"Thinking Eternally, Acting Locally." - Neal AugustThursday, March 30, 2006
A Quick Thought
"The book of Revelation suggest that patriotism like this can easily slip into idolatry - that people who may be reluctant to lay down their possessions for Christ are often ready and willing to give their lives for America." Tony Campolo, Adventures In Missing The Point
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Si Dios es por nosotros, ¿quién contra nosotros?”
or
“Yo soy un disco quebrado / yo tengo chicle en cerebro”
Yesterday as I was having lunch at home, I heard screams coming from outside. Curiosity getting the better of me, I opened the door half expecting to see mushroom cloud in the distance.
Thankfully, it wasn’t the Holocaust or an episode of Jack Van Impe’s show. No, I was confronted with a hundred Hispanic teenagers marching down West Seminary Drive waving Mexican flags and chanting “Rah, Rah, Rah!” and “Viva la Mexico!” Since they were not singing, “Another Brick In The Wall,” I assumed that this had more to do with American immigration policies than the American educational system. Or did it?
You know, if your protesting about not being allowed to come illegally into America from Mexico, it doesn’t help your cause to chant “Viva la Mexico!” and way the Mexican national flag.
Of course, the students were getting a lot of support from the neighborhood. Cars would drive buy, wave a Mexican flag out of the window and honk their horn to the cheers of the students.
The local police were there as well. Since the students were walking on the sidewalk with the flow of traffic, a few patrol cars were following right beside them. I assumed that the officers were simply protecting the youth from any traffic problems but, apparently, they were trying to get the students back into class. The students responded by crossing the street at the next light and walking against the flow of traffic to keep the cops from following them so close. Clever little baskets, aren’t they?
I wasn’t the only seminary student watching parade. Another gentleman was looking as well and glanced at me with a semi-smile. “You know what they’re marching for, don’t you?” he asked.
“Sure, I do,” I replied. “They’re getting outta class!”
Yes, I really do not think that these students give beans about American immigration policies. But they do care about the teenage wasteland that is public education. Evidence for this opinion is explained by the fact that the student protests all seem to end around 3:00pm.
Now I make no public stance for or against the American immigration policy, but, darn it, I will support students playing truant from school. Heck, we all remember high school and middle school. What we wouldn’t have given to have had such an excuse to skip class. We always had to call in a bomb threat in order to delay exams to the next day! These kids today can cite noble principles or whatever to get out of P.E. I wonder if I can do that to get out of Worship class?
Nevertheless, I decided to signify my approval for their cleverness in skipping class by “honking” my car horn.
By the time I had gotten to my car (parked at E.D. Head) and made it up to where the students were marching they had just reached the entrance to the seminary. So, in my (wife’s) car with the “GOD IS ABLE” license plate and red seminary parking sticker, I turned into the main seminary entrance, honked the car horn and gave the peace sign to them thru the open car window.
The students then cheered and some of them began to yell, “Aye, the seminary’s for us! God is able! He’s for us!” And then a one of them began to yell, ““¿Si Dios es por nosotros, ¿quién contra nosotros?”
Neither the police officers nor the blue shirts who were working in the flower beds appeared to be as enthusiastic as the students.
So that is how I spent my Tuesday afternoon.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Soul Competency, Baptist Revisionism, and Inerrancy
It has been the current trend among the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia to explain where the SBC went wrong. If the SBC was drifting toward liberalism so much so that a group of fundamentalists felt the need to convince the rest of the convention to put them into the top leadership positions in order to then systematically remove everyone who had been there prior, what then made the SBC drift so that such a coup and purging were needed?
Some of the first people to go were the old time professors: people like Moody, Stagg, McBeth, Estep, etc. These Southern Baptist professors were considered liberal by many so whatever caused them to go “liberal” was the problem. We can also include into this distinguished company Ralph Elliott who was kicked out of the SBC for a theological book on Genesis in 1962. Therefore the “problem” did not simply come about in the seventies but had preceded the 1960s. We can also see this in the fact that SBC president H. H. Hobbs responded to the 1962 “Genesis Controversy” by drafting the 1963 BFM. Of course, in order to make a case for why the 2000 BFM was necessary, the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia had to not just prove that certain additional elements were needed but that, in fact, certain elements needed to be retracted, namely that Southern Baptists use Jesus Christ as our method for interpreting the Old Testament. We used to be able to say, “No, that OT verse doesn’t apply to us because of what Jesus says.” Now, of course, we do not use Jesus to interpret the OT so ALL the OT applies to us no matter what Jesus may say. In fact, now the OT and NT say whatever the drafters of the 2000 BFM says it says. But in order to remove such a vital point of the 1963 BFM, the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia had to make the case that the aspect that they wished to remove was not just misused but that it was placed in there in order to promote heresy. Therefore, months leading up to the adoption of the 2000 BFM, the Baptist Press and other Baptist state papers published numerous articles about how the 1963 BFM was purposely designed to bring heresy into the SBC and promote the errancy of Scripture. And so, Hobbs got a lot of blame for codifying liberalism into the SBC. That Hobbs was an uncompromising inerrantist never seemed to matter.
But from where did Hobbs, Elliott, Moody and the rest obtain their “liberalism”? Well, if one reads Hobbs explanation about the 1963 BFM and his editing of E.Y. Mullins’s The Axioms of Religion, one comes across the topic of Soul Competency.
The legendary president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Dr. E.Y. Mullins (1860-1928), called Soul Competency “the distinctive Baptist belief.”
Let us give some background on Mullins: He was a Reformed evangelical who served as president of both the Southern Baptist Convention and its Southern Seminary. He resisted fundamentalist efforts to split the SBC and, to preserve unity, re-fashioned the New Hampshire Confession into the Baptist Faith and Message in 1925. Mullins wrote against "creedalism" and saw experience as vital for confirming faith. Titles: The Axioms of Religion; Baptist Beliefs; The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression.
(It did not escape the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia that Hobbs was a devoted follower of Mullins and that people like Moody and Elliott went to Southern Seminary.)
But what is soul competency?
Norman Cox has a nice, poetic definition in his book We Southern Baptists.
“The Bible positively affirms that
God in creation invested man
(human beings) with the
privilege, ability, and
responsibility of choice. (Every
person) He is competent to obey
or disobey God. God has given
to every (human being) man the
right to spiritual self-
determination. He is free to
choose, but he is bound by the
consequence of his choice."
Cox is saying that God created all of us as autonomous beings endowed with the ability to experience God for ourselves.
The word "soul" is first met in the scriptures in Genesis 2:7: “And God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul.” A better translation of the Hebrew word nephesh reads, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” The word nephesh does not refer to some component of the human being. Nephesh is the animating, life giving power that makes us alive.
Now the word "competency" refers to skill or aptitude or faculty. God made Man with the ability to enjoy a relationship with God. In that relationship we are addressed, we are loved, we are empowered. God has made us competent to experience God as Being, as soul.
This is why Baptists have insisted for years on personal conversion. We don't believe that people can be saved by their parents, by their loved ones, by their Sunday School class, by sitting in church, by being baptized. No. Soul competency, this distinctive belief of Baptists, majors on personal conversion. An individual must come to the place where he or she discovers that he or she is loved, wanted, forgiven and can be saved by a response to Jesus Christ. God has given us that ability. We call it soul competency.
Baptists are believers who have insisted that no matter what it is you feel controls you, God has not withdrawn from you the ability and the responsibility to choose. You can choose. You are responsible. There are people who can help you make that choice, but that is a choice you cannot abdicate or ignore. The word is responsibility.
Many people come to church week after week who never unite with the church. And for many, the difficulty in not coming into the Baptist family of faith has to do with believer's baptism by immersion. This Baptist distinctive of soul competency is the primary reason Baptists historically and presently reject infant baptism. Baptists have said, “No person can decide another's faith.” Your parents choose to give you good rearing in a Christian church that may not practice believer's baptism and they presented you to the church, and you were sprinkled in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. What Baptists have said is, “baptism is immersion in water by a believer who has confessed Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord by the free volition of his or her own soul.”
That’s why Baptists rejected forced conversions in favor of freedom of religion. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists reject infant baptism in favor of believer’s baptism. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists reject state-run churches in favor of separation of church and state. No one can decide what church you will go to. Meaning, no one can decide what you will believe by forcing you to go to that church. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists have in the past rejected denominationally run churches in favor of local church autonomy. Meaning, no one can decide what a local group of believers will believe by running the local church from the outside and forcing the church to believe a certain way. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists have in the past rejected creeds in favor of confessions and abstracts of principles. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists have in the past rejected hierarchal interpretive leadership that enforces a particular interpretation of Scripture upon everyone else. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
Mullins recognized soul competency as the hub of Baptist theology and practice. Everything else — priesthood of the believer, local church autonomy, separation of church and state, regenerant church membership, believer’s baptism — was spoke and rim.
What is explicit here is “freedom of the will.” It is no coincidence that the Calvinist-wing of the SBC has always disliked Mullins and the doctrine of Soul Competency.
Southern Seminary President, committee member of the 2000 BFM and well-known Calvinist Al Mohler blames Mullins for much of Baptists’ reputed theological drift. Mullins elevated personal experience above revelation, according to Mohler, making the authority of Scripture secondary. Mullins, who chaired the committee that produced the original Baptist Faith and Message statement, “set the stage for doctrinal ambiguity and theological minimalism,” says Mohler. Soul competency, he continues, is “an acid dissolving religious authority, congregationalism, confessionalism and mutual theological accountability.” (1)
Now the doctrine of the “priest hood of the believer” (“priest hood of ALL believerS” when talking to the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia) is a subset doctrine of soul-competency but which deals specifically with the individual believer and not the individual human (whether believer or unbeliever). This doctrine focuses only on believers.
First, the doctrine means that all believers have direct access to God through faith in Jesus Christ without the need of any other human mediator. Second, it means that all believers are called to be priests, ministering to one another and sharing the love of God in the world.
It should be evident now why the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia really dislike Mullins and blame him for all the “problems” that they saw with the “Golden Age” of the SBC.
People can now pick up the Scriptures and read them for themselves and arrive at conclusions of what they mean. This does not mean that a person should not read books and commentaries, attend classes, or hear sermons. What it does mean is that these resources cannot force you to believe it if you think that such a belief is wrong.
The Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia have cried foul because most people have not believed what they believe and this intelligentsia have only gotten their way by forcing others to believe this way. (The irony of this is that while the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia have gotten their way by forcing other people to conform to their wills, they then cry foul at secular liberals and others who have gotten their way in the American culture by “activist judges” and not by democratic representatives.) Hence, the 2000 BFM. Hence, the mass firings at the seminaries and various SBC agencies and ( soon to come) the Baptist state colleges. Hence, the move to keep “charismatics” from being missionaries, even when they do so PRIVATELY. Hence, the down playing of soul-competency (though it’s still there). Hence, the down-playing of the Prologue to the 1963 BFM that is still a part of the 2000 BFM (though recent copies of that document for public consumption do not include it).
Hence, the strong emphasis on accountability and church discipline when it comes to DOCTRINE, but rarely when it comes to SIN. The only time sin comes into play is when someone’s doctrine is suspect. And, hence, numerous articles, books, and lectures designed to trash Mullins and his ilk.
I remember reading one paper that attempted to prove Mullins was dangerous. It said that “the phrase soul competency” doesn’t appear in Scripture.” Though neither does “Trinity.” Both are terms created by the Church to describe the doctrines of Scripture. It said that “Mullins was influenced Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of liberalism.” How he was influenced was never discussed; the purpose of mentioning Schleiermacher in passing was to throw mud on Mullins by linking him with a known liberal. This method is later applied in the rest of the argument by linking Mullins to Hobbs, Dilday and others. How Dilday was influenced by Mullins is not discussed because that was not the point of the paper. The point was to tarnish people and not explain individuals. It was a really lousy paper that did not understand Mullins at all because it wasn’t designed to understand but, rather, to throw mud and ink and link present individual to liberals like Scheiermacher. Yes, the author was a member of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia.
