Q & A

Approaches to The Q & A The Bible As Seen through Reformation Lenses

Q&A

I will read them to you we have Nathan Gayle on YouTube could you comment on the similarities and differences between different religious

(59:28) communities and their approach to in their approach to scripture or in other words can you speak on how people and non Abrahamic religious approach their scripture well it's gonna be very there's a lot of variety so when we also any time I'm going to do an overview like this and even talk about Christianity Christianity is a is of such a vast array of how people are you know view things and it'll be everything across the gamut from people who are doing a very I would say literalistic view where they're really

(1:00:07) just focused on the Bible is some kind of a historical witness to the supernatural which is a misunderstanding of history and the historical process so there's some one hand that's happening on the other hand there are people within Catholicism with in all the different Protestant denominations who are just the foremost scholars of all this it was those technical experts with who were religious who created the disciplines of history and literary criticism and even archaeology in some cases anyway it's in order to in order to understand the text

(1:00:45) that was their goal of it so if we go outside of judeo-christianity and even there's a difference there's a difference between how text is viewed in a chronic across Judaism than Christianity Judaism for example there is so much more appreciation because of the focus on the original language that you are closer to the text in a lot of ways when you go to Hebrew school and you are studying the text so you really are you're reading that if you go to synagogue every week you're reading through the whole Pentateuch you know in

(1:01:29) the course of whatever it is a multi-year cycle and so you are very familiar with those texts and you're familiar with them in the original language nevertheless the focus is less on when I've been to different Jewish synagogues there it's less on the overall scholarship so the you may not be familiar even with the documentary hypothesis of the comic the composition of the Torah so you may be not understanding the historical context let's say certainly lots of Jewish scholars do know all that but it may not be part of

(1:02:04) the regular worship Islam is again a little bit different because the text is not to be translated if you translate it it's you're no longer you know you're just having the the meaning or the the sense of the of the scripture of Quran the real Quran has to be spoken in in the original and it's really about recitation as opposed to reading and so it is approached in a somewhat different way again in in terms of Islam there's a bunch of other religions that are all over the place in terms of scripture scripture isn't always the most

(1:02:41) important thing to to a religion in Sikhism scripture is really important because their guru is the the book and so if you go to a Sikh Gurdwara which is where the Guru lives which is where which is the book itself of their scripture you can go at the end of the day to the ritual where they close the book and they do all the prayer as the book is taken around on the people's heads and then they take it to the bed and the Guru the bed the scripture actually goes to bed and it wakes up in the morning again or is brought up out

(1:03:15) in the morning so it's a very interesting ritual with with the scripture and Sikhism I think of some other ones the Zoroastrians we have zoroastrian temple here the Zoroastrian scripture is amazingly ancient but for a whole long time because it's kept in this dead you know language that it hasn't been spoken for thousands of years the priests even didn't necessarily know what they were even saying so they didn't necessarily know what it what it meant for all a long time and so it was more important to get the rituals and the words and everything

(1:03:51) like that right then the content and so there's just going to be a vast spectrum of differences between how people are viewing and using scripture and the different religions and in some cases again the the book is not the most important thing we tend to have a bias because of Abrahamic religions of the book so important but it may well be that even though there are Scripture in Hinduism that the actual individual worship and rituals and things that you do at a Hindu temple may be more important than reading the scripture I

Counter-revolutionary Movements against Mainline Protestantism

(1:04:22) would like to add to that through my own experience in in a Buddhist Sangha that there isn't an understanding that Scripture is something revealed and so what you don't see Scripture as something that is somehow revealed or inspired in any divine anything divine is it's something that expresses its trying to express something about the divine but it's not necessarily revealed Nathan also asks whether we can think of Quakerism Mormonism Pentecostalism it's and in those religions movements I think sort of a counter revolutionary

