Some Answers to your Questions, 1

I have been having some difficulties this week coming up with some sort of commentary or opinion piece for today. Some weeks it is just difficult to come up with an idea. I am tired and so really, thinking has been quite the elusive beast this week.

I have decided to try to answer some questions that were posed in comments recently. Thank you Nate yet again for providing the meat for this posting. I will post the complete comments/questions and answer them in line.

First in response to the piece called “Fact or Fiction, part 2” Nate wrote:

“I really like that last sentence, “My Bible now remains a living breathing book contained in the world’s libraries and in the hearts and minds of all people who have a relationship or who desire a relationship with the One Living God.” This is also how I feel, especially after reading your writings.

However, don’t you agree that the scriptures should be given some special “right” over the other sources of knowledge about God? Or do you believe that they’re all equal in terms of importance?

I believe that they are equal in importance but the scriptures are full of so many MORE lessons and so much MORE relationship examples that it should be given more credence.”

Nate’s question is one that I have been struggling with for quite a few years. Should the scriptures be given some sort of special position when we talk about sources of knowledge concerning God? I keep flipping back and forth on what my answer should be, and is.

On one hand the Bible is direct testimony from individuals and their relationship with the divine. These are the texts that the Church has sanctioned and approved for our reading. So yes, these texts are important. But why should we give a special right to these stories? Is my story somehow less important? What about the stories of countless individuals be considered less important than the ancient voices? Do we give them special privilege because they are ancient despite their content?

Right now I would have to say that I view the authority of scripture on a “sliding scale.” A new believer, a young child, or someone who doesn’t really care much about their faith or their relationship with God should use the scriptures as their primary source about information about God. As one grows in faith You should gradually be introduced to Theologians and Church History that is important to your faith tradition and then to include greater number of other traditions. As time continues you should look for other figures, people of faith, and texts that are interesting for you. You should gradually start thinking about your story and other people’s story of faith and relationship with God.

I would compare this with a journey of any sort that you are about to make. Let us think of some grand once in a lifetime trip that you are preparing to take. You would probably begin by looking at the “definitive” travel guide to the country. It is likely though to be outdated by quite some time, but it does give you some very useful information and will give you a general shape of your future trip. If you are anything like me though, this will not be enough. You will continue by looking at additional guides, find out as much information as you can, read more travel guides, look at more maps. You will look for travelblogs and pictures from other peoples’ trips to the same place, get advice. You will look to other authorities and people that you respect for further information. Once this is done you will take the trip yourself, hopefully you will add to the information by writing or posting information about your trip to share all you have learned from your personal experience. This is what we should think of our faith journey, only the entire time of reading guide books and the like are a part of you journey. Too many of us go about our “faith journey” by looking only at an old out of date guide book without any other guidance then we wonder why we get lost or we never seem to experience anything wonderful. Sometimes the roads change, and many times the sites move. A guide book (or the Bible for that matter) is not written with every person’s individual interests or goals in mind. You need to look for other people who have similar experiences to you and risk doing something different, going off the well worn road to find the unique and amazing little side trips.

So, what do I think about the Bible…it is a good start, but it can not be the only thing you consult on your faith journey or you will find that your faith will get lost or at best will just keep circling the same wearying stops everyone has been too, regardless of your own needs and interests.

The second comment I would like to discuss was a response to the posting “Into Jesus.”

“When you asked the questions you first had upon entering college, where did you go to get answers? Other people? Prayer? Other scriptures? All the above?”

I think that the questions Nate is referring to are as follows

“I started reading the Bible and asking more difficult questions like, for whom was this written? Why? Where? How did the first readers understand the text? What was their world like? How has the understanding of the text changed? What’s the importance of the changes?”

These are questions that I continue to ask of the text. I was first exposed to these sorts of questions in my Religion 101 class “Literature of the Old and New Testaments” taught by Rev. Dr. Judith Jones. It of course helped that at the same time I was taking Biblical Greek and being exposed to the New Testament in its original language. The Bible was taught from what is called the Historical-Critical, Narrative-Critical and Textual-Critical methods. Is this something the average church member could do today without any sort of help at all. No. But with a little bit of teaching or a really good History of the Bible text You can start to see the complexity of the Bible and start to work towards answers. As time goes on you will start to notice that many different commentators from different perspectives see a variety of meanings for each text. I have found that the readings from more poor and oppressed perspectives seem closest to the text.

I am currently trying to figure out how to make the time to present on this site in essence a weekly lecture series (might be typed with a video on youtube or the like) that would be a RE101 Literature of the Old and New Testament course. And develop a grouping of courses for this site. I do work a full time job that I would need to work around for this. I will try to on that for the future. I know I would enjoy it. If you would like me to develop such a series, leave some feedback. As always, questions and comments are welcomed. I enjoy answering them as they arise.

Thanks again and have a great week.

~ by edwardwhpease on August 9, 2009.