The point of all of this is to say that the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia really wants people to believe as they believe. So much so that they took over a convention and assumed powers designed to force conformity among all to what THEY believe. Soul competency was and is a great threat to them. It gives people the knowledge that they do not have to believe what the beliefs of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia. As a Baptist distinctive it gives people the historical and traditional basis for not believing the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia.
Therefore, convincing the people that Soul Competency is not THE Baptist distinctive has been a high priority.
So much so that when a seminary becomes a part of the domain of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia, the historians, particularly the Baptist historians, are the first to be fired. So much so that the Baptist Heritage classes have dropped older curriculum that discusses the last 400 years of Baptist life and, instead, focused on the last 25 years of the resurgence. So much so that Conservative Resurgent historians are busy writing history books to replace the older ones that attempt to prove that THE Baptist distinctive is not Soul Competency but doctrinal fidelity.
Which brings me to this recent article in the Baptist Press by a Ph.D. student in church history and associate archivist at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. This guy, I’m sure, is alright and a great Christian believer but he appears to have bought in to a lot of the historical revisionism that is going on amidst SBC life. Of course, he is a soul and competent to believe as he wishes.
[With commentary]
Those who do not know their past are doomed to repeat it.
[Or those who do know their past are trying to change it.]
It’s an old cliché, and a bit of an oversimplification. But it also has a ring of the prophetic to it, especially in the context of Christian ministry. There have been many times that the church has made tremendous mistakes, mistakes that could have been avoided if Christian leadership had known their history (not least the history of the early church recorded in the New Testament).
For many Christians, the past is about what happened “back then,” offering little light to illumine our contemporary context. This mentality frequently crops up when I hear seminary students claim that they don’t want to take a course in Baptist history. The reasons are legion.
To be fair, some of these students just think history in general is boring, and while I cannot relate to their preference, a fair number of people are just wired to think that way. But many students I talk to claim that Baptist history is also irrelevant to their current or future local church ministries. Baptist history is about what people did in the past; seminary students want to know what they should do in ministry now. Baptist history is accused of being about names and dates, and the only statistics many seminarians care about are baptismal statistics. Baptist history is by nature at least somewhat sectarian, and many seminarians are committed to a decidedly post-denominational (which is really anti-denominational) identity. In short, Baptist history -- and church history in general -- is not necessary in preparing an individual for ministry.
I want to be clear that I do not believe Baptist history is the most important class that seminary students should take; far from it. Classes in biblical exegesis, systematic theology and ethics are significantly more important. Nor do I think that those who are already pastors should spend as much time reading Baptist history as they read theology or biblical studies. But I do believe that a good deal of the animosity toward Baptist history is a result of two unhealthy attitudes: the glorification of the practical and the trivialization of the old.
[No, its very practical and up-to-date: it was just written this year.]
We live in a “results-now” culture, often even our evangelical and Southern Baptist culture. People have little patience with any task that requires serious time, reflection or effort. [“Just because the Conservative Resurgence has not produced any results in the past quarter century doesn’t mean it won’t produce results in the next century. We have to be patient.] Seminarians with this attitude are not just opposed to Baptist history, but to almost any class that is not in the areas of practical theology like preaching, evangelism, missions, church education and administration. Unlike those disciplines, Baptist history doesn’t facilitate the ministries of the church nor does it get people saved.
We also live in a culture where old is equated with irrelevant. The result is rushing to buy all the newest gadgets, books or cars. Having an item that is older is somehow less virtuous than owning something brand new. Seminarians with this mentality are only interested in the newest works of theology, biblical studies or church health because what people were saying or thinking hundreds of years ago (or even a generation ago) doesn’t work in our contemporary ministry context.
This aversion to Baptist history on the part of many seminarians and pastors has led to many problems in Southern Baptist life.
[Yes, the Conservative Resurgence to name one.]
Many moderate and liberal Baptists forgot, ignored or redefined historic Baptist theological distinctives. [Now wer’re getting to it.] Two generations of seminary students were taught that “being Baptist meant freedom.” [i.e., soul competency] Incidentally, this idea of freedom had a lot more to do with Enlightenment individualism than it did freedom from sin or religious tyranny [freedom of sin is okay but not freedom of worship is not]. The results of this vision of Baptist identity include a deficient view of biblical authority [people don’t believe we can’t make them believe our interpretations of scripture], a radical view of individualism, a nigh unto secularist view of religious liberty [that people can not be forced to convert] and a softening of the historic Baptist understanding of the ordinances, particularly believer’s baptism by immersion [this latter one is one of the excuse for why our Baptisms have been declining. We’re actually reaching a lot of people for Christ but we are not Baptizing properly so they can be recorded. If only! No, if the pre-Resurgent convention was lax on all of this stuff why were their Baptism rates higher?]. Some segments of Southern Baptist life remain infected with the moderate virus, while others are still on the mend. [i.e., we’re still kicking people who believe in soul-competency out.]
But moderates have not been the only ones to ignore Baptist history to their peril. Many conservatives have bought into ministry practices that are not compatible with the historic Baptist (and biblical) way of doing church [Of course]. Some churches have rejected congregational polity in favor of models that draw from hierarchical denominations or mirror trends in corporate America. When a prominent church in another Baptist denomination recently considered eliminating immersion as a membership requirement, some Southern Baptist congregations began to do the same. Some churches are baptizing children as young as three or four. Many congregations downplay the significance of regenerate church membership and virtually ignore church discipline [Notice these are conservative churches he’s talking about here and not the “moderate” ones. Heck, childhood Baptisms are ¾ of all current SBC Baptisms. What would the rate be like if we didn’t Baptize them?].
If pastors and seminarians knew more about Baptist history, they would be better equipped to avoid the mistakes of the past and incorporate helpful insights from previous eras [Mistakes of the past? He’s talking about mistakes of the present. He’s talking about mistakes that are keeping declining conversion rates from plummeting like the stock market]. I want to suggest three quick ways Baptist history can be useful to local church ministry:
-- Matters of theological conviction.
Every church leader is faced with difficult questions that require godly wisdom and biblical reflection. Historic Baptist confessions of faith and catechisms can aid a pastor as he wrestles with weighty issues. Though these historic documents are not inspired [including the 2000 BFM], many of them are wonderful summaries of what the inspired and infallible Scriptures teach. Pastors (and congregations) only stand to benefit by becoming acquainted with our confessional tradition. Most of these documents are widely available on the Internet.
[It must be said that confessions and other historic documents which record the beliefs of believers through Church history is extremely important for many reasons, most of which I will not go into here. However, as this astute doctoral student knows, confessions are not Scripture; they are fallible interpretations of the infallible Scripture made fallible men. To this extent, confessions are not on the same level of Scripture. However, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church believe that the Church’s interpretation of Scripture is equal to the meaning of Scripture, meaning that the Church correctly interprets all of Scripture. That the Church as a whole is rarely in agreement on any matter of Scriptural interpretation appears to miss the point. The point they make is that the “true” Church and those “legitimate” successors of the apostles accurately interpret Scripture (which reminds me of Paul’s “true sons of Abraham”). But when Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and others began to read the Scriptures for themselves they began to arrive at conclusions different from that of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther, in particular, began to believe that the leaders of the RCC were incorrect in their interpretation of Scripture. When confronting the church leaders with what Luther believed to be the true interpretation of Scripture, the leaders did not respond by saying that they or their traditions were above Scripture, but that they and their traditions correctly interpreted Scripture. For Luther et al to disagree with the RCC’s interpretation of Scripture was then to disagree with Scripture itself. Luther responded that the Church had put their traditional interpretations of Scripture at the same level as the true meaning of Scripture. Luther basically said: “Scripture alone is the authority in our faith and not the church leaders’ interpretation of that Scripture.” Therefore, according to Protestant Reform tradition, confessions and traditions are not binding upon the believer or the believer’s faith in God. For example: I can sign the 2000 BFM or an Abstract of Principles stating that I will TEACH only within the parameters of these documents, but I am not required to BELIEVE that this document is authoritative. One of the main problem with much of Church history is the error of many believers and church leaders equating one’s interpretation with the actual meaning of Scripture; those aren’t always the same thing. And the problems come when many Christians begin to hold to certain interpretations of Scripture simply because they are the traditional ones. This is what Jesus meant when He scolded the Pharisees for holding to the “traditions of men” rather than the commandments of God (Matt 15:2-6; Mark 7:3-13. See also Paul in Gal 1:14 and Col. 2:8). In fact, Jesus never had anything good to say about tradition (I think He may have known its perils) and Paul only talks positively about the “traditions” he has just “handed over” to the churches (1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thes 2:15, 3:6). And think about the Pharisees that Jesus criticized: they did not believe that their traditions conflicted with the Scriptures; on the contrary, they believed that their traditions were compatible with the Scriptures because the Scriptures taught and supported what the traditions were. Now read the book of Acts: the Christians in Acts are constantly speaking about Christ and the Kingdom and basing the reality of both from what God had done as revealed in Scripture. The apostles were arguing that the Scriptures prophesied and confirmed what was happening with Christ and His Church. However, the Jews heard what the apostles and other Christians were preaching and screamed, “Heresy!” Why? Because their traditional interpretations of the Scriptures were at odds with the interpretation that the apostles were preaching. Notice that the Pharisees and Jews do not say, “Those Christians have an incorrect view of Scripture.” No, the Jewish leaders argued the Christians were teaching what was contradictory to the law of Moses. Notice the leaders did not say that the Christians didn’t believe in THEIR interpretations of Scripture. Rather, these religious leaders said” They don’t believe in the Scriptures; they’re teaching what is contrary to God’s revelation” (Acts 6:11; 18:13; 21:21). They believed that their interpretation of Scripture was the meaning of Scripture and anyone who disagreed with them was disagreeing with God. They had made their traditional interpretations of Scripture equal with Scripture. Their confession and creed was the only confession and creed and all else was heresy. This is what happened with Luther and the Roman Catholic Church. The RCC confession and creed was the only confession and creed and all else was heresy. So while confessions are important for understanding Church history, confessions must never become creeds that dictate the beliefs of believers because they are man-made and fallible. And we are not to put the traditions of man on the level of Scripture.]
-- Matters of church health.
In a day when method often trumps message, pastors do not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to what constitutes a healthy church. Historically, Baptists have written extensively about the doctrine of the church. In fact, many of our Baptist distinctives are nothing more than the uniquely Baptist way of doing church. As many seminarians and younger pastors especially consider the merits of postmodern ministry models, it should be important to remember that those who have gone before us have much to offer in the area of church health. “Contemporary” issues like church discipline, membership requirements and church structure have all been studied from a historical perspective by Southern Baptist scholars like Greg Wills, Stan Norman, John Hammett and Mark Dever. [Notice he didn’t mention Baker, Barnes, Estep, McBeth, Stookey, Spivey or Bullock.]
-- Matters of Christian edification.
Most pastors have occasion to recommend edifying books to their congregations. Christian biography can be a tremendous source of both spiritual nourishment and ministry insight. What pastor cannot learn something new by reading one of the many good biographies of Charles Spurgeon? What youth wouldn’t be encouraged by reading Timothy George’s fine biography of William Carey? What WMU director wouldn’t be inspired by reading through Keith Harper’s edited collections of the letters of Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong? [Russell Dilday? Ralph Elliott?]
Baptist history is critically important for Baptist ministry. Our history tells us where we have been, provides perspective to where we are and helps instruct us in where we are going. Seminarians, enjoy your Baptist history class. May it help you learn more about who you are and how you can better serve the church. Pastors, add a little Baptist history to your regular reading. May it encourage you in your faith and provide insights into how to build a healthier church. And let’s all pray that the sovereign Lord of history would teach us how we can turn our world upside down with the Gospel.
