Category Archives: Bible

Calvin and the (in)errancy of Scripture

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It is clear to any reader of the works of John Calvin that he had a very high view of the truthfulness of Scripture.  There are a handful of passages, however, where some have detected hints that the great Reformer thought that the Bible might err in matters of detail.  These are categorised by J.I. Packer as follows:-

  1. Passages in which God accommodates himself to human forms of thought and expression.  Thus, Calvin did not think that we should look to Genesis 1 for scientific teaching on astronomy.
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How do we get from the Old Testament to the New Testament?

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It strikes me that the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament is one of the most important challenges in our understanding of the Bible.

I would like to jot down a few thoughts on ways in which it is possible to misunderstand the relationship between the two testaments.

1. Making too much of the difference between the two testaments.

(a) Marcionism

Marcion was a 2nd-century teacher who completely rejected the Old Testament, and regarded its god as a tyrant. …

The Bible a Human Book

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We do not affirm the divine inspiration of the Bible in such as way as to deny or to minimise its human authorship.  Geisler (Baker Encylopedia of Christian Apologetics) outlines this as follows:-

First, every book in the Bible was the composition of human writers.

Second, the Bible manifests different human literary styles, from the mournful meter of lamentations to the exalted poetry of Isaiah, from the simple grammar of John to the complex Greek of Hebrews.

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Approaching Bible ‘contradictions’

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Christians adopt a high view of the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible for a number of reasons, not least on the testimony of Jesus Christ himself.  But what kinds of responses are available to those who question the truthfulness of certain sections of the Bible?

Paul Copan makes a number a helpful suggestions:-

  1. Clarify a passage by examining its context or by using clear passages to examine the unclear. Context reveals that “justify” and “works” in James 2 mean something different than they do in Romans 3.
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Judges 19:11-28 – The priest and the concubine

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As evidence for the nastiness of the Old Testament and its God, Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion, 240f) can find no better example than the account of an unnamed Levite and his concubine while travelling in Gibeah (Judges 19:11-28).

Quoting the Authorised Version (why?), Dawkins outlines the ghastly unfolding of events.  The two of them spend the night in the house of an old man.  While eating their supper, the men of the city come to the door and demand that the old man hands over his male guest so that they can have their way with him. …

Evangelical Biblical Illiteracy

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David R. Nienhuis writes in Modern Reformation of the problem of biblical illiteracy in America.

Among the general population, although 84% of Americans regard the Bible as important in helping them make decisions in everyday life, only half can name even one of the four Gospels, only a third are able to name the individual who gave the Sermon on the Mount, and only a minority can identify the first book of the Bible.

But the situation is also worrying among self-confessing evangelicals. …

What church-goers think of the Bible

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In 2008, research conducted on behalf of the Bible Society asked church leaders and ordinary church-goers (i.e. non-leaders) from across England and Wales about their atittudes towards the Bible.

The main findings, as summarised on the Evangelical Alliance’s Slip Stream web site, are as follows:-

Leaders

  • 98% of church leaders believe the Bible is divinely inspired and 47% think that is free from errors.
  • 90% of leaders say that the Bible actively challenges them to live in a way which runs counter to the present culture in Britain
  • 76% leaders associate Bible poverty with “our own land where the Bible is no longer at the centre of public and family life” and 90% think that the church should work towards a society that takes the Bible more seriously.
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The Bible: ‘the book of the covenant’

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Tim Ward explains how and why we can regard the Bible as a unified covenant book, notwithstanding the huge diversity found within its sixty-six separate writings.  How can it be said that God’s covenant is communicated in the narratives of Chronicles, say, or in the wisdom sayings of Proverbs?

‘Commandments declare the stipulations of the covenant.  Prophecy and epistles, in particular, expound and apply those stipulations in specific contexts; they are, in effect, the covenant preached in different contexts. …

A primer on Hebrew poetry

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It was a great eye-opener for me to learn, many years ago, the rudiments of how Hebrew poetry works.  I have found that this greatly assists in the appreciation and understanding of many parts of the Bible.

Hebrew poetry is characterised

  • not by rhyme (phonetic agreement; parallelism of sound)
  • or by rhythm (metric agreement, parallelism of time)
  • but by thought-parallelism.

Among the several varieties are:-

1.  Synonymous parallelism

The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple

(Psalm 19:7)

Deliver me from my enemies, O God,
Protect me from those who rise up against me.…

Christ and the Bible

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The Living and the Written Word

Christ and the Bible – the Living Word and the written word – are sometimes placed in opposition to one another.  The Living Word is (rightly) magnified, but (wrongly) at the expense of the proper honour that is due to the written word.  In fact, the very high view that we should have of the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures is inculcated by Christ himself.

John Stott reminds us that we should not think of Christ, the living Word, and Scripture, the written word, apart, for they witness to one another:-

‘Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance—to a degree quite extraordinary in so ancient a book—and that the secret of both is in Jesus Christ.

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