G'day All,
Andrew, I'll only respond to a few points as time is limited.
At 06:00 AM 23/01/04 +1100, Andrew wrote:
At 07:15 PM 19/01/04 +1100, Lindsay Brash wrote:It also seems to me that stories are told and passed on for a purpose. One purpose is preservation of the traditions themselves, but there are lots of other moral and educational purposes for telling stories to the youngsters. So stories become shaped to different purposes, which are not constant over time.
This is more speculation, and it still seems to ignore the possibility that the custodians believe that the stories are true, and that preserving their accuracy is extremely important. And, I would suggest that these were exactly the conditions we find in at least some periods of Biblical transmission, and do today for that matter.
I agree that the custodians believe the stories are true, but they might still be told at a given time for a specific educational/moral purpose, that is not always the same. So the creation story might be told to reveal the wonders of God. Or it might be told to instruct on the sabbath rest. Or it might be about original sin. In some cases, a variant "telling" might actually become a new story that is preserved separately from its parent.
I was trying to say that I accept that the transmission of oral history is orders of magnitude more reliable than chinese whispers. But I would also say that for me, to believe that entire books of the old testament were transmitted orally without a single error of any kind - that belief could only rely upon supernatural intervention.
Spong sets out the editing and revisions that occurred after the first books were written down. I find his account plausible. How about you? It seems to me that if there is a fraction of truth in what Spong says, then any oral inaccuracies become trivial by comparison.
I certainly don't think there's anything in the Bible that I can identify as science, which is a bit bizarre when I reflect that many of those who built the modern scientific method were committed to the idea that the Bible was unique and true. Another big topic.
I disagree with what I think you are trying to say here. The modern scientific method was being established from roughly 1750 onwards, I think, and was quite well defined by Darwin's day. Modern biblical literalism, on the other hand, developed gradually as the bible became available for private individuals outside of the universities, maybe 1800-1850. Then it really kicked off in response to Darwin and other naturalists of the last decades of the 19th century.
So yes, the founders of the scientific method believed that the Bible was unique and true, but their belief could not be equated with literal beliefs of today.
This seems to be a common error - a view of history wherein a literal bible view has dominated the christian era, and other views have not been seriously entertained until the last 120 years.
I think there's a perception among the hard right of biblical scholars, the creation scientists and such, that after the schism they see between science and the Bible nothing could possibly get worse or more challenging. And I think they are dead wrong here. You ain't seen nothin' yet. How will they cope? Not very elegantly I suspect.
They will respond by digging their trenches even deeper.
In that environment, could we still believe that God would ask such a thing? Not me. And if I can't believe it today, I can't see a good reason to believe that God asked it of Abraham. And in that case, I could not use the passage to teach others about faithfulness. If you are saying that maybe Abraham was mistaken, that puts quite a different spin on the whole story.
This is a rather fine distinction but I think it's important.
I think Abraham understood perfectly well what God was asking. I think God asked this because of Abraham's primitive, barbaric if you like, understanding of what God is like. I don't see how you can read the story and conclude that God didn't really ask for the sacrifice.
Can you?
To be honest, yes. Perhaps God asked Abraham if he was willing to give up anything if God required it. And Abraham interpreted that either as a direct instruction to sacrifice Isaac, or as a general demand to demonstrate that willingness so he chooses his most precious possession. And God allows it to proceed but intervenes at the last minute.
But if it comes to that, I find sacrifices of bulls, lambs and even birds rather revolting too.
Then thankfully we are let off the hook in Micah (?) where we discover that suddenly God doesn't want sacrifices any more but is interested in our ethics and relationships. Did God change? I doubt it. I find it easier to understand the bulk of the sacrificial tradition as having been picked up by the Hebrews because that was what their neighbours did in worship.
I agree that the story of Abraham and Isaac shows a very limited understanding of God. Is that the point you wish to make?
I guess that is part of it. And if our understanding of God has out-grown this story (in some respects) then we should allow ourselves to move on, and not feel that we have to drag it all with us into the 21st century when it doesn't want to go. I think I'm in common with Allan on that.
