onejotoronetittle
In the last article, readers joeyanne and Heather shared these comments:
“I believe in an omnipotent God who gave us the Bible as His great communication to us. I believe that every word, (down to every last comma) is inspired by God.” – joeyanne
“Actually, I don’t think the Greek texts had grammar — that was left to the interpreters. For instance, the phrase would look like this: ‘godisnowhere.’ Which can be interpreted as ‘God is now here’ and ‘God is no where.’ Yes, it would be up to the context and such, but it was still determined by interpretors.” – Heather
Technically, Heather is correct. Search on Google Images for some of the ancient manuscripts, especially some of the papyrus fragments and take a look at them. They are usually solid columns of faded text, with no spaces, no punctuation and no case. With troublesome stuff like ‘godisnowhere’, I am sure the interpreters have to put it in context and do the best that they can.
But I also understand what joeyanne is trying to say. Chuck Missler holds the view that we will never fully understand Scripture. But when the Messiah comes, he will interpret the words of Scripture, in fact he will interpret the letters, in fact he will interpret the very spaces between the letters. Missler is smart enough to know there is no punctuation in the original text, but he has a sort of Biblical mysticism view where even the placement by God of an individual jot or tittle reveals profound truths. Many Christians hold this view towards Biblical Inerrancy, as did I. I now think that viewpoint is fallacious, and I am trying to rid myself of that view, in one way by writing these articles.
With all that in mind, I am going to change the subject.
The notion of the afterlife as described in the Bible is very ambiguous. Most of our beliefs and images of heaven and hell actually come from literature and church tradition from the Middle Ages, and are found nowhere in the Bible. For instance, the Bible never speaks of a human soul or spirit ascending to heaven to be with God upon death. Despite the funeral eulogies that we hear, that idea is never in there. The Bible teaches that upon death, a person goes to Sheol or Hades, which just means ‘the grave’. Because of the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke, some people imagine Sheol to be a sort of holding tank or waiting room, sort of like hanging out at the DMV I guess. At some point in the future, when the Kingdom of Heaven arrives, the dead shall be Resurrected out of the grave to somehow face judgment. The Bible is very vague and dare I say contradictory how this judgment takes place, but the point is that this judgment by God decides a person’s fate to either eternal bliss or eternal torment. But until the Kingdom of Heaven arrives, people are in the grave.
So all our loved ones are not in heaven. They are waiting in the grave to be bodily resurrected and face the judgment of God. I believe that is strictly Biblical. As far as I know, there is one and only one place in the Bible that even hints of ascending to heaven immediately upon death. And it is an example of how comma placement, as discussed by joeyanne and Heather, can be Divinely inspired. And wouldn’t you know it, it is from the last sayings of Jesus on the cross that I posted yesterday. Divine intervention or coincidence? You decide.
Jesus said to the repentant thief on the cross, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Now this puts the Biblical Inerrantist in yet another contradiction pickle. Are we to ascend to Paradise upon death or not? The rest of the Bible teaches that we wait in the grave for the Resurrection. Are we ascending to heaven upon death, then come back down to our dead bodies in the grave during the Resurrection? What is the sense of that? The whole thing is a bit of a mess.
If you are absolutely hell-bent on removing all contradictions like this from the Bible and keep every jot and tittle inspired by God, you can use an old apologist trick which I like to call the Sliding Tittle Tactic. Here is how it goes. Jesus said this:
“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
But because there was no punctuation in the original text, it can be changed willy-nilly to meet your needs. So what Jesus really meant was this:
“Truly I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
See? We just slide that little tittle over by one word and our contradiction is gone. Jesus is not saying that the thief will be in Paradise that very day! No, he will meet the thief in Paradise at some undetermined time in the future, but he is saying it – Today. Get it? Because Jesus, while hanging in agony on the cross, found it necessary to mention to the thief that he was speaking to him, not Tomorrow, but – Today. That he was making his grand statement of forgiveness, not last week, but – Today. Absurd? Of course it is, but we have solved that nasty Biblical contradiction and kept the text Divnely inspired just by moving a comma.
