christian@topaz.UUCP (02/27/87)
Vasu Murty has again raised some basic questions about Christianity. The last time my response concentrated on issues such as Resurrection, so this time I'd like to respond to some of the other issues. Mostly, I'd like to give Vasu (and other readers) some feel for what a moderately liberal Christian position on Scripture looks like. Let me start with the question of disagreements in the Resurrection accounts. As you point out, there are differences in the number and type of entities present in the empty tomb, where Jesus appears, and what he tells the disciples to do. The problem is that the accounts were written some time afterwards, and they were written in a culture that did not consider accuracy in reporting "bare facts" to be as important as we do. This means that multiple accounts of any event would almost certainly have differed as much. It is very clear that there were legendary accretions throughout the Gospels (i.e. not just in the Resurrection). The question is, does this affect the believability of the accounts? I claim that it doesn't. To see that, ask yourself whether things would be different for you if all 4 Gospels agreed in all details. I think that wouldn't make much difference. They would probably still contain legendary materials. It would just mean that we were seeing only one branch of the tradition rather than 4. Indeed having differing accounts may actually increase our confidence. By giving us access to several different traditions, we have at least some basis on which to judge to what extent legendary material crept in. You quote Wesley as saying "if there be one mistake in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand. If any part of it is contradictory, it did not come from the God of truth." I understand where he is coming from, but this simply does not represent the views of many modern Christians. (Of course there are quite a few more conservative Christians who would agree completely.) In my view, God acted in history, throughout the history of Israel and in sending Jesus. But he left it to human beings to write the reports. Perhaps that isn't the way we would have done it. But where would you have God stop? Does he take responsibility for making sure that the people who developed Christian doctrine over the next few centuries made no mistakes? Does he guarantee all Sunday School teachers and preachers (who in practice have at least as much influence on what people actually believe as the words on the paper)? If he was going to take this kind of direct control, why let his Son be crucified? Why not just descend surrounded by angels and take over? I believe that for one reason or another God has chosen to leave it to the Church to be his body on earth. If we don't preach his word, or if we distort it, people may not come to know him, or they may come to believe in a demonic parody of the God of love. This is a sobering thought. Even though we believe that the Church is guided by God, we certainly do not believe that it is capable of being perfect in this life. In my view the model of an inerrant Scripture causes more problems than it solves. It changes the focus from Jesus to the Bible. Under my view, the Bible is a witness to God's work in history. It is subject to evaluation using the same historical criteria as any other document. As such, I think it comes off well. But the moment you raise it another level and say the Bible is a different kind of thing than other testimony, it is no longer clear how to deal with it. We now have to start gathering evidence about the Bible. Essentially we shift our attention from Jesus, with the Bible as evidence, to the Bible, with some very abstract arguments indeed as evidence. Aside from a couple of incredibly ambiguous passages from the Bible itself, it comes down to an argument that says "but God wouldn't do that!" Exactly the same "argument" used by the people of the 1st Cent to dismiss the Christian message. I think that in the long run the Reformation emphasis on the Bible as the Word of God may turn out to be misleading. I'm not suggesting that the Reformers were wrong to reemphasize the importance of the Bible, nor in making it the foundation of their work. But in the long run, I think applying the term Word of God to the Bible, particularly when capitalized, may be unfortunate. Theologically, Christ is the Word of God made flesh. There is only one complete revelation of God, only one Word of God, and that is Christ himself. When God opened his mouth, he spoke to us through the life of a human being, not a book. Of course the Bible is our witness to this, and as such as absolutely critical to everything we do. About the Virgin Birth. It is well known among Christians that Is 7:14 did not speak about a virgin birth in its original context. Nor are your comments about other OT passages a shock to most Christians. The 1st Cent Christians, as Jews, naturally looked to the OT to provide models for understanding what had happened with Christ. That they found a passage useful for this did not mean that historically this is the way the prophet had originally meant it. This sort of double use of scripture is in fact quite tame compared to some Jewish modes of interpreting the Torah, which we are now seeing in talk.misc.religion. Styles of interpretation of Scripture have changed over time. They have included symbolic, typological, and various other sorts of use. I believe the 20th Cent emphasis on the original meaning of the original authors is a good one. But I also see value to other methods of interpretation. I think we should be able to appreciate 1st Cent modes of thought without abandoning our own scholarly values. (NB: I am not denying that there was a Virgin Birth. That rests on Mat and Luke's testimony, not on Is. 7:14. I am saying that Mat. used the passage from Is. to fit his idea of the Virgin Birth into an OT context. But in doing in doing so he was using Isaiah in a manner other than looking at what the original speaker meant.) The statement that Jesus is the Son of God is very complex. Simply opposing it to his own use of the term "son of man" doesn't accomplish as much as it seems to. Son of man is normally taken to be a reference to Daniel. Apparently by the 1st Cent it had taken on messianic overtones. And son of God need not mean anything that a Jew would object to. Some scholars have claimed that in the Gospels "Son of Man" actually represented a higher Christology than "Son of God". As I have argued elsewhere, the NT itself does not use Son of God in quite the sense that it took on in later Christian tradition. The Gospel of John probably comes the closest to Incarnational doctrines. It's quite obvious that the NT used many different models and sets of symbolism for understanding Jesus' role. We should not be shocked that there is no single dominant model, nor surprised that one can create contradictions by juxtaposing different sets of symbolism. You also have to be careful not to read later Christian doctrines into the words of the NT. I believe the later doctrines are consistent with the NT and Jesus' own ideas, but they arise from thinking about the issues raised by the NT using modes of philosophy that are far removed from anything actually present in the NT. When Heb 1 says "You are my son; today I have begotten you", they are quoting from a Psalm describing the enthronement of a King. By tradition, the Davidic king could be described as God's son. Hebrews obviously adds a new dimension to this terminology. But they do not mean to refer to Jesus as God's son physically, nor do they have access to the full concept of the Incarnation as it developed over the next few centuries.