[Vision2020] Response to "Stile" (I & II)
P.S. Stile
psstile@hotmail.com
Thu, 11 Mar 2004 17:20:24 -0800
<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV class=RTE>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Dear Mr. Gier:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">I had no communication from you that indicated you wished to have an off-line debate. Most are chastised here for posting to individuals so I have kept the response on-line. If that was not your intent, then I do apologize.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Concerning this second scolding concerning my "scholarship," I would like to say again that this is not a classroom, I am not your student and this forum, as far as I can remember, has never demanded certain criteria of "scholarship" in order to post an idea or defend one's position. If you intend to hold someone to a certain standard, then it might be wise to first abide by that standard yourself. I would suggest you reread your paragraphs one and three again to see if you detect a bit of hypocrisy on this matter. What's good for the goose is not good for the gander?<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">As for your colleagues not respecting my sources, well, that was no shock to me and I predicted that from the beginning. Those sources are well respected in many, many circles as I'm sure you are aware. Does it matter to me whether or not the Society for Biblical Literature respects these men or their positions? I'll let you guess. It is futile to engage in a "my scholar against your scholar," kind of exchange because our very presuppositions are, at their core, the antithesis of one another. You will spend a lifetime trying to "prove," much, but for me the matter is settled in the sure Word of God. I may be a fool in the eyes of the "wise" men of our day, but better that than being a fool according to a most Holy God. The second part of my response let the scriptures speak for themselves - with a bit of commentary. We were discussing the Scriptures and&nb!
sp;they speak for themselves far better than anything else I could provide.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Here is the answer I "owe" you concerning George Washington. If you want to find that quote in GW's personal writings, then you can take your own time to find it. If you have no desire to do that, it simply isn't that important to me. Take it out of the list of quotations I submitted in my post, the rest of them make the point equally well. You could take it up with William J. Federer whose Encyclopedia of Quotations supplied the statement attributed to GW, or, Henry Halley,<EM><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma"> Halley's Bible Handbook, </SPAN></EM>1927, 1965. Out of time for now....<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">Still waiting for answers to several questions I posed,<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 9.5pt; FONT-FAMILY: Tahoma">P.S. Stile<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P>>From: Nick Gier <NGIER@UIDAHO.EDU></P></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>To: Vision2020@moscow.com
<DIV></DIV>>Subject: [Vision2020] Response to "Stile" (I & II)
<DIV></DIV>>Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 21:24:49 -0800
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Greetings:
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Note: I apologize to V2020 readers. When Stile first responded to
<DIV></DIV>>me, I thought we were going to have a nice off-line debate, but he
<DIV></DIV>>keeps posting it publicly, so I must respond likewise.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Another Note: I find it interesting that neither Mr. Stile nor Miss
<DIV></DIV>>Edna were in any Quad Cities phonebook that I could find.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Dear Mr. "Stile":
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Thank you for your detailed response, but simply listing a string of
<DIV></DIV>>quotations without sufficient commentary and analysis does not
<DIV></DIV>>constitute scholarship. And quoting the fundamentalists back to me
<DIV></DIV>>whom I believe to be discredited does not advance your case at all.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>I will comment on some quotations, but others I will ignore because
<DIV></DIV>>I can see no possible relevance to the questions I raised, or find
<DIV></DIV>>you just preaching.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Just a clarification before we begin. I do not do "higher
<DIV></DIV>>criticism" of the Bible or other world scripture. I leave that to
<DIV></DIV>>the experts, from whom I learn and to whom I defer. The same
<DIV></DIV>>proviso holds for professional historians of all stripes. When I'm
<DIV></DIV>>not relying on the best Bible scholars, I'm using a simple inductive
<DIV></DIV>>method that requires that one simply read the passage for its plain
<DIV></DIV>>meaning and its inherent logic.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Stile: Martin Luther) "The scriptures have never erred, the
<DIV></DIV>>scriptures cannot err... it is certain that scripture cannot
<DIV></DIV>>disagree with itself." (Given the full body of Luther's work, I
<DIV></DIV>>found it amusing that you used one quote, obviously not this
<DIV></DIV>>one,upon which to hang the idea that Luther was one of the earliest
<DIV></DIV>>students of higher criticism)
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Gier: You don't give a reference for this passage, but even if it is
<DIV></DIV>>correct, then Luther is at odds with himself. When I said in my
<DIV></DIV>>book I leave it to the experts, I mean that I don't presume to be a
<DIV></DIV>>Luther scholar and here I defer to a great majority of them who
<DIV></DIV>>state that Luther did not believe in detailed inerrancy.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>I suspect that this may be like the debate I had with Doug Wilson
<DIV></DIV>>about Luther and reason. I listed a bunch of passages, including
<DIV></DIV>>the famous "reason is a whore," and as a response Wilson published
<DIV></DIV>>one Luther passage in praise of reason in his journal "The Hammer."
<DIV></DIV>>(early 1980s) I requested that Wilson run a correction putting that
<DIV></DIV>>single quote in context, but he refused, because top males can never
<DIV></DIV>>concede anything.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Stile's quotations from Josephus, Clement of Rome, and Justin Martyr
<DIV></DIV>>all refer to the Septuagint, a very poor translation of the Hebrew.
