It is true that the various documents in Scripture taken in isolation express a variety of viewpoints and ideologies. However, a number of them contain hermeneutic principles for interpreting the whole collection. And the hermeneutic principles are in favour of love and reconciliation.
I am in favour of love and reconciliation - and the golden rule of neighbourlyness.
I knew a professor who said that for him the life and teachings of Jesus were the canon within the canon. I think that is being honest about the selective use of scripture, rather than just asserting that scripture gives the hermeneutic principle which is love and reconciliation.
Unless he was an aristocrat it wouldn't have been 'off with his head.'
If it was treason it would have been hanging, drawing and quartering.
For any other capital offence simply hanging.
Again, I would rather keep my last name out of the conversation. You can be assured it would have been for treason, King Charles had a number of enemies and my ancestor was one of them.
I knew a professor who said that for him the life and teachings of Jesus were the canon within the canon. I think that is being honest about the selective use of scripture, rather than just asserting that scripture gives the hermeneutic principle which is love and reconciliation.
Firstly, the canon within the canon is a hermeneutic principle. Secondly, if you think divorce should be permitted you're applying hermeneutic principles to the life and teachings of Jesus. (For that matter, the bits where he talks about himself as the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets and such like justify such an approach.) Thirdly, if you want to call my position dishonest feel free to do so on a different board.
The people (in the OP) that we're talking about are not liberals - why would we expect them to have a liberal approach to Christianity or theology?
Scapegoating remains popular in times of change and precarity. Christians are not exempt from this attitude. On these forums, liberals scapegoat conservatives.
I knew a professor who said that for him the life and teachings of Jesus were the canon within the canon. I think that is being honest about the selective use of scripture, rather than just asserting that scripture gives the hermeneutic principle which is love and reconciliation.
Firstly, the canon within the canon is a hermeneutic principle. Secondly, if you think divorce should be permitted you're applying hermeneutic principles to the life and teachings of Jesus. (For that matter, the bits where he talks about himself as the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets and such like justify such an approach.) Thirdly, if you want to call my position dishonest feel free to do so on a different board.
There is a difference between hermeneutic principles applied to scripture (of which there are many), and hermeneutic principles defined by scripture.
It would seem that there are multiple hermeneutic approaches to scriptures by other scriptures.
Unless he was an aristocrat it wouldn't have been 'off with his head.'
If it was treason it would have been hanging, drawing and quartering.
For any other capital offence simply hanging.
Again, I would rather keep my last name out of the conversation. You can be assured it would have been for treason, King Charles had a number of enemies and my ancestor was one of them.
That's as may be but unless he was an aristocrat he wouldn't have been beheaded.
As far as I'm aware the only person to be beheaded during the reign of Charles 1 was Strafford, and Parliament compelled him to do that.
Parliament beheaded Archbishop William Laud too, of course, in 1645.
Sorry to keep pushing back on this one @Gramps49 but I'm a tad sceptical unless or until I've got thr historical evidence in front of me.
King Charles I didn't go round beheading Puritans. Yes, they trimmed some ears and noses for 'sedition' but beheading was reserved for members of the aristocracy accused of treason and so on.
If you were an awkward Puritan you'd have been fined. If a treasonable one, hung, drawn and quartered.
Scapegoating remains popular in times of change and precarity. Christians are not exempt from this attitude. On these forums, liberals scapegoat conservatives.
Scapegoating implies blaming people for thing for which they are not responsible. Can you provide an example of the phenomenon you allege aboard the Ship?
I knew a professor who said that for him the life and teachings of Jesus were the canon within the canon. I think that is being honest about the selective use of scripture, rather than just asserting that scripture gives the hermeneutic principle which is love and reconciliation.
I would say Jesus is the lens through which Scripture as a whole is to be read and understood.
I think we are saying the same thing @Nick Tamen I mention the language of Christian Nationalism, sounds good, but it becomes bad, even evil.
I think we’re certainly on the same page when it comes to Christianity Nationalism, @Gramps49, my trouble with the One Ring analogy notwithstanding.
