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Author Topic:   Bible Interpretation and History
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 1 of 64 (303899)
04-13-2006 11:54 AM


This is not directed at Percy, but it was inspired by his post in the Paul of Tarsus thread.
percy writes:
I can't figure out how to respond to claims of the correctness of any particular Biblical interpretation, not just yours, but Jar's, too. It seems Talmudic, meaning in this case a process that by infinite dissection can yield any particular conclusion you like.
I agree with this, but I think there's a resolution to it.
I like to think that my Bible interpretations are particularly insightful and honest, but probably they're not. Even if they were, others wouldn't agree, and none of us would have any way of knowing who's right.
But some things are beyond Bible interpretion; they are common sense.
In the Paul of Tarsus thread I was discussing with Percy whether Paul taught a particular doctrine. I argued my position vehemently, because I know from history that the churches Paul started and was read in did not teach the doctrine that thread ascribes to him.
If Paul, or anyone else in the Bible, is charged with teaching something, shouldn't there be people in history, around his time, who believed that teaching? Do we really believe that the churches he started and taught in, that spoke the colloquial Greek of that time, and that knew their own culture--do we really believe that they misunderstood Paul, but we, 2000 years later, have figured out what Paul meant when they couldn't? What incredible arrogance! Especially considering the awful example of those who are Bible believers today!
My favorite example of this is the Trinity, because it's so often discussed. If the apostles taught that God is three persons, all co-equal and co-eternal, then shouldn't we be able to find that in the churches the apostles started? At least somewhere? Instead, from Paul's letter to the Corinthians in AD 54 to the Nicene Creed in AD 325 we find the consistent statement that there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ his Son. Every reference for those 271 years says that God is one person, the Father. Though the Son is called God in places, every reference for 271 years says "One God, the Father."
How, then, could the co-equal three persons theory possibly be the theory of the Bible? Did the apostles teach it, and it was immediately lost to every church they started, so that no one remembered it, not even to argue against it? There are arguments recorded against modalism--the view that the Father and Jesus are the same person--but there's not a word breathed about any doctrine that the Father and Son are co-equal.
We can debate which Scripture interpretation is correct, but isn't any interpretation that is not represented in history automatically excluded as a correct interpretation?

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 2 of 64 (304175)
04-14-2006 9:06 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by truthlover
04-13-2006 11:54 AM


Oh, and this is for the Bible study forum.

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AdminPD
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Message 3 of 64 (304177)
04-14-2006 9:13 AM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 4 of 64 (304280)
04-14-2006 4:58 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by truthlover
04-13-2006 11:54 AM


bump
Just one time; maybe no one's interested.

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 5 of 64 (304283)
04-14-2006 5:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by truthlover
04-13-2006 11:54 AM


I feel like you have two subjects here.
One deals with whether the Pauline Attribution post Luther accurately reflects what Paul preached, and then jumping to the specifics of the Trinity.
My feeling related to the Trinity is basically no one alive is likely to know the answer, and if GOD really is GOD and not some bling-bling pimp daddy at most he would be amused that folk spent so much time wondering about it.
But on Paul, IMHO he is definitely missrepresented. Part of it is the sheer volume of material attributed to Paul that made it into the Canons. The second is that the way things were incorporated into the Canon makes it easy to quotemine pieces parts. For aesthetic reasons unknown to me, what is really one continuous letter got broken down into individual chapters with the breaks somewhat arbitrary. That leads to things like grabbing one line from a letter the size of Romans and using that one line as a segue into a completely different line of thought.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 6 of 64 (304288)
04-14-2006 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by jar
04-14-2006 5:16 PM


Re: I feel like you have two subjects here.
Actually, jar, my one subject is whether you can attribute a doctrine to the Bible that has no historical record.
The two subjects you mentioned are not two subjects, but two examples to illustrate.
To me, if a Bible believer studies the Bible and comes up with a doctrine, but it turns out that doctrine was taught by no one, believed by no one, and argued for or against by no one for centuries after the Bible was written, then you can be confident you have misinterpreted the Bible.
That's why I was so willing to argue strongly that Martin Luther misinterpreted Paul. It's not just that I can show Biblically that my interpretation of Paul is better. It's that no one in any of Paul's churches, or anyone else's churches, taught the things Luther taught about "no works" until Luther came along, 1400 years after all the NT writings were written.
To me, the history argues much more conclusively than competing Bible interpretations, because interpretations are just opinions.
Anyway, my point is to ask how a doctrine could possibly be Biblical if none of the apostolic churches knew about it? I just threw out Luther's no works and the modern three co-equal persons view of the Trinity as examples.
(What's really funny about the Trinity one is that so many people use the Nicene Creed to defend it, and the Nicene Creed doesn't agree with it!)

