The message from God -- in Writing

Initial date: Feb 14, 2024

This is part TWO of the series on HAS A GOD SENT CRITICAL INFORMATION TO US FROM THE 'OUTSIDE'?

....................................................

Outline:

A message from an 'outside' God in writing? Why, What, and How?
1. The Basic Concept of a Message from 'Outside'
2. The Human setting in which it would occur
3. The possible "Other Side" setting from which it might occur
4. If it occurred, what would be the implications as to its purpose and relevance?
5. If it 'occurred', what might it look like?
Excursus: How we "process" communication
Different media of revelation
The Christian Revelation in History - How Close were our Expectations?
1. The genesis - God's initiatives and responses in history
2. The recording of selected and paradigmatic cases
3. The recognition of this 'origin' by the believing community -- the canon
4. Preservation and Transmission of the Data: Old Testament
5. Preservation and Transmission of the Data: New Testament
6. Translation, Teaching/Preaching, and Theological Development in History
Important issues/terms in understanding and 'handling' the message
1. Inspiration and Illumination: What they ARE and ARE NOT
2. Inerrancy, the Data of Scripture, and the Approach of Honest Faith
3. Hermeneutics and "Scripture Twisting"
4. Important Distinctions within the doctrine of revelation
5. The Clarity of Scripture vs. the "Hidden-ness" of God's Disclosure
6. "Tradition"
Responses...
1. Skeptical Arguments of our Day-Part I
2. Skeptical Arguments of our Day-Part II
3. Course Implications for our Lives

_____________________________________________________________________

A message from an 'outside' God in writing? Why, What, and How?
1. Basic Concept of a Message from 'Outside'
  1. A personal disclosure (after the metaphor of speech- Heb 1.1 f)
    - "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
  2. Necessarily implies 'know-ability' or 'ability to be comprehended'
    - "and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. (Eph. 3:9)
    - "His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, (Eph. 3:10)
    - "No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. (1Cor. 2:7)
  3. Implies authorial intent and disclosure ability
    - Authorial Intent - He/She/It/They are intending some meaning or cognitive content
    - Disclosure ability - He/She/It/They possess the ability and willingness to disclose some information about the situation
    - Performative Intent - there is some reason for the communication; some urgency; some motive...there is a desired GOAL
  4. The 'making known' of something that was hidden (Rom 16.25f)
    - "Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him --
  5. Progressive in History
    - In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. (Hebr. 1:1)
    - Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. (1Pet. 1:10)
    - Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him -- (Rom 15.25f)
  6. Not the same as us 'discovering' something
    - He is the active one in this process -- 'speaking into history' -- our role is to LISTEN...
    - We can/should/do 'seek' though...
    - "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebr. 11:6)
2. The Human setting in which it would occur
  1. An ethically ambiguous world--the data is mixed--at least at first glance
    - Natural world: sunsets yet hurricanes
    - Animal world: beauty yet savagery
    - Human world: nobility yet treachery
  2. An epistemologically "needy" world
    - We have too many 'ways to proceed' to construct a 'theology' and/or a system of beliefs about reality:
      1. 'Numinous' experience-religious experience is notoriously difficult to interpret and/or 'milk' for cognitive content (Interpreting Religious Experience by Peter Donovan, Seabury, 1979)
      2. 'Reason' - produces strange results and even conflicting conclusions in theological descriptions of the 'Perfect' Being:
        "Can we, indeed, go further and say that the notion of God as the perfect being gives us all the guidance we need in setting forth the divine attributes, so that our whole conception of God can be, as it were, woven in its entirety from this single thread?
        
        "Probably not, for several reasons. For one thing, although the idea of God as the perfect being has strong intuitive appeal, it is by no means the case that different theologians, even from the same religious tradition, will always agree on which conception of God's attributes has the effect of portraying God as 'more perfect" that another. For example: It seemed clear to Anselm as to Augustine (354-430) and most other ancient and medieval theologians, that in order to be perfect God must be impassable-- that is, God must be incapable of emotion, and in particular incapable of feeling any sorrow or suffering as a result of the afflictions of his creatures. Since suffering is negative, a harm to the being that undergoes it, a perfect being must be incapable of suffering. Many more recent theologians, on the other hand, rebel against the notion of an "impassable" God, insisting that God's perfection, and in particular his attributes of love and sympathy, positively require that he be capable of suffering along with his creatures. Clearly, we have here a major disagreement...
      3. Conflicting authorities (science "versus" religion; one religion vs. another!)
    - Philosophy has so often given up on 'finding' God:
      - Kant: Denied that theoretical reasoning could furnish arguments for the existence of God (but claimed that God had to be 'postulated' in order to make sense of moral experience)
      - Hume: "If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion" (Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding)
      - Ayer: "all utterances about the nature of God are non-sensical" (Language, Truth, and Logic)
      - Socrates: "All the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word."
    - Illustration of intelligent life in other galaxies--we are incapable of 'searching them out' and are TOTALLY dependent on them to 'reveal themselves' to us IF any semi-certain knowledge is to occur.
  3. A Significance-Starved World
    - We 'sense' that there is more to life than 'just this'
    - All religions and para-religions seek to answer the question 'why?'
    - But the meaning/sense of the universe (and us as residents) just cannot be found from INSIDE it:
      The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value—and if there were, it would be of no value. If there is a value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. It must lie outside the world. [Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 6.41]
    - The existentialist conclusion-- Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions, pp 21-22,49
      "About 1880, some French teachers tried to set up a secular ethics which went something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis; we are discarding it; but, meanwhile, in order for here to be an ethics, a society, a civilization, it is essential that certain values be taken seriously and that they be considered as having an a priori existence. It must be obligatory, a priori, to be honest, not to lie, not to beat your wife, to have children, etc., etc. So we're going to try a little device which will make it possible to show that values exist all the same, inscribed in a heaven of ideas, though otherwise God does not exist. In other words nothing will be changed if God does not exist. We shall find ourselves with the same norms of honesty, progress, and humanism, and we shall have made of God an outdated hypothesis which will peacefully die off by itself. The existentialist, on the contrary, thinks it very distressing that God does not exist, because all possibility of finding values in a heaven of ideas disappears along with Him; there can no longer be an a priori Good, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. Nowhere is it written that the Good exists, that we must be honest, that we must not lie; because the fact is we are on a plane where there are only men."
      