FWIW, and connected to the resolution you’ve prepared for your synod assembly, I know that repudiation of Christianity Nationalism will be on the agenda for the General Assembly of the PC(USA) this summer.
I get the impression that Christian nationalists are far more interested in the bloodier bits of the Old Testament than anything Jesus might have said. Are actually Christians at all (apart from claiming the label?)
I get the impression that Christian nationalists are far more interested in the bloodier bits of the Old Testament than anything Jesus might have said. Are actually Christians at all (apart from claiming the label?)
They claim that since God doesn't change, and as God, Jesus commanded the bloody code of the OT Law, Jesus is totally behind their agenda and us lefty progressives (anyone to the left of Genghis Khan) are in denial of Biblical reality or indeed standing in judgement over God, thinking we know better than he.
Personally, I think it illustrates the danger of subcontracting ones conscience and moral sense to a religious text. It's exactly the same fault as found in exteme Islamicism.
I get the impression that Christian nationalists are far more interested in the bloodier bits of the Old Testament than anything Jesus might have said. Are actually Christians at all (apart from claiming the label?)
They claim that since God doesn't change, and as God, Jesus commanded the bloody code of the OT Law, Jesus is totally behind their agenda and us lefty progressives (anyone to the left of Genghis Khan) are in denial of Biblical reality or indeed standing in judgement over God, thinking we know better than he.
Personally, I think it illustrates the danger of subcontracting ones conscience and moral sense to a religious text. It's exactly the same fault as found in exteme Islamicism.
So presumably they circumcise their sons and keep their menstruating women locked away. I wonder if they still go in for animal sacrifice too.
Well in Genesis, until the fall there was harmony and man and women were equal. It is human action that caused the inequality between the sexes. Can we assume that God wanted harmony and equality? If so all that follows in the Old Testament is not as God intended. That means anyone relying on the bloodier parts of the OT, are not following God’s original ideas.
Well in Genesis, until the fall there was harmony and man and women were equal. It is human action that caused the inequality between the sexes. Can we assume that God wanted harmony and equality? If so all that follows in the Old Testament is not as God intended. That means anyone relying on the bloodier parts of the OT, are not following God’s original ideas.
Well in Genesis, until the fall there was harmony and man and women were equal. It is human action that caused the inequality between the sexes. Can we assume that God wanted harmony and equality? If so all that follows in the Old Testament is not as God intended. That means anyone relying on the bloodier parts of the OT, are not following God’s original ideas.
3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
And don't for a second imagine people don't take this at face value - I've had blazing rows with people on this very vessel who insist we should accept God ordering genocide and not be appalled by it.
Unless he was an aristocrat it wouldn't have been 'off with his head.'
If it was treason it would have been hanging, drawing and quartering.
For any other capital offence simply hanging.
Again, I would rather keep my last name out of the conversation. You can be assured it would have been for treason, King Charles had a number of enemies and my ancestor was one of them.
That's as may be but unless he was an aristocrat he wouldn't have been beheaded.
As far as I'm aware the only person to be beheaded during the reign of Charles 1 was Strafford, and Parliament compelled him to do that.
Parliament beheaded Archbishop William Laud too, of course, in 1645.
Sorry to keep pushing back on this one @Gramps49 but I'm a tad sceptical unless or until I've got thr historical evidence in front of me.
King Charles I didn't go round beheading Puritans. Yes, they trimmed some ears and noses for 'sedition' but beheading was reserved for members of the aristocracy accused of treason and so on.
If you were an awkward Puritan you'd have been fined. If a treasonable one, hung, drawn and quartered.
Your facts don't line up.
This is going to a place I do not like to go to (as in Hell). Let's just put it this way. I know what my family lore says, and I have done research that affirms it. Please drop the probing now while you are ahead, friend. I would rather go back to the topic at hand.