Baptist Confessions
“Many moderate and liberal Baptists forgot, ignored or redefined historic Baptist theological distinctives. Two generations of seminary students were taught that “being Baptist meant freedom.”
I have mentioned that members of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia are striving to replace the historically recognized Baptist distinctive of “soul competency” with Biblical fidelity and inerrancy. If they are saying that “moderate and liberal Baptists forgot, ignored or redefined historic Baptist theological distinctives, teaching two generations of seminary students that ‘being Baptist meant freedom,’” then we should then suppose that prior to these two generations or so we would not be able find such the idea of “soul competency” or “being Baptist meant freedom” as a distinctive in the earlier Baptist and Southern Baptist documents. Sound reasonable?
So I looked at Baptist Distinctives by White (1946), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. Then I looked at The Southern Baptist Convention by Barnes (1934), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. Then I looked all the way back at What Baptists Believe by Wallace (1913), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. So I went all the way back to Baptists Why and Why Not (1900), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. This particular book (written prior to the 1924 BFM and at the turn of the century) further states that because “being Baptist meant freedom” then “the Church should not interpret Scripture for others.”
But this is only the first half of the 20th century. What about the previous 300 years of Baptist History? With the subjects of Baptist distinctives and confessions in mind, I decided to look through all the historical Baptist confessions (even going back to the Anabaptists) and ascertain the recorded beliefs of the past with regards to soul competency and the Scriptures. What I found was somewhat startling to an inerrantist like myself.
The best resource for such a venture is Baptist Confessions of Faith, by W. L. Lumpkin.
Starting with our Anabaptist ancestors we have this:
Eighteen Dissertations Concerning the Entire Christian Life (1524) – Dissertation Eight
“Since every Christian believes for himself and is baptized for himself, everyone must see and judge by the Scriptures whether he is being properly nourished by his pastor.”
Notice the evident reference to “soul competency” in this article. The subject of Baptism only appears here and in an article referring to the fact that we are “baptized” into Christ.
The Waterland Confession (1540) – Article Five
“Now in the same man, fallen and perverted, was a faculty of hearing, admitting or rejecting the good, occurring and offered by God. For just as before the fall, hearing and admitting occurring evil, he manifested the faculty of admitting it, so also after the fall, by hearing and admitting occurring good he shows that he has the faculty of accepting it. But that faculty of accepting or rejecting the grace of God truly offered, remains, through grace, in all his posterity.”
In this Anabaptist Confession we see the rejection of any Calvinism and the focus on the individual believer.
To save time (you can look all this up yourself) I’ll just run through the confessions:
The Schleitheim Confession (1527) - Scriptures not mentioned
Discipline of the Church (1527) - Scriptures not mentioned
The Waterland Confession (1540) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that they are authority on matters “salvation only”. Inerrency ideas are completely rejected. (2)
A Short Confession of Faith (1610) “only tells us about Christ and God” The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that they “only tell us about Christ and God” and are authority on matters “salvation only”. Inerrency ideas are completely rejected.
A Declaration of Faith of English People Remaining at Amsterdam (1611) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that “Scripture speaks about Christ.” Inerrency ideas are completely rejected.
Propositions and Conclusions Concerning True Christian Religion (1612) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that the Scriptures “teach God only in effect. Again, Inerrency ideas are completely rejected.
The Dordrecht Confession (1632) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that only the New Testament is authoritative, again in matters of salvation only.
… and so on and so on.
In fact, even the New Hampshire Confession of Faith (1833), the confession that Mullins reworked into the first Southern Baptist Faith and Message in 1924 refers to the Scriptures as speaking of “salvation only”.
It’s not until the 20th century that one can find a Baptist confession that speaks about verbal inspiration of Scripture and issues of inerrancy (Doctrinal Statements of the North American Baptist Association, 1905).
From all the evidence that emerges from the history of Baptists and inerrancy, it would seem that the issue of inerrancy and the Southern Baptist focus on Scripture apart from the individual’s competency to read Scripture for his or her self did not develop until late in the 19th century. Up until this time, Baptists and Southern Baptists in particular considered the Scriptures to be authoritative in matters of SALVATION ONLY. Historically, Baptists believed that the Scriptures reveal what man cannot know in of themselves, i.e. God.
The conservative shift from infallibility (in matters of salvation) to inerrancy (in all matters) appears to have begun first in the United States after the introduction of Darwin into American society and thought. While all American denominations were wrestling with the implications of Darwin’s theory to matters of the Faith, the Southern American denominations, still reeling from the effects of the Civil War, including the SBC, were quite vitriol in their opposition to the theory, particularly those from the Landmark wing of the Church. On the other hand, with supreme historical and theological irony, the doctrine of inerrancy was being formulated at Princeton by the likes of B. B. Warfield, a staunch inerrantist who sought to integrate evolution with Genesis.
To Warfield and the other theologians who attempted to demonstrate that the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy was simply orthodox Christian teaching, and not merely a concept invented in the nineteenth century, they were willing to accept that Darwin’s theory was true, provided that one believe that God was the one who guided the process of natural selection in order to create the various species. For Warfield, this came from his avid interest in amateur science and led to him being both a convinced Calvinist and a convinced theistic Evolutionist.
Therefore, there appears to be sufficient proof to prove that “inerrancy” was a doctrine that was developed near the turn in the 20th century and not put into Christian confessions until well into that century. Up until that time, the Church viewed the Bible as teaching and revealing about God, Christ and salvation ONLY. All other matters (such as modernistic conceptions of history, geology, geography, botany, zoology, biology, astronomy and psychology) were not considered within the purview of Scripture.
Now I am a conservative but I am not a strict traditionalists. This means that while I take Christian traditions very seriously I do not allow these traditions to govern my Faith and my reading of Scripture. Therefore, I will NOT side with the overwhelming majority of believers and theologians of church history and, instead, continue to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.
However, I WILL side with the overwhelming majority of Baptist believers and theologians of Baptist history and, instead, continue to believe in the doctrine of Soul Compentency. I have the freedom to do both.
Therefore, Soul Competency is the Baptist distinctive. It distinguishes Baptists from all other believers in Christ. Despite post-modern attempts at historical revision, the confessions and writings of Baptists for the first 400 years of Baptist life still state that soul competency is the Baptist distinctive and not inerrancy. Furthermore, inerrancy as a doctrine of the church is a relatively recent development that is unsupported in the confessions and teachings of Baptist life.
I am sorry if history does not coincide with your personal vision of what reality should be. You can go to the Scriptures to find your own version of the truth … but I think you will have even less luck there.
(1) Allow me to be tangentially within my academic freedom. Recently, some have asserted that Soul Competency is not the Baptist Distinctive but have asserted that Baptism is the Baptist Distinctive, more precisely, “believers Baptism”.
1) baptism for believers only
2) baptism by immersion alone;
3)baptism based upon one’s profession of faith;
4)baptism as a meaningful symbolic representation of personal conversion;
5)baptism as a faith commitment;
6)baptism as an ethical commitment;
7)baptism into a local congregation;
8)baptism as participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ;
9)baptism as identification with the one God who is yet three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
10)baptism as a public testimony to regeneration.
It is certainly true that “believers Baptism” is a Baptist Distinctive but this is only half true, only part of what made and makes Baptists distinctive from other Christian bodies of believers. To say that Baptism is THE Baptist distinctive and not Soul Competency is akin to arguing that the Trinity is not the Christian distinctive, Christ is. Why would someone argue the latter?
1) The word “Trinity” does not appear in the New Testament.
2) Christians are called Christians and not Trinitarians.
3) That person lists a whole number of views about Christ.
a. Jesus Christ is the Messiah
b. Jesus Christ is Lord
c. Jesus Christ is Savior
d. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin.
e. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh of Man
f. Under no other name can one be saved.
g. Jesus Christ died and resurrected.
h. Jesus Christ ascended to heaven
i. Jesus Christ will physically return
Now all of this is certainly true but it doesn’t exhaust the Christian confession and its religious distinctive. To say that Christ is THE Christian distinctive is only half true. Why? Because the Christian confession Christ is the spoke extends from the Trinitarian hub. That God is Father, Son, Spirit is THE Christian distinctive. Only this view explains and legitimizes the confession on Christ. Only this view explains and legitimizes the confession of the Holy Spirit.
Just ask yourself: Why Believers Baptism? Why Local church autonomy? Why Religious Freedom? Why Separation of Church and State? Why the aversion to creeds? Why the congregational model instead of the hierarchal church model of the Roman Catholics, Episcoples, Lutherans, Methodists, etc.? Soul Competency. What, then, is the beginning Baptist distinctive? It is Soul Competency! Soul Competency, I say! Soul Competency is the Baptist Distinctive which leads to all other Baptist Distinctives! Stop looking elsewhere fro who you really are. If you are a Baptist, your beginning distinctive is Soul Competency: Soul Competency for believers Baptism; Soul Competency for local church autonomy; Soul Competency for Religious Freedom; Soul Competency for Separation of Church and State; Soul Competency for confessions and not creeds; Soul Competency for congregational lead churches and not hierarchal dictatorships. Soul Competency! Soul Competency! Soul Competency! Without Soul Competency all the other Baptist distinctives are disconnected and meaningless. My friends, give a believer an open Bible and you will get Soul Competency every time. Soul Competency is the beginning Baptist distinctive.
(2) – Allow me again to be tangentially within my academic freedom. Recently, some have asserted that the Bible is inerrant in matters of science and history. Unfortunately, such an idea is without either Scriptural or historical support.
But what if it were true? Why stop with history and “science”? Why not botany? Geography? Geology, arithmetic, nutrition, architecture, art, etc. Why not?
If Jesus says that “the grain of the mustard seed is the smallest grain of seed" (perhaps referring specifically to the smallest seed that man plants in the earth for consumption) is that inerrant or errant? Is the “the grain of the mustard seed the smallest grain of seed”? Well, science can prove that it isn’t and no Christian doubts that to be the case. So, was Jesus wrong? Did He err? Did He know the truth and lie to everyone? … Or was Jesus making a point about the Kingdom of God and used the grain of the mustard seed as an illustration because it was common knowledge at the time that the grain of the mustard seed was the smallest grain seed? That that “common knowledge” is wrong is not Jesus fault. Does the Son of God have to address everyone’s botanical view of God’s creation before He can make an illustration? You know, I really do not see too much instances in the Bible where God attempts to address Man’s lack of knowledge about God’s creation. The Almighty seems much more interested in addressing Man’s knowledge of God and Man. Man can learn about God’s creation Himself; God is more interested in teaching what Man cannot know: God.
So let’s look at Eden. Is God attempting to correct the scientific and cosmological understanding of Man or is He attempting to correct the theological understanding of Man. Really, if God was attempting to give an accurate depiction of the cosmos He did not do a very good job at all. However, if God was attempting to set Man’s knowledge of Him and Man right, He did a fabulous job, i.e., inspiration.
And it’s a little unfair to impose upon the Bible writers 21st century understandings of reality that they could not possibly know. And its even more unfair to expect the Holy Spirit to tell us what we want to know and write what we want to be written. Let God be God. Let His Scriptures be His Scriptures. And let the Church and Baptist History be Church and Baptist History.
So the next time someone states that the Scriptures have to be scientifically and historically accurate in terms of 20th century standards ask the following question: WHY?
