I think the problem many have with the violence is the sheer brutality of it. I’m not saying it didn’t happen - I’m not sure I have sufficient reason to say it didn’t, though nor I am saying it did either - but some of the violence in the Old Testament scriptures is truly hideous, often too uncomfortable to bear (at least for me). There was almost certainly a need for punishment of some sort in all these cases, even severe, for the reasons you mentioned and more. The problem for many is the brutality of it; in some cases, the violence seems unjustifiable. If you grant that it is done for sufficient reasons, even in view of repentance for those the violence is carried out against, then I believe you could justify it - if these people were so depraved, so evil and wicked in their hearts that only such a terribly violent act leading to death would cause them to realise their sin, then I think it would be legitimate. The problem is whether it really was the case that this was the best thing that could be done and even if so, would this be the end or just the beginning for the ‘victims’ of such violence? Believe they get sent to hell for all eternity, then it hardly seems reasonable - God could just kill them himself instead of making other human beings carry out such a punishment. However, if you believe they could repent afterwards, then I think it is possible to rationalise it.
Anyway, I’ll move on from that as there are plenty of discussions on that topic
I like your view of the Bible, though I’m interested to see you explain why you view it that way. Does human input within the writing of the Bible mean that mistakes are natural and inevitable? And if there are errors and blunders, does that mean we can read it subjectively and decide whether something is true or not or do we have to assume that it is perfect until we find a mistake?
I tried, I really tried to believe that the bible does not contain mistakes. I come from a background where the bible is absolutely inerrant. The thinking there is that if the bible isn’t perfect, then it cannot be the Word of God. There are hardcore KJV proponents that believe that the KJV IS the Word of God, that it is the “preserved word”, and all other translations are inerrant at best, purposely corrupt at worst. Ergo, any “mistakes” found in the KJV are explained away somehow. And there are some instances that are plausible to explain that doesn’t jeopadize that view. For example, mistakes in translation, transmission, clerical errors, etc. that while present, doesn’t mean that they were that way in the “original” autographs.
But even the KJV has it’s share of problems that can’t be accounted by transmission errors or clerical mistakes. And if I’m honest with myself, I have to take an objective view. According to KJV proponents, the KJV NT was translated from a Greek manuscript called the Textus Receptus, or the Received Text, edited my a man names Erasmus. It is claimed that this text is superior to all the other Greek texts as God preserved His Word perfectly in it. And it was from this Greek Text that the KJV was translated.
Several problem with this view, however. In the first place, Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest who was under pressure to publish a Greek NT before Cardinal Ximenes did. So there was a rush to finish it. Consequently, there were numerous errors with it. Not only that, but Erasmus didn’t rely on just one Greek manuscript source, there was at least six, plus he relied on the Latin Vulgate is several places because the Greek sources were lacking in certain passages. For example, the last six verses in the book of Revelation were missing from the Greek, so he translated the Vulgate back into Greek and added them to the missing place. One can see evidence of this in comparing versions in Rev 22:19. KJV renders it “the book of life” while most of the other translations presents it as “the tree of life”.
You cannot find a Textus Receptus manuscript that will perfectly match the KJV. And, in fact, there have been thousands of corrections between the 1611 version of the KJV and the 1759 version. So it seems that the KJV isn’t the be all and end all version that it is claimed to be.
As far as the OT is concerned, KJV proponents claims that the KJV uses the Masoretic Hebrew text, which they believe was edited prior to Christ as evidenced by comparisions to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which dates as far as 150 BCE (The earliest Masoretic text we have only dates back to around 1000 AD). But still there are some variations between the Dead Sea Scroll and the Masoretic text.
Nor do KJVers believe that the Septuagent, a Greek translation of the OT dating back to about 200-250 BCE, is at all inspired and therefore has no basis in transmission of the KJV. However, it can be shown that Jesus and the Apostles used the Septuagint in the Gospels and NT writings. One doesn’t even need to know Greek to demonstrate this:
Psalm 8:2 in the KJV OT -* “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”*In Matthew 21, after when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey admist praises of Hosanna, and He went to the temple some of the chidlren sang, “Hosanna to the son of David”, the Pharisees complained to Jesus about their praise. Note Jesus’ reply"
Matthew 21:16 -* “…Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?”*Jesus was quoting from the above Psalm, but notice the difference in phrasing “perfected praise” vice “ordained strength” as one might believe if Jesus quoted from the Masoretic text, which He doesn’t. But guess which text He does quote from? That’s right, the Septuagent.
And you can’t say that this is a scribal error, that Matthew 21:16 should say 'ordained strength", because the context is indeed talking about praise from young babes or children.
I tried to point this out to a member in my church who is a KJV advocate. His reply was that whatever quotes Jesus made overruled the OT because His words are more inspired.
So it is things like this that give me pause when approaching the bible as inerrant. It troubled me for a time, but now I don’t feel it necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I don’t think it is neccesary to nickpick the bible apart in order to believe that the basic jist of what God wants and has inspired for us to know and can be found in the Bible. It doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect for the inspiration to pierce through. Language is just that, language. It is a form of communication. And with all forms of communication, especially with humans, there is bound to be misunderstandings or errors.
Remember the game “operator” where you form a long line and pass a phrase from person to person until you get to the end only to find out that the message is a garbled form of the original phrase? I don’t think it is much different when it comes to the bible. The good news is that we have a lot of manuscript evidence to sift through that will allow us to get as close to the original Word as possible. And I have to be satisfied with that. I get the overall message.
My position is very similar to Dondi. I treat the Bible with the utmost respect and the greatest of all books, but can no longer subscribe to inerrancy.
Take for example when people defend it by saying “God said if anyone adds or subtracts from the word of God, then , therefore, he treats his word seriously and won’t let it become corrupted.” Since when does a warning stop people from doing said thing? If that worked, the 10 commandments would not have failed so miserably and would produce perfect people. On the contrary, the fact that the Bible (Revelation of John, to be specific) warned against it, is a sure sign people will attempt to corrupt it.
There is also the argument that God is watching over it… He protects it, which is why we have it today. But then, one just has to ask why the Quran appears to be ‘protected’ too? It seems whatever argument is used can be used for any other sacred book. Of course, most Christians believe the Quran is an evil book, designed to deceive the masses. Maybe it is. Maybe it is not. But you cannot deny that it also appears to be protected. While I can already detect the future arguments… “But, But… But nothing has been more scrutinized than the Bible, therefore it is a in a league of it’s own” That is a true statement, but is still a leap of faith to raise it up to the standard of inerrancy.
Of course, technically, the verse in Revelation could be argued that it only applies to that particular book, and not the bible as a whole, seeing that the canon wasn’t established until a couple centuries later, and so Revelation was presumably delivered to the seven churches on its own.
On the bible preservation, I agree that doesn’t prove its inerrancy. Nor does it prove that it’s the Word of God, either. But there have been numerous attempts to destroy it, all have, of course, failed. And that only lends support to the Jesus’ claim that “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away”.
I am largely in agreement with those who have already posted (although I cannot condone the idea of a god who would have recourse to ,“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” to justify anything.)
Firstly, it should be noted that the vast majority take ‘inerrant’ to mean ‘does not contain errors’ and this is not a correct definition of the term.
But that aside, to cut to the chase, I believe that the scriptures we have been given clearly contain errors, I also believe that the title “The Word of God” is a misnomer and I also understand that it is wrong to regard them as ‘the final authority’.
It is easy to see why and how these reactionary ideas came about during the reformation and it is also easy to understand how many people find such concepts to be some sort of comfort blanket but in some cases it may well be born out of a lack of trust in the true Word of God who is the Spirit of Christ within us.