Firstly, the canon within the canon is a hermeneutic principle. Secondly, if you think divorce should be permitted you're applying hermeneutic principles to the life and teachings of Jesus. (For that matter, the bits where he talks about himself as the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets and such like justify such an approach.) Thirdly, if you want to call my position dishonest feel free to do so on a different board.
There is a difference between hermeneutic principles applied to scripture (of which there are many), and hermeneutic principles defined by scripture.
I'm not sure what you mean by "hermeneutic rule defined by scripture" - I'm pretty sure that it's not a phrase I would use to describe my position. It seems to me like gathering straw.
It would seem that there are multiple hermeneutic approaches to scriptures by other scriptures.
How so? Would you like to give examples of hermeneutic principles in some of the documents that contradict the rule "interpret in a way that is compatible with love and reconciliation"?
In any case, you appear to be retreating from your initial statement that "a canon within the canon" is more honest than observing a hermeneutic rule expressed directly or indirectly on several occasions, mostly within the gospels by Jesus; only without acknowledging that's what you're doing.
Perhaps someone could explain how the hermeneutic of love and reconciliation is exemplified in the Acts story of Ananias and Sapphira, or the Judgement of the Nations that Matthew has Jesus foretelling.
ISTM that Matthew has a hermeneutic of structuring his gospel to use OT references and allusions to show that Jesus is their expected prophet like Moses.
The "By the Waters of Babylon" Psalm certainly does not end with love and reconciliation.
We all interpret scripture through coloured glasses, either our own based on our basic world view and personality or those provided by a tradition. Thats why one-man churches can sometimes be outliers from the norm.
So there seems to be a consensus among churches that the keynotes of Christianity involve compassion, generosity of spirit and forgivenes and redemption. This is so widespread that I would see the workings of the Spirit leading the churches into truth as Jesus promised. So I would see hate-filled language as being deaf to that prompting.
Perhaps someone could explain how the hermeneutic of love and reconciliation is exemplified in the Acts story of Ananias and Sapphira, or the Judgement of the Nations that Matthew has Jesus foretelling.
ISTM that Matthew has a hermeneutic of structuring his gospel to use OT references and allusions to show that Jesus is their expected prophet like Moses.
The "By the Waters of Babylon" Psalm certainly does not end with love and reconciliation.
A hermeneutic of love and reconciliation doesn't mean there aren't passages that contradict love and reconciliation - it means you give passages that express love and reconciliation priority over passages that at face value don't. And if necessary you read the passages that don't allegorically or symbolically - easy to do when one of them is a parable about works of charity.
Matthew doesn't have a hermeneutic of structuring his gospel - because that's not what a hermeneutic is. Hermeneutics are readers' principles, not writers' principles. Matthew has a hermeneutic of interpreting the OT as foreshadowing Jesus, (also of reading the OT over literally as with the colt, the foal of a donkey).
Incidentally, why do you write "it seems to me" of a commonplace of twentieth century scholarly analysis of Matthew?
I get the impression that Christian nationalists are far more interested in the bloodier bits of the Old Testament than anything Jesus might have said. Are actually Christians at all (apart from claiming the label?)
They claim that since God doesn't change, and as God, Jesus commanded the bloody code of the OT Law, Jesus is totally behind their agenda and us lefty progressives (anyone to the left of Genghis Khan) are in denial of Biblical reality or indeed standing in judgement over God, thinking we know better than he.
Personally, I think it illustrates the danger of subcontracting ones conscience and moral sense to a religious text. It's exactly the same fault as found in exteme Islamicism.
So presumably they circumcise their sons and keep their menstruating women locked away. I wonder if they still go in for animal sacrifice too.
I'm not sure of current statistics, but circumcision is extremely common amongst US Christians - albeit for historic reasons associated with a 19th century moral panic around masturbation. Christian circumcision is a culturally very American thing. I can't speak to locking away menstruating women but I would argue that a particular type of hunting culture in the US does lean towards a secular form of animal sacrifice. I am not opposed to hunting animals for food - I think if anything it's far less cruel to animals than factory farming - but sport hunting for the sake of hunting is another thing entirely.
