Posted on 02/10/2011 7:42:14 AM PST by marshmallow
I recently finished re-reading Benson Bobrick's Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution it Inspired. Although I had read it ten years ago, I wanted to read it again in this 400th anniversay of the King James Version. Bobrick does an outstanding job of weaving together philological, theological, ecclesiastical, and political threads in the story of the translation of the Bible into English. I remember well getting a black leather KJV for Christmas in high school. For much of our time off from school, I read it, devouring its words and message. I love the Bible, for it holds a special place among Christians as telling the true story of God and His people. Yet the doctrine of sola scriptura is so stunningly fallacious, albeit so passionately claimed and defended by so many, that I could not help seeing the disasters it brings in Bobrick's story.
For example, he writes of George Abbot, an archbishop of Canterbury, who "once told King James that 'Scripture doth directly or by consequence contain in it sufficient matter to decide all controversies." Says Bobrick, "The king found that absurd, but for Puritans it was axiomatic...." (p. 280, all references to the 2001 hardback edition) In this matter I would side with the king over the Puritans for the very fact that in the years following the publication of the King James Version, "the Bible was used 'to justify both resistance to and defense of the king, democracy, communism, regicide, the rule of the saints, the overthrow of international Catholicism, even free love. It called into question all established institutions and practices. The ideas which divided the two parties in the impending civil war...were all found in the Bible.' And it was by recourse or reference to the Bible that all these matters were thrashed out." (p. 281, citing Christopher Hill)
Clearly no text can support not only such varied, but such contradictory positions, and yet we cannot suppose that our brethren of four centuries past were idiots. What accounts for this? As Bobrick notes, "'Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers,' read Romans 13:1. 'The powers that be are ordained by God.' Among royalists, that was the most cherished of the New Testament texts.... The Geneva Bible adopted a different view. The statement in Acts 5:29, 'We ought rather to obey God than men," was said to mean 'We ought to obey God and no man, but so far as obeying him we may obey God.' And Calvin boldly interpreted the story of Daniel and the lion's den to mean that 'Earthly princes deprive themselves of all when they rise up against God, yea, they are unworthy to be counted amongst the company of men. We ought rather to spit in their faces than to obey them.'" (pp. 281-282)
The answer is right there. Interpretation is everything. Even today people study the Bible on their own, make of it what they will, and thereby conclude that Jesus wants them to be happy even it means getting a divorce or marrying a homosexual partner. Others read the words of Jesus in Matthew 18 about binding and loosing and conclude that this means an individual person may bind demons with uttered prayers, or that He is talking about the authority of the Church to establish doctrine.
Some of our English friends of four centuries ago saw through this and "counseled against blindly following that elusive 'inner light.' 'Let a man but persuade himself...that the Spirit dwells personally in him, and speaks upon all occasions to him; how easily and readily may he plead that the Spirit tells him he may kill his enemy, plunder his neighbor, cast off all obedience to his governors...." (p. 287) From the insane bomber who claims God told him to assassinate someone to the wild-eyed charismatic who always has a word from the Lord to share with someone, this tendency toward personal interpretation of Scripture has not waned.
Yet Bobrick observes the hypocrisy and the illogic in all this. "Pride goeth before a fall: in a sense Protestants had become more Catholic than they knew. For they had exchanged one authority for another: 'in the place of the medieval Church,' as one scholar put it, they had Scripture; in the place of an infallible institution, an infallible text; in the place of Tradition, a printed book. 'The Puritan iconoclast had himself become a bibliolater,' who supposed himself subscribed to a 'self-interpreting' text. But the Bible was not doctrine; it was a narrative; and though portions of it contained laws and strictures, it could, it seems, be all things to all men." (p. 288)
Nothing can exist without a framework for interpreting it, and if we are to believe that the Bible contains the words of God spoken through men, in other words, the truth, then there must be an authoritative framework for interpretation. Says Bobrick, "As long as Scripture could mean as many different things to as many people as read it, the deeply thought-through conclusions of the Church down through the ages were allowed no more stature than the cloudy revelations of individual minds. And insofar as those revelations prompted actions, chaos might result. No democracy, in fact, could fail to destroy itself without some restraint imposed upon liberty.... There had to be a frame. The great unwritten Constitution of England, and the arguably greater written Constitution of the United States, with its Bill of Rights, took the theological place in Civil Society of the Received Wisdom laid down by Church councils and preserved in Creeds." (p. 296)
Indeed we see this today. The teaching of the Church is repudiated for the individual interpretation of anyone who wants to do the interpreting, and this has spread in the social realm to the undermining of the U.S. Constitution, whereby it is seen as a living document that can be altered by succeeding generations rather than a framework and a restraint upon liberty to keep the republic from destroying itself.
I love the Bible, and when I read it, I sense God speaking to me. Yet if I go so far as to set myself up as the sole interpreter, qualifying words like "truth" and even "God" with the possessive "my," not only do I set myself adrift upon a sea of confusion, but I continue to erode even the foundations of the secular society around me.
But the Bible was not doctrine; it was a narrative; and though portions of it contained laws and strictures, it could, it seems, be all things to all men."