      "...but if I've discarded God the Father, there has to be someone to invent values. You've got to take things as they are. Moreover, to say that we invent values means nothing else but this: life has no meaning a priori."
    - "The meager satisfaction that man can extract from reality leaves him starving." (Sigmund Freud )
3. The possible "Other side" setting from which it would occur
  
  (Note: we must be REALLY CAREFUL here. It is too easy to smuggle in 'pet worldviews' in trying to 'guess' the other side possibilities. We must take a minimalist approach to this... We can only draw scenarios around the basics of what we are exploring here-- communication acts and persons/"mean-ers"...'personal' and 'consciousness' images are reasonable, since they are pre-suppositions of communicative acts (But...the Communicators in this case COULD BE 'supra-personal' but they must AT LEAST BE 'personal like us' to support the category of cognitive/semantic acts.)
  1. The possibility of multiple 'personalities' out there
    - A polytheistic situation COULD produce multiple sets of 'revelations' and alleged 'messages from Outside'.
    - Example: ancient Greek mythology, ANE pantheons, thousands of 'aspects' of some primal deity (e.g. some forms of Hinduism)
    - We would need to be able to decide between them (how?!)
  2. The possibility of malignant personalities out there (e.g. evil 'spirits' or 'disguised demons')
    - Could inject contrary/dangerous data into the 'system'
    - Could attempt to "neutralize" revelation from the 'other, good one'
    - Would certainly make the job more difficult, especially if they have abilities superior to ours!
    - Most historical belief systems have accepted the reality of such immaterial agents (including angry souls of departed ancestors)
    - Could appear intelligent, perhaps even 'superior' (e.g. from the NT)
      
      "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. (2 Cor. 11:13)
      
      Now the Holy Spirit clearly says that in the later times some people will stop believing the faith. They will follow spirits that lie and teachings of demons. Such teachings come from the false words of liars whose consciences are destroyed as if by a hot iron. [1 Tim 4:1–2]
    - The Jesus of the NT gospels certainly knew of such a spirit, using the Greek word 'diablos' (slanderer, enemy -- rendered 'devil' in many English bibles):
      - "He [diablos, "Devil"] was a murderer from the beginning and was against the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he shows what he is really like, because he is a liar and the father of lies." (Jn 8:44.)
      - "This is what the story means: The seed is God's message. The seed that fell beside the road is like the people who hear God's teaching, but the devil comes and takes it away from them so they cannot believe it and be saved."(Lk 8:11–12).
    - Examples of spiritual 'input' from (at least) questionable 'spiritual beings'
      - Hardline, spirit-invoking witchcraft/blood-centric voodoo spirits
      - Astral projection/traveling
      - New Age "Guides"
      - Angel Moroni/Book of Mormon
    - Would be most harmful in non-objective media (e.g. feelings)
      These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. (Jude 19)
4. If a credible communication from 'outside' occurred, what would/could be the implications as to its purpose and relevance?
  1. Its purpose would/could be to warn us of danger, and instruct us how to avoid those
  2. Its relevance might be absolutely critical (may be no other way to get this information)
  3. And, if the delivery of this revelation was 'expensive' (e.g. all the prophets were killed by the authorities, but not for criminal acts!), this might argue for its crucial status even more strongly.
  4. If it appeared, one implication would be that relativism (i.e. "It doesn't matter WHAT you believe") would be precluded... for why would the Other Side 'bother' to do the revealing?
  5. Conclusion: this communication should not be considered a 'curiosity' or 'ancient document' only-- it should be studied as if a 'life or death' message were included!
5. If it occurred, what might it 'look like'?
  1. If the above point obtained...What characteristics might this communication manifest in our history? What 'clothes' would it wear? What voice would it use? How would it get our attention and convince us of its origin and content?! (A critical issue in a religiously pluralistic world.)
  2. Authoritative and even exclusive (in tone and content)
    - Authoritative - coming from a Source who actually Knew the Stuff, it would probably not sound 'tentative'!... it would probably assume a magisterial tone.
    - Exclusive - if it were trying to communicate important truth, in the context of competing and/or contrary 'revelations' it would probably make some EXCLUSIVE claims...claims to be the 'THE truth' and the 'ONLY critical truth'.
  3. In a medium wide-cast for general distribution, with characteristics that helped to understand it:
    - Various media have tradeoffs of Precision (P) vs. Lexicon (L) vs. Vividness (V)
      - Feeling/emotions (P=LOW, L=SMALLEST?, V=HIGH)
      - Music (P=LOW, L=SMALL, V=HIGH)
      - Abstract art (P=LOW, L=SMALL, V=MEDIUM)
      - Realist art (P=LOW-MEDIUM, L=SMALL, V=MEDIUM)
      - Performance art (P=LOW-MEDIUM, L=SMALL-MEDIUM, V=MEDIUM)
      - Natural language (P=MEDIUM, L=WIDE, V=MEDIUM)
      - Specialized languages (e.g. philosophy, theology) (P=HIGH, L=SMALL, V=LOW)
      - Scientific formulae (P=HIGH, L=SMALL, V=LOW)
      - Mathematical formulae (P=HIGHER, L=SMALLER, V=LOWER)
      - Calculi or logical systems (P=HIGHEST, L=SMALLEST, V=LOWEST)
    - A public language, shared by a large self-perpetuating community
    - A codifiable language, structured and with rules, and therefore translatable into other public languages.
    - A historically-anchored language (so we would have access to it and how it functioned)...
    - If it were originally a fringe language that perished off the face of the earth, then it would have to have been already translated into another language fitting the above criteria.
  4. Recorded in some kind of durable fashion, to survive the ravages of time and climate--until transferred to a new media, cyclically.
  5. Case-oriented, and not just generics-only (for meaning determination via application to real situations)
  6. With special 'super-natural' properties to get our attention and to do initial 'authentication' of itself to us (later authentication might come from other sources)
    - Maybe some "impossible" passages (e.g. fulfilled prophecy)
      "Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear. (Isaiah. 41:22)
    - Preservation through history -- it would need some 'special' help for this and maybe even impress us with its durability (in the face of persecutions, intellectual disparagement, subterfuge of malignant spirits, etc.)
    - For example--in light of the 'density of disclosure from Outside' in the New Testament: Do we even HAVE the original New Testament? Has it been preserved, in a way we would expect from an urgent, 'Outside' message?
      Ancient literature is notoriously bad about 'losing the originals'. All such literature requires gathering of copies, quotes, inscriptions, etc. and then using textual criticism methods to propose an original form--at varying levels of confidence. Most cases of this yield high levels of confidence, and confidence is proportional to number of documents, dating of documents, historical situations, etc.
      In the case of the NT, we are in what is arguably the best situation in ancient history.
      In comparison with mainstay ancient works,
      "The data that emerge in the comparative argument is impressive for the New Testament's textual basis. No matter how the numbers are updated or changed for classics, the New Testament still has more attestation, better attestation, and better early attestation. Indeed, noted classicist Giorgio Pasquali has said as much of the New Testament: "No other Greek text is handed down so richly and credibly." [Giorgio Pasquali, Storia della tradizione e critica del testo, 2nd ed. (Florence: Le Monnier, 1952), 8.] This cannot itself prove that we have exactly what the New Testament authors wrote down, but it does show that the New Testament scholar has better material to work with than scholars of standard classical works." [Hixson, Elijah; Gurry, Peter J.; Wallace, Daniel B.. Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (p. 86). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.]
      For example, the NT was completely written by the end of the 1st century AD (i.e. 100 AD).
      The Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) is the standard 'keeper of record' for NT witnesses. Their dating estimates are used as the 'standard', and --combined with the judgments of the editors of the Nestle-Aland(28) text of the Greek NT-- we have confidence in the dating of these early papyri:
      
      papyrus P52 -- 100-200 AD.
      papyrus P66 -- 200-225 AD.
      papyrus P75 -- 200-225 AD.
      
