Eddie and Paul Price on the Bible and Theology

[PDPrice (Paul Price)]

@Eddie

I agree that Genesis tells a story about a universal flood.

It relates the history of the Flood. It is not a myth or a “story”. Your claim that it is not history cannot be supported by Scripture (I have asked you to support it, and you have said you cannot). Appealing to your sense of “smell” is a denial of the Bible, outright. You are not God, and your “smell” is not divinely inspired. The Scriptures, on the other hand, are. They do not indicate what you claim. The Flood is related in exactly the same genre as the rest of biblical history.

@Eddie

The phrase “refuse to believe” implies an action of the will, but it has nothing to do with the will; it’s completely based on the state of the evidence. I see no evidence – no convincing evidence – that there was ever a universal flood, at any time; and that a universal flood did not happen ca. 3000 BC is as close to certain as any historical statement can ever be. If such a flood had occurred, it would show unmistakable signs to geologists and geographers, and it would correlate with not just a few stray archaeological facts, but with hundreds of such facts. It would also have produced a very different aftermath than what our ancient historical records reveal. So I have to conclude that there was no such flood at that particular time. That’s the most reasonable conclusion based on the evidence. If new evidence comes up, I’ll reconsider.

Here you are contradicting your earlier claim entirely. Because before you (as I suspected, dishonestly ) claimed that the scientific evidence (that is, alleged evidence) played no role in your biblical interpretation. You said it was about the text. If you will reconsider what the text means based on alleged extra-biblical scientific evidence, then guess what? It’s not about the text after all!

@Eddie

There’s no “refusal”, any more than you “refuse” to believe in leprechauns.

But there is a refusal . The text of the Bible relates that this flood did happen. Based on what secular scientists are telling you, you are ruling out the plain literal reading a priori . If God is your authority, then let God be true, though every man a liar. Start with God’s revelation, and move out from there. If the secularists are telling you something that contradicts the Bible, then naturally they are in error, even if you personally don’t yet understand what causes the error. This is proper Christian epistemology.

@Eddie

“The faith delivered to the saints” there does not mean “the faith delivered to the people of Israel in the Old Testament”;

Of course it means that. There is one faith (Eph. 4:5). Jesus is the completion of what God revealed, and Jesus upheld every last “jot and tittle” of that revelation! Matthew 5:17-18.

@Eddie

it’s clearly a reference to the Christian habit of calling Christians “saints”, i.e., sanctified ones, and it means the faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who revealed the entire Bible. Did you not know?

@Eddie

What do you mean by that? All texts, not just the Bible, but other religious texts, and even texts as simple as an order for a new pair of boots, require interpretation. The question is whether the interpretation of religious texts belongs to the individual or to the body that has religious authority.

That’s not the question. Obviously no religious authority has power over the meaning of God’s word–that is made clear in the word itself (i.e. the story of the “faithful Bereans” who refused to believe even the apostle Paul himself until they saw he preached in accordance with the Scriptures).

The question is, is there a sound hermeneutic that allows the plain meaning of God’s word to be accessible to all, or must we submit to the authority of “the elites” who have special knowledge we don’t have, and which allows them alone to properly understand the Bible?

Or in other words, must we trust your “sense of smell”, over the plain meaning of God’s word?

@Eddie

If you really don’t believe that personal interpretation should be allowed, you should return to the authority of the Roman Church, which Protestantism broke away from, and let the priests and theologians teach you the official Church interpretation.

You are behaving as one of them yourself. You claim to have a sense of “smell” (which others like myself do not possess) which gives you the right to proclaim that Genesis is just a “story”, rather than history.

@Eddie

I didn’t say “parable,” and those aren’t the only two options. Again, I recommend you do some reading in narratological theory, people like Alter and M. Sternberg. Your reading background appears to be narrow.

Okay, you deny it’s a parable, and you deny it’s hyperbole. And you deny it’s poetry, right? So what is it? What is the genre? Where are the boundaries of this genre? Where in the genealogies of Luke do you make the sudden jump from mythical person to real person?

@Eddie

No, not “YECs”, which has a definitely modern referent, though it’s true that most of the Fathers probably thought the Biblical chronology was more or less accurate.

But you’re much more educated in Christianity than all of them combined.

@Eddie

But the very fault you find in the Fathers – you say they have too much Greek influence – might give you a clue.

You’re twisting what I said. I specifically said those of the Alexandrian school had an excess of Greek influence, not all the early Christian writers. It’s no surprise, then, when modern-day revisionists like yourself perpetually bring up those same examples, while conveniently ignoring that they were an anomaly and were guilty of some serious heresies.

@Eddie

Almost none of the Greek or Latin Fathers could read Hebrew. They did not have much feel for Hebrew narrative.

This is a clear denial that God’s word can be understood by all. It is a denial that the meaning of God’s word can be understood in a translation (much like the Muslims say about the Koran).

