B. Had Peter read all of Paul’s writings when he made his scripture statement? Do we know that Peter regarded scripture as inerrant?

C. Copying from the InfoPlease dictionary, objective means:
1. being the object or goal of one’s efforts or actions.
2. not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.
3. intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book.
4. being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject (opposed to subjective).

So my reading of communications from God as recorded in the OT are often very much not objective — He was very much influenced by “personal feelings.” As God, He had every right to do so, of course. But it is not correct to call those communications objective simply because God was within His rights.

Can’t resist doing this …to quote someone we both used to know… “if He’s God enough to inspire it, He’s God enough to preserve it.”

Knew you’d get a kick out of that…especially given your introduction regarding quotations… But I do agree with it to a point…while I certainly don’t think the scripture has been translated time & again with absolute inerrancy and perfection, I do have to believe that God’s word is important enough to Him that He takes an active role in preserving the ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS of it’s message.

If He doesn’t care enough to preserve it’s central message…then why should we care to read it?

That said, I think we make a way bigger deal out inerrancy than God does…I believe He preserves it…”in the main”…in it’s central message, the message that will bring us into relationship & communion with Him. But I don’t know that He’s as concerned with the rest as we claim He is; I think He understood something from the beginning that we would do good to remember: that anything which passes through a human filter/conduit will have imperfection imparted to it. If He were concerned that scripture be absolutely without error, He never would have chosen to have it put to paper by men…

Wow, this has turned into a really long response!!! I’ll shut up now…but i’m so glad to find your blog; looking forward to reading the past entries and hearing what you have to say. Thanks for making us think about these things…

Blessings,

Jereme

Yes, I had the same thought about the eschatology of the Montanists. The only difference, from what I have gathered, and if you can trust the records we have, is that they claimed to have had special mystical revelation from God to substantiate their beliefs. But, then again, so have some modern-day eschatalogical prophets (i.e. David Wilkerson).

Regarding “objective standard,” especially in light of Alan’s comment, perhaps it would be better to say “comparatively objective standard.” That is to say, I agree the Bible can be interpreted in different ways. And, in early church times, the allegorical method of interpretation, which most biblical scholars would consider very non-objective, was widely accepted. Yet, it still seems to me that, when you have to choose between someone who claims to have had “a word from God,” and the time-worn truths of Holy Scripture, it is a pretty easy choice.

Obviously, a big part of New Testament authority is bound up in the personal testimony of the apostles as eye-witnesses to Jesus’ life, death, and teaching.

As far as a record in the Bible itself to Scripture as an “objective standard,” Acts 17:11 comes to mind, where it says (apparently with approval) that the Bereans “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

Also, I think the passage in 2 Peter to which we have already alluded several times is significant, when it says regarding Paul, “His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” This is interesting to me because it seems to confirm both the subjective nature of human interpretation as well as the objective nature of the revelation itself, both in the same verse.

As you well know, there are many other passages, especially in the Old Testament (i.e. Psalm 119, et al) that speak of the truthfulness and trustworthiness of Scripture. If, indeed, Scripture is completely truthful and trustworthy, it seems to me that it is a logical next step to claim that it is a reliable “objective standard” upon which to base one’s beliefs.

In regard to the establishment of the NT canon, it seems like the criterion from the beginning was apostolic authenticity. However, due to geographic and situational distances, it became difficult to determine with total confidence which writings were authentically apostolic, or authentically represented the tradition and teaching handed down by Jesus by way of the apostles. However, wherever and whenever the apostolic authenticity of a particular writing was accepted, it was also accepted as an authoritative and objective standard.

-Alan

As a matter of fact, I did the same when you brought it up. And your take on it is pretty close to what I came away with, too. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate your point. You just might need a more solid example to use in making that point

With regard to the eschatology, the thought that I had when I read about their prophecies was that it is not very different from the stuff that comes from guys like Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey. And not only do they not get labeled as heretics, but people actually buy their books! hehe

But you’re right about details being sketchy and perhaps biased in the accounts. History is always written by the victor.

I would like to address one phrase you have used twice, though, in this comment thread, because I’m not sure I understand.

How is scripture an “objective standard”? I realize that’s usually the buzzword, but I’m not sure I understand. What is objective about it?

According to the record that we do have about Montanism, that movement was actually based on a verse in the gospel of John! Many sects and groups have likewise based their beliefs on the scripture. I feel like my beliefs are consistent with that revelation, and many of the questions I ask are based on a lack of evidence in scripture for what is being claimed.

Furthermore, isn’t there a problem of anachronism with saying that scripture is what keeps us from being totally subjective and open to heresy? What was the “objective standard” prior to the completion of the writing of the canon? And even after the canon was completely written, it was quite a while before it was even agreed upon as to which books comprised the canon of the New Testament — several hundred years, in fact.

One final question — does scripture claim to be the “objective standard”?

Thanks for the question. You have led me to “google” Montanism and do at least a superficial “refresher course” regarding it. It seems like any reliable information is quite sketchy, and it is difficult to pin anything clearly heretical on Montanus or his followers. Some of the things do seem a bit strange, like, for instance, prophesying in the first-person voice of God, an emphasis on various ascetic practices, calling the town of Pepuza the New Jerusalem, and an apparent obsession with the imminent return of Christ (coupled with prophecies to that extent). Also, many people reached the conclusion they were heretics. And some even tried to cast out demons from Prisca and Maximilla, who left their husbands and families to follow Montanus and his teachings, and later succeeded him as leaders in the movement.

To their credit, they also seemed to have placed an emphasis on the ministry of the “laity,” and to have rejected the increasing clericalism in the early Catholic church.

In any case, it is hard to know the real truth about the Montanists, since, from what I gather, those in authority usually painted those they chose to brand as heretics as more extreme than what they really were.

Does all this in any way invalidate the point I was making? I am not sure. Even if the Montanists themselves were not heretics, there does seem to me to be a valid need to have some objective standard (e.g. Scripture) by which to measure supposed subsequent revelation, among which I think we both would agree there has been plenty of blatant heresy and falsehood down through the years.