I will say that in general I think it's important not to stumble into an "OT bad, NT good" mindset - not least because this can become antisemitic very quickly, even if unintended. This isn't to say that I'm not also uncomfortable with some of the OT, but Enlightened Christianity vs Primitive Judaism is important to avoid (not least because Rabbinical Judaism is very different anyway).
For me I'm much more uncomfortable with the misogyny of eg Hosea than the bloodshed of the OT. The bloodshed to me is just sort of par for the course in terms of the time period. I don't think God ordered such things either way, but it's not like other Near East/Middle East civilisations of the time didn't also carry out such things. Things like misogyny, attitudes towards various sexualities etc really varied however.
I will say that in general I think it's important not to stumble into an "OT bad, NT good" mindset - not least because this can become antisemitic very quickly, even if unintended.
I agree. I also think it’s problematic because it requires swaths of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the NT to be functionally ignored, and it requires, at least to some degree, ignoring Jesus’s views of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The bloodshed to me is just sort of par for the course in terms of the time period. I don't think God ordered such things either way, but it's not like other Near East/Middle East civilisations of the time didn't also carry out such things.
A plain reading of the OT demonstrates that God explicitly ordered such things. There's really no way around that. And the idea that genocide was just a product of the time or that since it was commonly done we can just shrug it off doesn't help.
The bloodshed to me is just sort of par for the course in terms of the time period. I don't think God ordered such things either way, but it's not like other Near East/Middle East civilisations of the time didn't also carry out such things.
A plain reading of the OT demonstrates that God explicitly ordered such things. There's really no way around that. And the idea that genocide was just a product of the time or that since it was commonly done we can just shrug it off doesn't help.
To me, the interesting thing is that despite the (reportedly) divine commands to annihilate entire nations, the text makes clear that those commands were not followed, and that unlike other failures to follow other commands in the Hebrew Scriptures, the failure to follow the command to annihilate entire nations appears to have brought no consequence on the people of Israel. That’s one reason I’m reluctant to take those parts of the Hebrew Scriptures at face value.
The bloodshed to me is just sort of par for the course in terms of the time period. I don't think God ordered such things either way, but it's not like other Near East/Middle East civilisations of the time didn't also carry out such things.
A plain reading of the OT demonstrates that God explicitly ordered such things. There's really no way around that. And the idea that genocide was just a product of the time or that since it was commonly done we can just shrug it off doesn't help.
I didn't say that the text doesn't say that God ordered such things, I said that *I* don't think that God ordered such things. I don't see why I'm somehow obligated to believe that everything that the Bible says that God ordered actually was ordered by God. There is also debate about the historical reality portrayed in the OT - for example, it's generally agreed by historians that the Hebrews were not enslaved in Egypt and that pyramids were built by paid workers.
Apologies for the prurience but how does male circumcision discourage the activity @Pomona claims it was intended to prevent?
And why didn't Victorians on this side of the Pond pursue it with as much alacrity as their US cousins?
I always thought the propensity for it in certain quarters in the US was more to do with the belief that it was more hygienic.
Having a foreskin or otherwise doesn't affect someone's libido I wouldn't have thought.
'Cavaliers' and 'Roundheads' wouldn't differ in that respect.
Or am I missing something?
I think the idea is removing a portion of sensation.
As I recall it was popular among more extreme groups like 7thDAs which were more numerous and more popular in the US. As far as I can tell they focussed on trying to damp down sexuality with bland diets and mutilation; British obsessives tended to focus on redirection, hence the whole "muscular Christianity" manly men doing lots of manly sweaty things approach. And beatings.
Apologies for the prurience but how does male circumcision discourage the activity @Pomona claims it was intended to prevent?
And why didn't Victorians on this side of the Pond pursue it with as much alacrity as their US cousins?
I always thought the propensity for it in certain quarters in the US was more to do with the belief that it was more hygienic.
Having a foreskin or otherwise doesn't affect someone's libido I wouldn't have thought.
