Revelation Lecture
For further information, go here for a discussion of types of revelation.
Inspiration Lecture
Go here for a discussion of inspiration by 19th century theologian A.A. Hodge.
Inerrancy Lecture
Interpretation Lecture
Ben Witherington has some interesting thoughts on interpretation here.
I highly recommend this book in understanding issues of interpretation.
Questions for Discussion
What does general revelation tell us about God? What does special revelation tell us about God?
What do you think the Apostle Paul thought he was writing as he began the epistle to the Romans?
What is the difference between the Bible and a book like C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity (or what ever your favourite religious book is)?
Imagine that a letter was discovered in a cave in Israel claiming to be by an eyewitness of the events from Mark 6:30-44. After eating his fill, he was somehow able to count the crowd and discovered that there were 3,652 people rather than the 5,000. Would you conclude that the story and therefore the Bible was mistaken and untrustworthy? Why or why not?
What does inerrancy mean to you?
How do you determine when something in the Bible is literal and when it is symbolic?
What do you find most confusing about the Bible?
These questions can be used for personal reflection or group discussion. I would also like to hear your comments and thoughts about what we have looked at here on this blog.
2 comments:
I've read and listened this unit. I've not read the external sites, except Ben Witherington's blog post. Thanks. This is good stuff.
I found the part about inerrancy a little shocking. That's probably because of my upbringing. I poked around on the 'net a bit and found the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which seems to line up better with the way I've been seeing it: the conflicting details don't mean that there are errors in the Bible. But that's because there's no real conflict, not because the details depend on God's purpose in giving us particular books/passages.
No real conflict: "in the third year" could mean the same as "for three years and six months", depending on how you're counting -- but here I don't know enough about Hebrew counting. (I wish I did, though, because this isn't the only place I've found seen this kind of thing. I guess that's part of the reason for my thinking that they may count differently.)
And maybe John or maybe the others is/are arranging events topically, rather than chronologically. I've heard preachers mention something about about one gospel being chronological and another topical. I don't remember which was which, though.
But I realize that those are only examples. We could probably find apparent discrepancies that I can't explain. I guess the thing is that I've always been taught that the text (in the originals) is pretty much perfect in every way, and that apparent disagreements are our own ignorance about the meaning/structure of the originals.
I'll wholeheartedly agree with this: we need to focus on understanding the text as it was meant to be read, not getting sidetracked as I've just done =S
Should I try to answer the Questions for Discussion?
You are certainly welcome to answer the discussion questions.
I appreciate your comments. I am not attempting to impose my view on anyone but trying to get the discussion going. If people disagree with me, great. But dig into the Bible to discover why.
I agree with you on the Elijah drought. But the fact that they are not described in the same way tells us that the author of Kings was not that interested in the precise chronological length but was content in given a round figure. How often does that happen in the Bible? When we say that 5,000 people are fed, do we really mean not 4,999 or 5,001 but 5,000 to the person? What I am trying to demonstrate is a model that allows us to focus on the big picture rather than getting caught up arguing about minor points. There is no room to disagree on the resurrection of Jesus but there is room to disagree on chronological placement, dates and numbers.
It is interesting that you used the phrase "perfect in every way" to describe the Bible. I do believe the Bible is perfect. What is imperfect are attempts to force the Bible to become something it was never intended. The authors of the Bible were not journalists looking for the precise details to be reported but were historian/theologians, who recorded historical events for the purpose of pointing people toward God.
These are good comments. Keep it up!
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