Thomas Paine and the Bible, Third Part

Readers of the Age of Reason should not assume that Paine is in step with all positions of modern critical scholarship. One way that he is out of step with the results of modern scholarship is his view of the canonical gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Judging by the current state of scholarship, Paine correctly understood that the gospels were anonymous and that their authors were not eye witnesses; that they contradicted one another in many ways both large and small; that they were written many years after the times they describe by persons he described as “half-Jews”¹⁶ (meaning, I gather, that they were from a mixed culture); that they were not written by apostles.¹⁷ He thought, however, that the canonical gospels were independent of one another,¹⁸ whereas the dominant position in modern scholarship postulates that a literary relationship exists between Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source drawing on another source no longer extant (Quelle, “source”) for material Matthew and Luke shared but does not exist in Mark. The dominant position on the Gospel of John is that John was written independent of the other three gospels.

            Paine, however, was not really interested in advancing the cause of critical scholarship of the Bible. He was primarily interested in the Bible only as a means of debunking Christianity as a religion of revelation, for Christians argued that the Bible was the word of God, God’s revelation to the world. Paine, on the other hand, argued that it is “fraudulent” to classify the Old and New Testaments as “being all revelation”:

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrible cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such imposter and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us. Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Old Testament is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the [Old Testament] have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the [New Testament the cause of ] the other.¹⁹

Nevertheless, Paine should probably be regarded as something like an “independent” scholar in the history of biblical scholarship. In contemporary language the term means that the individual so designated is not connected to an institution of higher learning, but has the requisite credentials and demonstrated learning to be included among the “guild” of scholars. In Paine’s case he would qualify as a scholar who demonstrated sufficient knowledge of the subject to be taken seriously by others in the field of the critical study of religion. “Layman” is an ecclesiastical term, meaning that that an individual is not ordained clergy, and hence would not be familiar with the professional knowledge of clerics. This term is surely not appropriate for Paine because of his demonstrated hostility against both the church and members of the clergy. As a deist, he would not want to be associated in any way with traditional Christianity.

Although his writing does not reflect the discipline of a mind academically trained, his insights were original for his day. He deserves to be included among the vanguard of modern critical scholarship and required reading for theological seminaries.

Paine deserves the last word. To close this essay, here is a challenging comment from Thomas Paine completely dismissing the entire theological enterprise as practiced in a Christian context, which relies on the Bible for its data:

The study of theology as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.²⁰

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹⁶Paine Collection, 217, 219.

¹⁷Paine Collection, 210-16.

¹⁸Paine Collection, 212, 216.

¹⁹Paine Collection, 222.

²⁰Paine Collection, 225.

Thomas Paine and the Bible, Second Part

It is surprising to me that, although my graduate education was in the critical study of the New Testament literature in its historical context, I never read Paine’s Age of Reason. I cannot recall offhand that anyone ever cited Paine as a part of the history of biblical criticism. Because of the character of his book, one would think that at some point I should have encountered Paine’s work since he preceded both D. F. Strauss and F. C. Baur in describing the importance of mythology and its influence on Christianity and was interested in the historical Jesus before Ernst Renan.¹

Paine’s writings reflect a better than competent knowledge of the content of the biblical texts. Although he lived at a time when public education was not compulsory, on his own initiative he read in translation many of the Greek and Roman classics, especially in the sciences.² He was basically self-educated with respect to the biblical texts yet he anticipated many of the positions that critical scholarship has come to hold today.

            For example, Paine anticipated the necessity for textual criticism, a basic approach to the Bible in modern criticism, but did not have the requisite skills or training to follow it through. Textual criticism is an investigation of the ancient manuscripts of the Bible with a view to producing a version of the biblical texts that restores the readings of the originals.³

It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as they now appear under the name of the Old and New Testament, are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them; or whether they added, altered, abridged, or dressed them up.⁴

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of a universal language which renders translation necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of willful alteration, are of themselves evidence that human language, whether in speech or in print cannot be the vehicle of the Word of God.—The Word of God exists in something else.⁵

Paine’s Age of Reason is a part of the Quest for the historical Jesus, an attempt to separate what can be known of the historical man from the Christ of early Christian faith. Paine viewed Jesus as the son of God “in like manner that every other person is; for the Creator is Father of All.”⁶ The canonical gospels do not present a “history of the life of Jesus Christ but only detached anecdotes of him.” Little is known of his childhood.

