Lenten Musings - 24

This Thursday night I'm auditioning for the Ness Creek Music Festival. It's a folk festival held in Northern Saskatchewan. I've got 20 minutes to impress them, which is 3 or 4 songs. If you feel like helping me choose which songs, head on over to reliabletoasters.com and let me know which ones you think would help me pass the audition. Thanks.

John 8

Well, I suppose this might be a good time to touch on biblical inerrancy. John 7:53; 8:1-11 is not found in the earliest and most reliable texts. Apparently, there's some pretty strong evidence that it shouldn't be included in the bible. It's too bad though. It's a good story, one of those ones that everyone remembers. I think the official line on inerrancy (by whomever it is that decides these things) is that the scriptures, in their original form, are perfect. Thus, this portion of John should be removed because it is a later addition. It wouldn't be the first time it's been done. I 1 John 5:7, there is some extra text found in the KJV that doesn't appear in later translations because they were found to not appear in the earliest texts. It's all fine and dandy to insist that the originals are perfect, but that doesn't help us much, does it? Obviously at some point they've been fiddled with. There is some variation across the body of original texts, and although that variation is statistically fairly insignificant, it's still there. The vast majority of us rely on translations to read the bible. Translations seek to convey the meaning of the originals, but no translation does so perfectly. With the old testament, it's a little tickier. Many of the books were compiled by editors, who sometimes added their own comments. So at what point did it become "scripture", before or after the compiling? In some cases, there are varying accounts of the same stories, like Saul's death for example, and Judas' as well. In 1 Kings 7:23, the cast metal sea is built for the temple is described as 10 cubits across, and 30 cubits around. Mathematically, that's incorrect, as it would have had to be 31.14159....... cubits around. So, is that an error? Personally, I don't have a problem with it, as I don't imagine they were trying to be exact. That's how people talk, "Oh, about 10 feet wide, thirty feet around".
I'm not pointing all of these things out to say that I don't trust/ believe the bible, because I do. I see the bible more as a record of God's dealings with us, rather than His dictated story. If you build the authenticity of the bible upon the foundation of some sort of God ordained perfection, then when cracks start to form in that perfection, the whole thing comes tumbling down. It makes more sense to me to think of the bible almost like a collection of periodicals. Journals, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, etc. It's a record of the stories of God's interaction with us, His words, His deeds, etc. I think there are spots where God has said things specifically, like say in the prophets, or revelation. In general, a few inconsistencies here and there help to give it that ring of authenticity. If you had five different people describe the same scene, you'd get differing details, but you'd be able to piece together what happened pretty well I think. The details are important, but much of the bible is written to convey ideas, not necessarily details. When you listen to Jesus' words, He seems to be most concerned with getting His message across rather than detailed information.
Before this post gets too long, I'd just like to say that bible is an amazing book, full of life. I think in some ways it needs to be seen less as something sacred and more as earthy, raw and real. Just like Jesus. He totally comes across as earthy, raw and real, yet with an ingrained sacredness as well. That's one of the things that makes Him so awesome, too.