@Eddie

We know much more than they did about the historical context, Hebrew language, narrative style, etc. So, while I respect the Fathers when it comes to systematic questions, I don’t feel obliged to follow them when it comes to Hebrew exegesis.

No. The Christian faith is not subjugated to modern academics who claim a “greater understanding” of the Hebrew context. They are revisionists who deny the plain meaning of Scripture, as you do.

@Eddie

And in your own Protestant Biblicist religion, you feel free to overrule the Fathers in the name of what you think the Bible teaches, so you can hardly deny me the same sphere of judgment.

Your judgment is not based on the Bible, but mine is. Otherwise, please show the validity of your position from Scripture, not from extra-biblical claims.

@Eddie

Coherence comes more quickly once one gives up mechanical literalism.

That’s not coherence. It’s just a wholesale abandoning of the plain meaning of Scripture. This coherence you speak of is of your own invention.

@Eddie

It’s irrelevant whether or not a global flood happened, if our goal is to determine the meaning of the text. Whether or not a global flood happened is only relevant to Bible study if one accepts that Genesis is trying to write history – which I deny.

That denial, however, seems to be contingent on your understanding of scientific evidence. This is proved by your own statement, quoted earlier, that you “will reconsider” if you see different scientific evidence.

@Eddie

It’s bullying when it aggressively tries to make Christians who don’t agree with one’s own interpretation feel as if they are not Christians, but heretics or even unbelievers.

What more can I say? The interpretation you’re promoting is wrong. It’s a recent invention not based on the text of the Bible.

@Eddie

How do you know that? Do you deny that an omnipotent God could inspire his Church, the body of Christ, to adopt the correct creeds?

The canon of Scripture is closed. Or perhaps you’d like to add your own posts here on this forum to the canon as well?

@Eddie

There is no reason to assume that, with that focus, they would become excellent interpreters of the Hebrew Bible – a book most of them could not read until after the Reformation, because they didn’t know the language.

You’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too. On the one hand, you are impugning my view on the basis that the Fathers didn’t specifically talk about the Flood in their creeds. But on the other hand, when you are confronted with the fact that nobody in the early church agreed with your position (!) you must write them off as too ignorant to properly understand the Bible.

@Eddie

Doesn’t it ever occur to you as odd that Biblical books after Genesis hardly ever refer to the Garden, the serpent, Cain and Abel, Nimrod, the Flood, Babel, etc.? They frequently refer back to Abraham, Jacob, the role of Egypt, etc., but hardly ever to the early stories of Genesis. Yet according to you, the whole Jewish religion (and Christian religion which built on it) logically depends on these early stories.

Not according to me–according to Paul in Romans 5.

No, not the whole canon, which was not fully formed yet, but they frequently referred to the Law and the Prophets, and some (not all) of the Writings.

That’s simply false, as you can read below:

(2) Old Testament quotations by Jesus Christ . In [Matthew 5:17-18] the Lord declared that the Law and the Prophets, a reference that includes all of the Old Testament, then summarized as “the Law” in verse 18, would be fulfilled. This declared it was therefore God’s authoritative Word. Christ’s statement in [Matthew 23:35] about the blood (murder) of Abel to the blood of Zechariah clearly defined what Jesus viewed as the Old Testament canon. It consisted of the entire Old Testament as we know it in our Protestant English Bible. This is particularly significant in view of the fact there other murders of God’s messengers recorded in the Apocrypha, but the Lord excludes them suggesting He did not consider the books of the Apocrypha to belong in the Canon as with the books from Genesis to 2 Chronicles.
7. The Bible: The Holy Canon of Scripture | Bible.org

@Eddie

Even assuming that Paul’s claim is not intended Midrashically, I wasn’t speaking about Paul, but about the Gospels. Why do two of the four Gospels not even bother to give a genealogy for Jesus?

This, implicitly, denies the inerrancy of Scripture. Your question is totally irrelevant! Paul was revealing God’s truth in Romans 5 just like the Gospels did. Rather than worrying about why two of the Gospels didn’t mention the genealogy, you should consider why you don’t believe the ones that did .

@Eddie

Wooden literalism focused on Genesis and hardly dealing with the Gospels, and focused on bashing science, is not the historic Christian faith.

That’s a blatant strawman. Your idea of what constitutes the “faith” is not in line with historic Christianity, by your own admission . You claim to have more knowledge about the true faith than anybody in the first 1900 years of the church. That’s sickening arrogance.

@Eddie

Let me be clear: I’m not trying to get you to accept my interpretation. I’m just trying to help out those who might be intimidated by the way you press your interpretation.

Let’s be clear: you are accusing me of attempting to intimidate people by my appeal to the historic faith. You are not, although you are claiming a greater knowledge of the faith than any of the early Christian Fathers possessed. We’ll let that sink in.

@Eddie

You’re a fallible mortal, like the rest of us, capable of making errors of interpretation.

Then you need to show that error from Scripture, not merely assert it.