Thank you for your gracious response, it shows a heart for the Lord. Though the complexity of what we have causes some of the divisions we see in the church, I firmly and sadly believe the real cause is arrogance and pride. How many divisions would go away if we could only admit what we don’t know and cling to Christ?

Mike and Steve,

We have a model for seminaries in South America where the scholars, rather than the students do the traveling. The students get most of their training from their home church and that training is supplemented by the traveling scholars (like the old circuit preachers). We do this for financial reasons (the very poor students can’t afford to leave their homes and live at a seminary) but I’ve long thought it might not be such a bad model here.

As for seminary, I personally think that if we all (the disciples of Jesus) were doing our job, seminaries would not be necessary.

Craig,
I can see how my last comments could be taken as anti-scholar. Sorry about that. I think in retrospect, the word ’scholars’ should be replaced with the phrase ‘various church leaders’. I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out. LOL! And I should have used ‘potentially’ when speaking about the Bible.

You interchange scholarly work in relation to doctrine and translation a couple times in your comment. I understand it is a fine line. Translators want to make sure they have created the purest version in order to preserve truth and not inject their own presuppositions; which is maybe why we do need people (read pastors/clergy) to explain it to us because the text is so pure. (Boy, I never thought I’d hear those words come out of my mouth.) Even though the scriptures have been translated into our native tongue, it is essentially a raw manuscript. The average person has no idea about the context in which things were written or said. It’s no wonder we have so many doctrines and denominations! Really, that sheds a lot of light on church history for me. It also shows me how imperative it is for us to live out our faith and not merely use words.
Craig, thank you so much for commenting, I just may look those words up after all.

Everyone,
I still think there is much that has been made overly complicated, and if anything shows the need to train up more teachers in the body of Christ. Seminary is fine, but should it cost so much? Passing this information on should not put one into financial debt or have human doctrines attached.

Steve,
Sorry for the long posts. Thanks for having such an open forum and letting me air out my thoughts.

Mike

Dr. Elliott’s distinction sounds interesting and might fit what we actually see in the New Testament (where both the LXX and the Masoretic versions of Old Testament books are quoted).

I look forward to seeing your thoughts. I think canonicity is a topic in need of some fresh perspectives. I know I have more questions than answers.

With regard to canonicity and my thoughts, I may very well explore them here on this blog soon.

Dr. Elliott actually had a very interesting take on canonicity. He said that the church recognized certain books as canonical (therefore encouraging Christians to read them), but did not canonize particular versions of those books.

In short, I’ll just tell you that my views on canonicity are kinda outside the box, and would likely be viewed by many as “unorthodox” (a term I’m rapidly getting used to being called!), but I’ll be happy to share them at some point.

I would enjoy reading more of your thoughts on canonicity. I would be interested in the theory that the canon was fixed at some point (I’m not sure if that is your view or simply that of Dr. Elliott).

On another note, perhaps a tangent, I’m a little uncomfortable with the anti scholar remarks in some of the threads above. I appreciate the spirit of these remarks and certainly agree that our faith should be in Jesus and in him we find our unity. When we see sections of the church locked in combat over doctrinal or academic disputes, it’s clear that something has gone radically wrong. In my view, it’s not always clear exactly what has gone wrong. In some contexts, blaming the scholars is on the same plane as shooting messengers.

Our doctrines about the scriptures need to be interpreted in the light of what we actually have. It is ironic, I think, that we sometimes distort the scriptures in order to make them fit into our high doctrine of scripture. The problem, I suspect, is not the high doctrine, but the failure to hold that high doctrine with our eyes wide open to what’s actually there. With respect to scripture, what we have are thousands of manuscripts and bits of manuscripts, of varying ages, that are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek plus an even larger number of translations both ancient and modern. Since most of us don’t read Greek and don’t have the expertise or the time to critically examine thousands of manuscripts. We need scholars to do that work for us if we want a readable translation of the New Testament. The goal, it seems to me, is that the scholars do their work well so that scholarship doesn’t become a burden or a barrier to faith. Ideally, then, no one should be required to do this work in order to read the scriptures. Everyone should have a readable copy of the Bible in their own language. To achieve that, somebody has to do the work.

Scholars, however, do make mistakes (and sometimes worse) so that we also don’t want them to do their work behind closed doors. If their work is to be accountable to the church, then it must be open enough so that the church can examine it. Mike may not want to even look up words like Markan, Matthian and exegesis (and there’s nothing wrong with that) but that doesn’t mean that there’s no value to the church in understanding these words and the work they represent. With all of our faults as God’s church today, it seems to me that one thing that testifies to our commitment to truth is the openness of our scholarship.

After I posted, I talked to a friend about the same thing you mention; do the debates matter? For me at least, I don’t really try to defend my ‘positions’ any longer. My convictions are just that, mine. I find that a lot of debating is about trying to prove who has the ‘righter’ convictions. If it is for edification or the earnest seeking out of Chirst, then I’m all for it.

Steve,

About the Jewish roots bit, I find trying to fit Jesus’ words into our culture ends up creating a mess, but when looked at in context, it makes sense. I’m not an adherent to Jewish customs nor do I support or oppose those customs. I just meant it seems that finding out why Jesus said what he said or did what he did seems more conducive to our faith that trying to argue who is right about a certain idea.

ded,

Trust me, I’m not looking for something to defend my action or something to become legalistic.

Steve,

Sorry if it seemed like my questions were accusational, they weren’t meant to be. They were off the cuff questions I jotted down while reading Alan’s and Lew’s blogs. I was referring to Alan and Lew’s blogs since you linked to them.

My tounge-in-cheek question about our blogs may have been taken too seriously. I was trying out a hyperbole.

You said,
“The issue of the ending of Mark has little significance theologically, as several speakers pointed out. There are no earth-shattering doctrines revealed in Mark 16:9-20. So, in one sense, the issue is largely academic.”

But is it? The issue calls into question canonization, and if everything we believe is based on the inerrant word of God, but maybe some scribe decided to add something, what does that mean? Is that scribe now the breath of God? If he is, then why didn’t God breathe right the first time he told Mark? So is the text wrong? If it is, then how can it be inerrant? Or is the idea of canonization now called into question?

This is my concern with debating stuff like this. If it gets out of hand, what does it lead to, how far do you debate? Where does faith take over? Is faith replaced by the need to ‘prove’ what we believe?

Questions like this are meant to be retorical, and are example of what could happen in a debate like this. In the process we lose sight of what is important. Jesus, grace, love, forgiveness, redeemed.

Your last comments to Alan about the ‘living word of God’ are good. The Bible becomes dangerously close to some sort of oppressive text used by scholars to show the average joe how much he needs a professionally trained pastor to explain it to him.

Markan? Matthian? Exigesis? Other words I don’t want to even look up how to spell? Its no wonder the average church-goer doesn’t know how to live out their faith or even what to believe.

Alan,

Amen brotha! Losing sight of the mandate is exactly what I’m getting at! Thanks!

Mike