Where he lived, or how he employed himself during this interval, is not known. Most probably he was working at his father’s trade, which was that of a carpenter. It does not appear that he had any school education, and the probability is that he could not write, for his parents were extremely poor, as appears from their not being able to pay for a bed when he was born…Jesus Christ founded no new system. He called men to the practice of moral virtues and the belief of one God. The great trait in his character is philanthropy.⁷

The public career of Jesus was short, lasting “not more than eighteen months.”

            Paine raises the issue of traditional material being found in the Bible, meaning that it was not invented by the author in composing the text in which it appears but was material passed down until its inscription. For example, he says of the Genesis account of creation:

[I]t has all the appearance of being a tradition which the Israelites had among them before they came into Egypt; and after their departure from that country, they put it at the head of their history, without telling, as it is most probable that they did not know how they came by it.⁸

The canonical gospels he regarded as “founded upon tales, upon vague reports, and put together by I know not what half-Jews, with but little agreement between; and which they have nevertheless published under the names of the apostles of our Lord…”⁹ The recognition that the Bible contains traditional material anticipates at least two contemporary critical approaches to the biblical literature: Form Criticism (the attempt to identify oral forms in Old and New Testaments before they became incorporated into the biblical texts),¹⁰ and Tradition Criticism (the study of Hebrew and Christian oral traditions).¹¹

            Here are a few of the conclusions that Paine shared with contemporary critical scholarship: Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible);¹² the Book of Proverbs was not written by a single author but it is a collection;¹³ David is not the author of the Psalms; they are rather a collection;¹⁴ and the canonical gospels were not written by eyewitnesses.¹⁵ It seems clear that Paine shared the critical spirit of modern scholarship.

            The third part of Thomas Paine and the Bible will follow.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹Paine Collection, 148, 153, 156, 161, 170. See Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1968) 1968. For Strauss, pp. 68-77; for Renan, pp. 180-92. For F. C. Baur see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Christian_Baur

²Paine Collection, 172, 186.

³W. Randolph Tate, “Textual Criticism,” in Interpreting the Bible. A Handbook of Terms and Methods (Hendrickson: Peabody, MA, 2006), 368.

⁴Paine Collection, 158.

⁵Paine Collection, 160.

⁶Paine Collection, 161.

⁷Ibid.

⁸Paine Collection, 158,

⁹Paine Collection, 217.

¹⁰Tate, Interpreting the Bible, 137-38.

¹¹Ibid., 374-75.

¹²Paine Collection, 186.

¹³Paine Collection, 159.

¹⁴Paine Collection, 200.

¹⁵Paine Collection, 216.

Thomas Paine and the Bible, First Part

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an English-born American. As a youth he attended an English Grammar School (Thetford) for five years (1744-49) before he was apprenticed to his father as a corsetmaker at age thirteen. Later as a master corsetmaker he opened his own shop in Sandwich, Kent in England. He emigrated to America in 1774 at age thirty-seven, where he blossomed into a political activist, philosopher, political theorist, revolutionary, and Bible critic. He is best known for his political pamphlet (1776) Common Sense that had a profound influence on the common folk of the American colonies leading them to support the cause for independence from England.¹

            He was born into a religious family (his father was Quaker and his mother, Anglican), but he himself in his maturity described himself as a Deist, which meant the following to Paine:

I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.²

The true deist has but one Deity; and his religion consists in contemplating, the power, wisdom, benignity of the Deity in his works [i.e., nature], and endeavoring to imitate him in every thing, moral, scientific, and mechanical.³