All that said, I actually think that I am now showing much more respect to the Bible than I ever did when I believed those reactionary ideas. The collection of writings, for me, is still miraculous, unique, God-given, and, upon being read, may (by the Spirit) be enlivened to become the word of God within my heart. Whilst I agree that any internal evidence in support of inerrancy etc is circular, I believe that it is much more consequential to discover that the internal evidence does NOT support those traditional protestant beliefs. So, I read the Bible in the knowledge that the portion I am reading may contain errors, may be misinterpreted and may not be understood by such a one as myself. I accept that this is what God intended. He has not given us (nor did He ever intend to give us) something on a par with The Quran.
God’s promise to Abraham still stands: “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” - Gen. 12:2-3
The intended purpose of Israel is so all the nations of the world will be blessed. Israel is God’s Chosen people. Not that Israel is morally better than anyone else; we defintely know they have a bad history. Nevertheless it is God who chose them, to do whatever He wills. Therefore He will bring forth to pass His plan through them, even if it means protecting them for the sake of that plan. And of course we klnow that THAT Divine plan culminated in the sacrifice of His Son, SO THAT “IN THEE ALL FAMILIES OF THE EARTH WILL BE BLESSED”.
The needs of the many (the world) outweigh the needs of the few (nations destroyed for the sake of Israel in God’s plan), or the One (Christ on the Cross).
What is there not to understand? Specifically, you can interpret “My words” as just the words Jesus spoke during His earthly ministry, which we have recorded in the Gospels. On a broader scale, since John 1:1 claims Christ as the Word, the scope can extend to the full canon of scripture, however filtered they may be. Further support for the broader scope is the statement Jesus made in Matthew 5:18, *“For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” *
With a little research, I’m sure you can find more verses concerning the permanence of God’s Word.
It is written in 2Timothy regarding Scripture: All scripture is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. 2Timothy 3: 16-17. The words of Scripture are inerrant in that they teach us how to live according to the will of God. Men of God wrote the words of the Bible as they were inspired by God, but not as transcription of a dictation. Therefore, the influence of man’s understanding of the world at the time of its writing is seen in Scripture. There is ample proof through the numerical value of words in Hebrew that words from Scripture have an amazing symmetry (e.g. the works of E. W. Bullinger and Vernon Jenkins) that can only be explained by divine inspiration of not only Scripture, but written language itself.
Numbers are infinite and unambiguous, as are the thoughts of God, and are the language of God. About 1400 years ago St. Augustine wrote: *Ignorance of numbers, too, prevents us from understanding things that are set down in Scripture in a figurative and mystical way. * (Augustine, Saint, On Christian Doctrine - Book II Chapter 16, Available [Online] ccel/org.ccel/augustine/doctrine.iv.iii.html ) In the Hebrew language each letter of the alphabet also has a numerical value. Jewish rabbis used the numerical value of words in the attempt to find hidden truth in Scripture. This process is called gematria. Greek, the language of the New Testament, also uses letters of the alphabet to indicate numerical values.
There are a variety of methods in which the numerical value of words have been used to evaluate Scripture, and many have corrupted this useful tool to find truth in the Word of God in their attempts to predict the future such as seen in proponents of Kaballah. Through the inspiration of the Spirit I began to use an unusual method of gematria which has not been used by others and found amazing confirmation of what is written in Scripture through the association of the numerical value of words in Hebrew and Greek. I began a thread under “Essays” in which I will attach files for each chapter of a book which I have written in which the truth of Scripture is confirmed by gematria. The first chapter deals with the truth of 2Timothy 3: 16-17. As that post has not yet been approved, I will attach the same file to this post. I will leave it to any who read what I have written to reach his own conclusion.Ch 1.pdf (397 KB)
We don’t always notice when posts are on mod approval – the system is set up that way on new members, to help protect the members from live spammers or spambots or phishers etc.
I decided to approve this version of the post since it’s on topic in a recent discussion already running, and so you’ll have a better chance of people discussing your ideas.
