The History of the Bible: Part 1 (of 3)

Is the Bible the Word of God?  That is a question that only faith can answer.  Is the Bible we have today an accurate representation of what its authors originally wrote?  That is a question that evidence can prove.  The Bible is by far the most well attested ancient document with a rich manuscript history and a fascinating story of ordinary people who rose to the occasion to protect it, or sank to the depths to try to keep it from the people.  It is a story of hand-written copies, and a story of translation efforts from the original Greek and Hebrew.  This three part series will open the door to the much larger subject of the history of the text of the Bible, its preservation and transmission from the ancient world to the plethora of English Bibles that we have available to us today.  Along the way, it will help answer questions about the reliability of our text, the affect that variants have upon our confidence in the text, as well the reasons why we have so many translations in English today.

            There are skeptics who don’t believe that we can have any confidence that our text is the same as what was originally written. Amazingly, they agree with the essential facts of history that the Bible’s manuscript tradition is rich and ancient, sadly, they draw opposite conclusion from this evidence and end up with nothing but doubt. There are “perfect” Bible zealots who have complete confidence in one particular translation of our text, made 400 years ago, who are immune to evidence because their belief in the text of the Bible is a matter of faith not facts.  Both of these groups think that ordinary Christians will have their faith destroyed if they learn the truth about the history of the Bible, they’re both wrong.  The Word of God has been handed down to each new generation throughout the history of the Church, and that story is something that every Christian should want to know.

Parts 2 & 3 to follow (previous versions already available via the History of the Bible tab at the top of the web page) next week and the week after.

A Refutation Of: White evangelicals' attacks on James Cone are about power, not truth by Andre Henry

The opinion piece in italics below was written by Andre Henry the program manager for the Racial Justice Institute at Evangelicals for Social Action.  It was published by Religion News Service on January 9th.  {White evangelicals' attacks on James Cone are about power, not truth}  I have not previously written about James Cone, for reasons that will become clear below, his philosophy/theology falls outside of that which I would read for my own edification/enlightenment, nor have his books ended up in my pile of non-orthodox/non-Christian books to read in order to understand the beliefs of others.  That being said, I have no pre-conceived ideas either for or against James Cone (If Andre Henry is mis-representing him let me know), and am only interacting with the author's assertions about the reasoning behind the critiques of those who have studied and written in response to James Cone.  My thoughts will be interspersed below {bracketed in bold}.

(RNS) — A specter has been haunting white evangelicalism. It comes in the shape of James Cone, one of the founders of black liberation theology.  {What is liberation theology?  The short answer: A synthesis (combining) of Christian theology with socio-economic analysis, often Marxist, that fuses the spiritual liberation of the Gospel with economic/political liberation for oppressed/poverty stricken peoples.  Throughout the history of the Church, attempts have been made to fuse Christianity with various philosophies, governmental systems, and cultures.  The Early Church was deeply affected by Platonic Greek philosophy, the Eastern Church with the Byzantine vision of its divinely appointed right to rule over the Church, an idea that in the West led to countless struggles (even wars) between Popes and kings and emperors.  Christianity in the 18th century began to be fused with the ascendant Nationalism, with horrific results culminating in WWI and WWII.  Lastly, American Christianity has often been fused with ideas such as Rugged Individualism, Manifest Destiny, Democracy, and Capitalism.  Some of these combinations have been beneficial to the Church and Christian theology, some have been disastrous, most are a mixed bag of blessings and curses.  Liberation theology, while emphasizing the need for care for the poor (a positive if handled correctly) is not without its drawbacks.}

As last year ended, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary President Daniel Akin tweeted in response to a (since deleted) tweet, “James Cone was a heretic & almost certainly not a Christian based on his teachings. ... We do not legitimize him.”  {A tweet by the President of a Seminary carries weight, and ought to be nuanced, perhaps with an opening phrase like, "While I don't know his heart/mind, and God alone is our judge..."  However, the portion in the ellipsis should not have been left out by Andre Henry as it runs counter to his point.  The full tweet's text: "James Cone was a heretic & almost certainly not a Christian based on his teachings. But, to understand him you should/must read him. Then you provide a fair, honest & balanced critique. That is a basic requirement for a good education. Hope that helps. We do not legitimize him."  The full quote is far less strident when the middle is left in.  It is, in part, the job of leadership in seminaries to protect against heresy, to warn of dangerous ideas, and to try to steer the Church toward the Truth.  With a better preface, Akin is simply doing his job, whether or not one agrees with the conclusion.}

After significant pushback, Akin made an amendment: “Though his writings & statements give me pause & great concern for his soul, if when I get to heaven I discover that James Cone is there, I will humbly, gladly & joyfully greet him as my brother in Christ as we together worship King Jesus for His amazing salvation, grace & love.”  {This is a better way of putting it.  There are a number of Christian leaders, theologians, and writers, past and present, whose ideas stray from orthodoxy, who personal lives exhibited hypocrisy, and who generally leave us with questions about how they stood with God.  If, in the end, our worries about them prove less than God's grace, we will rejoice to find that fellow brother/sister in Christ in heaven.}

Some other Christian thought leaders found this too generous. The Rev. Josh Buice, a Southern Baptist pastor, suggested that Akin had “normalized an enemy of the gospel.”  {Here is where things get tricky as we strive to define the ideas which are the foundation of our faith, and how they can acceptably be expressed, in order to define what is/is not orthodox, and thus those who are/are not promoting heresy.  The Early Church dealt with this powerfully in AD 325 during the Council of Nicaea during which they rejected a definition of Jesus' humanity (a core issue about who Jesus is) put forth by a Christian priest named Arius, which then led to the creed bearing the same name that helped teach future generations of Christian to avoid the errors that Arius had made...What then do we do in response to those who reject orthodoxy, who stray near the edges?  Assuming the issue at hand is key and not a matter of conscience, a range of responses are required from Scripture, beginning with a personal appeal to the one in error, and ending with some form of shunning/excommunication, as in 2 John 7-11 or Romans 16:17-18.  Christians with good intentions can, and do, disagree about which issues are core, the range of acceptable expressions of those issues, and what to do in response in particular cases of unorthodox beliefs.  In this case, the Reverend Josh Buice worried that perhaps President Daniel Akin was being too soft, while the author of the article believes that Akin's response was much too harsh.}