Some of the first people to go were the old time professors: people like Moody, Stagg, McBeth, Estep, etc. These Southern Baptist professors were considered liberal by many so whatever caused them to go “liberal” was the problem. We can also include into this distinguished company Ralph Elliott who was kicked out of the SBC for a theological book on Genesis in 1962. Therefore the “problem” did not simply come about in the seventies but had preceded the 1960s. We can also see this in the fact that SBC president H. H. Hobbs responded to the 1962 “Genesis Controversy” by drafting the 1963 BFM. Of course, in order to make a case for why the 2000 BFM was necessary, the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia had to not just prove that certain additional elements were needed but that, in fact, certain elements needed to be retracted, namely that Southern Baptists use Jesus Christ as our method for interpreting the Old Testament. We used to be able to say, “No, that OT verse doesn’t apply to us because of what Jesus says.” Now, of course, we do not use Jesus to interpret the OT so ALL the OT applies to us no matter what Jesus may say. In fact, now the OT and NT say whatever the drafters of the 2000 BFM says it says. But in order to remove such a vital point of the 1963 BFM, the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia had to make the case that the aspect that they wished to remove was not just misused but that it was placed in there in order to promote heresy. Therefore, months leading up to the adoption of the 2000 BFM, the Baptist Press and other Baptist state papers published numerous articles about how the 1963 BFM was purposely designed to bring heresy into the SBC and promote the errancy of Scripture. And so, Hobbs got a lot of blame for codifying liberalism into the SBC. That Hobbs was an uncompromising inerrantist never seemed to matter.
But from where did Hobbs, Elliott, Moody and the rest obtain their “liberalism”? Well, if one reads Hobbs explanation about the 1963 BFM and his editing of E.Y. Mullins’s The Axioms of Religion, one comes across the topic of Soul Competency.
The legendary president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Dr. E.Y. Mullins (1860-1928), called Soul Competency “the distinctive Baptist belief.”
Let us give some background on Mullins: He was a Reformed evangelical who served as president of both the Southern Baptist Convention and its Southern Seminary. He resisted fundamentalist efforts to split the SBC and, to preserve unity, re-fashioned the New Hampshire Confession into the Baptist Faith and Message in 1925. Mullins wrote against "creedalism" and saw experience as vital for confirming faith. Titles: The Axioms of Religion; Baptist Beliefs; The Christian Religion in Its Doctrinal Expression.
(It did not escape the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia that Hobbs was a devoted follower of Mullins and that people like Moody and Elliott went to Southern Seminary.)
But what is soul competency?
Norman Cox has a nice, poetic definition in his book We Southern Baptists.
“The Bible positively affirms that
God in creation invested man
(human beings) with the
privilege, ability, and
responsibility of choice. (Every
person) He is competent to obey
or disobey God. God has given
to every (human being) man the
right to spiritual self-
determination. He is free to
choose, but he is bound by the
consequence of his choice."
Cox is saying that God created all of us as autonomous beings endowed with the ability to experience God for ourselves.
The word "soul" is first met in the scriptures in Genesis 2:7: “And God breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul.” A better translation of the Hebrew word nephesh reads, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” The word nephesh does not refer to some component of the human being. Nephesh is the animating, life giving power that makes us alive.
Now the word "competency" refers to skill or aptitude or faculty. God made Man with the ability to enjoy a relationship with God. In that relationship we are addressed, we are loved, we are empowered. God has made us competent to experience God as Being, as soul.
This is why Baptists have insisted for years on personal conversion. We don't believe that people can be saved by their parents, by their loved ones, by their Sunday School class, by sitting in church, by being baptized. No. Soul competency, this distinctive belief of Baptists, majors on personal conversion. An individual must come to the place where he or she discovers that he or she is loved, wanted, forgiven and can be saved by a response to Jesus Christ. God has given us that ability. We call it soul competency.
Baptists are believers who have insisted that no matter what it is you feel controls you, God has not withdrawn from you the ability and the responsibility to choose. You can choose. You are responsible. There are people who can help you make that choice, but that is a choice you cannot abdicate or ignore. The word is responsibility.
Many people come to church week after week who never unite with the church. And for many, the difficulty in not coming into the Baptist family of faith has to do with believer's baptism by immersion. This Baptist distinctive of soul competency is the primary reason Baptists historically and presently reject infant baptism. Baptists have said, “No person can decide another's faith.” Your parents choose to give you good rearing in a Christian church that may not practice believer's baptism and they presented you to the church, and you were sprinkled in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. What Baptists have said is, “baptism is immersion in water by a believer who has confessed Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord by the free volition of his or her own soul.”
That’s why Baptists rejected forced conversions in favor of freedom of religion. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists reject infant baptism in favor of believer’s baptism. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists reject state-run churches in favor of separation of church and state. No one can decide what church you will go to. Meaning, no one can decide what you will believe by forcing you to go to that church. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists have in the past rejected denominationally run churches in favor of local church autonomy. Meaning, no one can decide what a local group of believers will believe by running the local church from the outside and forcing the church to believe a certain way. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists have in the past rejected creeds in favor of confessions and abstracts of principles. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
That’s why Baptists have in the past rejected hierarchal interpretive leadership that enforces a particular interpretation of Scripture upon everyone else. No one can decide what you will believe. You must decide for yourself. Soul Competency.
Mullins recognized soul competency as the hub of Baptist theology and practice. Everything else — priesthood of the believer, local church autonomy, separation of church and state, regenerant church membership, believer’s baptism — was spoke and rim.
What is explicit here is “freedom of the will.” It is no coincidence that the Calvinist-wing of the SBC has always disliked Mullins and the doctrine of Soul Competency.
Southern Seminary President, committee member of the 2000 BFM and well-known Calvinist Al Mohler blames Mullins for much of Baptists’ reputed theological drift. Mullins elevated personal experience above revelation, according to Mohler, making the authority of Scripture secondary. Mullins, who chaired the committee that produced the original Baptist Faith and Message statement, “set the stage for doctrinal ambiguity and theological minimalism,” says Mohler. Soul competency, he continues, is “an acid dissolving religious authority, congregationalism, confessionalism and mutual theological accountability.” (1)
Now the doctrine of the “priest hood of the believer” (“priest hood of ALL believerS” when talking to the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia) is a subset doctrine of soul-competency but which deals specifically with the individual believer and not the individual human (whether believer or unbeliever). This doctrine focuses only on believers.
First, the doctrine means that all believers have direct access to God through faith in Jesus Christ without the need of any other human mediator. Second, it means that all believers are called to be priests, ministering to one another and sharing the love of God in the world.
It should be evident now why the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia really dislike Mullins and blame him for all the “problems” that they saw with the “Golden Age” of the SBC.
People can now pick up the Scriptures and read them for themselves and arrive at conclusions of what they mean. This does not mean that a person should not read books and commentaries, attend classes, or hear sermons. What it does mean is that these resources cannot force you to believe it if you think that such a belief is wrong.
The Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia have cried foul because most people have not believed what they believe and this intelligentsia have only gotten their way by forcing others to believe this way. (The irony of this is that while the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia have gotten their way by forcing other people to conform to their wills, they then cry foul at secular liberals and others who have gotten their way in the American culture by “activist judges” and not by democratic representatives.) Hence, the 2000 BFM. Hence, the mass firings at the seminaries and various SBC agencies and ( soon to come) the Baptist state colleges. Hence, the move to keep “charismatics” from being missionaries, even when they do so PRIVATELY. Hence, the down playing of soul-competency (though it’s still there). Hence, the down-playing of the Prologue to the 1963 BFM that is still a part of the 2000 BFM (though recent copies of that document for public consumption do not include it).
Hence, the strong emphasis on accountability and church discipline when it comes to DOCTRINE, but rarely when it comes to SIN. The only time sin comes into play is when someone’s doctrine is suspect. And, hence, numerous articles, books, and lectures designed to trash Mullins and his ilk.
I remember reading one paper that attempted to prove Mullins was dangerous. It said that “the phrase soul competency” doesn’t appear in Scripture.” Though neither does “Trinity.” Both are terms created by the Church to describe the doctrines of Scripture. It said that “Mullins was influenced Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of liberalism.” How he was influenced was never discussed; the purpose of mentioning Schleiermacher in passing was to throw mud on Mullins by linking him with a known liberal. This method is later applied in the rest of the argument by linking Mullins to Hobbs, Dilday and others. How Dilday was influenced by Mullins is not discussed because that was not the point of the paper. The point was to tarnish people and not explain individuals. It was a really lousy paper that did not understand Mullins at all because it wasn’t designed to understand but, rather, to throw mud and ink and link present individual to liberals like Scheiermacher. Yes, the author was a member of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia.
The point of all of this is to say that the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia really wants people to believe as they believe. So much so that they took over a convention and assumed powers designed to force conformity among all to what THEY believe. Soul competency was and is a great threat to them. It gives people the knowledge that they do not have to believe what the beliefs of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia. As a Baptist distinctive it gives people the historical and traditional basis for not believing the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia.
Therefore, convincing the people that Soul Competency is not THE Baptist distinctive has been a high priority.
So much so that when a seminary becomes a part of the domain of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia, the historians, particularly the Baptist historians, are the first to be fired. So much so that the Baptist Heritage classes have dropped older curriculum that discusses the last 400 years of Baptist life and, instead, focused on the last 25 years of the resurgence. So much so that Conservative Resurgent historians are busy writing history books to replace the older ones that attempt to prove that THE Baptist distinctive is not Soul Competency but doctrinal fidelity.
Which brings me to this recent article in the Baptist Press by a Ph.D. student in church history and associate archivist at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. This guy, I’m sure, is alright and a great Christian believer but he appears to have bought in to a lot of the historical revisionism that is going on amidst SBC life. Of course, he is a soul and competent to believe as he wishes.
[With commentary]
Those who do not know their past are doomed to repeat it.
[Or those who do know their past are trying to change it.]
It’s an old cliché, and a bit of an oversimplification. But it also has a ring of the prophetic to it, especially in the context of Christian ministry. There have been many times that the church has made tremendous mistakes, mistakes that could have been avoided if Christian leadership had known their history (not least the history of the early church recorded in the New Testament).
For many Christians, the past is about what happened “back then,” offering little light to illumine our contemporary context. This mentality frequently crops up when I hear seminary students claim that they don’t want to take a course in Baptist history. The reasons are legion.
To be fair, some of these students just think history in general is boring, and while I cannot relate to their preference, a fair number of people are just wired to think that way. But many students I talk to claim that Baptist history is also irrelevant to their current or future local church ministries. Baptist history is about what people did in the past; seminary students want to know what they should do in ministry now. Baptist history is accused of being about names and dates, and the only statistics many seminarians care about are baptismal statistics. Baptist history is by nature at least somewhat sectarian, and many seminarians are committed to a decidedly post-denominational (which is really anti-denominational) identity. In short, Baptist history -- and church history in general -- is not necessary in preparing an individual for ministry.
I want to be clear that I do not believe Baptist history is the most important class that seminary students should take; far from it. Classes in biblical exegesis, systematic theology and ethics are significantly more important. Nor do I think that those who are already pastors should spend as much time reading Baptist history as they read theology or biblical studies. But I do believe that a good deal of the animosity toward Baptist history is a result of two unhealthy attitudes: the glorification of the practical and the trivialization of the old.
[No, its very practical and up-to-date: it was just written this year.]
We live in a “results-now” culture, often even our evangelical and Southern Baptist culture. People have little patience with any task that requires serious time, reflection or effort. [“Just because the Conservative Resurgence has not produced any results in the past quarter century doesn’t mean it won’t produce results in the next century. We have to be patient.] Seminarians with this attitude are not just opposed to Baptist history, but to almost any class that is not in the areas of practical theology like preaching, evangelism, missions, church education and administration. Unlike those disciplines, Baptist history doesn’t facilitate the ministries of the church nor does it get people saved.