When we behold the mighty universe that surrounds us, and dart our contemplation into the eternity of space, filled with innumerable orbs revolving in eternal harmony, how paltry must the tales of the Old and New Testaments, profanely called the word of God, appear to thoughtful man.⁴

            Paine was severely critical of organized religion of any sort⁵ and particularly harsh in his condemnation of Christianity and “revealed religion”:

The Christian mythologists, calling themselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by anything that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients.⁶

As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of man-ism but with little deism, and is near to atheism as twilight is to darkness.⁷

[T]he church has set up a system of religion very contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has set up a religion of pomp and revenue in pretended imitation of a person whose life was humility and poverty.⁸

            He had no documented formal training in biblical criticism and did not know Latin or the biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew.⁹ Nevertheless he wrote several pamphlets critical of the Bible, which were collected to form the Age of Reason¹⁰ by applying what scholars have later come to know as “literary criticism” in analyzing the biblical texts. Basically his analysis relied on human reason and common sense in reading the texts. What is surprising is that he claimed to have written Part One of the Age of Reason without access to a written Bible at the time of writing but rather he was writing from memory.¹¹

Paine was arrested in France on charges of treason and jailed in the French prison at Luxembourg on December 28, 1793.¹² His release was secured by his friend James Monroe on November 4, 1794.¹³ Before he was arrested, he hurriedly finished Part One of the Age of Reason, and entrusted it to a friend, as he was on his way to prison.¹⁴ While he was in prison, Part One was translated into French and published without Paine having proofed it.¹⁵ Not knowing what might happen to him or the manuscript he had written, Paine says he committed it through his friend Joel Barlow “to the protection of the citizens of the United States.”¹⁶ Part Two of the Age of Reason was written in the home of James Monroe while he was recovering from his incarceration of nearly a year. Monroe found him in prison “more dead than alive from semi-starvation, cold, and an abscess. It was not supposed that he could survive.”¹⁷

After his release from prison, he acquired “a Bible and a Testament,” and commented “that I have found them to be much worse books than I had conceived. If I have erred in anything, in the former part of the Age of Reason, it has been by speaking better of some parts than they deserved.”¹⁸

Much of Paine’s critique of the Bible in the late 18th century surprisingly parallels many of the insights of contemporary critical biblical scholarship. Paine’s critique of the Bible and modern critical scholarship will be the subject of a second essay to follow.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

²Thomas Paine, Thomas Paine Collection. Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination of the Prophecies: Age of Reason (1793-94), 152. [No editor or publication information given.]

³Paine Collection, 173.

⁴Paine Collection, 233.

⁵Paine Collection, 152.

⁶Paine Collection, 156.

⁷Paine Collection, 167.

⁸Paine Collection, 162.

⁹Paine Collection, 169-70, 172.

¹⁰Age of Reason consists of two parts and a never published third part, consisting of several essays: an Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination of the Prophecies, Appendix; and an essay entitled, My Private Thoughts on a Future State: Paine Collection. Table of Contents.

¹¹Paine Collection, 183.

¹²Luxembourg Prison was formally a palace but turned into a prison during the French Revolution:  https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/thomas-paine-is-arrested-in-france#:~:text=Thomas%20Paine%20is%20arrested%20in%20France%20for%20treason.&text=Paine%20moved%20to%20Paris%20to,for%20crimes%20against%20the%20country.

¹³Paine Collection, 149.

¹⁴Paine Collection, 183.

¹⁵Paine Collection, 145, 183.

¹⁶Paine Collection, 183.

¹⁷Paine Collection, 149.

¹⁸Paine Collection, 184.

Fundamentalism and its Rhetoric of Fiction

Let’s begin with a few definitions:

Rhetoric: the art of speaking or writing effectively.

Fiction: something invented or feigned by the imagination.

