[Vision2020] Jesus did NOT "not say it"

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Note: Visionaries appear to be getting my posts, but I'm not receiving them!  This is so strange that I'm appending my orignal post below

Greetings:

The rudest Kirker on this list (notice that I did not say "Christian") claims to have caught me in some some of contradiction, but he does not know what he is talking about.

An aside: Three years ago I suggested to Wilson that using the term "kirk" would bring strong connations in many minds of the racist Kirk of South African Calvinists. (Far fewer people know of the Scottish Kirk.)  After the slavery booklet revelations it is extremely puzzling to me that Wilson & Co. continue to use the term.  They seem committed to making the glass darker rather than to clarify.

Since our Kirker continues to insult me with the name "Teach," I will return the favor by flunking him in logic and reading comprehension.  I'll have to tell him to do his lesson over again.

To say that scripture is God-breathed does not mean that it is divine or that it is perfect in anything that it says.  (It certainly does not mean that Jesus is speaking!) "Detailed inerrancy" is not supported by 2. Tim. 3:16, and it does not support the inspiration of the New Testament of which Paul knows nothing.  

And since logic is part of this lesson, Christians calling on a piece of scripture to conclude that scripture is divinely inspired is a beautiful example of circular reasoning as well as begging the question.  The inspiration of scripture will have to be proved by something outside of itself.  Best solution:  take it on faith!

Let me repeat an essential theological point. The ancient Hebrews separated themselves from other believers by refusing to deify created things.  This is so important that I've called it the "Hebraic principle": the absolute difference between God and all other things.  To say that written words are perfect is to violate this principle.  Furthermore, the Jews were right in rejecting the notion that a man could be divine, hence the Myth of God incarnate.  See www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre3.htm.

One more repetition for clarification.  Paul uses "logos" for the preached gospel, not for written words.  "Logos" is not used in the passage from Colossians that I quoted: "For in him all things were created. . . and in him all things hold 
together" (Col. 1:16-17).  If this is Paul writing, then he, too, has violated the Hebraic principle and has returned to the pagan policy of deifying things other than God.

Here is my previous post:

Greetings: 
 
The Princess does not read her Bible very carefullyand she also draws 
conclusions, as Joe has already pointed out, that simply do not follow 
logically. 
 
First, the Word (Logos) of John does not refer to the Bible.  In Greek 
philosophy, from which the author (s) draw this term, it means a cosmic 
organizing principle. Paul implies this meaning for Christ in this famous 
passage: "For in him all things were created. . . and in him all things hold 
together" (Col. 1:16-17).  Paul also uses "logos" to be mean the preached 
gospel, but never a written book. 
 
Please keep in mind that during the first century the only Scripture that early 
Christians had was the Hebrew Bible. None of the books of the New Testament had 
been written during Paul's time, and Paul would find the notion that his letters 
as scripture completely blasphemous. 
 
Second, the Princess is not reading 2 Tim. 3:16 very carefully.  Let me quote 
myself from "God, Reason, and the Evangelicals": 
 
"The Bible's divine inspiration is supported by a single passage from 2 Timothy:  
"...from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are 
able to instruct you for salva­tion through faith in Christ Jesus.  All 
scripture is inspired by God (theopneutos, lit. "God-breathed") and profitable 
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righ­teousness, 
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work" (3:15-17).  
 
If Paul is the author of this passage (as most evan­gelicals believe), no 
Christian could have read any of the New Testament books from childhood.  Given 
this evangelical assumption, the inescapable conclusion is that only the Old 
Testament is being labeled "God-breathed." 
 
Nowhere in the authentic Pauline letters is there a hint that there is other 
scriptural authority besides the Old Testament.  For Paul the gospel of Christ 
is spoken, not written.  For ex­ample, when Paul speaks of the divine word 
(logos) in 1 Thes. 2:13, it is clear that he is talking about the gospel he is 
proclaiming, certainly not his own writing.  
 
Indeed, it is very doubtful whether Paul intended his private letters to have 
scrip­tural status.  As F. G. Bratton, states:  "That this correspon­dence was 
to become...an integral part of the new Bible called the New Testament...would 
have been news to Paul himself.  Such an idea was far from his mind.  He was 
writing personal letters to certain people, and if he had been able to visit 
them in person, he would not have written them ("The History of the Bible").  
James Barr concurs:  "Paul's letters were not written...in order to produce 
written 'scripture' but in order to communicate by letter" (Beyond 
Fundamentalism, p. 14). 
 
. . . [Conservative evangelical] Clark Pinnock offers an apt conclusion to this 
discussion on 2 Timothy 3:16:  "The Bible does not give us a doctrine of its own 
inspiration and authority that answers all the various questions we might like 
to ask.  Its witness on this subject is unsystematic and somewhat fragmentary 
and enables us to reach important but modest conclusions" (The Scriptural 
Principle, San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1984)."  End of quotation from my 
book. 
 
Pauline scholars have discovered at least two other letters embedded in 1 & 
Corinthians.  This means that we most likely do not have all of Paul's letters, 
which indicates that only because of historical accidents we are not possession 
of his entire divine "Word." The same could be said about every other book in 
the Bible.  A completely contingent thing--a loose collection of books 
incompletely gathered by fallible human beings--has been unwisely absolutized. 
 
If this is what the Princess (Doug Jones) teaches at NSA, then I would conclude 
that that scriptural hermeneutics at this institution is very thin indeed.  No 
national ranking can be earned with weak arguments such as this.  This is Shasta 
Bible College curriculum not a truly academic enterprise. 
 
Is this the reason why NSA faculty choose not to present at our regional 
meetings of the Society for Biblical Literature? 
 
Nick Gier