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From: bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: About Literalism: in what sense is God the author of Scripture?
Message-ID: <183@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Jun-85 02:09:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.183
Posted: Sat Jun 29 02:09:06 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Jun-85 02:10:44 EDT
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Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 91

>From mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Tue Jun 25 12:48:26 1985
>From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
>Subject: Re: About Literalism: in what sense is God the author of Scripture?
>Message-ID: <465@umcp-cs.UUCP>

>
>     3) ...Moreover, Jesus a two points denies the perfection of
>        scripture: in Mark 7:15, he sweeps away the dietary law, and at
>        another point, he claims that the divorce law given in the Mosaic
>        law is a concession to (Jewish?) human nature.

I don't think Mk 7:15 says that at all.  In context, Christ has just
finished chewing out the Pharisees for saying things in conflict with
the commandment to honor one's parents, and then he turns to the crowd
and says "...there is nothing outside the man which going into him can
defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile
the man." (NASV)  It's clear that Christ is criticizing the P's for
being so concerned with eating the right things but teaching (saying)
the wrong ones.  Jesus likes to get points across by making extreme
statements; he does so elsewhere.

As for divorce, I don't see that Jesus' statement is inconsistent with
the correctness of the OT; it merely adds new consistent information.

>     4) Finally, Jesus himself says that you have to look at the spirit
>        rather than the letter of the law.  He breaks the Sabbath more than
>        once.  It follows from this position that the law is NOT perfect,
>        for if it were, one could just do exactly what it says.  ...

I don't see this.  If law is perfect, I think we would expect that no
imperfect (any) human being could keep it perfectly.  As for the Sabbath,
Jesus' usual claim was not that he was breaking it, but that the S & P had
mis-interpreted the laws concerning it.  For instance in Luke 6.  (He also
claims there to be "Lord of the Sabbath" in v.5, in which case he would
be claiming authority to override the OT, not that it's incorrect.)

>							      ... What Jesus
>        seems to be saying is that it is by following the spirit of the law
>        that a man could be perfect, and the law is the surest guide to that
>        spirit.  The bible can therefore contain errors and yet be necessary
>        for teaching.
>

Be that as it may, I think Christ had a rather high regard for the 
OT Scriptures.  When he argues with the Pharisees, he makes his case from
them, as in Lk 6 cited above.  An even more interesting example in is
Mt. 22:23-33.  Jesus has gotten into an argument about the existence of
an afterlife, and he says, quoting from Exodus, "...have you not read what
was spoken to you by God, saying 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  God is not the God of the dead but of
the living." (22:31-2 NASV)  God said this to Moses long after the deaths
of the persons listed; Jesus' argument is based on the tense of a verb.
This shows a rather high regard for the OT text.

>>> My position is that the Biblical authors were competent but not
>>> error-free, and not independent of the knowledge of their times.
>>> This position is very different than the more extreme critical one...
>>
>>...Imagine God, sitting up in heaven, deciding
>>that He wanted the Bible written. ... for the majority of the
>>New Testament He wanted it to be by the hand of the author themselves.
>>... He conceivably could have looked
>>over the whole world and all the people in it and "arranged" it that the
>>people who He KNEW would write it the "correct way" would end up writing
>>it.
>
>Well, I think this is a perfectly reasonable theory, and I think I believe
>in it, but it sure doesn't get you inerrancy.
>

Given some reasonable definition of "error-free," one that only requires a
document to say correctly the things it intends to say, to the precision
which it intends to say them ("I live about a half mile from school" is not
inconsistent with "I live 2587 feet from school"), and allows that non-literal
language can be interpreted non-literally, I think it is possible
to have a document which is error-free.

If we then also accept that God can and does act through history, then it 
seems a simple matter to form a theory of inerrancy that would permit God
to communicate to us by such a document produced in the manner described
above.

>
>Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe
>
>

-- 
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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