2005/09/16

More on "Inerrancy"

Dr. Jim West continues his discussion about the purported "historical accuracy" (inerrancy on historical matters) of the Bible, at his biblical-studies blog:

"My belief is that Yahweh acted in history and as such is subject to historical reconstruction."

Ah, there it is! Yahweh is subject to historical reconstruction! But he isn't, he is in fact subject to nothing. Joe clearly and articulately, in that one sentence, stabbed the tail on the donkey of historicism's attempts to delimit, restrict, and confine Yahweh to what can be historically verified. That is the very heart of my contention that historicism leads to idolatry. God is replaced with history- and since, in the mind of historicists, history can be firmly established, then God too can be firmly- confined.

Joe continues

"This record which we have is historical and as such may be investigated and tested. Once it has passed scrutiny then we may properly do theology. I feel that to blindly put our faith in any document without testing it is dubious at best."

"Once it has passed scrutiny, the Bible can be trusted". I reverse the order though and submit that when it comes to our relationship with God, which is of course the purpose of the biblical message, the proof is in the relationship itself. Which came first, Joe and others? Faith or a book? Faith gave birth to the Bible- not the other way around.

Joe concludes

"...once I became a Christian I needed historical revelation to guide me in the principals of faith and teaching."

Leaning on historical reconstruction is leaning on a reed. Kierkegaard fumed against this because he saw it as a sign of unbelief. In essence what it says is that "If God can't prove it to me, I can't trust God". This is, at its ground, blasphemous.

it strikes me that all attempts to overcome secularism amount to this same bogus desire for "signs", for "proofs". And it's an evil and adulterous generation that looks for them!

It's an evil and adulterous generation that looks for signs and proofs, but the reason is that they have already accepted that positive, sensory approach to knowledge is the only one that leads to truth. Pointing this out is not an appeal to mystical or theological ways of knowing— both because we're not operating on that level yet! and because anything less than what the saints discern is purely a product of one's own ideas and rightly regarded as unverifiable— dogmatic claims to unverifiable knowledge are what led to the need for positive science, including positive historiography, in the first place. But it is simply to say that "scientific" truth is not the only kind of truth there is, and that the bible is not particularly interested in "scientific truth", any more than other great literature is.

Are there, then, "mistakes" in the Bible? Only if it can be shown that the Bible intended to report mere "facts" in the first place. Reportage of fact can be either true, or mistaken, or a lie. But if the purpose was never to report fact as such, then how can we speak of "mistakes". Was Tolkien "mistaken" when he said the Balrog dragged Gandalf into the abyss?

This is not to say that there are not historical facts in the Bible. It's just to say that historical facts are not the point of the Bible, and that whatever historical facts are there, are there in the service of other aims— ones that the fathers were getting at when they studied and preached "typology".

I am reviewing some old notes about the interpretation of Scripture, in preparation for my classes with the seminarians beginning next week. I was struck by something I wrote years ago:

Interpretation:

The truth of the Bible is not just objective; its meaning is participation.

Therefore, truth has to be seen as an effect of interpretation, not merely as its object.

Now, where did I get that? Probably Paul Ricoeur or somebody.

posted by john at 12:37 AM