Or to put it another way, what is the point of an infallible document, without an infallible interpreter? A chain is as strong as its weakest link. A document written in Greek is useless in the hands of someone who speaks only French. Thus an infallible document is worthless if the reader does not possess the key to open up the unique, authentic and infallible meaning.
Every document must have an "interpreter" and court of last resort to adjudicate questions about its meaning which inevitably arise. An authentic interpreter. Men who are living and who can hand down decisions. That interpreter is usually the organization which produced the document or which has been commissioned to rule on disputes arising from it. In the US, the Supreme Court decides on what is or is not "constitutional". In the case of Scripture, it's the Church; the organization which gave us the Scriptures. The Church was born on the day of Pentecost. The New Testament came later. For those early Christians who heard the preaching of the Apostles, there was no written New Testament!
Yes, and the more interpretation you have the better as people debate and discuss and reason ultimately shines through.
If you limit the number of interpretors, you get power-hungriness and corruption among the elite interpretors.
Ping!
Why some even claim they have the keys to legislate social justice and call it Heaven sent.
Most people do NOT set themselves up as sole interpretor.
The vast majority of people who have an interest in interpreting the Bible also consult books, commentaries, Bible study groups and christian leaders to aid them in interpretation.
Your premise is false.
The tolls need religion by commiutte.
This is nothing but a bunch of government bureacrats in religious garb.
Just what I want, corrupt man deciding that I need an interpreter for a set of books (Books of the Bible) that are self-explanatory.
Just what I need, corrupt man deciding that Traditions trump the spoken, written, and Holy-Spirit inspired Bible. A book written with the common man in mind.
No Thanks!
What a useful post. Did the Bible tell you to talk like that?
Or those with power crush those who believe differently. But in the long run you're right, those in power and their descendants don't retain that power forever. Eventually open discussion and reason will prevail, even if it takes a thousand years.
Yes, but there was an Old Testament which time and time again the apostles (and writers of the New Testament I might add) used to measure their words against.
LOL... The Constitution decides what it constitutional. The SCOTUS may be right sometimes, but they are also wrong sometimes. I need no black-robed demigods to tell me what plain language means. The fact that people read the same Constitution and disagree about meaning does not mean that the text is unclear, or that we need to appeal to some authoritative entity for guidance. It just means that some of the readers are dishonest.
Which is why I maintain that the belief that only the RCC has the secret decoder ring to unlocking the secret meaning of scripture is itself ... merely an RCC tradition. By defining the contents of scripture this way, the RCC supercedes any exegetical, grammatical, historical, or hermeneutical data in lewe of its own personal interpretation.
Perhaps if the RCC spent more time defending their views from scripture, its adherents wouldn't need to spend so many waking hours of the day trying to disprove sola scriptura.
In before 2 Timothy 3:16 is quoted as proof of sola scriptura.
The logical conclusion of Sola Scriptura, however, is that the Bible is self-interpreting down to the level of the individual reader. "Sole interpretation" is an inevitable part of the mix -- what else are we to make of Luther's insistence that the Bible be available in the native language of its readers?
But more broadly, your objection really just proves the author's point: leaving aside the quibble about the "sole interpreter," you have brought up the necessity of "books, commentaries, Bible study groups and christian leaders to aid them in interpretation."
That's not a description of Sola Scriptura -- it's a refutation of it.
Sure, what important war was won in a day? But the vital thing is to allow freedom to fight the war so the bad guys can be vanquished.
“Yet if I go so far as to set myself up as the sole interpreter, qualifying words like “truth” and even “God” with the possessive “my,” not only do I set myself adrift upon a sea of confusion, but I continue to erode even the foundations of the secular society around me.”
Protestants do not set themselves up as sole interpreter. That describes the Pope.
Protestants argue that since we will all be judged by God, we must all be satisfied that we are obeying God. Following God’s word - His “breath” - seems a reasonable test.
Is Marshmallow still going on and on about Sola Scriptura? You would think he believes he would be in danger of losing his Catholic faith if he could not get the rest of of us Protestant types to agree with him!
Don’t worry poor little Marshmallow, Christ still loves all Spirit washed believers in all Catholic and Protestant congegations no matter what thier personal traditions and persuasions regarding corporate worship are. Sola Scriptura or no sola scriptura, it doesn’t matter as much as Knowing Christ or not knowing Him. The one is up for discussion, the other is a matter of life or hell!
No Christ, No peace...Know Christ...know peace!
LOL. There’s something you don’t see everyday: a ‘98 FReeper gets called a troll by a nov. ‘10 newbie.
Of course the main objective for an individual in doing Bible study is to apply it personally. However, individuals hardly ever rely only on themselves to interpret.
what else are we to make of Luther's insistence that the Bible be available in the native language of its readers?
Horrors! God forbid that people are consigned to reading the Word of God in a language they can understand!
That's not a description of Sola Scriptura -- it's a refutation of it.
No, "Sola Scriptura" is the championship of God's Word as the AUTHORITY; Luther never said one should not study materials which help one to understand the bible.
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