I have actually heard this taught from the pulpit several times over the years. I cannot imagine using this ridiculous excuse to somebody who asked me about this tricky passage, and keep a straight face while doing it. And thankfully, I don’t think anybody actually has! Face it, the explanation is ludicrous! The Sliding Tittle Tactic is rarely used by Apologists, but I can think of three other places off the top of my head where it comes in handy, and I am sure there are others.
March 23rd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
“Which can be interpreted as ‘God is now here’ and ‘God is no where.’ Yes, it would be up to the context and such, but it was still determined by interpretors.” – Heather
I actually did my own study on how accurate the gospel writers could be with a line of letters squished together – and I practiced it with people who never knew nothing about how to translate a single thing or even knew about what scribes had to do in re-writing the ideas. I was quite amazed at how easy this was to do.
I did it for the Hebrew texts (which never contained vowels) and were also squished together. I would write a verse to a song a person never heard without the vowels and based on context try to see if they could figure it out. Oddly enough, every person passed the test with flying colors and made small errors that never changed the passage one iota.
I think we embellish the idea that the people transcribing Hebrew or Greek had a tough time in re-writing these things – actually it makes sense they had very little problems in the process. So when someone throws out the idea ‘godisnowhere’ (which is one little sentence without a wider context) then yes interpreting that sentence is gonna be tough. But if the passage is written by an atheist – we can guess what that sentence might mean. If it written by someone talking about God’s return to earth – we can also take a wild guess what that sentence means. It’s actually not very hard to do.
As for the last sentence in Luke – what is context? I personally think Luke is saying ‘today (literal) you (prisoner) will be with me (Jesus) in Paradise (heaven)’. Us having no clue how the hereafter actually functions then it makes all the sense in the world. Paul can do all the explaining he wants – but not being an eternal being while on earth – he is somewhat at the whim of philosophical ideas and not actual proof (same for luke). Maybe eternity doesn’t play by our clocks? Maybe eternity respects our timepieces? Who knows the answer to that and can they speak up? I think we are all interested in hearing some absolutes on the issue.
Besides that Luke isn’t proporting a philosophy about eternity – but an idea about forgiveness – so for any logical person to take Luke as some doctrine on the hereafter is a stretch to say the least. It’s not so difficult if we take out theological indoctrinations out of the way first and look at the text with sincerity and honesty – but again – this requires us to dump our pre-conceived notions at the door and approach Luke as a solo book (not with Paul or John’s rhetoric added into it for approval).
Man, am I out to lunch or is any of this making any logical sense?
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
** So when someone throws out the idea ‘godisnowhere’ (which is one little sentence without a wider context) then yes interpreting that sentence is gonna be tough. But if the passage is written by an atheist – we can guess what that sentence might mean. If it written by someone talking about God’s return to earth – we can also take a wild guess what that sentence means. It’s actually not very hard to do. ** Which is what I said, the context plays a huge factor.
What you’re saying does make sense. What I was commenting on in an earlier post is a trend that does trouble me: treating the Bibles we have today as the same as what the early Christians had. I know there are some Christians who are horrified if one deviates from the King James Bible because it’s “exactly what Jesus said.”
So when we say that the Bible we have today is as inspired as the old texts, including grammar, that gets a little tricky, as seen by this post. Did our grammar match how the early Christians read/heard it? It just gets too easy to interpret the Bible on today’s standards. There was another post where there was a difference in words between ‘flesh’ and ‘nature’ The word one chooses alters things.
**Besides that Luke isn’t proporting a philosophy about eternity – but an idea about forgiveness – so for any logical person to take Luke as some doctrine on the hereafter is a stretch to say the least.** Yes, thank you. Same with the rich man/Lazarus story and hell/Sheol. The point on that story wasn’t to confirm a literal hell, but rather show that behavior towards the poor/unfortunate is paramount and does have consequences.
