For crying out loud, I’m bad. My turn around is under a year, but only just. Rantz, thanks for your patience. I can’t believe I’ve taken so long.

Now, for those of you who weren’t even born when I began this series, it all started with a comment Rantz left on my Contact page. He was counseling a student, and left three broad questions. This is the third, and it goes a little something like this.

Also, since the books of the New Testament were written by the Apostles, or attributed to them, does that mean that they wrote them, or did God? I realize that is a fine line of distinction, but one I feel needs to be drawn.

OK, I’ll attempt a direct answer, and then move on to a few notions that touch on the topic and will perhaps inspire conversation.

Christianity generally holds that the books of the New Testament were written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Typically the Qur’an is used as a counter-example. I’m not real familiar with Islam, but my understanding is that Islam teaches God wrote or spoke the Qur’an through Mohammad. Mohammad was just a vessel of transmission. The books of the Bible, in contrast, were written by men under God’s “inspiration,” a sort of supernatural guidance that is something short of dictation. The personalities and identities of the various Biblical authors are expressed and intact and even essential to the text, whereas Mohammad could have been exchanged with someone else and the Qur’an would have turned out exactly the same.

(I hope I’m not misrepresenting Islam. Feel free to educate me in the comments.)

So, I guess the short answer to Rantz’s question is, “Yes, God wrote the New Testament… and so did a bunch of guys.” So much for a straight answer…

You Bring Meaning to My Life!

God Said It; I Believe It; That Settles It… or not.

So, what does that mean… “inspired?” Well, that’s actually a significant point of debate among Christians. On the one extreme you have those who in practice treat the Bible as though it had been dictated by God. Interestingly, many of those same Christians seem to believe it was the medieval King James Version that God dictated. Just don’t mention little things, like the fact that middle-English wasn’t widely spoken in first century Palestine. If you do, the Lord might smiteth thee.

On the other extreme there are those who turn the Bible into Chicken Soup for the Sinner’s Soul. In their hands the Bible becomes little more than a collection of fables complete with a talking donkey. Jesus, Moses – even God – could have originated at the Pixar studios, and it wouldn’t change a thing for these folks. (There, I think I’ve insulted both groups now.)

What do I think? Since you’re dying to know, I’d say the truth is somewhere in the middle. My early days as a Christian were closer to the former camp minus the adherence to King James English. These days I find myself somewhere in the middle, or I’d like to think above the line altogether. (If you’ve read Brian McClaren trilogy you’ll get the image I’m using.) More and more I’m coming to believe that the Bible, or rather God, is grand enough to be true at both extremes… and therefore is possessed by neither extreme.

Inspired or Inerrant?

Moving on, I’ll comment briefly on the distinction between inspiration and inerrancy. Within the Bible itself are claims that it is inspired by God, most notably Paul’s second letter to Timothy. Here Paul is specifically talking about the Jewish Scriptures, seeing as there was no New Testament in existence, but the thought is generally applied to the New Testament as well. The implication is God has something significant to do with fashioning and guiding what the authors said, but the extent of this inspiration are open to discussion.

Some extend inspiration all the way to inerrancy, the idea the the Bible in its autographs (that is the originals, which we don’t have exactly but do have a very reliable idea of what they were) contains no errors on any matter that it brushes up against. Is there a reference to geography? The Bible is right. History? The Bible. Geology? Genetics? Physics? You name it… if the Bible makes some sort of reference to a subject, the Bible has got it spot on. Never mind that there appear to be some minor contradictions among the various books of the Bible. (I’m not a scholar, so don’t ask me for details, justifications or rationalizations.) And never mind the genre of the text itself, poetry, allegory, personal letter, etc. And never mind the fact that we are imposing modern categories on a generally prehistoric and pre-scientific people. You can probably sense I have problems with that approach.

Enough of that…

Not Your Ordinary Rulebook

Over at Rantz’s blog I made a cryptic and teasing remark about the Bible not being a rulebook. It’s time to dish.

There are those – and I used to be one of them – that approach the Bible as if it were an encrypted rulebook. Piece together the various words and verses and chapters and books, following the chain of clues until, if you are diligent, you unlock the treasure hidden inside.

Bollocks! Frank Viola has a fantastic article ripping this approach to shreds here. I highly recommend it.

The Bible is a storybook.

So, what then is the Bible if not a rulebook? Taking the facts that the Bible is a collection of 66 books of distinct genres written over many century by dozens of men as a given, I think I’d have to simplify it like this: The Bible is a storybook. An anthology, if you will. It’s (at least generally) the non-fiction account of God and his eternal plan. It is a collection of snapshots into the lives of ancient communities struggling to understand that plan and live lives consistent with that understanding. It’s an unconventional and perhaps incomplete storybook to say the least, but that seems to be the best simple summary I can come up with.

Open Sesame!

Finally, I’ll open one last can of worms: The topic of an open vs. closed canon. Most Christians affirm a closed canon. That is, the Bible is a done deal. It was written under a special set of circumstances, and God in no longer works in that way. Anything else written might be good… it might be very good; but it is unavoidably, qualitatively inferior to the Bible. The idea of an open canon is the opposite: God might have continued to and may even still be inspiring men – and women! – in the same way that he inspired the authors of the Bible.

I like the idea of an open canon, because it affirms that God is still present and still working even today. And having read some amazing books not found in the Bible, I have reinforcement for that position. That said, I’m probably a closed canon guy if for nothing more than historical reasons. The temporal proximity to Jesus of the New Testament authors makes their writings unique.

I’m not qualified to get into the Gnostic writings, a la the Da Vinci Code (except to say I thought Brown’s best-seller was disappointing.) And I will only say, “Yes, Catholic Bibles contain the books not found in Protestant Bibles; they are generally referred to as the Apocrypha.” I’m out of my depths… and interest in these areas. Unlike above where I am merely out of my depths.

Discuss…