The Word of God? [was Re: ...Yak butter.]

I picked up N. T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus this morning, and flipped to a passage that has relevance for this discussion. It sent me back to Torah and noted that Exodus 20 begins, "Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, etc.--the Decalogue follows, and then throughout the rest of the Pentateuch other portions of the laws. Now, is one to take it literally that YHWH spoke the words and Moses wrote them down? Or that Moses was like the other prophets, e.g., Jeremiah, inspired but speaking in his own style?

Wright refers to rabbinical scholar Jacob Neusner's A Rabbi Talks about Jesus. Neusner asserts that at the time of Jesus Torah was in some sense "an incarnational symbol for Judaism. It was not only the word from God but the living presence of God's word with and for the people of Israel" (Wright's summation). Thus, when Jesus (Matt. 5-7 et alia) announces and embodies a new Torah, Wright says, he was making "the implicit claim that in his teaching and in his presence as teacher, the living God was somehow present."

In my Anglican tradition the Bible is often spoken of as incarnational: divine (i.e., Spirit-inspired) and human at the same time, in a way shrouded in mystery. Where I see the extreme literalism of people like Morris, Sr., going astray is that it implicitly denies the incarnational nature of the text. This is aside from his often fanciful eisegeses of certain texts, especially Genesis 1.

Bob

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Don Winterstein
  To: Glenn Morton ; asa ; Bill Hamilton
  Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 8:25 AM
  Subject: Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

  Now that my memory is getting into gear, let me modify my second paragraph (below): In previous investigations I did indeed find one instance where "word of the LORD (YHWH)" referred to contents of scriptures. This was in the Chronicles account of King Josiah's discovery of the Book of the Law (2 Chron. 34). Josiah says with reference to the contents of that book, "...Our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD...." (The parallel account in 2 Kings 22 quotes him as saying, "...Our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book....")

  Most of the time "word of the LORD" in the OT refers to messages transmitted (in ways we don't understand) from God to prophets or messages orally proclaimed by prophets to targeted recipients. I interpret this to mean that words become the Word of God if and only if they actually affect people. Words sitting unread in a book are hence not the Word of God, even though at one time those words may have been the Word of God to some individual or group. When those same words affect people who read them today, they may become the Word of God to those people. If, on the other hand, they go in one ear and out the other, they have not become the Word of God. If the words are not "living and active," they are not the Word of God but merely words. It's subjective. The Word of God is not an object but a power, a force.

  Don

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Don Winterstein
    To: Glenn Morton ; asa ; Bill Hamilton
    Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 11:59 PM
    Subject: Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

    Bill,

    2 Timothy 3:16 does not say scriptures are the Word of God. It says scriptures were inspired ("God-breathed")--not the same thing. I readily and often acknowledge that biblical scriptures were inspired by God. By that I do not mean that God dictated them word for word or anything remotely like that. People moved by God wrote, and God did not necessarily constrain content to fit his level of understanding. It's clear he often allowed content to stay at the writer's level of understanding.

    You questioned my statement that "Word of God" as used in the Bible never means scriptures. I've looked into this more than once, and I've yet to find a clear case. In fact, there are very few instances where it's even possible to reasonably think that "Word of God" could mean scriptures. Look for example at usage in Acts 6:2,7 and II Peter 3:5. These are only three off-the-cuff cases out of a large number. Debbie Mann mentioned Heb. 4:12. I've heard preachers make this passage refer to scriptures, but to my mind that's an unwarranted stretch, especially in view of how "Word of God" is used elsewhere in scriptures.

    My view is that the term Word of God should be used to refer to something like the power of God active in some special way on earth, which is how the Bible often uses the term. It should never refer to a book, as valuable as that book may be.

    Don

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Bill Hamilton
      To: Don Winterstein ; Glenn Morton ; asa
      Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 5:50 AM
      Subject: Re: A profound disturbance found in Yak butter.

      --- Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote:

> Where does it say in the Bible that scriptures are the Word of God?

      2 Timothy 3:16

> In fact,
> "Word of God" as used in the Bible never means scriptures.
      Never? I agree that often "Word of God" means Jesus Christ. But never?

> And if the Bible
> did make such a claim, why should you believe it? It was a group of mere men
> who chose the writings to be included in the Bible; why should you believe
> those men knew which writings were inspired and which were not? What is
> inspiration, and what does it imply?

      Here you have a valid point, which I have been corresponding with a former
      colleague about (he saw the writing on the wall at GMR&D long before I did,
      quit and went to divinity school) For me I can accept the canon because the
      church fathers who selected it were historically closer to the events described
      in the Gospels. I think it's problematic to ascribe infallibility to them.
      However, because many Christians agreed on the canon and because they were
      closer in time to the events described (and therefore had access to more
      original records) I can accept what they did.
>
> [Aside: The current problem with YECs has its roots in the super-elevated
> status conferred on the Bible presumably following the Protestant
> Reformation. YECs are as fearful of deviating from literal interpretations
> as Muslims would be in deviating from the Quran: both consider their texts to
> be the literal Word of God. If anything is found to be wrong with the text,
> it is God who fails; so the text must be infallible by definition. Your
> thinking seems analogous to YECs' thinking in this respect.]
>
      Agreed. The status of Scripture is a difficult issue. You don't want to
      indulge in Bibliolatry, neither do you want to pick and choose what is and
      isn't inspired. I have come to the conclusion that the inspired nature of the
      Scriptures means that the Bible will correctly guide Spirit-filled Christians
      who seek understanding prayerfully.

      Bill Hamilton
      William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
      248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
      "...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31

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Received on Thu Jun 1 09:03:43 2006