It’s not entirely clear what had occasioned this discussion of Cone, a longtime professor at Union Theological Seminary who died in 2018. But his sins against the white evangelical establishment date back to 1969, when he published “Black Theology and Black Power,” which interpreted the faith through the lens of the black freedom struggle.  {Why write/speak about a topic now?  Often a good question, but the more important one is this: Were the ideas championed by James Cone acceptable expressions of Christianity, were they unorthodox heresy, or something in between?}

In the book’s introduction Cone explained: “I wanted to speak on behalf of the voiceless black masses in the name of Jesus whose gospel I believed had been greatly distorted by the preaching and theology of white churches."

His major themes include the idea, summarized in the mantra “God is black,” that God always sides with oppressed people, that the black experience is a legitimate source for doing theology and that the task of theology is liberation.  {This is far from a full response to the theology of James Cone, that's why books are written, not blog posts; a few thoughts: Undoubtedly the Gospel had been distorted in the white churches that had twisted the Scriptures to support slavery and racial supremacy, a fact repeatedly brought to the forefront by the Abolitionists who opposed them, in Great Britain, and then here in America...Any mantra like "God is white" "God is an American", or "God is a woman" is ridiculous, theologically unsound, and leading toward a distorted viewpoint (ironic given the stated aim of undoing a previously distorted view).  God is above our categories, above our divisions, and above belonging to any of us.  God is the Creator, the Sovereign, holy and immutable.  When we speak about God using human categories, we are presumptuous to use any beyond those which God himself chose while revealing himself to the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles {i.e. God calling himself Father}...Lastly, the task of theology is liberation, but the important part of that thought is this: liberation from what, and liberation how?  The answer is crucial.}

He raised questions about some tenets of faith that white evangelicals cherish, particularly the inerrancy of Scripture and the concept that Jesus died the death we deserved because of sin.  {Here is where Andre Henry goes far astray.  The inerrancy (accuracy/reliability/divine origin) of Scripture and Substitutionary Atonement are NOT 'white' ideas.  They long preceded our modern issues with race, and are cherished by orthodox Christians throughout the world (of all races) and throughout Church history.  To reject them is to take issue with the Apostle Paul, St. Augustine, Martin Luther, and many others.  It is NOT an issue of race, but of ideas, ideas that lie at the heart of historic and apostolic Christianity.  Ideas embraced (in their own ways) by Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians alike.  When Joseph Smith rejected the orthodox/apostolic understanding of Jesus and Salvation and proclaimed that he had received a new revelation, it was not race that led the Christian Americans who lived near him to soundly reject his heresy, but his ideas.  The Truth or error of an idea is not related to the race or gender of its proponents or opponents, nor to their nationality, age, or status.  Truth exists apart from us.}

Perhaps the biggest problem white theologians have with Cone’s work is his emphasis on Jesus’ humanity over his divinity, and his conviction that salvation is as much about saving black people from the Klanner’s noose, or the officer’s chokehold, as it is about going to heaven when we die (if it has anything to do with the latter at all).  {'humanity OVER his divinity'?  Yeah, that's a problem, the flip-side of the one rejected by the Council of Nicaea.  Whenever either portion, humanity or deity, is elevated/deflated it has massive implications for Christian theology...Salvation is not 'as much about' anything as it is about saving our souls by restoring a right relationship with God.  That process requires repentance and righteous living, here and now, but in service to that larger vision of God's redemptive work within/through us.  There are many important issues and causes that we face in this life because of our Christian faith, but none of them hold a candle to the transformation of our hearts/minds/souls through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives as the result of what Christ accomplished through his life, death, and resurrection.  This is THE heart of Christianity, it cannot be shared or replaced with anything else...'if it has anything to do with the latter at all' is full-blown heresy on the part of Andre Henry.  Who Jesus is and what he accomplished (i.e. the Gospel, salvation) may not have anything to do with whether or not we go to heaven (or hell) when we die??  This thought is incomprehensible when reading the Scriptures, the writings of the Church Fathers, or virtually any Christian theologian remotely near orthodoxy.}

What Cone decidedly did not lack was sincere devotion to the way of Jesus as he understood it.  No, the heresy Cone is guilty of is denying white Christian leaders’ authority to define what Christianity should look like for black people.  {Sincere devotion is not good enough, as Jesus himself makes clear in Matthew 7:13-23, although sincere devotion is absolutely required as a manifestation of the belief of those who have been saved.  Christian leaders must define what Christianity looks like for Christians.  That is there God-ordained task, to examine the Scriptures, and by the Spirit lead the people of God in applying its timeless words and wisdom to our lives today.  The authority does not lie in the race, nationality, or gender of the leader/theologian, but in the Word of God that he/she serves.  The Gospel looks EXACTLY the same for all peoples in all times.  When Christ sent his Apostles into the world to preach the Gospel he sent them to the ends of the earth, to everyone.  The Apostle Paul spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how best to explain that Gospel message to the Greek gentiles he was sent to, but hear this, the message itself did not change, at all, only its delivery.  (Galatians 3:26-28)}

