Oldman,
I spent a year at a Baptist Bible College in Hawaii. It was there that I learned to preach a 3 point sermon and to feel guilty about going to concerts and other mortal sins like dancing...(not that I'm inclined to dance.) Between Lutherans and Baptists there seems to be some competition about whether 'Grace' or 'Works' is more important. While I'm all for grace, I also expect to see evidence that my faith is 'transforming' me...and frankly that evidence is pretty meager. In any case, when I was a teen, my Baptist friends were taking real steps of faith, actively seeking God's will, and so I tried a couple fumbling steps myself.
Since those days, I have become sensitive to the differences between 'faith' and religious behavior. Many people find security in the traditions and changelessness of institutionalized religion - can even become pillars of their respective churches - and yet, I am not convinced this behavior has much to do with God. (I have to remind myself it's not for me to judge).
In any case, by sharing your Baptist background, you've made me a little bit nervous about my 'assault' on biblical inerrancy. I get hammered pretty regularly by literalists (an inadequate label) wielding that 2nd Timothy verse, but I have to say that your usage is - well - I think I am in agreement with you.
At my Baptist school, we were cautioned about the perils of doubting the inspired word of God. It was insinuated that once you started down the 'slippery slope' of doubt, you'd slide all the way down. I think, in a way they were exactly right. The bible is a big issue with me, as you say, and I want to figure it out, and eventually I took that first step and whoosh - I don't feel that old child-like security anymore and I've slid so far down that I've got serious questions about Jesus and His divinity and the Resurrection and I don't think you can slide down that slope much further. It's uncomfortable to have other Christians explain to me how I'm probably not a Christian anymore. But the literal thing doesn't work for me. Maybe we aren't supposed to be comfortable.
When I read your emails, I get a sense that you are not judgmental, and when I understand your background and see your reasoning and acceptance of new ideas, I hold out hope that it is because of your faith.
Your three points about the Timothy verse resonate with me because you point out very clearly the writer's purpose. "It is useful for righteousness; (to) bring me into a relationship with my creator and helping me to grow in Christ likeness."
What follows is something I worked through the last time I got scolded with the 2nd Timothy 'proof text'. It isn't for you so much as it is for me. If you see some glaring errors, let me know.
Towards the end of Paul’s career, he wrote to Timothy, who seems to have been someone who might become a pastor. Some call 1st and 2nd Timothy the Pastoral Epistles. Some think Paul could not have written these letters (as we know them) since the description of his travels don’t fit with accounts written in Acts which place him in prison for the final two years of his life. Some speculate that maybe he was released from prison, did the traveling hinted at in the Timothy letters and Titus, and was then rearrested. It isn’t inconceivable that even Paul’s letters were cobbled together and edited by first century church people. In any case, Paul is traditionally thought to have died a martyr’s death during the reign of Nero.
As best as I’ve been able to determine, 2nd Timothy was written in approximately 60 A.D. Since Nero’s reign ended in 69 A.D., 2nd Timothy could not possibly have been written by Paul any later than 69 A.D.
Often, when one begins asking questions concerning the reliability of Bible passages, conservative or fundamentalist believers will claim that the Bible is beyond questioning because it is God’s inspired word. On two occasions this year, I have been referred to 2nd Timothy 3:16-17 by people who insist that we must read the Bible in a straightforward fashion and take the following verse literally.
All scripture is inspired by God 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.
Wielding this verse, some go so far as to challenge teachings that result from methods of science, such as evolution, or to insist on particular ethical standards based on early Hebrew or first century culture. This, to me, seems to be stretching the idea of straightforward, literal interpretation.
The first thing to notice about this verse is that bible translators aren’t exactly sure how it should be translated. My Study bible acknowledges this uncertainty by providing a possible alternative translation. Instead of saying, “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable…” the Bible may also be saying, “Every scripture inspired by God is also profitable…” which is quite a different claim and which also implies that some scripture may NOT be inspired by God. It would seem to be dishonest to base claims of scriptural inerrancy on this verse, if we cannot even be sure what it says.
Even if we were to understand that ALL scripture is inspired by God, we must still determine what Paul (or the author) meant by scripture. There is a tendency among today’s Christians to consider ‘scripture’, ‘the word’, ‘the gospel’ and ‘the Bible’ as synonyms, as if they were all the same thing. This seems to me to be unwarranted since the perception of what constitutes the Bible has been in a process of continual evolution and still has not been, and probably never will be, resolved. ‘The word’ also would appear to be something much more than a mere Bible or collection of sacred scrolls, since John (or the author of John) suggests that ‘the word’ was God. I am pretty certain that we are not to seriously consider worshipping our Bibles, though it appears, perhaps that some fundamentalists do. The main point I want to make here is that when Paul writes the word ‘scripture’ the one meaning we can be sure he doesn’t have in mind is the Bible. The earliest gospel, Mark, probably hadn’t even been written. The earliest date I could find for Mark was approximately 65 A.D. Paul was probably dead by then. Matthew and Luke would not be written until approximately 85 A.D., and John perhaps as late as 95 A.D. In other words, aside from his own letters and letters from his contemporaries, there was no New Testament (as we know it) when Paul wrote, (if he wrote it) “All scripture is inspired by God.” (If that’s what he really said).
This brings up another point. The author of 2nd Timothy was writing a letter to a guy named Timothy. Did the author have any inkling that he was writing a sacred document as he wrote to his friend? In other words, did ‘Paul’ believe he was acting as the inspired mouth and hands of God? Did ‘Paul’ believe that he would be writing a timeless document to the Christians of the 21st century, exhorting them to consider his own words as the ‘inspired word of God?” Or isn’t it a more straightforward understanding to suppose that Paul was writing some advice to a friend who was working at a church that had some problems? My point here is that I don’t think ‘Paul’ would have considered his own writings as ‘scripture’. It is probable that‘ Paul’s’ humility before God would have prevented him from calling his own work the ‘word of God’, (Actually, now that I've read more about Paul, I'm not so sure this humility argument is warranted.)
So what does ‘Paul’ consider to be ‘scripture’ inspired by God? There are some more clues in Chapter three. Verse 15 says, “…and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. The modern reader will instinctively think, “See, it is the gospel!” and once again equate sacred writings with our modern New Testament. But I think I have already argued that the New Testament Gospels haven’t been written yet. These particular ‘sacred writings’, it should also be noted, were available to Timothy when he was a child, implying that they were already established written teaching material at a time when the Jesus story existed only in oral accounts. I can only imagine that to ‘Paul’, ‘scripture’ included much of what we know as the Old Testament, and perhaps other writings that we Christians are not so aware of. Another clue is provided in verse 8 of chapter three when we see ‘Paul’ refer to Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses. These names are taken from ancient Jewish writings not included in our Old Testament and which also appear in Christian apocryphal works.
Rather than provide convincing proof that the Bible could be inerrant, 2nd Timothy 3: 16-17 seems to suggest that some books of the Old Testament (namely, Moses and the prophets) and perhaps other ancient Jewish writings contained saving news about Jesus (which is remarkable to think about, and which can also be backed up by the words of Jesus as related in Luke 16: 31) and such writings were suitable for teaching in righteousness for the man of God.
I suppose the real irony here is that for someone who vehemently dislikes literalism, I can get pretty literal.
Well....late for work now.
Scott