Like Water Through My Hands
Jason Kuznicki on Feb 2nd 2010 11:14 am |
[I]f you believe you are holding in your hand the only copy of the inspired, inerrant word of God then you are going to be pretty damn careful not to lose it. But the Corinthians apparently did lose it, or someone did along the way. And Paul didn’t see any reason to keep a back-up copy of “God’s word” either. I suggest that neither Paul, nor the Christians in Corinth, understood the letters of Paul to be the word of God.
Which does not, in itself, rule out the possibility that the lost letter to the Corinthians really was the word of God. But still.
Filed in The Belfry
Inerrancy is, to my knowledge, largely a Protestant doctrine. The Catholic and Orthodox Churches rely on apostolic succession as the basis for their authority. God is seen as working through his Church, independently of the canon.
Protestants don’t have claims of apostolic succession. As a result, a lot of Protestants use the Bible as a substitute. Under those circumstances inerrancy starts looking like a much more attractive doctrine.
When I was young, and making a half-hearted effort at being a religion major, I asked several of my fellow classmates whether they thought Paul believed he was writing scripture. To my astonishment, they all thought that he did. Now that question isn’t directed at whether Paul did in fact write scripture–God works as he chooses to work, of course. But it seemed to me at the time, and still does, that it would have taken incredible hubris for Paul to assume that he was writing the inspired word of God that should be taken, so to speak, as Gospel truth. Now Paul obviously, I think, was full of hubris. How else could a man who’d never met the messiah take on such a prominent role in making claims about what the messiah’s followers should do and be. But still…so I’m rather pleased to see this apparent evidence that even he wasn’t that arrogant.
And now, disturbing thought for the day, which has just popped into my head–what if Paul was really just one of those scam revivalists?
Certainly Paul had no PhD. Still, his educational credential was, for the day, of the highest order.
The claim of inspiration in the NT is certainly nothing like today’s televangelists who claim their own words of knowledge. Peter spoke of Paul’s writings as inspired scripture (II Peter 3:16).
But let’s not confuse canonicity, inerrancy, and inspiration. Inspiration is a statement about the general nature of the writing and applies only to the original manuscript. It does not apply to the subsequent translations. Being in the canon only means that it is accepted as inspired. Inerrancy applies to the character of the content (and not to any particular interpretive approach taken to that content).
Inerrancy has its place in church history, even in pre-protestant Christianity. This character of the Word, even under ecclesiastical authority, was always assumed. It did not come into the forefront until the modern assault of skepticism came into play.
Christianity has always held its various assumptions and clarified them when they came under criticism. The canon, for instance, was assumed to be those recognized books, until the Gnostics and other attempted to insert their heresies. Likewise inspiration was always assumed, as was inerrancy. The Princeton Presbyterians, along with Westminster (e.g., Sproul & Friends), have been the leaders in protestantism on this matter.
I nowhere suggested that Paul was ignorant, and I would reject the very idea. He was clearly a learned man. But that’s irrelevant here.
Likewise with Peter’s statements about Paul. These are totally irrelevant as well, at least in the present inquiry. Peter’s statements may influence our beliefs about what Paul really was doing, but they don’t reach what Paul himself thought he was doing.
“Inspiration is a statement about the general nature of the writing and applies only to the original manuscript. It does not apply to the subsequent translations.”
Fair enough, but also irrelevant. We’re talking about a lost letter of Paul to the Corinthians. I would think this is sort of like a lost text by Shakespeare, multiplied by a million billion gajillion.
If you believe that the other two letters of Paul to the Corinthians are either inspired or inerrant, or both, or anything approaching them, then Paul and the Corinthians both have some ’splainin to do.
My response was not meant to address all that you wrote (or even you alone), but to further clarify terms for the readers. Blogs and communities have their respective shares of lurkers. Not everyone, as has been evident in past threads, is conversant with this terminology.
I know of nobody who says that the lost letter(s) is/are inspired. There seems to be nothing to explain.