March 24th, 2007 at 12:53 am
HeIsSailing,
First of all, as someone who has also struggled with hard questions, let me say kudos to you for having the guts. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, and yet, we must. Let me also say that I have found ANSWERS!
Of course, my answers aren’t going to satisfy your questions, I just say this to give you hope. Keep going – you’re right, if the Bible is inerrant and the God it presents real, then it can stand a whole lot of scrutiny!
Your scope is very broad, but let me just comment on a couple of things.
First of all, if the Bible is true in any sense, then it must be available, at least in its main thesis, to the simplest mind among us. Let the theologians pick the bones clean, but if there’s no meat for the rest of us, then how’re we ever really gonna know? So the real question ignores theology altogether and asks, “What does the text say?” That’s a question for the questioning teenager, the busy mom, the blue collar worker. We like to complicate the Bible because it’s the Bible, and we think there are hidden meanings lurking everywhere. Well, there are, but they are layers of meaning, adding richness as spice adds layers of flavor to a steak. The gourmet can appreciate it, but the nutritional value remains unchanged if you just leave it out.
If the Bible is God’s message to us, then let’s find us a version, any version that is comfortable to us, and begin there. A God who claims to inspire fishermen can surely get his meaning across to us no matter where they put the commas!
Self-contradiction, on the other hand, is a grave offense, and must be taken absolutely seriously. I as a human being can tell a little lie about, say, how my mom’s new dress looks, and still be considered a truthful person. God must hold himself accountable to a much higher standard! He cannot be God and tell a little lie, or make a little mistake. We can’t forgive one book for inaccuracies in the scientific field just because the auther happens to have been a shepherd rather than a scientist. Either God inspired it, and it is inerrant in what it says (I don’t care how you split the commas), or it is a lovely artifact for the museums, period. What I mean to say is that if you are looking for truth from God from the Bible, then you have to treat it as a message from a holy, powerful, and perfect being. You can say it’s not God’s message, but you can’t say that it is God’s message AND contains errors in its meaning. Doesn’t make sense.
Which leads us to this: IF the Bible is God’s message to us, as it purports to be, AND it appears to have inaccuracies, THEN either a) we were wrong in the first place and it is NOT God’s message to us, or b) the God who is sending the message is not the God he pretends to be in the message, or c) we are wrong about the inaccuracies.
In the Case of the Multiple Last Words you refer to, I suggest that the culprit is option c) we are wrong about the inaccuracies. Let me tell you where I think your train of thought got de-railed… Nobody said these were Jesus last words. The writers just told something Jesus said. As a Journalism major I can tell you that four reporters coming from the same story are almost certain to give you four different quotes, even from the same person. It depends on the “tack” they chose; the perspective from which they chose to present the story. We like to pretend to ourselves that there is such a thing as perfect objectivity – “only the facts”. The trouble is, which
March 24th, 2007 at 1:45 am
-Oops! Sorry, I don’t know what happened there! -
facts?
Reality is 3D. You can’t see all the sides of a square at once. You can’t see all the sides of anything at once. That’s why I see it as a stroke of brilliance (or perhaps – divine inspiration) that the Bible offers four perspectives on the events that are central to its thesis.
The two that are giving you the most trouble are Luke’s (Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I commit my spirit to you,” and with those words he died.) and John’s (…he said, “It is finished,” and bowed his head, and dismissed his spirit.) This is a simple journalistic device. Luke is telling us plainly that the words he has quoted are Jesus’ last words. John gives us a quote and then sums up the rest himself: ‘…and dismissed his spirit’. How did he dismiss his spirit? Well, could have been with a hand gesture. John could have been just surmising, although this is not good journalism – after all, there is a vast difference between dismissing your spirit and dying. Then again, could have been with – words. (Maybe something along the lines of, for instance, “Father, I commit my spirit to you”. Maybe.)
