Theology Papers of Gary Clifford Gibson - Volume 2

By Gary Clifford Gibson

This is the second of three volumes of Garrison Clifford Gibson's graduate coursework for the Masters of Theological Studies program at the North American Reformed Seminary completed during the years 2014-2015.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781329256187

Book preview

Theology Papers of Gary Clifford Gibson - Volume 2

Theology Papers of Gary Clifford Gibson - Volume 2

Author- Gary Clifford Gibson

BS521 New Testament Theology

TH521 Systematic Theology 2

BS512 Biblical Studies-Intro to NT

Copyright

Theology Papers of Gary Clifford Gibson  - Volume 2 ©2016 Gary Clifford Gibson

I.S.B.N. 978-1-329-25618-7

Forward

This volume comprises the second of three volumes of my coursework for a Master of Theological Studies program at The North American Reformed Seminary between January 2014 and January 2016. This second volume was actually the last volume published because of the need to excise most copyright protected material from this book before publication. In making points in student papers it may be alright to include quotes from the works of course instructors that should not however be used when releasing those works to the public.

One final point; my completed M.T.S. thesis was published as a book named 'God, Cosmology and Nothingness'. I rather like it yet it did not apparently please the graduate school, and wasn't apparently, approved. The version published elsewhere in this collection of my graduate student papers is an earlier form of the work.

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The Problem of Evil

16 May 2016

I wanted to write something on the problem of evil known theologically as the field of theodicy. I didn't take a course on the problem of evil (although I read Becker's book), yet have some comments to make since it is one of the most common questions people ask.

The existence of evil and of God seem for some mutually exclusive or contradictory. Crash Course posted a video on the problem of evil this month of May 2016 while I was editing this volume of theology grad course papers, so after watching that I took the occasion to write something here on the topic since my ideas are a little different.

The phenomenon of mind existing in a temporal body cohering in a material field Universe something like Abraham's sacrificial lamb caught in a bush brings people often to consider the body more than the mind. The mind is something that rides along in the body it may be viewed and for some is primarily purposed to experienced all the pleasure and feeling of power and success it can, while of course avoiding pain and suffering. Evil are social and natural events causing pain, suffering and even the termination of being alive in the Universe.

The mind is phenomenal itself however. It may disappear from the body before the body dies and its content disappear or dissolve. Memory of pain and suffering, of pleasure and purpose and of existence just disappear. Evil does not continue (except for the lost for whom perhaps it just really begins after death). God is aware of what and where human beings, mind and experience are. He knows what temporal being comprises, and if human beings are allowed to experience suffering in the phenomenal temporal Universe field for a time He knows he is can use that for good purpose in eternity.

I am reminded of remembering long ago freezing experiences in Alaska remembered while burning up bike riding in August across the Gulf coast to Texas or of pain long gone that are in some way dimly informative for me to he way that experiences past-even very bad experiences comprising some of the worst life can throw into humanity's way, might fade away in time over eternity. They could even become memories of some value when muted by the end of time and healing of the new life with God.

Present suffering is perhaps the worst part of suffering. Life is presentness-Paul Tillich called it the eternal now. When that is transcended with death something else occurs for the saved; new life in an improved body. It is somewhat of a paradox that the Buddhist idea that the world is illusory was invented as a way of addressing the problem of evil that would disappear as a problem if temporality and being were viewed as evidence for the illusory nature of things. It is possible to regard the temporal as real yet simultaneously having the implicit quality of vanishing forever into the past as if it never was, along with evil. Yet Christians believe in God and the day of judgment after death, while the Buddhist believes in nothing.

BS521 NT Theology

Assignment 1

Aug. 1, 2014

(publication version-reduced content)

Listen to Lectures:

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/resources/#!/courses-new-testament-history-and-theology

Book 1 An Intro to the New Testament Carson Newman Morris

Book 2 New Testament History & Theology by Geoffrey Ladd

Book 3 New Testament History by F.F. Bruce

Assignment: 1

Write an outline of the lectures.

