Literalism and Bibliolatry

[Bravus]

Blog post taking up some issues from here: http://www.bravus.com/blog/?p=2273

Here's the text to keep the discussion here:

Literalism and Bibliolatry

Forum discussions{1} are just the latest manifestation of an issue I’ve been thinking about for quite a while now. I’ll let one of the forum denizens, ‘John317', speak for himself:

Quote:

People have to decide whether to accept their feelings & opinions about this or whether they are going to trust the Bible[...]{2}.

If the Bible [...is] untrustworthy on something so central in Scripture as this {whether God kills}, perhaps it is wrong on many other things.

Do you trust the Bible [...] when it comes to telling us that Christ is both fully man and fully God? Or that homosexuality is a sin? [...]

My point is that once we start jettisoning ideas and teachings that we don’t like for whatever reason, it becomes a matter of accepting what we like and rejecting everything else that we might find personally objectionable. At that point, people are no longer placing their faith in the word of God or even in God Himself but in their own opinions.

That particular post was in response to a discussion about whether God kills, and John317 kind of had the wrong end of the stick. I was agreeing with him: if you take the Bible literally, then God does indeed kill. He killed pretty much everyone on earth in the Flood, making God the most effective mass killer in history.

Now, what one does with that is obviously more complicated, but all I was trying to do at the time was to force believers to take their own beliefs face-on: if you believe in a literal Bible, you believe in a killer God. Whether or not God has every right to kill is another debate.

But the bigger issue is that one about ‘do you believe the Bible or your own opinions?’

The Bible is full of contradictions. I don’t think that statement is even controversial. There’s a list here, and sure, some of them are kind of petty, but there’s mountain of them.

Different people do different things with that. Some, like my friend Lawrence and other friends, throw out the Bible. The claim is made that it’s infallible, yet they see the contradictions and feel they have no choice.

Others deny that it is so, and find ways to explain away the apparent contradictions. If pushed into a corner they tend to fall back on ‘well, we can’t know everything, so you just have to have faith’.

What that also tends to mean, though, is that they then cherry-pick the bits and pieces of the Bible they like – pick their preferred pole of each contradiction, if you like. Of course, if one picks the opposite poll – well backed up with Biblical evidence – one is ‘trusting to your own opinions’.

I guess the position I’ve come to, if it can even be called a position, is that I trust God, but have to discern God through what is a human document. It’s a human document with particular purposes, and one with flaws. And yes, I know that there are particular texts within it that claim it is all perfect, but whence the contradictions?

(PS I’ll be particularly interested in comments from Paul, my brother, who is the person I know who knows his Bible best.)

Given that, of course there’s the temptation to rationalise away anything inconvenient! I have to trust myself and my own honour and honesty not to do that: and recognise that I’m flawed and fallible.

But if we recognise that the Bible is a library of books written by humans, then we can recognise that *perhaps* the Creation story is a religious origins story about God’s role, rather than a literal history of how the universe and world came to be.

We can recognise that *perhaps* the Flood was actually a local event that covered the *known* world rather than the entire planet, and perhaps people ascribed to God’s wrath what was a natural event.

We can recognise that it was the war leaders of the time who claimed God’s imprimatur when they commanded that all the men, women, children and babies be slaughtered and just the young virgins kept to be ‘wives’ for the soldiers.

We can recognise that human homophobes projected some of their fears onto God.

And so on.

There are arguments about where to stop and what is real and what’s the point and…

But there is, in my view, no alternative to consulting our own minds: there is simply no coherent and consistent Biblical set of doctrines and practices that can be unproblematically drawn from the text. And, as I’ve discussed before, God is too big and too strange to be captured in one book – or a billion.

Hence the reference to ‘bibliolatry’ – book worship – in the title. When the book itself is worshipped, rather than God, that’s not that different from any other form of idolatry.

The book points to God, and God is bigger than the book.

1. Paul (my brother) is probably correct when he says in the comments that those are not always helpful, but they do provide food for thought

2. Given that it’s a Seventh-day Adventist forum he referred to Ellen White in the same breath as the Bible but IMO that’s a separate and narrower issue. If you want to follow that up I’ve discussed it on the ClubAdventist forum (google it)

Obviously, John317, if you'd prefer I remove your words I will.

