For the record I don’t want to ever come down or criticize anyone either; we are all equals here obviously… It’s just on my personal choice that I don’t believe in fundamentalism, I have a non duality way of looking… That’s all… Nothing wrong with expressing or having you’re faith [/quote]
To be clear, it’s not criticism I was concerned about. It is stating, implying or otherwise misrepresenting what I said or did not say. It’s one thing to misunderstand, heady topics such as these lend themselves to that. What I was concerned about was admonitions based on something I did not say. And that is all, and at this point I consider the matter closed. I think I have made it clear that I was not talking about non-Christian salvation, but I will address it now.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
pat wrote:KingKai25 wrote:Pat my friend, this kind of syncretistic nonsense is exactly why I have argued so vehemently before against the notion of a singular religious consciousness underlying the various religions. As soon as you start saying that any religion that looks remotely like monotheism worships the same God (Islam, Christianity, and in your opinion, Hinduism), you open the door for this kind of ahistorical crap.
[/quote]
Now to address the issue of non-Christian salvation…I will do it in parts since there are many layers and I don’t want to be misunderstood on this rather sensitive topic.
First thing I want address is the discussion about ‘what the writers’ intended, thought about things, meant, or what they were trying to convey. Secondly what the original audience may have thought or interpreted from these writings.
I do believe writer’s intent and understand who and what the original audience was and thought is important because it provides context for these writings. Having an understanding of this allow us to derive the divinity from the writings and the messages contained there in.
What I do not think is terribly prudent is that writer’s intent, or original audience understanding as a constraint for understanding the scriptures. After all they were in the end man, and their writings are divine, which makes them not the author but an instrument. And the instrument does not always know the author’s intent or meaning as they are merely the medium by which the word is being proclaimed.
If these writers’ knew that what they wrote was going to be considered Holy Scripture, they would have been a little more prudent in the prose itself, making sure the intended audience, which would now be all of humanity, were able to understand their writings more clearly. Particularly St. Paul would have used a grammar checker…
But their writings, most of which certainly could not have intended or imagined their works would be considered Holy Scripture, in as much or even more so than Moses, or Isaiah or David.
So despite what the writers thought, or what the original audience would have understood at that time, it is now clear that their writings are broader and had a much bigger affect outside their communities at the time then they ever could have imagined.
Second of all, what they understood and for whom they understood it to represent, is far broader than they could have ever imagined much less intended.
Further, the divinely inspired writings are a great deal more meaningful, and have more divine information in it, then they could have intended.
Understanding their intents and understandings gives us the context by which we can gather the divinely inspired messages. But what they thought or intended is NOT the end all be all of Biblical interpretation.
Indeed, the Bible speaks to many of us on a personal level. If we stop at the mission of the writer or audience, then these personal connections are false because truly it wasn’t meant for us. That’s simply not true.
Further, it’s not the writers intent, or the audience’s understanding that we should stop at. It’s the author’s intent, not the writers intent that we are ultimately trying to get to know. What these people were, thought and knew is a tool for us to understand God’s message better, not their own message.
So if a writer put something down that as a writer he wouldn’t mean to have understood in a particular way, it doesn’t matter as much as what it actually says. Clearly, the writer being the medium and not the creator is not in control of the words and the meaning, God is. So if the scriptures say something that seemingly contradict what they would have thought as early Christians, it matters little. The words say what they say and it is what God intended that matters.
If we constrain our understandings to only the writer or original recipients, then the scriptures are not God’s words, but man’s and have little meaning or relevance to us today as Gentiles 2000 years later. By those constraints the word wasn’t meant for us.
But it was God who saw fit that these divine scripts be coalesced in to the Holy Bible for all people to derive meaning for themselves and for the church at large.
If the writers didn’t mean something, it still says it and it means what God wants it to and its for us to figure it out in truth. And that may be different from their original intentions for their original audience.
[quote] Brother Chris wrote:
Literal sense of Genesis: God created the universe.
Allegory: God, in creating the universe (so from the start of creation), ordered everything to himself.
Moral: Trust God/men are supposed to fight and provide/we are created in his image/&c.
Anagogical: God, through the New Eve, would bring in the New Adam to destroy sin (crush the head of the serpent, enmity between Satan and Mary (Woman), her seed (Jesus) and his seed (sin), &c.)
[/quote]
This isn’t right either. I don’t know if you made this up or if someone told it to you, but the four-fold sense is MUCH more ridiculous than this example suggests. The schema does not, as you have depicted it, simply emphasize different aspects that are already apparent in the text itself, and you can’t just apply it across the entire book of Genesis; you have to use it on select passages.
Rather, John Cassian (5th century) gave the classical example with reference to the use of the term “Jerusalem” in the Scriptures…
Literally, Jerusalem refers to the city of the Jews.
Allegorically, Jerusalem refers to the church.
Tropologically/ Ethically, Jerusalem refers to the soul.
Anagogically (i.e., looking to the future), Jerusalem refers to our heavenly home.
Thus, proponents of the four-fold schema would take a passage like Psalm 46:5 (“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling-place of the Most High”) and argue that ALL of the following interpretations are LEGITIMATE interpretations of this Old Testament passage (i.e., that all of these interpretations accurately reflect the divine intent)…
“Literally”, this passage states that God functioned for Jerusalem like a life-giving stream in her midst (see Psalm 46:6).
