Re: wots uh the deal with these errors.
Submitted by Heather on June 29 1999 at 14:50:51
In reply to wots uh the deal with these errors. Submitted by The Dream Dragon on June 29 1999 at 03:58:57
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The site you linked to looked awfully interesting from the titles, but I was disappointed once I got into the articles themselves. In issue No. 2, for example, the author, Dennis McKinsey, gets all excited about Jesus saying, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" McKinsey says, "How could Jesus be Savior of all mankind when he couldn't even save himself? These aren't the words of a man who went to the cross willingly to die for our sins. These are the words of a man who could think of a hundred places he would rather be. They certainly aren't the words of someone who has the situation under control." Aside from McKinsey's statement being a rather amusing echo of what the people in Jesus' time said at the time of his crucifixion, McKinsey shows no awareness of what you, as an Episcopalian, no doubt know (since this connection is made liturgically in our denomination's Good Friday service), that Jesus was quoting from Psalm 22. Granted, one could get into a rousing good argument as to why Jesus chose to quote from that particular psalm – and biblical scholars have done so – but the fact that McKinsey apparently doesn't know this makes me suspect that he hasn't dug very deeply into an understanding of what the biblical writers were trying to do. "I have heard the argument that 'it was written by people who lived in a different time, so it contains things from their perspective'; however, I feel you either have to accept it all as the truth or the whole thing loses credibility." On first reading over this sentence, I suspected that you had painted yourself into a corner – you seemed to be saying that one must accept biblical inerrancy or believe that the Bible was worthless – but when I reached the sentence about you being an Episcopalian, I heaved a sigh of relief. It would be awfully hard for me to offer encouraging words to a disillusioned fundamentalist. Mind you, you've been sneaking off to fundamentalist services, haven't you? At any rate, your post has the tone of someone who isn't quite clear on Episcopalian teachings on the Bible. Episcopalians, like Catholics, rarely use the word "inerrancy" to describe their views on the Bible; the classic Anglican position (stated in the Thirty-Nine Articles) is that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation," which is a very different statement. It leaves open the possibility for the types of errors you are worried about, while at the same time asserting that, overall, the Bible contains the truth. For example, one could say that, while Paul evidently did not have any plans to see that slavery was ended (he sent a slave back to his master), there are numerous passages in the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, which would ultimately lead Christians to recognize the evils of slavery. In a way, as you quite accurately note, that's "picking and choosing," but the alternative is also picking and choosing – saying that Paul's view on whether the slave should return to his master is superior to his statement that there is neither slave nor free in baptism. So really, one can't escape from this difficulty. The Church recognized early on that there are apparent contradictions in the Bible, and people have been arguing ever since then how to regard those passages. Biblical scholarship isn't my area, but I know where you can find people who spend a lot of time thinking about this subject. The Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars has an answer line whereby you can e-mail them and ask them about biblical questions. http://members.aol.com/AngABS/answer.html Anglicans Online's Discussion page lists two forums that you might find interesting. The Anglican list (also known as St. Sam's) is an e-mail list with 500 subscribers – you're bound to find someone there who has spent a lot of time studying biblical questions. And the Bible Newsgroup is devoted to discussions of the Bible from a Catholic perspective (which isn't too far different from the Anglican perspective). I haven't been on either of these forums, so I don't know what they're like, but it sounds as though they might be worth a look. http://anglicansonline.org/resources/discuss.html If you went on to any of these places and asked where you could start searching for an understanding of ways in which to interpret the Bible – describing in particular where your problems lay – I'm sure that people knowledgeable in this area would be able to help you. All of which sounds as though I'm sending you off to yet another place for answers! Sorry about that. :) But the questions you ask are too big and too important for me to attempt to answer myself (though I'm sure others here can make a stab at it). I think it would be really helpful if you talked with people who spend a lifetime thinking about such things and could give you a general overview of some of the ways that Christians have struggled with the legitimate problems that you raise. I've struggled with the questions you've mentioned – which is one reason I'm so reluctant to offer answers – but I think my struggle was made easier by realizing that there are so many possible answers to this difficulty; it isn't just a case of the Bible being all wrong or all correct. My own view is more Quaker than Anglican, so it probably isn't of much use to you, but the Quaker view is that the Bible isn't the Word of God but instead is witness to the Word of God – in other words, where else could you read about Jesus' life? From that perspective, the issue of "divine inspiration" simply leads to the broader question of how humans are divinely inspired in all of their works, not just in writing the Bible. That is a hard question, but it's an easier one than asking, "Why does the inerrant Bible contain errors?" Heather |