'Cavaliers' and 'Roundheads' wouldn't differ in that respect.
Or am I missing something?
It doesn't prevent it, it's simply a quack cure that took off in the US due to the popularity of various healthy living movements, often connected to Seventh Day Adventism. The hygiene in question is both physical and moral hygiene, and vegetarianism and a bland diet was also encouraged in order to lower the libido. Smoking, alcohol, caffeine, eating meat, and eating highly-seasoned food was sincerely believed to cause lust - hence Dr Kellogg inventing cornflakes in order to discourage masturbation due to being bland and cereal-based. There was also quite a bit of anti-Catholic xenophobia involved in the campaigns against highly seasoned food and eating meat, as well as drinking alcohol - they were associated with Mexicans and Italians.
As to why it didn't take off in the UK....well, you may as well ask why the UK never got legal Prohibition either. The US and UK were different places and different things happened there.
As an aside - the development of physical culture around this time is really fascinating, with people like Bernarr McFadyen in the US. It's rather like how a lot of late 19th/early 20th century progressives in the UK were hugely influential in promoting things like women's education and animal rights - but also promoting eugenics and being anti-vaccination (because vaccination was associated with vivisection). You get a very strange curate's egg of a situation.
Graham crackers being mentioned makes me think of there being some kind of horrible unappetising version of s'mores called s'lesses. Like nachos Flanders-style but on a Graham cracker.
Graham crackers being mentioned makes me think of there being some kind of horrible unappetising version of s'mores called s'lesses. Like nachos Flanders-style but on a Graham cracker.
I’ll admit I’ve never liked Graham crackers. Even as a child I thought they were tasteless and dry. I’m also That Weird Guy who hates S’mores; I think they’re quite horribly unappetizing enough on their own.
The bloodshed to me is just sort of par for the course in terms of the time period. I don't think God ordered such things either way, but it's not like other Near East/Middle East civilisations of the time didn't also carry out such things.
A plain reading of the OT demonstrates that God explicitly ordered such things. There's really no way around that. And the idea that genocide was just a product of the time or that since it was commonly done we can just shrug it off doesn't help.
To me, the interesting thing is that despite the (reportedly) divine commands to annihilate entire nations, the text makes clear that those commands were not followed, and that unlike other failures to follow other commands in the Hebrew Scriptures, the failure to follow the command to annihilate entire nations appears to have brought no consequence on the people of Israel. That’s one reason I’m reluctant to take those parts of the Hebrew Scriptures at face value.
Saul lost his kingship because he failed to kill every Amalekite (their king was the only human spared -- every other Amalekite, to the specified infant, was put to the sword), and everything the Amalekites owned as God commanded. The Amalek king who Saul spared had a son who terrorized the Israelites a generation later, right? There were consequences, ISTM. And we're not considering the nameless, faceless Israelite soldiers who died in the attack and their families. Surely we should.
What is 'reportedly'? Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain!
I don't think there's anything in the text to suggest that these genocidal commands were second guessed because of their content.
The bloodshed to me is just sort of par for the course in terms of the time period. I don't think God ordered such things either way, but it's not like other Near East/Middle East civilisations of the time didn't also carry out such things.
A plain reading of the OT demonstrates that God explicitly ordered such things. There's really no way around that. And the idea that genocide was just a product of the time or that since it was commonly done we can just shrug it off doesn't help.
I didn't say that the text doesn't say that God ordered such things, I said that *I* don't think that God ordered such things. I don't see why I'm somehow obligated to believe that everything that the Bible says that God ordered actually was ordered by God. There is also debate about the historical reality portrayed in the OT - for example, it's generally agreed by historians that the Hebrews were not enslaved in Egypt and that pyramids were built by paid workers.
Fair enough, and I appreciate the distinction. But your comments lead me to infer yet again that God is, as he has likely always been, what we make of him, and not the other way round. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course -- believe what you can, right?