Hmmm. So, how will you draw the line as to what goes and what stays? I guess the story of Dinah will also go (a pity, the bikers love it - "hey, those brothers of hers were all right"). Joseph might stay, but we'll censor the details of just why he was in prison. Surely God wouldn't put a man in such an unfair position? (;->
And before we know it, we'll have cut out the atonement as well. Which if course is exactly what Allan has done. But that then leaves a big hole in our theology, to the point that most of the theologians of history, going right back to St Paul I think, wouldn't even recognise it as Christianity. This is not something to be done at all lightly, as I'm sure Allan realises.
I'm not sure how to respond to this because I don't want to offend you. The argument you have just used is commonly used by some very insecure literalists. That if we drop so much as a word from the Bible, we'll pretty soon find the whole thing turning to dust and slipping through our fingers. Spong refutes that view very strongly and I won't repeat it here. But Spong states that he does what he does *because* he loves the Bible and wants to live by its teaching, not because he wants to undermine it or destroy it.
Or at another level, people say that liberal theology is all fine and well in the theological colleges, but it is too hot, too dangerous to put in the minds of common folk because they will become confused and lose their faith.
And I think you grossly misrepresent Allan.
Ok, well maybe I wrote off the consequences of unbelief a little lightly. But Paul (I think) wrote that if Christ did not rise (I substitute for example, 'if God is not love') then we are the most pitiful people.
I also think Paul wrote this. Allan and I had an interesting discussion on exactly what Paul might have meant. It turns out that he doesn't find the issue Paul is addressing here nearly as simple as I had always thought it was.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by the substitution.
I'm saying that my beliefs about the resurrection - whether it actually happened and what its nature might have been - are uncertain, and it is not the foundation of my faith that it was for Paul. So I substitute something else that *is* a foundation of my faith.
To me, this has serious dangers, as well as the huge difficulty in transplanting the story to Australia 2004.
I'm skeptical as to the dangers. Anybody in our society who is going to sacrifice their son has problems that go way beyond a poor interpretation of this passage.
If one person in the world is at danger of following the example of Abraham in a literal sense, then I would hope that everyone who teaches this would take care to very clear about what they mean and what they don't mean.
As for "transplanting" the story to Australia 2004, that's exactly what I'm *not* suggesting. Rather we need to locate it firmly in its historical setting.
I'm not sure that I can sufficiently understand Abraham's setting to really understand the story. I am even more doubtful that I could convey an adequate understanding to a congregation. So where do we end up? "The preacher says we should follow Abraham's example, but he doesn't really mean it."
I don't think God is barbaric either, so that is why I discount the authority of the barbaric bits attributed to God, like slaughtering the Caananites.
Another big subject. I've found all the explanations I have seen for *why* God thought this was a good idea quite unconvincing. It is a mystery to me.
But the Bible seems to be clear that God *did* give these instructions to Israel. So, your approach seems to be to say that the Bible is wrong here. Is that a fair statement? That's an honest question. I'd like to explore this.
I'm not sure that the Bible is wrong. But it is also easy enough to understand in human terms, I reckon. Almost everyone who goes to war believes that God is on their side, and that can be used to justify many atrocities. And the victorious side can write into their history that God was indeed on their side.
OK, so that just adds another layer - instead of consensus in each group, the conclusion represents the wishes of the strong debaters, with a few concessions for the others. That could also have been a dynamic in authorship of the bible.
Hmmm? I rather think the whole scenario collapses. It sounded so convincing, but you've now abandoned one of its key assumptions.
Not at all. We could replace the groups by individuals - I certainly know people who would represent the different midsets. I think you are missing the whole point, which was that we could obtain two documents which purport to be a revelation of God's will, but which are mutually incompatible. I believe that the Bible includes examples of this. In response we could tie ourselves in knots trying to prove that they can both be true, as literalists tend to do. What I think you do is to maintain that the authority of the Bible is in the whole, and if a particular point is unclear then we should focus on obeying the clear bits. What I am saying is that I can be frank about the mutually incompatible bits, and then distill from the whole a coherent revelation of God (but realising that I may make mistakes or obtain a different understanding from others on some points).
Kind regards, Lindsay Brash.
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