by Narkissos 8 Replies latest watchtower bible
In two recent threads Eduardo (Oroborus21) makes the following assertion:
THE BIBLE IS NOT ITSELF THE REVELATION ABOUT GOD TO MANKIND.THE BIBLE IS A RECORD OF THE REVELATION ABOUT GOD TO MANKIND.
I find this nuance interesting, although problematic imo, and I think it might be worth its own thread (I hope Eduardo doesn't mind).
What do you think?
If its a record of that revelation, then it will be done through the lenses or subjective view of the writers. One can see a scenario entirely differently with/without some key information that changes one's perspective. So I think with that amount of subjectivity there's going to be issues with interpretation. Personal revelation would be so much better and would eliminate doubt/dependency on other's interpretation. Can't say I've experienced that though.
Without reading the context of the statements, my initial impression is that they leave the door open for a degree of relativism, somewhat in the way that Mormons accept the Bible as God's Word "as far as it is translated correctly". What that essentially means is that they can make up their own doctrines (or base doctrine upon their other "inspired" works) and, wherever the Bible disagrees, they have a built-in answer - it must not be translated correctly in that place. Thus they can completely disregard the Bible as having any doctrinal authority while continuing to pay it lip service so as not to alienate Christians among whom they are proselytizing.
Some Christians today take the position that the Bible merely contains the Word of God (as opposed to actually being the Word of God). Again, this leaves the door open to relativism, picking and choosing the parts one likes and rejecting whatever makes one feel uncomfortable. If we do not accept the Bible as a whole as the Word of God, then we are really stripping it of its authority in our lives. I can understand that some might not think that's a bad thing, but then, why bother with it at all, except as a historical curiosity?
I may have spun off a bit here from what Oroborous21 meant by those statements, and I don't mean to impute different ideas to him than what he intended. My comments above are intended generally and not directed particularly at him.
NeonMadman:
You're right I should have provided the contexts:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/87453/1.ashx
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/87531/1.ashx (on page 2 actually)
While I don't beleive the bible is what it claims or what fundamentalist claim it is I think Eduardo's statement: "THE BIBLE IS A RECORD OF THE REVELATION ABOUT GOD TO MANKIND" is closer to what is said in 2Timothy in that "all scripture is inspired" which would leave room for what is meant by "scripture".
The funny thing is if God wanted to communicate important messages to mankind why use ancient scripture? These ancient manuscripts can be altered or forged, so that its validity can be questioned and rightly so. Why not communicate directly to each generation in the language easily understood and in an unmistakeable way so that people who are careful and cautious would know this was really God speaking. I mean if God is all powerful and can do any feat why not communicate clearly and authentically in an unquestionable way that way there would be no corruptable middle men to manipulate the masses.
Hey Guys:
I am starting to get flattered that someone finds something I write interesting.
I want to preface the below with saying that my viewpoint comes from having studied and researched the history of how the Bible was actually written and compiled as well as studying about the apocrypha (sp?) and non-canonical holy writings that didn't make it into the Bible. For a good introduction too these explorations, I would recommend Bart Erhman's books "Lost Scriptures" and "Lost Christianities" and another book "How the Bible was Written". (A good library or bookstore (or online) can also produce many other similar books about the canonization process.)
I fully subscribe to the "documentary hypothesis" of the Bible's creation for those of you who may be familiar with that.
Also I want to go on record of my personal view of the Bible. I believe that the Bible is "God's Word" in the "loose sense" (see below) but even though for example, I do not believe that a particular scripture is not the "literal-transcribed-stenographic" "words of God", I do believe, that such scripture has both intrinsic and extrinsic value and can be an aid to helping persons determine the best way of living, i.e. it is a worthy and good "moral touchstone and guidebook." So in that sense I do see the Bible as being a "manual for living" that is a gift from God.
With regards to the prophetic elements of the Bible and specific applications/anticipations/derivations from these, I am much more cautious and also much more uncertain. I am not sure exactly how I believe or what I believe with regards to the Bible's prophetic elements.
-----the following posted in the other thread:
The homely picture of a writer (Moses and the more than 40 others) sitting at a desk, whilst the angel of God whispers in his ear (or the light of inspiration falls upon him) and that thereby the writer is nothing more than a "secretary" taking dictation from the Word/Lord - and that further therefore what we have before us in the canonized form of the Bible is not merely "representative" of "God's statement to mankind" BUT THE ACTUAL STATEMENT/WORDS OF GOD - this is a complete fallacy.
Unfortunately, any careful and thorough study into the matter will reveal that the true history of how the Bible was written and constructed/compiled is much more messy than the "secretarial model" held dear by many Christians, including Jehovah's Witnesses.
The bottom line is that, perhaps with a few "quotations" of what is reported to be said by God or Jesus or others (and even these passages are highly suspect) everything else is not to be understood as being a literal/stenographic account of history, sayings, beliefs, teachings, etc. etc.
(That is what I meant when I said that the Bible is not actually the revelation itself but rather it is only a RECORD of the revelation, shaped and recorded by the writers in the best way that the writers knew how to record such a revelation.)