<DIV></DIV>>The translators were even stumped by parts of the text, so they
<DIV></DIV>>simply didn't translate them! Here we have a real conundrum: the
<DIV></DIV>>Holy Spirit inspired a bad translation. Not a very good basis for
<DIV></DIV>>detailed inerrancy!
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Stile: (Galatians 1.11-12) "But I certify you, brethren, that the
<DIV></DIV>>gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither
<DIV></DIV>>received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation
<DIV></DIV>>of Jesus Christ."
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Gier: Yes, Paul preaches the Gospel but then he writes letters to
<DIV></DIV>>whom he preached. There is no indication whatsoever that he
<DIV></DIV>>considered those letters divinely inspired. If he did, he or the
<DIV></DIV>>writers of 2 Timothy would have said so.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>So let us now turn to 2 Tim. 3:16. I should have started with verse
<DIV></DIV>>15, which has a very important qualifier: "and how from childhood
<DIV></DIV>>you have been acquainted with the sacred writings. . . ." The logic
<DIV></DIV>>of this passage is crystal clear: for Paul the only inspired books
<DIV></DIV>>are those of the Hebrew Bible.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>If Paul wrote 2 Timothy, then there were no New Testament books in
<DIV></DIV>>existence. But most scholars believe that Paul didn't write either
<DIV></DIV>>letters and that is why there is a reference to Luke in I Timothy.
<DIV></DIV>>Both Paul and Peter were long dead before Luke was written, so Peter
<DIV></DIV>>could not have written the books attributed to him. And of course
<DIV></DIV>>when these books were written (2 Peter as late as 140 CE), the New
<DIV></DIV>>Testament canon, including the Gospels and Paul's letters but not
<DIV></DIV>>Revelation, was forming.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Stile therefore confuses the issue. I was not talking about the
<DIV></DIV>>early 2nd Century Christian community. I was talking about Paul and
<DIV></DIV>>only Paul. All fundamentalists believe that Paul wrote all the
<DIV></DIV>>letters attributed to him, so if he wrote 2 Timothy, there was no
<DIV></DIV>>New Testament in existence, certainly not one that one could read
<DIV></DIV>>from childhood.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Stile simply cannot stay on task. I was speaking about 2 Tim. 3:16,
<DIV></DIV>>the foundational verse for the inspiration of scripture, and my
<DIV></DIV>>challenge still stands. This verse does not say anything about
<DIV></DIV>>inspired knowledge of geography, science, or history. The idea of a
<DIV></DIV>>scientific history, in which historians are required to check their
<DIV></DIV>>sources very carefully, is a very recent phenomenon. (That's why we
<DIV></DIV>>have so many myths and misattributions about George Washington.)
<DIV></DIV>>That's why most scholars claim that detailed inerrancy is also a
<DIV></DIV>>recent invention by Bible believers insecure in an age in which
<DIV></DIV>>science is the only paradigm for truth.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Gier: I also have two other questions for you:
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>1. What constituted the Old Testament for Paul or Jesus for that
<DIV></DIV>>matter? Remember, it was not yet canonized. Was it the very poor
<DIV></DIV>>Septuagint translation in Greek, Targum paraphrases, or was it
<DIV></DIV>>Erza's 24 books and 70 additional esoteric books? See I Esdras
<DIV></DIV>>14:1-48 for the last one. Lots of weird stuff was circulating in the
<DIV></DIV>>First Century CE! Pick your poison!
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Here I must apologize for my misleading language. I have nothing
<DIV></DIV>>but respect for scripture of the world's religions. What I meant by
<DIV></DIV>>my ambiguous phrase was that any choice for the fundamentalist is
<DIV></DIV>>poison--that is, it destroys his position about detailed inerrancy.
<DIV></DIV>>The Gospel writers did not seem to care what they were using--Targum
<DIV></DIV>>paraphrases or poor Septuagint translations--perfectly accurate
<DIV></DIV>>rendering of scriptures was not on their radar screen. The
<DIV></DIV>>so-called "closing of the canon" at Jamnia is not historically
<DIV></DIV>>verified. In fact, the Hebrew text that all Bible scholars use is
<DIV></DIV>>the Massoretic text from the 9th Century CE, 1,500 to 2,500 years
<DIV></DIV>>after the events of the Old Testament.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>I'm afraid that there is nothing in the Second Part of your response
<DIV></DIV>>except preaching, and we've had far too much of that on V2020. And
<DIV></DIV>>my colleagues who spent their lives studying the Bible do not find
<DIV></DIV>>any of your sources very credible. These positions would not
<DIV></DIV>>survive for a minute at a meeting of the Society for Biblical
<DIV></DIV>>Literature. Truth here is approximated in the same way that
<DIV></DIV>>scientific truth--namely, by consensus in open debate at
<DIV></DIV>>professional conferences.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Mr. Stile, you still owe an answer to the two questions I posed in
<DIV></DIV>>my Civics 101 class. I still want a reference to that George
<DIV></DIV>>Washington quote.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>So again I sign myself,
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Yours for careful and accurate scripture reading,
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Nick Gier
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Nicholas F. Gier
<DIV></DIV>>Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
<DIV></DIV>>1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
<DIV></DIV>>http://users.moscow.com/ngier/home/index.htm
<DIV></DIV>>208-883-3360/882-9212/FAX 885-8950
<DIV></DIV>>President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
<DIV></DIV>>www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/ift/index.htm
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