Fundamentalism: A movement in 20th century Protestantism emphasizing the literally interpreted Bible as fundamental to Christian life and teachings.*

One of the so-called “fundamentals of the faith” of Fundamentalism is that the Bible is “The Word of God.” Here are two articles from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978).** 

Article I: We affirm that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God…

Article X: We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God, can be ascertained with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original…

Fundamentalists who work with the original languages of the Bible, however, know that justifying this confessional tenet is an uphill battle for several reasons. We do not possess a single “autographic” text (i.e., the original author’s copy of the manuscript). The manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible date for the most part from the middle ages.

There are over 5000 manuscripts of the New Testament writings. The earliest are in fragmentary condition and date from the third century and later. There are only a few fragments surviving from the second century. Complete manuscripts of the New Testament date from the fourth century and later. None of these manuscripts agree alike in all particulars. Standardization does not begin until the 19th century with the science of textual criticism. Textual critics have established a more or less agreed upon standardized text of the New Testament—not with prayer but with hard-nosed scientific observations.*** While most papyrus and vellum manuscripts date from the third century and later, all of the New Testament, except for Second Peter and perhaps Acts, are thought to have been composed in the first century.

The fundamentalist “fictional rhetoric” is that somehow God has protected the readings of the original author’s personal copy (which has ceased to exist) through the vicissitudes of the historical evolution of copying the manuscripts. Further, fundamentalists confidently assert that the readings of the non-existent autographic versions “can be ascertained with great accuracy” from the some 5000 extant manuscripts. We do not, however, have a single copy of any autographic text in either Hebrew Bible or New Testament. And if we did how would we recognize it as an original author’s copy? The truth, no doubt disturbing to many, is that the Bible is not inerrant. It is a flawed human product; it constitutes Man’s word about God, as well as many other things. And as an afterthought: if there are no autographic copies how can we verify that the later copies and translations “faithfully represent the original”?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

*these are dictionary definitions.

**https://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/ICBI_1.pdf

***This paragraph touches only on the tip of the iceberg; see the Anchor Bible Dictionary 6:393-435: “Textual Criticism (OT and NT).” These two articles will give readers a good idea of the complexity of the situation text critics face in reconstructing what they regard as the “earliest recoverable form” of New Testament texts (which is not the same as the autographic copy).

Religious Titles for Jesus

Two titles conferred on Jesus by his early followers are so well known many think of them as part of his personal name: i.e., "Lord Jesus Christ."  Jesus, however, is the personal name that his mother gave him. "Christ" (χριστός, Christos) is a title coming out of the Israelite tradition meaning "anointed." Another title, "Lord" (κύριος, kurios), is a term of respect addressed to a person who commands respect or exercises authority; it is used in Hebrew Bible/Septuagint of Yahweh, God of Israel, where he was referred to as "the Lord God" and/or the "Lord." The title carries the idea of high authority.  Hence Jesus' two best known titles are "The Lord" and "the Anointed."

 

            An odd, little-known, title barely surviving in the New Testament is αρχήγος (archēgos), but how should it be translated?  In the Greek tradition it is used to refer to the founder of a city, among other things.  In the Septuagint it refers to political and military leaders of various sorts, both tribal and national.  In English translations it has appeared variously as beginner, leader, instigator, author, captain, chief, prince, etc.

 

            There are only four instances of its use in the New Testament, and all appear in confessional statements:

 

Acts 3:15 refers to Christ as "the Author (archēgos) of life."

 

Acts 5:31 refers to Jesus as "Leader (archēgos) and Savior."

 

Heb 2:10 refers to Jesus as "the pioneer (archēgos) of salvation."

 

Heb 12:2 refers to Jesus as "the pioneer (archēgos) and perfecter of our faith."

 

            The word also appears in 2 Clement 20:5, where it refers to Jesus as "the Saviour and prince (archēgos) of immortality."  In the Nag Hammadi writing (Letter of Peter to Philip 139:27 and 140:4) it refers to Jesus as "the author (archēgos) of our life."  In the German translation of Peter to Philip archēgos is translated as Urheber, which carries the dictionary meanings of author, creator, founder, or originator.