Write 30 pages interacting with the lecture ideas and giving your analysis.

Table of Contents/Outline

Lecture #    1  Intro

Lecture #    2 'The Interpretive Process; How do we Know that we Know?'

Lecture #    3 Modern Literary methods of Analysis regrading the Bible

Lecture #    4      

Lecture #    5 History and methodology of literary criticism and theological perspective

Lecture #    6 Modern Perspectives on the Gospel/The Biblical Cannon

Lecture #    7 On the Cannon

Lecture #    8 First Century Christianity

Lecture #    9 Matthew, Genealogy & the Authority of Jesus

Lecture #  10 The Great Commission

Lecture #  11 First Century Culture & Crucifixion

Lecture #  12 Crucifixion

Lecture #  13 The Ways the New Testament Approaches the Old

Lecture #  14 Old Testament and Redemptive History continued

Lecture #  15 Methods of Biblical Criticism-'Quest for the Historical Jesus'

Lecture #  16 How Jesus, Secularists and Theologians Viewed Jesus' Role

Lecture #  17 Resurrection and Redemption

Lecture #  18 Synoptic Problem/source, form and redaction analysis

Lecture #  19 Literary methods of criticism

Lecture #  20 Gnosticism and Wacky Alternate Gospels

Lecture #  21 Mark, Luke, Acts

Lecture #  22 Acts

Lecture #  23 Acts-John-Prophecy: continuing or not?

Lecture #  24 John

Lecture #  25

Introduction

I have developed a reference data base out of Dr. Chapman’s lectures that will enable me to relocate ideas and works I have read on salient issues that arise in theology these days. I have included a few of my own observations on some of the topics covered where I had anything worth saying.

On many of these topics I haven’t anything to add. Dr. Chapman is the expert.

The quotes of Dr. Chapman’s copyrighted lectures are permissible with fair use for review or student purposes I think. Even so, I will redact and excise most of Dr. Chapman works.

Lecture # 1

Dr. Chapman introduces himself in the first lecture and explains that his doctoral dissertation was on the crucifixion. He relates that his interest is in finding the history and historical reality of the time written of in the gospel. He goes on to examine the book of Matthew for historical content in order to find what it was that Matthew intended as a main point. That point developed through an account of the Magi and King Herod is that Jesus should be worshipped.

Chapman explains the historical and theological content of the book representatively. That is he is making an effort to show his approach of Biblical analysis examining the Bible for historical and theological content.

Chapman in the course of his lectures brings out differences in theological methods that career Christians have developed for approaching Bible content. In this first lecture using Matthew as the object he said that finding the theological content of the book within the book itself, rather than using a systematic theology method considering some points found in Matthew and elsewhere for example, is a common theological method contemporarily.

Chapman states the objectives of the course;

1-The first objective is to critique current scholarly approaches to New Testament study and develop a working methodology of how one can better study the New Testament historically and theologically.

Here Dr. Chapman points out some of the interesting secular, academic approaches that have developed to influence and bias the public on Bible content. Much of the approach has reached the public through the broadcast media. Chapman applies a bit of deconstructionism here in a positive way enfilading methods of inadequate or erroneous scholastic method in academia.

2-"The next class objective is to survey the historical context and purposes of individual New Testament books."

3-The third course objective is to consider major theological themes in the New Testament author by author, and more particularly, delve into the riches of each New Testament author’s understanding of the cross of Christ.

4-The next course objective is to promote appreciation for the organic unity of New Testament theology in the midst of the diversity of its expression. We will have looked at the individual theological themes author by author. The New Testament is all superintended by the Holy Spirit and the mind of God.

5-Finally, the last course objective is to provide a climate that encourages the practical application of New Testament teaching.

Dr. Chapman points out that contemporary method of studying literature in academia are being applied to the Bible. One can examine the Bible as literature although one may make select assumptions about that influences the ideas one has about the veracity and/or accuracy of the material. One of the phenomenal tools of studying or regarding a book perhaps overly objectively is existential analysis (I tossed that one in). For as Chapman notes there are ‘three major players’ in reading a book; You have an author, a text, and a reader.

