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Bible Questions and Spiritual Discussion
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RaceGirl
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02/28/2012 13:53 |
I can say that's not the case for me...I have just never thought of it that way. In all the Christian groups, church's, and even the Christian bookstore I worked for, the term God's word was always used as a way of referring to the Bible. it never occurred to me to think of it any other way. But now I have...and I will be mulling this over ;)
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Lanny Carlson
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02/28/2012 16:05 |
Actually, the Word is God -
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was GOD."
In any case, I've always had problems with calling the Bible
"the Word of God,"
because it makes it too easy to equate God and the Bible,
and to ascribe God like attributes such as perfection and infallibility
to words and ink and paper,
and that makes it easy to make the Bible into an idol (Bibliolatry).
I know it's a common thing to call the Bible "the Word of God,"
and I don't have a HUGE problem with that,
as long as we make that distinction.
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Marcie in MO
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02/28/2012 19:39 |
Actually you left a little part out there, Lanny:
In the beginning was the Word, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
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Lanny Carlson
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02/28/2012 20:15 |
You're right< Marcie. Sorry about that.
The point I was making, though, is still the same.
I agree with Craig that equating the Bible with the Word of God
is problematic.
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John T
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02/28/2012 23:25 |
You got it Marcie, let's replace "the Word" with "Jesus" as suggested and that verse is still the truth:
"In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God. Jesus was in the beginning with God."
The Word = Jesus. The Word, Jesus, came down to earth and dwelt among us. So true.
A wonderful blessing,
John
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Craig from Illinois
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02/29/2012 07:32 |
In no way do I want to be the semantics police around here. I am by far unqualified! But I like RaceGirl's comments that she never thought about it before. Plus her Christian influences are apparently throwing around the term loosely so that it gives the impression that The Word = The Bible.
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Matthew Epperson
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05/22/2012 05:49 |
I'm always afraid to share anything even slightly intellectual with Christians as it seems most Christians have something against those of us who are compelled to look at things that way, however, if I may humbly state my understanding of this...
The word "word" there is actually the Greek word Logos. I did a quick search and found this fairly nice article:
http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/theogloss/logos-body.html
Logos speaks of the "mind of God" or even of the intellectual process of logic, which to me makes perfect since because, while we can never hope to have perfect thinking in this life, a perfect understanding of how truth is structured and put together, God obviously does. He IS perfect understanding, perfect logic. And Jesus IS perfect understanding of the human condition. He is the our Logos, our way of thinking!
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Catholica
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05/22/2012 15:56 |
Matthew, your intellectual thinking is welcome here. I like what you wrote about Jesus being our "way of thinking". That's good!
I have heard about the Logos before. There is an intimate relationship between faith and reason and it can be seen in the person Jesus, who is the Word, the divine Logos.
Faith is reasonable. We can know that God exists through reason. We can believe the revealed truths through faith. Faith is always reasonable.
Here is a good talk about the relationship between faith and reason. It talks about the Magi, who were likely astronomers, and their search for Jesus.
"Faith the Friend of Reason"
http://wordonfire.org/WOF-Radio/Sermons/2008/Sermon-365---Solemnity---Faith-the-Friend-of-Reaso.aspx
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Matthew Epperson
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05/22/2012 16:33 |
Thanks for the reassuring comment. I think I'm finding that intellectual thinking is welcome here. I think I'm just really use to people arguing that faith has to be without reason for it to be faith, which completely baffles me, as if they are saying that I should have NO reason to be a Christian: not because of the beauty of God, not for the reason that He has changed my life,and not for the reason that I find Christianity intellectually superior to any other world view. My faith marks the convictions of my heart and mind, which are things unseen. My faith is the assurance of my heart and mind, both of which have all their hope in God. So far as I can tell, heart and mind are the same. They are my character. They are me.
I'll give your link a listen. Thanks!
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Ted C
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05/23/2012 15:45 |
I personally don't have a problem with using the phrase "The Word of God" for the Bible. If you look at the canonization process it was those writings which came from men known to have walked with God, which show signs of Divine inspiration and which don't contradict each other in fundamental doctrine. God chose to reveal Himself as Jesus - 100% man and 100% God concurrently. And He chooses to reveal Himself in the Bible. In the same way we will never fully understand Jesus during this lifetime - we see in a mirror dimly - we will never understand every nuance of the Bible perfectly during this lifetime. I prefer to think that to know the Bible better is to know Jesus better, and that He is revealed in and through the fullness of the text. Things which rationally support this to me are textual evidences for the truth of the writings. We have 25,000 extant early manuscript copies of the New Testament alone, compared to the next best attested ancient writing, Homer's Iliad, with 600 extant copies. Transmission time between earliest copies of the New Testament and their date of writing are as little as in one case about 25 years (in most cases 200 - 300 years). With the Old Testament the transmission time was 1500 years and many secular scholars theorized that the texts must have been mistranslated over time. Then the Dead Sea scrolls pushed the transmission time back to only 400 years - over 1,100 years earlier than the previously earliest available manuscripts - and there were no notable differences in the texts. For Homer's Iliad, textual variance runs up to 50% of the content between copies. For the Bible it runs about 5% and the differences are not on doctrinal points. Mainly the differences are the insertions you see in the Gospels as bracketed text in most translations. There is also the content of the Bible itself which does not bear the classic trappings of mythic writing - infallible heroes, imaginary characters and sites with zero archaeological backing, neatly wrapped up happy endings, etc. Plus there is secular attestation to the Bible in many other writings as well - the works of Josephus, inscriptions on tombs, etc. There is no other phenomenon like this in the history of literature.
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