A question that has been coming back to me over the last couple of years is how I am to understand the Bible. I have become more and more suspicious about the view many christians held of the Bible being ‘word by word inspired’. As a sincere christian I have lost my assupmtion that the Bible is inspired by God in such a way, that every statement that is made, be it theological or referring to science, is’true’ in a modern way of the meaning. I suspect that this understanding many evangelicals held is an understanding that is influenced by the ‘enlightenment’ and in general the modern age. The question that interests me here the most is what the ‘canon’, the collection of books we now know as the Bible ment for those ‘church fathers’ when they decided of what is ‘in’ and what is ‘out’. I am not concerned here about which kind of criteria they used to take this decision. My question is: what did the canon mean for them then? For example: did it mean for them that the chosen books were ‘infallible true’, or was it rather saying: these books are the books of the church. whoever says something concerning God and Jesus, must take those books as a basis of what they are saying, without qualifying those texts as infallible in a modern sense as such. What do the members think about this? I am eager to learn from you.
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About as varied as today, I suspect.
I suspect many (at least those with ready access to their seminary book collections, as I am not) will provide you with more detailed answers than I, but for now suffice it to say that I am certain there was not one view of scriptures primacy and authority among the early church fathers. This will be painfully obvious when we realize how many views on these issues you might have in a group of five committed Christians (my guess is about five different views).
However, in addressing your first paragraph, may I refer you to Walter Brueggemann’s (et al) book Struggling with Scripture? I am reading it now and, although a very short book (an anthology of about 65 pages or so) it is highly relevant to the questions you are asking, again, at least in the first paragraph.
Hope that helps.
Re: what is the Bible for a christian? (book recommendations)
First off, kudos to you for engaging your critical mind in your faith! 8^)
As a (not seminary trained) layperson, I found the following two books quite helpful for exploring the questions you raise. The first is a pretty darned “heavy” read, but was well worth wading (slogging?) through, and the second I found to be a delightful read.
The Canon Of Scripture
F.F. Bruce
Intervarsity Press
ISBN 0-8308-1258-X
The History Of Christian Thought
Jonathan Hill
Intervarsity Press
ISBN 0-8308-2776-5
what is the Bible for a Chrstian?
Some Christians site Jesus, James, and Paul in proposing an evangelical understanding of the Bible. Yet Paul (2 Tim) refers to “all” scripture and in so doing is not referring consciouslly to his own writing and doesn’t exclude the Koran or the Vedas. Jesus claims not to change the ‘law’ but clearly reinforces parts and ignores other parts. Perhaps that is a good model for us.
As to the canon. Who gets to decide which books are in and which are out? A bunch of fourth century European men? Apparently so. Mentally, I keep a loose leaf canon. I can add and subtract, remove and return texts as I like. There is no higher authority to tell me not to do this - and I can’t see that it bothers God.
4th century european men
My understanding of the Biblical canonization process is one more of “formalizations of existing standards already in widespread acceptance throughout the Christian communities” rather than “unilateral decisions foisted upon all Christians from then on”.
Your “loose leaf canon” reminds me of the variety of canons still held by Christian groups - Coptic, Ethiopic, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, etc.Keith:Though St. Paul may
Keith:
Though St. Paul may not specifically refer to his writings as “Scripture, it seems that St. Peter does so. The gospel authors state without equivication that Jesus put his stamp of approval upon much, if not all of what we think of as old covenant writings. I am not sure which aspects of the “law” Jesus ignored. He certainly raised the bar respecting its claims on us and our understanding of its heart and soul, if you will. “You have heard it said…, but I tell you…”.
Im not sure of the relevance of the Koran or the Vedas to the discussion. Could St. Paul have been in any position to say anything about the Koran? Having said that, is a buffet approach to the Bible a “heart healthy” one? Might one, in attending to one aspect of the Bible, put an unwarranted emphasis on the equivalent of a rich, creamy pastry to the exclusion of some less tasty morsel more necessary to spiritual well being?
Do you mean that there is no higher authority than yourself as a guide to approaching scripture, or do you mean in general, in your approach to all things? If the latter is so, why then concern yourself with the question “what is the Bible for the Christian”? At its core, that question is one of the authority of scripture.
Cordially, Alario
Buffet Bible
Certainly each council built on the traditions of the last and the Koran is a post-Pauline text. However, no one questions the present absence of councils, or the narrow interpretations of Paul’s “scriptures” to those written only immediate post-Paul and sanctioned by Church authority. If by “scripture” Paul meant the gospels (written post-Pauline epistles) why not the Koran, or Nicky Gumbels ‘Alpha’?