Chapman points out some of the assumptions in modern literary criticism as it applies to the Bible as well as to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Assumptions and methodology may try to determine what can be known of the author’s intention. Some believe one can’t know after two thousand years what an author’s intention was from reading the text. This brings one to a review of language theory and meaning in the next lesson. I wrote a little paper inspired by the topic that is posted following…

Christianity in the Quantum Era

Modern America could be said to have entered the quantum era of social phenomenality. P.A.M. Dirac and Wolfgang Pauli led the way with Einstein, Dewey and Sartre to the edge of phenomenal relativism not just in science and education but in Wall Street banking and government. Social organization is encouraged to be regarded as ad hoc and free; a wild maturation of capitalism of the frontiers while it is simultaneously treated as a practico-inert substance for material exploitation by collective business and government economic militants. Christianity is still relevant as the blessing unto all nations flowing through Abraham even so. The Jews served as God’s pedagogical nation to bring the people of the world unto Himself from the wilderness of sin they were and are lost within.

Like and aircraft carrier battle group American social organization is something like an atom with a core nucleus and valence and eigenvalues of quantum orbits and packets of power. Gravity and other forces exist in quantum packets as divisions from the one field tend to split probabilistically in a balance of power structure. Atomic and quantum proportions from large to small sweep and clear, consolidate and organize within quantum structuralism. The broadcast media is an outer orbit of electrons protected by the sacred first amendment developed to let that ruling class have a priority over political and social organization; the only important feature of international relations is that the broadcast media have something to report and keep them busy. The political governing core symbiotically interacts with public opinion polls reported by the media and the machine mechanism allows Wall Street and the rich to expand the networking of power. A quantum military mercenary core loyal to the machine and without political realism regarding a democratic society serves it. These are quantum social phenomena of the 21st century. It is a leaky and inefficient machine destructive of the society, economy and environment with non-renewable elements failing the principle of integration with the actual thermodynamic characteristics of the macro-Universe in a positive and sustainable development.

The gospel of Jesus Christ presented in the bible is an integrated, wholistic way to salvation for those of faith. The ethics of the Old Testament are fulfilled in the New Testament instructions of the Lord wherein one learns the commandments of God as they are written upon the heart.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter 13 explaining ordinances of God consistent with the real ways of human nature even today. In popular music one finds innumerable song lyrics consistent with the relations of Adam and Eve given by God after the fall in the garden. Eve was deceived and Adam willfully went along with her error. Troubles existed between men and women subsequently though they are attracted to one another. That is consistent with the quantum structure of physics of course existing since the creation. In Paul’s commentary from verses 8-11 one reads of the failures of the quantum social organization in economics and banking in particular-especially in the ubiquitous loans and loan corruptions generally responsible for the 2008 banking and derivatives Wall Street crash, the home finance collapse and ongoing issues with student loans and public debt generally. Of course the socially disorganizing tendencies of disregard for the word of God prefer the ways of sin and error in economics, environment and social structuring generally expressing preponderantly an inability to comprehend challenging Utopian Christian ethics. It is notable that many Christians do as well.

This is what the Apostle wrote about loans and love; ⁸  Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. ⁹  For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. ¹⁰  Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

A reformed quantum social structure could adapt to the no-load, no-loan principle of social adequacy in acceptable ecospheric economic activity with competent and measured technological advance. The proliferation of vast financial networks and the concentration of wealth isn’t a preferred method for conservation a moral social environment, life on Earth or human and civil liberties that are more than rights inherent to particular political party use-truths. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for guidance through the word of God is the sole way to finesse the accelerated volatility of indebtedness and catastrophe in mass social financing.

Lecture #  2

Dr. Chapman begins the lecture with the heading-"The Interpretive Process; How do we Know that we Know?"

Chapman makes a lengthy treatment of the Sermon on the Mount and comparing the version in Matthew with that of Luke’s. This lecture begins one of the main points of Chapman’s course in illustrating methods of critical literary analysis of content to find meaning in text.

