Authority and the Bible

The discussion on Steve Wiggins site that I mentioned yesterday has proven to be quite interesting. As I said to him over there, we largely agree that professors in Bible studies have little authority anymore. Where we disagree is that he thinks that is an unfortunate thing and I think that is as it should be. I have no objection to people with PhDs having all sorts of cultural or political influence. What I don't see is that there simply being a professor should entitle them to any authority outside the classroom. I think they should earn any respect they want through persuasion. (Even in the classroom I think a professor should constantly be earning their students' respect.)

A few points of additional interest:

1) One of the commentators makes the valid point that Matthew interpreted Isaiah in ways that were different from how the book itself was meant. That is entirely true. But who is to say that Matthew wasn't right. Perhaps Matthew understood Isaiah better than Isaiah himself did.

A related point from this mornings Gospel (From Mark). Jesus says,

“How do the scribes claim that the Christ is the son of David?

David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said:

The Lord said to my lord,

‘Sit at my right hand

until I place your enemies under your feet.’

David himself calls him ‘lord’;

so how is he his son?”

You can read that as Jesus not understanding the Davidic covenant or you can read it as him giving a whole new meaning to both the Davidic covenant and to the prophet Isaiah. You can even say, Isaiah only partly understood what he himself said concerning the young woman who had concieved. We might say, of course it makes sense in the past tense because Christ was always there. And we might say, of course the virgin birth makes sense, not because of any squeamishness about sex but because this act of God's takes place both within human history but also outside it and no contingent human act was necessary to make it happen.

In fact, I would say that. Who is some university professor to tell me I can't?

2. His reading of a book by Hector Avalos is the proximate cause of Wiggin's concern. I'll be honest, I think Avalos is lying. Not to us but to himself.

I was listening to an interview with Avalos a while ago and he is a fascinating character. he started out as a child evangelist. When he got to college, however, he lost his faith. At that point he said something I found telling. He said that having put all this effort into learning biblical languages and so forth, that he didn't feel he could change his study plan. That is the lie. He was still a young man and anyone who can teach themselves how to read ancient languages would have had the ability to change their major.

What Hector Avalos couldn't change was his image of himself as an evangelist. And that is what he remains. He evangelizes all the time. The only thing that has changed is the causes he evangelizes for and against. He is entitled to do so of course but I don't know where he gets the notion that people don't have a right to simply ignore him (as most people have chosen to do). Avalos can always turn up the volume but I suspect that will incline even more people to find ways to tune him out.

3. What Bible studies (and the humanities generally) lack is verifiability. Another commenter, for example, mentions the constitution and quotes Barrack Obama from his day as a university lecturer about people who thought they could read the constitution as they wished. Well, to a point they can. But that point only goes as far as the courthouse door. Once we are inside we are confronted with authorities who have a superior right to say what the constiturtion really means.

No such authority exists with the Bible. No such human authority exists.

We do carpentry with wood and not with gases because the properties of wood lend themselves to carpentry. Wood holds its shape and size so it can be measured and cut and gases do not. Wiggins real problem (and, even more so, Hector Avalos's problem)  is with the nature of the subject matter he works with. It doesn't lend itself to the sort of factual demonstration he wants. There are hard facts about the Bible but the truth is you can do very little real work with them.