Posts Tagged ‘Bible’

Recently, I’ve become more and more attracted to the Eastern Orthodox Church view of Scripture, that is, Scripture is a part of Tradition rather than a separate entity from it. Where this differs from the Roman Catholic view is that the RCC sees Scripture and Tradition to be two pillars of the faith.

The questions this creates:

1. If we see Scripture as part of Tradition, what do we do with individual interpretation? Does it cease to exist?
2. Also, what do we do with language, historical, and scientific developments? Are they to be ignored if Tradition has yet to deal with them?
3. How does this handle the idea of experience (as in the Wesleyan belief)?

These are some questions I have for the EOC view. If you are Orthodox, could you assist me with these questions?

The problems this solves:

1. It seems that the New Testament authors were, at many times, working within a particular interpretive tradition. They would often quote Scripture with no regard for historical context and reinterpret it to prove a specific Christological point. For instance, interact with Matthew’s use of Hosea 11. Matthew clearly interprets this to be a futuristic prediction of Jesus the Messiah. However, Hosea clearly is referring to a past event, that is, exodus, without any futuristic content. Matthew changes the text because his interpretive tradition, at that time, did so. Thus, it seems that the EOC continues such a tradition, in that it reads Scripture within a certain tradition rather than separate from it.
2. The EOC view, also, answers the question I raised before, “How did Christians handle issues of the faith for 300 years or so without a canonized Scripture?” Well, apostolic tradition, of course.
3. It also keeps from wild (even unbiblical, unchristian) interpretations since EOC members learn to submit to the authority of the community, the Church.
4. Lastly (and by no means does this exhaust this section), everyone relies on Tradition, whether they’d like to admit it or not. For instance, rapture theorists rely on a tradition, even though it’s only a 200 year-old, American tradition. So, when the question comes, “What does First Thessalonians 4 mean?” These Christians would say, “Well, it’s talking about the rapture.” But the majority of global Christians would say something else, perhaps like, “Well, Paul is using Caesar language there, making Jesus the ‘better Caesar.’” Denial one’s own reliance on tradition is naïve. We all do it, at least, the EOC admits it.

I would like to hear what people have to say about this, especially, those of you from the RCC or EOC, though I’d love to hear from you, Protestants, too. If you could offer some insight, please comment below.

I meant to add these awhile ago

• On the OT Law:

“…there seems to be a situational dimension to law, just as we saw with wisdom literature…Few Christians would have any argument against the sixth commandment, but believing it in principle is very different from action upon it. Is capital punishment murder? What about abortion? What about war? When we put flesh on the bare bones of the Ten Commandments, we see that there is a ‘wisdom dimension’ to any attempt to keep the law. To say this is not to dismiss the law but to recognize the inevitable, that keeping the law is not a mechanical, legalistic process” (p. 88).

• On diversity of the OT:

“…the Old Testament is not a flat book where all parts agree on a superficial level” (p. 96).

• On the incarnation in light of the first two Commandments:

“…it should cause no difficulty for us if we remember that God always speaks in ways that the people understand, not simply to leave them there but to bring them along to deeper knowledge of himself. And that process does not come to completion until God reveals himself in a very material way–not in an idol made of stone and wood, but in flesh and blood. There is no image by which God is to be worshiped other than the image he himself fashioned–his own incarnation” (p. 102).

• On incarnation in light of God “changing his mind”:

“In keeping with the incarnational analogy, we can appreciate that the entire Bible, through and through, has that human dimension. So, for the Old Testament to speak of God as changing his mind means that this is his choice for how he wants us to know him. He speaks about himself in ways that reflect our ability to understand. I might add at this juncture that Christian prayer, which is often expressed as pleading before God, operates on the assumption that our words will have some effect on God. But do they really? That is for God to know, not us. But many of us have seen enough examples of answers to prayer in the face of a life-threatening illness and dire financial problems to admit that there is a ring of truth to this” (pp. 106-7).

• Misc.:

“‘All scripture is…profitable’ (2 Tim. 3:16 RSV)–even parts that don’t fit easily into our molds” (p. 107).

Enns, P. (2005). Inspiration and incarnation: evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament. Baker: Grand Rapids.