We also live in a culture where old is equated with irrelevant. The result is rushing to buy all the newest gadgets, books or cars. Having an item that is older is somehow less virtuous than owning something brand new. Seminarians with this mentality are only interested in the newest works of theology, biblical studies or church health because what people were saying or thinking hundreds of years ago (or even a generation ago) doesn’t work in our contemporary ministry context.
This aversion to Baptist history on the part of many seminarians and pastors has led to many problems in Southern Baptist life.
[Yes, the Conservative Resurgence to name one.]
Many moderate and liberal Baptists forgot, ignored or redefined historic Baptist theological distinctives. [Now wer’re getting to it.] Two generations of seminary students were taught that “being Baptist meant freedom.” [i.e., soul competency] Incidentally, this idea of freedom had a lot more to do with Enlightenment individualism than it did freedom from sin or religious tyranny [freedom of sin is okay but not freedom of worship is not]. The results of this vision of Baptist identity include a deficient view of biblical authority [people don’t believe we can’t make them believe our interpretations of scripture], a radical view of individualism, a nigh unto secularist view of religious liberty [that people can not be forced to convert] and a softening of the historic Baptist understanding of the ordinances, particularly believer’s baptism by immersion [this latter one is one of the excuse for why our Baptisms have been declining. We’re actually reaching a lot of people for Christ but we are not Baptizing properly so they can be recorded. If only! No, if the pre-Resurgent convention was lax on all of this stuff why were their Baptism rates higher?]. Some segments of Southern Baptist life remain infected with the moderate virus, while others are still on the mend. [i.e., we’re still kicking people who believe in soul-competency out.]
But moderates have not been the only ones to ignore Baptist history to their peril. Many conservatives have bought into ministry practices that are not compatible with the historic Baptist (and biblical) way of doing church [Of course]. Some churches have rejected congregational polity in favor of models that draw from hierarchical denominations or mirror trends in corporate America. When a prominent church in another Baptist denomination recently considered eliminating immersion as a membership requirement, some Southern Baptist congregations began to do the same. Some churches are baptizing children as young as three or four. Many congregations downplay the significance of regenerate church membership and virtually ignore church discipline [Notice these are conservative churches he’s talking about here and not the “moderate” ones. Heck, childhood Baptisms are ¾ of all current SBC Baptisms. What would the rate be like if we didn’t Baptize them?].
If pastors and seminarians knew more about Baptist history, they would be better equipped to avoid the mistakes of the past and incorporate helpful insights from previous eras [Mistakes of the past? He’s talking about mistakes of the present. He’s talking about mistakes that are keeping declining conversion rates from plummeting like the stock market]. I want to suggest three quick ways Baptist history can be useful to local church ministry:
-- Matters of theological conviction.
Every church leader is faced with difficult questions that require godly wisdom and biblical reflection. Historic Baptist confessions of faith and catechisms can aid a pastor as he wrestles with weighty issues. Though these historic documents are not inspired [including the 2000 BFM], many of them are wonderful summaries of what the inspired and infallible Scriptures teach. Pastors (and congregations) only stand to benefit by becoming acquainted with our confessional tradition. Most of these documents are widely available on the Internet.
[It must be said that confessions and other historic documents which record the beliefs of believers through Church history is extremely important for many reasons, most of which I will not go into here. However, as this astute doctoral student knows, confessions are not Scripture; they are fallible interpretations of the infallible Scripture made fallible men. To this extent, confessions are not on the same level of Scripture. However, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church believe that the Church’s interpretation of Scripture is equal to the meaning of Scripture, meaning that the Church correctly interprets all of Scripture. That the Church as a whole is rarely in agreement on any matter of Scriptural interpretation appears to miss the point. The point they make is that the “true” Church and those “legitimate” successors of the apostles accurately interpret Scripture (which reminds me of Paul’s “true sons of Abraham”). But when Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and others began to read the Scriptures for themselves they began to arrive at conclusions different from that of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther, in particular, began to believe that the leaders of the RCC were incorrect in their interpretation of Scripture. When confronting the church leaders with what Luther believed to be the true interpretation of Scripture, the leaders did not respond by saying that they or their traditions were above Scripture, but that they and their traditions correctly interpreted Scripture. For Luther et al to disagree with the RCC’s interpretation of Scripture was then to disagree with Scripture itself. Luther responded that the Church had put their traditional interpretations of Scripture at the same level as the true meaning of Scripture. Luther basically said: “Scripture alone is the authority in our faith and not the church leaders’ interpretation of that Scripture.” Therefore, according to Protestant Reform tradition, confessions and traditions are not binding upon the believer or the believer’s faith in God. For example: I can sign the 2000 BFM or an Abstract of Principles stating that I will TEACH only within the parameters of these documents, but I am not required to BELIEVE that this document is authoritative. One of the main problem with much of Church history is the error of many believers and church leaders equating one’s interpretation with the actual meaning of Scripture; those aren’t always the same thing. And the problems come when many Christians begin to hold to certain interpretations of Scripture simply because they are the traditional ones. This is what Jesus meant when He scolded the Pharisees for holding to the “traditions of men” rather than the commandments of God (Matt 15:2-6; Mark 7:3-13. See also Paul in Gal 1:14 and Col. 2:8). In fact, Jesus never had anything good to say about tradition (I think He may have known its perils) and Paul only talks positively about the “traditions” he has just “handed over” to the churches (1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thes 2:15, 3:6). And think about the Pharisees that Jesus criticized: they did not believe that their traditions conflicted with the Scriptures; on the contrary, they believed that their traditions were compatible with the Scriptures because the Scriptures taught and supported what the traditions were. Now read the book of Acts: the Christians in Acts are constantly speaking about Christ and the Kingdom and basing the reality of both from what God had done as revealed in Scripture. The apostles were arguing that the Scriptures prophesied and confirmed what was happening with Christ and His Church. However, the Jews heard what the apostles and other Christians were preaching and screamed, “Heresy!” Why? Because their traditional interpretations of the Scriptures were at odds with the interpretation that the apostles were preaching. Notice that the Pharisees and Jews do not say, “Those Christians have an incorrect view of Scripture.” No, the Jewish leaders argued the Christians were teaching what was contradictory to the law of Moses. Notice the leaders did not say that the Christians didn’t believe in THEIR interpretations of Scripture. Rather, these religious leaders said” They don’t believe in the Scriptures; they’re teaching what is contrary to God’s revelation” (Acts 6:11; 18:13; 21:21). They believed that their interpretation of Scripture was the meaning of Scripture and anyone who disagreed with them was disagreeing with God. They had made their traditional interpretations of Scripture equal with Scripture. Their confession and creed was the only confession and creed and all else was heresy. This is what happened with Luther and the Roman Catholic Church. The RCC confession and creed was the only confession and creed and all else was heresy. So while confessions are important for understanding Church history, confessions must never become creeds that dictate the beliefs of believers because they are man-made and fallible. And we are not to put the traditions of man on the level of Scripture.]
-- Matters of church health.
In a day when method often trumps message, pastors do not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to what constitutes a healthy church. Historically, Baptists have written extensively about the doctrine of the church. In fact, many of our Baptist distinctives are nothing more than the uniquely Baptist way of doing church. As many seminarians and younger pastors especially consider the merits of postmodern ministry models, it should be important to remember that those who have gone before us have much to offer in the area of church health. “Contemporary” issues like church discipline, membership requirements and church structure have all been studied from a historical perspective by Southern Baptist scholars like Greg Wills, Stan Norman, John Hammett and Mark Dever. [Notice he didn’t mention Baker, Barnes, Estep, McBeth, Stookey, Spivey or Bullock.]
-- Matters of Christian edification.
Most pastors have occasion to recommend edifying books to their congregations. Christian biography can be a tremendous source of both spiritual nourishment and ministry insight. What pastor cannot learn something new by reading one of the many good biographies of Charles Spurgeon? What youth wouldn’t be encouraged by reading Timothy George’s fine biography of William Carey? What WMU director wouldn’t be inspired by reading through Keith Harper’s edited collections of the letters of Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong? [Russell Dilday? Ralph Elliott?]
Baptist history is critically important for Baptist ministry. Our history tells us where we have been, provides perspective to where we are and helps instruct us in where we are going. Seminarians, enjoy your Baptist history class. May it help you learn more about who you are and how you can better serve the church. Pastors, add a little Baptist history to your regular reading. May it encourage you in your faith and provide insights into how to build a healthier church. And let’s all pray that the sovereign Lord of history would teach us how we can turn our world upside down with the Gospel.
Baptist Confessions
“Many moderate and liberal Baptists forgot, ignored or redefined historic Baptist theological distinctives. Two generations of seminary students were taught that “being Baptist meant freedom.”
I have mentioned that members of the Conservative Resurgent SBC intelligentsia are striving to replace the historically recognized Baptist distinctive of “soul competency” with Biblical fidelity and inerrancy. If they are saying that “moderate and liberal Baptists forgot, ignored or redefined historic Baptist theological distinctives, teaching two generations of seminary students that ‘being Baptist meant freedom,’” then we should then suppose that prior to these two generations or so we would not be able find such the idea of “soul competency” or “being Baptist meant freedom” as a distinctive in the earlier Baptist and Southern Baptist documents. Sound reasonable?
So I looked at Baptist Distinctives by White (1946), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. Then I looked at The Southern Baptist Convention by Barnes (1934), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. Then I looked all the way back at What Baptists Believe by Wallace (1913), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. So I went all the way back to Baptists Why and Why Not (1900), which states that “being Baptist means freedom”. This particular book (written prior to the 1924 BFM and at the turn of the century) further states that because “being Baptist meant freedom” then “the Church should not interpret Scripture for others.”
But this is only the first half of the 20th century. What about the previous 300 years of Baptist History? With the subjects of Baptist distinctives and confessions in mind, I decided to look through all the historical Baptist confessions (even going back to the Anabaptists) and ascertain the recorded beliefs of the past with regards to soul competency and the Scriptures. What I found was somewhat startling to an inerrantist like myself.
The best resource for such a venture is Baptist Confessions of Faith, by W. L. Lumpkin.
Starting with our Anabaptist ancestors we have this:
Eighteen Dissertations Concerning the Entire Christian Life (1524) – Dissertation Eight
“Since every Christian believes for himself and is baptized for himself, everyone must see and judge by the Scriptures whether he is being properly nourished by his pastor.”
Notice the evident reference to “soul competency” in this article. The subject of Baptism only appears here and in an article referring to the fact that we are “baptized” into Christ.
The Waterland Confession (1540) – Article Five
“Now in the same man, fallen and perverted, was a faculty of hearing, admitting or rejecting the good, occurring and offered by God. For just as before the fall, hearing and admitting occurring evil, he manifested the faculty of admitting it, so also after the fall, by hearing and admitting occurring good he shows that he has the faculty of accepting it. But that faculty of accepting or rejecting the grace of God truly offered, remains, through grace, in all his posterity.”
In this Anabaptist Confession we see the rejection of any Calvinism and the focus on the individual believer.
To save time (you can look all this up yourself) I’ll just run through the confessions:
The Schleitheim Confession (1527) - Scriptures not mentioned
Discipline of the Church (1527) - Scriptures not mentioned
The Waterland Confession (1540) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that they are authority on matters “salvation only”. Inerrency ideas are completely rejected. (2)
A Short Confession of Faith (1610) “only tells us about Christ and God” The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that they “only tell us about Christ and God” and are authority on matters “salvation only”. Inerrency ideas are completely rejected.
A Declaration of Faith of English People Remaining at Amsterdam (1611) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that “Scripture speaks about Christ.” Inerrency ideas are completely rejected.
Propositions and Conclusions Concerning True Christian Religion (1612) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that the Scriptures “teach God only in effect. Again, Inerrency ideas are completely rejected.
The Dordrecht Confession (1632) The Scriptures are mentioned but the confession stresses that only the New Testament is authoritative, again in matters of salvation only.
… and so on and so on.