      These are partial copies, but they survived -- and bear witness to content even closer to the events. So, by the tightest criteria scholars can muster (without eliminating all the other classical works), the NT we have is a trustworthy copy of the original.
    - Vindication through history--it would keep 'witnessing' to its veracity by demonstrating NEW evidence of its trustworthiness in successive generations:
      We see the unfolding data of archeology vindicating the text's claims to 'strangeness' and/or reliability... there are so many examples of historical references that were 'mythical' or 'fabrications' or 'errors' that have been validated by subsequent archeology... just a small set of examples:
      disputed fact confirming discovery ------------------------- -------------------- writing at time of Moses (too many to name!) multiple Pentateuch traditions, Qumran pointing to early orig. Early Domestication of Camels Byblos artifacts/Sumerian texts Abraham's selection of heir Tablets at Nuzi Transfer of Esau's birthright Tablets at Nuzi Israel early in Palestine Stele of Meneptah Unity of Deuteronomy Hittite tablets from Boghazkoy Early develop. of legal codes multiple ANE sources
    - 'Advanced' critique of the 'sponsoring' culture ( Is 1.10-20 ) - even though it would be 'forced' to use (or develop for usage and THEN use) SOME historical culture, we would not expect it to acquiesce to the errors WITHIN that culture. As such, we would expect the communication to 'critique' the sponsoring culture.
      "Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah! "The multitude of your sacrifices -- what are they to me?" says the LORD. I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations -- I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; ... wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword." For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isaiah)
  7. Accompanied by special, authenticating events -- to get us to 'look' and to get us to 'investigate'...
    - "How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebr. 2:3f)
    - "The things that mark an apostle (i.e. emissary) --signs, wonders and miracles --were done among you with great perseverance. (2Cor. 12:12)
    - "So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. (Acts 14:3)
  8. Special and confrontational focus on 'religious' issues (Is 1.10-20)--(see above)... and, the more URGENT the content of the message (e.g. life and death, eternal issues, character destruction), the more 'confrontational' it would appear!
  9. Provoking strong responses - IF WE WERE IN TROUBLE ENOUGH to warrant this special communication, we would probably either LOVE this or HATE this message... There might be some apathetic response (due to numbing by the culture?), but as the message would get "closer" to someone's internal life and fear, personal responses might become violent...
    - Killing the messengers!
      "Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him -- (Acts 7:52)
    - Trying to eradicate the message!
      On Feb. 23, 303 AD., at Nicomedia, the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an edict enjoining the demolition of Christian churches and the burning of all Christian books in the empire. Half a million Christians were killed in the process. (There were 9 previous official persecutions of Christians in the empire, but this was the first one that prescribed destruction of the sacred texts.) That ANY texts survived is barely believable... that we have SO MANY surviving mss. borders on the incredible!
  10. Out in the open, on the very 'stage' of history (Acts 26:25f)
    "I am not insane, most excellent Festus," Paul replied. "What I am saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner. (Acts 26:25)
............................................................................
EXCURSUS: How we "process" communication of all kinds
1. The issue under discussion is NOT what we do with the content AFTER processing it, but what factors play in our 'getting' the message into our heads. (One can readily anticipate that the will plays a LARGE part in whether we accept the content of some communication, but it also plays an important part in actually 'getting the message in'
2. One major ground-point: our FIRST historical experience of putting together messages is in a personal context (Mom!)... when a baby looks out at these things called 'faces' in those first few days, they immediately organize the data around persons... this notion of person is built-in and forms the learning paradigm for the rest of life...
  