I would say that most of the Bible is like that including the NT - aside from the Gospels, just because so many people could point out that Jesus hadn't said something that they said he had.
RE: How some evangelicals can reconcile their politics with the Sermon of the Mount.
There is a belief that that moral teachings of Jesus only apply in the Kingdom of God, which for some evangelicals, only occur at the end of time.
I think this is problematic, because while certainly Jesus's teachings are perfectly realized in the Kingdom, I believe we are called to try to live them to the best of our ability, right now.
In the US while male circumcision is still common, it is no longer a universal or standard practice John Hopkins reports newborn circumcision has dropped from 54.1% in 2012 to 49.3% in 2022.
What is 'reportedly'? Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain!
“Reportedly” was simply an acknowledgement that the text does indeed say God commanded the annihilation of nations, but that I come from a tradition that does not require me take that literally or at face value, but that instead encourages some wrestling with the text to try and discern what’s really going on and what the church is to do with those texts.
What is 'reportedly'? Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain!
“Reportedly” was simply an acknowledgement that the text does indeed say God commanded the annihilation of nations, but that I come from a tradition that does not require me take that literally or at face value, but that instead encourages some wrestling with the text to try and discern what’s really going on and what the church is to do with those texts.
What a curious thing. To read someone as reasonable as yourself confirm what I said to @Pomona ("God is, as he has likely always been, what we make of him, and not the other way round.") will never not be surprising.
What is 'reportedly'? Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain!
“Reportedly” was simply an acknowledgement that the text does indeed say God commanded the annihilation of nations, but that I come from a tradition that does not require me take that literally or at face value, but that instead encourages some wrestling with the text to try and discern what’s really going on and what the church is to do with those texts.
What a curious thing. To read someone as reasonable as yourself confirm what I said to @Pomona ("God is, as he has likely always been, what we make of him, and not the other way round.") will never not be surprising.
Well, perhaps part of the curiosity is that I don’t buy what you said to @Pomona, at least not as the explanation. It may sometimes be part of what’s going on, and given people is undoubtedly what’s sometimes going on.
But I’m afraid I don’t accept it as a correct assessment of the approach I’m describing.
Or to put it another way, I’m never not surprised when someone as reasonable as yourself posits what strikes me as such a facile explanation as the explanation.
The problem for me, from an Occam’s razor perspective, is that your interpretation of what I said—that it “confirmed” what you said to Pomona—required you to assume my words actually meant something other than what I intended those words to mean. That assumption seems both unnecessary and at odds with your description of me as “reasonable.”
Comments
I am in favour of love and reconciliation - and the golden rule of neighbourlyness.
I knew a professor who said that for him the life and teachings of Jesus were the canon within the canon. I think that is being honest about the selective use of scripture, rather than just asserting that scripture gives the hermeneutic principle which is love and reconciliation.
Again, I would rather keep my last name out of the conversation. You can be assured it would have been for treason, King Charles had a number of enemies and my ancestor was one of them.
Scapegoating remains popular in times of change and precarity. Christians are not exempt from this attitude. On these forums, liberals scapegoat conservatives.
There is a difference between hermeneutic principles applied to scripture (of which there are many), and hermeneutic principles defined by scripture.
It would seem that there are multiple hermeneutic approaches to scriptures by other scriptures.
That's as may be but unless he was an aristocrat he wouldn't have been beheaded.
As far as I'm aware the only person to be beheaded during the reign of Charles 1 was Strafford, and Parliament compelled him to do that.
Parliament beheaded Archbishop William Laud too, of course, in 1645.
Sorry to keep pushing back on this one @Gramps49 but I'm a tad sceptical unless or until I've got thr historical evidence in front of me.
King Charles I didn't go round beheading Puritans. Yes, they trimmed some ears and noses for 'sedition' but beheading was reserved for members of the aristocracy accused of treason and so on.
If you were an awkward Puritan you'd have been fined. If a treasonable one, hung, drawn and quartered.
Your facts don't line up.
Scapegoating implies blaming people for thing for which they are not responsible. Can you provide an example of the phenomenon you allege aboard the Ship?