HeIsSailing, you are 100% right to ask all your hard questions. The God that the Bible presents is a God who can stand up to any questions. Please don’t stop asking. Please don’t go stomping out because your intelligence is being insulted by popular Christianity. God’s intelligence is being insulted, too. Please hang in there and wait for answers that satisfy your whole person – including your reason.
I have met a real God. He is more than I ever hoped he could be. He answers all my questions.
He Is Not Sailing anymore. He Is Come.
March 24th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Just one more thing, so you don’t think I’m ignoring this – Jesus asks God why he has forsaken him, but he commits his spirit to his father. If you or I said that, it would be contradictory, as God and Jesus’ Father are the same person. But Jesus himself was both God and human. As a human, he was forsaken by God because he bore sin – ours. As a holy God and a sinless Son, he was never forsaken by his Father. As a human, he died of physical trauma to the body. As God-the-Son, he chose to commit his spirit to His Father.
March 24th, 2007 at 4:56 am
Jennypo;
Keep it up! You are really reaching the real depth of the real questions. I like it that you are looking at the basis of the text, not just the interpretive aspect. I agree that we have to decide whether or not we are looking at a book that is true and God’s communication with us, or just an artifact from the past. That foundation makes all the difference
I agree that God is real and is evident in my everyday life in the relationship I have found with Him. That reality is what keeps me learning more about Him and discovering new things everday to be amazed at. It is definitely worth continuing with the questions until He reveals Himself to you.
I could never have said it as succinctly as you have.
March 24th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Hi, Jenny.
**As a human, he was forsaken by God because he bore sin – ours.** I have a question about this, that isn’t related to Heissailing’s post, but I’ve seen this reason used a few times.
Does the Bible directly state this, or is that something inferred? Because that statement confuses me. If God is omnipresent, and the Bible says He is, then He’s in the midst of sin every day. He can’t be removed from something in HIs creation. I see Jesus’s cry as more mirroring the cry that people make every day when in poverty, abuse, starving — if God is Love, then where is He? Why am I abandoned if God loves me? Rather, I see God right in the middle of the cross, suffering there with us, suffering with His creation that’s lost its way. The cross was the world’s strongest way of saying that God wasn’t all-powerful, of saying that love doesn’t win. And then three days later, Jesus is resurrected, showing that God’s response, God’s answer, God’s love, can’t be beaten. Violence, the world’s power, those in the highest position may look like they’ve crucified the oppressed *now.* But that’s not the final answer. The cross is showing that the end result of sin is self-destruction, but that’s not the final answer. God’s love is. And God’s justice is, because God’s justice restores the oppressed. (Yes, it also punishes sin, but for pretty much all of us, given that sin can come acrosss as ‘fun’ a lot of times, we’re only going to be willing to cast it off if the self-destructive nature of sin is revealed).
**You can say it’s not God’s message, but you can’t say that it is God’s message AND contains errors in its meaning. Doesn’t make sense.** To me, it does make sense. I see the Bible as people’s understanding of God slowly growing clearer. A myth can be true without being literally true. So can an inspired story. Thousands of ancient cultures have sat down to tell a story and said, “This is how it happened” without that story being literally true. So in the story with bears sent by God mauling children, if God did that, then I’m left wondering about Jesus’s message, or even God’s justice.
To me, the errors and God’s message still works because of how I view human understanding of God. Given that the Divine is much higher than human understanding, I don’t think it was God ‘lowering’ Himself to give us a message, but rather that the human thought was searching hard enough to connect with the Divine. So I see the Bible as a way of God communicating, as well as a book written with portions now longer applicable because of the culture. That’s how I’ve encountered Him.
I’m not saying that my way trumps yours.
But I do think one can find God as passionately as you have, without considering the Bible inerrent.
March 24th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I feel a little as though I am barging in on a private party. You’ve been having a great conversation without me all this time. I hope I don’t come across as though I’m saying, “Okay guys, relax, I’m here with the answers”! God is not about me being right and you being wrong. My thought processes are flawed, just as yours are. Thinking is not the end of knowledge, but thinking is where I must begin. My answers are not going to be everybody’s answers, because for each of us, the questions are different, but there are answers, for each of us, if the God presented by the Bible is real. Reason is a tool we can use to test our answers, to measure our thinking against something outside of our own heads. And let’s admit it, our heads get messy sometimes.
