The Bible: Revelation Through Community

Sunday, 26 April 2009

Caravaggio's 'Inspiration of St.Matthew'

This post builds upon a previous post and a short conversation among friends on facebook about it. There's also lot of discussion going on in the biblioblog world right now concerning the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, along with thoughts about the irreversible effect that the critical method of scholarship has on our approach. Whether you are in the world of biblical studies or not, I believe that these conversations will have impact on how we view scripture in the future. There seems to be a beginning wave of reassessment about how the Bible is viewed and acted upon within American Christianity, particularly among evangelicals. Here are some of my thoughts as posted on the facebook conversation concerning the revelation/inspiration of the canon of scripture:

To me the complexities of Scripture bring out God's wonder more rather than obscure him or cause me to question His (or the Scripture's) validity. The Mysterious God that is always present and, yet, at times is also seemingly and frustratingly absent in my life, seems to be the same God at work in the Scriptures, where Psalmists praise him for being an ever present help and lament his hiding and silence. The different perspectives on Jesus, faith, the resurrection, community, law, etc. in the Scripture seem to correspond to the different experiences we all have due to God's revealing himself individually to each of us.

Rembrant's The Evangelist 'Matthew Inspired by an Angel'

I think views of Scripture that are based upon the values of the Enlightenment and Modernism have measured it against the wrong standard, and from a Christian perspective often result in minimizing difficulties out of fear that the truth of scripture can't contain any logical "contradictions". I think such an approach invalid measurement based upon a limited understandings of truth. The truth of Scripture isn't like the truth of gravity or a cadaver which can be dissected. Nor is truth a set of propositional doctrinal statements or creeds, but according to Scripture itself truth is a living person, Jesus, known through experiencing his way of life.

I'm not sure how I could ever have a list of statements about my wife that could encapsulate her, much less a list of statements about God. The best I could present would be a journal of my experiences with my wife, my thoughts about my wife, perhaps combined with a few "facts" about her. All of it would be "true", but it probably would seem contradictory at times. Knowing her personally would make it a lot more meaningful (and more deeply true) to those who would read it, and they would understand the "contradictions" without needing to explain them away. if I were not trying to be intentionally dishonest, would my limited knowledge and incorrect understandings of reality change the "truth" of my recorded relationship with my wife, including her statements about herself to me?

Woodcarving of Paul and Scribe

There are a few things about this that stand out to me. The first is that when Moses asks God to identify and limit himself by name (which in that culture may have been understood to have given someone power over a god), God's response in Hebrew is "ehyeh asher ehyeh ": I will be what I will be (in the third person ehyeh becomes yihyeh, "he will be," which could be the source of YHWH). God is not limited. He will be whatever he wants and do whatever he wants. YHWH is a God who can reveal himself through "contradiction" if He wants.

Second, from the perspective of Scripture being a revelation of God, God seems to value relationship and community so much that this is part of the revelation itself. So by its nature it contains the issues inherent in relationships. Something I've recently realized (it takes me a while to get the obvious) is the reality that the whole process of the development of the Scripture is one of community. If I trust the Scriptures as God's revelation, I must also trust the process within the Body that brought it about.

Dictating a letter to a scribe.

For example, when Paul "writes" to the Galatians it is actually Paul, Timothy, and the brethren with him. They are "writing it" together to multiple communities within the region of Galatia (which also brings up the prospect that there was more than one autograph--no single original version of Galatians). He is also using a secretarial scribe to write. Ancient letter writing wasn't like our contemporary process. Different people had input in a texts writing. Then they were copied for other churches. Then they were compiled. Then they were canonized. Then translated. All of this was done through community. It's pretty amazing.

This all causes me to realize that the revelation of God happens (has always happened) out of and/or for community. It is never a one-sided or individually experienced thing. God chooses "a people" for himself, He enters into conversation with that community, and that conversation is His revelation (with all its inherent complexities).

jkdoyle.com

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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