Allegorically, this passage refers to the Spirit’s function in the church, which it nurtures and protects.
Tropologically, this passage refers to Spirit’s function in the individual, as it sanctifies and guards them.
Anagogically, this passage depicts the final situation in our heavenly abode, where the stream of living water flows from the divine throne in the heavenly city (Revelation 22:1-2).[/quote]
Thanks for explaining it better than I did.[/quote]
You are an extremely humble guy, Chris. I’m sorry for my antagonism.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
LOL Chris it never ceases to amaze me how unreservedly you claim that the early church fathers spoke with unanimity on anything. Do you actually read them, or do you just have a series of proof texts from ECF literature on various topics that you glance at when you make these claims? Do you even have that much to go on?
First of all, the four-fold schema isn’t found until the fourth-fifth centuries in Augustine and John Cassian, and it was really just a summary of the different ways later Christian authors thought previous church fathers had read the Scriptures. So talking about this schema as if its some sort of badge of “orthodoxy” is borderline disingenuous; the apostles knew of NO such distinction, though they applied a variety of different interpretive methods.
Secondly, YOU don’t know the ECF’s - Origen plainly stated, “with regard to divine Scripture as a whole, we are of the view that all of it has a spiritual sense, but not all of it has a bodily (literal) sense. In fact, in many cases, the bodily sense proves to be impossible.” Thats from Book 4 of First Principles, by the way. And before we get into a conversation about Origen’s supposed heretical status, the fact is (1) that status was given posthumously after considerable doctrinal development in Christology, (2) he was representative of an interpretive school of thought (i.e., Alexandrian allegorical exegesis) going back centuries and encompassing figures like Clement of Alexandria, and (3) that interpretive school, along with Origen’s hermeneutical influence, continued in figures like Augustine. In short, Origen wasn’t the only one who thought this way; we see it in Clement before him and other church fathers after him. They were all influenced by the Greek philosophical schools, wherein the works of Homer had been interpreted allegorically for centuries as veiling the teachings of Plato and other philosophers, both to give the philosophies more cultural clout and to keep the Homeric epics relevant at a time when the populace considered them morally bankrupt.
Why won’t you do thorough analysis of your church’s historical claims? THE EVIDENCE IS THERE. It’s not like we have to trust her witness; we can actually see the texts, texts which many of her members (like yourself) continue to reference as authorities! If you did some historical research, you would plainly see that the reason why Augustine, Origen, Clement, and others interpreted certain texts figuratively was because the “literal” senses of the texts did not jibe with the moral frameworks and “scientific understanding” of late antiquity. Simple as that. They had cultural prejudices and these prejudices were reflected in their exegesis, because the early church fathers, like pretty much everyone in antiquity, were not sufficiently sensitive to their rootedness in particular contexts and the influence of those contexts on their thought. A great example is Augustine, who applauds Ambrose for asserting, in the face of Platonists who claimed that Jeremiah stole his wisdom from Plato, that the path of transmission went in the opposite direction! Neither Ambrose nor Augustine questioned the legitimacy of allegorical reading (which Philo had used on the OT); they simply said that Plato’s teachings could be found in Jeremiah!
[/quote]
As much as you seem to know about the Fathers/history it is strange you’re not Catholic. By the way, it seems your first premise is false. The ECFs don’t have to agree unanimously. I’d recommend reading Newman’s essay on Develop of Christian Doctrine.
Thanks for posting this - as is the case with most books I lend out, I still have not received my copy back. Maurice Wiles’ “The Making of Christian Doctrine” actually critiques Newman’s thesis quite well and offers a better alternative. Moreover, while I was not saying that the church fathers have to agree unanimously, my point was that it is disingenuous to make claims that “the early church fathers said” when you’re really talking about two individuals in the fifth century (as an example) and calling them representative when others before them would have blatantly contradicted them. Theologically, you can claim whatever you want; it’s your church. But if you wish to convince someone outside of your church, you cannot make blanket statements like “the ECFs say” when you’re referring to only a small section of that group.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
pat wrote:KingKai25 wrote:Pat my friend, this kind of syncretistic nonsense is exactly why I have argued so vehemently before against the notion of a singular religious consciousness underlying the various religions. As soon as you start saying that any religion that looks remotely like monotheism worships the same God (Islam, Christianity, and in your opinion, Hinduism), you open the door for this kind of ahistorical crap.
[/quote]
Now to address the issue of non-Christian salvation…I will do it in parts since there are many layers and I don’t want to be misunderstood on this rather sensitive topic.
First thing I want address is the discussion about ‘what the writers’ intended, thought about things, meant, or what they were trying to convey. Secondly what the original audience may have thought or interpreted from these writings.
I do believe writer’s intent and understand who and what the original audience was and thought is important because it provides context for these writings. Having an understanding of this allow us to derive the divinity from the writings and the messages contained there in.
What I do not think is terribly prudent is that writer’s intent, or original audience understanding as a constraint for understanding the scriptures. After all they were in the end man, and their writings are divine, which makes them not the author but an instrument. And the instrument does not always know the author’s intent or meaning as they are merely the medium by which the word is being proclaimed.
If these writers’ knew that what they wrote was going to be considered Holy Scripture, they would have been a little more prudent in the prose itself, making sure the intended audience, which would now be all of humanity, were able to understand their writings more clearly. Particularly St. Paul would have used a grammar checker…
But their writings, most of which certainly could not have intended or imagined their works would be considered Holy Scripture, in as much or even more so than Moses, or Isaiah or David.
So despite what the writers thought, or what the original audience would have understood at that time, it is now clear that their writings are broader and had a much bigger affect outside their communities at the time then they ever could have imagined.
Second of all, what they understood and for whom they understood it to represent, is far broader than they could have ever imagined much less intended.
Further, the divinely inspired writings are a great deal more meaningful, and have more divine information in it, then they could have intended.
Understanding their intents and understandings gives us the context by which we can gather the divinely inspired messages. But what they thought or intended is NOT the end all be all of Biblical interpretation.
Indeed, the Bible speaks to many of us on a personal level. If we stop at the mission of the writer or audience, then these personal connections are false because truly it wasn’t meant for us. That’s simply not true.
Further, it’s not the writers intent, or the audience’s understanding that we should stop at. It’s the author’s intent, not the writers intent that we are ultimately trying to get to know. What these people were, thought and knew is a tool for us to understand God’s message better, not their own message.
So if a writer put something down that as a writer he wouldn’t mean to have understood in a particular way, it doesn’t matter as much as what it actually says. Clearly, the writer being the medium and not the creator is not in control of the words and the meaning, God is. So if the scriptures say something that seemingly contradict what they would have thought as early Christians, it matters little. The words say what they say and it is what God intended that matters.
If we constrain our understandings to only the writer or original recipients, then the scriptures are not God’s words, but man’s and have little meaning or relevance to us today as Gentiles 2000 years later. By those constraints the word wasn’t meant for us.
But it was God who saw fit that these divine scripts be coalesced in to the Holy Bible for all people to derive meaning for themselves and for the church at large.
If the writers didn’t mean something, it still says it and it means what God wants it to and its for us to figure it out in truth. And that may be different from their original intentions for their original audience.
[/quote]
Now this is a discussion. It would be extremely tedious for me to go point by point through your post, Pat, so instead I am going to note the three foundational problems I find in your argument.
1- You offer no evidence for your assertions.
Every single thing you say in the post above is based on your own unexamined, highly questionable assumptions about the mode of inspiration (i.e., the relation between the human and divine authors of Scripture), the necessary intentions of God, and even the nature of texts and language. You offer conjectures about how the biblical authors would have written their texts if they were aware that they were writing Scripture, conjectures that cannot be proven. You assume that the texts were written “for everyone,” but you completely miss the absolutely obvious point that if the texts had been written for absolutely everyone to understand without serious exegetical work, the texts wouldn’t have been written in particular human languages. There is no universal language, Pat; every single language is, as literary theorist Jonathan Culler notes, “a theory of the world.” By that he means that every language is also a set of contingent cultural codes that shape how we look at the world. Xaris (grace) in Jesus’ time didn’t refer to “compassion” or “love,” and it certainly didn’t refer to some magical power that woos people over to God’s side. Xaris’ had a very specific meaning, and that meaning lay within the context of patron-client relationships, wherein a rich person gave gifts (xarismata) to someone of lesser social standing in exchange for praise and loyalty. Paul and the other New Testament authors predicate this same relationship between us and God - God is the ultimate patron.
Given the above, your distinction between “what the writers meant” and “what (the text) says” is completely arbitrary, if not ludicrous. Because texts are composed in languages, the meaning of a text is entirely dependent on the cultural context brought to it. The sentence “this painting is really cool” is an entirely ambiguous except in a particular context - which painting is being referred to? Who is calling it “cool?” What is meant by “cool?” Is the person touching it, so that they may be referring to its temperature, or are they standing far away and using “cool” as a slang term? If it’s used as a slang term, are they referring to it in the now-common sense of “awesome,” or are they using it in the old slang sense of “smooth” or “reserved?” The context a text was composed in is determinative for its meaning. The text doesn’t “say” anything except when read against a particular context. The question is which context is most faithful to the authorial intent (we’ll get to what that means in my last point).
2- The seeming cogency of your claims is an illusion generated by the generality of your argument; at the level of actual interpretation, your model completely fails.
Once you remove authorial intent as delineated by cultural context as an interpretive guide to meaning, anything goes. I can posit theoretically anything as the “divine intent” of Scripture, even to the point of contradicting the text when read in context. The hermeneutical gymnastics you and I have both attacked Jaypierce and Headhunter for become as legitimate as any other, because anything can be predicated of God - he isn’t available to defend himself audibly. The only recourse you would have in that case is (as Brother Chris logically realizes) to lean on whatever your church authoritatively claims is the meaning of a passage, and the fact remains that, except for a handful of passages, the Roman Catholic church has wisely refrained from making definitive statements about the meaning of most biblical passages. Your arbitrary distinction between human and divine intent thus opens the way for interpretive anarchy - so long as God can mean something that the human author didn’t, contradiction is always possible.
3- Your analysis shows a general insensitivity to, or unawareness of, Scriptural and early Christian history.
You distinguish between what the human writers meant as instruments and what God meant as author. You make claims about how Scripture as Scripture has to function in order to be relevant for others beyond the original audiences. But you never ask yourself whether the individuals who authoritatively called the books of the OT and NT Scripture thought in your terms. Do you have the right to define the criteria for “scripturality,” Pat? Of course not. You are the recipient of a tradition handed down; if the NT authors and the early church fathers didn’t call certain texts Scripture, you wouldn’t know they were Scripture. It’s that simple, and Brother Chris knows this. So, given that they (not you) decided what it means to call certain texts “scripture,” on what grounds do you use a theory of inspiration and a definition of Scripture different from what they did? I’ll explain below.
The fact is that the New Testament authors and many of the early church fathers (1) did not distinguish between divine and human intents in Scripture, and (2) did not employ a mechanistic view of inspiration wherein the human author was simply the divine pen. The early church fathers frequently assumed that the allegorical meanings they derived from Scripture were known to and intended by the human authors as well. The same goes for the NT authors, who believed the texts they interpreted as prophecies about the Messiah were intended as such by the human beings who composed them. In other words, as far as the NT authors were concerned, “Moses, Isaiah, and David” DID know they were writing under inspiration AND knew what the meanings were of what they were writing. Consequently, your own redefinition of inspiration does not jibe with that of either the NT authors or the early church fathers.
I think your biggest and most problematic assumption is that a text’s scriptural status means that “God saw fit that these divine scripts be coalesced in to the Holy Bible for all people to derive meaning for themselves and for the church at large.” The Scriptures were written by the people of God FOR the people of God. They are not self-interpreting; they require that one be part of the interpretive community to whom they were written. Because we too are the people of God, these texts still have relevance and authority for us today, but they weren’t written for YOU in particular (or as I said before, they would have been written in your language and the cultural codes with which YOU are familiar). This does not mean that God cannot use the texts to reveal things to us today on a purely individual level that weren’t intended by the biblical author. But personal revelation is not authoritative for the community and should never be used to determine doctrine. God can say something new to you with the same words he used 2000 years ago to say something to the community, but that doesn’t change the meaning of the text. That’s simply a matter of God speaking to you today.
Interesting…what do you think about Pagans in the Bible that were accurate in their
Prophecies? Did God give them that gift of prophesying those specific events, or was it the evil one
that gave them that power? I really do not know, But Christians get mad at me thinking that only “Good”
and “Holy” men were the only ones that were gifted with prophecy in the Bible…Oh REALLY?
Then how does one explain Balaam, the evil sorcerer who predicted the star of Bethlehem at the birth of Christ, the magi seemed to have followed Balaam?s prophecy. Also Pharoah’s dream of the famine which brought Jacob to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar?s dream of the statue, All instances of hostile sources that gave true prophecy in the Bible.
So who exactly ‘gave’ these bad people the power to see the future, and why?
thx.
I tend to agree with the content of the link you’ve provided–my understanding of the word yom is of course second-hand, but every reputable account I’ve read has left little doubt that a dusk-to-dawn day is what’s meant in Genesis.
If we accept that a 24-hour day is what’s described by the text, it seems to me that the true believer has little choice but acceptance. Obvious problems arise when a foundational narrative is presented as fact and then found not to be–“perhaps the virgin birth was metaphorical, perhaps the resurrection was metaphorical.”
It was noted above that metaphor plays a role in the Bible as evidenced by Jesus’ parables. But Jesus makes it explicitly clear to his disciples that he finds metaphor effective. No such meta-description accompanies Genesis.[/quote]
Correct.
I’ve said this a hundred times here in the last 10 years: yield on the authenticity of Genesis and you might as well yield on the other 65 books.
It is just a silly game to propagate the “We just need to re-define Genesis as metaphorical in order keep our faith intact and reconcile it with concepts of modern science” intellectual gymnastic exercise.[/quote]
Don’t even have the right amount of books, which Apostle told you there was only 66 books in the Canon of Scripture? Interesting you have higher requirements than the Apostles and their successors. Talk about a heavy burden.[/quote]
Non sequitur.
The differing amount of books between the Catholic and Protestant canons is irrelevant when speaking of the authenticity of Genesis and its historical accuracy.[/quote]
Not really. If you don’t have the entire Canon of Scripture, you’re missing part of the deposit of faith (not to mention the teachings of the Apostles).
Plus, the Roman Pontiff and the magisterium (based on their succession from the Apostles) are given authority to interpret scripture validly. If we’re not interpreting scripture within the understanding of the Church, we will go in strange directions.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I will say it again: Careen off into the nebulous land of “Genesis is just a metaphor” and your whole ball of twine (the Bible) becomes unraveled and nothing more than a chaotic mess.[/quote]
Why can’t Genesis be a parable but jesus’ parables are parables and are not to be read literalistically? Why isn’t John 6 read literalistically?[/quote]
You need do some study on parables and what constitutes them. There are guidelines for understanding.
There is NOTHING to indicate Genesis is a parable. Not one single thing. Only when errant man comes along and tries to be “creative” is Genesis packed up in a suitcase and carried off to Parable Land.
If Genesis is a parable why not Exodus? Leviticus? Numbers? Deuteronomy? Joshua? Ruth? II Kings? Esther? Acts?
Where does it end?
The parables of Christ are easily identifiable as such. Visions and dreams and such are also identified in both the Old and New Testaments. Genesis doesn’t even come close to qualifying as a parable, vision or dream. It is simple, straightforward history. It lays the foundation for the entire Bible – both the literal and non-literal. It’s completely unreasonable straining to manipulate it any other way.[/quote]
Unreasonable straining? This is what I call attempting to interpret scripture outside of Scripture. Just look at the Ethiopian eunuch minister and the book of Jeremiah.
I’m sorry, but I’ve looked at Genesis and looking at it at surface deep there is two creation stories, side by side, with different orders of creation and different methods of creating man. Seem some what of a parable.
Looking beyond the surface, the two stories explain something fundamental: that God created everything and that the universe is ordered so that man may reach his final end…eternal happiness with God. There, I agree with you that the creation accounts in Genesis lay the foundation for the rest of Canon.
P.S. I disagree with you about the parables of Christ being easily identifiable. One example, (though even the Apostles missed the parables before being given the Holy Ghost, heretics have been misidentifying parables since the beginning of the Church) is that Protestants have taken John 6 to be some kind of parable that does not lead to the Eucharist and the Real Presence. This is of course the reason for the Holy Ghost leading the magisterium so that the faithful can find truth in the bulwark and pillar that Jesus gave us.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
LOL Chris it never ceases to amaze me how unreservedly you claim that the early church fathers spoke with unanimity on anything. Do you actually read them, or do you just have a series of proof texts from ECF literature on various topics that you glance at when you make these claims? Do you even have that much to go on?
First of all, the four-fold schema isn’t found until the fourth-fifth centuries in Augustine and John Cassian, and it was really just a summary of the different ways later Christian authors thought previous church fathers had read the Scriptures. So talking about this schema as if its some sort of badge of “orthodoxy” is borderline disingenuous; the apostles knew of NO such distinction, though they applied a variety of different interpretive methods.
Secondly, YOU don’t know the ECF’s - Origen plainly stated, “with regard to divine Scripture as a whole, we are of the view that all of it has a spiritual sense, but not all of it has a bodily (literal) sense. In fact, in many cases, the bodily sense proves to be impossible.” Thats from Book 4 of First Principles, by the way. And before we get into a conversation about Origen’s supposed heretical status, the fact is (1) that status was given posthumously after considerable doctrinal development in Christology, (2) he was representative of an interpretive school of thought (i.e., Alexandrian allegorical exegesis) going back centuries and encompassing figures like Clement of Alexandria, and (3) that interpretive school, along with Origen’s hermeneutical influence, continued in figures like Augustine. In short, Origen wasn’t the only one who thought this way; we see it in Clement before him and other church fathers after him. They were all influenced by the Greek philosophical schools, wherein the works of Homer had been interpreted allegorically for centuries as veiling the teachings of Plato and other philosophers, both to give the philosophies more cultural clout and to keep the Homeric epics relevant at a time when the populace considered them morally bankrupt.
Why won’t you do thorough analysis of your church’s historical claims? THE EVIDENCE IS THERE. It’s not like we have to trust her witness; we can actually see the texts, texts which many of her members (like yourself) continue to reference as authorities! If you did some historical research, you would plainly see that the reason why Augustine, Origen, Clement, and others interpreted certain texts figuratively was because the “literal” senses of the texts did not jibe with the moral frameworks and “scientific understanding” of late antiquity. Simple as that. They had cultural prejudices and these prejudices were reflected in their exegesis, because the early church fathers, like pretty much everyone in antiquity, were not sufficiently sensitive to their rootedness in particular contexts and the influence of those contexts on their thought. A great example is Augustine, who applauds Ambrose for asserting, in the face of Platonists who claimed that Jeremiah stole his wisdom from Plato, that the path of transmission went in the opposite direction! Neither Ambrose nor Augustine questioned the legitimacy of allegorical reading (which Philo had used on the OT); they simply said that Plato’s teachings could be found in Jeremiah!
[/quote]
As much as you seem to know about the Fathers/history it is strange you’re not Catholic. By the way, it seems your first premise is false. The ECFs don’t have to agree unanimously. I’d recommend reading Newman’s essay on Develop of Christian Doctrine.
Thanks for posting this - as is the case with most books I lend out, I still have not received my copy back. Maurice Wiles’ “The Making of Christian Doctrine” actually critiques Newman’s thesis quite well and offers a better alternative. Moreover, while I was not saying that the church fathers have to agree unanimously, my point was that it is disingenuous to make claims that “the early church fathers said” when you’re really talking about two individuals in the fifth century (as an example) and calling them representative when others before them would have blatantly contradicted them. Theologically, you can claim whatever you want; it’s your church. But if you wish to convince someone outside of your church, you cannot make blanket statements like “the ECFs say” when you’re referring to only a small section of that group.[/quote]
I’ll have to save a few bucks or see if I cannot grab myself a copy.
[quote] Brother Chris wrote:
Literal sense of Genesis: God created the universe.
Allegory: God, in creating the universe (so from the start of creation), ordered everything to himself.
Moral: Trust God/men are supposed to fight and provide/we are created in his image/&c.
Anagogical: God, through the New Eve, would bring in the New Adam to destroy sin (crush the head of the serpent, enmity between Satan and Mary (Woman), her seed (Jesus) and his seed (sin), &c.)
[/quote]
This isn’t right either. I don’t know if you made this up or if someone told it to you, but the four-fold sense is MUCH more ridiculous than this example suggests. The schema does not, as you have depicted it, simply emphasize different aspects that are already apparent in the text itself, and you can’t just apply it across the entire book of Genesis; you have to use it on select passages.
Rather, John Cassian (5th century) gave the classical example with reference to the use of the term “Jerusalem” in the Scriptures…
Literally, Jerusalem refers to the city of the Jews.
Allegorically, Jerusalem refers to the church.
Tropologically/ Ethically, Jerusalem refers to the soul.
Anagogically (i.e., looking to the future), Jerusalem refers to our heavenly home.
Thus, proponents of the four-fold schema would take a passage like Psalm 46:5 (“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling-place of the Most High”) and argue that ALL of the following interpretations are LEGITIMATE interpretations of this Old Testament passage (i.e., that all of these interpretations accurately reflect the divine intent)…
“Literally”, this passage states that God functioned for Jerusalem like a life-giving stream in her midst (see Psalm 46:6).
Allegorically, this passage refers to the Spirit’s function in the church, which it nurtures and protects.
Tropologically, this passage refers to Spirit’s function in the individual, as it sanctifies and guards them.
Anagogically, this passage depicts the final situation in our heavenly abode, where the stream of living water flows from the divine throne in the heavenly city (Revelation 22:1-2).[/quote]
Thanks for explaining it better than I did.[/quote]
You are an extremely humble guy, Chris. I’m sorry for my antagonism.[/quote]
[quote]Karado wrote:
Interesting…what do you think about Pagans in the Bible that were accurate in their
Prophecies? Did God give them that gift of prophesying those specific events, or was it the evil one
that gave them that power? I really do not know, But Christians get mad at me thinking that only “Good”
and “Holy” men were the only ones that were gifted with prophecy in the Bible…Oh REALLY?
Then how does one explain Balaam, the evil sorcerer who predicted the star of Bethlehem at the birth of Christ, the magi seemed to have followed Balaam?s prophecy. Also Pharoah’s dream of the famine which brought Jacob to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar?s dream of the statue, All instances of hostile sources that gave true prophecy in the Bible.
So who exactly ‘gave’ these bad people the power to see the future, and why?
thx.
The three days of the crucifixion/resurrection are to be understood within the framework of Jewish timekeeping of that day. Study that and you’ll understand what I mean.
[/quote]
That is my point. The Jews time based on sun down to sun down. Jesus died before sun down Friday so that was day one, then there was Saturday sun down Friday to sun down Saturday, day two, and then Sunday sun down Saturday to morning when the tomb was empty, day three. Maybe only 35-40 hours from death to resurrection.
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I don’t get it. What’s the problem?
Luke 18:33 says “on the third day he will rise again.” He did.
There is no problem. I am just saying that Jews do not look at a day as being 24 hrs as is in the example of the resurrection story. Taking that Jews do not look at a day as 24 hrs I wrestle with the creation story being 24 hr days. A day to a early Jew just meant sun down to sun down so if the earth rotated slowly during creation then it was not 24 hrs, but maybe 1,000,000 hrs in one day. I am not saying you are wrong either. I am just saying I don’t know and I wrestle with it. Israel wrestled with God, why can’t I. I might get a bad bone spur in my hip for it. It is totally normal as I am human, and I live by only the Grace my Father in Heaven gives me. I don’t have all the answers about the Bible.[/quote]
You are unnecessarily complicating this. Luke didn’t say Christ would rise after 48 hours; he said “on the third day” – the third 24 hour day. I don’t understand your confusion.[/quote]
I don’t understand why you are complicating this. I am using the example of the resurrection not being 3, 24 hour days to understand why I am wrestling with the creation story being 7, 24 hour days. That is it. There is nothing behind it. If the resurrection story is not 3, 24 hour days then why does the creation story have to be 7, 24 hour days?[/quote]
The death-to-resurrection DID take place over three 24 hour days - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Where are we missing each other here?[/quote]
Jesus died at 3pm on Friday. He rose again on Sunday whether at 9am or earlier. That is not 3 24 hour periods or 72 hours. It is only 41 hours if we look at him dieing at 3 pm and sundown being 6pm and he arose at 8am Sunday. I am being very technical I know.
He still rose on the third day (each day, Fri, Sat and Sun consisted of 24 hours) just like the Scriptures says. I said it before – neither the Scripture nor Jewish custom insists that 72 hours (3 full days) must have elapsed.[/quote]
So the 7 days of creation stating that their was light and then dark was a full 24 hour period even though it is not stated in scripture? The sun was not created till the 4th day so it is hard to tell time if there was only light and dark.
I am not trying to be an ass just trying to understand your position.
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
pat wrote:KingKai25 wrote:Pat my friend, this kind of syncretistic nonsense is exactly why I have argued so vehemently before against the notion of a singular religious consciousness underlying the various religions. As soon as you start saying that any religion that looks remotely like monotheism worships the same God (Islam, Christianity, and in your opinion, Hinduism), you open the door for this kind of ahistorical crap.
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Now to address the issue of non-Christian salvation…I will do it in parts since there are many layers and I don’t want to be misunderstood on this rather sensitive topic.
First thing I want address is the discussion about ‘what the writers’ intended, thought about things, meant, or what they were trying to convey. Secondly what the original audience may have thought or interpreted from these writings.
I do believe writer’s intent and understand who and what the original audience was and thought is important because it provides context for these writings. Having an understanding of this allow us to derive the divinity from the writings and the messages contained there in.
What I do not think is terribly prudent is that writer’s intent, or original audience understanding as a constraint for understanding the scriptures. After all they were in the end man, and their writings are divine, which makes them not the author but an instrument. And the instrument does not always know the author’s intent or meaning as they are merely the medium by which the word is being proclaimed.
If these writers’ knew that what they wrote was going to be considered Holy Scripture, they would have been a little more prudent in the prose itself, making sure the intended audience, which would now be all of humanity, were able to understand their writings more clearly. Particularly St. Paul would have used a grammar checker…
But their writings, most of which certainly could not have intended or imagined their works would be considered Holy Scripture, in as much or even more so than Moses, or Isaiah or David.
So despite what the writers thought, or what the original audience would have understood at that time, it is now clear that their writings are broader and had a much bigger affect outside their communities at the time then they ever could have imagined.
Second of all, what they understood and for whom they understood it to represent, is far broader than they could have ever imagined much less intended.
Further, the divinely inspired writings are a great deal more meaningful, and have more divine information in it, then they could have intended.
Understanding their intents and understandings gives us the context by which we can gather the divinely inspired messages. But what they thought or intended is NOT the end all be all of Biblical interpretation.
Indeed, the Bible speaks to many of us on a personal level. If we stop at the mission of the writer or audience, then these personal connections are false because truly it wasn’t meant for us. That’s simply not true.
Further, it’s not the writers intent, or the audience’s understanding that we should stop at. It’s the author’s intent, not the writers intent that we are ultimately trying to get to know. What these people were, thought and knew is a tool for us to understand God’s message better, not their own message.
So if a writer put something down that as a writer he wouldn’t mean to have understood in a particular way, it doesn’t matter as much as what it actually says. Clearly, the writer being the medium and not the creator is not in control of the words and the meaning, God is. So if the scriptures say something that seemingly contradict what they would have thought as early Christians, it matters little. The words say what they say and it is what God intended that matters.
If we constrain our understandings to only the writer or original recipients, then the scriptures are not God’s words, but man’s and have little meaning or relevance to us today as Gentiles 2000 years later. By those constraints the word wasn’t meant for us.
But it was God who saw fit that these divine scripts be coalesced in to the Holy Bible for all people to derive meaning for themselves and for the church at large.
If the writers didn’t mean something, it still says it and it means what God wants it to and its for us to figure it out in truth. And that may be different from their original intentions for their original audience.
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Now this is a discussion. It would be extremely tedious for me to go point by point through your post, Pat, so instead I am going to note the three foundational problems I find in your argument.
1- You offer no evidence for your assertions.
Every single thing you say in the post above is based on your own unexamined, highly questionable assumptions about the mode of inspiration (i.e., the relation between the human and divine authors of Scripture), the necessary intentions of God, and even the nature of texts and language. You offer conjectures about how the biblical authors would have written their texts if they were aware that they were writing Scripture, conjectures that cannot be proven. You assume that the texts were written “for everyone,” but you completely miss the absolutely obvious point that if the texts had been written for absolutely everyone to understand without serious exegetical work, the texts wouldn’t have been written in particular human languages. There is no universal language, Pat; every single language is, as literary theorist Jonathan Culler notes, “a theory of the world.” By that he means that every language is also a set of contingent cultural codes that shape how we look at the world. Xaris (grace) in Jesus’ time didn’t refer to “compassion” or “love,” and it certainly didn’t refer to some magical power that woos people over to God’s side. Xaris’ had a very specific meaning, and that meaning lay within the context of patron-client relationships, wherein a rich person gave gifts (xarismata) to someone of lesser social standing in exchange for praise and loyalty. Paul and the other New Testament authors predicate this same relationship between us and God - God is the ultimate patron.
Given the above, your distinction between “what the writers meant” and “what (the text) says” is completely arbitrary, if not ludicrous. Because texts are composed in languages, the meaning of a text is entirely dependent on the cultural context brought to it. The sentence “this painting is really cool” is an entirely ambiguous except in a particular context - which painting is being referred to? Who is calling it “cool?” What is meant by “cool?” Is the person touching it, so that they may be referring to its temperature, or are they standing far away and using “cool” as a slang term? If it’s used as a slang term, are they referring to it in the now-common sense of “awesome,” or are they using it in the old slang sense of “smooth” or “reserved?” The context a text was composed in is determinative for its meaning. The text doesn’t “say” anything except when read against a particular context. The question is which context is most faithful to the authorial intent (we’ll get to what that means in my last point).
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I would retort that your own assumptions that these scriptures were written for a particular audience and only them is little more than that. In most cases we are using our best guesses at who the authors actually even were. And we know little more about the audience. There is in fact little evidence to suggest that these scriptures were only intended for the original audience alone. There are several problems with this.
If the scriptures were intended for only the intended audience and nothing more, then why do we even have the Bible Cannon? The fundamental problem with that line of thinking, is that it renders the Bible little more than historical document with no relevance to people outside the original audience. The writings and their meanings would then apply only to them and have little to no relevance to us modern Christians because by that assumption, the writings have nothing to do with us.
So where is my proof? It’s the Bible itself. The writings were made accessible to anybody who could get their hands on it. Now of course initially that was difficult, but still after the biblical cannon was assembled and arranged it was more accessible as a complete work of the infallible word of God, then at any other time prior to it.
To question if the writings purpose and meaning lies solely with the writer and intended initial audience, it by default begs the question of divine authorship. If the opinions of the writers and audiences with regards to these scriptures are the only one that matters, then any application we may derive from it today is all mistaken because it does not belong to us, but a people long since dead. Which in turns renders what God may have intended for these writings and to whom they apply non-existent. Ancient writings, written only for an ancient people, outside of understanding history, has no value to us today.
So how do I know this is not true? The writings have meaning to us today. The authorship is considered divine in nature, meaning necessarily, that the writers understanding of what he is writing is not required. For when a manager dictates a letter to his secretary, she may not understand the document totally, but writes what she is commanded to do.
Now it may be the case that the writers understood every single utterance of what they were writing, but it’s also means they didn’t have to, or may not have at all, for all we know.
For instance, perhaps St. John understood anything and everything about Revelation, it however seems unlikely he understood it all.
The evidence? I believe it is self evident. We have a widely accessible Bible Canon, available in many languages with many translations there within. Why would this be the case if it were not God’s will that it be so? Why would the meanings and interpretations still be going on if the writer’s and audiences understanding were sufficient? And most certainly, deriving personal meaning from these texts would be as valid as deriving personal meaning from a Pink Floyd song.
As to the writers, writing it differently, well that is an assumption. I go back to St. Paul, for instance. If he were intending his letters to be a widely broadcast text, rather than the addressee’s of the letters, I would assume he would leave out said personal greetings, personal requests and such things like that. Of course I have no way of knowing that for sure, but it seems natural that one would cater their writings to the intended audience.
I thought I addressed that in the first sentence of my post, but I will go again. I am not positing under any circumstance, that context is not important and the words mere should be taken at face value. I believe the exact opposite, that understanding context and who these people were is critical to understanding the meaning of the scriptures. To have context is critical to understanding the scripture. In that applying the filter of context is how you derive the divine meaning of the scriptures. What I am saying is that their understanding of it is the only right application and understanding of the scriptures. That there may be indeed things they understood at their time, is understood differently now. That attempts to understand the meanings in the scriptures is a process that goes on today and did not end with the ancients.
Their understanding of the scriptures is important to pursue, know and understand. But also, their understanding wasn’t and isn’t infallible. For instance, many early Christians did not know, or necessarily believe in a Trinitarian God, but it is a view that is considered divine dogma to most of Christianity save for some fringe sects. It was in fact established as divine dogma before the Biblical Cannon was assembled and also considered a dogma of divinely inspired word of God.
Just so I am not misunderstood, I am also not saying that early concepts of Trinity did not exist either.
I never made this claim at all. You are functioning on the assumption you laid out above that I was claiming the context of the writers and their audience didn’t matter, which was not what I was saying. Only that understanding scripture should not be only constrained to how the original audience or writers intent or opinion on the matters. There’s a big difference between what I am saying and what you think I am saying. Perhaps I don’t write very clearly. I guess what I am trying to say and what comes out is somehow different.
I never claimed that it didn’t. I only claimed that it’s possible they did not fully understand the writings themselves. I never claimed they didn’t know they were being moved by the Holy Spirit to write. I am only claiming that they may not have fully understood what they were writing because it was divine and not their words. Further, they certainly didn’t seem privy to the massive impact and scale of their writings would have; at least not on their own.
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I think your biggest and most problematic assumption is that a text’s scriptural status means that “God saw fit that these divine scripts be coalesced in to the Holy Bible for all people to derive meaning for themselves and for the church at large.” The Scriptures were written by the people of God FOR the people of God. They are not self-interpreting; they require that one be part of the interpretive community to whom they were written. Because we too are the people of God, these texts still have relevance and authority for us today, but they weren’t written for YOU in particular (or as I said before, they would have been written in your language and the cultural codes with which YOU are familiar). This does not mean that God cannot use the texts to reveal things to us today on a purely individual level that weren’t intended by the biblical author. But personal revelation is not authoritative for the community and should never be used to determine doctrine. God can say something new to you with the same words he used 2000 years ago to say something to the community, but that doesn’t change the meaning of the text. That’s simply a matter of God speaking to you today. [/quote]
I never said it was, I think you miss understood. By who’s will is it that the Bible be assembled and made widely available? Was it the author’s intent, or was it God’s intent?
I also did not mean that the Bible was written for me personally or that one is singularly qualified to create of base dogma on their own personal interpretation. Only that many, including myself have had the scriptures speak deeply on a personal level, not as a matter of authoritative interpretation, but on a personal level communicating with God one on one.
My assertion was simply this, that if the scriptures were intended for the original audience, or all that mattered was what they and the author thought, that the personal growth and development is not possible and is just a sham using those texts, because it was only written for these early Christian sects. If these writings for only for these early Christians and is relevant only to them, and only their understanding is the only one that matters then we can close the book on Christianity cause it’s done. We don’t need to study it, it’s already been done. We cannot grow spiritually from it because it has nothing to do with us. It’s relevance is relegated to history only.
In a nutshell, all I am saying is that what the early Christians thought, or what the writers thought is not the only relevant thought when it comes to scripture. It did not end with them, it continues today.
I don’t really know how to convey in these expressions, what I am not saying. I don’t want to have to continually correct my meaning. I guess it may not be avoidable with such a detailed topic. If I am writing poorly or incoherently tell me what it looks like to you and I will try to correct it, if I can.