I am interested not only in the subject you are discussing, but because of the intelligence with which you are discussing it. These are issues that have and do concern me.
So Heather, thanks for responding. I like your first question. This is the kind of question that gets at the root of things. Exactly what authority do I have for saying that Jesus suffered for our sins as a human? Does the Bible say it, or does it just explain things for me?
I Peter 2: 21 – 23
Christ suffered for you… ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate, when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
Hebrews 4:14
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.
James 1:13
God cannot be tempted with evil…
Hebrews 10:9, 10
Then he said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will’ …And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.
I don’t know if you want to call this stated or inferred. Either way, these are only a few of the reasons why I believe it is evident that Jesus, the human, suffered for our sins. But I enjoyed your thought that God suffered with us! This is true, too. As God, he shared our pain. At Calvary, Jesus was not only suffering for us the punishment that God, the Just One, had to execute, he was also identifying with us and our tragedy (in this, God the Father was right beside him, sharing our suffering.)
The fact that God is omnipresent means that he reaches everywhere, not that he is everything. He most certainly is separated from his creation – Satan is his creation. God is here, with us, but he is not us, except in Jesus. Even then, the Bible makes clear this separation:
Hebrews 7:26
Such a high priest meets our need – one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.
Heather, the statements you make about the Bible are not inconsistent because you don’t see it as a message from God. You see it as a message ABOUT God – the journal of humanity’s journey to knowing God. If this is the case, then it is a wholly different thing. Of course, there should be many inconsistencies, and the Bible loses its authority. We can still use it, but we can’t trust it. But then, if you are right, then God is not the God described in the Bible.
And isn’t it about time for an update? :^)
Thanks for letting me join in here. Your questions are challenging and exciting. I like the tone of the discussions, too, which isn’t too brutal on those who disagree. Here’s to many more!
March 24th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
jennypo sez:
“Heather, the statements you make about the Bible are not inconsistent because you don’t see it as a message from God. You see it as a message ABOUT God – the journal of humanity’s journey to knowing God. If this is the case, then it is a wholly different thing. Of course, there should be many inconsistencies, and the Bible loses its authority. We can still use it, but we can’t trust it. But then, if you are right, then God is not the God described in the Bible.
And isn’t it about time for an update? :^)
Thanks for letting me join in here. Your questions are challenging and exciting. I like the tone of the discussions, too, which isn’t too brutal on those who disagree. Here’s to many more! ”
JennyPo, welcome to this site!
These articles that I have written and the replies have kind of taken on a life of their own lately – I guess God is an all encompasing subject that people get very passionate about and have a real longing and searching nature towards. But I welcome your input here – everyone who replies seems to be very thoughtful and above all honest in their searching with tough questions about God, and that is a breath of fresh air from the strict dogmatism that I have previously rested my faith in.
March 24th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Hi, Jenny.
Thank you for your response. I hope that my comments to you were as gracious as yours were to me.
**Exactly what authority do I have for saying that Jesus suffered for our sins as a human? ** I do believe that, and I’m sorry if my question earlier wasn’t clear. I was more asking about if God had forsaken Jesus when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God …” because God couldn’t bear to look on sin — I was asking if the forsaking was directly stated in the Bible, or if that was inferred given how Jesus cried out.
**The fact that God is omnipresent means that he reaches everywhere, not that he is everything.** Hmm. I would see it more that not so much ‘reaches’ everywhere, but actually is everywhere. Of course, we may be saying the same thing, just phrasing it differently. But when I see the word ‘reaches,’ I interpret that as confined to a space, and sending a part of one’s self out.