There’s a nice elision of historical processes. There was no canon in the early church, and there were, from very early on, many approaches that came to be condemned as heretical.
There is a problem with referring to Peter writing about Paul’s epistles. The problem is that there is good evidence that some epistles attributed to Paul were never written by Paul but were written after his death. Nevertheless they got into the New Testament when it was cobbled together from writings circulating at the time. Clearly some of the N.T. contains the ideas of Paul and other sections attributed to Paul contain the ideas of other people writing in Paul’s name after his death.
AMW: I don’t think it’s so much a case of Biblical inerrancy being a strictly Protestant thing as it’s a case that different churches and denominations have different understandings as to what it means to say that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. In certain Protestant circles (most notably Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, and “non-denominational” churches), “inerrancy” means that certain verses must be taken at their supposed “face value interpretations.” Others believe that the Bible is “inerrant” in that it expresses certain moral truths. In some traditions — like the Catholic and Orthodox churches — the inerrancy of the Bible is best understood through the traditions of interpretation built up by those churches over the centuries. In Episcopal churches, they’d say the same, but would also place heavy importance on reason as well. But all of them would argue that the Bible is inerrant as they understand the term.
Paul expected the imminent coming of Christ within his lifetime. Back-up copies and teachings for posterity are not your primary concern when the day of God’s wrath is fast approaching.
IIRC, Paul plainly stated for at least some of his writing that the ideas were his own and not “of the spirit”.
the innominate one:
I think you are correct. Alas, I forget the books/chapters/versus where he said so. I guess I should’ve paid more attention in Sunday school. Well, actually, they didn’t mention that in Sunday school…..but I remember reading it in one of the epistles.
Jarred,
We might be talking past each other a bit here. In the circles I run in, “inerrant” means there are no errors of fact (theological, scientific or otherwise) in the Bible. “Infallible” means the Bible is a reliable guide on spiritual matters, and will not lead the believer astray in matters of faith and practice (usually with the understandable caveat that it be interpreted correctly). You’re probably right that in some circles folks use “inerrant” to mean what I mean by “infallible.”
Pierre C,
Ironically enough, it’s in the book of 1 Corinthians. Chapter 7, verse 12. Also in 1 Corinthians, Paul owns to a less than complete memory of who he baptized in Corinth. (Chapter 1, verse 16).
In Romans 7, Paul goes off on a guilt trip; it’s fascinating reading, leaving everyone to wonder what sin he felt so horrible about. But it’s hard for me to imagine his saying “What a wretched man I am!” is supposed to be the word of God.
James,
Of course there was no canon in the early church — at least not NT. But the church accepted the Hebrew scriptures as canon. It’s not like there was a vacuum.
GaryM, et. al.,
Paul’s concern is not particular sins, but his being by nature a sinner, being fallen and lacking positive moral capacity.
Romans 7:18
But given this, there is an enormous amount to explain, just a little further afield. How do we differentiate between inspired an uninspired? How do we know that we got all the good stuff? If God inspired Paul to buy olives and cheese at the market, and if he wrote a shopping list, does it go in the canon?
I’m being facetious on the last one, but the above touches on some huge, difficult-to-explain issues.
It’s possible that someone sat down with Paul’s lost letter, and with what we know as 1 and 2 Corinthians, and decided that the lost letter was no good. Maybe not so beautiful as literature, among other things (I’ll grant that the canonical Corinthians are quite beautiful). And then the decision seemed easy. But this in itself is a process I wish we could know more about, and I always regret the loss of any ancient text, even a shopping list.
This isn’t hard for me to imagine at all. Is the Christian God not a deity who inspires repentance? All reports of him are that this is precisely what he is.
