My Reply to Rex

Rex, my first impulse to your silly post was to command you to cease biting my ankles! OUT damn Spot..er, Rex! However… >For the fundamentalist Christians reading this post who do not like my hermeneutics (principles of Biblical interpretation), I challenge you to look up all the passages of the Old Testament that are quoted in the New Testament. Your motive for an argument like this is twofold: you play to a aympathetic audience and you ask for more time and effort to be done than your assertions are worth. (I’m surprised that someone who supposedly holds the Bible in high regard would discourage his readers from studying the Bible directly for themselves, telling them that such a study is a waste of time! How can an effort such as this be a waste of time? Study to show thyself approved into God. This study is worthwhile, but you in fact are lazy and wish to avoid the work. Instead, you wish to try and derail this discussion, but I shant let you. Hopefully, there are two kind of sympathetic ears to appeal to: those in possession of their critical thinking faculties, and those who revere the Bible. How unfortunate you apparently fall into neither category. How very WTBTS of you to discourage those here from studying the Bible directly for themselves) >Read the surrounding context of each quotation as it appears in the Old Testament. You will be shocked to discover that the context of the verses in the Old Testament almost never correspond to the way the verses are actually used in the New Testament. Same motive and you are denying the dual application: immediate literal and later prophetic. (Little one, thank you so very much for telling me what I am doing. I was really quite unaware of what I was about until I was awakened by your irresistible erudition and implacable logic. Until you came forward and set me straight as to what I am doing, I thought I was telling people that the Bible is a marvelous book of Mythology, and as such should be interpreted allegorically, as Paul did. As the other NT writers did. As the early church did. The tragedy of the HG (historical-grammatical) method and modern thought is that the power and purpose of Myth have been lost. The scientific method has done many wonderful things, but it has removed from the human psyche the vital and indispensable capacity for resonating with Myth. Myth enables us to speak the ineffable. Myth enables us to experience those Spiritual Realities that are simply beyond our human categories of thought to verbalize, concretize, and communicate. I know that you will not do this, and that is genuinely sad. Nonetheless I will encourage you (and all reading this) to learn more about Myth and it’s function in the spiritual life of humans past and present. A good, easy way to begin is to go to your library and borrow The Power of Myth. (It’s even available in DVD and VHS format, so you don’t even have to strain yourself and read it, you can simply watch it) In it, the late great Mythologist Joseph Campbell is interviewed by Bill Moyers, and he enables moderns such as ourselves to once again resonate with Myth, to cease being bound by our purely modern ideas of spiritual realities. Modern ideas that call for a strict literalism, that the people and events in the Bible and other sacred literature must be true in a scientific and historical sense. This view has had tragic results for modern man. The scientific method applied to spiritual things results in a cloddish literalism, which breeds fanaticism For if my way is literally true, then it must be the only way, and therefore everyone else is wrong and must be converted into thinking in literal terms. The scientific method applied to religion produced the historical-grammatical method of Biblical interpretation, which as led to spiritual death in the western world. It’s one of the tragedies of the literalism you advocate that Myth no longer resonates with humankind. Myths were never intended to be taken literally. They were (and are) used to carry sublime truths in story form. An excellent example is the myth of Prometheus. Certainly not literally true, it nonetheless carries a powerful Truth about the nature of knowledge) >The New Testament writers mainly yank verses wildly out of context and use them willy-nilly as they please! Scripture is the best interpreter of scripture. (Indeed it is! That’s why I am asking people, yourself included, to take the time to investigate and see how the NT writers use the OT. You, however, wish to make assertions without any evidence to support them, as well as discourage people from undertaking this study. How better to learn how to properly use the OT than to follow the example of those who penned the NT? I suppose one of your Dispensational hacks is better suited to the job? I think not ) >None of them use the "historical-grammatical method" considered to be The One True Method by protestants, evangelicals, and fundamentalists. The historical-grammatical (literal) method is the root of the "death of God" in modern theology. "Modern theology" is often the death of faith for those who are perishing in the first place. "Modern theology" is often a betrayal of the very core aspects of belief. Modern theology is most usually refuted by conservative scholarship. (So many assertions and presumptuous assumptions here little one. This statement of yours is priceless: ‘Modern theology is most usually refuted by conservative scholarship.’ Please show me an example. I would love to see it. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." You have made an extraordinary claim. Yet I only ask for ordinary evidence. An example or two. Come now, certainly you are up to this great challenge. What is ironic here is that the essentially German scholarship you are vilifying is in fact the historical-grammatical method you are championing! (You cannot have it both ways little one) A placing of the Bible in its "sitz en lieben" (situation in life, its actual historical context) so to speak. Investigating the Jewish culture, history, language, religious practices and traditions, and adhering very strictly to the history and grammar of the Bible. The result is exactly as you describe: spiritual death. You think yourself very clever little one, but alas you are not. YOU are the one championing the historical-grammatical method, not I little one. I am championing the exact opposite, yet you wish to tar me with the brush of your own kind! I am championing the method of interpretation used by the NT writers. Anyone who takes the time to engage in such a marvelously productive study as I advocate will quickly see why you are trying to discourage people from making this effort. (You are such a diabolical little arguer! The WTBTS taught you well. Too bad for you I am aware of your JW/fundy tricks) For those joining my spanking of the little one here a bit late, my challenge is to read all of the OT verses that are quoted in the NT in their actual OT context. Yes, read the surrounding context. You will quickly discover they did not follow the historical grammatical method that what’s-his-name here is advocating. What IS your name by the way? I use my real name. I don’t hide behind some silly pseudo-identity.) >It turned theology from a mysterious spiritual pursuit into a science, and theology became a lifeless husk, because "the letter kills but the Spirit gives Life." (2 Corinthians 3:6) This happened because the historical-grammatical method of Biblical interpretation restricts biblical understanding to the banal, obvious, superficial interpretation, and closes the door to the far richer and more powerful allegorical meanings hidden within. Solid, Biblical hermeneutics uses the tested methods of interpretation of literature in general. It is what most of us do naturally: we take a story and compare what it says to our own experiences; it may be literal only; it may have allegorical applications or be entirely allegorical, metaphorical, etc. Text without a context equals a pretext. (Ah, so now the very thing you vilified above is now "solid." If by solid you mean ‘thick as a brick" I quite agree. The historical-grammatical method is not only absent from the Bible, it is absent from the early church as well. Fundy boy will certainly not investigate the actual early church because he prefers his fantasy version to the real thing, but for the rest of you, check out: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ You will find that the early Christian church used the OT [and NT] in an allegorical non-literal fashion, just as the NT writers did. The historical-grammatical method is quite recent, not really taking wing until the Protestant Reformation. Such methods are absent from the Bible itself. Something else you should become informed of is Midrash. Midrash is the ancient Jewish practice of telling and retelling the same stories in the Bible over and over, using different characters and different circumstances in each retelling. An obvious example is the figure of Joshua in the OT. "Joshua" is simply the Anglicized form of the Hebrew name Yeshua, which in Greek is loosely ‘Jesus." If one substitutes "Jesus’ for "Joshua" in the OT, all sorts of marvelous parallels between the OT Jesus and the NT Jesus become evident. This is Jewish Midrash. An extremely readable yet scholarly introduction to the Jewish practice of Midrash and its presence in both OT and NT is the book Liberating the Gospels by bishop John Shelby Spong. (It was my distinct pleasure to offer him some suggestion for his book Why Christianity Must Change Or Die) Oh dear, he is a dreaded Liberal and gay! With AIDS no less. I’m sure your residual JW fear of demons will keep you from reading any of his books. Heaven forbid you should actually expand your mental horizons beyond the narrow confines of your fundamentalism. Midrash is a further discovery of the actual nature of the Bible, and another nail in the coffin of fundamentalism. Also, your claim that conservative scholars treat the Bible as they would any other piece of literature is patently absurd and ludicrous even on the face of it. On the contrary, conservative scholars put the Bible in a special category in which the Bible has neither peer nor superior. In their view it is ‘inerrant and