Recently in a BYU New Testament class, a somewhat progressive religion teacher was introducing the students to modern Bible historical criticism. The kind of research that leads scholars to believe that the gospels were written decades after Jesus was crucified, and that they were not written by who we assume, ie Mark didn’t write Mark, John didn’t write John, etc. And further, that this research suggests that some New Testament verses are more reliable than others, meaning they are more likely to originate from Jesus vs being more likely to have been added later and possibly dubious in what some would call a “pious fraud” kind of way.
A question from a class member to the BYU professor: “If scripture is not the literal word of God conveyed directly through prophets, then what is scripture to you?”
The answer: “We are called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Scripture to us is our understanding as a church of Christ and who he is and what he meant.”
Great answer. I think this implies some much needed humility in our view of scripture and authority.
What is scripture?
Peter Enns on scripture:
The Bible is what it looks like when God lets his children tell the story. They tell the story of God, from their point of view, with God there, with them and next to them, but they’re explaining God as best as they can within the culture that provides their language and their concepts.
Blake Ostler calls it: “a synthesis of human creativity responding to divine persuasion.”
Marcus Borg:
The Bible is seen as a human product. It’s man’s description of its relationship with God. It is not God’s witness to man, but man’s witness to God. This is not to deny the reality and power of God. But to acknowledge that scripture, even though we declare it to be sacred and treat it as such, is human in its origin and full of the possibility of human weakness and error.
Just as this view of the Bible does not deny the reality of God, it does not deny that the Bible is “inspired by God.” But it understands inspiration differently. In recent centuries, some Christians have understood it to mean “plenary inspiration”: that every word is inspired by God, and thus has the truth and authority of God standing behind it. For them, inspiration effectively means that the Bible is a divine product. Within the emerging paradigm, inspiration refers to the movement of the Spirit in the lives of the people who produced the Bible. The emphasis is not upon words inspired by God, but on people moved by their experience of the Spirit, namely, these ancient communities and the individuals who wrote for them.
By a sacramental approach, I mean seeing the Bible as sacrament. Indeed, this is one of its primary functions as sacred scripture. A sacrament is a finite, physical, visible mediator of the sacred, a means whereby the sacred becomes present to us. A sacrament is a vehicle or vessel of the sacred. In Christian language, a sacrament is an “outward and visible sign” that functions as “a means of grace.” Sacraments are “doors to the sacred” as well as bridges to the sacred. Something finite, something of this world, becomes a means whereby the sacred becomes present to us.
I’m working on my own definition, but this is my best so far.
Scripture is sacred history. It is the history of how our spiritual ancestors have understood God and how God relates to the human family. As the LDS Body of Christ, we define scripture canon which we as a community of worshipers engage together in an effort to access the Spirit of God, understand the nature and will of God, and be inspired in our efforts to build the Kingdom of God. We believe scriptures are inspired in that God’s Spirit is involved in the creation of scripture and decision to canonize certain works. Therefore, they are elevated in status above any other literary works or teachings. We don’t view scripture as inerrant or infallible. Scriptures should be considered human’s best guess more than God’s directly breathed instructions. We don’t view it as one pure, monolithic, uniform voice. It is sometimes contradictory and sometimes overruled. But through it a composite picture of God is revealed. We rely on the Holy Ghost and our individual experience to interpret the meaning for us individually but defer to the prophet and general authorities as stewards of the Church to provide official interpretations.
Could we come around to this more humble concept of scripture and revelation?
Can we collectively as a church come to this more humble view of scripture? I don’t know. Some say that we take some of our cues from conservative Protestantism/Evangelicalism. A couple of weeks ago, I caught a little bit of a series by Pastor James MacDonald on the reliability of the Bible, wherein he claimed (I can’t quote directly because I have not taken the time to go back and listen again) that the Holy Spirit chose every word in the Bible. Or maybe we are just afraid that a more humble view of scripture would give the anti-Mormon element in Evangelicalism further ammunition to say, “See, I knew Mormons didn’t believe in the Bible!”
Or perhaps part of the answer for Mormonism is the same as it is for conservative Christians everywhere — can conservative Christians accept this more humble view of scripture?
I was with you all the up to the last half of the last sentence. I simply cannot defer that interpretation over to fallible human beings who have inevitably gotten it wrong in their interpretations in the past. Keeping it individual interpretation through the Spirit seems much safer to me.
I like it, a really good first stab at it. Just like life, scripture is a lot more complicated that first appears.
According to Brigham Young, all his speeches were scripture!
I like this concept but wonder if what you are saying is that scripture does not nor perhaps should not be taken literally. I agree with this, but the official church takes a much more literal view, and indeed has to based on temple ritual and the Book of Mormon becomes core doctrine. For a couple of examples, Adam and Eve were literally the first humans, the flood was real as was the Tower of Babel.
I believe indeed that scripture as written was human interpretation of God through story. As such, it seems to me that it would be nice for the church to produce new scriptures based on our now vastly expanded worldview and understanding of today. Perhaps this is what many of us “progressive” Mormons are talking about when we appear to criticize the brethren for not having any new revelation or scripture in over 100 years.
I would love to get a “true revelation” with a thud saith the lord from an imperfect human of today that could tell me (from their perspective) what God is thinking and doing.
Paul, thanks. I agree my view of scripture includes the metaphorical view of scripture stories told as actual events. It also goes a step further I guess that even historical events in scripture or church history are validated, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the message that comes about God through the story is God-breathed infallible capital T Truth. Likewise for non-narrative, doctrinal type scripture.
