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From: bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: About Literalism: in what sense is God ...  (inerrancy)
Message-ID: <193@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 15:55:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.193
Posted: Mon Jul 15 15:55:41 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jul-85 16:01:49 EDT
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Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 88

First of all concerning the genealogies: We have in Luke 3:23:

	"And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty
	 years of age, being supposedly the son of Joseph, the son of Eli,
	 ...[genealogy]" (NASV)

Now, the question at hand is what does the phrase "the son of Eli" modify? If
it modifies Joseph, then we have a genealogy going Jesus<-Joseph<-Eli... .  On
the other hand, if we take the phrase "being supposedly the son of Joseph" as
parenthetical, being set off with commas like this one, then the phrase "the
son of Eli" modifies "Jesus", giving a genealogy Jesus<-Eli... .

Obviously, the second interpretation would permit the genealogy given to be
through Mary.  Is there any reason to prefer that interpretation?  Well, of all
the Gospels, Luke spends the most space telling us how Mary had Jesus without
any help from Joseph, so it would seem unlikely that Luke would proceed to list
Joseph as Jesus' father.  Why is Mary not listed then?  Because the form of
genealogies in Luke's culture generally omits listing the women.

So I think this passage at least allows the interpretation of the genealogy as
through Mary; if someone knows enough about the Greek text to provide more
information about the grammatical question, please speak.

One other note about this.  Halley's Handbook says: "Mary's genealogy [in
Luke], in accord with Jewish usage, was in her husband's name." Such a
convention is plausible, considering the treatment of women in that time and
place, but does anyone know for sure if this is actually the case?  Halley
gives no source or argument to support it.

Now on to an argument that Charlie Wingate has raised:

>In article <568@hou2b.UUCP> gkm@hou2b.UUCP (G.MCNEES) writes:
>
>>I would like for Charlie to give a specific instance of Jesus
>>revising Scripture....
>
>As for Jesus editting/improving scripture, my reading, based on a number of
>places where Jesus changes the Law, is that Jesus is concerned with the
>*spirit* of the law, and in fact argues at one point that the law is
>imperfect, because it was written for imperfect men (Matt 19:1-12).  Jesus
>certainly argues that the *spirit* of scripture is perfect, but, give the
>way he continually revises it, I don't think you can make a strong argument
>that he knew the vehicle of the spirit, namely scripture itself, to be
>inerrant.
>

I think there is a confusion here between the idea that the Law is imperfect
and the idea that Scripture is imperfect.  The NT says that the OT Law is
imperfect in the sense of obsolete.  Hebrews 8 quotes a prophecy from Jeremiah
talking about the establishment of a new covenant and then concludes in v.  13,
"When He said, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete.  But whatever
is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." (NASV) Now if
Christ at some time uses His authority to change (as in update) the Law, it
does not mean that the OT is somehow an imperfect record of that now obsolete
Law, or even that the Law was imperfect previous to the time of the update.

Concerning Jesus' view of the Scripture itself, I have earlier cited Matt.
22:23-33 in which he makes an argument based on the tense of a verb in a
passage from Exodus.  Otherwise I don't know what to say but to point out
Jesus' repeated use of the OT as conclusive to justify his actions and sayings.
(A quick look through Luke gives: Lk 6:3-5; Lk 7:27; Lk 11:30-32; Lk 18:32-3;
Lk 20:41-44.) Even when Christ wants to assert truths that we might refer to as
the "spirit" of the Law, He often does so using the OT Scripture.  For
instance, in the famous passage about the greatest commandment in Matt.
22:36-40, Jesus is not being original here, but rather He quotes Deut. 6:5
(...love...God...with all...) and Lev.  19:18 (...love your neighbor...).  He
then goes on to assert "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the
Prophets." Christ asserts that the spirit of the Law upholds the Law.  In Lk
11:42, Jesus gives this criticism of the Pharisees:

	"But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and
	 every king of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of
	 God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting
	 the others." (NASV)

Note that Christ criticizes the P's for ignoring the big items, but still
asserts that their meticulous observance of details is correct.  This shows
that Christ had a high regard for the OT Scriptures.

This, by itself, may not show that Christ thought the Scriptures were inerrant,
but I think you would have hard time showing that He ever made any criticism of
them; instead He taught from them and carefully relied on their contents.  I
don't think you can damage inerrancy with the words of Christ.

-- 
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A balanced diet is important: one must | Tom Bennet @ U of MD Comp Sci Dept
occasionally change pizza places.      | ..!ihnp4!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!bennet