What constitutes heresy in the church depends on where the boundaries for orthodoxy (meaning "right belief") are drawn. The Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches excommunicated each other, in 1054, partly because of differing views on the nature of the Holy Spirit. Protestants were declared heretics by the Roman Catholics, and Protestants considered Catholics heretical, largely on the issue of papal authority.  {This is correct, orthodoxy is staying within the defined boundaries.  The Church took several generations to establish/explain/defend the boundaries of the faith they inherited from the Apostles and the Scriptures, but those definitions hold to this day.  It is true that the Church split in half about 1,000 years ago, and that the Western half split again just over 500 years ago, but that does not invalidate the idea of orthodoxy, nor the need for a standard by which we can judge ideas/people to be promoting Truth or error.}

Generally, white evangelicals claim Scripture as the sole standard for measuring orthodoxy. They don’t admit, or don’t see, the white frame that informs their theology.  {Martin Luther's rallying cry was Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), and of course he didn't fully live up to that cry as evidenced by his retention of a traditional sacramental Eucharist and infant baptism, but it was a watershed idea to treat the authority of Scripture ABOVE that of tradition...Do white evangelicals have a lens/frame that clouds their view of the Scriptures?  Of course they do, all people have biases and blind spots, inconsistencies and errors in judgment.  That is why orthodoxy has two powerful correctives: (1) The Word of God given by inspiration, and (2) the collective wisdom of the Church throughout the generations in understanding and applying it.  In addition, the same Holy Spirit works within Christians of all races to correct the errors we bring to the text, to rebuke us when we go astray, and to enable us to see the error of those who speak with a voice different from that of the Good Shepherd.}

Framing, something like a mental field of vision, determines what we don’t see and how we interpret what we do see. White people’s frame tends to ignore the systems of anti-black violence and white supremacy, both subtle and overt, that permeate American society.  {It may tend to, but it doesn't have to.  I am well aware of the flaws of American society, flaws that have negatively affected a wide variety of groups for a number of reasons.  To say that this affects 'white people' in any unique way is incorrect.  The Fallen Nature of humanity affects us all equally, as does the redemptive power of the Gospel.}

This explains how some of the founders of American evangelicalism, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, could emphasize God’s wrath and the need for repentance from sin while also owning slaves. They framed their reading of Scripture in such a way that it didn’t interfere with their white supremacy.  {Every movement has flawed founders, flawed people are the only ones available.  No excuses, they should have seen the sin of their involvement with slavery.  How does this relate to the question at hand: Why do (white) evangelicals today object to the theology of James Cone?  Guilt by association?  That's a pretty tenuous connection and an unbiblical methodology.}

Today that kind of framing leads Whitefield's and Edwards' heirs to miss the connection between social action and Christian faithfulness. Mistaking their frame for the whole picture, they claim that what they can't see isn't there, and they dress their biases in religious language.  {Some evangelicals do miss the connection between being a faithful Christian and working for justice in our society, but not nearly as many as the author implies.  What is actually happening is a difference of opinion as to which social causes Christian faith speaks to, what one should do about those causes in a pluralistic republic, and how much of our witness as a Christian, or as a Church, ought to be invested in these areas vs. the more focused expressions of Gospel witness.  These are complicated issues, with serious and thoughtful answers available that have nothing to do with the race of the people trying to faithfully live as Christians.}

Cone recognized that black Christians needed to embrace a frame of their own. He said, rightfully, that black people and other persecuted groups don’t organize their faith around ruminating on theological propositions, but around encountering God in their struggle for freedom.  {A false dichotomy, all Christians need 'theological propositions', i.e. Truth, and they need to put that faith into action in the time/place/culture in which they live.  A Truth-less faith, or a Truth-lite faith is not the answer for any group of people, no matter what their history of privilege or oppression might be.}

This experiential emphasis for knowing God can coexist with the white church's emphasis on propositions, but Akin and Buice and similar thinkers can’t help but assert that their frame is better.  {The frame isn't in question, the Apostle James made it very clear that experience (action) is the partner of faith, rather it is the content of those very propositions that James Cone called into question.  This is a question of faith AND action, mind AND heart, not an either/or.}

And that is how many a theology curriculum is organized, with white male theologians — Luther, Calvin, Barth — as required reading, and everyone else listed as extra credit (if that).  {If the writer in question is a Christian, speaking the Truth, why does race or gender matter?  A broad curriculum is important, but one based on a thorough understanding of the ideas in question, not one that places thinkers into better/worse categories based on who they are.  In the Kingdom of God, these distinctions are meaningless.  I've said that already, but Andre Henry doesn't seem to believe it anymore than the racist white supremacists (whom I have repeatedly condemned).}

Cone was no more heretical than any white theologian celebrated today. White Christians simply don’t stop and frisk white theologians for doctrinal contraband as they do black thinkers.  {That's a smear, and an unfair one.  The list of rejected white male heretics is long, with today's leader among them being Bart Ehrman, and yesterday's being Bishop John Shelby Spong, both rejected by the Church as a whole for heresy/apostasy with no thought to racial solidarity.  I don't know how to weigh more/less heretical, being a heretic is a problem, even when it is only a little bit of heresy about a core issue.  'He's only as big a heretic as other white guys you aren't complaining about' isn't much of an argument even if it was true.}

Martin Luther, for example, slips through security with his anti-Semitic writings without seminary presidents expressing "concern for his soul." Thinkers like Cone set off the alarm, on the other hand, because they dare to hold theologians like Luther accountable.  {Martin Luther's anti-Semitic writings are a grave stain upon his legacy, what theologian has discounted that?  It had horrific consequences when it was embraced by later generations whose own writings inspired the Nazis.  Martin Luther doesn't get a free pass because he was white.  Flawed Christians can still write the Truth, we as thinkers, given that power by God, can sift the wheat from the chaff.}

This racist exceptionalism is not restricted to Cone. At their recent Social Justice and The Gospel Conference, a panel of male Southern Baptist leaders who drafted a statement on social justice griped that more people didn’t raise issues about Martin Luther King Jr.’s theology, which also held that salvation had to do with social equity.

