Is the Bible clear on marriage…or anything at all?
Martyn Percy, Dean of Christchurch, Oxford, has contributed to an ongoing series of posts on the Via Media weblog setting out the view that the Bible is not clear in its teaching near spousal relationship—or on annihilation else for that matter. Information technology is an interesting series, in the sense that it points clearly to the idea that those wanting the Church of England to modify its position on same-sex relationships really are looking for some wholesale changes in the way the Church has historically viewed Scripture and doctrine—which is in fact what those defending the current position on marriage have said all forth. Although same-sex relationships are the presenting upshot, in many means this debate is the manifestation of some much deeper and wider differences in the Church.
It is also worth noting that very few of these arguments are in any sense new. Scepticism towards the Bible as a coherent theological document has been around in the West since at least the late 18th century, and the position of Liberal Protestantism has deeply influenced theology and biblical studies in both our universities and many of our theological colleges until very recently. But it is still worth exploring the claims fabricated, and seeing whether they stand up upward to scrutiny; nosotros need to be committed to following the evidence where information technology leads, and not be tempted to dismiss unlike views on only dogmatic grounds. Are at that place good reasons for treating the Bible in the way Christians take done so traditionally, or does the testify lead united states somewhere else?
Percy begins with a quotation from Dan Brown'southwardThe Da Vinci Lawmaking, and thankfully agrees that it is 'not quite right'. But Brown repeats some commonly held myths near the Bible, and is reflecting the ignorance of much contemporary culture. 'Man created it as a historical tape of tumultuous times, and it has evolved through endless translations and revisions.' This is nonsense; the evidence of textual criticism is that the text of both Testaments has been preserved incredibly carefully by scribal copying, then we can be absolutely confident that what we have is what the first authors wrote. A nice recent example of this is the remarkable deciphering of the 'En Gedi' scroll using scanning technology, which demonstrates that the Masoretes, who consolidated the textual traditions of the Sometime Testament around yard Advertisement and destroyed all the other manuscripts, in fact preserved faithfully the before texts.
Brown's second claim, on the lips of his graphic symbol Teabing (whose name is an anagram of the real person he is based on, Michael Baigent), is that 'More than fourscore gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet simply [four] were called for inclusion', another pop nonsense. It turns out that the canonical gospels (those in the canon of the New Testament) are quite distinct from the and then-chosen apocryphal gospels, which are all late, unreliable, and don't actually merit the term 'gospel' every bit they practise non chronicle practiced news almost Jesus. It turns out that, despite their considerable variety, the iv gospels offer a remarkably coherent perspective on Jesus and his followers, as most reputable biblical scholars note.
Percy himself then articulates a quite widely held view, that the Bible tin just acquire authority by an external process, and non merits such say-so for itself.
Views nearly the authorization of Scripture cannot exist straight resourced from the Bible itself. The bible has no self-conscious identity. Every bit a collation of books and writings, it came together over a long period of time. Indeed, the word 'bible' comes from the Greek biblos, only meaning 'books'. As, the word 'canon' (here used in relation to Scripture, not equally an ecclesiastical title) simply means 'rule'. And then the Scriptures are, literally, 'authorised books'. The dominance of the compilation took place old afterwards the books were written.
At i level, the near piffling, it is truthful that 'The [B]ible has no self-witting identity'. Information technology is certainly the example that the writers of the different books didn't anticipate the cultural artifact that we now call 'The Bible'—but that does not mean that they were non enlightened of transmitting something of potency as a revelation from God. Percy here fails to distinguish between the question of authority, and the question of recognition. My wife is a doctor, and many of her patients mightrecognise her authority to human activity and give guidance, but that recognition alone does non constitute her authority. F F Bruce fabricated this observation long ago:
One matter must be emphatically stated. The New Testament books did not become authoritative for the Church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the Church included them in her canon considering she already regarded them every bit divinely inspired, recognizing their innate worth and generally churchly authority, direct or indirect. (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1960, p. 27).
And J I Packer comments: 'The church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave u.s.a. the force of gravity. God gave u.s.a. gravity, by his work of cosmos, and similarly he gave united states the New Attestation canon, by inspiring the private books that brand it upwardly.' The words of Jesus that we have in the gospels are not authoritative because they are in a book recognised by the church building; they are authoritative because Jesus said them.
The 'books' are indeed plural—from the neuter wordbiblion, significant a parchment or scroll, pluralta biblia—and in the New Testament Jesus often refers to 'the scriptures', αἱ γραφαὶ, those things which have been written, but this plurality does not seem to imply whatever sense of incoherence. Indeed, this does make the Bible very 'cocky conscious' in a fashion that, for example, the Qu'ran cannot be. Different parts of the Bible refer, implicitly or explicitly, to before parts of information technology. Two of the most striking are the references to the 'book of the law' in Joshua 1.8 and 2 Kings 22.8, which imply within the narrative the existence of a written text which is treated every bit administrative (the arguments about the historicity of this still). The effect is to (nearly) bookend the 'Deuteronomistic history', the story that runs from Deuteronomy, through Joshua, 1 and two Samuel and i and ii Kings, with reference to whether the people of God obeyed the educational activity of the Torah, their failure to exercise and so leading into exile.
