[Vision2020] Jesus did NOT "not say it"

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings:

The Princess does not read her Bible very carefullyand she also draws conclusions, as Joe has already pointed out, that simply do not follow logically.

First, the Word (Logos) of John does not refer to the Bible.  In Greek philosophy, from which the author (s) draw this term, it means a cosmic organizing principle. Paul implies this meaning for Christ in this famous passage: "For in him all things were created. . . and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:16-17).  Paul also uses "logos" to be mean the preached gospel, but never a written book. 

Please keep in mind that during the first century the only Scripture that early Christians had was the Hebrew Bible. None of the books of the New Testament had been written during Paul's time, and Paul would find the notion that his letters as scripture completely blasphemous.

Second, the Princess is not reading 2 Tim. 3:16 very carefully.  Let me quote myself from "God, Reason, and the Evangelicals": 

"The Bible's divine inspiration is supported by a single passage from 2 Timothy:  "...from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salva­tion through faith in Christ Jesus.  All scripture is inspired by God (theopneutos, lit. "God-breathed") and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righ­teousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (3:15-17).  

If Paul is the author of this passage (as most evan­gelicals believe), no Christian could have read any of the New Testament books from childhood.  Given this evangelical assumption, the inescapable conclusion is that only the Old Testament is being labeled "God-breathed." 

Nowhere in the authentic Pauline letters is there a hint that there is other scriptural authority besides the Old Testament.  For Paul the gospel of Christ is spoken, not written.  For ex­ample, when Paul speaks of the divine word (logos) in 1 Thes. 2:13, it is clear that he is talking about the gospel he is proclaiming, certainly not his own writing.  

Indeed, it is very doubtful whether Paul intended his private letters to have scrip­tural status.  As F. G. Bratton, states:  "That this correspon­dence was to become...an integral part of the new Bible called the New Testament...would have been news to Paul himself.  Such an idea was far from his mind.  He was writing personal letters to certain people, and if he had been able to visit them in person, he would not have written them ("The History of the Bible").  James Barr concurs:  "Paul's letters were not written...in order to produce written 'scripture' but in order to communicate by letter" (Beyond Fundamentalism, p. 14).

. . . [Conservative evangelical] Clark Pinnock offers an apt conclusion to this discussion on 2 Timothy 3:16:  "The Bible does not give us a doctrine of its own inspiration and authority that answers all the various questions we might like to ask.  Its witness on this subject is unsystematic and somewhat fragmentary and enables us to reach important but modest conclusions" (The Scriptural Principle, San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1984)."  End of quotation from my book.

Pauline scholars have discovered at least two other letters embedded in 1 & Corinthians.  This means that we most likely do not have all of Paul's letters, which indicates that only because of historical accidents we are not possession of his entire divine "Word." The same could be said about every other book in the Bible.  A completely contingent thing--a loose collection of books incompletely gathered by fallible human beings--has been unwisely absolutized.

If this is what the Princess (Doug Jones) teaches at NSA, then I would conclude that that scriptural hermeneutics at this institution is very thin indeed.  No national ranking can be earned with weak arguments such as this.  This is Shasta Bible College curriculum not a truly academic enterprise.

Is this the reason why NSA faculty choose not to present at our regional meetings of the Society for Biblical Literature?

Nick Gier





 

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