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When Scripture Becomes Scripture
Eclectic Orthodoxy ^ | 11-07-2013 | Fr. Aidan (Al) Kimel

Posted on 11/23/2015 7:29:51 AM PST by NRx

When Scripture Becomes Scripture

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The writings of the Bible exist as historical artifacts and may therefore be read as historical artifacts. To properly interpret a text we must seek to understand it within its historical context. We need to know all sorts of things: we need to know who wrote it and why; we need to know its intended audience; we need to know the literary genre to which it belongs; we need to know about the society in which the author and audience lived; we need to know the cultural and literary conventions of the time; we need to know the worldview the text inhabits, etc. Contrary to those who think that the “plain meaning” of Scripture is easy to determine, it is no easy thing at all. Witness the vast scholarship that has been devoted to the Bible over the past two hundred years.

In his article “Can Genuine Christians Be Trinitarian or Non-Trinitarian?” Kermit Zarley writes: “The Bible does not teach that Jesus is God or that God is three persons; rather, it declares only the Father is God.” If the New Testament texts are read exclusively through the lens of historical-critical scholarship, then perhaps Zarley and his fellow evangelical unitarians may be able to make a plausible case. I concede that the Nicene doctrine of the Holy Trinity cannot be explicitly found in the New Testament (but see David Yeago, “The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma“). One finds no theological reflection upon the three hypostases, one ousia of the Holy Trinity. One finds no declaration that Jesus Christ is homoousios with the Father. When the New Testament writers think of “God,” they think of the God of Israel and Father of Jesus Christ. Their monotheism is clear, which of course is why they never explicitly identify Jesus as God—that would only have confused the respective identities of the Father and the Son. I believe one does find strong evidences for belief in the divinity of Jesus in apostolic Christianity—the Apostle Thomas’s exclamation “My Lord and my God!” immediately comes to mind (Jn 20:28)—but the evidence is by no means probative. If it were, the Arian crisis would never have occurred. We may also note that trinitarians have no problem speaking of God the Father as the one God (see John Behr, “The Trinity: Scripture and the Greek Fathers,” and my three-part article on the monarchy of the Father).

But the Church has never read its Scriptures only as historical artifacts. It reads the Scriptures precisely as Scripture. When a particular writing is incorporated into the canonical anthology, it ceases to be, for Christians, a work of purely historical interest that is to be read like any other work of ancient literature, according to normal hermeneutical rules. Inclusion into the canon of Scripture effects a change of interpretive context:

What the Church proclaimed as Holy Scripture were not individual books, let alone the units out of which they were made, but the whole collection. Putting the books together into a whole Bible involved giving them a change of context and, in consequence, by processes similar to those involved in the formation of an individual book, a change of meaning.

The process produced a change of literary context: what were before books on their own became parts of a big book. And it also produced a change of social and cultural context, but just what the change was depends on who we suppose to be the author of the whole Bible and who was its intended audience. For, as we have seen, it is the social context and the cultural predispositions of the author and his audience which dictate how the book is to be interpreted. The Church put the Bible together, but it did so by selecting books deriving from prophets or apostles in which were recorded what in its view was God’s revelation through them to man. God, in the Church’s view, was the ultimate author of the Bible—working, no doubt, through human writers with their own idiosyncracies of style, but all the same inspiring the individual books. What the Church proclaimed with respect to the Bible was not just “here is a book which we have found and recognized as true,” but “here is a book which we have found and recognized as inspired by God and so as true.” (Richard Swinburne, Revelation, pp. 174-175)

Acknowledging a specific writing as belonging to the Christian Bible means at least the following: (1) its ultimate author is God; (2) its ultimate audience is the Church of all times and places; (3) its ultimate theme is God’s work of salvation in Jesus Christ; (4) it can only be properly interpreted in relationship to the other books of the Bible; and (5) it can only be properly interpreted within the eucharistic faith and praxis of the Church.

(Go to “What Does Scripture Mean?”)