(That doesn’t mean I necessarily approve of any gematria system, or of gematria in general. But historically it’s certainly a way that Christian authorities have recommended treating and approaching the Bible, on a fairly regular basis in antiquity, at least in the Alexandrian branch of ancient scholastics.)
Jason,
Thank you for approving my post on this topic and the info you provided. I had submitted a post which included the same file attachment on the “Essays” section of the forum with the intention of subsequently providing files for each chapter of the book I have written in that section. The book which I have written is titled: Evidence of One God and One Truth. The book details gematria evidence to support that which is written in the Bible.
My contention is that the Bible should be approached as the result of inspiration from God and a source of absolute truth, although some aspects of Scripture may result in different interpretations. This thread is a good place to present the evidence which I have recorded and to generate comments from those who read what I have written. For this second post I have attached Chapter 2 of my book which deals with those who deny the existence of God. Gematria findings in association with what is written in Scripture in that regard should cause even the most skeptical of the gematria method which I have used to think twice.Ch 2 revised.pdf (525 KB)
If you think the posts of each chapter of my book would be better submitted in a different section please let me know.
I recommend waiting to see to what extent you get any conversation on the topic here, since subsequent chapters may be relevant to any such discussion.
Otherwise, a single thread collecting them in the Essay category would be the best idea; which you had already started, but you may get more direct discussion this way so I didn’t approve the double-up.
Please keep in mind that our forum is primarily set up to discuss Christian universalism, especially from a conservative trinitarian theology, pro or con, so members may not be as interested in discussing other topics here, though such discussions do happen.
Thanks for those twc, I’ll have a proper read of those two chapters at some point and then post some thoughts.
A question that might be interesting to ponder on, and I think is very important within this debate; what do we think Jesus’ view of the scriptures was? Obviously, He can’t have directly have had a view on the New Testament but what do we think his view was of the Jewish writings? A lot of this debate rides on what He is recorded as saying about them, even in passing, and He does appear to have a very high view of their importance and inspiration (another word that seems to have multiple meanings within in this debate).
I am a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Here is our approach to the Bible:
There has never been in the Orthodox Church a “Bible” as a single volume that you can hold in your hand. There is not a single book in an Orthodox church you could point to as “the Bible”.
Instead various passages of the Bible are found scattered throughout several liturgical books:
The pericopes of the Gospels are complied into a single volume called the Evangelion (which is placed on the Holy Altar). The pericopes are arranged according to the liturgical calendar. Thus one would have to do a great deal of searching and page-flipping to (for example) read the Gospel of John from chapter 1 to chapter 21.
The pericopes of Acts and of the Epistles are bound together in another book called the Apostolos (which is normally placed at the chanter’s stand). Again, the pericopes are arranged according to the liturgical calendar. One would have to do a great deal of searching and page-flipping to (for example) read the book of Romans from chapter 1 to chapter 16.
The twelve volumes of the Menaion, as well as the books called the Triodion and Pentekostarion, contain various passages from the Old and New Testaments intermixed with various liturgical texts. (These are normally placed on a shelf by the chanter’s stand.)
Please note that the book of Revelation is completely absent from the Church’s liturgy. The same can be said for huge chunks of the Old Testament. Such passages are never read aloud in church.
All of the above taken together is how I approach the “Bible”. Its deepest value is as it is used in the Church. That liturgical context is the Bible’s deepest context, the context in which it is the word of God. This liturgical context also gives us the authoritative interpretation of the Bible:
Thus those passages never used in the liturgy have been deemed by the Church as superfluous.
Thus I am not too interested in what the original writer meant. I am far more interested in how the Church uses the writings. I do not care if Isaiah thought he was writing about a future virgin birth or whether he thought he was writing about a natural birth that would occur within a few years of the prophet Isaiah writing the passage. I care that the Church uses his passage to refer to Christ’s Virgin Birth.
Thus issues not even addressed in the liturgy are thereby declared to be unimportant to the spiritual life.