infallible." Truthful in all it affirms, the very Word of God. So please cease your efforts to throw up a smoke-screen. You merely wind up blowing smoke up our derrieres.) >The hidden, allegorical meanings give us spiritual "meat" but the historical- grammatical method gives us mere "milk." The historical-grammatical method gives us flat dull bovine understandings that lead to disunity. If it did not, there would not be over 30,000 Christian sects in the USA alone. Let's see, is that a gentic fallacy or cause and effect? LOL (Did you mean genetic or generic? I am quite unfamiliar with ‘gentic’ as is my Merriam-Webster dictionary. Quite seriously, what are you going on about little one? As a devoted disciple of Hegel, I of course reject any notion of a casual relationship between your divided fundamentalism and the historical-grammatical method. No, I quite agree they are totally outside the (nonexistent) chain of cause and effect, and are as untethered to reality as is your own mind. These sects arose magically, of themselves. They are effects without a cause. Bravo little one.) >If you bother to read Galatians 4:21-25, you will see that the apostle Paul was anything but a literalist when he declared that the stories about Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, and about Sarah and Hagar, in the Old Testament are not literal history but are ALLEGORIES ("allegoreo" in Greek, see Strong’s #238) about the old and new covenants. Scripture interprets scripture, the Bible is authoritative and inspired. Once you lose focus of that you deny the very basis for and ability to interpret scripture accurately. (Indeed, the Bible interprets the Bible. I am in utter and complete agreement little one. Once again, you are being sly and sneaky, but Uncle Nathan sees what you are up to. Naugty naughty shame shame. YOU are the one discouraging others from investigating how the NT writers use the OT. I am the one encouraging them to do so. I am the one encouraging them to use the Bible biblically. That means studying how the NT writers used the OT, and it also means becoming knowledgeable of the Hebrew culture, language, religion, literary forms and methods (such as Midrash). The saddest part of you entire ‘argument’ is that you encourage blind faith in your assertions about the Bible, and discourage anyone from rising above your fundy methods, or lack therof. Your discourage independent study of this nature, insulting the Bible by calling such a study of it a waste of time. >Paul even tells us that Jerusalem is an allegory for our Heavenly Mother! The New Testament writers fail miserably as fundamentalists. They are not 'fundamentalists in the first place, they are revelators: they are apostles. (I see. Well, please be patient with me little one. To my feeble mind it seems rather self-evident that the apostles would be the ones to set the tone for how to approach the OT, how to interpret it. If the HG method is true, I would expect the Apostles to be our examples by using the HG method. Yet, they do not. Which you know, or you wouldn’t be discouraging the good folks here from investigating this matter. However, the NT writers do in fact use the HG method. The Holy Ghost method, not the Historical-Grammatical method. Kindly tell me why those who would be our Examples (Paul said he was our Example) do not use your method of interpreting the OT?) > So much for the "historical-grammatical" method! NO, not at all. We are bound by well tested rules of interpretation and that is the basis for valid hermeutics. (You have said it well. "We are bound." The historical-grammatical method does indeed bind you. The strictures it places upon you are very restricting indeed. Perhaps that is why the Holy Ghost ignored the Historical-Grammatical method when inspiring the apostles. (Wordplay intended) Again I find it ironic that you extol the praises of the historical-grammatical method, yet discourage other from investigating the NT writers use of the OT by their own personal study. You extol the historical-grammatical method, yet vilify the modern critical scholarship which is simply the historical-grammatical method sharpened to a fine edge and point. >Therefore I do not debate my hermeneutics with anyone, least of all with literalistic fundamentalists. Nor would I in your precarious position. I hate to say it Nate, but your book is destined for the rubbish heap. If it ever gets a real 'peer review' it will be a treatise on how NOT to interpret scripture. (Those who can, do. Those who cannot, simply sit back, fill their belly with the east wind, and let fly. My peers are not the likes of you, that’s for sure. My book is doing nicely, thank you, especially in PDF format. Also, since when is the majority view the correct view? The mass of humanity once believed the earth to be flat. They were mistaken and disproven by a few ‘nuts’ with ‘crazy’ ideas. The same with the once majority view that the earth is immovable. As with the once majority view that the sun and stars revolve about the earth. The common mans view of things is usually wrong. If you were a bit more educated you would know this. I plead Matthew 