(They also raised the civil rights icon’s reported infidelities, but men in their position often manage to speak of Karl Barth without speaking of his mistress, Charlotte von Kirschbaum.)  {If Barth is given a pass by some who criticize King Jr. that's on them.  Moral failings are an equal opportunity flaw, affecting many of the heroes of the faith who ideas/work we would otherwise celebrate without reservation.}

Even though both Cone and King rely heavily on Scripture and center their work on the person and work of Jesus every bit as much as white theologians do, the black thinkers are threatened with hellfire for not staying within the confines of white evangelicalism's tiny gospel.  {Wow.  'tiny gospel' is a brutal phrase aimed at the traditional and apostolic Church's testimony regarding the Gospel for two thousand years.  'within the confines' means within orthodoxy.  Orthodoxy matters, it has always mattered.}

The difficulty men like Akin face in disposing of Cone or King is that white men no longer have ownership of hell. The days of handing heretics over to the state to be burned at the stake or drowned are long gone. Even excommunication only works if the “heretic” is accountable to a religious governing body. The threat of sanctions is the only thing that once made charges of heresy meaningful.  {This is true, and that loss of 'control' isn't necessarily a bad thing, given how real or imagined heretics were treated in the past.  What ought the Church to do with heretics and apostates?  When Bart Ehrman walked away from the faith he kept his job and sold a lot of books, getting rich and famous in the process.}

The internet’s democratizing influence makes even social excommunication — currently known as “being canceled” — useless. Remember when conservative heavyweight John Piper famously tweeted “Farewell, Rob Bell” when Bell’s 2011 book, “Love Wins,” questioned the existence of hell? Bell went on to publish a New York Times bestseller about the Bible, and there was nothing Piper could do about it.  {No, but Rob Bell did walk away from the community to which he had belonged.  Whether or not somebody has a NYT bestseller is hardly a fitting evaluation of their orthodoxy and whether or not they still belong within the Church.}

This brings us back to questions of power and truth. Evangelical Christians have long expressed their deep concern about an immanent postmodern apocalypse that would annihilate the notion of “absolute truth.”  {A terrifying prospect, perhaps one at times overblown in 'sky is falling' fashion, but a real concern given the developments of philosophy and religion from the Enlightenment to Post-Modernism.}

The advent of fake news in a post-truth presidential administration shows that their anxieties weren’t altogether unwarranted. But truth is not altogether gone. It’s just that we understand the difference between a landscape and someone’s field of vision — their frame.

Is the truth a landscape before us, which each of us sees only in part? Or is truth the power to force everyone to see the world through one frame?  {This reminds me of Obi-Wan's 'from a certain point of view' speech.  However, it has little to do with traditional/apostolic/orthodox Christianity.  For Truth transcends these barriers and limitations for it is God's Truth, it does not belong to us, nor was it created by us.  In that sense, Truth cannot be destroyed, even if a particular culture declares the death of Truth with a capital 'T' and seeks to replace it with 'my truth' and 'our truth'.  This point works against the author's overall theme.  Truth exists beyond the lens/frame/filter that both he and James Cone would view it through (and beyond that of the white theologians he appears to disdain as well).  Attempts to minimize and contain that Truth are as futile as they are dangerous in the short-term.}

Whiteness has often defined “truth” as the latter — the acceptance of a white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy as orthodoxy, as normal and ideal, with the threat of violence forcing compliance from those who suffer under that narrative.  {The Gospel is NOT 'Whiteness', is does not belong to any race or nationality, it never has.  Orthodoxy is defined by the Scriptures and the Church (with the Spirit), any true understanding of the Gospel has no room whatsoever for racial supremacy, nationalism, politics/economics, etc.  That the Church in America today struggles with these boundaries is evident, but our failure in no way diminishes the power of orthodoxy itself, for that standard comes from God and will be judged by God.}

By rejecting that one story, many marginalized people are simply stating that the white frame never fit us. It isn’t a loss of truth that’s at stake. It’s the white establishment’s loss of control over the frame, their power to define the boundaries of truth.  {The 'power to define the boundaries of truth' has always belonged to God.  God gave revelation and established His Church in fulfillment of that authority.  When the Church began it was a small minority, soon to be persecuted, it was full of women, slaves, and the rejects of Greco-Roman society who saw the Hope that the Gospel offered to even them.  Did the Church gain temporal power?  Indeed it did (and its corrupting influences), but what it didn't do is change the orthodoxy that had been handed down to it from the Apostles (Bart Ehrman strenuously objects to that thought, but what he has is zeal, the evidence of history says otherwise).  The Church today still follows the orthodoxy established by a traveling Jewish rabbi who taught it first to a group comprised primarily of Jewish fishermen.}

Cone is among those defiantly asserting that white people have no governing role over the religion of black Christians. He reminded us that the white evangelical frame for their gospel has nothing to do with meeting God in the black freedom struggle. He’s an example to us all. And there’s nothing white evangelicals can do about it.  {One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.  Either there is One Church, comprised of all those who have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, or the Gospel as it has been understood and preached for two thousand years is meaningless.  There is not a church for each race, there is not a church for each gender, and there is not a church for each nationality.  We, human beings, have contributed to these false barriers through our failures and our sin, but they do not in reality exist.  Jesus Christ is Lord of all, his Word has authority over all who believe.  To attempt to sub-divide that Church is as dangerous and foolish today as it was when white racists would not allow their black slaves to worship with them at church.}