[Dr. Shane]

I try to take the Bible as its authors intended it to be understood. The message is inspired, not the exact wording. That is how I read and understand the Bible.

[abelisle]

Bravus,

In the context of what you have written re; "bibliolatry", how do you respond to those who describe the document we call the Bible as a "living" entity - an organic manifestation of the "Logos"?

Does that then remove the Bible from being an object of idolatry and instead elevate it to God-like status?

Alex

[Bravus]

Alex, isn't the definition of idolatry the worship of something that is not a god as though it were?

I don't think we worship a tetra..nity, or whatever a 4-person God would be. Jesus is Jesus, God and human, and the Bible is clearly not the Father or the Spirit, so that move doesn't really seem tenable...

[abelisle]

What comes to mind is what EGW says in the 1st sentence of Steps to Christ: "Nature and revelation alike manifest the handiwork of God."

Without the Bible many would say we cannot know God. The medieval scholastics turned to Nature i.e. Bonaventura et al, by creating "itinerariums" to better understand Nature's creator - God.

I agree with you that many worship the Bible as a holy object but I wonder if we would know God without it? Would Nature be sufficient?

Alex

[Bravus]

Oops, link to list of inconsistencies didn't make it across: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html

Illustrative purposes only.

[Bravus]

Without the Bible many would say we cannot know God. The medieval scholastics turned to Nature i.e. Bonaventura et al, by creating "itinerariums" to better understand Nature's creator - God.

I agree with you that many worship the Bible as a holy object but I wonder if we would know God without it? Would Nature be sufficient?

I don't think we have to do without it, though. That's kinda the point: it doesn't have to be all or nothing. But we need to look at the Bible as one revelation of God and, as you said, nature as another. The love we see in those around us is another, and so on. It's an active, on-going task to come to know God from all these revelations... and IMO bibliolatry hinders rather than helps in that quest.

[Igakusei]

I have to say that I'm in the same boat as your friend, and I have a hard time not throwing the entire thing out.

Part of it is probably the way I was raised; that the Bible is a literal history, inerrant, and only spiritually understood. Theologans are practiced at harmonizing the discrepancies between and within the books of the Bible, as well as between a traditional understanding of the Bible and a modern natural understanding of our world (e.g. evolution). My mom has the opinion that Satan mixes truth with error, and therefore virtually no religious books are worth anything aside from the Bible and EGW (since all the others were influenced by Satan). I understand how you've been able to bridge the gap with a more liberal compromise, but I just can't bring myself to do that.

The secular explanations just make so much more sense to me now, and don't require all the fancy footwork that Biblical literalists are doing. If God is as powerful and all-knowing as I was taught to believe he is, why did he let humans make a hack-job of his divine word, and then not help us even preserve it? I can't get over the fact that thousands of different groups of people who are earnestly seeking the truth and praying for divine guidance consistently come to different conclusions.

Quote:

But there is, in my view, no alternative to consulting our own minds: there is simply no coherent and consistent Biblical set of doctrines and practices that can be unproblematically drawn from the text. And, as I’ve discussed before, God is too big and too strange to be captured in one book – or a billion.

I very much agree with this. People who use their own logic, experiences, and prejudices to guide them in interpreting the Bible suddenly forsake those very things whenever holes are found in their conclusions. We use reason to develop our beliefs and doctrines, but the second something doesn't make sense we're back to "not learning on our own understanding."

[ClubV12]

Without the Holy Spirit it is impossible to understand the bible, as spiritual things are spirtually understood.

I believe it is also impossible to understand the deeper aspects of the bible without guidance from the Spirit of Prophecy. For instance, NO one was able to unlock the meanings of Daniels prophecy until God directed his servant to reveal it to us. It is impossible to separate the two, the bible and the Spirit of Prophecy.

While I've heard many evangelists state we have to stand on the bible alone, as this thread may suggest, the reality is, we cannot AND have a full(er) knowledge of the bible. Without the insights offered by the Spirit of Prophecy it is impossible. Without that "study guide" you will always have a limited understanding or reach wrong conclusions (as William Miller did). Now once you GAIN those insights and THEN understand, it becomes much easier to make your case, what ever it may be, solely from the bible as your source.

