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Thom Stark has a pretty good piece up, which in part reads,
From the vantage point of my tradition, I am a conservative, and they are the liberals. They are the ones who liberally filter the Bible through their own theological constructions. On the other hand, I and those within my tradition (insomuch as we live up to our ideals) are the conservatives. We wish to conserve the Bible’s historical-grammatical meaning, to conserve the original voices of the Bible’s authors, and allow them to speak to us without imposing our own assumptions and theological constructs upon them, which would be refusing to let them speak.
This is exactly what I’ve been saying in my discussions with Young Earth Creationists and the occasional Finnish ‘This Week I am Reformed‘ Lutheran – that sometimes what appears to be conservative is actually liberal and the reverse is equally true. If we are supposedly about ad fontes! then why aren’t we really concerned with what the biblical text said and instead focused on what it says to us?
Thom goes on to note,
But what they mean is that they are invested in conserving the Bible as interpreted through the creeds that are accepted within their brand of orthodoxy, and I am a liberal because I have no investment whatsoever in their creeds.
Well, yeah. Regarding YEC’ers, or KJV’ers, or any ‘ers, this can be read the same thing, except replace ‘creeds’ with ‘their interpretations.’
For me, I believe the Holy Text to be the divinely inspired and profitable for many things, but not as a prop to our recent insistences or interpretations. Further, just because the bible says some now, it doesn’t mean that it has always said the same thing. You realize, of course, that this is why serious studies are needed – and don’t laugh too much, Jim, – but studies in the original language, culture and context as much as humanly possible.
If you insist upon your interpretation without first consulting the (con)Text, then you are a theological liberal. That’s fine, but at least admit it. But as for me and my house of biblical studies, we will return to the sources. From there, we will move forward.
Joel L. Watts holds a Masters of Arts from United Theological Seminary with a focus in literary and rhetorical criticism of the New Testament. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific discoveries of the past century. He is the author of Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary (Wipf and Stock, 2013) and a co-editor and contributor to From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls (Energion, 2013).
Website: → Unsettled Christianity
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Ad Fontes!
AD FONTES!
I think it is interesting that theological conservatives (I am one) are keen on historical-grammatical interpretation (which they should be) but refuse to apply that standard to Genesis 1-2. This is not a polemic against Darwin. Darwin’s theories were not even thought of yet. Instead, this creation account is a polemic against the ANE cultures of the day. You know, grounded in the history and grammar of that day, not the late 1800s.
The gods did not rise out of the chaos. There was only one God and he was above it from the beginning. God did not have to struggle to defeat other gods then create the heavens and the earth from their defeated carcasses. He simply spoke it into existence. Man was not created by the gods to do all their work for them. He was the crowning glory of God’s creation.
I recently finished John Walton’s book The Lost World of Genesis One. A very interesting take on the creation story as a functional account rather than a material one. This frees the believer up to examine material origins scientifically. But what troubles me about that is that believers are NOT examining various scientific theories. They are simply defaulting to the evolutionary creation theory without accounting for its many weaknesses.
Very well said, Greg. I count myself as a theological conservative too and yes, I enjoyed Walton’s book very much.
Greg: I, too, tend to see Gen 1-2 as polemical in nature.
I affirm Genesis 1 & 2 as an ANE Israelite religious polemic too, as well as Temple theology at its finest.