From: hedrick@cs.rutgers.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Limits to Criticism/Post Xian Era
Date: 28 Aug 92 08:27:11 GMT

RexLex has, in his usual impassioned tones, told us that all morality
will fall apart if we don't believe in inerrancy.  The only problem
is, as far as I can tell, his argument is a non sequitur.

I do not doubt that his most recent posting raises important issues,
on which the two of us disagree.  But he obviously thinks they are
somehow connected with inerrancy.  And I don't see that.

So I believe that there are multiple sources behind Genesis, and that
some of Jesus' miracles grew in the telling.  What does this have to
do with abortion and homosexuality?  As far as I can tell, nothing.
There is a certain level of scepticism about the Bible beyond which
it's impossible to use it as an authority, because we can't tell
what's in it.  But as far as I can tell, liberal Christians seldom
hold to such degrees of scepticism.  I don't claim that Romans is
mythology, or that a later editor added something to it.  Rather, the
question is whether differences in circumstances between the 1st and
20th Cent's make some of Paul's judgements -- correct though they may
be for the 1st Cent. -- inappropriate for the 20th.  Now Rex and I
certainly disagree about this.  But it has little to do with
inerrancy.  Abortion seems even further away, since Rex agrees that
there's nothing directly about it in the Bible.  Thus it becomes a
matter of drawing conclusions on a specific point from general
principles that are present in the Bible.  And in fact people who
believe in inerrancy are on both sides of the abortion discussion, as
are those who do not believe in inerrancy.  Again, the arguments I've
seen don't claim that the passages in question are wrong, or later
additions, but that they don't support the conclusions drawn from
them.

I also see a certain tendency in the previous postings to attack straw
men.  The representatives he quotes on the other side are not
representative of Christians who reject inerrancy.  While Bultman is a
big name, I'm by no means convinced even by his Biblical scholarship,
and not at all by his theology.  If you want to see the scholars who
represent views that I think are typical of practicing Christians, I
suggest works like C.E.B. Cranfield's commentary on Mark or Brown's
commentary (in the Anchor Bible) on John.  These folks do not believe
in inerrancy, but they do believe the books they are working with are
historical.  For an attempt at a positive synthesis of Jesus' message
that is based on scholarly results, I recommend Marcus Borg's book
"Jesus: A New Vision".  You do not need to believe in inerrancy to
believe that we have a substantially correct view of what Jesus
taught.

I am *very* suspicious of the claim that we need more than substantial
correctness.  While the liberal view does not rule out the possibility
of knowing what Jesus taught, it does provide motivations for being
careful to look at social context, and for basing conclusions on an
analysis of the entire Bible rather than a few passages.  Now these
are things that even people who believe in inerrancy should do.  But
I'm concerned that inerrancy tends to hide a failure to do so.  If
people yell loudly enough about The Inerrant Word of God, nobody may
notice that the issue isn't whether the Word is inerrant, but whether
their exegesis is.

[Incidentally, I think he has misread J. A. T.  Robinson's intent in
"Honest to God", but it's been long enough since I read it that I
can't be sure.  There is definitely a strain in some scholarship that
I'm going to call existential vagueness.  In Bultman, much of the NT
becomes metaphor or symbol.  In Barth, I can never be sure whether he
means what he's saying literally or whether it's all some sort of
symbol.  I don't think Robinson has this problem, but it could be that
it's just been too long since I've read and heard him speak.]