No group of people on earth has had as full an understanding of the bible as we do today. No group, ever in the history of man. When I hear, "...and knowledge shall increase", I think of that in terms of the knowledge about the plan of salvation, the deeper understanding we have of the bible today. It is more clear now than at any time in history.

[Gerr]

The Bible is full of contradictions. I don’t think that statement is even controversial. There’s a list here, and sure, some of them are kind of petty, but there’s mountain of them.

Full of contradictions? WOW!!! If that is so, then there is NO reason to have confidence in it whatsoever. One of the things that convinces me of its inspiration is the consistency of its message from Genesis to Revelation, written by so many different authors over a period of almost 1500 years! Yeah, there are some apparent discrepancies, but full of contradictions? Would you list them and we'll see if the Bible itself does not clarify them?

Quote:

Different people do different things with that. Some, like my friend Lawrence and other friends, throw out the Bible. The claim is made that it’s infallible, yet they see the contradictions and feel they have no choice.

As to infallibility, SDAs do not claim that the Bible is infallible. Here is what EGW says about the SDA position:

1. "In regard to infallibility, I never claimed it; God alone is infallible. His word is true, and in Him is no variableness, or shadow of turning."--Letter 10, 1895.

2. "In His Word, God has committed to men the knowledge necessary for salvation. The Holy Scriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative, infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the revealer of doctrines, and the test of experience." {FLB 13.2}

3. " Some look to us gravely and say, "Don’t you think there might have been some mistake in the copyist or in the translators?" This is all probable, and the mind that is so narrow that it will hesitate and stumble over this possibility or probability would be just as ready to stumble over the mysteries of the Inspired Word, because their feeble minds cannot see through the purposes of God. Yes, they would just as easily stumble over plain facts that the common mind will accept, and discern the Divine, and to which God’s utterance is plain and beautiful, full of marrow and fatness. All the mistakes will not cause trouble to one soul, or cause any feet to stumble, that would not manufacture difficulties from the plainest revealed truth. {1SM 16.2}

4. "The writers of the Bible had to express their ideas in human language. It was written by human men. These men were inspired of the Holy Spirit. Because of the imperfections of human understanding of language, or the perversity of the human mind, ingenious in evading truth, many read and understand the Bible to please themselves. It is not that the difficulty is in the Bible. Opposing politicians argue points of law in the statute book, and take opposite views in their application and in these laws." {1SM 19.3}

5. "The Bible is not given to us in grand superhuman language. Jesus, in order to reach man where he is, took humanity. The Bible must be given in the language of men. Everything that is human is imperfect. Different meanings are expressed by the same word; there is not one word for each distinct idea. The Bible was given for practical purposes." {1SM 20.2}

Quote:

But if we recognise that the Bible is a library of books written by humans, then we can recognise that *perhaps* the Creation story is a religious origins story about God’s role, rather than a literal history of how the universe and world came to be.

If the Creation and Adam & Eve story are NOT literal, what is your alternative? No creation, no Sabbath. No fall, no sin. No sin, no need of a Savior. And if the Cross and the Resurrection are not literal, then as Paul said, we might as well eat and drink, because our faith is futile, and there is no future.

Quote:

We can recognise that *perhaps* the Flood was actually a local event that covered the *known* world rather than the entire planet, and perhaps people ascribed to God’s wrath what was a natural event.

Then how do you explain fossils in the tall mountains? Then how come there is a flood legend from just about every major scattered areas on this planet?

[Igakusei]

Quote:

Then how do you explain fossils in the tall mountains? Then how come there is a flood legend from just about every major scattered areas on this planet?

Do you think scientists just try and ignore these "inconvenient" facts? There are much better explanations for all of the data that creationists say supports the idea of a worldwide flood. Given what we know about plate tectonics, one would even expect to find marine fossils on mountains considering the geologically recent age of most mountain ranges.

Why don't we ever find rabbit fossils in, say, precambrian rock? Why don't we ever find fossils of species from different ages in the same layers? Heck, virtually all species of sea urchins only appear in relatively recent rock layers, which is exactly the opposite of where a flood geologist would expect to find them.

How come there is far too much diversity within the human genome to have come from 8 people 4,500 (or two people 6,000) years ago?

