I'm blogging about things I might believe differently now than I once did. The introduction is the place to start. This is an essay on where the bible fits in to that way of thinking.
First off, I think we can safely ignore the position which speaks of plenary literal verbal inspiration, and connects this with a strong notion of inerrancy. I've never believed that, and find it very unsatisfactory. Not least because all but the oddest of its adherents ascribe those characteristics only to "scripture as originally given" - something which is lost to us through the hands of scribes and copyists - so that the whole issue becomes rather a hypothetical one. And that's not even touching on the question of how the canon came about. However, it is worth lingering near that inerrancy idea for two reasons: firstly, because other watered-down notions of infallibility sometimes sail very close to the strong position (and do themselves an injury in the process), and second because those who want to knock down scripture as useless will often set up an inerrant straw man to knock down. So we must beware that we stand where we mean to stand.
Of course, that choice is a crucial one: the way that we receive the scripture affects so much. I came across a conservative Evangelical (sorry, I forget who it was) who remarked that by looking at what someone believes about women's ministry we learn all we need to about their attitude to scripture. I think he may well be right. I've written before about how that issue essentially re-moulded my thinking on how to read and interpret the bible. I respect those who think that you can take a somewhat conservative position and yet reach an inclusive opinion, but I admit that deep-down that seems like what Orwell called double-think. To summarise my earlier post: however you look at the details, Paul doesn't seem to anticipate men and women playing interchangeable roles in the church, as many of us assume today - but that doesn't mean that we, in our context, have to agree with him.
So I want to receive scripture with care and with great respect - but without the sometimes naive reading which says "the bible says it so I must do it". Far too much interpretation goes into the reading for that to be allowable. Far too often we do lip-service to interpretation in context, but then proceed to make the most egregious leaps in proof-texting. Too often, there is a cursory acknowledgement that there are different kinds of literature in the bible - and then suddenly an attempt to "prove" something by reference to a piece of poetry. I find it rather refreshing that emerging church writers don't tend to litter their work with footnotes and bible references - not because they want to propound something heterodox (necessarily!) simply because they assume a grown-up reader who can weigh the whole of a passage, or book, or biblical theme.
McLaren has a nice take on this in his A New Kind of Christianity. There he contrasts receiving the "bible as constitution", with the "bible as library". I think that's rather a good summary of the shift. It's no less reverent, no less inclined to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to us through the text, but much less likely to have us say "God says it, I believe it, that settles it."
I've referred, too, to the quote from Tomlinson: "Only the doggedly rationalist mind imagines that truth is equated solely with fact." A large number of Christians receive certain parts of the bible as myth: the first eleven chapters of Genesis particularly so, or the book of Jonah; maybe the book of Job. Saying that they're not set out as historical fact does not diminish them or their message; it doesn't imply that any writer set out to deceive or mislead us. It just reminds us that there are lots of different kinds of literature contained within the pages of scripture. To how many other parts of the text might we apply the same analysis? Well, there, Evangelicals quickly part company with others - even if evidence for the Exodus is scant, archaeological ties to King David hard to find, and so on. Faced with overwhelming evidence, many have rejected a 'literal' reading of Genesis (not that such a reading was completely pervasive in antiquity, it seems), but have been unwilling to go further and compare what they read in the bible with the best available evidence outside.It the historicity of these things necessary? Is it likely?What should be our working assumption? Or, is the point of the virgin birth supposed to be a historical fact, or principally a useful picture? As I said when I reviewed Tomlinson's book, he quietly dissuaded me from the former.
It is naive, though, to imagine that we can easily undertake this shift, or do so without significant consequences. The author of the first chapters of Genesis - even if separated by a millennium or more from the events described - gave us all those genealogies to tie them onto the more historical-sounding material. Even if we assume a certain latitude in the meaning of 'beget', that link is still made. Jesus could speak of the apocalypse coming "as it was in Noah's day" - should we read that as meaning he believed in Noah (and does that mean we should?) or can we read it rather like "as Banquo said to Macbeth". When Paul said that in Adam all die, was he speaking literally or figuratively? I don't think it is satisfactory to fudge these things - though we need humility to admit when we don't have the answer. My answer, consistent with the stuff higher up, is to say that Paul may have believed in Adam as a historical fact, but that doesn't mean that we must.
So, I think there are two shifts in my thinking. First is to say that although the bible is true (countless generations have proven this in their experience), there are many, many things in it which are not to be received as facts: including many things which I would previously have seen that way. The second is more subtle, but eventually much more profound: it's that library vs constitution thing. I don't think this diminishes the authority of scripture, but others may differ: I'll certainly agree that it changes profoundly our practice in interpreting it. I say 'our', but of course I'm thinking mostly of Evangelicals, or more broadly Protestants. Those standing in other Christian traditions have long received the scripture in different ways anyway. Casting our eyes wider, to the methods and exegesis of other scholars seems like rather a good idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment