Biblical Authority: Part III

This has been a good conversation so far.  I would like to encourage anyone who's reading along to get involved in the comments section (that includes teenagers, Damon).  For those who have been regular commenters, let's try to keep our comments shorter.  This will make it a little easier for others to jump in.  Also, there are no stupid questions here.  If you don't understand something we're saying, just ask!

This time I want to talk about the notion that "the Bible is a repository of timeless truth."  N.T. Wright says that this may be true in some ways, but we have to remember that the "whole Bible...is culturally conditioned."  I would say that God has accomodated himself, inspiring people to write down his "story," using their own cultural and historical perspective, their own vocabulary, their own literary genres, etc.

Dictionary.com defines the word abstract as:

1. Considered apart from concrete existence: an abstract concept.
2. Not applied or practical; theoretical. See Synonyms at theoretical.
3. Difficult to understand; abstruse: abstract philosophical problems.
4. Thought of or stated without reference to a specific instance: abstract words like truth and justice.
5. Impersonal, as in attitude or views.
6. Having an intellectual and affective artistic content that depends solely on intrinsic form rather than on narrative content or pictorial representation: abstract painting and sculpture.

I would like us to focus on #1, 4 & 5 for the purpose of this conversation.  So here's my simple (as in easy to ask, hard to answer) question: Is the purpose of the Bible to provide us with abstract truth?

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Links to the rest if this series: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IIIb, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIIb, Part VIII, Conclusion

Comments

[ScottB]

This is a thorny one, because of what you commented previously about the danger of subjectivism. But here's my take - I think that what we have in scripture is God's revelation of Himself through the medium of personal and communal encounters. I don't think we can see scripture as a direct, unmediated revelation of God. We're always looking over someone else's shoulder, so to speak, even if only the shoulder of the author.

That being said, it's not as though scripture isn't written for and to us as well. There's something in the shared experience of God's people in which we encounter Him. That's why I liked Wright's description of revelation as acts in a play - I think it's a very helpful way to think of how we encounter scripture.

[tooaugust]

This was accidently posted on the wrong one. here it is again

Scott, that explanation of Scripture being "God's revelation of Himself through the medium of personal and communal encounters" sounds a little Neo-Orthodox to me. Do you have leanings in that direction?

Here's an article critiquing Grenz's stuff which is very similar to Wright's:

http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/documents/prop_rev.pdf

[ScottB]

Not particularly - I like some of what I've read of Barth but I can't say that I'm fluent enough with Neo-orthodoxy as a whole to claim the label. I'm not really a label kind of guy.