Sexist Gospels? Another reminder that Inspiration and Inerrancy matter

In a recent essay entitled, Toward non-gendered language for God, that was published in The Christian Citizen, which is a publication of the American Baptist Home Missions Societies (I am an ABC pastor, serving an ABC church), Dr. Molly T. Marshall who is the president of Central Baptist Seminary, argued that the Church's historic emphasis upon male language (pronouns, imagery) when speaking of God is exclusionary and thus harmful to women.  This particular point is controversial, and is of course wrapped in all manner of cultural and political debates beyond this specific point that Dr. Marshall is advocating.  That being said, a Bible-based conversation about gender equality can certainly be both helpful and necessary; for example, a discussion based upon Paul's words in Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Or perhaps a discussion pondering God's intentions for gender roles that examines texts like Genesis 2:18 18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”  There is room within the Church for various understanding of the role of women in ministry, the way in which husbands and wives complement each other and work together, as well as what a Biblical view of gender within society as a whole ought to be.  That Dr. Marshall is advocating a particular view on these things bothers me not at all.  That others might see things rather differently is also not unexpected nor particularly worrisome provided that we can appreciate our diversity of viewpoints within the Church and still both love each other and work together for the sake of the Gospel.
So, that being said, why am I mentioning the article by Dr. Marshall at all?  The essay contains one paragraph that strays from the issue at hand and instead becomes her commentary upon the creation of the Gospel accounts about Jesus (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and in particular a critique of the authors.  In this paragraph (below), it becomes clear that Dr. Marshall's viewpoint of Inspiration and thus Innerancy {A definition: "The Bible, when correctly interpreted in light of the level to which culture and the means of communication had developed at the time it was written, and in view of the purposes for which it was given, is fully truthful in all that it affirms." - Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctine} does not seem to be within the bounds of the traditional/apostolic Church.
{Dr. Marshall readily admits to not accepting the doctrine of inerrancy in this essay: The peril of selective inerrancy , While I eschew the proposition of inerrancy,  believing that it claims for Scripture something it does not claim for itself}

In addition, the language Jesus used for God is warrant for many to speak of God only as Father.  Jesus’ language is much more about filial intimacy than ascribing literal gender. It is easy to see the growth of a tradition from Mark to John. In Mark, Jesus names God Abba 11 times; by the time John is written, this naming for God occurs 120 times. In the midst of great strides to include women begun by Jesus, the writers and editors of the Gospels wanted to ensure that a masculine vision of God safeguarded men’s prerogative and that women would remain secondary. We can see this effect by comparing the treatment of Peter and Mary Magdalene. Recent scholarship suggests that there was a concerted effort to subordinate her leadership to her male counterpart. - Dr. Molly T. Marhsall

Dr. Marshall is operating under the presupposition that the Gospel accounts are not the product of the authors that tradition ascribes to them, but rather an ongoing process of writing and editing that was affected by tradition, resulting in the earlier Gospel, Mark only using Abba 11 times, but the Gospel which was written last, John, using it 120 times {while there are various theories about the dates of the writing of each of the Gospels, John is generally understood to be last}.  Rather than wondering why the term 'Abba' might have more significance for John than Mark, as all 4 Gospel account are only snapshots of Jesus' life and hardly exhaustive {thus all 4 had their own moments and ideas to emphasize drawn from the larger tapestry of Jesus' life, ministry, and teaching}, Dr. Marshall instead chooses to see this 'growth' as the result of an Early Church tradition that was hostile to women, even ascribing nefarious (and sinful) motives to these unknown editors as sexist men who decided to warp Jesus' message in order to keep women in their place.  In other words, the writers/editors of the Gospels were unrepentant sexists opposed to the message of Jesus, working against his efforts, NOT honest and sincere chroniclers.  In addition to the 'evidence' of the use of Abba, Dr. Marshall also offers and argument from silence (a logical fallacy) in which the role of Mary Magdalene is alleged to have suppressed by these same wicked Early Church leaders in favor of elevating Peter {Set aside for a moment the actual portrayal of Peter in the Gospels, it is more often embarrassing than flattering}.
Where do these ideas for analyzing the text come from and what do they tell us about Inspiration and Innerancy?  Treating the text of the Bible like this is not new, it began to pick up steam in the 19th century and has since become the hallmark of liberal (not the political use of the term, think Bart Ehrman or John Shelby Spong as current examples) interpretation of Scripture.  What was once a 'high' view of Scripture, has become an extremely 'low' view.  What was once considered the sacred Word of God, as Paul declares it, 'God-breathed' (theopneustos in Greek, 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,) and created when its authors were 'carried along' by the Holy Spirit in Peter's description of it (2 Peter 1:21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.), has now become the work of various writers and editors according to their own agendas and steeped in their own sinful attitudes which must, presumably, then be purged from the text.  The Word of God, has become the flawed words of men.
The traditional view of Scripture, emphasized by the Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, is by contrast a 'high' view, one in which the Scriptures are suitable to be the sole source of faith and practice (Sola Scriptura) precisely because they are God-breathed and thus not subject to the same errors and biases as the writings/utterances/ideas of sinful men and women.  God used the human authors, purposefully choosing to work through their viewpoints and vocabulary, but NOT allowing their flaws (for all of the authors of Scripture were sinners needing to be saved by grace) to be transmitted into what they wrote.  It thus remains a divine document, one central to our faith, and one worthy of our trust.
Once the Scriptures have been downgraded from a product of the human/divine partnership described within Scripture itself, all bets are off regarding which can be called into question and thus targeted for removal/dismissal.  Let me emphasize this: These are not questions of interpretation, places where Christians who hold equally high views of Scripture can strongly disagree {a famous example in our generation has been the debate about the intended meaning of the Creation account in Genesis: Was it supposed to be a 'literal' account of events that occurred over a 6 day period 6,000 years ago, or a symbolic/allegorical account emphasizing God's role as Creator without answering questions of how or when?  Both interpretations come from a high view of inspiration and inerrancy, neither is treating the text like a myth or fairy tale}, but rather more fundamental questions of the nature of Scripture itself.  Using the methodology that influences Dr. Marshall's conclusions about Abba and Mary Magdalene, how could one defend against Bart Ehrman's contention that Jesus never claimed to be God, didn't believe himself to be God, and didn't rise from the dead?  Ehrman believes these elements were added to the Gospels centuries after Jesus lived by a militant Church hierarchy intent upon squashing disent (contentions based upon Ehrman's conjecture and anti-supernatural presuppositions, but lacking in actual historic evidence) and thus we should view Jesus as a good ethical teacher, but nothing more.  If Scripture represents the flawed views of its authors, what in it can be taken at face value?  On what basis do we declare any portion of Scripture to be Truth and not simply the opinion of one man?
We can, and should, have conversations within the Church about our failure to treat everyone equally, failures regarding both race and gender.  We can, and should, seek to be more Biblical in our understanding of how we ought to treat each other.  These things are necessary.  What we cannot do, what we must not do, is jettison the bedrock belief in the Inspiration and Inerrancy of Scripture simply because flawed human beings have failed to properly interpret and apply what God has written.  The Word of God was here before us, and it will be here after us, we cannot tear it down to compensate for our own mistakes or to make it conform to our opinions.