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jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 7 of 64 (304290)
04-14-2006 5:28 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by truthlover
04-14-2006 5:25 PM


Re: I feel like you have two subjects here.
(What's really funny about the Trinity one is that so many people use the Nicene Creed to defend it, and the Nicene Creed doesn't agree with it!)
Well, as a Creedal Christian I most certainly agree with you on that.
For those who may not be familar with the Nicene Creed, here it is in its entirety.
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 8 of 64 (304293)
04-14-2006 5:30 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by truthlover
04-14-2006 4:58 PM


I think it's a very interesting topic, but as I am neither a Christian nor a bibical scholar I've been waiting to see what folks say.
I'll toss this out as an alternate viewpoint possibly hinted at but not supported by New Testatement books. If Paul was not talking about a spiritual Christ in a spirit realm but was in some way basing his ideas on the teachings of an actual person, then I hold that it is just possible a devout Jew experienced awakening and tried to convey his consciousness "the kingdom of Heaven is within" but was killed before he had a chance to develop his followers understanding.
If this were the case then he, Jesus, would be what Hindus call an avatar and Buddhist call a Buddha. That is he was an actual human being with a functioning human nervous system and all that entails but he had lost the sense of himself as a separate individual and experienced the wholeness that he was part of and thus is. There are a number of sayings attribute to Jesus that point to this such as those where he says he does nothing but it's the father doing through him. This is because awakening involves the loss of the sense of being a separate doer and instead experiencing oneself as just one node that the whole chain of causation as it were were happening through.
This idea is of course neither Jewish or Christian. To me it is the best explanation of what it means to be human and divine and what it means to say that "Christ lives not me".
My objection is to the political tyranny of insisting that Jesus and especially if not exclusively the particular political party (church) that I belong to is the sole authority. So I think it's possible that Jesus is an avatar or Buddha. If that is the case his unfortunate early death cut short his teachings. The Buddha and Ramana for example had decades to work with people and deliver their understanding.
lfen

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 9 of 64 (304322)
04-14-2006 9:04 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by truthlover
04-13-2006 11:54 AM


tl writes:
We can debate which Scripture interpretation is correct, but isn't any interpretation that is not represented in history automatically excluded as a correct interpretation?
In order to suppose this it would be necessary to suppose that interpretation then was going somehow to arrive at a less fallible conclusion that we can arrive at now simply by virtue of being temporally being closer to the source. If one treats what was said then as some sort of ecclesiatical chinese whispers - time introduces error then fair enough. I think otherwise:
1. Understanding of holy scripture is a function of the action of the Holy Spirit. No one at any time can see anything of what scripture truly says without the illuminatory actions of the holy spirit. There is no reason to suppose that action was more effectual then than it is now.
2. Pauls scolding of the Galatian church for their departure from the gospel preached indicates that even close proximity to apostolic teaching is no guarentee that error won't be entered into.
3. I think of Peter and Pauls rebuke of him for his hypocracy in his shunning gentiles in order to hold position in front of his fellow Jews. Him, who had it revealed to him, through a vision, that the way of salvation was also open to the gentiles! A giant of the church: an apostle no less - going off into error.
4. One thinks too of the necessity for the gathering at the council of Jerusalem (in the book of Acts) in which doctrine had to be established in the face of false teaching. We are warned that wolves in sheeps clothing will rise within the church in order to cause damage: false interpretation being a tool in the armory no doubt. Why should we think that the early church wouldn't suffer from such influence?
5. Whilst people then would have had a better understanding of the subtleties of the language used in NT scripture there is no reason to suppose that the veritable army of theologians and scholars who have had hundreds of years to tease things apart should be considered paltry in comparison. I can sit an watch the events of my time unfold. It will will be at some future time when a better understanding of what those events represent in terms of political ideological shift (for example) will be generated. There is nothing like 20/20 hindsight to provide accurate interpretation of events.
The premise: earlier interpretation = closer to truth is one which would have to provide some basis for itself in order to begin to float. One that would take into account that the church then is as fallible as it is now. The following argument from incredulity does not provide that.
Do we really believe that the churches he started and taught in, that spoke the colloquial Greek of that time, and that knew their own culture--do we really believe that they misunderstood Paul, but we, 2000 years later, have figured out what Paul meant when they couldn't? What incredible arrogance! Especially considering the awful example of those who are Bible believers today!