Chapman’s analysis of the Sermon on the Mount considering the blessings of the Lord in the beatitudes finds that righteousness is the main point- the thirst for it and persecution as well. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven as synonyms are brought out as is the reasons for their use. Ladd goes over the Kingdom of Heaven at length. Barth too covers the Kingdom of Heaven in Church Dogmatics. Ladd said that the kingdom does not grow, yet it does I would think grow in the number of Christians entering it.

Ladd’s coverage of the Kingdom of Heaven is a good example of the way people have different ideas about what the meaning of any particular word might be. The relationship of the church to the Kingdom of God, consideration of the question of is the kingdom of God and eschatological event/process, is it accessible from Earth for Christians now and so forth would seem relevant to Chapman’s consideration of the Sermon on the Mount and the beatitudes. (Ref. Ladd Part I chapters 6, 7 & 8).

The remainder of the second lecture is an interesting, informative examination of the intentional fallacy to the point of considering how it applies to Bible studies. I have written a little paper inspired by the matter that follows.

Biblical Analysis with Literary Criticism

Since the Protestant Reformation liberated the Bible for the common man’s reading, scholarship of variegated quality has developed to consider the content of the Bible. And that presented numerous techniques. Often the evolution of Biblical critical analysis has been presented in a linear historical fashion with several parallel threads of inquiry and methodology. The philosophical progress developing insight into the nature of language and logic has made retro-causality of the methods of Biblical criticism apropos however when revision of historical methods is required because of newer insight. Biblical criticism does not therefore simply build up as an evolution to higher and more sophisticated levels of understanding of the gospel books and epistles, it also may neutralize elements of method and schools of interpretation of the Bible from any preceding era to revise or restore them.

The philosopher W.V.O. Quine, P.F. Strawson and additional analytic philosophers developed understanding of the nature of language as a tool of communication. Literary criticism and the trend toward subjective interpretation of language accelerated by Dewey added unto an existential paradigm taken out of its historical context of rationalism was applied to Biblical criticism. There were several schools of thought about what method was right for interpreting the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ as an historical figure or as a divine being. Analyzing the Bible as history was a field for-itself. The Bible it ought to be recollected is language and language is communication. The authors of the Bible intended to communicate to others. Therefore some clarification about modern theories of communication from a philosophical point of view.

Analytic philosophy developed early in the 2oth century and continued to the third millennium. W.V.O. Quine eventually published ‘The Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ and overturned the analytic-synthetic distinction between intentional and extensional concepts. To make a long story short Quine demonstrated that language is wholistic and a phenomenon of communication. It isn’t –possible to draw a sharp line between words that refer to material objects as scientists might prefer and subjective psychological concepts.

Language exists of course as sounds and symbols that represent objects experienced fundamentally. Communication is a shared cultural phenomenon. Words and lexicons compile in ontologies   of meaning understood generally by the users within a given language Universe-ontology. The Bible is a compilation of communication that a reader may interpret for-himself extracting whatever message he does from it. That message is not entirely subjective though since language is never entirely subjective or everyone would have a language of their own comprehensible only for-themselves. There is persistence of memory within language enabling individuals to understand what select words, sometimes even the preponderance of words mean in texts thousands of years old.

Language is inexact and flexible to a certain extent in order to accommodate numerous meanings. It is the build-up or construction of more complex structures that brings more specific meaning to communications though particular words can be in-themselves acute. A red apple presents a crisp image for instance, while an ark requires more elaboration of size. Noah’s ark brought Noah, his family and the fauna of Mesopotamia through a great flood evidently (according to the interpretation of the meaning of the literal terms) while the Ark of the Covenant brought Moses and the Jewish community fleeing from Pharaoh and the warriors of that evil empire through the desert to the Promised Land. An ark’s exact appearance is not quite as plain an image to form in the mind of the readers in either case as that of a red apple.