(1:05:10) movements against mainline Protestantism sure yes so yes in fact they're all emerging out of a Protestant experience but they all in need in the you Nate Lee have their own kind of reactions against it so I went through a little bit about the restoration which goes in a couple different directions including you know like mainline Mormonism and in some ways there it's a reaction to some of the Protestantism especially of Second Great Awakening North America Quakers emerge a little earlier than that and they do definitely they're

(1:05:52) definitely opposed to a bunch of the difference let's say reforms that are happening in the Anglican tradition the Quakers do not feel that the that the Anglicans have gone anywhere near far enough and so they've taken they took it to a much deeper level of eliminating you know more sacraments more of those kind of practices of reliance more on the Holy Spirit and of commitment to activism like especially causes like being a piece church so to passivism to fighting slavery and other kinds of injustice so Quakerism really you know

Allegorical, Tropological, and Anagogical Readings

(1:06:32) was a put your principles where your mouth is kind of kind of tradition the Pentecostals is a is a focus maybe against too much too much study and not enough charisma not enough passion in the in the products and the kind of protestants egghead protestant sermons from harvard kind of church in the instead to to really be embracing a sort of experiential component of it and so yeah I would say so Paula strange is a little confused about the difference between allegorical and trope illogical could you speak a little

(1:07:20) bit on that yeah so allegorical is when we are so so there's a couple different ways so so I didn't put on the word so we have trope illogical but we also have topology which is tight you know like type and anti type as opposed to trope illogical so topology is more like the allegory so if we're doing an allegorical reading I mean we can obviously see those in and for example teachings that are well parables are not even necessarily allegories because they're actually trying to get you to think an allegorical a reading would be

(1:08:04) something like the flood in Noah's story covers the whole earth in water and that that is allegorize is christian baptism and so and so if Christians in the Middle Ages reads that story as an allegory of the need for baptism to cleanse so the author of the flood story didn't have that in mind that wasn't their intent but that's the allegorical reading that as it would have been read let's say in antiquity and in villages and up to the present day by Christians in terms of trop illogical it's more like not reading it now as an allegory

(1:08:56) but now there's a moral to the story so now we see you know let's say that you're as you're reading it these kind of actions are going to be the consequences of sin or if you have if you are going around and you take this kind of an action you'll lead to ruin because you've forgotten what really matters most you know and so you there would be lets say a moral to the story of job you know at the end of the day this kind of perseverance that there's no point that you there's no reason for someone to curse God for your

(1:09:39) misfortunes whatever the moral of the story we want to draw out of the story that would be the the Trop illogical and then the finally is the anagogical is this idea then is how does all of this together get us to contemplate God and the divine and so there's to be different ways that we can do that so one of the one of the spiritual experiences and practices that we do here is that leandro at eight o'clock on Wednesdays does the logos meditation which is lectio divina and so instead of taking the part the text

(1:10:20) historically by doing exegetical work by looking at context by all those kind of things it's part of a spiritual practice of experiencing the text so that the text is helping us maybe mystically or otherwise experientially commune with the divine and so that's the idea of it so the text has meanings and purposes that are than just finding a history book if the text was simply a history book why is it Scripture script there's all kinds of history books that we have that would be quite good histories of ancient peoples

The Reformation and Non-Biblical Traditions

(1:10:58) the Hittites or something like that biblical peoples that doesn't make it scripture just because something happened what's important instead with Scripture is that it's doing these other things as opposed to history leon de Burgh a question that it reminds me we have a full lecture on this why does the Reformation eventually bring along non biblical traditions like Christmas and December Easter in the spring clerical robes etc yeah so yeah that's kind of an interesting question so why why do you Protestants celebrate Christmas and the

(1:11:38) answer actually originally in the United States was that the original war on Christmas is that the Protestants were against it and so the Protestants were the ones that tried to ban it they really were opposed to it because as far as they were concerned Christmas was entirely a drinking party and where people were doing this kind of pagan drinking and this kind of thing and so they would ban those kind of holidays but it ended up ultimately being too popular that kind of the compromise deal that was made that was kind of to push