I think we’re certainly on the same page when it comes to Christianity Nationalism, @Gramps49, my trouble with the One Ring analogy notwithstanding.
FWIW, and connected to the resolution you’ve prepared for your synod assembly, I know that repudiation of Christianity Nationalism will be on the agenda for the General Assembly of the PC(USA) this summer.
They claim that since God doesn't change, and as God, Jesus commanded the bloody code of the OT Law, Jesus is totally behind their agenda and us lefty progressives (anyone to the left of Genghis Khan) are in denial of Biblical reality or indeed standing in judgement over God, thinking we know better than he.
Personally, I think it illustrates the danger of subcontracting ones conscience and moral sense to a religious text. It's exactly the same fault as found in exteme Islamicism.
So presumably they circumcise their sons and keep their menstruating women locked away. I wonder if they still go in for animal sacrifice too.
Excellent.
But then, in the OT, nor was God:
And don't for a second imagine people don't take this at face value - I've had blazing rows with people on this very vessel who insist we should accept God ordering genocide and not be appalled by it.
This is going to a place I do not like to go to (as in Hell). Let's just put it this way. I know what my family lore says, and I have done research that affirms it. Please drop the probing now while you are ahead, friend. I would rather go back to the topic at hand.
I don't doubt that you may have a Puritan ancestor who sailed to New England in the late 1620s or the 1630s.
That's entirely probable.
What I'm questioning is that they did so to avoid being beheaded. Only aristocrats were beheaded.
It may be a pedantic point on my part and certainly one I don't want to contest in Hell. Nobody benefits from a Hell call.
We'd neither of us get out until we'd paid the last penny or irritated fellow Shipmates.
'Idle talk is one of the things listed in the Lenten prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian so I'm happy to drop my challenge and return to the main point.
How so? Would you like to give examples of hermeneutic principles in some of the documents that contradict the rule "interpret in a way that is compatible with love and reconciliation"?
In any case, you appear to be retreating from your initial statement that "a canon within the canon" is more honest than observing a hermeneutic rule expressed directly or indirectly on several occasions, mostly within the gospels by Jesus; only without acknowledging that's what you're doing.
You use scripture to define what love is.
I use love to define what scripture says.
Has this one been used before?
ISTM that Matthew has a hermeneutic of structuring his gospel to use OT references and allusions to show that Jesus is their expected prophet like Moses.
The "By the Waters of Babylon" Psalm certainly does not end with love and reconciliation.
So there seems to be a consensus among churches that the keynotes of Christianity involve compassion, generosity of spirit and forgivenes and redemption. This is so widespread that I would see the workings of the Spirit leading the churches into truth as Jesus promised. So I would see hate-filled language as being deaf to that prompting.
Yup! It's a good one, isn't it?
RR XX
Matthew doesn't have a hermeneutic of structuring his gospel - because that's not what a hermeneutic is. Hermeneutics are readers' principles, not writers' principles. Matthew has a hermeneutic of interpreting the OT as foreshadowing Jesus, (also of reading the OT over literally as with the colt, the foal of a donkey).
Incidentally, why do you write "it seems to me" of a commonplace of twentieth century scholarly analysis of Matthew?
I'm not sure of current statistics, but circumcision is extremely common amongst US Christians - albeit for historic reasons associated with a 19th century moral panic around masturbation. Christian circumcision is a culturally very American thing. I can't speak to locking away menstruating women but I would argue that a particular type of hunting culture in the US does lean towards a secular form of animal sacrifice. I am not opposed to hunting animals for food - I think if anything it's far less cruel to animals than factory farming - but sport hunting for the sake of hunting is another thing entirely.
For me I'm much more uncomfortable with the misogyny of eg Hosea than the bloodshed of the OT. The bloodshed to me is just sort of par for the course in terms of the time period. I don't think God ordered such things either way, but it's not like other Near East/Middle East civilisations of the time didn't also carry out such things. Things like misogyny, attitudes towards various sexualities etc really varied however.