  We are 'built' for communication, esp. with people. Consider this data from TCEL, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (p. 238):
  "Very young babies present an extraordinary range of auditory abilities. There have been several experiments in which different sounds are played to babies, and their responses monitored. For example, day-old babies have been played their mother's voice speaking normally, the same voice speaking abnormally (in a monotone), and a stranger's voice: only the first caused them to attend. Other studies have shown how babies turn their heads towards the source of a sound within the first few days of life, and prefer human voices to non-human sounds as early as 2 weeks.
  We bring this personal context to seemingly everything we do-- we personify everything from Mother Nature to Lady Justice to Father Time to 'those stubborn bosons!'... [boson = force-carrying subatomic particle, which eluded detection for many, many years...]
  If we see a chaotic stretch of debris, we assume vandals or passersby or maybe natural forces (like hurricane Camille)
3. Bottom-up vs. Top-down perception:
  - Our 'processing' of communication centers around pattern recognition. The 'build-up' of a pattern-whole from the feature-parts is NOT a deliberate activity!
    "The feature-extraction and feature-combination processes underlying pattern recognition are NOT available to conscious awareness. What we are aware of are the patterns (Epis. and Cognition, p. 186)
  - This bottom-up activity is also complemented by a top-down activity (E&C, p 186):
    "In addition to bottom-up processing, there is considerable evidence for top-down processing, in which higher-level beliefs, or background beliefs, influence the interpretation of low-level perceptual units. Psychologists have particularly shown that knowledge of a pattern's context influence how one perceives that pattern.
  - We seem to experience acoustical elements sequentially in time, but we don't process SENTENCES that way.
    "A great deal of research has been carried out on the perception of isolated sounds, syllables, or words. In connected speech, however, very different processes seem to operate. We do not perceive whole sentences as a sequence of isolated sounds. Grammar and meaning strongly influence our ability to identify linguistic units. (p147)
  - In many cases we use the data from the context to 'help us hear/see' the bottom-up stuff:
    "One reason why we are able to recognize speech, despite all the acoustic variation in the signal, and even in very difficult listening conditions, is that the speech situation contains a great deal of redundancy--more information than is strictly necessary to decode the message. There is, firstly, our general ability to make predictions about the nature based on our previous linguistic experience -- our knowledge of the speaker, subject matter, language, and so on. But in addition, the wide range of frequencies found in every speech signal presents us with far more information than we need in order to recognize what is being said. As a result, we are able to focus our auditory attention on just the relevant distinguishing features of the signal. (TCEL, p146)
  - We are able to 'see the whole' without seeing all the 'parts':
    "Normal speech proves to be so rapidly and informally articulated that in fact over half the words cannot be recognized in isolation--and yet listeners have little trouble following it, and can repeat whole sentences accurately." (TCEL,p147)
  - This 'top down' approach is especially useful in high noise environments.
4. "Attention" - we filter out other threads in favor of one 'thread' of signal, such as paying attention to only one dinner party conversation... We ignore the other data (unless it reaches emergency status, of course)
5. Context is critical
  - A very wide concept -- can include ALL PRIOR knowledge! (e.g. career experience as context for new tasks).
  - Works in identification tasks (e.g., determining whether the '(X)' in "he always has to have the last wor(X) in every argument" or "I want an easy job--not one where you have to wor(X) really hard" is the letter 'K' or the letter 'D'.)
  - Works effectively due to huge amounts of redundancy in systems of communication
  - Examples:
    - Acoustic cues: tonal changes at start/end of a sentence
    - Grammatical cues: slithy toves gyre and gimble in the wabe
    - Knowledge of the setting (e.g. "there's beer in the fridge" after different questions)
    - Knowledge of the speaker (e.g. interests, vocab, etc.)
  - Context selects between lexical and grammatical variants
    - I ate ice cream with my... pie.
    - I ate ice cream with my... spoon.
    - I ate ice cream with my... son.
  - But we can create a 'temporary context' of a question by the use of emphasis:
    - "There IS beer in the ice chest."
    - "There is BEER in the ice chest."
    - "There is beer IN the ice chest."
    - "There is beer in the ICE CHEST."
  - Can be retroactive: later chapters in the book can define/refine earlier ones, similar to how a sardonic ending can change the perceived content of the first part of a sentence.
  - One's starting point and/or view of God functions as a part of context - see Heb 11.6 [for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him]
6. We interact with text and context in a dialogical model
  - Semantic units are embedded in other semantic units (e.g paragraphs in chapters)
  - The hermeneutical 'spiral' - prior interpretation of units condition interpretation of next units, and so on until a meaning 'whole' is arrived at.
  - Ambiguity in one place is typically 'corrected' by redundancy in another
  - We consistently are doing pattern matching/testing, often at an sub/unconscious level (much like we do in science)
7. One key type of pattern is that of 'personal'
  - Example: a nightshift (and messy roommate) that we never saw - we could actually tell when it was a 'normal' mess vs. an act of vandalism
  - Example: a longtime friend/spouse--"That's just like her to do that for me!"
  - Example: paranoia - the most unlikely data is 'merged' into a personal pattern
  - Personal knowledge is gained more from stories than from lists of attributes (but both can be contributory)
8. Using the personal context for interpretation
  - The Stranger - Basil Mitchell tells the story about a member of a resistance movement meeting a stranger who impressed him very deeply. The Stranger tells the partisan that he himself is on the side of the resistance--indeed that he is in command of it, and urges the partisan to have faith in him no matter what happens. The partisan is utterly convinced at the meeting of the Stranger's sincerity and constancy and undertakes to trust him...The two never met intimately again. Sometimes the Stranger is seen helping members of the resistance, and the partisan says to his friends, "he is on our side"...but sometimes he is seen in the uniform of the police taking patriots into the custody of the occupying power. On these occasions the partisan's friends complain, but the partisan still says, "He is on our side." The partisan retains the confidence that despite appearances, the Stranger did not deceive him.
  - Alternate responses to miracles of Jesus!
    - "Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. But some of them said, "By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons." Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven. (Luke 11:14ff)
    - "Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did (i.e. raised Laz. from the dead), put their faith in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. (John 11:45)
  - Examples: Psalm 107: 6,13,19,28--various 'impersonal distress stories'-- "Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Broad Means of Revelation
1. Through nature
  - Rom. 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities --his eternal power and divine nature --have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
  - Ps. 19:1ff The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.
  - Acts 14:17 Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."
2. Through providence - God's action in history
  - Patterns (like a friend or roommate)
  - Current scenes of providence as context for scripture -- sometimes we will find that we can understand texts because of what God is trying to do in our life at that particular point.
  - The Book of Ester -- doesn't use the word 'God' but He is so obvious in the patterns and 'coincidences'!
3. Through miracles - the "glory" of God is generally considered to be the 'bundle' of His attributes and character
  - John 2:11 This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.
  - John 10:25 Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me,
4. Through direct communications (but rarely--not the preferred method)
  - Moses : ( Exod. 33:11 ) "The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend."
  - Acts 22:17 "When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking. 'Quick!' he said to me. 'Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.'
5. Through Christ--his life, work, words, example, Spirit (John 14-17)
  - "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)
  - "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9 )
  - "and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior (Titus 1:3)
  - "who has saved us and called us to a holy life --not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Tim. 1:9,10)
6. Through special manifestations, or theophanies (e.g. God speaking from 'inside' a burning bush, God speaking from 'inside' a luminous cloud -- the Shekinah glory in the first temple in Jerusalem)
7. Through the Bible--The Christian claims that the communication from the Other Side came principally through a collection of documents known as the Bible.
_______________________________________________________________________________
The Christian Revelation in History - How Close were our Expectations?
1. The genesis - God's initiatives and responses in history
  - He created initiatives (creation, the exodus, the Messiah, Pentecost)
  - He responded to the situations that arose (the prophets!, the Book of Revelation)
2. The recording of selected and paradigmatic cases, with the goal of our instruction/warning
  - I Cor 10.11 : These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
  - 2 Tim 3.16 : All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
  - John 21.25 : Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
  - Rom. 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
  - Some were NOT selected to be preserved--cf. the Book of Jashar : (Josh. 10:13 ) So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar;. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.
3. The recognition of this 'origin' by the believing community - the question of the canon....
  Was this communication sufficiently 'authenticated' by its characteristics, so that a large group of people RECOGNIZED it as a communication from God? Were they aware of its "Other Worldly" origin?
  Yes, both the written forms and the main designated emissaries were accorded such unique status:
  - 2 Kings 22:8ff : Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the LORD." He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: "Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the LORD and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple." Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king's attendant: "Go and inquire of the LORD for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the LORD's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us."
  - I John 2.20, 27 : But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth...As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit --just as it has taught you, remain in him.
  - 2 Peter 3.15 : Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
  - I Tim 5.18 : For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages." (Luke 10)
  - 2 Thess 2.2 : not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come.
  Example: The finalizing of the canon of the NT...