(1:12:09) the to push the drinking off to new years yeah you know and that's how in practice I think kind of things evolved I mean people maybe still drink a little on Christmas but that's not the point now the point is to worship consumerism you know and so now it's all about the presents and materialism and all that kind of thing so that's the everybody we can agree and in our 21st century material economy but yeah so it's it's a thing that the Protestants were we're trying to fight in terms of clerical robes a lot of Protestants got rid of

(1:12:41) that so but it's a matter of deciding when you were a Protestant what's the part that you want to keep and what's the part that you don't and so it's by their name Episcopalians you know so Episcopalians kept bishops because that's Greek for a bishop right episkopos Presbyterians kept presbytery you know different different kinds of components were important and so some of the people kept to kind of a cleric a clerical and some of them made an entirely lay clergy so there's no no outfits and so much to my juror in this congregation in this

New Pseudepigrapha in the Restoration

(1:13:19) tradition I don't get to have a fancy hat and someday we're gonna figure that out and get hats because no one's stopping you John I don't know what I'm gonna see about a good at getting a hat so for Leon in anyone interested in the topic the lecture is called the pagan roots of Christmas and it's available on our YouTube channel to look for a center place on YouTube we have even surely say asking do you think that new pseudepigrapha could or would be written in the restoration the restoration it'll be tough so what I actually propose this

(1:14:06) I think it actually is it worthwhile exercise I think we we should consider it so for many years I taught the restoration scripture course in a program in our church called discipleship now and so it would be we've as a three year kind of course that people who were interested a lot has pastors what kind of devote to what's some kind of a light it's not really it's not a theology degree but it's the kind of thing like that and so and when I was teaching that course on restoration Scripture kind of the culminating activity or exercise was to

(1:14:47) try to get people to as a spiritual practice prayerfully thoughtfully compose their own Scripture and so it could have been even in terms of a an epistle so they're writing counsel to their grandchildren or it could be a psalm they're writing a poem or so those are it could be a prayer could be a sermon there's all kinds of things but it could also be an allegory it could be a parable and I was always very hesitant and scared to assign that to people because you feel like this is very flippant and people maybe will

(1:15:29) recoil at the idea of it and a couple people you know it was completely allowed that you didn't have to do it a couple people didn't but you would routinely generate just these amazing texts that just the people in the class I would bring to the class and share and there would be tears and it would be amazing so I think it's something that is doable I have occasionally talked to people other leaders I've talked to people about the idea of gathering people together to really thoughtfully work on something that we might call a

Protestant Influence on Catholic Scripture Interpretation

(1:16:09) testament of the restoration where we individually are writing very different things and bring that together for a worship resource so I think it's not inconceivable there's not necessarily any any particular precedent to imagine it would happen but it doesn't there's nothing preventing it I think we have a question from Bell who comes to Center place yeah did the Protestants sorry did the Protestant focus on Scripture influence how Catholics interact with or interpreted the Bible yes yes so definitely and so one of the things that

(1:16:50) happened is is that everything that happens in history is action and reaction and people react against things so one of our one of our points of present ISM is that we tend to understand that there is a continuity in Catholicism between for example the Catholic Church of the Year 1700 and the Catholic Church and the year 1300 but on the other hand what we have to kind of understand still is is that there's also a difference because the Protestants and all the people who become distance by 1700 were all included in

(1:17:27) the church in 1300 and so in the way it's not in a sense the post Protestant Catholic Church even though there is broad institutional continuity because the Catholics inevitably the people who are left within the institution react to what the Protestants are saying and what the Protestants are doing and so there is a I mean they're also existing in the time period with the invention of the printing press they also are therefore getting access to Bibles but I think you'll maybe be aware of if you've any way to talk to people who grew up

Defining Pseudepigrapha

(1:18:05) Catholic there's not the kind of focus on Bible reading and having Bibles and this kind of thing that's not generally speaking still the central practice it's not that there aren't the scholarship continues but it's not there's central focus the same way it is in Protestantism so there is a difference in how its viewed because you can't help but react to what all of what the Protestants are saying nevertheless it has it may be in reaction it didn't they didn't take that and make that central to their religious practice I can say