[Igakusei]

If the Creation and Adam & Eve story are NOT literal, what is your alternative? No creation, no Sabbath. No fall, no sin. No sin, no need of a Savior. And if the Cross and the Resurrection are not literal, then as Paul said, we might as well eat and drink, because our faith is futile, and there is no future.

This doesn't strike me as a particularly strong argument. Let me make another one using the exact same logic: If the angel Gabriel didn't actually give the Quran to the prophet Muhammad, then suicide bombers are just wasting their lives and aren't actually going to be given special rewards in heaven.

It's a "I don't like the logical consequences of this idea, so the idea must be false" argument, and it's an appeal to fear and emotion. You can find this argument used to defend creationism on the SDA church's own website, and it strikes me as rather depressing that they don't seem to be able to come up with a better answer.

Ted Wilson himself even based an entire sermon off of this idea last Christmas at GYC.

[ClubV12]

From a scientific standpoint, you could debate creation vs evolution with hard data on both sides. Especially since both are "theories" from a science view point. The hard data looks at the big picture and cannot address a myriad of details, like the existence of specific people (Adam and Eve). But if you mean Adam represents a race or group of people at a paricular time in history (pre-flood), that may be acceptable.

Perhaps, in that debate (creation vs evolution) silence on some specific aspects is eloquent, if the debate is based soley on known or reasonable theoritical science. A theoritcal scientist does not typically work IN the lab, he/she, produces an hypothesis, to be proved or disproved by others.

[Bravus]

Dang, I *knew* including creation as one of a list of several examples would completely break the discussion: people seem to be completely unable to look past that particular issue to the actual main point under discussion.

Gerry, I did post a link to a long list of Biblical inconsistencies. You're welcome to address those if you wish, but you've set up an inbuilt mechanism by which it's possible to say that *any* given inconsistency is not central to the 'message' of Scripture and is therefore irrelevant.

Careful readers will note, also, that I am *not* making the argument that the inconsistencies invalidate the Bible (I noted that some of my friends do), but rather that a less simplistic understanding of the Bible enables its message to be taken *more* seriously.

[Sonny]

I like the contradictions because they show how much I don't know. The more the Spirit opens my mind to spiritual things the better I understand them.

[Gerr]

Why don't we ever find rabbit fossils in, say, precambrian rock? Why don't we ever find fossils of species from different ages in the same layers? Heck, virtually all species of sea urchins only appear in relatively recent rock layers, which is exactly the opposite of where a flood geologist would expect to find them.

Shall I assume from your claim of the absence of rabbit fossils in precambrian rocks that you believe in the gradualism of evolution? And that the rabbit coming later in the geologic column is an indication that it is a more complex animal and that the earlier ones were simpler?

1. Steven Gould, a well known evolutionist at Harvard, talked about the "Big Bang of Evolution" in which he claimed that ALL the known phyla appeared SIMULTANEOUSLY during the Cambrian period.

2. Behe, an evolutionist, in his "Darwin's Black Box", showed the impossibility of gradualism with the principle of "irreducible complexity." He illustrates this principle with the 5 basic parts of a mousetrap. If one part is missing, it doesn't work. No organ system is known to evolve one part at a time. A whole/complete functioning system appears suddenly.

3. It is curious that all fossils occur in water deposited sediments, yet the same scientists deny a world-wide flood!

Quote:

How come there is far too much diversity within the human genome to have come from 8 people 4,500 (or two people 6,000) years ago?

It is also rather curious that you find the relatively few and superficial human differences as an argument against the common creation origin of mankind and at the same time swallow the claim that all living things came from the same one-celled organism?

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

If the Creation and Adam & Eve story are NOT literal, what is your alternative? No creation, no Sabbath. No fall, no sin. No sin, no need of a Savior. And if the Cross and the Resurrection are not literal, then as Paul said, we might as well eat and drink, because our faith is futile, and there is no future.

This doesn't strike me as a particularly strong argument. Let me make another one using the exact same logic: If the angel Gabriel didn't actually give the Quran to the prophet Muhammad, then suicide bombers are just wasting their lives and aren't actually going to be given special rewards in heaven.

Are you saying that every claim to be the truth is true? I have not read the Quran all the way through, but what I have found so far is jumbled truth borrowed from the Bible.