Atheist Minister Gretta Vosper is being defrocked, why wouldn't she be?

A 23 person committee of the United Church of Canada voted 19-4 recently that Gretta Vosper, minister at the West Hill United Church in Scarborough, is "unsuitable to continue serving" as a minister in the United Church of Canada.  By her own proud admission, Vosper does not believe in God, nor Jesus Christ, nor the Holy Spirit. Vosper responded to the decision, according to the Toronto Star, by saying, “My sadness is for the many clergy and members and individuals currently studying for leadership in the UCC who are now also being told they need to keep quiet about their true beliefs or risk censure...The majority report said nothing about ethos and spoke exclusively to theological belief. A very sad day for the UCC.”
The United Church of Canada, "a historically inclusive and open-minded Protestant denomination" according to the article in the Star, has at least been willing to take a stand that its ministers need to believe in God.  Vosper in an interview with the Washington Post said, “We don’t talk about God,” and then added that the church needs to give up “the idolatry of a theistic god.”
The correct term for Gretta Vosper is not atheist, but apostate.  She has, like Bart Ehrman to cite a famous example, abandoned the faith that she previously professed.  It doesn't really matter what Vosper wants to replace God with, according to the Star interview, it is "adopting a more metaphorical interpretation of religious symbols and a greater emphasis on humanist, environmental and social justice causes."  Without God, whatever you put in his place, is meaningless and void.  This shouldn't be controversial in the least, that Vosper has been allowed to continue down this path for years should be shocking.
There is no way, at all, to apply the term "Christian" to what she is doing.  What we believe matters, for our hearts determine our actions, not the other way around, as Jesus said, "out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45)  The heart of the Gospel is that mankind apart from God is lost in sin, we are hopeless on our own, and thus our ONLY hope is in salvation by grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  These beliefs are not optional, they're essential in every way.
A "Christian", let alone a minister, who does not believe in God, AND more than that, who does not embrace the Gospel, would be a nonsense proposition to John Calvin, Martin Luther, Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, and of course Jesus himself.  For two thousand years the Church has proclaimed the Truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead in victory over sin and death.  To share the Gospel and make disciples of Jesus' followers, is why the Church exists.
Gretta Vosper may think that it is a "sad day" when 19 out of 23 members of a committee vote that an Apostate minister is unfit to lead the Church of Jesus Christ, I happen to see it as a "sad day" that 4 of the 23 voted to allow her to remain.

For additional consideration, Vosper's Church, West Hill, officially ended its use of the Lord's Prayer among other prayers, rewriting them along with classic hymns, for example:

From The Lord’s Prayer...

Then:

Our loving God, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses …

To Words of Commitment...

Now:

As I live every day, I want to be a channel for peace. May I bring love where there is hatred and healing where there is hurt; joy where there is sadness, and hope where there is fear …

From “How Great Art Thou Art …”

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

By Carl G. Boberg

To “Then Sings My Soul …”

Then sings my soul in wonder, full and free,

amazed at all I hear and see!

Then sings my soul in wonder, full and free,

a sacred gift is life to me!

By Gretta Vosper and Scott Kearns (2007)

If you need a good laugh, watch Sam Gipp's, "What the big deal about the KJV?" video

I needed a macabre laugh today so I re-watched "Dr." Sam Gipp's "What's the Big Deal about the KJV?" video.  From the very first scene, this 40 minute video is one ridiculous example after another of the worst KJV Onlyism set in a fake college setting where "professor" Gipp enlightens his students about the "perfect" Word of God.  Straw Men abound, as per usual, as well as illogical argument like this: The KJV is from Antioch through the TR (not actually true, the 6 manuscripts Erasmus had were medieval Byzantine copies, but let that go for a minute), the Eclectic Critical text ("you should know that there's a problem right there when they say their text is critical", as if the term Biblical Criticism was somehow an evil practice, forget that Erasmus, the father of the TR engaged in Biblical Criticism, as did the translation team utilizing Tyndale, the Bishop's Bible, and Erasmus to put together the KJV and every other copyists or translator) is from Alexandria (Of course this too isn't true, the Modern Critical text utilizes all of the manuscripts Western, Alexandrian, and Byzantine, far more of them {5,500+ vs. 6} than the TR, plus Church Fathers, and other early translations).  Gipp then explains that Antioch is where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians, that must mean it is a holy place of all goodness and its manuscripts are perfect (forget that heresies also came from Antioch, such as Monothelitism and Nestorianism), and Egypt is always called a bad place in the Bible (forget for a moment, "Out of Egypt I called my son"), thus Alexandria is written off as a place full of heretics whose manuscripts must therefore be 100% corrupt.  FYI, Guilt by Association, even weak association, is a favorite KJV Only tactic.  (Such as labeling anything they don't like "Catholic" as if that somehow ruins and taints whatever person or manuscript they need to discredit).