I’ve recently started re-reading Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Enns’ “incarnational analogy” of Scripture is basically that Christ being the “Word of God” is equally fully man and fully God, and so is Scripture being the “Word of God” is equally fully human and fully God. I have been moved by the following:

Enns explains that the difference between Jewish interpretation and Christian interpretation of Scripture is that Judaism engages tensions and ambiguities and even suggests that Scripture allows for tensions in order to invite the interpreter to “problem solving.” On the other hand, as so in my experience, evangelicals tend to sweep tensions “under the rug” (so to speak). About evangelical Christian interpretation, Enns correctly states:

As quite distinct from Jewish interpretation, the history of modern evangelical interpretation exhibits a strong degree of discomfort with the tensions and ambiguities of Scripture. The assumptions often made are that Scripture should have no tensions and that any such tensions are not real but introduced from the outside, namely, by scholarship hostile to evangelical Christianity. Whatever tensions remain are addressed either by posing some direct solution (however ingenious) or by moving the problem to the side (”We know it has to fit somehow; we just aren’t sure how”).

p. 72, Enns, P. (2005). Inspiration and incarnation: evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament. Baker: Grand Rapids.

For more quotes, which I found noteworthy, go here.

I’ve recently started re-reading Peter Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. Enns’ “incarnational analogy” of Scripture is basically that Christ being the “Word of God” is equally fully man and fully God, and so is Scripture being the “Word of God” is equally fully human and fully God. I have been moved by the following quotes:

On the interpretation of Scripture: “To put it succinctly: the Spirt leads the church to truth–he does not simply drop us down in the middle of it. To say this is not a low view of Scripture or the role of the Holy Spirit. It is simply to recognize what has been the case throughout the history of the church, that diverse views and changes of opinion over time have been constant companions of the church and that God has not brought this process to closure” (p. 49).

On the uniqueness of Scripture: “What makes Israel’s law and wisdom literature unique is not so much what it says (although that is certainly true with various laws), but Israel’s claim to be connected to the one true God who alone has the right to lay these claims upon them. That is the message to the other nations: This is the law of God who delivered us from Egypt; this is the wisdom of God who created heaven and earth. We worship him. The similarities between Israel’s conduct and that of the other nations does not make Israel less unique among the nations any more than Jesus’ sharing in the customs of practices of first-century Palestine makes him less unique. Rather both Israel’s practices and Christ himself are evidence of ‘God with us’” (p. 59; bold mine).

Enns, P. (2005). Inspiration and incarnation: evangelicals and the problem of the Old Testament. Baker: Grand Rapids.

Aren’t they great?! I think so.

Agnostic AJ Jacob’s decided one day to follow the Bible to the letter in the way he lived. He focused mainly on the Hebrew Scriptures due to his Jewish descent (however, he did spend the last 4 months in the Christian Scriptures). His article in Relevant Magazine is very interesting. It is extremely interesting in how living biblically changed many parts of his life. He isn’t crazy. He just wanted to conduct an experiment. Enjoy reading the article “My Biblical Year.”

Agnostic AJ Jacob’s decided one day to follow the Bible to the letter in the way he lived. He focused mainly on the Hebrew Scriptures due to his Jewish descent (however, he did spend the last 4 months in the Christian Scriptures). His article in Relevant Magazine is very interesting. It is extremely interesting in how living biblically changed many parts of his life. He isn’t crazy. He just wanted to conduct an experiment. Enjoy reading the article “My Biblical Year.”

Agnostic AJ Jacob’s decided one day to follow the Bible to the letter in the way he lived. He focused mainly on the Hebrew Scriptures due to his Jewish descent (however, he did spend the last 4 months in the Christian Scriptures). His article in Relevant Magazine is very interesting. It is extremely interesting in how living biblically changed many parts of his life. He isn’t crazy. He just wanted to conduct an experiment. Enjoy reading the article “My Biblical Year.”

Agnostic AJ Jacob’s decided one day to follow the Bible to the letter in the way he lived. He focused mainly on the Hebrew Scriptures due to his Jewish descent (however, he did spend the last 4 months in the Christian Scriptures). His article in Relevant Magazine is very interesting. It is extremely interesting in how living biblically changed many parts of his life. He isn’t crazy. He just wanted to conduct an experiment. Enjoy reading the article “My Biblical Year.”

Agnostic AJ Jacob’s decided one day to follow the Bible to the letter in the way he lived. He focused mainly on the Hebrew Scriptures due to his Jewish descent (however, he did spend the last 4 months in the Christian Scriptures). His article in Relevant Magazine is very interesting. It is extremely interesting in how living biblically changed many parts of his life. He isn’t crazy. He just wanted to conduct an experiment. Enjoy reading the article “My Biblical Year.”