Quote:

It's a "I don't like the logical consequences of this idea, so the idea must be false" argument, and it's an appeal to fear and emotion. You can find this argument used to defend creationism on the SDA church's own website, and it strikes me as rather depressing that they don't seem to be able to come up with a better answer.

What the argument shows is the utter incompatibility between belief in evolution and belief in Creation. A Christian evolutionist is an oxymoron, IMHO.

And BTW, I don't recall seeing in the other thread your proof for the 1st century writing of the book of Daniel, or the other prophecies that were written centuries before they occurred.

[Igakusei]

Shall I assume from your claim of the absence of rabbit fossils in precambrian rocks that you believe in the gradualism of evolution? And that the rabbit coming later in the geologic column is an indication that it is a more complex animal and that the earlier ones were simpler?

1. Steven Gould, a well known evolutionist at Harvard, talked about the "Big Bang of Evolution" in which he claimed that ALL the known phyla appeared SIMULTANEOUSLY during the Cambrian period.

2. Behe, an evolutionist, in his "Darwin's Black Box", showed the impossibility of gradualism with the principle of "irreducible complexity." He illustrates this principle with the 5 basic parts of a mousetrap. If one part is missing, it doesn't work. No organ system is known to evolve one part at a time. A whole/complete functioning system appears suddenly.

3. It is curious that all fossils occur in water deposited sediments, yet the same scientists deny a world-wide flood!

[Gerr]

Gerry, I did post a link to a long list of Biblical inconsistencies. You're welcome to address those if you wish, but you've set up an inbuilt mechanism by which it's possible to say that *any* given inconsistency is not central to the 'message' of Scripture and is therefore irrelevant.

"Inconsistencies" seems to me, quite different from the claim of the Bible being "full of contradictions." I have stated the SDA view of inspiration which is quite distinct from the evangelical view that the Bible is infallible. "Only God is infallible." "Everything human is imperfect." The Bible writers were not God's "penmen." The Bible was not given in some grand superhuman language; inspired writers wrote in in their own fallible/imperfect language. And as different witnesses see the same event through different lenses, there is bound to be apparent inconsistencies in what they wrote.

[John317]

If the Creation and Adam & Eve story are NOT literal, what is your alternative? No creation, no Sabbath. No fall, no sin. No sin, no need of a Savior. And if the Cross and the Resurrection are not literal, then as Paul said, we might as well eat and drink, because our faith is futile, and there is no future.

Originally Posted By: Igakusei

This doesn't strike me as a particularly strong argument.

Can you show how the Sabbath would be legitimate if there was no creation? Also, please show how sin as the transgression of God's law exists without the Fall.

If there was no creation, and humans are the result of millions of years of evolution, why do humans need a Savior from sin?

How do you get around the argument that if there is no literal resurrection, our faith is futile?

[Igakusei]

Are you saying that every claim to be the truth is true? I have not read the Quran all the way through, but what I have found so far is jumbled truth borrowed from the Bible.

[John317]

Shall I assume from your claim of the absence of rabbit fossils in precambrian rocks that you believe in the gradualism of evolution? And that the rabbit coming later in the geologic column is an indication that it is a more complex animal and that the earlier ones were simpler?

1. Steven Gould, a well known evolutionist at Harvard, talked about the "Big Bang of Evolution" in which he claimed that ALL the known phyla appeared SIMULTANEOUSLY during the Cambrian period.

2. Behe, an evolutionist, in his "Darwin's Black Box", showed the impossibility of gradualism with the principle of "irreducible complexity." He illustrates this principle with the 5 basic parts of a mousetrap. If one part is missing, it doesn't work. No organ system is known to evolve one part at a time. A whole/complete functioning system appears suddenly.

3. It is curious that all fossils occur in water deposited sediments, yet the same scientists deny a world-wide flood!

Originally Posted By: Igakusei

1. So? What does that have to do with anything? Evolution wasn't a slow and steady process, and I don't think anyone still thinks it is (aside from uninformed people such as yourself).

I don't believe Gerry has shown by his answer above that he is uninformed. People often disagree about the significance and interpretation of data and information without being uninformed.

Please be more courteous in your replies.