There are numerous ways to interpret the communication that is the Bible and there is objective content in it in accord with the nature of linguistic ontology of shared understanding. Kripke in ‘Naming and Necessity’ offered the opinion that words have a neo-Platonic character with meanings that persist for-themselves while others held language to the nominal and representational with no realm-of-forms style Platonic element whatsoever. Cultural continuity of communication does create the appearance of a functional neo-Platonic realism for words. Articles such as the Great Vowel Shift in the development of the English language and the evolution of language-for instance the appearance of the word ‘church’ from circe in the migration from Germany to England offer evidence of the flexibility and adaptability of language to meaning and understanding of communication. Biblical criticism running on toward the posture of excessive critical analysis sometimes may lose sight of the practical communication meaning of the Gospel and the epistles with overly-erudite analysis.

The assembly of historical New Testament of the Bible and its order of appearance and construction is known well enough to recognize it as largely complete by the end of the first century.  Several fields of scholarship have arisen to interpret theologically the New Testament as history and in other ways with various presumptions about what it is and how it occurs.

Hegelianism and the evolution of a world-Spirit through history is a way of putting the Bible into a context of causal explanation. For those just learning something about the history of theology I should mention that there are differences between Bible based theology, systematic and scholastic theology (such as Thomas Aquinas practiced) and dogmatic theology as perhaps Barth and Tillich put to paper. Theology that is not proximally arising from the Bible itself is not Biblical theology. St. Anselm’s ontological argument is greatly entertaining yet it isn’t Bible theology. What then is an example of Bible theology?

The doctrine of the Trinity is an example of Bible theology. One can find statements of support for various positions on the question if God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are one person with three roles or three persons with one substance or in sundry configurations sufficient to invent monophysitism and other possible heretical doctrines.

One obviously needs to accept that the communication of the Bible is represented more or less accurately for one’s own interpretation before advancing into those difficult theological sailing waters with shoals that leave one suddenly ashore here and there. The writers of the books of the Bible had different skills and knowledge of writing communications. Obviously the advantage of providing four gospel accounts with different techniques for composition allows a parallax device for learning more about the writers themselves and what they intended to communicate. The words of the Lord and Christological inferences given in the gospels have different meaning too according to the reader’s belief criteria and interpretive assumptions.

I ought to mention that like the question of the nature of past, present and future (are they one time or three different times) the answer is perhaps a problem of the criterion wherein the question is posed. God probably has the correct particular communication form expressing the matters of fact in either case.

Biblical criticism advanced several methods for filtering the veracity of the Bible since the 18th century. Most of the critical devices turned out to be logically incomplete. Even so one may reasonably consider the Genesis story of the flood in several interpretive paradigms when one adds what is known of history to the mix. Before Columbus discovered the New World most people did not think of the world as being round. Kopernik/Copernicus developed a heliocentric theory published in 1543.  Copernicus started looking in 1504 for sun-centered mechanics in 1504. After Magellan expedition sailed around the world 1519-1522 the heliocentric theory was doomed to acceptance even among scientists.

It is quite possible that people of 2000 B.C. did not think of the world as referring to a round Earth either. People capturing the gist of the story in 3rd millennium B.C. Sumer perhaps didn’t use geographic concepts that wouldn’t make much sense to people for another 3 or 4 thousand years. Hence the history of the flood story may refer to a local event in Mesopotamia. That seems consistent with other facts related in the narrative.  Some anti-Christians tend to read today’s meaning of the word ‘world’ into Genesis and dismiss the timing due to evolution theory paradigmata. Without considering the meaning of the terms of Genesis much people may leap to wrong conclusions and be satisfied with their subjective epistemology; bad choice.

Considering that Abraham of Sumer brought the flood story with him in moving to Zion circa 2000 B.C., and that his knowledge of the story of the flood was the same story from the same place as related in the Tale of Gilgamesh, according to modern skeptical criticism it is probably true. Geography and the history of sea level rise and global warming at the end of the Wisconsin Glacial era support the concept that a proto-civilization also known as the whole world to the people of the region actually was subsumed by a catastrophic flood.