Thus the only Bible I need is the liturgy of the Church, in which I get not only the Bible but its authoritative interpretation as well.
Anything else about the Bible is to me only on the level of intellectual interest.
Read section 1 of this essay, which addresses this question clearly and helpfully. Those that have been around the forum a while will have already read this. Section 2 will probably not be of interest. transcendentalists.com/unita … ianity.htm
Thank you Geoffrey for an interesting guide as to how scriptures are used and viewed amongst the orthodox.
And thanks too to DaveB for the lengthy but very worthwhile read of Unitarianism.
Thanks John. Apart from the Unitarianism (which I have studied, accepted and endorse at this point in my journey - but that is off-subject) ), I think his principles for interpretation are just…sound and clear.
I’m pretty sure the EOx still accept RevJohn as canonical though, don’t they…?
I know one side of the Syriac church doesn’t (but they aren’t part of central orthodoxy). I can understand ignoring a short book like, say, Obadiah which doesn’t say anything other prophetic books don’t say, or similarly ignoring redundant parts of other prophetic books. But ignoring a whole, large, unique canonical book as “superfluous” seems weird.
More likely there weren’t enough Fathers who thought they had clear ideas what to say about it, to include it in the liturgical tradition: it isn’t superfluous but too contested for even multiple suggested applications.
(Andreas of Caesarea would be the most influential commentator, right? I know his work actually splits the Majority Text into two distinct witness groups for textual criticism purposes, which is why in text-crit apparatus when citing variation witnesses in RevJohn M-A refers to a reading from Andreas compared to the M-K for the rest of the Koine, with M when both families agree. But just one main guy, if he isn’t clear about where he’s compiling from, wouldn’t be a good basis for liturgical usage, right? I mean compared to Chrysostom and other nominally ‘single’ liturgical compilers.)
Yes, the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts the book of Revelation as canonical. We just ignore it (liturgically speaking). It’s not that different than the average Protestant church that never reads aloud from Leviticus during a service. (That’s my experience. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the book of Leviticus quoted in a Protestant service.)
In short, ignoring a text and regarding it as superfluous is not incompatible with regarding it as canonical.
Consider: For the majority of Christian history, the vast majority of Christians did not own a Bible. In fact, the vast majority did not own even a single book of the Bible. After all, books had to be hand-written, which required scribes and lots of time, which resulted in very high prices. So where did almost all Christians get their “Bible fix”? From the liturgy. The Church knew this, obviously. The Church therefore put all the necessary Bible passages in the liturgy. This includes the first 26 books of the New Testament, large and small chunks of the Old Testament (including the entire book of Psalms), and chunks of Old Testament books in the Septuagint that most Protestants do not regard as canonical. The Church put everything in the liturgy that she judged that Christians need. Some parts of the Bible never made it into the liturgy. This is clear proof that the Church regards the non-included passages as superfluous.
Let us take a hypothetical Christian who spends his entire life in Ephesus from A. D. 901 to A. D. 980. We’ll call him Ioannes. Ioannes is a pious man and attends liturgy every chance he gets–basically missing liturgy only when he’s too sick to go. Over the 80 years of his life, the liturgy sinks into his soul, and he listens to and attends and learns from everything proclaimed in the liturgy. Of course, Ioannes does not own any books since he is not a rich man. Nor is he some sort of amateur debater or philosopher. Rather, he is a cobbler who is either A) attending church, B) making and repairing shoes, or C) attending to the necessities and normal things of life (spending time with family, eating, sleeping, etc.). Then, in A. D. 980, Ioannes dies and is buried.
What is interesting about Ioannes is that he never so much as even heard that there was such a thing as the book of Revelation. In his entire life he also never heard large chunks of the Old Testament. Is this a big deal? No. Maybe a little deal? No, not even that. According to the Church, Ioannes got everything out of the Bible that he needed through the liturgy. The liturgy is the Church’s authoritative interpretation of the Scriptures. As such, when parts of the Scriptures are not included in the liturgy, the Church is thereby authoritatively proclaiming that those parts of Scripture are superfluous and can be safely and utterly ignored for one’s entire life.