[Igakusei]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

Shall I assume from your claim of the absence of rabbit fossils in precambrian rocks that you believe in the gradualism of evolution? And that the rabbit coming later in the geologic column is an indication that it is a more complex animal and that the earlier ones were simpler?

1. Steven Gould, a well known evolutionist at Harvard, talked about the "Big Bang of Evolution" in which he claimed that ALL the known phyla appeared SIMULTANEOUSLY during the Cambrian period.

2. Behe, an evolutionist, in his "Darwin's Black Box", showed the impossibility of gradualism with the principle of "irreducible complexity." He illustrates this principle with the 5 basic parts of a mousetrap. If one part is missing, it doesn't work. No organ system is known to evolve one part at a time. A whole/complete functioning system appears suddenly.

3. It is curious that all fossils occur in water deposited sediments, yet the same scientists deny a world-wide flood!

Originally Posted By: Igakusei

1. So? What does that have to do with anything? Evolution wasn't a slow and steady process, and I don't think anyone still thinks it is (aside from uninformed people such as yourself).

I don't believe Gerry has shown by his answer above that he is uninformed. People often disagree about the significance and interpretation of data and information without being uninformed.

Please be more courteous in your replies.

Informed people don't make uninformed claims. Sorry It's not an insult, it's just how things are.

Edit: I'll clarify. As you noticed from my answer, evolutionists don't believe that it was a gradual slow and steady process. It appears to have moved largely in fits and starts in response to environmental (and therefore selective) change. As long as environmental conditions are stable, the biological component of the ecosystem is at equilibrium and generally under no pressure to adapt. During these periods diversity builds up, and when migrations and other environmental changes happen natural selection (and thus evolution) kicks into overdrive. It's obvious from his reply that he does not understand this, instead preferring to reference popular quote-mines from people like Gould to try and distort the real picture.

[Gerr]

1. So? What does that have to do with anything? Evolution wasn't a slow and steady process, and I don't think anyone still thinks it is (aside from uninformed people such as yourself).

Oh, so if evolution is scientifically established truth, it shouldn't change, does it? If you are now abandoning the ages for evolution to take place in favor of shorter periods, why then do we not see it? Where are the transition forms? When a horse appears in the geological column, it is obviously a horse. A rabbit is obviously a rabbit. If these are the facts, where are the precursors?

Quote:

2. Behe's theory of irreducible complexity has been throughly dissected and debunked, so he has "shown" nothing. Also of note is that on several occasions he and other ID guys have refused to defend their theories in courts of law. When Behe did defend it (in front of a conservative, church-going bush-appointed judge no less), it was ripped into pieces.

Debunked and ripped to pieces by whom? ID guys refusing to defend their theories in court? Scientists from ICR go around the country challenging evolutionists to debate them any time any where.

Quote:

3. So? You clearly have no idea of the type of geological evidence a world-wide flood of the Genesis variety would

leave behind (and it's not there).

Hmmmm. I'm not only ignorant but also have no idea what kind of evidence it takes to show world-wide flood, and you do?

Quote:

It has to do with time scales and the known mutation rates of DNA polymerases. The data is there, look it up. Compare Cheetah diversity with, say, almost any other mammal. We call your statement here an argument from ignorance.

There are many evidences for a world-wide flood, you just choose to ignore them .

Call me ignorant, uninformed all you want, and maybe I am, but whatever changes that takes place in the cheetah genome, the resulting cheetah is still a cheetah and never a horse!

[Gerr]

Edit: I'll clarify. As you noticed from my answer, evolutionists don't believe that it was a gradual slow and steady process. It appears to have moved largely in fits and starts in response to environmental (and therefore selective) change. As long as environmental conditions are stable, the biological component of the ecosystem is at equilibrium and generally under no pressure to adapt. During these periods diversity builds up, and when migrations and other environmental changes happen natural selection (and thus evolution) kicks into overdrive. It's obvious from his reply that he does not understand this, instead preferring to reference popular quote-mines from people like Gould to try and distort the real picture.

Before the current "fits and starts" and "big bang evolution" came into vogue, the established doctrine was gradualism that took place over long periods of time. This was supposed to have been established by "science." I wonder what THEORY will tomorrow bring?

And now that an evolution that supposedly took place at supersonic speed instead of eons is accepted, will the age of the earth be reduced to a more recent one?