Noah of course survived the flood being prepared with a vessel able to ride out the storm surge and flood. Maybe the proto-civilization was below sea level and protected by a dirt barrier that was overcome suddenly. That happened in the history of the Black Sea very long ago too. The Bible relates that Noah’s sons went out to found peoples-and they didn’t do that alone. Genesis seems to indicate that local women were already living in Egypt, Cush etc. That makes sense. A local flood wiped out the first civilization and the sons of Noah journeyed to start new civilizations. They had the advantage of knowledge.

Some very conservative literalists will demure with the theory above saying that the entire book of Genesis originates with Moses through revelation. That is partly true. Moses as a son of Israel perhaps learned Jewish history from those that went with the Jews into Egyptian captivity. The captive Jews learned that from Abraham’s line. Moses as a prince of Egypt new hieroglyphics and learned the Jewish language of the day-Hebrew. In the 40 years wandering in the desert Moses was able to synthesize/invent the first phonetic alphabet-the aleph beth, and the Ten Commandments appeared carved in stone-so much better than on just paper or a digital medium for durability. All of the aforementioned was divinely inspired. Some can quibble about how much and what form the divine guidance affected the construction of the history of the chosen people. I should mention that this theory is only one way of interpreting the content of Genesis-others exist. Neither is it necessary that there is only one right interpretation for the meaning of Genesis and the Flood story. Maybe it can be said that divine guidance is the necessary criterion.

This was written by the Prophet Daniel about 550 B.C.-

Daniel 7:

"9 I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.

10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

11 I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.

12 As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.

13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.

15 I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me."

Christians believe the above refers to God the Father and Jesus Christ. There is teleology (purpose and divine plan) for the people of the world leading to heaven or hell. One may be saved from the latter with faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. It is an important choice to make.

Lecture #   3

In lecture three Dr. Chapman continues expository writing on methods of literary analysis, inclusive of Derrida and deconstructionism. He starts with a useful exegesis of Matthew 5:17-20

Chapman, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."end quote

Chapman presents Biblical exegesis in order to develop Christian faith and simultaneously provide content for illustration of subsequent points of literary critical methodology that follows in the second part of the lecture.

There are several theological opinions about righteousness, Mosaic Law and the new covenant relationship inclusive or exclusive of Christians and Jews. Of course as Ladd points out among others Christians are spiritual Jews adopted into the nation of Israel- that is in a sense the bride of Christ. The Israeli Knesset  means church, I believe, or rather, synagogue. The fulfillment of the law exonerating sinners through the complete vicarious legal provisioning of the Lord for those recognizing him as Lord God is an event-process bringing people into the Kingdom of God/Heaven. One can find challenges in the technical wording of these issues even in the contemporary paradigm-one doesn’t need to go all the way to the first century to discover language use ambiguity and error-making the clarity of the gospel even more remarkable with its rich theological, historical and verbal constructions

Quoting Chapman on another of his points in the lecture;

Chapman-The other thought that came up toward the end of last time was the idea of our pre-understanding approaching the text. The question was whether or not there is a hermeneutical circle. There are some people who use the term hermeneutical circle in a not-so-bad way. But others use it to describe a vicious circle. They say because we have a pre-understanding when we approach the text we can never abandon that.-end quote

Chapman returns later to deconstructionism pointing out that it’s subjective. Considering literature entirely subjectively is interesting yet somewhat de trop if one didn’t write the book for-oneself at the least (Even if one wrote a book most of the words are borrowed from a social lexicon. To reasonably approach entire subjectivity one might want to invent one’s own morphemes and phonemes too that no one else would understand). Playing with literature in such a way would miss out on the purpose of language that is social communication of meaning. Chapman provides interesting examples of what Wittgenstein called "the indeterminacy of translation".

Lecture # 4

As Chapman says here, he usually starts with a homily yet this time will jump right in to the exposition of literary analytical methodology that is used today.

