HIGHER CRITICISM IN THE ADVENTIST CHURCH

[pnattmbtc]

How sure are you that those present at Christ's crucifixion and resurrection believed it was Sunday when Christ rose from the grave?

My reading of both Biblical and astronomical data does not point to Sunday as the resurrection day of our Lord.  Have you noticed that all resurrection-related verses in the New Testament all used sa,bbaton which the Greeks derived from the Hebrew tB'v; shabbath?  In the Greek Old Testament, all occurrences of the genitive sabba,tou were all from tB'v; and never from [;buv' shabua` which is Hebrew for "week".

I was thinking of those who came after.  If they had the day wrong, wouldn't the ones who had been there corrected them?

[pnattmbtc]

How sure are you that those present at Christ's crucifixion and resurrection believed it was Sunday when Christ rose from the grave?

My reading of both Biblical and astronomical data does not point to Sunday as the resurrection day of our Lord.  Have you noticed that all resurrection-related verses in the New Testament all used sa,bbaton which the Greeks derived from the Hebrew tB'v; shabbath?  In the Greek Old Testament, all occurrences of the genitive sabba,tou were all from tB'v; and never from [;buv' shabua` which is Hebrew for "week".

Here's an article which talks about "after the third day" and other related expressions.

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=10&article=756

[Kevin H]

Examples of Divine authority refining , enlarging or (as some  proponents of higher criticism would say), "making Bible principles "progressive".

 

 

No Jackson. Technically higher criticism cannot make Bible principles progress. All it can do is look at different writing styles and try to make sense out of them. Like the example I gave of the book of Amos. There is a clear poetry form with a message to Israel, and you find verses that does not follow the poetry that says that we can apply the message that Amos gave to Israel now we can apply to us. We can learn from this how to use Biblical prophecy that was addressed to one situation and apply it to another situation. But we cannot do anything else with higher criticism. Can't you get it through your thick skulls that higher criticism cannot make Biblical principles progressive or be used to argue for women's ordination or any other nonsense.

The modernists were saying "If the Bible is God's book why does it show evidence of editing? Shouldn't something perfect need no editing?" (then used the evidence of editing to say that Abraham, Moses etc. did not exist).  which is the fallacy of the false assumption.

Walter Rea did a color coding of the conflict of the ages series. He said "Because Mrs. White did all this copying she cannot be a prophet." which is nonsense. The White Estates have made their own color coded conflict of the ages series. This has been incredibly useful for those of us who believe that Mrs. White is a true prophet. It is useful to understand her sources better and what she has that is not color coded.  I wish that the church would publish a color coded edition for us to study from. But I can't take the color coded copy and find in it all kinds of progressive ideas or the ordination of women and a bunch of other things that I can't find in these same books that are not color coded. But this is all that higher criticism can is. It is useful in understanding the text better but it does not change the text.  

What higher criticism can teach us is: What sources did the prophets use. How did they edit together their sources. Some of the sources have been found and we can compare the text with the source.   It can show us how the works of Moses developed in the northern kingdoms and the southern kingdoms, or how the works of other prophets were used over time. What was important to the sources and how is the final editor using those sources. Some of the things that appear to be contradictions that we do all sorts of summersaults and tap-dancing to explain away make sense as you see how the sources were dealing with the situation and how the final editor used it. You can see hints as to how God wanted to and could have finished the work at different times in history and different great disappointments that God's people has gone through which can help us understand 1844 better.

But too many people here, including the author of the article keep making 2 mistakes. First they are taking the unbelief of the Modernists and say that we are following their unbelief. And second that we can get all kinds of weird interpretations from higher criticism.  Neither are true. The reasons I believe that the Bible teaches women's ordination all comes from lower criticism.

[Gregory Matthews]

Higher criticism can show us how the people understood what was said/written in the time in which it was said/written.

[Samie]

I was thinking of those who came after.  If they had the day wrong, wouldn't the ones who had been there corrected them?

They could have or haven't, no one really knows for sure they have or haven't.

Here's an article which talks about "after the third day" and other related expressions.

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=10&article=756

Thanks. It talks of inclusive reckoning which is not an issue against my position.

But the article did not touch the issue of why or how the genitive sabba,tou could be properly translated into "week" when in the Septuagint each occurrence of the genitive sabba,tou is from tB'v; shabbath and never from [;buv' shabua` which is Hebrew for "week".   Neither did the article touch the issue of Passover as being a full moon festival and whether Jesus, Who said He came to fulfil the Law which obviously includes the law on when Passover is to be eaten, could eat Passover on any night, full moon or not.  Recall that Jesus ate Passover a day ahead of the Jewish national celebration.

I would be grateful for any one using lower or higher criticism to touch the issues I brought up above.

[Kevin H]

I believe that there are other places to discuss the 3 days. Here we can discuss both this article that is trying to lump all who believe in women's ordination as evil unbelieving higher critics while all who oppose women's ordination are good faithful Bible believing lower critics.  And were we can talk about the merits or short comings of this thesis as well as discuss higher and lower criticism. They were formed by the same people; people who loved the Lord and the Bible. Is one all evil and the other all good. Have they both been used in good and not so good ways? Are they useful tools in studying the Bible or is only one of them useful? What kinds of questions do each answer. Can you find women's ordination in higher criticism but not find it in lower criticism? etc.

And again, higher criticism is looking at writing styles while lower criticism is what the words actually say. Let's say that we have a chapter that consists of 20 verses. And higher critics say that there is one writing style in verses 1-10 and a very different writing style for verses 11-20. It is foolish to say "If you read verses 1-20 together it opposes women's ordination. But if you read verses 1-10 as one section and verses 11-20 as a different section then hocus pocus there is women's ordination."

[Tom Wetmore]

Neither of which are her words, but rather the statements of others about her.  And more significantly, neither statement even specifically indicates that that "she objected to being an ordained minister" nor that "she said no to being ordained as a minister."  It is telling that for the second  statement made after her death in particular that it was more of an expression of denial to explain away the significance of the clear and unambiguous document, her credentials issued by the General Conference, that identifies her as being recognized by the Church during her lifetime as being an ordained minister of the the Church.  Those credentials, along with being listed among the ordained minsters of the Church in the SDA Yearbook and other official records of the Church are part of a consistent documented record of the Church for over 30 years of and during her lifetime identifying her as an ordained minister of the Church.  The truth is that there is not a shred of evidence in those 30 years that she ever objected to or ever said no to any of that. That those credentials that remain were among her own papers speak more to the fact that she received and kept them without objection or refusal of what they said and clearly meant. Had she ever done either, even a whispered objection to the General Conference leadership, I seriously doubt they would have continued issuing them for more than 30 years until she died.  Further, she had to accept the  tangible recognition of that status by knowingly receiving the pay afforded to an ordained minister, paid out of tithe money.

[Kevin H]

I also saw posted a letter from James White about a trip he and Ellen went on. The letter gave a lot of "I" "She" and "We" of things that he did, she did and that they did together. One of the "We"s was putting hands on people who they were ordaining to the gospel ministry.