  At the start of this process, the main rule of approved evidence for theological formulations and bases for ethical arguments was the OT canon. This was quickly expanded to include the words of Jesus (cf. how Paul cites Jesus whenever possible as authority-- I Cor 11.23ff, I Cor 7.10ff). Later the apostolic messages (oral and written) were recognized in the community as having special authority (over other 'good' but 'normal' teaching). In the disorganized state of the early church and under the intense persecution by Jews and Romans, much of these gospel accounts and apostolic material were distributed without 'controls'...with the result that as early as 130 AD we have a church bishop (Papias of Hierapolis) having to sift between the authentic and the inauthentic message-traditions...The way he (and others) decided what was authoritative was whether it could be traced to the Lord or to the apostles...Then, as a crop of 'private traditions' arose, that could not demonstrate this chain-of-authority or demonstrate their basic coherence with known authoritative statements, the underground church--without the benefit of organization and communications between the various groups--began to publish lists of known-authentic works. Other works were NOT banned from the community (and especially, good devotional material was welcomed), but these works were not allowed to be read during the 'scripture reading' part of the worship services. And the deposing of a bishop by Tertullian for writing a forgery and ascribing it to Paul (even out of 'love for Paul'), shows that pseudepigraphic writings--even for noble and pure motives--were NOT accepted by the church and carefully guarded against...The criteria of truth and demonstrable authenticity was too high.
  As these individual communities began comparing their lists, they found substantial overlap in them. In other words, the authentic character of the revelation somehow impressed itself upon the communities-even in isolation from other--with the result that the combined community could cite these works with the 'it is written' formula...The disputes over what books were 'in' and which were 'out' had the public scholarly dimensions I mentioned...but the individual decisions were made by groups of individuals who 'responded' somehow to the self-manifested authority of the revelatory writings.
  All of this occurred within 50-100 years of the production of the writings...and the probability of getting this level of consensus from disconnected groups, with diverse cultural backgrounds (Jewish, Hellenistic), and without any formal or ecclesiastical 'teeth' is minute...and to me, within this worldview context, suggests some level of divine 'control' from within the believing communities...
4. The OT Canon itself, and as a paradigm for NT canonicity
5. Since they were understood to have been 'from God', the preservation and transmission of these documents (and associated "understandings" and historical "contexts") was carried out carefully and successfully.
  This is the issue of fidelity--how faithfully were they transmitted?
  Was there textual corruption, as they were balancing (1) the need to preserve and (2) the need to update the linguistic 'container' without changing/losing the actual content/payload...
  - The Old Testament
    - Before 400 BC/BCE
    - 400 BC/BCE to 70 AD/CE -- We see:
      - Documentation of all variants and readings
      - Change from angular letters to square letters
      - Added vocalization (original Semitic language forms only wrote down the consonants, since the context would disambiguate the words, making the vowels OBVIOUS to native speakers at the time, but perhaps unknown to later speakers)
      - Some updates/translations by later scribes, give rise to 3+ text types (LXX, Samaritan, Masoretic), and those found in Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS); all with minor differences, all floating around in the NT citations etc.
    - 70 AD/CE to 1000 AD/CE -- We see:
      - Text 'frozen' by 70 AD/CE-- the Masoretic text (found at Masada, used in historical Judaism as CORE)
      - Conservation of the EXACT text was the main concern -- even if it made NO SENSE to scribe
      - Even to conservation of very archaic forms (forms not found in later Heb. are now attested in Ugaritic texts of 1400 BC!)
      - Addition of all the supporting marks and marginal notes.
    The base 'message-text' seems to have been preserved at an almost obsessive level. I have already mentioned the data on the NT mss, in which the number of MSS (of varying extent) exceeds 5,000. In that case the abundance of mss is 'strange'. In the case of the OT, the situation is the reverse. The OT had a very, very tightly controlled transmission, and every defective copy was burned/destroyed...in that case, the few early OT MSS point to a special handling by the literate class of their sacred book...
    The OT was basically finished around 400 BC/BCE, but the earliest full copies (of all the books together) we have are from around 900 AD....
    We have fragments earlier, and can historically reconstruct the text back to around 100 AD/CE (beginning of the Talmudist period) ...in this regard, the mss tradition is comparable to other classical literature...but the means of transmission of that text is so bizarre as to suggest that its reliability is very, very high...
    For example, in the Talmudist period (100-500 AD/CE) a great deal of time was spent in cataloging Hebrew civil and canonical law... They had a very, very intricate system for the transcription of synagogue scrolls...some of the rules were:
    - Synagogue scroll must be written on the skins of clean animals
    - The skins must be prepared by a Jew
    - These must be fastened together with strings taken from clean animals
    - Every skin must contain a certain number of columns, equal throughout the entire codex
    - The length of each column must not extend over less than 48 or more than 60 lines and the breadth must consist of 30 letters
    - The whole copy must be first-lined, and if three words are written without a line, it is worthless
    - The ink should be black, neither red, green, nor any other color, and be prepared according to a definite recipe
    - An authentic copy must be the exemplar, from which the transcriber out not to deviate in the least
    - No word or letter must be written from memory; the scribe must look at the codex before him
    - Between every consonant the space of a hair or thread must intervene
    - Between every new section, the breadth of nine consonants
    - Between every book, three lines
    - The first book of Moses must terminate exactly with a line
    - The copyist must sit in full Jewish dress
    - Wash his whole body
    - Should a king address him while writing the name of God, he must not notice.
    - Any slip-ups were immediately burned or destroyed
    As bizarre as these may seem, they certainly convey an attention (even preoccupation) with detail, that would go a long way to preserving the textual-form of the message (not meaning, just form)
    By the time you get to the Masoretic Period (AD/CE 500-900), the discipline and safeguards are full-blown...they attempted over this period to bring together the various mss, create a catalog of variant readings, add vocalization, etc...they added a huge overhead of checksums to the process...
    They calculated:
    - the verses of each book
    - the letters of each book
    - the number of occurrences of each letter of the alphabet, in each book
    - the middle word and middle letter of each book, of the Pentateuch, and of the bible
    Up until 1947, how 'good' this transmission process would have been was open to question...but in November of 1947, the discovery of the Qumran scrolls (roughly, aka "Dead Sea Scrolls") gave us an interesting checkpoint...the discovery was of 40,000 fragments from which some 500 books were reconstructed... they recovered the great Isaiah scroll (24 feet in length) which was dated at 100 BC. by W.F. Albright, the leading American biblical archeologist, of Johns Hopkins Univ.
    The question was quickly raised: how did this mss, that was a full millennium earlier than the best Masoretic text of Isaiah we had at the time, compare with it? Let me quote from Geisler and Nix, General Introduction to the Bible, 1968.
    "Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only 17 letters in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word 'light' which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly. Furthermore, this word is supported by LXX and IQ Is. Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (3 letters) in question after a thousand years of transmission--and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage"
    and then Gleason Archer, Survey of the Old Testament, 1964:
    "[the Isaiah copies] proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling [by the Qumranists]"
    So the transmission methods, although apparently a bit overkill (!), seemed to preserve the text from at least the close of period in which the OT was actually written...
    Last piece under this point...I find it interesting that the whole attitude of fidelity to the original by the copyists extended even to transliteration of foreign names into/out of Hebrew, and that this was recognized as early as 30 years ago:
    "In 144 cases of transliteration from Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Moabite into Hebrew and 40 cases of the opposite, or 184 in all, the evidence shows that for 2300 to 3900 years the text of the proper names in the Hebrew bible has been transmitted with the most minute accuracy. That the original scribes should have written them with such close conformity to correct philological principles is a wonderful proof of their thorough care and scholarship; further, that the Hebrew text should have been transmitted by copyists through so many centuries is a phenomenon unequaled in the history of literature" (Robert D. Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, 1959)
    There are other data points on the OT stuff (e.g. NT quotations, targums, mishnah) but this is probably too much detail already. (The issue of how the texts came together BEFORE the end of the OT is a subject WAY beyond the scope of this ).
    The point was: the base of the text seems to have been preserved adequately as a vehicle for God's message.
  ...........................................................
6. The New Testament
  - Less controlled than the OT, but more mss (thousands) and much earlier copies offset this:
    The Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) is the standard 'keeper of record' for NT witnesses. Their dating estimates are used as the 'standard', and --combined with the judgments of the editors of the Nestle-Aland(28) text of the Greek NT-- we have confidence in the dating of these early papyri:
    - papyrus P52 -- 100-200 AD.
    - papyrus P66 -- 200-225 AD.
    - papyrus P75 -- 200-225 AD.
    These are partial copies, but they survived -- and bear witness to larger manuscripts at the same time and earlier.
  - Marks of correctors still used, and public reading helps fix the text in memories
  - Jewish scripture ethics plus Hellenistic literature-ethics combine for high standards of fidelity
  - Nomina Sacra - abbreviations in earliest mss., shows great control, organization, standardization
    This refers to the scribal practice of abbreviating divine names/titles (generally considered to be after the model of the tetragrammaton "YHWH"). Metzger defined them as "divine names written in contracted form with a supralinear line". Although the practice is common in the earliest of NT fragments, it only occasionally occurs in pre-NT times
  - The first use of codex vs. scroll
  - Some copies look like made by professionals (handwriting styles vary by century)
  - Alexandrian scriptoral praxis very disciplined
  ______________________________________________________________
7. Translation, Teaching/Preaching, and Theological Development
  1. Translation of this deposit into other languages
    1. Neh 8.8 : They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning [targum] so that the people could understand what was being read. (Targum=Aramaic translation)
    2. LXX/Septuagint (260 BC/BCE) - Greek translation -- tradition said "70 scholars in 70 days", but this is probably 'over-precise'--smile.
    3. Although it certainly appears that God uses verses from the Bible in the vast majority of cases today, we have enough evidence to know that He has used 'strange means' to reveal Himself to people throughout the world and throughout history: visions, dreams, missionaries, 'misunderstood' local myths, travel. etc.
      Up to 97% of all people have some scripture translated into their language or second language.
      Bible translation statistics (Wycliffe)--at the detail level, 2023:
    4. One other point on the languages...the vast majority of the world has 'linguistic' access to the message, but 'logistic' access is another matter-there are still portions of the world that still 'ban the bible' in official and/or unofficial ways.
    _________________________________________________________________
  2. The historical extraction, development, and re-formulations of the teachings of this corpus - how this communication was 'unpacked' and applied to new settings and situations... and how aberrations were corrected in the process
    1. Scripture was used/abused/misunderstood within the Scripture
      - The OT in the NT -- 2,559 verses refer to OT (out of 7,964) = 32% (fairly precise, but exactness escapes us...smile)
      - The Prophets and the Law - Isaiah had to explain the INTENT of the law!
        