Less explicitly, we find the prophetic texts alluding to earlier parts of the scriptures. Hosea 4.2 lists v of the Ten Commandments, and the whole book appears to testify knowledge not only of earlier legal texts, only of large parts of the biblical narrative, including events early in ane Kings. For this reason, Fee and Stuart (inHow to Read the Bible for All its Worth) describe the prophets as 'covenant reinforcement mediators'.
Then of class Jesus and others in the New Testament refer to the existing Scriptures—and we even accept, in ii Peter 3.16, a reference to Paul'southward writings as 'other scriptures'. Even if nosotros are sceptical well-nigh the Petrine authorship of this alphabetic character, it still shows a very early on awareness that the authoritative scriptures of Israel take been added to by the apostolic authors. It turns out that the Bible is very self-conscious indeed!
But did these writers have a sense of the importance and authorisation of what they wrote at the time? It is not easy to determine this from some genres, such equally the historical narratives (despite being labelled 'Quondam Prophets' in the Jewish canon) or the wisdom literature. But it is quite difficult to imagine the starting time recorders of God's words to Moses (whenever they lived) as thinking they were not recording something of importance and authority for God's people, particularly as the bodily words of God they tape repeatedly claim this. This does not show that these are indeed the words of God, or have actual authority—but information technology does demonstrate a self-wittingclaim to authority. The writings that record the words and experiences of the prophets repeatedly claim that 'the word of Yahweh came to me', once more making an explicit claim to authority. For this reason, John Goldingay (in hisModels of Scripture) offers 4 characterisations of how Scripture sees itself, one of which is 'experienced revelation', a sense that what is written has come straight from God and is cocky-authenticating in its claim to speak authoritatively.
In the gospels, Jesus quotes from 24 of the 39 Sometime Attestation books (supporting the Protestant version of the OT canon); as well as describing them every bit 'the scriptures' and introducing citations with the formula 'it is written', he likewise describes the OT equally 'the word of God' (east.g. in Mark 7.13, John ten.34), and even cites the narrator'south words of Gen 2.24 as God'due south own speech ('the Creator…said…' Matt xix.5). This makes it all the more striking when Jesus goes on to utilize the phrase 'give-and-take of God' to mean the good news of the gospel which he himself is preaching (Luke five.i, 8.eleven), and Luke continues to use this phrase to refer to the subsequent churchly preaching of the practiced news (Acts iv.31, 6.7). The implication hither is that both Jesus in his education and the gospel writers in their recording of information technology appear to believe that they are adding the authoritative oral communication of God that they have in the scriptures. Roland Deines, former Professor of New Testament at Nottingham, argues that (for example) Matthew is cocky-consciously calculation to the scriptures:
Jesus' life and decease were perceived among those around him equally a revelatory consequence of a 'biblical' scale, to which the just appropriate response was to deport witness to them in the form of Scripture. (EJT (2013) 22:2, 101-109)
One of the nearly striking claims to this revelatory experience comes (non surprisingly!) in the Book of Revelation. Whereas Paul often ends his letters by taking the pen (every bit information technology were) from the amanuensis to add his ain personal signature, Revelation ends with the same kind of motion—but hither the 'author' is Jesus, and John is merelyhis agent!
Percy goes on to advise that the diversity of this drove of books then leads to its imperfection, since 'God always chooses to mediate that ability through less than perfect agents (such every bit language, people, times and places)'. I am not sure what the logic to this is; Percy appears to be confusing things which are limited (such as linguistic communication) with things which are 'imperfect'. It is an odd argument to claim that, considering the books of Scripture are diverse, they are therefore (in some theological sense) 'imperfect'. Rowan Williams offers a more coherent perspective:
Christians believe that the Bible is inspired by God – that is, they believe that the texts that make up the Bible were equanimous past the help of the Holy Spirit and that they communicate God'due south volition perfectly when they are taken together and read in the context of prayer and worship…
The Bible is, we believe, a volume that speaks with one vox almost God and his will and nature; but information technology does so – to utilise a popular Christian epitome – similar a symphony of different voices and instruments of music, miraculously held together in ane story and one message about God, a story whose climax is Jesus." (Rowan Williams, text of a lecture given at the international Islamic University in Islamabad, Islamic republic of pakistan, Wed 23 November 2005)
Percy and then appears to prepare the harbinger man of fundamentalism:
So, some Christians believe that Scripture has come from heaven to globe, in an unimpaired, totally unambiguous form – like a 'fax'. Such views are fundamentalistic: the bible is the pure word of God – every letter of the alphabet and syllable is 'God breathed'. So there is no room for questions; noesis replaces faith. It is utterly authoritative: to question the bible is tantamount to questioning God. So the bible here is more than like an teaching manual than a mystery to exist unpacked. It teaches plainly, and woe to those who dissent.
