.

Scripture is fully reliable for what it claims as its purpose: As a text for teaching righteousness.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

There has to be some mental gymnastics involved for us at some point to reject the historicity of the Genesis account, and not end up in the same place as Marcus Borg and Bishop Spong, and John Dominic Crossan.

If we open up the entire Bible to historical criticism that doesn't necessarily mean we'll end up with Borg, Spong, and Crossan. None of them represent the mainstream of contemporary critical Jesus scholarship (Borg comes closest), a field that is about evenly divided on the historicity of the resurrection.

In any case, there's a very good case to be made that you don't even have to open up Genesis 1 to historical criticism in order discredit young earth, six day creationism; the text itself, properly interpreted, is in poetic form, with refrains, parallelism, and assonance. It is concerned with the faith claims of ancient Israel. Reading it that way doesn't require a non-canonical approach to the text or historical criticism. That's just solid exegesis.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I would say that. I also accept the results of mainstream archaeology, which make a literal reading of most of the OT history difficult.

Okay, now there's one

 

[elliott95]

Actually, I don't think we do all ignore it - we just don't think its an elephant, or even in the room.

Increasingly I am coming to the conclusion that people need to read more Aristotle, because they have a very narrow idea about how truth can be expressed, or best expressed.

Aristotle says that poetry is, if it is good poetry, MORE true than history. Why? Because it takes all of the fundamental truths which are present in historical accounts in an obscure, chaotic, and above all lenghthy way, and condenses them down and makes them manifest to the reader, clear, organized, and concise.

The idea that the creation account or genesis is wholly a historical narrative has never been obvious to Christians. Even those in teh early Church who were most inclined that way didn't understand it in the way modern literalists do. Why? because even internally, the text doesn't support such a reading.

I think that the real elephant in the room is ignoring the history of interpretation of the text, and really the history of the text itself.

The Jesus Seminar follows the trajectory of higher criticism to include the resurrection as poetry.

That is the elephant in the room that you failed to address in your reply.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The Jesus Seminar follows the trajectory of higher criticism to include the resurrection as poetry.

That is the elephant in the room that you failed to address in your reply.

The resurrection story isn't very poetic is it? It looks very prosaic to me.

 

[hedrick]

This is at the heart of it. Or rather, your question pierces right to the heart.

We all know that the higher criticism that questions the historicity of the Genesis account, carries on through Exodus and right on up to the Resurrection.

There has to be some mental gymnastics involved for us at some point to reject the historicity of the Genesis account, and not end up in the same place as Marcus Borg and Bishop Spong, and John Dominic Crossan.

I personally don't have an answer as to how I can pick and choose to accept the historicity of the empty tomb, and reject the historicity of so much of the Biblical account in general, but it is the elephant in the room that we all ignore.

One of the biggest dangers to humanity, not just in religion, is oversimplification. Government regulation is always evil, or always good. Competition is always evil or always essential.

I agree that dealing with the Bible isn't simple. How do we decide what is historical and what isn't? It requires good judgement and a broad base of knowledge. In some cases we may not know. But why is that surprising?

The Reformation unfortunately turned into yet another piece of oversimplified ideology. The basic Catholic idea that Scripture is a product of a believing community, and should be understood that way is surely right. Nor did the Reformers intend to reject that. After all, the original Reformation traditions are both confessional. Their problem was dealing with a Church that had become absolutist, that refused as a matter of principle any correction. In that situation, they judged that Scripture was a valid way to challenge the Church. They were lucky, in the the divergences were in key areas so clear that it didn't take much judgement to see. But that doesn't mean that Scripture can in general be read independent of any interpretative tradition or scholarship, and applied without a fair amount of good judgement.

I don't think it's hard to see a difference between the OT, which likely was written hundreds to thousands of years after the events, and the NT, which was written starting within a few decades, and had a history of being quoted and used that is reasonably documented and starts by the time the late NT document was likely written. Furthermore, it's hard to understand how the Church could have started without some kind of resurrection (I think N T Wright's arguments for the historicity are good ones), whereas the mainstream archaeological explanation of how Israel started is quite plausible.

 

[elliott95]

If we open up the entire Bible to historical criticism that doesn't necessarily mean we'll end up with Borg, Spong, and Crossan. None of them represent the mainstream of contemporary critical Jesus scholarship (Borg comes closest), a field that is about evenly divided on the historicity of the resurrection.

In any case, there's a very good case to be made that you don't even have to open up Genesis 1 to historical criticism in order discredit young earth, six day creationism; the text itself, properly interpreted, is in poetic form, with refrains, parallelism, and assonance. It is concerned with the faith claims of ancient Israel. Reading it that way doesn't require a non-canonical approach to the text or historical criticism. That's just solid exegesis.

It does not necessarily end up there.
Among people that follow that higher criticism, and are biased toward Christianity, faith in the historicity of the Resurrection is now a coin toss.
Even divided.

You don't have to convince me of poetry of a six day creation by the way. I have already commented affirmatively on the NT Wright video as he makes that case.

I am only noting how difficult that that question has now become. It is not like anyone things that eliminating Maccabees for historical inaccuracies is going to make the difficulties go away.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The bible is difficult as hedrick says and it is easy too and it is dark and wicked as well as beautiful and full of life giving light. In some ways it is like Homer's Iliad - deep and moving and full of ideas that change the world. Is it reliable? It is if you choose to rely upon it. In many passages Christians have to apply an editor's pencil and blue-line what is unacceptable and highlight what is good. Christians choose to believe the bible's stories because there is something in them that is attractive and fulfilling. Belief, of this sort, is a choice that people make.

 

[Standing Up]

The Jesus Seminar follows the trajectory of higher criticism to include the resurrection as poetry.

That is the elephant in the room that you failed to address in your reply.

I suppose psalms might be identifiable as poetry by its stanzas, etc, but not Gen 1 and not resurrection.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

The Jesus Seminar follows the trajectory of higher criticism to include the resurrection as poetry.

That is the elephant in the room that you failed to address in your reply.

The Jesus Seminar is simply not a scholarly enterprise. It's an embarrassment.