I ought to say that as one who has read virtually every major philosophical work of western civilization (in translation) and a few from the rest of world history, and enjoyed reading a substantial number of works from analytic philosophy from the Vienna Circle to empiricism and post-empiricist linguistic philosophy and the philosophy of logic I am unimpressed by literary critical method. It seems somewhat unphilosophical yet useful in some regards.

I read a lot of unaccredited history too in translation and worked on developing a systematic method of historical thought as well by reading the major works of history and forming an innate composite historical paradigm. One can read Toynbee’s Study of History, Treadgold’s works on Byzantium, Procopius and other classical and neo-classical historians and yet read systematic works of history such as a History of Salt and pre-histories of science, archeology, evolutionary biology, geology, cosmology etc. and build an intellectual objectivity that is not skeptical. Instead one places human knowledge within the temporal, contingent parameters of created, temporal space-time phenomena. Christians in the kingdom of God are I think comparable to prime numbers within an infinite series of numbers though they are given that status through grace. The kingdom of God is within you, and that is faith in the Lord. Jesus is Lord transcending the temporal creation-actually he created it- hence the last supper. Like sentient program code in a partitioned operating system Universe people of faith with Jesus as their Lord transcend the partition and exist concurrently within the meta-operating system of God.

The danger for the users of specialized literary tools for analysis I suppose is that they may restrict their own theory of knowledge to a particular methodology such as regarding the Bible from a purely literary perspective, from a deconstructionist viewpoint, solely as a work of history etc. It seems that one should have that archetypal left-right brain integration firing on all cylinders to understand all of the individual viewpoints on the Bible and regard the literary methods as special reading analysis tools instead of as ends-in-themselves.

I think perhaps one of the main lessons to draw from reading about particular theological methods of interpretation of and for drawing out the meaning of the Bible accurately is that human beings just don’t know it all, and that it takes an incredible amount of time and work to learn of what was provided in the Bible. Even so the brilliantly interesting concepts ontologically of ideas such as the Kingdom of God and the live presence of the Lord surrounding the temporal steady-state Universe make the reading of an historical text much more than reading say, The Civil War by Julius Caesar.

Chapman goes over elements of interpretation of different historical cultures showing how people had different customs and meanings than today, or of one’s own if an author was writing in the past. The assumptions and operative beliefs of people in various historical periods differ. I would use the flood story of Genesis as an illustration. After the discovery that the world is round people interpreted Genesis to mean that the entire round world was flooded. Yet in the age of the proximal assembly of the book of Genesis in the court of Solomon or Rehoboam no one thought of the world as round. In Abraham’s time the whole world was probably just the region where the people lived, and earlier, in the flood era perhaps on the Persian Gulf shore thousands of years earlier, the reference term of the world that made it through oral tradition and later cuneiform to Abraham/AVRM was probably the first civilization-something a reader today naturally assumes if not putting a retro-cultural interpolated meaning of Urth/Earth world in to the book.

Chapman notes the Donation of Constantine-a fraud-that influenced European history in the cultural interpretation context. It was subsequent literary-historical analysis that enfiladed the bogus origin of the document. Chapman points out Immanuel Kant and sapere aude as a symbol of the 19th century age of reason.

I think many people misunderstand Kant though. Kant was developing reason formally-like Descartes and that is fine-people don’t need to be stupid or have muddled thinking especially about the Bible.

Kant in a sense was the second Aristotle bringing logic to a new level on the border of epistemology. Leibnitz of course wrote the first mathematical symbolic logic treatise yet never published it. I think that especially in light of the interpretation fallacy it is useful to have a formal understanding of the philosophical problems of empiricism and subjectivity. Quine transcended the criterion of empiricism in The Two Dogmas of Empiricism and later in Word and Object delineated the relationship between knower and known, and word and object in a sharp work of logic based epistemology. P.F. Strawson-a contemporary of Quine, wrote a similar book titled ‘Individuals’.