Everything goes downhill from there, including a hilarious scene where Gipp has a Bible study group read Psalm 23 in half a dozen different translations to show them the "confusion" that results, as if unison reading not lining up somehow proves anything.  Another favorite "proof" of Gipp is that the Modern Critical Text omits verses from the Bible, thus throwing off the numbering system of the 16th century (What, those guys can't even count, he says).  Don't stop and wonder why those verses are in the margins in the modern text, don't ask why scholars know for certain that they were added later, just go along as Gipp tells you that they're taking things out of the Bible because he has already set up the KJV as the only standard, therefore any "change" in the text from the KJV is what counts, and don't worry about what the original Greek text says regarding the "changes" he points out, he doesn't say so in this particular video but he's said elsewhere that he wouldn't care if original autographs were found, he already has a perfect KJV.

The proof text of any KJV Only fanatic is I John 5:7, a verse that has zero manuscript evidence in Greek before the 16th century, which by the way Gipp accuses the Alexandrians of removing from the Bible because they hate the Trinity (something they couldn't have done, of course because it didn't appear until later Latin copies of the Vulgate), sad for him that none of the Byzantine manuscripts have it either, and that none of the Church Fathers quote the verse despite their blood feud with the Arians.  Thus in this one instance, Gipp is accusing other Christians of denying the Trinity by relying upon an verse addition that comes from the Latin Vulgate, the Bible of the Catholic Church (which Gipp and those like him hate with white hot fury).  Forget for a moment that the trinity is found elsewhere in the NT (in the modern texts as well), forget for a moment the horror if such an important verse could be expunged from the manuscript tradition for 1,600 years, all of this isn't supposed to matter as you feel anger toward those who deny the trinity by changing God's perfectly preserved Bible, the KJV.

In the end, "Dr." Sam Gipp, along with Peter Ruckman, Gail Riplinger, and those who follow in their wake, have faith in a perfect Bible, the same blind faith of the world's Muslims who also allow no variants in their text, and treat any questions as those of heretics, and they have a skeptics doubts about the Early Church, the manuscript copying process, and the preservation of the original text, just like that of Dr. Bart Ehrman who has no faith because the text isn't "perfect".

Keep making your propaganda movies, they're good for a laugh, at least they would be if you weren't trying to destroy Christian fellowship, the reputations of devout men of God whose work as scholars has only increased our knowledge of the real reason why our Bible can be trusted, and making things up as you go to fit a conclusion that you reached long before you started making up your conspiracy theory.  While you're at it, say hi to Dan Brown, he enjoys a good conspiracy theory.

The unexpected agreement between Dr. Bart Ehrman's skepticism and the KJV Only fanatics

"When you subjugate it to the human laboratory for testing and twisting and probing, it takes on a different nature.  If it isn't preserved perfectly, then it lacks in authority, something less than full authority."  This is a quote about the Bible from Kent Brandenburg, and it has something that he might not be happy to hear about in common with the leading agnostic critic of Biblical accuracy alive today, Bart Ehrman.  Bart is a well known critic, with best selling books like Misquoting Jesus and How Jesus Became God to his name.  One of the most crucial conclusions that Dr. Ehrman makes in his rejection of the Bible that we have today is that it isn't the same as the original as penned by the Apostles.  If we don't have the original, God must not have preserved it, if God didn't perfectly preserve it, he must not have given it in the first place.  If the modern Bible isn't a perfect copy of the original autographs, if it has any errors (despite its historically unheard of 97% accuracy), it is no longer the Word of God.  KJV Only fanatics take this same view of the preservation of Scripture.  Their answer to Bart's dilemma is to posit a new revelation from God that occurred in 1611 (don't mention to them the typographical/spelling/printing mistakes of that edition, it won't be welcome).  The King James Bible to them is a perfectly preserved English version of what the Apostles wrote, so much so that many of them have dismissed the relevance of an original autograph should one be found in some cave like the Dead Sea Scrolls, and so much so that some of them (Sam Gipp for example) contend that the only way to hear the Word of God today is for the people of the world to learn English to read the KJV (Don't point out the obvious racist white superiority behind this line of thinking, just because God treats all men equally doesn't mean they have to).  How do we know that the KJV is a perfect edition in every way, especially since in their view that's the only way it will be God's Word?  You'll have to take that on faith.
  Dr. Ehrman yearns for a perfect Bible, doesn't have one, and has lost his faith, the KJV Only crowd yearn for a perfect Bible, so they've pretended they have one.
The sad thing is, we have an amazing Biblical text today.  All of the original readings have been preserved within the manuscript tradition, none of what the Apostles wrote has been lost.  The Bible is more readily available and accessible than ever before all over the world in hundreds of languages with new ones being translated every year.  The Word of God has never been closer to ordinary people, too bad the skeptics and the fanatics can't see it.

* Note * Kent Brandenburg should not be identified with the KJV Only crowd of Ruckman/Gipp/Riplinger (which he rightly dismisses as an untenable position), both groups believe in "perfect preservation", the first as found in the KJV, Kent's group as found in the Textus Receptus (TR definition).  To prefer the TR is a defensible position, just as it is defensible to prefer the KJV, the TR was the Greek text basis for Tyndale, the Bishop's Bible, the KJV, the Geneva Bible, Luther's German NT, and the New King James, but to be TR ONLY is almost as erroneous as the KJV Only position in that it posits a perfect moment in Church history when the text of God's Word needs to be frozen, when all scholarship and textual criticism needs to cease.  The problem with that, is that there is no one TR (it isn't a manuscript, but a published collation of a few late Byzantine texts that were available to Erasmus), there are many published additions of Erasmus/Stephanus/Beza that were the result of their efforts at textual criticism, so why must these men be the only authorities that can offer God's people his Word?  The TR is a good text, but the Majority text is better, and the Critical Eclectic text is better still.  Christians in the 16th century like Erasmus did a great job considering the manuscripts they had available to them at the time, but we have no need to limit ourselves to what they knew then.  God has indeed preserved his Word, in EACH generation, that effort continues to this day through the work of Godly men who continue the work of their ancestors in the faith. 