 

            George Johnston argued in 1981 that the term should be translated "Prince," and explained as a Christology viewing Jesus as "the fulfillment of the Davidic hope" (Ezekiel 34:24, 37:25; p. 384).

 

            From my perspective archēgos, as used in the New Testament, is a clearly secular word, which only takes on secondarily a religious sense by the word with which it is paired and the confessional context in which it appears.  A place in Hebrew Bible where an early follower of Jesus might have encountered it, while looking for messianic "prophecies," is Numbers 24:17: "A star shall rise out of Jacob, a man shall spring out of Israel, and shall crush the princes (archēgos) of Moab and shall spoil all the sons of Seth."  In the early 2nd century Irenaeus (Against Heresies 9.2) and Justin (Dialogue with Trypho, 106) cited this verse as a messianic prophecy, which Jesus fulfilled, but with no explanation as to how it applied.

 

            Simon bar Kosiba, the Judean rebel leader of the second Jewish revolt (early 2nd century) appealed to Numbers 24:17 to support his messianic claims.  His supporters and followers called him Bar Kohkba, "son of a star."  During his occupation of Jerusalem Simon even minted coins featuring a star.  Eusebius (4th century) said of him:

 

The Jews were at that time led by a certain Bar Kokhba, which means star, a man who was murderous and a bandit, but relied on his name, as if dealing with slaves, and claimed to be a luminary who had come down to them from heaven, and was magically enlightening those who were in misery. (Ecclesiastical History, 4.6.1-3)

 

Although Bar Kokhba may have presented himself as a messianic figure, he is clearly a military/political leader and war chieftain.  Those who view God as working in the world in a spiritual way, like Irenaeus and Justin, however, would see archēgos in a religiously spiritual sense.  Hence Jesus is the "leader" who, as precursor, first led the way in faith. He was archēgos in the sense that his faith (that is, Jesus' own confidence in God, Galatians 2:16) first established the spiritual path.  He was the pioneer, trailblazer, or archēgos of that Way of faith (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22). For a more complete development of this idea see the last four paragraphs of http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2015/11/is-holy-spirit-part-of-trinity.html.  Such a secular title had little chance of succeeding, however, against early orthodoxy's idea of a crucified and resurrected Savior, and its use simply died out as too bland or clearly inappropriate for a dying and rising Savior, who was far more than simply a "leader" or "beginner" of a path of faith.

 

            Titles given to Jesus tell us nothing substantive about the man, however; they only tell us what early Christians thought about him.

 

How does it seem to you?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

George Johnston, "Christ as Archegos," New Testament Studies 27.3 (1981), 381-85.

What Distinguishes the Bible from other Collections of Holy Writ?

The term "Holy Writ" refers to Scriptures used by a religious community.  The term is figurative and claims a special religious authority for the Scriptures.  Any collection so designated would be considered authoritative for faith and practice by the community using the collection.  Any collection of literature purporting to give the reader clarity of insight into the divine will and/or that serves as a guide for life in this world or for a world to come is Holy Writ.  The only thing distinguishing the Bible from other collections of "Holy Writ" is its content, but not the claim that it is exclusive.  Each collection is touted as an exclusive authority from God, or at least its adherents think so.

            Authoritative religious texts are often supported by claims of special origin.  For example, the Bible is the Word of God because it is thought to be inspired (2 Timothy 3:15-16).  The Book of Mormon, the sacred Scripture of the Latter Day Saints, was written on golden tablets, and their hidden location was revealed to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni.  The Jewish Torah is written by God himself and given to Moses (Deuteronomy 9:9-10; 10:1-5), or it came from God to Moses through the agency of angels (Galatians 3:19; Acts 7:38; Hebrews 2:2; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15.5.3)

            In the contemporary world a number of Holy Scriptures are imbued with the same authority as the Bible.  A few of those collections that currently compete with the Bible are the Rig-Veda (Hindu), the Avesta (Zoroastrianism), the Qu'ran (Islam), Tao Te Ching (Taoism), Tripitakas (Buddhism).