But to those who believe that Scripture is a more than complex body of writings, the authority of Scripture lies in the full witness of its inspiration.
Of course, these fundamentalists are inferior to people like himself, who are of 'a more than mainstream, broad persuasion', and I remember it is unfortunate and unhelpful to read these constant, rhetorical power-plays. Merely do these 'fundamentalists' actually exist, and if so, where? Starting time, it is worth noting that information technology is Paul, rather than 'fundamentalists', who believe all Scripture is 'God breathed' in 2 Tim 3.16—so once again information technology is Scripture itself making claims nearly the other parts of Scripture. Only in Percy's critique, he conflates questions of authority with questions of simplicity. I cannot call back of a volume written past evangelicals that does not highlight the diverseness and complexity of the Bible—indeed, usually the very reason for writing is to try and make this complication manageable for the ordinary reader. The diagram to a higher place highlighting the library of books that makes up the Bible is on just about the beginning page of any 1 of these introductions. Perchance I should donate Percy one of my copies of the Lion Handbook to the Bible!
He then goes on: 'But blind obedience to all of Scripture is not practised past any group of Christians known to me, or who accept e'er lived.' Indeed, and I am not sure who is claiming that this always happens. This does not, nonetheless, hateful that Scripture offers no coherent view on whatsoever issue, including marriage. That is why about evangelical biblical scholars end up writing a 'Biblical Theology' under 1 title or another—because the work of moving from careful consideration of the text to distilling a biblical theological position on a range of issues is, well, piece of work! The only people who think that yous can move merely from a single text to a theological position are the very ill-informed—or those who want to parody people they disagree with.
Martin Davie does the spadework, and points out that the Bible does in fact, taken together, offer a coherent position on the nature of union—and information technology is one that explicitly informs Church of England doctrine and liturgy:
What we have here is a normative pattern for marriage, upheld by Jesus himself in the Gospels (Matthew 19:three-6, Mark 10:2-9), that sees matrimony as a freely chosen, permanent and exclusive sexual relationship that is between one man and one adult female and is outside of the immediate family circle. Moreover, as Genesis goes on to make clear through the subsequent story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4:1, two, 25, five:3), information technology is through wedlock that the divine command to 'be fruitful and multiply' in Genesis ane:28 is to find fulfilment…
The answer to the question posed in Professor Percy'southward article is thus that the Bible really does give u.s. a clear definition of marriage. Marriage is what God says it is in Genesis 2. The Church of England is thus justified in maxim that:
… union is in its nature a spousal relationship permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them practise office, of ane man with one adult female, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the procreation and nurture of children, for the hallowing and correct direction of the natural instincts and affections, and for the mutual gild, aid and comfort which the one ought to accept of the other, both in prosperity and arduousness.[5]
This argument reflects the teaching of Scripture and then for the Church of England to depart from it either by changing its theology or its practice would mean departing from what God has laid down, something which it is not authorised to do.
Percy goes on to assert:
So the bible itself is a covenant sign. It is a marriage – a union of Scriptures – that can only be understood in the totality of its witness. And that is partly why I am then committed to same-sex marriages. I see no reason why such unions cannot reflect the beloved of God, and acquit testimony to God's grace, truth and power.
Really, many people who, like Percy, argue for the rightness of same-sex marriage, can see some very articulate reasons, and are quite open that in taking the position they do, they are going confronting the articulate and coherent teaching of the Bible.
It is very possible that Paul knew of views which claimed some people had what we would telephone call a homosexual orientation, though nosotros cannot know for sure and certainly should not read our modern theories dorsum into his world. If he did, it is more than likely that, like other Jews, he would have rejected them out of hand….He would take stood more strongly nether the influence of Jewish creation tradition which declares human beings male and female, to which may well even exist alluding in i.26-27, and and so seen same-sex sexual acts by people (all of whom he deemed heterosexual in our terms) as flouting divine club. (William Loader, The New Testament on Sexualityp 323-4)
Where the Bible mentions homosexual behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The event is precisely whether that Biblical judgment is correct. (Walter Wink, "Homosexuality and the Bible")
This is an upshot of biblical authorisation. Despite much well-intentioned theological fancy footwork to the contrary, it is difficult to see the Bible equally expressing anything else just disapproval of homosexual activity. (Diarmaid MacCulloch, "Reformation: Europe's Firm Divided, 1490-1700", p 705)
As I noted at the beginning, this specific debate, whilst it has particular interest for ideals and patterns of life, involves much more than fundamental (pun intended!) and far reaching issues for the Church.
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