The purposeful exaggeration of Bart Ehrman on Textual Variants

I'm in the process of reading Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace's excellent book, Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture's Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ, and their first chapter confirms something I've noticed (not uniquely) about the writings and interviews of Biblical scholar, skeptic, and former evangelical, Bart Ehrman who is most famous for his book, Misquoting Jesus.  Dr. Ehrman routinely lists facts about the text of the N.T. that are not disputed by believing Biblical scholars, in fact most of what he says is very educational and helpful, but then he ends his recitation of the facts with a conclusion that is hardly necessary and in fact a rather significant amount of hyperbole.  For example, when listing off the most important textual variants that affect our ability to know the original text, Ehrman begins with Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53-8:11 (the longer ending of Mark and the woman caught in adultery), as if these two texts are somehow not already well known for having been late additions to the text.  Those two additions, thirteen and twelve verses, are by far the most significant "changes" to the text, but neither passage has anything to do with Christian Orthodoxy, neither proclaims an exclusive doctrine, and concluding that both are not original doesn't hurt the Christian faith one bit.  How are these examples of significant changes that will destroy our faith?  The other passages listed by Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus (p. 208) as being a danger to the accepted Biblical text are: Mark 1:41, Hebrews 2:8-9, John 1:18, I John 5:7-8, and Matthew 24:36.  In Dethroning Jesus, Bock and Wallace look at each reference in turn, only to uncover that whether or not Jesus is "angry" in Mark 1:41 is not going to shake the foundations of the Church, nor will it harm us to have to see the Trinity in the totality of the N.T. instead of relying upon the late addition of I John 5:7-8, something that Erasmus knew was inauthentic over 500 years ago.  In the end, Ehrman is much sound and fury, eloquently stated with passion to be sure, but rest assured, his earth shattering revelations are far from it.

Sermon Video: Jesus is God, Luke 9:28-36

Modern skeptics of the Bible, such as Dr. Bart Ehrman who wrote How Jesus Became God, have asserted that Jesus didn’t think of himself as divine, that his disciples never thought of him as such, and that all such references in the NT are later changes made by the Church.  Aside from the lack of evidence for such claims, there is the additional problem that the entire message of the New Testament, and the Bible as a whole, falls completely flat if Jesus Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, was simply a man wrongfully accused and executed by the Romans.  If Jesus isn’t God, in the same sense that Abraham and Moses spoke to God, Christianity has no reason to exist and all of its teaching are useless.  The disciples did believe in the divinity of Jesus, as did his earliest followers because they witnessed things that could not be explained any other way, among that ample evidence was the Transfiguration of Jesus witnessed by Peter, John, and James.

            The Transfiguration, during a time of prayer on a mountain in Galilee, was not a transformation of Jesus, but rather a revelation of that which was already within him.  As the “Word became flesh”, to use John’s description, Jesus had within himself both all of humanity, except sin, and all of divinity, willingly limited in time and space.  Why such a fuss?  Why would God go to such great lengths when he could have just sent another prophet to share the same message as Jesus?  The answer is simple, no one else could have accomplished the task that the Father required of the Messiah.  Another messenger would not have fixed the fundamental problem that separated humanity from God: human sinful rebellion.  Only by coming amongst us, only by accepting the role of vicarious savior, could Jesus forever open up the path to redemption; only he could do it, and only if he was indeed the Son of God.

            The Church has always taught the divinity of Jesus, those who denied it in the Early Church were opposed, their teachings labeled as heresy.  This belief is absolutely foundational to everything that the Church and Christians think, say, and do.  Jesus is God.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video 

The History of the Bible: Lecture series

Is the Bible the Word of God?  That is a question that only faith can answer.  Is the Bible we have today an accurate representation of what its authors originally wrote?  That is a question that evidence can prove.  The Bible is by far the most well attested ancient document with a rich manuscript history and a fascinating story of ordinary people who rose to the occasion to protect it, or sank to the depths to try to keep it from the people.  It is a story of hand-written copies, and a story of translation efforts from the original Greek and Hebrew.  This three part series will open the door to the much larger subject of the history of the text of the Bible, its preservation and transmission from the ancient world to the plethora of English Bibles that we have available to us today.  Along the way, it will help answer questions about the reliability of our text, the affect that variants have upon our confidence in the text, as well the reasons why we have so many translations in English today.

            There are skeptics who don’t believe that we can have any confidence that our text is the same as what was originally written.  Amazingly, they agree with the essential facts of history that the Bible’s manuscript tradition is rich and ancient, sadly, they draw opposite conclusion from this evidence and end up with nothing but doubt.  There are “perfect” Bible zealots who have complete confidence in one particular translation of our text, made 400 years ago, who are immune to evidence because their belief in the text of the Bible is a matter of faith not facts.  Both of these groups think that ordinary Christians will have their faith destroyed if they learn the truth about the history of the Bible, they’re both wrong.  The Word of God has been handed down to each new generation throughout the history of the Church, and that story is something that every Christian should want to know.

In order to best understand the lecture, please take the time to download the PowerPoint, Word document, and especially the manuscript chart.  Having them in front of you while you listen will allow you to more fully understand the information that is being presented.

To watch part 1 in the series, click on the link below:

The History of the Bible video, 1 of 3

The History of the Bible video, 2 of 3

The History of the Bible video, 3 of 3 

To look at the PowerPoint slides used in the presentation, click on the link below:

 History of the Bible PowerPoint (for all 3 parts)

To view the manuscript evidence Word document, click on the link below:

Manuscript evidence

To view the manuscript history chart created by Pastor Powell and Pastor Scott Woodlee, click below:

Manuscript History chart