            The existence of multiple sets of Scripture claimed as exclusive religious authority does not necessarily disprove the claim that "my Scripture is true but others are not," since that claim only represents "my" opinion.  Multiple sets of authoritative Holy Scripture, however, do raise theoretical questions about one's own religion, in light of the fact that others claim the same exclusive authority for their Scripture.

1. Multiple sets of Holy Scripture refute the claim of uniqueness for any one set.  Although each set may be unique in content, no test exists to demonstrate that its content is "revealed truth." True, some sets of Holy Scripture may be more ethical, or more historical, or more rational, or more ancient than is the case with others, which by comparison may seem more harsh or unreasonable in their religious instruction.  These features, however, are not measuring the mysterious, innate, but ultimately vaporous, quality "sacred revelation," claimed somehow to reside in all Holy Writings.  In other words content alone is not what transforms narrative into revealed truth.
2. Multiple sets of Holy Scripture raise the question of the "there-ness" of all Gods.  Gods are not "mortal beings" like humans, and do not exist in space and time.  Gods are immortal/eternal we claim; they are not limited by time and do not exist in space.  Nevertheless we think of them as "there" somewhere, but do not define "there" as a place within the physical universe, but "there" as a "spiritual" dimension apart from the physical universe.  Competing sets of Holy Scripture challenge the "there-ness" of any God in the following way: If the innate essence of revelation or holiness claimed for any set of Holy Writings cannot be quantified or identified in its particulars, but is merely due to individual or group opinion, then God becomes an unnecessary postulate.  Gods may be "there," but our Scriptures are not due to them.
3. Multiple sets of Holy Scripture argue against the idea that one God is responsible for the multiple sets of Holy Scripture with their contradictory revelations.  The exclusive claims made for each set renders that idea impossible, as is suggested by the difficulty later Gentile Jesus followers had with the Jewish Scriptures.  They inherited the Jewish Scriptures as divinely inspired (2 Timothy 3:15-16), but the church held a different faith than that of the Israelites and the later Jews.  They resolved the disconnect between the old faiths and the new faith by prophetic interpretation of the Old Testament, which allowed them to disregard its literal understanding in favor of a figurative understanding.  Thus they were able to claim the revelation of one God behind what they saw as an outdated Old Testament and their new books of faith.  Not all embraced that solution, however, and Marcion, for example, rejected the Old Testament as Scripture.  Many critical scholars have long recognized that the adoption of the Jewish Scriptures as part of a Christian canon is an artifice.  Hence, multiple sets of Holy Scripture imply multiple Gods.
4. One's affirmation of the religious truth of any set of Holy Scripture is generally due to geographical happenstance, and cultural conditioning.  Had I been reared in Greek culture rather than the Bible belt, I would probably have been baptized Greek Orthodox, and my Scriptures would have been a modern Greek translation of the ancient Greek Septuagint (which is different from the Hebrew).  Had I been reared in ancient Persia, I would no doubt have been Zoroastrian and the Avesta my Holy Scriptures.  Had I been born in Cairo, I would surely have been Muslim and the Koran my Holy Scriptures.  In the absence of any critical thinking skills I would have held to the truth of each of those Scriptures as avowedly as I affirmed the Bible in my youth.  In short, our belief in the inspiration and authority of any set of Scriptures is the result of cultural conditioning and what we are taught.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

(This ends the short series on the Bible as the Word of God)

What inherently accords the Bible the Sacred Status of Word of God?

If I was correct that the phrase "Word of God" is heightened language to express the opinion of an individual or a community about a particular collection of books, then it follows that the sacredness of the books does not derive from their essential nature, but derives from what people think about the books. In other words: like beauty the Bible's character as "Word of God" lies in the eye of the beholder!  Let's take the one poetic term that seems to undergird and support the other figurative terms.  The claim that the Bible (whichever version) is inspired by God seems to be the principal claim and other descriptions are derivative from it.