A plain reading of the OT demonstrates that God explicitly ordered such things. There's really no way around that. And the idea that genocide was just a product of the time or that since it was commonly done we can just shrug it off doesn't help.
And why didn't Victorians on this side of the Pond pursue it with as much alacrity as their US cousins?
I always thought the propensity for it in certain quarters in the US was more to do with the belief that it was more hygienic.
Having a foreskin or otherwise doesn't affect someone's libido I wouldn't have thought.
'Cavaliers' and 'Roundheads' wouldn't differ in that respect.
Or am I missing something?
I didn't say that the text doesn't say that God ordered such things, I said that *I* don't think that God ordered such things. I don't see why I'm somehow obligated to believe that everything that the Bible says that God ordered actually was ordered by God. There is also debate about the historical reality portrayed in the OT - for example, it's generally agreed by historians that the Hebrews were not enslaved in Egypt and that pyramids were built by paid workers.
I think the idea is removing a portion of sensation.
As I recall it was popular among more extreme groups like 7thDAs which were more numerous and more popular in the US. As far as I can tell they focussed on trying to damp down sexuality with bland diets and mutilation; British obsessives tended to focus on redirection, hence the whole "muscular Christianity" manly men doing lots of manly sweaty things approach. And beatings.
It doesn't prevent it, it's simply a quack cure that took off in the US due to the popularity of various healthy living movements, often connected to Seventh Day Adventism. The hygiene in question is both physical and moral hygiene, and vegetarianism and a bland diet was also encouraged in order to lower the libido. Smoking, alcohol, caffeine, eating meat, and eating highly-seasoned food was sincerely believed to cause lust - hence Dr Kellogg inventing cornflakes in order to discourage masturbation due to being bland and cereal-based. There was also quite a bit of anti-Catholic xenophobia involved in the campaigns against highly seasoned food and eating meat, as well as drinking alcohol - they were associated with Mexicans and Italians.
As to why it didn't take off in the UK....well, you may as well ask why the UK never got legal Prohibition either. The US and UK were different places and different things happened there.
Saul lost his kingship because he failed to kill every Amalekite (their king was the only human spared -- every other Amalekite, to the specified infant, was put to the sword), and everything the Amalekites owned as God commanded. The Amalek king who Saul spared had a son who terrorized the Israelites a generation later, right? There were consequences, ISTM. And we're not considering the nameless, faceless Israelite soldiers who died in the attack and their families. Surely we should.
What is 'reportedly'? Pay not attention to the man behind the curtain!
I don't think there's anything in the text to suggest that these genocidal commands were second guessed because of their content.
Fair enough, and I appreciate the distinction. But your comments lead me to infer yet again that God is, as he has likely always been, what we make of him, and not the other way round. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course -- believe what you can, right?
There is a belief that that moral teachings of Jesus only apply in the Kingdom of God, which for some evangelicals, only occur at the end of time.
I think this is problematic, because while certainly Jesus's teachings are perfectly realized in the Kingdom, I believe we are called to try to live them to the best of our ability, right now.
“Reportedly” was simply an acknowledgement that the text does indeed say God commanded the annihilation of nations, but that I come from a tradition that does not require me take that literally or at face value, but that instead encourages some wrestling with the text to try and discern what’s really going on and what the church is to do with those texts.
What a curious thing. To read someone as reasonable as yourself confirm what I said to @Pomona ("God is, as he has likely always been, what we make of him, and not the other way round.") will never not be surprising.
But I’m afraid I don’t accept it as a correct assessment of the approach I’m describing.
Or to put it another way, I’m never not surprised when someone as reasonable as yourself posits what strikes me as such a facile explanation as the explanation.
The problem for me, from an Occam’s razor perspective, is that your interpretation of what I said—that it “confirmed” what you said to Pomona—required you to assume my words actually meant something other than what I intended those words to mean. That assumption seems both unnecessary and at odds with your description of me as “reasonable.”