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Sunday, 14 February 2016

Divine Word

Seeing Judaism Anew: Christianity's Sacred Obligation,
Ed. Mary C. Boys, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002
Chapter 13, "Covenant and Conversion" (pp. 151-162), page 152-153

Dr Cunningham, a theology professor, is now going to explore four accounts for the variety of different Christian approaches to the Bible. Here's the first:

Some Christians so stress the divine inspiration behind G-d's scriptural word that they adopt an ahistorical stance toward the Bible. Favouring what they may call a "plain sense" reading of the text, they show little interest in the circumstances in which a biblical book was written, the perspectives prevalent at the time, or the text's literary styles and purposes. Such Christians see the reading of the Bible as essenially a personal interaction between the text and the believer under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Theytend to come from churches that emphasise the singular and final authority of the Bible. We might call this perspective the "Bible as divine word" approach.

Apart from a slightly patronising tone, although I could be being oversensitive, this description is probably fair, but I suspect things are going to go downhill from here ...

Posted By Jonathan, 9:11am Comment Comments: 0