            Divine inspiration of individuals was a common idea in Graeco-Roman antiquity; the inspired ecstatic utterances of certain figures were commonly treated as oracles (i.e., utterances of the God).  The God spoke through an inspired host.  One of the best known oracular sanctuaries was the shrine of the God Apollo, located at Delphi in central Greece, where individuals throughout the ancient world would go for answers to personal, political, and religious questions.  A priestess known as the Pythia received the questions.  She was believed to be possessed by the God when she spoke the oracle, and her reply was considered "the Word of the God."

            This situation was similar to that of the ancient prophets of Israel; the words they spoke at the Lord's behest were treated as the Words of Yahweh, the God of Israel (for example, Jeremiah 1:1-10).  Both situations are likely part of the deep historical background behind the modern appellation "Word of God" applied to the Bible.  The legendary story of the translation of the Bible into Greek clearly reinforces the idea of the Bible's inspiration: the translators who were put in separate cubicles make exactly the same translation from Hebrew into Greek without consulting the work of one another.

            The Roman state consulted the Sibylline Oracles, a collection of ancient Greek oracles, which had been gathered from women thought to be inspired by the God.  The books were brought out and consulted for guidance at times of national crisis.  Some of the books show the influence of Jewish and Christian thought.

            The need for a "word from God" in the Jewish, Christian, and ancient Roman traditions originates in the human psyche where a similar need for divine guidance was felt in facing the uncertainties of life.  The shift from the oracular utterance to the written word is likely occasioned by skepticism and the decline of oracular centers in the ancient world.  Plutarch, a priest of the God Apollo at Delphi (late first century CE), for example, has two essays on the decline of oracles.  With the loss of confidence that the Gods were continuing to speak audibly through inspired individuals, divine authority is transferred to the written collections of what had once been thought a living word from God.

            The early Christians treated the Jewish Bible like prophetic oracles that proved the truth of Christianity.  They did not use the literal sense of the statements in the Bible as word from God, but insisted that the Bible's oracles were veiled prophecies attesting to Christ (viz., Galatians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4; Romans 10:5-11): they argued that the truth of the "Christ centered nature" of the Jewish Bible was clear to anyone who read it with the eyes of faith (viz., 2 Corinthians 3:13-16, 4:3-6).  For Christians the words of the Jewish Bible in a literal sense already by the time of Paul had generally ceased to be meaningful for the Christian experience (1 Corinthians 9:9-12; Galatians 4:22-31), and hence the eventual development of a new set of holy books for Christian communities that became the authority for interpreting the old "obsolete" Jewish books.

            These three ancient religious collections constitute the traditional remains of two different religious communities, which extend from the Israelite Exodus to the writing of 2 Peter.  They reveal different social, cultural, ethical, and religious traditions covering around 1200 years.  The Jewish Bible is a library of traditional writings of the ancient Israelites containing among other things the history of the people told from a religious perspective, along with its ancient laws, prophetic literature, hymnbook, wisdom literature, etc., from the 13th century BCE to roughly 400 BCE (second temple period).  The Apocrypha consists of additional Jewish religious texts written between 300 BCE to 70 CE.  The New Testament (50 CE to early second century) contains among other things stories, personal correspondence and theological essays.

            These collections are quite diverse and clearly primitive.  How can one today recognize a valid Word of God within them?  Indeed, how would anyone know a word of God if they saw it?  The texts are written in different social contexts at different times, and thereby contain the seeds of their own irrelevancy.  To maintain relevance the ethical and religious values of each book must constantly be prioritized and re-interpreted for every new generation.  However, some instructions in the books are clearly not the words of an ethical God (for example, Deut 17:2-5; 21:18-21; 1 Tim 2:8-15).  If there was once a justification for such advice, no justification can be offered for such practices in modern society.  In short, the Bible is out-of-date as a book for faith and practice—at least in part.

 

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

When did the Bible become the Word of God?

In my previous essay I showed that when the Bible becomes the Word of God depends on which Bible one is talking about: Jewish Bible, Protestant Bible, or Roman Catholic Bible.

