Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

For what it's worth Jack's quote comes from

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2003/0905.asp

(not sure why he didn't give us the source). But
since Hugh Ross has been specifically mentioned
now in the course of the discussion, it's only
fair to point to the full context of this remark.
This paragraph is from an Answers in Genesis
response to a Hugh Ross supporter.

I don't know the full answer to Jack's question.
Personally, I think that if we are going to
regain the trust of the typical evangelical that
we must affirm a "high view" of scripture. For me
the issues are cast as hermeneutical or
interpretation questions and not as questions
about the nature of scripture. This was the
genius of Hodge and Warfield and others in the
Old Princeton line (check out the essay by Noll
and Livingstone in *Perspectives on an Evolving
Creation*. When we so glibly say that the Bible
contains errors or that it is only relevant to
faith and life and can't be trusted in matters of
history or science, our opinions are cast aside
by those who believe that "scripture cannot be
broken".

TG

>Jack Haas wrote:
>
>> Greetings to the group.
>>
>> I offer the following quote as all too typical of the way a large
>> segment of the church regards scripture and nature:
>> _______________________________
>>
>> "...trust the Bible, as Jesus did (‘it is written’; ‘Scripture cannot
>> be broken’ John 10:35). And Jesus never separated biblical morality
>> from biblical history. Indeed, Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:12): ‘I
>> have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then
>> will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?’ If Jesus was wrong
>> about earthly things (like a recent creation and a global Flood—Luke
>> 17:26–27), why should we believe what He says about heavenly things?
>> And in the passage above, Jesus taught about the moral issue of
>> marriage by connecting it with the fact of the creation of man and
>> woman as Genesis says! The Sabbath commandment, another moral issue,
>> was given explicitly because God created the heavens and earth in six
>> normal-length days and ‘rested’ on the seventh day (Exodus 20:8–11).
>> If you compromise the Bible, then what is to stop you from
>> compromising Christ? We all need to learn to not take our views to the
>> Bible but let the Bible dictate what our views should be. God is never
>> wrong, so we should trust Him. If we elevate our words to be equal to
>> God’s then we are trying to equate ourselves with God. If we regard
>> ‘nature’ as the ‘67th book of the Bible’, as Dr **** teaches this
>> means that man’s fallible science, which tells us of ‘nature’, has
>> been elevated to the status of Scripture. That’s the problem. Remember
>> John 1:1-3."
>
>Jack -
> I agree that the kind of biblical interpretation espoused here is quite
>inadequate. But I agree with the comments at
>the end about the notion of nature as "the
>67th book of the Bible" (& wish "Dr ****" had
>been identified). The idea that our
>experience of the natural world is on the same
>level with historical revelation for
>telling us about God & God's relationship with
>the world has to be rejected. Scientific
>investigation of nature can help us to
>understand God's presence & activity in the world
>but only when it is placed in the context of
>God's self-revelation in the history of
>Israel which culminates in Christ. OTOH, that
>historical revelation is not simply to be
>identified with the Bible, which should be seen
>rather as witness to revelation.
>
> Shalom,
> George
>
>George L. Murphy
>gmurphy@raex.com
>http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

-- 
_________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist
Chemistry Department, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado  80523
grayt@lamar.colostate.edu  http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/
phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801