Another, and very typical, red herring, Collin. This discussion has not been about the Hebrew scriptures, but about the New Testament. Your comment made it sound as though there was a confirmed orthodoxy in the early church, and the heresies only arose later. That his historically false, and the issue of acceptance of the Hebrew scriptures is completely off-point. Of course they accepted the Hebrew scriptures, because initially they were just another sect of Judaism. Indeed they were–every single one of Christ’s followers–the heretics. But that’s all irrelevant to the point, so please, for once, try to keep the discussion clearly focused.
James,
I’ll take my herring in a can with oil, thank you.
The discussion was also about “canon” and that is inclusive of the sense of what comprises “scripture”. Just like your inability to discuss a presuppositional point and insisted on an evidential framing, again the term “canon” seems to escape your comprehension.
There was an orthodoxy in the early church. But it did not get codified into creeds until later. Hebrews and Romans are statements of clear Christian doctrine. That is orthodoxy. Yes, there were heresies from the beginning. I John, for instance, confronts some pre-Gnostic Hellenistic issues. But it was the later, larger-scale and larger-scope confrontations that forced the creation of creeds to define orthodoxy. Much later we developed more systematized theologies to discern the truth even further.
Jason,
Inspiration applies to the original autographs, not to the writer. That would exclude shopping lists.
Collin,
As usual, you’re both obfuscatory and wrong, and there is no doubt that continued discussion with you would be pointless.
This may be of help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irenaeus
James,
Though some might have thought you *might* be telling the truth when you also said:
it seems clear that there is a change of subject from the canon to the alternative topic confirmed orthodoxy.
Obviously I understand “canon” in a different sense than was anticipated. And as such I would take issue with such an over-generalized statement:
TVD,
Information on Irenaeus is useful. Unfortunately, though, Gnosticism is still with us in some new incarnations. The “new age” movement, Dan Brown, Oprah’s spiritualism, and other similar issues still afford serious competition.
I’m a bystander on this one, Collin, and just had run across Irenaeus recently, so I pass it on. According to the link, Irenaeus cited 21 of the 27 books recognized as the NT these days, circa 200 CE. The canon appeared to be taking form about then.
I always thought Jefferson’s logic about the epistles was elegant—since the earliest Christians were “saved” before the epistles were even written, obviously they’re not essential.
James,
One more clarification:
I was taking issue with your casual use of the term “canon” in precisely the same way that you took issue with Joe Carter’s use of the term “evidence”. This is what happens when one is out of one’s element. (You will notice that I no longer make much comment on legal matters, as I did figure that out.)
Collin, it seems to me (though I say this with the most tentativeness) that if arianism or gnosticism had won out (we can consider the historical counterfactual) there would not be any greater or less consistency between the counterfactual new testament and the old testament as opposed the real new testament and the old testament. So, even if the old testament was canon, it does not seem to provide any guide as to which of the possible new testament texts to accept. As a non-christian, it seems that maybe gnosticism could have turned out to be the orthodoxy. (I’m not making any claims about the truth or falsity of your beliefs.) Therefore, it seems a-historical to call gnosticism and arianism as heretical especially when talking about 1 – 200 CE. i.e it only makes sense to talk about them as heresies after the council of nicea.
Well, Arianism only emerged in the late 3rd century (and exploded in Constantine’s face when he needed a united church for a united empire).
As for the canon, yes, the early Christians (whether “orthodox” or “heretic”) accepted the Jewish scriptures as canonic. They also adopted the allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures introduced by Philon of Alexandria, which essentially allowed them to define the meaning of those Scriptures as they saw fit. Indeed, Paul’s vision of the Christ seems to owe much more to his allegorical reading of the Scriptures than to anything we could read about in the Gospels.
Murali,
One characteristic of the gnostic writings is that all of them were very, very late. That makes them automatically suspect. The latest authentic NT writing was Revelation, probably around AD90. We have Gospel of John fragments verified from early 2nd c. in the Rylands collection in the British Museum.
Lukas,
Constantine only made Christianity an accepted religion. The unification came later.
I said that he needed a united church. He didn’t get one, and as the Church continued to fall apart, so did the Empire.