In fact, even the New Hampshire Confession of Faith (1833), the confession that Mullins reworked into the first Southern Baptist Faith and Message in 1924 refers to the Scriptures as speaking of “salvation only”.
It’s not until the 20th century that one can find a Baptist confession that speaks about verbal inspiration of Scripture and issues of inerrancy (Doctrinal Statements of the North American Baptist Association, 1905).
From all the evidence that emerges from the history of Baptists and inerrancy, it would seem that the issue of inerrancy and the Southern Baptist focus on Scripture apart from the individual’s competency to read Scripture for his or her self did not develop until late in the 19th century. Up until this time, Baptists and Southern Baptists in particular considered the Scriptures to be authoritative in matters of SALVATION ONLY. Historically, Baptists believed that the Scriptures reveal what man cannot know in of themselves, i.e. God.
The conservative shift from infallibility (in matters of salvation) to inerrancy (in all matters) appears to have begun first in the United States after the introduction of Darwin into American society and thought. While all American denominations were wrestling with the implications of Darwin’s theory to matters of the Faith, the Southern American denominations, still reeling from the effects of the Civil War, including the SBC, were quite vitriol in their opposition to the theory, particularly those from the Landmark wing of the Church. On the other hand, with supreme historical and theological irony, the doctrine of inerrancy was being formulated at Princeton by the likes of B. B. Warfield, a staunch inerrantist who sought to integrate evolution with Genesis.
To Warfield and the other theologians who attempted to demonstrate that the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy was simply orthodox Christian teaching, and not merely a concept invented in the nineteenth century, they were willing to accept that Darwin’s theory was true, provided that one believe that God was the one who guided the process of natural selection in order to create the various species. For Warfield, this came from his avid interest in amateur science and led to him being both a convinced Calvinist and a convinced theistic Evolutionist.
Therefore, there appears to be sufficient proof to prove that “inerrancy” was a doctrine that was developed near the turn in the 20th century and not put into Christian confessions until well into that century. Up until that time, the Church viewed the Bible as teaching and revealing about God, Christ and salvation ONLY. All other matters (such as modernistic conceptions of history, geology, geography, botany, zoology, biology, astronomy and psychology) were not considered within the purview of Scripture.
Now I am a conservative but I am not a strict traditionalists. This means that while I take Christian traditions very seriously I do not allow these traditions to govern my Faith and my reading of Scripture. Therefore, I will NOT side with the overwhelming majority of believers and theologians of church history and, instead, continue to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.
However, I WILL side with the overwhelming majority of Baptist believers and theologians of Baptist history and, instead, continue to believe in the doctrine of Soul Compentency. I have the freedom to do both.
Therefore, Soul Competency is the Baptist distinctive. It distinguishes Baptists from all other believers in Christ. Despite post-modern attempts at historical revision, the confessions and writings of Baptists for the first 400 years of Baptist life still state that soul competency is the Baptist distinctive and not inerrancy. Furthermore, inerrancy as a doctrine of the church is a relatively recent development that is unsupported in the confessions and teachings of Baptist life.
I am sorry if history does not coincide with your personal vision of what reality should be. You can go to the Scriptures to find your own version of the truth … but I think you will have even less luck there.
(1) Allow me to be tangentially within my academic freedom. Recently, some have asserted that Soul Competency is not the Baptist Distinctive but have asserted that Baptism is the Baptist Distinctive, more precisely, “believers Baptism”.
1) baptism for believers only
2) baptism by immersion alone;
3)baptism based upon one’s profession of faith;
4)baptism as a meaningful symbolic representation of personal conversion;
5)baptism as a faith commitment;
6)baptism as an ethical commitment;
7)baptism into a local congregation;
8)baptism as participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ;
9)baptism as identification with the one God who is yet three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;
10)baptism as a public testimony to regeneration.
It is certainly true that “believers Baptism” is a Baptist Distinctive but this is only half true, only part of what made and makes Baptists distinctive from other Christian bodies of believers. To say that Baptism is THE Baptist distinctive and not Soul Competency is akin to arguing that the Trinity is not the Christian distinctive, Christ is. Why would someone argue the latter?
1) The word “Trinity” does not appear in the New Testament.
2) Christians are called Christians and not Trinitarians.
3) That person lists a whole number of views about Christ.
a. Jesus Christ is the Messiah
b. Jesus Christ is Lord
c. Jesus Christ is Savior
d. Jesus Christ was born of a virgin.
e. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh of Man
f. Under no other name can one be saved.
g. Jesus Christ died and resurrected.
h. Jesus Christ ascended to heaven
i. Jesus Christ will physically return
Now all of this is certainly true but it doesn’t exhaust the Christian confession and its religious distinctive. To say that Christ is THE Christian distinctive is only half true. Why? Because the Christian confession Christ is the spoke extends from the Trinitarian hub. That God is Father, Son, Spirit is THE Christian distinctive. Only this view explains and legitimizes the confession on Christ. Only this view explains and legitimizes the confession of the Holy Spirit.
Just ask yourself: Why Believers Baptism? Why Local church autonomy? Why Religious Freedom? Why Separation of Church and State? Why the aversion to creeds? Why the congregational model instead of the hierarchal church model of the Roman Catholics, Episcoples, Lutherans, Methodists, etc.? Soul Competency. What, then, is the beginning Baptist distinctive? It is Soul Competency! Soul Competency, I say! Soul Competency is the Baptist Distinctive which leads to all other Baptist Distinctives! Stop looking elsewhere fro who you really are. If you are a Baptist, your beginning distinctive is Soul Competency: Soul Competency for believers Baptism; Soul Competency for local church autonomy; Soul Competency for Religious Freedom; Soul Competency for Separation of Church and State; Soul Competency for confessions and not creeds; Soul Competency for congregational lead churches and not hierarchal dictatorships. Soul Competency! Soul Competency! Soul Competency! Without Soul Competency all the other Baptist distinctives are disconnected and meaningless. My friends, give a believer an open Bible and you will get Soul Competency every time. Soul Competency is the beginning Baptist distinctive.
(2) – Allow me again to be tangentially within my academic freedom. Recently, some have asserted that the Bible is inerrant in matters of science and history. Unfortunately, such an idea is without either Scriptural or historical support.
But what if it were true? Why stop with history and “science”? Why not botany? Geography? Geology, arithmetic, nutrition, architecture, art, etc. Why not?
If Jesus says that “the grain of the mustard seed is the smallest grain of seed" (perhaps referring specifically to the smallest seed that man plants in the earth for consumption) is that inerrant or errant? Is the “the grain of the mustard seed the smallest grain of seed”? Well, science can prove that it isn’t and no Christian doubts that to be the case. So, was Jesus wrong? Did He err? Did He know the truth and lie to everyone? … Or was Jesus making a point about the Kingdom of God and used the grain of the mustard seed as an illustration because it was common knowledge at the time that the grain of the mustard seed was the smallest grain seed? That that “common knowledge” is wrong is not Jesus fault. Does the Son of God have to address everyone’s botanical view of God’s creation before He can make an illustration? You know, I really do not see too much instances in the Bible where God attempts to address Man’s lack of knowledge about God’s creation. The Almighty seems much more interested in addressing Man’s knowledge of God and Man. Man can learn about God’s creation Himself; God is more interested in teaching what Man cannot know: God.
So let’s look at Eden. Is God attempting to correct the scientific and cosmological understanding of Man or is He attempting to correct the theological understanding of Man. Really, if God was attempting to give an accurate depiction of the cosmos He did not do a very good job at all. However, if God was attempting to set Man’s knowledge of Him and Man right, He did a fabulous job, i.e., inspiration.
And it’s a little unfair to impose upon the Bible writers 21st century understandings of reality that they could not possibly know. And its even more unfair to expect the Holy Spirit to tell us what we want to know and write what we want to be written. Let God be God. Let His Scriptures be His Scriptures. And let the Church and Baptist History be Church and Baptist History.
So the next time someone states that the Scriptures have to be scientifically and historically accurate in terms of 20th century standards ask the following question: WHY?
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Inerrant Art
I would like to shed some more light upon the issues of Scriptural inerrancy, literalism and cultural relativity.
The other weekend, the missus and I went to the Kimbell Art Museum to see the Gauguin and Impressionism exhibit (which is a good exhibit to see and which ends on March 26th)
Throughout my observations of the exhibit I was thinking about several things:
1) I was thinking through the implications (both positive and negative) of what would happen if a theologian adopted many of the methods of the artist.
2) I was considering what the next great leap forward in theological studies would be and how it would be done.
3) I was thinking how one’s cultural biases hinder one’s approach to the truth and how one could unhinder one’s self from such biases.
4) I questioned the benefits of exposure to other culture’s understanding of the Christian faith (this was precipitated by my recent exposure to other Christians in Grenada, St. Lucia, and Barbados).
5) Finally, I questioned whether one could unhinder one’s cultural biases by conceiving of theology in different mediums (i.e., a medium other than literature).
It was this last thought that I wish to use as an explanation for the issues of Scriptural inerrancy, literalism and cultural relativity. For less than five minutes after having considered this last thought, I came upon this Egyptian artifact.
It was this exhibit that allowed me to see something very important when it comes to understanding the Old Testament and its Ancient Near Eastern perspective.
The above artifact is an important tomb sculpture dating to the period of the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, around 2400 B.C.E. Standing 14 inches high, it shows a seated court official accompanied by his wife and son. Inscriptions name the principal figure as Ka-nefer, "Overseer of the Craftsmen, Priest of Ptah," and the subsidiary figures as "His wife, the Royal Confidant, Tjen-tety" and "His son, the Overseer of Craftsmen, Khuwy-ptah." Carved from limestone, the figures were originally painted and retain much of their color on the hair and eyes, with traces on the skin, garments, and jewelry.
The sculpture shows Ka-nefer seated on a block chair and wearing a pleated kilt and a collar, the latter perhaps signifying honors. He holds a cylinder (a common symbol of office) in one hand, and is flanked by his kneeling wife and standing son, each shown with one arm affectionately embracing Ka-nefer's lower leg. Ka-nefer is represented much larger than the other figures, following the Egyptian artistic convention of indicating rank and importance through scale. His facial features, especially the broad nose, are most closely paralleled in sculptures from the reign of King Sahure (c. 2458–2446 B.C.E.), which thus provides an approximate date for this work.
Now the people who made this sculpture did not actually believe that Ka-nefer was literally significantly larger than his family. And no one who first saw this sculpture actually believed that he was in fact so large or his family members so small. Therefore, we should not take this as literally true. However, while the literalness of the sculpture should not reasonable be accepted, “the Egyptian artistic convention of indicating rank and importance through scale” conveys a “truth” about this figure. However, since this is a “pagan” sculpture it should certainly not be considered “infallible” or “inerrant”.
However, if God had “breathed” into a sculptor in order to convey His Word through that sculpture, one would assume that such a sculpture would then be “infallible” and/or “inerrant”.
But God did command the creation of certain crafted objects with His strict instructions.
The Table for the Showbread (Ex. 37:10-16)
The Gold Lampstand (Ex. 37:17-24)
The Tabernacle (Ex. 36:8-38)
The Altar of Burnt Offering (Ex. 38:1-7)
And, of course,
The Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25:10-22; 37:1-9)
10 "And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around. 12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in its four corners; two rings shall be on one side, and two rings on the other side. 13 And you shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, that the ark may be carried by them. 15 The poles shall be in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. 16 And you shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you. 17 "You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub at one end, and the other cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it of one piece with the mercy seat. 20 And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another; the faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. 21 You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. 22 And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.” (Ex. 25:10-22)
Bezaleel
Now the crafter of the Ark of the Covenant was Bezaleel, son of Uri and grandson of Hur; a skilled Judahite artisan in all works of metal, wood, and stone and one of the architects of the tabernacle.