**the statements you make about the Bible are not inconsistent because you don’t see it as a message from God. You see it as a message ABOUT God – the journal of humanity’s journey to knowing God.** I don’t think I’ve had someone put the different perspectives in such terms before — and it’s a very clear description. So thank you. I would say that it’s a message from God in a second-hand way. God sent a message through Jesus, and people realized eventually that to preserve the message, they’d have to write it down. But do I believe that the Bible is a message from God, word-for-word? No. I think it was inspired, and in the OT, sometimes limited by people boxing God in as a tribal God. THen Jesus came and said, “God’s a lot bigger than you previously thought.”
But I do think one can trust the Bible, even while not seeing it as inerrent. If approaching it with an honest desire for solution/answers, I believe it will reveal that. And I think we can both agree on that last statement.
March 25th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Heather sez:
” I was more asking about if God had forsaken Jesus when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God …” because God couldn’t bear to look on sin — I was asking if the forsaking was directly stated in the Bible, or if that was inferred given how Jesus cried out. ”
Heather, as far as I see it is not directly stated. That God forsake Jesus upon death because he was made sin is an inference, dare I say a harmonization. Stuff like 2 Corintians 5:21 says that Jesus was made into sin (I think by God the Father), but there is no direct reference to God forsaking him due to that sin.
You know Heather, now that I am thinking of it, I can think of nowhere in Scripture that states that God’s nature does not allow sin in his presence. Maybe because I just forget, but is that stated anywhere, or is that just evangelist spin-doctoring?
March 25th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
HeIsSailing sez:
You know Heather, now that I am thinking of it, I can think of nowhere in Scripture that states that God’s nature does not allow sin in his presence. Maybe because I just forget, but is that stated anywhere, or is that just evangelist spin-doctoring?
“Your eyes are too pure to look on evil…” Habakkuk 1:13
The context of this is metaphorical, which means that it is not referring to God’s literal eyes (does God have literal eyes?) – it is referring to the fact that God cannot tolerate sin.
That God’s nature does not allow sin in his presence is evidenced not in a single statement but it is demonstrated most clearly in relation to the “Holy of Holies”, where God’s glory rested, and the in the laws outlined in Leviticus. Only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, which contained the presence of God, and that once a year. There were constraints related to contact with the dead, and ceremonial washings associated with this, demonstrating God’s intolerance of defilement. The New Testament also alludes to this in Hebrews 4:15-16, presenting Jesus entry into heaven as our high priest as our right to approach God’s throne.
In addition, it is clear that as Son and Father, both were agreed and committed to the cross and Calvary. This is made evident in Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane (”Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42); as well as his answer to Pilate (”You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” John 19:11).
“I and my Father are One.” John 10:30
And yet, the Bible is clear that Jesus was punished by God:
“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…” Isaiah 53:10
And you are absolutely right about 2 Corinthians 5:21:
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us…”
March 25th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
One more… I’m pretty sure this is the only instance of Jesus addressing God as “God” – elsewhere in the New Testament he addresses him as “Father”.
March 26th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I thought that a lot of problems with the inerracy of scripture have not only to do with no spaces between words and vowels, but also to do with the fact that 1. the ealy scribes and copiers were highly uneducated and easily made mistakes 2. scribes and copiers changed parts of the text in order to avoid appearing heretical 3. not all scriptures present at the time were included in the Bible–many of the early churches in and around the 1-3 centuries A.D. believed a whole range of things–even such stuff as polytheism and Jesus as a human–not God–and they have books on this. I dont have my books or notes in front of me, so I will come back to this later—but I just was thinking about how there are more reasons that the Bible is believed to be full of error.
i am excited this site is picking up! Nice to meet everyone!!!!
March 26th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Some early churches believed that when Jesus claimed, “Why have you forsaken me?” that that was the moment that God left Jesus’s body–so God never actually died on the cross at all–it was Jesus the MAN who died. I dont believe any of it, but I am just showing that throughout history, people have put their faith strongly in a whole range of things–even things that people may think are absurd today (but they didnt think that back then)–so we may think certain things now, but will they still hold in 4007? i dont know. sorry to travel off–i get off on tangents easily.