Whether you accept what I have just said depends on your view of how much "inspiration" by God went into the Bible and how that notion actually worked in practice.
If one believes that the Bible is inspired as 2 Timothy 3:16 says, then one must understand that what this means is that each writer wrote whatever they were writing, laws, history, supposed history, homilies, prophesies, psalms, poetry, etc. in accordance with their own spiritual nature and moral understanding of God and the things they were writing. God is thus only in a very general sense the supreme author of the Bible and it is "His Word" only in this very loose sense.
Many Christians/persons understand things this way.
Many others, including the offical JW teaching, believe, without necessarilly stating it explicitly:
That God has taken an active role in "inspiring" and directing and safeguarding every little "tittle" of: first, the oral history keepers and retellers (just consider that MOSES is traditionally viewed as the author of GENESIS which is purported record of persons and events of some hundreds/thousands? years prior to his day) - just think how much oral history that was to preserve, then the earliest writers (of source texts and histories that Moses and others may have had available to them), then the next writers, then the later writers, then the copyists who came in between everyone, the correlators/compilers, the redactors, the scribes, the archivists, the Jewish authorities that decided what spiritual/holy writings would be considered "canonical", the later Christian authorities that likewise decided what spiritual/holy writings would be "canonical", the scribes and monks (copyist and preservists), the still later Church (orthodoxy) bishops/scholars/authorities who began to make canonical calls about what was "true" and what was "heresy", the still later committees and councils that made canononical determinations, etc.,
If one believes that all of that Inspiration was going around, then such persons believe that what is EXACTLY written is very important and if not the actual "words that God" intended for mankind at least very close to it. These persons tend to believe that the Bible is literally the Word of God and use it in that way.
I think this latter view is obviously the wrong one for too many reasons to go into right now but which some of which should be obvious from the above.
But the main problem with this latter view is that it leads to attempts to define/establish doctrines and make moral judgements based upon the specific canonized language and turns of phrases, even the occassional indefinite article, (hah, hah). It also leads to the silliness of trying to point out "contradictions" in the Bible and making some claim that this thus disproves the Bible or has some huge meaning.
Both such viewpoints are pure folly.
-Eduardo
Why this is problematic to me:
If revelation stands behind the text which lies before me, the text becomes a sort of screen, or veil, actually separating me from it as well as relating me to it. I can only "see" the revelation, i.e. un-veiling, through the supplementary veil of scripture and its ambiguities, obscurities, possible alterations and so forth. And for it to be a revelation to me, as MS and Frankie pointed out, another revelation must occur on my side of the text (the "illumination of Holy Spirit" as Calvin puts it), which I must then assume to be identical with the revelation I can only guess on the far side of the text.
In this perspective the written text is an obstacle as much as it is a medium.
Cf. the ambiguous role of writing in 2 Corinthians 3:3ff:
and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.On the other hand, what we call revelation might just be an ever-developing text playing with us as it did with all its successive generations of writers and rewriters, characters and readers... At this point you will have recognised the spectre of Jacques Derrida.
Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses' face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!
Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
Good observation Narkissos
It points out the fact that not everyone who simply reads the text or has access to it will receive such "revelation" or in other words understand. Jesus said this himself.
That is why sometimes it is useful to have someone to help us understand what is written or to reach that understanding.
-Eduardo
Greetings to you all,
May peace be with all of you.
The Bible is not a revelation of God to mankind nor is it a record of the revelation of God to mankind. In truth, the Bible is a compilation of books that contain writings that are not from the spirit of God and writings that are from the spirit of God. All 'scripture' are writings that were written "in spirit" and directed by the Spirit to be written down as a 'witness' or 'testimony' to that which has occured in spirit.
Unfortunately, for many who believe contrary, the Bible is not the inspired Word of God and those who believe such have been enslaved to the Bible and to their religion who has told them such and thus because of their devotion to the Bible, have been misled from the Truth.. from the Christ. One cannot in any way know the Christ by reading the Bible.. for even the 'misled' read the Bible. The Bible in itself is a 'golden calf' that have been worshipped by many and have misled many into the spirit of error. One cannot know the truth by knowing the Bible. For the Bible contains true things, false things, distorted accounts, and false testimonies that those who are 'untrained' and think that all that was written in it was from God.. will be misled and confused by such inconsistencies and led away from the truth. In order for ones to be able to properly distinguish the 'truth' from the 'lie' and discern what in the Bible is "from the Spirit" and that which is not from the Spirit, one would need to be trained and built up in the spirit by God. Such training cannot be received from reading the Bible, but only by going to the One who is the Word of God and receiving such training from Him. By means of him and following closely to him in such training (such training is very uncomfortable to the flesh), ones can acquire the 'skill' and the means to strengthen their 'perceptive powers' of the spirit to be able to distinguish between all that is from 'the spirit of truth' and all that is from the 'spirit of error,' regardless of where such is written.
Ones who are 'slaves' to the Bible are consequently slaves to the consistencies and inconsistencies of the Bible and being a slave of inconsistencies, causes ones to fall away from the truth and give 'ear' to the lie.