I love the idea of a prophet producing new scripture. I think maybe what is stopping prophets doing that, besides precedent, is a mistaken, overly “high view” of scripture as directly God-breathed. If I’m the prophet and that is my assumption for what scripture is, and that sort of capital R Revelation never occurs, I’m not going to be confident to produce new scripture. This goes back to my post from last week. But with this understanding of scripture, it would be welcome and pretty cool for a modern prophet to knock out 10 or 20 new sections of the D&C. Or maybe even attempt a new midrash on an ancient work. Why not?
Scriptures, like the Standard Works are canonized, meaning they are scripture approved by prophets and church membership. In addition, our personal experiences with the things of the Spirit are also personal or even family scripture. For example, I know a family whose baby was born blind. Doctors said there was nothing they could do. The father decided to ask family and extended family to fast and pray for the baby and him. He intended to give a priesthood blessing. The family gathered. In the blessing the father promised that the child born blind would be blessed to see as other children. Everyone was shocked at his promise. Awhile later, the mother said she noticed her daughter squint in the sunlight, something she had never done before. She took the baby to the doctor and he found the baby’s sight was normal.
That experience is now scripture to that family. All of us, can have personal and family scripture.
The theory presented is that God’s word is infallible, but humankind’s expression of that word (Scripture) is not, and therefore can be subject to re-interpretation. In many cases, some see it as an opportunity to do away with Church doctrine/practice they don’t agree with; replacing it with a more progressive policy.
However, at times an attempt has been made to subject the progressive belief to re-interpretation; and it’s quickly derided by those who advocated an open-minded approach to begin with; making the theory of scripture fallibility very one-sided.
I would be fearful of having each prophet produce reams of scripture that is binding on the church. A lot of personal opinion and folklore would become scripture, and we as a people would be even more dogmatic than we are now. I prefer keeping our canon as is, absent a real capital-R revelation. Let’s leave well enough alone.
What is scripture? If we look at the bulk of what is called scripture, what is it? Is it “Thus says the LORD…” or is it a mix of histories of men and women interacting with the divine? The vast majority is of the later type. They are stories of people and their spiritual experiences, whether it is Abraham or Joseph or Moses. Look at the New Testament for example. The Four Gospels are first and second hand accounts of what people saw Jesus do and say. And the rest of it is made up of letters telling people the doctrine; they are glorified conference talks of their day. Sometimes they are doctrinally confusing and they are not consistent between each other. But at the heart of them we can pick out the true doctrine, if we have a basic understand of what is true doctrine. Contrary to what the average protestant christen thinks, just reading the scriptures will not give you a clear view of the true doctrine. If you have doubts look at the number of different churches in the world and the infighting between churches and even individuals. So, without a reliable guide, confusions results.
So why don’t we see more scriptures added to the canon?
First: we as a church would fight against it. If the church canonized say 20 of the most doctrinally powerful conference talks given by various prophet and apostles from the last 100 years. (just as an example not as a real idea here) The church would freak. The members would fight and argue about the importance of this talk versus that talk, or they would say that they do not like that doctrine and how dare they canonize it. And around and around the church would go, people would leave the church etc.
Second: the world would mock us endlessly. Other christen churches would preach against it on the bases of the Holy Scripture are set in stone, no more revelation is needed. They can’t allow the idea of adding scripture to the set canon to exists, their whole doctrinal bases is that anyone can read the scripture and find everything needed to be saved, and that God is done giving out scripture. They cannot allow the idea of church wide revelation to exist, individual revelation yes but new scripture, no. we would get the worst possible press from the media as well, most have a dislike for religion in general and any group setting moral beliefs down goes against the general idea of every man’s true this correct and there is no true right and wrong only what I believe is right and wrong. The downside would be great and not a lot of upside. We just live in a time of extreme unbelief.
Third: we as a church do not read and truly study what we have been given; both canonical and non-canonical sources. We don’t want new revelation or doctrine, unless it is just what we believe should be doctrine. Anything that is not what we want to believe is false doctrine or fallible leaders or “that is not what my God would say” so it has to be false. This applies to all sides of the doctrinal spectrum. The scripture that says “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear”, applies to us in the same way today as it did two thousand years ago.
I don’t think I said this very well, but maybe you will get the general idea.
If a scripture discusses an event with details relevant to it such as using horses and those details are anachronistic, as in the case of horses in the Book of Mormon, then that event did not happen as described and therefore is not historical and cannot be taken as God’s word. Problems in scripture cannot simply be ignored because someone wants to believe it is really true and the word of God.
I just spent a fascinating morning at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit with my son-in-law while visiting here in Denver.
One statement stuck with me, in regard to this discussion: Scripture formed Judaism as much as Judaism formed scripture. There really needs to be a two-way street. In our world it’s generally a one-way process.
I’m grateful Community of Christ has an open canon of scripture. The most recent addition to our Doctrine and Covenants, Section 165, was approved by the World Church quorums and delegates at the 2016 World Conference. Prophet-president Stephen Veazey presented the initial draft at the previous Conference in 2013. The intention was for the church to live with it for 3 years and after a period of prayerful discernment to then vote.
You can read it here: http://www.cofchrist.org/doctrine-and-covenants-section-165
This process is much superior to the previous “instant canonization” previously practiced. The prophet-president would introduce a document at Conference, without much or any warning, so it could be considered within a few days.
In either case, a document is considered by delegates to a legislative conference, which of course is not the practice with LDS General Conferences. But I think the CofC process could be of some help for LDS as they develop their own unique method of canonization.