Introduction to the Episcopal Church
Session
19
One
of the many dilemmas of our modern life has been the growth of modern
scholarship. Modern life has provided
the leisure for the people to become passionately interested in the study of
the past. We have special studies for
all kinds of study of the past. We have
modern radioactive and carbon dating techniques that allow us to understand fairly
accurately the age of earth matter and the age of human cultural remains. We have better knowledge of history than the
people who actually were responsible for the compilation of the Bible. It sounds arrogant but it’s true. Archaeologists and historians do not set out
to prove the events in the Bible to be true; they try to interpret the various
data that they have using the various methods of processing the historical
data.
This
means that we modern people have come to view objective history reports to be
the main criteria of what is true. This
view of things that “truly happened” has then been used by defenders of the accuracy
of the Bible to say all of the events in the Bible are true in the same way as
modern journalistic writing. People who love the Bible and its truths do
not need to import modern historical criteria to appreciate its value for faith
inspiration in our lives. Modern persons
embrace the natural laws of science as being descriptive of the world 2000
years ago as they are now. So, if one
threw a rock in the air 3000 years ago, the gravitational effect would be the
same as we understand it today. When
Biblical writers report events that do not conform to the laws of nature as we
understand them today, we do not have to make a false choice between modern
science or the credibility of the Bible.
We in our own lives practice difference discourse with art and
aesthetics than we do with science. Every
day we combine all kinds of genre and language types in our reading and
speaking. While we are fascinated with
science, we might say that language use that moves us to change our moral and
spiritual lives conform to the discourse of literary art and aesthetics and hence
are true in a profoundly equal but different way than the truths of
science. You and I live this way whether
we have ever come to actually express it in this way. Do not let fundamentalists who are confused
in their use of discourse tell you that you don’t have faith or don’t believe
the Bible if you can appreciate the story value of a prophet levitating axe heads
to the surface of the water without denying the scientific impossibility of the
same. We can still hold a special place in our
discourse for the uncanny, the awesome and the wonderful without trying to say
the Bible is a modern scientific view of how things actually happened.
Do
not put false truth criteria upon the Bible or its writers and end up defending
the wrong meanings for the wrong reasons.
As
we look at the Hebrew Scriptures, scholars place the writing anywhere from 500
BCE to 250 BCE, with the Book of Daniel being even later. This might logically seem like a late date
for a book that gives an account of creation and pre-historic humanity. It may seem to be more amazing that this is
well after the years of King David (c. 1040–970 BCE) when events seem to be
moving into the time of historical record.
It is important to understand the diversity of the kinds of writings that
are in the Hebrew Scriptures and not to treat everything as historical events.
What
we are going to look at are the main issues that are found in the writings of
the Hebrew Scriptures and how they represent a literary wonder as the writers
wrote to inculcate and inform the very values and the identity of the Jewish
people. As Christians, we have received
the value of the Hebrew Scriptures in our formation and in our continuing
journey to understand the foundations of our faith. The words of the Hebrew Scriptures have
created much of our ancient past from which most of our Christian symbols have
derived.
Exercise:
Do
you ever cry at a movie? Are you ever
moved or inspired by a piece of music or art?
Do you ever get emotionally involved or influenced by a work of fiction,
a novel? Are you griped by the
excitement of a sporting event? What is
the truth value of your reactions to these different cultural experiences? Are they true? Does each and every word of the Bible have to
be true in the same way that an eyewitness to an accident gives a “true”
account of the accident? Can you accept
that the fact that you have very refined language finesse and you can make
distinctions of meanings and truths when reading the Bible? There is a series on the Bible on the History
Channel that you may want to watch. Look at what Dr. Joel Hoffman writes about
history and fiction in the Hebrew Scriptures: http://huff.to/15tuVGP
Father
Phil
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