        Isaiah. 58:5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter -- when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
        Jesus and the current understanding of the OT in his day ( Mt 5.21 ff) - how they had mis-interpreted the communications ("You have heard... but I SAY...")
        Notice: God seems to keep injecting corrections into history to keep His message basically on-track... He has not just left it into the vicissitudes of world history
        
        God corrected their 'popular theologies' (Jer 31.29 and Ezek 18.2)
        God corrected their false expectations based on false interpretations (Jer 7.1ff)
        So much of the Prophetic material was a call to right understanding of the Covenant!
    2. The history of distilling the message from the media -- 'doctrine'
      1. Background -- Setting Expectations
        
        Jesus had promised special, supernatural guidance for his future 'authors'--the emissaries/apostles.
        John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
        
        John 16:13ff But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
        
        1 John 2:18ff They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.
        
        The issue of schism (division) and false teachers
        1 Cor. 11:18f In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval.
        
        Acts 20:29f I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.
        
        2 Tim. 4:3f For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
        
        2 Pet. 2:1ff But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them -- bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.
        
        Eph. 4:14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
        
        2 Tim. 2:16ff Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.
        
        Hebr. 13:9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.
      2. Doctrinal Development WITHIN the NT
        
        The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) works through a Jew-Gentile issue.
        The various writers deal with various issues from their various interests and specialties.
        Concise statements of beliefs -- NT Creeds:
        1Cor. 8:6yet for us there is but One God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."
        
        1 Tim. 3:16 Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.
        
        Testimonia - collection of verses around a subject, circulated early as a unit
        Rom. 9:25
        As he says in Hosea: 'I will call them 'my people' who are not my people; and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one,' and, It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.' ' ..... What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the 'stumbling stone.' As it is written: 'See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.'
        
        compare with I Peter 2.6-10:
        
        1 Pet. 2:6
        For in Scripture it says: 'See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.' Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone, ' and, 'A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.' ... But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
        
        Other forms (chiasm)/statements:
        2 Tim. 2:11 Here is a trustworthy saying:
        
        (1A) If we died with him, we will also live with him; (2A) If we endure, we will also reign with him.
        (2A') If we disown him, he will also disown us; (1A') If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
        
        Phil. 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
        
        [1A] Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, [2A] but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. [3A] And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
        [3A'] Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, [2A'] that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and [1A'] every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
        
        Still Case-oriented (maybe even a good bit of Romans, since outline could be addressing a structured set of questions?)
        All of this work in the context of destructive error, swirling around them!
      3. Post-NT
        
        Still Question/Case driven typically, as they listen more to the text (e.g. the two natures of Christ) and pay attention to what the believing community experiences (e.g., the Canon)
        The Apostles Creed (100-200 AD/CE)
        The 7 Councils (325-787 AD/CE) and their main topic/issue:
        
        Nicea (Trinity)
        Constantinople (Holy Spirit)
        Carthage (Holy Scripture)
        Ephesus, Chalcedon, 2nd & 3rd Constantinople (Nature of Christ)
        
