Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

> C.S. Lewis wrote:
> >
> > > A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said
would
> not
> > > be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with
> the
> > > man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of
Hell.
> You
> > > must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or
> else
> > > a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can
> spit
> > > at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call
Him
> > > Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about
> His
> > > being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did
not
> > > intend to.
>
> Howard J. Van Till wrote:
> >
> > With all due respect for C.S. Lewis, I believe he did Christianity a
> > disservice by posing the above dilemma. The two stark choices he poses
are
> > not the only two that could reasonably be posed. There are others based
on
> > differing assumptions and judgments about the character of the N.T.
text.
> > (When was it written? By whom? For what purposes? Does the text give us
> > exact quotations of words actually spoken by Jesus? How does Lewis come
to
> > know Jesus' intentions so clearly?)
>
> Jay Willingham writes:
>
> I agree with Lewis.
>
> Cut the anchor line to the written word and the drift is ever away from
not
> toward Jesus the chief cornerstone, God, the Spirit, the word, the truth
and
> the life.
>
> Speaking as an attorney, the survival over time of the Old and New
Testament
> in huge numbers of separately originating manuscripts so close to the
> originals is nothing short of miraculous.
>
>
>
Received on Sat Dec 20 13:20:44 2003