There are genuine concerns with a loose leaf approach to the Bible. The dependence on self for discerning what is and isn’t important being the main one stated above.
However, since the very first decades of the Church there have been sects of Christian (the Circumcised and the uncircumcises), each of which having a “buffet” approach to the Bible. What I advocate is a little honesty and self-awareness.
In fact, we all take emphasise texts according to our own prejudice. Every Christian has a loose-leaf Bible, and probably always will. But because of a frigid conservatism Christians are tormented by the inconsistency between what the Bible authors wrote and the sum of their beliefs and practices.
I’m not suggesting an absence of accountability, rather, a more sober concept of it. There is nothing theologically wrong with going no further than my church or cell group in deciding the canon of scripture (a point that ybic makes in refernce to differing Christian canons for different denominations).
“the sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”. The canon was made for man, not man for the canon.
Post Ebionite surely
Post Ebionite surely I would suggest
The Qur’an is influenced by Christianity, probably by such as Ebionite Christians as well as the Jews trading in Arabia. They were not trinitarians, and it can account for the misunderstanding of the Trinity in the Qur’an. The Qur’an is, in part, a tract against the polytheism of the Ka’aba, which was removed, and fiercely imposes the monotheism of God, also essential for it to be a receiver of the revelation that came to Judaism and Christianity.
The Qur’an can be read by anoyone (subject to translation!) and so can any scriptures and otherwise inspiring texts in the world. Creating artificial barriers does not help. Even if one keeps to the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, the variation of meaning and development within is quite broad - a number of narrative understandings are possible. There is always selective extraction and choice.
I combine something of Christianity, Western Buddhism and humanism in how I derive faith, and I have now a Marcel Mauss understanding of religious ritual (“the gift”) as a form of exchange. In a situation of religious freedom, there is inevitably a buffet approach to the prepared dishes on the table.
http://www.pluralist.co.uk
biblical parameters
sorry, I only meant “post-” as in “after” rather than “coming out of”. My bad. ;-)
As you well know, pluralist, the Koran in translation is not the Koran at all. But yes, creating barriers is unhelpful - is there then, a useful difference between barriers and parameters. Perhaps it is neccessary to keep the canon of scripture as a point of reference but hold lightly to it in our search for religious meaning. What we should not do is be beholden to dead guys from foreign councils with their own agendas who, even if they are led by the Holy Spirit, are fallible and have no rule over us.
Having a fixed sacred to text is just another way that the institutional churches hold sway over the laity. without rules their can be no rulers, and the Church rulers wouldn’t like that - imagine, it would be total anarchy! Yum.
http://zap.to/christiananarchismuk
I agree. Here I'd like to
I agree. Here I’d like to mention something of my past. I was a Unitarian and indeed spent a year intending to be a minister at Luther King House. Unitarianism is creedless and established itself as an evolutionary church. However, today, it has reached a point of decline and evacuation of any objective guided meaning that it has suddenly become a combination of conservative and confused. Being conservative was the General Assembly successfully introducing a statement, along with freedom statements, that it upheld the liberal Christian tradition. Some of us were against this, not because we were against Christianity, but because it privileged one tradition in a creedless setting. I argued that a postmodern situation was a very good opportunity for creedlessness, in which a market place of ideas and symbolic forms could regenerate the church as a movement. Some agreed, some were doing it, many did not.
Unitarianism finds postmodernism hard to handle because it has been reductionist. It has kept to what it considers minimal objective truths. I’d say remove all these objective truths and remythologise and do it with as much plurality as possible.
It seemed to me that if you were going to be postliberal, that is to say have a path and run along with it, it was being done rather better in such as the Church of England or Western Buddhism (where I’d also been). In the end frustration and the liberal contradiction (power is not individualist, it moves to the unchecked congregation and its elite - it is creeds by the back door) moved me out and I am trying to develop within the Church of England again.
Unitarians feared anarchy, whereas my argument was that pluralism was a unique selling point and was also a social gospel, where people of widely different views could get on together, even worship together, and this is something society should do. I still hold to these views, but in its decline and contradiction I just lost patience with Unitarianism. Plus it hardly encouraged thinking - it is a simple collection of independent congregations that are liberal if stable.
So anarchy needs its own form of justification. I hold to a Cupitt-like theology (some differences and I don’t read him often now) and wish for the widest possible set of influences, but I like a touch of orthopraxy and I always missed the eucharist as a practice within the Unitarians. It meets my theology of exchange. I like the idea of a semiotics of theology, a poststructural theology, sort of Baudrillard applied. So anarchy with theory, I think.
http://www.pluralist.co.uk