        The Great Schism (East versus West, Greek versus Latin)
        On-going: the Reformation and forerunners, current movements
        Westminster Confession 1.VI: "The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture..."
____________________________________________________________________________
Important issues/terms in understanding and 'handling' the message
1. Inspiration and Illumination: What they ARE and ARE NOT
  1. Inspiration
    - Jesus' use of the OT -- complete trust and sees His life/mission in their prophecies :
      - Matthew 19:4-5 (both creation accounts in Gen 1 and 2)
      - Luke 17.26f (the Noahic flood)
      - Luke 17.28 (destruction of Sodom)
      - Mt 12.40 (Jonah and the big fish)
      - Mt 4.16 with 12.17 ("Both" Isaiahs)
      - Lk 20.37 (the burning bush)
      - John 6.32 (Manna in the wilderness)
      - John 3.14 (the bronze serpent)
    - 2 Pet 1.21 : For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
    - 2 Tim 3. 16 : All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
    - Rom. 3:2 Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.
    - Main theories of Inspiration
      - Natural - no supernatural element involved. Bible was written by men of great genius.
      - Mystical - writers of scripture were Spirit-filled just as Christians today can be.
      - Dictation/mechanical - writers were passive instruments in God's hand, like typewriters on which He wrote. (Some parts were dictated, of course, like the Ten Commandments).
      - Partial - Only the unknowable parts of the Bible were inspired (e.g., creation, spiritual concepts).
      - Concepts - Concepts but not words were inspired.
      - Degrees - Writers were more inspired than ordinary men.
      - Early Neoorthodox - Human writers could only produce a record with errors "Neo-orthodox theology maintains that revelation is never propositional; that is, it is not given in words but only in events. The Bible is therefore only a record of revelation; it represents a human attempt to understand and bear witness to the revelatory works of God" (ZPEB, "Revelation", vol 5.87)
      - Encounter - God may be known only as Subject, never as Object.
      - Verbal-Plenary: "God superintending human authors so that, using their own individual personalities, they composed and recorded without error in the words of the original autographs His revelation to man" (Ryrie)
      - KEY POINT: Inspiration refers to the product, NOT the process
  2. Illumination - related to pattern recognition, insight, Gestalten, etc.
    - I Cor 2.10-12 : but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.
    - John 16.13 : But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
    - It does NOT generate/create NEW revelation (e.g. new scripture), but is focused on revealing NEW INSIGHTS from EXISTING revelation (in scripture).
2. Inerrancy -- the 'without error' clause
  - Applies to autographa (i.e., originals) only
  - Applies to tiniest details, as seen in Jesus' consistent use of them.
    - John 10.35 :[Jesus speaking] If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came -- and the Scripture cannot be broken...
    - Matt. 22:44 [Jesus speaking, quoting a psalm written by King David] " 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." ' I f then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?"
  - Specific words--e.g. Gal 3.16; Heb 12.27:
    - Gal. 3:16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ.
    - Hebr. 12:27 The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken --that is, created things --so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
  - Be careful here - multiple accounts have complementary details and literary features - e.g. Peter's denial and Jairus' request ( Mk 5.21 ff; Mt 9.18 ff)
3. Hermeneutics -- the theory and methods of interpretation
  - Literal?--NOPE, Figurative?--NOPE, Native--YES!
  - Native has all levels of what the 'native' audience would have understood.
  - Idioms, customs, approximations, symbolics, etc.
  - But different audience skills and sensitivities might allow for 'double meanings' (including typological ones).
  - For example, in Gospel of John, chapter 3, the word palingenesis can mean 'born again' or 'born from above' -- common understanding is that it was used to mean BOTH AT THE SAME TIME (as frequently done in the Hebrew scriptures).
  - Context, context, context! -- with this, a 'text' is merely a 'pre-text' for someone's point of view.
  - An iterative process
  - The Spoof
4. Important Distinctions (and/or false dichotomies!)
  1. Special revelation vs. General Revelation
    - Special revelation is dependent on our knowledge of Greek, history, etc.
    - Special revelation MAY require the personal-starting-point that comes from innate general revelation (for processing the text)
    - General revelation may need special revelation to provide interpretive clues (to sift out the bad from the good, e.g. interpretation of savagery in nature)
    - Question: what would historical knowledge be? -- A mixture of both.
  2. Personal revelation vs. Propositional revelation
    - Personal revelation comes from anecdotes and cases
    - Most of it can be "propositional-ized", in a narrative or analysis.
    - A discloser can always state propositions about himself
    - A lot of the data in the message involves OTHER topics than a Person (e.g. sin, death, forgiveness, faith)
  3. Revelation as events vs. Revelation as interpretation of events
    - We NEED BOTH! (The cross and an understanding of it for faith!)
    - II Cor 5.19 ff: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
    - Mr 12.41 ff: Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything --all she had to live on."
  _______________________________________________________________________________
5. Perspicuity vs. "Hiddenness" of revelation
  - The point of the parables :
    Luke 8:10: "He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, " 'though seeing, they may not see though hearing, they may not understand.' [He quotes from Isaiah]
  - Revelation seems to accelerate the spiritual journey of the individual--"up" or "down" (e.g. Pharaoh in Exodus, listener responses to parables and prophets)
  - The point of the revelation--to free us from (variable) consequences of moral aberrance (in both the pre-mortem and post-mortem phases).
  - 2 Peter 3.16 : "He [Paul, fellow emissary/apostle of the writer Simon Peter] writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."
  - Westminster Confession 1.7: "All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear to all yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them"
  - "Contradictions" in the Bible? (but remember the pedagogy use in Mt 22):
    Matt. 22:41: While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, "What do you think about the Christ ? Whose son is he?" The son of David," they replied. He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, " 'The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." ' If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?" No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions.
  - Remember, it is a disclosure / dialogical model
    - Ps. 18:25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.
    - Ps. 25:14 The LORD tells his secrets to those who respect him;
    - Prov. 3:32 for the LORD detests a perverse man but takes the upright into his confidence.
  - To 'get more' content and clarity from it, we must RESPOND honestly and humbly to what we HAVE ALREADY heard it say to us ... (sigh).
  _______________________________________________________________________________
6. "Tradition"
  - What is 'tradition'?
    All PRIMARY 'foundational documents' (sacred or secular) generate a body of SECONDARY beliefs. In the secular sphere, an example would be interpretations of the US Constitution. In the sacred sphere, these documents generate 'systems' of interpretation, application, and perhaps collections of associated background information. In many (most?) cases, these SECONDARY materials are written down, preserved, added to over time, and used as 'strong guidelines' for interpreting the PRIMARY MATERIALS. They are not considered "AS SACRED" as the PRIMARY materials, but 'SEMI-SACRED" -- i.e. you can get in 'trouble' for disagreeing with them... sigh/smile.
    As one might imagine, there could be ("are"!) competing sets of Secondary materials. For examples, Islam has its 'sets of hadith' and ancient Judaism had two Talmuds. Hinduism and Buddhism have the same phenomena.
    But these 'collections of interpretations/etc.' do not have to be written down, but might just be 'consensus opinions' taught in schools (both sacred and secular).
    There are even TERTIARY levels of tradition, that might be best represented by 'dominant' commentaries on the PRIMARY/SECONDARY materials and 'sermons' given by respected teachers.
    Famous teachers generate their own 'unintentional' streams of tradition, often even DEFINING sub-groups. In the Christian Protestant world, obvious examples would be Martin Luther / Lutheranism and John Calvin / Calvinism.
    The more 'ancient' a secondary tradition is, the more likely it can be helpful to those trying to follow the PRIMARY documents.
    But since these documents are 'further from' the original PRIMARY documents, the amount of 'NEW human ingredients' that makes their way into the documents can present a problem (and point of controversy and/or divergence from the 'intent' of the Primary documents).
  - The two extremes on Tradition (all, none)
    Many bodies of tradition may contain important insights, so none can be dismissed out-of-hand.
    Likewise, they should never be accorded the 'status' of the Primary, so they still have to be 'critically examined' before adopting.
    Tradition can be super helpful -- since religious communities exist in/through history/time -- due to their collection of VARIOUS viewpoints in the history of interpretation.
  - Jesus versus an aberrant "tradition" (his quotes of Isaiah in Gospel of Mark chapter 7)
    "Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.
    And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"
    And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
    "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'
    You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men."
    And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.' But you say, 'If a man tells his father or his mother, "Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban"' (that is, given to God) -- then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do."
  - Are the scriptures self-interpreting or do we need 'something else'?
    The scriptures DO a good bit of self-interpreting, by giving cases of where the generic principles (e.g. the original Mosaic covenant/treaty/contract, Jesus' commandment to 'love one another as I have loved you) are followed or ignored.
    The NT recognizes some of the OT experiences as being 'forward looking', to include examples to follow (Book of Hebrews 11) and some NOT to follow (I Cor 10).
    The fact that there are LARGE amounts of OT texts embedded and/or alluded to in BOTH the OT itself and in the NT set a precedent to START WITH 'letting the Word interpret the Word'.
    There is a TON of helpful redundancy in the message, but most of it is for helping us with pre-mortem life.
    COMPLETE rescue from post-mortem danger can be gained by simply finding (and following) a SINGLE verse about trusting Jesus' claims, since the goal of the message was to make this CLEAR and EASY.
    All that is needed is simple trust in the Message-in-Flesh, the 'one from above'...
    "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:38ff)
    "When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." [John 17.1-5]
    "He said to them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." [John 8.23]
    "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life." [John 5.39]
    "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3.16f; author of the gospel of John)
    "He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. … The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life" [John 3.31ff ; John the Baptist]
    
    What about our knowledge of history, language, culture, etc.--not in the Bible?
    Needless to say, without these the written message (and its witness to the Message-in-Flesh Jesus) is silent.
    These are parts of the context that is required for this--but, fortunately, God has providentially 'structured' our history and biology in such a way as to help us 'get there' easier.
    