(1:18:38) speak for myself that we didn't have catechism class but however that we the scripture was not something to study and said you had to learn the prayers and there's a lot of very very lengthy prayers that you were supposed to memorize and one of the first things that shocked me the first time I entered a Protestant church is that everything is written and it's just it's like cheating yeah you spend all this time learning and now here you can just read it of a booklet I know exactly and so my experience because I have this background is that

(1:19:17) in the restoration we really didn't have any we except for the communion prayers we didn't have any wrote prayers right and so therefore I really don't even have I don't know I mean I can probably do the Lord's Prayer but that's about it I can't I certainly can't do Hail Mary or the the Nicene Creed I mean anyway we need if I knew it but anyway I don't know it I mean I know that as it's not not part of our tradition so yeah it's different okay I have one more from Leon who says the what to think a comment in a

(1:19:50) question the reorganization has had a history of thus say is the spirit writings from individual in the church who was not general leadership yeah but he is asking if you could please give a quick definition of pseudepigrapha yes so pseudepigrapha in general what it means is writing that it's written in the name of somebody who is not the author so if you are going to there'll be like a text that's didn't make it into the Bible that would be like the apocalypse of Adam and it's it might even say i adam am writing this text but

(1:20:34) adam didn't write that text because adam is in fact not a historical person you know and so the text is pseudepigrapha kin the sense that it is someone's writing it they are claiming to be adam but in fact they are not in fact adam and so that would also be true for example of the epistles of Peter in the New Testament so they claim that they're being written by Peter but we can tell very clearly literary criticism the second Peter is in fact just a redacted edit of Jude and so therefore it's clearly not by Peter is simply somebody

(1:21:11) expanding on the Epistle of Jude and so so be pseudepigrapha inside the Canon because it's claiming to be written by somebody that it's not there's a bunch of different texts that are anonymous and that therefore are not actually technically suited for graphical and so the four Gospels are not written by Matthew Mark Luke and John but it's not that they claim to be they don't make that claim at all there's simply anonymous texts that got a signed authorship by tradition that tradition is not doesn't any real historical basis for it it's

(1:21:47) simply something that early Christians in the second century started assigning names similarly there are certain Pauline epistles that most scholars believe are SUDEP a graphical that they're written in Paul's name pretending to be Paul but the Epistle to Hebrews by contrast even though ancient people thought it was written by Paul and therefore put it in the Canon because they thought it was it's in fact an anonymous text it's not written by Paul but it doesn't claim to be written by Paul so in that sense it's

(1:22:17) not suited for graphical and so the Book of Mormon claims to be written by characters Norman Nephi and so forth it's not written by people like that it's the composition is by Joseph Smith and so therefore it's a suited for graphical text we have Elizabeth Elizabeth can you hear us yes you have to turn off to Facebook or the YouTube the joys of zoom and live streaming at the same time yeah are you gonna sing a song oh oh what's your question

(1:23:21) oh uh I guess I guess my guess much to those chants um what's it I just miss hopefully it was a good lecture I I think we went well and we certainly what you didn't miss is we miss you it was it's so wonderful to have you here in person and all of our regulars and so I mean anyway we just miss you so much and let me look forward to a time when life is more normal again but I'm glad we were able to I'm able to hear your voice and we're able to anyway just converse yeah yeah if this were zoom inaudible inaudible I have to say Karen

(1:24:04) Armstrong Australia with the area with you does agree does agree with you judging by ozone was her latest book okay very good yes all right well very good I thank you for joining us and I thank everybody for joining us Elizabeth and Leon and all the other people who were commenting Nate and anyway we just really appreciate that and next week we're going to begin our series on pandemics and plagues and so we'll have our our lecture next week on lessons learned from the Black Death and so you'll probably want to turn it tune in for

(1:24:46) that one no I will send it to you excellent Sean thanks thanks good night you do not take care of charity