7:13-14 as to "the majority." Genuine spiritual insight has nothing to do with common people and their common views. That’s why you are stuck in literalism. The ancients clothed their spiritual insights in the clothes of stories. The common folks took them literally. Just as you take the marvelous spiritual nature of the Bible literally and thereby miss the mark.. Far from being precarious, my position is that of the Bible wrters themselves and the Early Church. You may verify this with just a smidgen of mental exertion on you part. Here again is the link: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ >"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8) Fundamentalists are sorely amiss in not acknowledging, as the Apostle Paul does, the deeper hidden allegorical meanings in the Bible. Like any other JW, you just blew the context out of that verse! (I plead guilty! Line me up against the wall with Jesus and the apostles, and shoot us all with your Dubya-Dubya AK-47. I will die with my fellows, those who follow Jesus and the Apostles in how they use of the OT and NT) >Fundamentalists and others insist the historical-grammatical method is the only "true" method 'Others' should be understood as 'true scholars'. (Please inform me what advances conservative scholars have made. Please. Just give a few examples. That’s all I ask. Nothing extraordinary. The same with your assertion that conservative scholars defeat ‘liberal’ scholars. LOL this is so laughable. The ‘liberal’ scholars you denigrate are your own kith and kin! They too follow the historical-grammatical method, yet you fear (and rightly so) to follow them in their folly. You choose to follow the historical-grammatical method only to the edge of the precipice it leads to, but refuse to follow it over the edge. You are self-contradictory but I laud your decision) >, yet the Apostle Paul and the other New Testament writers abundantly prove that to be gravely erroneous thinking. Thus endeth the lesson. You are very good at using arrogance, bluster and appeal to your own authority in order to manufacture a argument from nothing! Are you actually Greg Stafford? (An argument from nothing! Now you are calling the method used by the NT writers "nothing!" First you discourage this valuable direct personal study of the Bible as a waste of time, and now you call it nothing! I began this post simply by making observations about how the NT writers use the OT, and you turned it into a personal attack, and an attack on the NT writers. It is I that am arrogant, but you are the very Incarnation of Humility? I would laugh if I didn’t find this so very sad. I am indeed arrogant, and freely admit it. You, however are equally arrogant and too arrogant to admit your arrogance.
March yourself to a mirror this instant my little pony boy and have a good look at yoursefl. I was struck by your denigrating of my academic achievements in Religion, particularly the Christian Religion. How very JW/WTBTS of you. I have good news for you. The Bible says "be babies as to evil, but in your understanding be adults." I am of the opinion that you use your adult critical thinking abilities in all areas of your life. It is perfectly all right if you use them in your religious and spiritual life as well. There is no need to feel ashamed of your own lack of education in matters Biblical. I realize that I made you feel inadequate, and that put you on the defensive, and you attacked. You can easily rectify your situation by making up your mind to "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth." I have appealed to everyone to study the Bible for themselves and see how the NT writers use the OT. I have not appealed to my own authority. Rather, I have encouraged others to use their own God-given minds. It is YOU that have made heavy handed statements about the authority of your historical grammatical method, conservative scholars, as well as using some of the most diabolical subterfuge I have ever seen. Rather than appeal to nothing, as YOU have done, I appeal to the NT writers, and recommend that everyone here do this favor for themselves. As to letters after my name, I apologize for making you aware of your own inadequacy. As I said, you can rectify your situation. Meanwhile, since I am indeed admittedly arrogant, I shall flaunt my achievements. Its very easy for the uneducated and uncouth to make accusations and groundless assertions, but it takes time and effort to answer the fool according to his folly. I have spent way too much time taking you seriously and responding. I have a life, so I cannot keep on trying to educate you. I am in the middle of writing my next book, and I have begun a translation of the authentic books of the Apostle Paul. I have a wonderful wife, family, friends, hobbies in addition to my writing. So, it is moot as to whether you take me seriously. I have work to do, and as much as its been fun interacting with fellow former Jehovah's Winesses, I must get back to work. So... Have a riot Sled!
Nathaniel J. Merritt Met. D.

My Reply to Rex

Nate Merit

Leolaia

Nate Merit

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