    A Holistic view--the issue of starting point, Christ-centrism, and iteration
    Like most literature, understanding is an iterative process, but the correct starting-point can made a huge difference.
    If I pick up a book and know ahead-of-time that it is about Sir Isaac Newton, then I will automatically 'map' adjectives and scenes into some (presumed) image of what the world was like BACK THEN.
    If I pick up the same book and mistakenly think it is about Julius Caesar, then my mapping efforts will create dissonance--enough to make me doubt by starting-point. I would then look for clues as to a better one, and try again.
    Jesus said explicitly that the OT Scriptures pointed to Him, and that "Moses wrote of me".
    Hence we speak of a 'Christo-centric' starting point, but recognizing that it will be more about ROLES (e.g. rescuer, leader, sacrifice) than about TITLES or NAMES.
    [Although note that 'Christ' -- as meaning simply 'anointed' -- is a title often used in the OT, and not just about the Future After-Moses Prophet.]
_________________________________________________________________________
Responses...
1. Skeptical Issues -- Part I -- simple realities/responses
  - "A translation of a translation of a translation..."
    - We don't use translations, we use increasing numbers of copies
    - Our knowledge of the meaning and text gets better and better (due to archeology)
  - "The church introduced deliberate errors to further its ends..."
    - We would catch them anyway, with all the mss!
    - By the time the church might have wanted to do this, it was too late in history
    - High standards of ethics of writers, long before 'church power'.
    - Too many witnesses around
    - The church actually confronted the cults with these!
    - (Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Eusebius, and many other Church Fathers accused the heretics of corrupting the Scriptures in order to have support for their special views. (Metzger, The Text of the New Testament, p 201)
  - "The miracles stories are later embellishments, made to legendize the leader..."
    - Not enough time to do this successfully
    - Too many witnesses
    - High standards of ethics of writers, commitment to TRUTH
    - If the resurrection couldn't be refuted, then the others are easy!
  - "The apostles made it up, to enhance their status"
    - Not that clever?!
    - Why create such a 'confusing' account?!
    - They died for it, but only after having seen the Risen One!
    - Too many witnesses, and not enough time
  - "The bible is literally teeming with errors"
    - "name your favorite five..."
    - History proves otherwise: problems disappear over time
    - We have tons of positive data; easier to suspend judgment on difficulties for now
2. Skeptical Issues -- Part 2 -- simple realities/responses
  - "The biblical stories, concepts, and images are merely plagiarisms from earlier cultures..."
    - Shared cultures show pragmatic in-built providence (nothing wrong with seeing the same truth as others --e.g. Job and Egyptian wisdom
    - The data is otherwise -- Genesis and Sumerian myth /epics ( Gilgamesh -Creation-Flood)
    - Who borrowed from Whom? From the simple to the complex, not vice versa
  - "Jesus' belief in the OT was wrong--he was just believing the way 1st century Jews did..." (Modernist view)
    - Then why did he disagree in so many other areas?!
    - Why do we assume 1st century Jews were wrong in everything, especially scripture?
    - There are things he didn't know ( Matt. 24:36 ) and he seemed occasionally surprised ( Mark 6.6 ; Luke 7:9 ), but no reason to suspect he was wrong on something this important!
    - He was so obviously different! ( Jn 8.23, 38 )
  - "Revelation is not accurate--it is simply God accommodating his message to our inadequate ways of thinking..."
    - He built us to do His communicated will--could He have so under-designed us?!
    - How good a job did He do in accommodating? It's still beyond most (all) of us!
    - Translation is not the same as Accommodation
    - The ethics of deception, and the God of Truth
    - He did some, but only at a precision level
  - "The bible is just myth--'true' myth, of course--but nonetheless not historical...the writers were not interested in the historical details and/or facts...the imperatives of the message were all that mattered..."
    - If they use myth, it is so tightly integrated with the history
    - We can't seem to identify mythic literary forms (like we can apocalyptic, allegory, etc.)
    - How would it look different if our non-mythic view WERE true?
    - NT 'myth' too late in history--too many witnesses and skeptics
    - History was too important to the Biblical leaders (and hence to us):
    - I Cor 15:17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
    - Daniel 9:1-3 : In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom -- in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.
    - This objection only has weight if the myth-looking-material was generated by mankind-- not if it was revealed by God (then the accommodation issue would apply)
3. Implications
  - For Christian Growth into Christlikeness
  - For the work of Theology and worldview construction
  - For the habit of personal study
  - For our attitudes toward His Book
  - For sharing His message with others
  - For worship!
  Deut. 5:24 And you said, "The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him.
  Deut. 29:29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
  Matt. 4:4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "

__________________________________________________________________

Final Exam

Why do we have to test 'external revelation'?
Why couldn't the Bible have been more precise or scientific?
Name two 'errors' that were answered over time, through archeology.
How was the canon determined?
How does P52 bear on the question of the reliability of the mss. we have?
Refute: In OT times, scribes were not concerned with accuracy of transmission--the concept of a sacred canon just hadn't developed yet."
Name one kind of revision that HAD TO BE MADE to the OT text over time?
What is the significance of the NT nomina sacra in relation to scribal discipline in NT transmission?
Name two safeguards used to ensure the OT text was copied reliably?
What support for OT mss. reliability did the Dead Sea Scrolls give us?
What is the main argument against the Conceptual theory of inspiration?
Does Inspiration refer to the process of the writing or the product ?
What is the difference between 'native' interpretation and 'literal' interpretation?
To 'experience' more of the clarity of scripture, what must we do?

Matching: Match the skeptical objection on the left with a possible answer on the right.

A. The bible we have today, as a translation of a translation of a translation, is probably so 'watered down' that we don't even HAVE the Bible".	1. If God acted in history, religious truth could be expressed in historical terms. The writers didn't need myth-- they had the exodus, captivity, etc.
B. The church changed so much of the bible to further its financial and political agenda.	2. Actually, it is not clear from arch. who borrowed from whom, but the general rule is that the more complex (the outside myths) is based on the simpler (the OT versions).
C. All the miracles stories about Jesus were added much later, to make the founder look more powerful.	3. People don't die for something they KNOW is a lie--yet the apostles all died or were exiled for their claims. And besides, there were too many witnesses still alive to get away with it.
D. The apostles made up the whole story about Jesus the Messiah and his resurrection.	4. But the earliest records we have (within a few years of the events) all describe the miracles, even with all those eyewitnesses still living. And they never did find the dead body of Jesus Christ to refute the resurrection.
E. The bible is literally teeming with errors!	5. The main groups didn't, and what little was done by individuals, we can, and do, catch through the abundance of ancient mss.
F. It is common knowledge that the Bible is based on older myths from the surrounding cultures.	6. Actually, we don't need to use translations at all. We have more than enough good, ancient mss (5,000+ for the NT!) to avoid the 'creeping errors' of the telephone game.
G. Sure Jesus believed the OT--just like all the other 1st Century Jews. As God became Man, he had all the knowledge limitations of the men in his day. He was just simply wrong about it.	7. Actually, the number of alleged errors in the bible GOES DOWN over time. We have so many cases where Biblical 'problems' were solved through archeological discovery, that it makes more sense to simply suspend judgment.
H. The bible is just myth--true myth--and not to be taken as historical fact. That would make it more a history book, than a great religious and spiritual work.	8. But He corrected them on many points in which they were in error. Plus, He was never wrong about anything else, and he showed advanced knowledge often.

-------------------------------------------------------
[ .... Message_in_Writing.html ........ ]

The Christian ThinkTank...[https://www.Christianthinktank.com] (Reference Abbreviations)