Revelation is accepted by Eastern Orthodox but the East was suspicious of it for quite a while (which is why it is not incorporated into the Liturgy), the reason being the East was concerned over possible Gnostic elements in elements that downgraded marriage, equally the West was suspicious over Hebrews, and for a long time neither fully considered either book inspired or authoritative. Eventually though both were accepted when the canon was agreed (while other books which quite a few regarded as authoritative such as the Didache, Shepard of Hermas, and 1 Clement for example were eventually left out).
The probably as I see it is where people locate their authority, that will determine utterly how your read Scripture (and whether you even read it as Scripture). Sola Scriptura is a myth that isn’t possible (not I’m talking here about Solo Scriptura, that is evidently false, but often those who are very deep in this view fail to see it, or even the greater irony that such an approach bows utterly and looks at books of Scripture from a very modernist context to the documents and contextualise the narratives through this cultural matrix and context reading ancient books as though they were genres of our culture - usually demanding that they must be read as strict journalistic accounts - and a strict adherence to philosophical foundationalism and it’s following assumptions and methods that are deeply shaped by the culture we all belong to - and then demand that this is the ‘plain’ reading of Scripture, though such plain reading produces such different results each time, it is silly to treat any ancient documents and literature like this, yet is a deeply imbedded instinct brought from the culture around us, and often those deep into this view refuse to see the fatal flaws in their approach, and that there sole authority is far from Scripture but the very authority and inherited philosophy of their culture and age). But Sola Scriptura also isn’t viable, it is a more developed version of the first, which doesn’t disregard other claims and sources of knowledge and approaches, but claims to put Scripture first, but is impossible for a very similar reason as solo Scriptura, the documents of Scripture don’t explain themselves, and how you read them will be completely governed by the culture, community tradition, what their initial hypothesis or basis of understanding that is the necessary starting point to approach and understand anything at all, of what reality is, and what the role Scripture is and does play in this, and the life of Christian community and worship, all this becomes the matrix and the hermeneutical framework by which anything in the documents of Scripture is interpreted and understood. And that is the highest authority, the prime source of understanding, not Scripture, it can’t be, Scripture does not explain and interpret itself. So not only Solo but Sola Scriptura is a myth, in general you are left with the possibility of the Anglican option of Scripture, Tradition and Reason equally and informing each other, the Roman Catholic position in which the understand of Scripture and Tradition is ultimately through the papal magisterium or the Orthodox (Eastern or Oriental) understanding of Apostolic Tradition, in which Scripture exists and it’s heart and is equally interpreted.
For the rest I’ll just quote what I wrote in the ‘praying for the Damned’ thread relating to this subject:
And along these same lines, for a wonderful biblical defense of the truly NONviolent nature of God, (in the very face of Scriptures that indicate otherwise), please see this discussion of Richard Murray’s ideas at
- but some of the violence in the Old Testament scriptures is truly hideous, often too uncomfortable to bear (at least for me). There was almost certainly a need for punishment of some sort in all these cases, even severe, for the reasons you mentioned and more. The problem for many is the brutality of it; in some cases, the violence seems unjustifiable. If you grant that it is done for sufficient reasons, even in view of repentance for those the violence is carried out against, then I believe you could justify it - if these people were so depraved, so evil and wicked in their hearts that only such a terribly violent act leading to death would cause them to realise their sin, then I think it would be legitimate. The problem is whether it really was the case that this was the best thing that could be done and even if so, would this be the end or just the beginning for the ‘victims’ of such violence? Believe they get sent to hell for all eternity, then it hardly seems reasonable - God could just kill them himself instead of making other human beings carry out such a punishment. However, if you believe they could repent afterwards, then I think it is possible to rationalise it.