            The Jewish Bible: The discovery of the book of the law in the temple suggests there was no special religiously authoritative book in Israel before 621 BCE (2 Kings 22-23; compare 2 Chronicles 33-34).  Based on the reforms instituted in Israel by Josiah it is clear that this book of the law (thought to be Deuteronomy) held a special religious authority, for people determined to govern their lives by its words for religious reasons.

            The phrase "word of God" is little used in the Jewish Bible (for example: 1 Sam 9:27; 1 Kings 12:22; 1 Chronicles 17:3, 25:5; Ezra 9:4; Proverbs 30:5; Isaiah 40:8).  Generally the "word of the Lord" is used instead.  Most of these references to the "word of the Lord" refer to an oral communication by God through a particular human intermediary, but in several instances the word of the Lord is associated with written texts: Moses writes the words of the Lord in the book of the covenant (Exodus 24:1-7); Jeremiah sends a letter of the words of the Lord to the exiles in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:1-4); Jeremiah dictates words of the Lord in a  letter against Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 36:1-4); Jeremiah dictates to Baruch sayings of the Lord against Israel, Judah, and the nations to be written on a scroll (Jeremiah 45:1-5).

            In the books of the Jewish Apocrypha (first and second centuries BCE), however, it becomes clear that special religious authority has been conferred upon the twenty-four books of the Jewish Bible, which were thought to be the revelation of God (Ezra 14:1-48; Sirach, Prologue and 24:23).  The phrase "word of God" is not used to refer to this collection, however.

            The Bible used by the early Christians is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Jewish Bible, the Septuagint (which includes The Jewish Bible plus the Jewish Apocrypha).  The legendary account (2nd century BCE) of the Jewish Bible's translation into Greek for use by Jews in the Diaspora confers the status of inspired books upon the translation as well.  The story goes: a number of scholars were brought together for the translation, put into different cubicles, and each in seventy-two days under inspiration produced the exact same translation.¹  It was this translation that early Christians used and regarded as "sacred Scriptures" (2 Timothy 3:15-16).  By 367 CE in Egypt, however, the books of the Apocrypha were not considered part of the canonical scriptures.  Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria described the books of the Old Testament (the Jewish Scriptures not including Esther) and the books of the New Testament, as we know them today in the following way: they are "included in the Canon and credited as divine."  These books are "fountains of salvation that those who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain."  Athanasius describes a number of other books that, although not included in the Canon, are "appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who wish for instruction in the word of godliness."  These books are: Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit; and two of the Apostolic Fathers, Didache and the Shepherd [of Hermas].  There must have been some fluidity throughout the churches in what books were and were not considered canonical, for in the oldest Bibles (4th and 5th century: Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Claromontanus) the "canonical books" are being used along with books that were not on the canonical list, such as the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, 4 Maccabees, two Epistles of Clement, Psalms of Solomon, Acts of Paul, and the Apocalypse of Peter.

            The Roman Catholic Bible, which includes the Jewish Apocrypha, removed all question about the status of these books; the Roman Catholic Church declared them to be inspired in 1560 at the Council of Trent.  So by the 16th century the various parts of the Bible (Jewish Bible, Apocrypha, New Testament) used as Scripture in the English speaking world have been accorded the status of divinely inspired Scripture.  As far as I can see, it was not until the 16th century that the appellation "word of God" came to be applied to the Bible.

            These are the expressions by which the Bible has been described in order to set it apart as special religious literature from just any old book: Scriptures, Holy Writ, sacred, inspired by God, the Word of Truth, the Word of God, the Revelation of God, Divine, and the like.  I consider these expressions to be heightened poetic or figurative language, which expresses a religious opinion about the texts.  By elevating the language used to refer to the texts, one thereby puts them into a special category.  The terminology used to describe the books, however, says nothing about the essential nature of the books; it only describes how the one using the language feels about the books, or the regard in which one holds the books.  Is the Bible (of whichever community) the "Word of God"?  It is if one believes it is; but that confession says nothing about the content of the texts.

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

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[1] C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (London: SPCK, 1957), 208-13.