TOPICS: Orthodox Christian; Theology
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To: Kolokotronis

:: experience the uncreated energies of the Most Holy Trinity ::

WHAT?!? this reads like a hindu or buddhist screed.

I’ll ignore you from now on Herr kolokotronis.


21 posted on 11/23/2015 12:53:54 PM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastophic Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym defines the science.)
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel; redgolum

“...uncreated energies”

It’s what yo Lutherans call grace. CDY.

+Gregory Palamas is one of the greatest, and some say the last, Eastern Church Fathers.


22 posted on 11/23/2015 1:20:15 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen and you, O death, are annihilated!)
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To: Kolokotronis; lightman

Ahhhh, so ye be Orthodox, one of Constantinople.
I have several friends of the Orthodox church (most russians) and we have “iron-on-iron” discussions at regular intervals. Kewl.

Tell me, does the Holy Spirit fill the world (God’s creation) or is the Spirit just localized to the XPian church when they gather in the name of Christ?

(Us) Lutherans are certainly cognizant of the Holy Spirit, or as you say the “energies of creation” in world.

BTW, I have due respect for Palamas and his theology...although he might have gained from an Augustinian perspective.

Alas, too late: He died 1359... Maybe he should have studied a bit more of Xrosostom prior to his demise?


23 posted on 11/23/2015 2:17:59 PM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastophic Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym defines the science.)
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To: Kolokotronis; redgolum

Dang!
I told myself I’d ignore you but just couldn’t help myself.

Let’s simply say we disagree and leave it at that? I do not question your Faith as it pertains to salvation. Neither do I argue the understanding of an Roman’s faith or even the Faith of one from Geneva/Zurich.

I really don’t have time to dissect the Constantinople - Roman positions.

Keep the Faith and be confident in your salvation.

Cletus. Go in Peace!


24 posted on 11/23/2015 2:23:10 PM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastophic Anthropogenic Climate Alterations: The acronym defines the science.)
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel; redgolum

“he might have gained from an Augustinian perspective.”

Poor Blessed Augustine; didn’t know Greek and his theology shows it. He, as you know, was a devote of Manichaeism and its good/evil worldview contributed mightily to his proto “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” theology. In many ways that influence on him set the tone for Western Christianity down to this day. Interestingly, in the generation just after Luther, the divines at Thubingen opened up a discussion with the Patriarch of Constantinople but after seven or so letters, it was broken off by Constantinople. Too bad as at least from my pov, real Lutheranism is in many ways very Orthodox.


25 posted on 11/23/2015 2:52:43 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen and you, O death, are annihilated!)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

I don’t see what you see in that paragraph. What about it makes it clear to you that it is referring to the dismissal of the traditional understanding of Genesis?


26 posted on 11/23/2015 4:14:06 PM PST by piusv (The Spirit of Christ hasn't refrained from using separated churches as means of salvation:VII heresy)
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

You display three finite and visible persons to make your point. God is a Spirit (Jn. 4:23,24), and not a man (Num. 23:19).

The scriptures testify that neither Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, EVER used the phrase “God the Son”; but only the “Son of God”.

If you demand that God the Father is a manly image, along side of the image of the Son, then you and Joseph Smith have something to agree about.

Are you “Texas the Cletus D. Yokel”, or “Cletus D. Yokel of Texas”?

Jesus Christ is the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15), not “God the image”.

Is the Son the source of the Word?....not according to the scriptures: “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak”. Jn. 12:49,50.

and again: (the Son praying to the Father), “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me...”. Jn 17:8

While others (fathers and prophets) spoke the words of God, Jesus Christ is the perfect mouth piece of God the Father. He is the audio and visual expression of the omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent invisible God.


27 posted on 11/23/2015 6:19:42 PM PST by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....Do you believe it?)
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To: NRx
What the Church proclaimed as Holy Scripture were not individual books, let alone the units out of which they were made, but the whole collection.

When did the Orthodox decree a fixed canon?

28 posted on 11/23/2015 9:09:58 PM PST by daniel1212 (authTurn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
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