The Bible is a collection of books—that’s what biblios means. There are books in various literary genres, including poetry, myth, essays, letters—and yes, some history (and I would classify Job as an early example of drama—or perhaps proto-drama: a “play for voices” with a brief narrative prologue and epilogue attached).
I think the collection is clearly multi-vocal, and reflects sometimes differing particular viewpoints. For example, soteriology—“salvation”—as actually soterias (healing) versus, in juridical terms, the notion of pardon instead of punishment. (In the Greek, the words translated as “forgiveness” can be applied to either model.) Both viewpoints have a biblical basis—and much comes down to which texts one decides contextualize (and, hence, relativize) which other texts.
The original Christian canon evolved over time and was pretty much established by the 4th century; Luther removed the deutero-canonical books (second-level canon) in part, I think, because he followed the Hebrew Scriptures in his translation of the biblical corpus, rather than the Septuagint (a Greek translation)—and removed the other pre-New Testament Greek writings previously accepted. Protestants generally have followed his lead.
Luther also introduced the notion of sola scriptura—scripture alone—even as he altered what had been canonical scripture. But it has been the ekklesia that has decided what would and would not be accepted as kanon.
Some of the arguments on here over what “scripture really says”—by well-read, intelligent and sincere persons—remind me of an old joke: “There are only two theologians in the whole world who actually understand what the bible really says—unfortunately, they disagree.”
One of the things that I learned in my fairly extensive Jewish studies was an appreciation for the Jewish insistence that idolatry can extend to insistence on the “one right meaning” of the texts (this, in part, is based on the highly polysemous nature of biblical Hebrew). Similarly, the early church grappled with the notion of scripture as “the word of God”—if, by “word”, was meant logos. Greek Orthodox bishop and theologian John D. Zizioulas writes: “The problem which the use of the term logos as ‘word’ for Christ created in the early church show how dangerous the application to Christology of the notion of ‘word’ as spoken or written can be. As a reaction against Sabelleianism and Arianism, the Fathers were forced to deny entirely any association of these two senses of logos and thus replace definitely the connotation of spoken or written word with that of the person exclusively.” (Being as Communion, p. 190.)* That is, calling the biblical collection of writings (graphe/scriptura) “the word of God” is not necessarily idolatrous—but it can become so.
None of this is intended to be argumentative (though I’m sure that my personal choices show through), much less dismissive of viewpoints other than my own. That is why, in the end, I think the best course is to rely on the grace and faithfulness of God, rather than one’s own beliefs or actions—without using grace as some kind of “escape clause” that excuses one from continuing to grapple with either belief or behavior (i.e., faith—in a somewhat limited sense— or works).
{NOTE: I actually think that what Rajk argues for is a kind of “synergy”—which is the word that the Orthodox tradition uses. I also generally agree with divegeester on the whole salvation issue (if I understand him correctly), from the point of view of—as Irenaeus put it—a soterias of [actual] soterias.}
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* This is from a trinitarian (Chalcedonian) point of view. I recognize that there are counter-views based, in part, on early divergent translations of John 1:1.
Is the Bible a real book?
03 Aug '15 16:29
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