Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

PASAlist@aol.com wrote:

> Jack tells us of a lady who wrote,
>
> 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!
>
> When this example of Jesus' faith in Scripture is used, I tell the
> person it is true that Jesus referred to Genesis 2:24 as morally
> authoritative (Matt 19:4,5), but he contrasted it ("BUT from the
> beginning it was NOT so.") with the law given by God through Moses in
> Deut 24:1-4 (Matt 19:7). He accepted Gen 2:24 as authoritative, but
> rejected Deut 24:1-4 because it was a concession to man's "hardness of
> heart." So, Jesus did not accept every verse of Scripture as being
> authoritative---even in the realm of morals. How then can a follower
> of Jesus be sure that every verse is authoritative in the realm of
> science?
>
> The teaching of Jesus in Matt 19:3-8 logically implies that the
> inspiration of Scripture does not guarantee complete inerrancy for
> every verse. An inspired verse may contain a concession to the merely
> human concepts of the times.
>
> You can either follow Jesus or you can follow the doctrine of the
> absolute inerrancy of Scripture, but you cannot follow both.............................................

        I wouldn't take this approach. 1st, Jesus doesn't "reject" Dt.24:1-4. He says
that Gen.1 & 2 represent God's will for marriage and that the allowance of divorce is a
provision due to the reality of human sin. (& BTW, because some people's hearts
continue to be hard, this text shouldn't be understood as Jesus' abrogation of the
possibility of divorce.)

        2d, the Genesis texts provide theological statements about (inter alia) marriage
which are authoritative even if they are not part of historical narratives.

        3d, Jesus' citations of OT texts in general have to be seen in light of the
kenotic aspect of the Incarnation. If he was fully human in the context of 1st century
Judaism then it is not surprising that he would have had beliefs about the authorship &
nature of the Hebrew scriptures typical of that culture. But Mk.12:36, e.g., shouldn't
be taken as proof that David actually wrote Ps.110.

                                                        Shalom,
                                                        George

George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Fri Dec 19 07:05:01 2003