What can be said of Bezaleel?
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2 "See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 3 And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, 4 to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, 5 in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship.” (Exodus 31:1-5)
Notice, that Yahweh called Bezaleel and filled him with His Spirit. This is very important: Bezaleel is the first individual in the Scriptures to be mentioned as “filled with the Spirit”. The later prophets and apostles who speak and write the words of God will be referred to as being “filled with the Spirit”.
It is commonly accepted that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Apparently, the Ark of the Covenant and the other artifacts instructed by God were also given by such inspiration.
So the questions beg themselves: Are the Exodus artifacts, including the Ark of the Covenant “infallible” and “inerrant”? And, if so, in what ways were these artifacts “infallible” and “inerrant”?
I am not going to answer these questions, but they are something to consider. Rather I am going to press on with the point I am attempting to make.
The Egptians, as well as the other cultures of the Ancient Near East, often exaggerated, allegorized and symbolized certain aspects of their concrete world in order to make important points. Often these non-literal techniques were applied to religious and historical reality to make important theological, political and ethnic points.
Such methods of interpreting reality were common in all the cultures of the Ancient Near East. In fact, they appear to be common to every Ancient Culture from the Chinese to the Mayans. To this end, we have Egyptian, Mayan, Chinese, Sumerian, and Assyrian kings with exceptionally long reigns.
Here is the Sumerian king list for example:
Early Dynastic I
Ante-diluvian kings, legendary, or earlier than ca. the 26th century BC. Their rules are measured in sars - periods of 3600 years - the next unit up after 60 in Sumerian counting (3600 = 60x60), and in ners - units of 600.
"After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years."
• Alulim of Eridug: 8 sars (28800 years)
• Alalgar of Eridug: 10 sars (36000 years)
• En-Men-Lu-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 12 sars (43200 years)
• En-Men-Ana (?)
• En-Men-Gal-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 8 sars (28800 years)
• Dumuzi of Bad-Tibira, the shepherd: 10 sars (36000 years)
• En-Sipad-Zid-Ana of Larag: 8 sars (28800 years)
• En-Men-Dur-Ana of Zimbir: 5 sars and 5 ners (21000 years)
• Ubara-Tutu of Shuruppag: 5 sars and 1 ner (18600 years)
• Zin-Suddu (?)
Early Dynastic II
ca. 26th century BC. Many rulers known from contemporary inscriptions are not found in the King Lists.
"After the flood had swept over, and the kingship had descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kish."
First Dynasty of Kish
• Jushur of Kish: 1200 years
• Kullassina-bel of Kish: 960 years
• Nangishlishma of Kish: 670 years
• En-Tarah-Ana of Kish: 420 years
• Babum of Kish: 300 years
• Puannum of Kish: 840 years
• Kalibum of Kish: 960 years
• Kalumum of Kish: 840 years
• Zuqaqip of Kish: 900 years
• Atab of Kish: 600 years
• Mashda of Kish: 840 years
• Arwium of Kish: 720 years
• Etana of Kish, the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries: 1500 years
• Balih of Kish: 400 years
• En-Me-Nuna of Kish: 660 years
• Melem-Kish of Kish: 900 years
• Barsal-Nuna of Kish: 1200 years
• Zamug of Kish: 140 years
• Tizqar of Kish: 305 years
• Ilku of Kish: 900 years
• Iltasadum of Kish: 1200 years
• En-Men-Barage-Si of Kish, who conquered Elam: 900 years
• Aga of Kish: 625 years
First Dynasty of Uruk
• Mesh-ki-ang-gasher of E-ana, son of Utu: 324 years.
• Enmerkar, who built Unug: 420 years
• Lugalbanda of Unug, the shepherd: 1200 years
• Dumuzid of Unug, the fisherman: 100 years. Captured En-Me-Barage-Si of Kish.
• Gilgamesh, whose father was a "phantom", lord of Kulaba: 126 years.
• Ur-Nungal of Unug: 30 years
• Udul-Kalama of Unug: 15 years
• La-Ba'shum of Unug: 9 years
• En-Nun-Tarah-Ana of Unug: 8 years
• Mesh-He of Unug: 36 years
• Melem-Ana of Unug: 6 years
• Lugal-Kitun of Unug: 36 years
Thus, in Genesis 5, we have in ancient Hebrew manuscripts a similar record of the same “historical” era:
“This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. 6 Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh. 7 After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters. 8 So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died. 9 Enosh lived ninety years, and begot *Cainan. 10 After he begot Cainan, Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and had sons and daughters. 11 So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died. 12 Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Mahalalel. 13 After he begot Mahalalel, Cainan lived eight hundred and forty years, and had sons and daughters. 14 So all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died. 15 Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, and begot Jared. 16 After he begot Jared, Mahalalel lived eight hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters. 17 So all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred and ninety-five years; and he died. 18 Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and begot Enoch. 19 After he begot Enoch, Jared lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters. 20 So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died. 21 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. 22 After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. 23 So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. 24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. 25 Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and begot Lamech. 26 After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had sons and daughters. 27 So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died. 28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and had a son. 29 And he called his name Noah, saying, "This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed." 30 After he begot Noah, Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years, and had sons and daughters. 31 So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years; and he died.
32 And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
Both the ancient Hebrews and the Sumerians from which they were descended adopted the Ancient Near Eastern customs and methods of their times. God Himself, communicating to His creation thru the customs and methods of their times, used these Ancient Near Eastern methods (exaggerating, allegorizing and symbolizing certain aspects of the cosmos and world) in order to communicate Himself and His truth to the ancient Hebrews and others.
Therefore, in Job 38, Yahweh speaks to Job out of whirlwind, communicating His divine attributes in a manner that is in accord with Him but not necessarily cosmologically accurate.
1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
2 "Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
3 Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors,
When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
9 When I made the clouds its garment,
And thick darkness its swaddling band;
10 When I fixed My limit for it,
And set bars and doors;
11 When I said,
'This far you may come, but no farther,
And here your proud waves must stop!'
[References to the gates of the deep near “Sheol”. See Job 17:16; Jonah 2:6]
12 "Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
And caused the dawn to know its place,
13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,And the wicked be shaken out of it?
14 It takes on form like clay under a seal,
And stands out like a garment.
15 From the wicked their light is withheld,
And the upraised arm is broken.
[References to a flat, four-cornered earth]
16 "Have you entered the springs of the sea?
Or have you walked in search of the depths?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
18 Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Tell Me, if you know all this.
[References to the place of death, “Sheol”. See Jonah 2]
19 "Where is the way to the dwelling of light?
And darkness, where is its place,
20 That you may take it to its territory,
That you may know the paths to its home?
21 Do you know it, because you were born then,
Or because the number of your days is great?
22 "Have you entered the treasury of snow,
Or have you seen the treasury of hail,
23 Which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
For the day of battle and war?
24 By what way is light diffused,
Or the east wind scattered over the earth?
[References to the vaults above the “dome of the sky” where water, snow and hail were kept.]
25 "Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water,
Or a path for the thunderbolt,
26 To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one,
A wilderness in which there is no man;
27 To satisfy the desolate waste,
And cause to spring forth the growth of tender grass?
28 Has the rain a father?
Or who has begotten the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?
30 The waters harden like stone,
And the surface of the deep is frozen.
[the watery Abyss, see Genesis 1:2]
31 "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the belt of Orion?
32 Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season?
Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you set their dominion over the earth?
[An ANE, pre-Copernian view that the stars are fixed upon the “dome of the sky”]
34 "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
That an abundance of water may cover you?
35 Can you send out lightnings, that they may go,
And say to you, 'Here we are!'?
36 Who has put wisdom in the mind?
Or who has given understanding to the heart?
37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven,
38 When the dust hardens in clumps,
And the clods cling together?
[A reference to the vaults above the “dome of the sky” where water, snow and hail were kept.]
The point of this passage is not to “scientifically” describe the physical features of God’s creation in a manner befitting modern man. No, the purpose of this passage is to show that Yahweh is all-powerful and all-wise. The amazing aspect of this is that both ANE man and Modern man can read this chapter can come away with the same point: There is no one like Yahweh. However, if ANE man and Modern man look to this passage for cosmological understanding they will leave with two different points of view.
The rest of ANE art and literature is similarly filled with such exaggerations and symbolisms, both those believed to be true by the people who read them (the cosmology of creation) and those everyone knew to be technically “inerrant” but, nevertheless, poetically and symbolically true of the point that the crafter was making (the sizes and years of important political, historical, and racial individuals).
When we (and that includes believers and non-believers) look at the artifacts and records of other ANE cultures we understand this recognized cultural practice to be taken place. However, when many traditional Christians look at the Old Testament Scriptures they do recognize the same ANE practice. One difficulty with this is the fact that the ancient Hebrews and Israelites were predominately literary people and did not produce much “art”. The ancient Israelites did not make many statues or other artifacts. Why?
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth (Exodus 20:4)
This command against idols was taken to such extremes that very little “art” was made an even less has survived. Because of this we do not have a way of comparing Hebrew art with Hebrew literature the way in which we compare other ANE art with other ANE literature. What’s more we do not have a way to compare general ANE artistic conceptions with ancient Hebrew artistic conceptions. But we can compare Hebrew literature with other ANE literature and guess what? Yes, there is definite similarity in the way in which the Hebrews and other ANE cultures thought about their world (the flat, four-cornered, domed, below the rain vaults of heaven, propped up on a foundation of pillars, emerging from the deep of chaos world).
The other weekend, the missus and I went to the Kimbell Art Museum to see the Gauguin and Impressionism exhibit (which is a good exhibit to see and which ends on March 26th)
Throughout my observations of the exhibit I was thinking about several things:
1) I was thinking through the implications (both positive and negative) of what would happen if a theologian adopted many of the methods of the artist.
2) I was considering what the next great leap forward in theological studies would be and how it would be done.
3) I was thinking how one’s cultural biases hinder one’s approach to the truth and how one could unhinder one’s self from such biases.
4) I questioned the benefits of exposure to other culture’s understanding of the Christian faith (this was precipitated by my recent exposure to other Christians in Grenada, St. Lucia, and Barbados).
5) Finally, I questioned whether one could unhinder one’s cultural biases by conceiving of theology in different mediums (i.e., a medium other than literature).
It was this last thought that I wish to use as an explanation for the issues of Scriptural inerrancy, literalism and cultural relativity. For less than five minutes after having considered this last thought, I came upon this Egyptian artifact.
It was this exhibit that allowed me to see something very important when it comes to understanding the Old Testament and its Ancient Near Eastern perspective.
The above artifact is an important tomb sculpture dating to the period of the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, around 2400 B.C.E. Standing 14 inches high, it shows a seated court official accompanied by his wife and son. Inscriptions name the principal figure as Ka-nefer, "Overseer of the Craftsmen, Priest of Ptah," and the subsidiary figures as "His wife, the Royal Confidant, Tjen-tety" and "His son, the Overseer of Craftsmen, Khuwy-ptah." Carved from limestone, the figures were originally painted and retain much of their color on the hair and eyes, with traces on the skin, garments, and jewelry.
The sculpture shows Ka-nefer seated on a block chair and wearing a pleated kilt and a collar, the latter perhaps signifying honors. He holds a cylinder (a common symbol of office) in one hand, and is flanked by his kneeling wife and standing son, each shown with one arm affectionately embracing Ka-nefer's lower leg. Ka-nefer is represented much larger than the other figures, following the Egyptian artistic convention of indicating rank and importance through scale. His facial features, especially the broad nose, are most closely paralleled in sculptures from the reign of King Sahure (c. 2458–2446 B.C.E.), which thus provides an approximate date for this work.