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Replies to this message:
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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 10 of 64 (304346)
04-14-2006 11:02 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by iano
04-14-2006 9:04 PM


The premise: earlier interpretation = closer to truth is one which would have to provide some basis for itself in order to begin to float.
Well, that is an interesting premise. It is explored very thoroughly in a book called Common Sense by David Bercot, a well-written book I was privileged to help edit, so I read it several times.
However, that's not my premise.
Pauls scolding of the Galatian church for their departure from the gospel preached indicates that even close proximity to apostolic teaching is no guarentee that error won't be entered into.
I am not suggesting that the early church was error free.
Why should we think that the early church wouldn't suffer from such influence?
I'm sure the early church suffered such influences.
My premise has nothing to do with the accuracy of the early church. My premise is that a teaching that was completely unheard of in history--unknown to any apostolic churches; unknown to any group that we know about; neither argued for or against by any early writers--could not have been in the mind of NT writers. If it had, then there would have been some disciples somewhere that would have kept to it.
We know that there were many churches reading the writings of the apostles. We know that they were in contact with each other. We know that when they had doctrinal issues, they would refer themselves to churches that had long term apostolic teaching (like Ephesus and Rome). We know that they maintained a relatively strong unity for 200 years after the apostles. We know that they wrote long works against heretics.
With all that being true, do you really think that a doctrine unheard of in that environment could really have been taught by the apostles and thus be Biblical?

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Replies to this message:
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lfen
Member (Idle past 4677 days)
Posts: 2189
From: Oregon
Joined: 06-24-2004


Message 11 of 64 (304364)
04-15-2006 12:47 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by truthlover
04-14-2006 11:02 PM


With all that being true, do you really think that a doctrine unheard of in that environment could really have been taught by the apostles and thus be Biblical?
Well, the early Christians interpreted the Old Testament to support their religion. Seems only turn about is fair play if modern Christians do that to their own testament!
lfen

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 12 of 64 (304403)
04-15-2006 9:04 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by truthlover
04-14-2006 11:02 PM


Oh foolish Galatians...
iano writes:
The premise: earlier interpretation = closer to truth is one which would have to provide some basis for itself in order to begin to float.
tl writes:
However, that's not my premise.
I think it is when you boil it down. You seem to be holding to the idea that the historical writings of the early church is a preferred authority on what should and shouldn't constitute doctrine. You would agree that these writings are not scripture and are therefore (fallible) statements of (read:interpretation of) scripture/what Paul and the other apostles taught. If fallible then how erroneous might they be? One may speculate and try to assign probabilities but in the end we have nothing concrete on which to base our calculation of probability.
Another point springs to mind when choosing the doctrine of the Trinity as an example to examine. This doctrine is less than essential to saving faith and is not examined in the kind of detail that Paul assigns to issues such as sin universal, justification not by adherence to law etc. It is reasonable to suppose more room for error for a non-centrla doctrine which is covered implicitly than essential doctrine which was covered explicitly.
You would have to pose some concrete reasons why it is you suppose that the early church was in a postion to better grasp difficult (to the temporal mind), non-central and non-directly-taught-doctrine from the same authoritive infallible teaching that we have. Other than a presumption of chinese whispers
The foolish Galatians case is one of a number of NT examples pointing to (huge in this case) error being possible with regard to central doctrinal teaching - even for those lucky enough to recieve direct apostolic exposure. Yet the church should somehow fare better with non-essential, non-explicitly taught doctrine?
IOW: scripture tells us that apostlic exposure in no way implies necessity for accurate take up/propagation. You seem to say that it should. On what sound basis do you suppose this?

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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 13 of 64 (304405)
04-15-2006 9:15 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by lfen
04-15-2006 12:47 AM


A not insignificant point. (loosely) According to Truthlovers premise , the people who were around at the time of OT writings should be in a better position to accurately interpret the doctrines contained therein than more modern interpreters. Yet the very holders of scripture, the Jews, picked up the doctrine incorrectly and had to have God-inspired people point out the truths it contained many years later in NT times.
It raises a not insignificant point. OT prophets often knew not of which they spoke.Aspects of scripture then would only be more fully revealed at some future point according to Gods plan and purpose. That trinitarian doctrine fully forms (is revealed) after NT times (supposing TL's take on early church evidence is correct) is not a case for its dismissal.

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 14 of 64 (304438)
04-15-2006 1:33 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by lfen
04-15-2006 12:47 AM


Well, the early Christians interpreted the Old Testament to support their religion. Seems only turn about is fair play if modern Christians do that to their own testament!
Fair enough, but at least the early Christians said they were creating something new (thus "New" Testament). Modern Christians claim to be saying the same thing the apostles were saying when they wrote the writings that became the New Testament, but somehow none of their churches or hearers knew about it!

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truthlover
Member (Idle past 4059 days)
Posts: 1548
From: Selmer, TN
Joined: 02-12-2003


Message 15 of 64 (304439)
04-15-2006 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by iano
04-15-2006 9:04 AM


Re: Oh foolish Galatians...
I think it is when you boil it down.
I know. You always have something different to talk about when I bring up a subject, and you always insist that it's what I'm talking about.
Thanks. Go start your own thread if you want to talk about something different than what I said this thread was about.

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