Friday, March 21, 2008
Saturday, December 08, 2007
How Not To Read the Bible, Part 2
Get this? If you disagree with him you aren't reading the Bible rationally. That will be explained later.
Guess what? That's how Jesus read the Bible. And He is risen from the dead. The Son of God who is risen from the dead gets to determine our views of the nature of Scripture. We need to start there.
A lot of what is coming is based on presuppositions and assumptions. My presupposition is that I view the Bible the way Jesus did. Presuppositions will color how you view things.
Kugel, an emeritus professor of Hebrew literature at Harvard and, mark this, an Orthodox Jew, aims to prove that you can read the Bible rationally without losing God. He sets himself the monumental task of guiding readers all the way through the Jewish scriptures (the Old Testament, more or less, if you’re a Christian) and reclaiming the Bible from both the literalists and the skeptics.
Get this? If you disagree with him you aren't reading the Bible rationally. That will be explained later.
So, how to read the Bible? Kugel proposes two different ways. First, he shows us the Bible as it was read by the “ancient interpreters,” writers who lived in the period a couple of hundred years before and after the birth of Jesus, even as the Bible itself was being codified. Their way of reading the Bible — their assumption of its inerrancy, their belief that scripture teaches moral lessons, and their faith in divine authorship — is the way many of us still read it today.
Guess what? That's how Jesus read the Bible. And He is risen from the dead. The Son of God who is risen from the dead gets to determine our views of the nature of Scripture. We need to start there.
A lot of what is coming is based on presuppositions and assumptions. My presupposition is that I view the Bible the way Jesus did. Presuppositions will color how you view things.
Labels: how to read the bible, resurrection
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
20/20 on the Historicity of the Nativity
By and large, the experts they had assembled were against the Nativity story being true. Here were the two most pertinent things in the segment.
1) An anti-supernatural bias. If you start with the premise or the faith commitment that God cannot do these things, guess what you end up with? God didn't do those things and the Nativity story is wrong.
2) Some scholar said that the ancients had a looser view of a story being true than we do. The story doesn't have to be literally true, but it was meant to be a story for some other purpose. She gave no basis for this. She doesn't explain why Peter explicitly says they didn't follow designed myths. "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Peter 1:16)
She doesn't explain why Paul explicitly says that if the Resurrection didn't really happen, Christians would be accursed by God. (1 Cor. 15) Does that sound like a story that doesn't have to be true?
She doesn't explain why the reaction by the Sadducees, who didn't believe in resurrection generally, is incredibly negative to Paul's preaching. (Acts 23:6-10) I mean it is just a nice story, right? Why did some Greek philosophers mock Paul's preaching the Resurrection if Paul isn't preaching a real resurrection from the dead? (Acts 17:32)
In other words, the people preaching this message didn't think it was an Aesop's fable. They died for this message. And, more importantly, the people who disagreed with the message realized they believed what they were preaching and it wasn't a fable.
This particular scholar 20/20 seems to want to say something positive about the biblical accounts. But the accounts don't leave room for her interpretation. They are either lying or telling the truth. There is no other option.
By and large, the experts they had assembled were against the Nativity story being true. Here were the two most pertinent things in the segment.
1) An anti-supernatural bias. If you start with the premise or the faith commitment that God cannot do these things, guess what you end up with? God didn't do those things and the Nativity story is wrong.
2) Some scholar said that the ancients had a looser view of a story being true than we do. The story doesn't have to be literally true, but it was meant to be a story for some other purpose. She gave no basis for this. She doesn't explain why Peter explicitly says they didn't follow designed myths. "For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Peter 1:16)
She doesn't explain why Paul explicitly says that if the Resurrection didn't really happen, Christians would be accursed by God. (1 Cor. 15) Does that sound like a story that doesn't have to be true?
She doesn't explain why the reaction by the Sadducees, who didn't believe in resurrection generally, is incredibly negative to Paul's preaching. (Acts 23:6-10) I mean it is just a nice story, right? Why did some Greek philosophers mock Paul's preaching the Resurrection if Paul isn't preaching a real resurrection from the dead? (Acts 17:32)
In other words, the people preaching this message didn't think it was an Aesop's fable. They died for this message. And, more importantly, the people who disagreed with the message realized they believed what they were preaching and it wasn't a fable.
This particular scholar 20/20 seems to want to say something positive about the biblical accounts. But the accounts don't leave room for her interpretation. They are either lying or telling the truth. There is no other option.
Labels: 20/20, apologetics, nativity, resurrection