Now the people who made this sculpture did not actually believe that Ka-nefer was literally significantly larger than his family. And no one who first saw this sculpture actually believed that he was in fact so large or his family members so small. Therefore, we should not take this as literally true. However, while the literalness of the sculpture should not reasonable be accepted, “the Egyptian artistic convention of indicating rank and importance through scale” conveys a “truth” about this figure. However, since this is a “pagan” sculpture it should certainly not be considered “infallible” or “inerrant”.
However, if God had “breathed” into a sculptor in order to convey His Word through that sculpture, one would assume that such a sculpture would then be “infallible” and/or “inerrant”.
But God did command the creation of certain crafted objects with His strict instructions.
The Table for the Showbread (Ex. 37:10-16)
The Gold Lampstand (Ex. 37:17-24)
The Tabernacle (Ex. 36:8-38)
The Altar of Burnt Offering (Ex. 38:1-7)
And, of course,
The Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 25:10-22; 37:1-9)
10 "And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around. 12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in its four corners; two rings shall be on one side, and two rings on the other side. 13 And you shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, that the ark may be carried by them. 15 The poles shall be in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. 16 And you shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you. 17 "You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub at one end, and the other cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it of one piece with the mercy seat. 20 And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another; the faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. 21 You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. 22 And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.” (Ex. 25:10-22)
Bezaleel
Now the crafter of the Ark of the Covenant was Bezaleel, son of Uri and grandson of Hur; a skilled Judahite artisan in all works of metal, wood, and stone and one of the architects of the tabernacle.
What can be said of Bezaleel?
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2 "See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 3 And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, 4 to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, 5 in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship.” (Exodus 31:1-5)
Notice, that Yahweh called Bezaleel and filled him with His Spirit. This is very important: Bezaleel is the first individual in the Scriptures to be mentioned as “filled with the Spirit”. The later prophets and apostles who speak and write the words of God will be referred to as being “filled with the Spirit”.
It is commonly accepted that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Apparently, the Ark of the Covenant and the other artifacts instructed by God were also given by such inspiration.
So the questions beg themselves: Are the Exodus artifacts, including the Ark of the Covenant “infallible” and “inerrant”? And, if so, in what ways were these artifacts “infallible” and “inerrant”?
I am not going to answer these questions, but they are something to consider. Rather I am going to press on with the point I am attempting to make.
The Egptians, as well as the other cultures of the Ancient Near East, often exaggerated, allegorized and symbolized certain aspects of their concrete world in order to make important points. Often these non-literal techniques were applied to religious and historical reality to make important theological, political and ethnic points.
Such methods of interpreting reality were common in all the cultures of the Ancient Near East. In fact, they appear to be common to every Ancient Culture from the Chinese to the Mayans. To this end, we have Egyptian, Mayan, Chinese, Sumerian, and Assyrian kings with exceptionally long reigns.
Here is the Sumerian king list for example:
Early Dynastic I
Ante-diluvian kings, legendary, or earlier than ca. the 26th century BC. Their rules are measured in sars - periods of 3600 years - the next unit up after 60 in Sumerian counting (3600 = 60x60), and in ners - units of 600.
"After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridug. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28800 years."
• Alulim of Eridug: 8 sars (28800 years)
• Alalgar of Eridug: 10 sars (36000 years)
• En-Men-Lu-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 12 sars (43200 years)
• En-Men-Ana (?)
• En-Men-Gal-Ana of Bad-Tibira: 8 sars (28800 years)
• Dumuzi of Bad-Tibira, the shepherd: 10 sars (36000 years)
• En-Sipad-Zid-Ana of Larag: 8 sars (28800 years)
• En-Men-Dur-Ana of Zimbir: 5 sars and 5 ners (21000 years)
• Ubara-Tutu of Shuruppag: 5 sars and 1 ner (18600 years)
• Zin-Suddu (?)
Early Dynastic II
ca. 26th century BC. Many rulers known from contemporary inscriptions are not found in the King Lists.
"After the flood had swept over, and the kingship had descended from heaven, the kingship was in Kish."
First Dynasty of Kish
• Jushur of Kish: 1200 years
• Kullassina-bel of Kish: 960 years
• Nangishlishma of Kish: 670 years
• En-Tarah-Ana of Kish: 420 years
• Babum of Kish: 300 years
• Puannum of Kish: 840 years
• Kalibum of Kish: 960 years
• Kalumum of Kish: 840 years
• Zuqaqip of Kish: 900 years
• Atab of Kish: 600 years
• Mashda of Kish: 840 years
• Arwium of Kish: 720 years
• Etana of Kish, the shepherd, who ascended to heaven and consolidated all the foreign countries: 1500 years
• Balih of Kish: 400 years
• En-Me-Nuna of Kish: 660 years
• Melem-Kish of Kish: 900 years
• Barsal-Nuna of Kish: 1200 years
• Zamug of Kish: 140 years
• Tizqar of Kish: 305 years
• Ilku of Kish: 900 years
• Iltasadum of Kish: 1200 years
• En-Men-Barage-Si of Kish, who conquered Elam: 900 years
• Aga of Kish: 625 years
First Dynasty of Uruk
• Mesh-ki-ang-gasher of E-ana, son of Utu: 324 years.
• Enmerkar, who built Unug: 420 years
• Lugalbanda of Unug, the shepherd: 1200 years
• Dumuzid of Unug, the fisherman: 100 years. Captured En-Me-Barage-Si of Kish.
• Gilgamesh, whose father was a "phantom", lord of Kulaba: 126 years.
• Ur-Nungal of Unug: 30 years
• Udul-Kalama of Unug: 15 years
• La-Ba'shum of Unug: 9 years
• En-Nun-Tarah-Ana of Unug: 8 years
• Mesh-He of Unug: 36 years
• Melem-Ana of Unug: 6 years
• Lugal-Kitun of Unug: 36 years
Thus, in Genesis 5, we have in ancient Hebrew manuscripts a similar record of the same “historical” era:
“This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died. 6 Seth lived one hundred and five years, and begot Enosh. 7 After he begot Enosh, Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and had sons and daughters. 8 So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died. 9 Enosh lived ninety years, and begot *Cainan. 10 After he begot Cainan, Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years, and had sons and daughters. 11 So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died. 12 Cainan lived seventy years, and begot Mahalalel. 13 After he begot Mahalalel, Cainan lived eight hundred and forty years, and had sons and daughters. 14 So all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died. 15 Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, and begot Jared. 16 After he begot Jared, Mahalalel lived eight hundred and thirty years, and had sons and daughters. 17 So all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred and ninety-five years; and he died. 18 Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and begot Enoch. 19 After he begot Enoch, Jared lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters. 20 So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died. 21 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. 22 After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. 23 So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. 24 And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. 25 Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and begot Lamech. 26 After he begot Lamech, Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had sons and daughters. 27 So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died. 28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and had a son. 29 And he called his name Noah, saying, "This one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD has cursed." 30 After he begot Noah, Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years, and had sons and daughters. 31 So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years; and he died.
32 And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
Both the ancient Hebrews and the Sumerians from which they were descended adopted the Ancient Near Eastern customs and methods of their times. God Himself, communicating to His creation thru the customs and methods of their times, used these Ancient Near Eastern methods (exaggerating, allegorizing and symbolizing certain aspects of the cosmos and world) in order to communicate Himself and His truth to the ancient Hebrews and others.
Therefore, in Job 38, Yahweh speaks to Job out of whirlwind, communicating His divine attributes in a manner that is in accord with Him but not necessarily cosmologically accurate.
1Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:
2 "Who is this who darkens counsel
By words without knowledge?
3 Now prepare yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall answer Me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements?
Surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 To what were its foundations fastened?
Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 "Or who shut in the sea with doors,
When it burst forth and issued from the womb;
9 When I made the clouds its garment,
And thick darkness its swaddling band;
10 When I fixed My limit for it,
And set bars and doors;
11 When I said,
'This far you may come, but no farther,
And here your proud waves must stop!'
[References to the gates of the deep near “Sheol”. See Job 17:16; Jonah 2:6]
12 "Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
And caused the dawn to know its place,
13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,And the wicked be shaken out of it?
14 It takes on form like clay under a seal,
And stands out like a garment.
15 From the wicked their light is withheld,
And the upraised arm is broken.
[References to a flat, four-cornered earth]
16 "Have you entered the springs of the sea?
Or have you walked in search of the depths?
17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death?
18 Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth?
Tell Me, if you know all this.
[References to the place of death, “Sheol”. See Jonah 2]
19 "Where is the way to the dwelling of light?
And darkness, where is its place,
20 That you may take it to its territory,
That you may know the paths to its home?
21 Do you know it, because you were born then,
Or because the number of your days is great?
22 "Have you entered the treasury of snow,
Or have you seen the treasury of hail,
23 Which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
For the day of battle and war?
24 By what way is light diffused,
Or the east wind scattered over the earth?
[References to the vaults above the “dome of the sky” where water, snow and hail were kept.]
25 "Who has divided a channel for the overflowing water,
Or a path for the thunderbolt,
26 To cause it to rain on a land where there is no one,
A wilderness in which there is no man;
27 To satisfy the desolate waste,
And cause to spring forth the growth of tender grass?
28 Has the rain a father?
Or who has begotten the drops of dew?
29 From whose womb comes the ice?
And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?
30 The waters harden like stone,
And the surface of the deep is frozen.
[the watery Abyss, see Genesis 1:2]
31 "Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades,
Or loose the belt of Orion?
32 Can you bring out Mazzaroth in its season?
Or can you guide the Great Bear with its cubs?
33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?
Can you set their dominion over the earth?
[An ANE, pre-Copernian view that the stars are fixed upon the “dome of the sky”]
34 "Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,
That an abundance of water may cover you?
35 Can you send out lightnings, that they may go,
And say to you, 'Here we are!'?
36 Who has put wisdom in the mind?
Or who has given understanding to the heart?
37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom?
Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven,
38 When the dust hardens in clumps,
And the clods cling together?
[A reference to the vaults above the “dome of the sky” where water, snow and hail were kept.]
The point of this passage is not to “scientifically” describe the physical features of God’s creation in a manner befitting modern man. No, the purpose of this passage is to show that Yahweh is all-powerful and all-wise. The amazing aspect of this is that both ANE man and Modern man can read this chapter can come away with the same point: There is no one like Yahweh. However, if ANE man and Modern man look to this passage for cosmological understanding they will leave with two different points of view.
The rest of ANE art and literature is similarly filled with such exaggerations and symbolisms, both those believed to be true by the people who read them (the cosmology of creation) and those everyone knew to be technically “inerrant” but, nevertheless, poetically and symbolically true of the point that the crafter was making (the sizes and years of important political, historical, and racial individuals).
When we (and that includes believers and non-believers) look at the artifacts and records of other ANE cultures we understand this recognized cultural practice to be taken place. However, when many traditional Christians look at the Old Testament Scriptures they do recognize the same ANE practice. One difficulty with this is the fact that the ancient Hebrews and Israelites were predominately literary people and did not produce much “art”. The ancient Israelites did not make many statues or other artifacts. Why?
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth (Exodus 20:4)
This command against idols was taken to such extremes that very little “art” was made an even less has survived. Because of this we do not have a way of comparing Hebrew art with Hebrew literature the way in which we compare other ANE art with other ANE literature. What’s more we do not have a way to compare general ANE artistic conceptions with ancient Hebrew artistic conceptions. But we can compare Hebrew literature with other ANE literature and guess what? Yes, there is definite similarity in the way in which the Hebrews and other ANE cultures thought about their world (the flat, four-cornered, domed, below the rain vaults of heaven, propped up on a foundation of pillars, emerging from the deep of chaos world).
Giving Unto Caesar
It's nearly tax time and I came across this article:
World-record bass pulled from Lake Dixon
And then I remebered this passage from Matthew 17:24-27:
"When they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, "Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?" He said, "Yes." And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?" Peter said to Him, "From strangers." Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free. Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you."
Oh, how I wish!
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