Kant in writing his Critique of Pure Reason, a book that is summarized in a smaller, useful text named A Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, developed the knower-known epistemology. It is not a simple subjectivity and more than that of Tillich or Barth. The basic difference is that some things are phenomenal and others noumenal. Some things are knowable and some things are unknowable. That is, of the world and of knowledge we see through a glass darkly and only know it part. I believe that one of the fallacies of science is that everything can be known directly, and there are too many reasons to state here why that is unlikely. It is reasonable however to pursue knowledge so far as possible so long as one keeps that occupation in perspective as a temporal,  contingent pursuit useful while waiting upon the Lord.

Chapman talks about ‘the quest for the historical Jesus’, Ferdinand Christian Bauer and The Tubingen School. Bauer wrote ‘Orthodoxy and Heresy’.

The idea of Orthodoxy and Heresy is apparently that over the history of the church there were both and of course winners write history and there values won, yet even so the losers were good people to with good Christian theology. Maybe the gnostic heresies weren’t really off, or the Arian heresy either? The approach of Bauer seems to be presented as one of the rising tide of post-renaissance humanism and subjectivism. I tend to view that as a result of the printing press and opportunities for everyone to write continuing today. There is a counter-networking that represses and conforms individual expression existing in unionized academia to a certain extent while a neo-monopoly has arisen ad hoc through people buying mutual funds and owning shares in rival corporations stifling competition. History bumps along.

Bultman

Q source

C.H. Dodd-realized eschatology

Friedrich Schleiermacher

Lecture # 5

The history and methodology of literary criticism and theological perspectives continue in lecture five. Chapman enters into the realm of how and why the New Testament canon arose.

‘History of the study of New Testament theology’

‘Source, form and redaction criticism’

Chapman-We do not need to look at it from a systematic theological viewpoint, but from a viewpoint of understanding inductively what the individual authors of Scripture are trying to say to God’s people. This is in terms of how we should think about God, our relationship to God, and how we should act as a consequence. That is what I mean when we talk about New Testament theology.end quote

Two goals-

Chapman 1-The first goal is to inductively synthesize the major theological themes in each New Testament author within his historical backdrop. That was the idea of looking author by author, understanding them in their historical context, and doing good exegesis or good interpretation. Exegesis is a word you should know. It comes from a Greek word that basically means to lead out. The idea is that you lead out what is in Scripture. You seek to understand what is there. This is in contrast to eisegesis. The difference is between a preposition in Greek. Ex means out and ic means in. Eisegesis is to read into something. You are to read your own presuppositions into the text of Scripture. That is not what you want to do.-end quote

Chapman 2-The second working goal is to further appreciate the organic unity in NewTest ament theology in the midst of the diversity of its expression. Having done the work to see the distinct theological emphases in Matthew versus Mark versus Luke versus John, and so forth, we now seek to understand the organic unity that is there.-end quote

Chapman-First, the superintending work of the Holy Spirit does not obviate individual human expression in the writing of inspired and inerrant documents. Basically I am saying that the fact that the Holy Spirit inspired an inerrant work of God does not mean that He overrode the human agents. They did not lose their humanity and become divine vessels.-Chapman…ancient Jewish people mainly viewed the Old Testament as a work of prophecy. Most of us consider the prophetic books in the Old Testament to be Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets. But that is only half of the books that are called the prophetic books in the Jewish canon. The other half includes Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. Those are considered prophetic books because even the historical books were understood to have been written by prophets. Certainly Moses was seen as a prophet as well, so the Pentateuch was considered a prophetic act."

The second presupposition is that each author makes a distinct theological contribution. When I say that, I am not saying that each author always consciously sought to write theologically. For instance, when Matthew was recounting the Gospel of Jesus, he was not thinking about the checklist of things he wanted to emphasize in the book. He did not lay out a systematic theology that he then wove into his narratives. I am saying that the authors have their own distinct emphases that they are going to make. I have three points to make here.-end quote

Chapman’s points in quotes

1-First, each author was writing to a different situation.

2-Second, the nature of human beings is that we all see things from a finite perspective though we may all be looking at the same thing.

3-The third presupposition is that each author’s contribution must be viewed in its historical context.

4-"Finally the fourth