The Bible

"The Bible abounds in plain truth, expressed in plain language; in this it surpasses all other books."

"We search the world for truth; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From all old flower fields of the soul; And, weary seekers of the best, We come back laden from our quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read."

"There are more stories in the Bible than in One Thousand and One Nights. The entire knowledge of humankind about itself is collected in this book."

"In common, I believe, with the majority of fellow Christians, in my early years I accepted the Bible as the inspired word of God, a direct message from Deity to man. Later, however, a more critical approach to the Scriptures revealed incredibilities, impossibilities, and even obscenities, which both shocked and repelled me. Finding myself unable either to ignore these barriers to belief or to adopt a tolerant, uncritical acceptance of Holy Writ, two alternatives presented themselves to me. One was to discard entirely the orthodox concept of the Bible as an error-free and infallible source of spiritual wisdom and moral counsel, and the other to undertake a detailed study of the whole text. This latter course was chosen, and in this decision I was largely influenced by the discovery that many of the difficulties arising from a literal reading disappeared if much of the Bible was regarded as allegorical. (Author's Preface)"

"Thus studying the Bible, I have found that many of the difficulties and discrepancies which had hitherto proved so perplexing no longer exist. May those who are similarly perplexed and similarly seeking find in these Volumes solutions of their problems and the restoration of their faith. (Author's Preface)"

"The decision taken by orthodox Christianity to concentrate upon the Bible as history rather than as a blend of history and allegory has, it is submitted, been responsible for disastrous results. When, furthermore, despite affronts to the intellect and a sense of propriety, it is insisted that the Bible is divinely inspired from beginning to end, then the adverse results become far-reaching indeed. Many moral evils may not unjustly be regarded as consequences of this choice. Indeed, such continued affronts cause some people to turn away from the Bible, from the religion founded upon it and, unfortunately, from the morality which Christianity inculcates."

"When faced with the piling of the incredible upon the impossible in the Old Testament, and its portrayal of the Supreme Deity as an arrogant, ruthless and cruel despot, many people fall into atheism, agnosticism, cynicism and indulgence in vice. When, in addition, the Bible is found to contain accounts of frequent indulgence in illicit, and even incestuous, sexual relationships, the Christian Faith can come to be regarded as encouraging such practices, gross immorality being the unfortunate result."

"The existence of the above evils, amongst many others, points to the urgent necessity for a greatly revised reading of the Bible. If, however, many of the anomalies in the Old Testament can be shown to be revelations, under the veil of symbology, of profound spiritual, metaphysical and psychological truths, then the importance of the study of the Scriptures from this point of view at once emerges."

"Ignoring impossibilities and accounts of moral delinquencies, blind faith in the Bible, together with the fear of damnation and the hope of salvation after death, bring large numbers of people to religion. Nevertheless, truly thoughtful minds cannot fail to be repelled by scriptural affronts to reason and propriety. These considerations accentuate the great need for an interpretation of the Bible as a repository of profound wisdom symbolically portrayed. Such an interpretation would meet the objections inevitably aroused by a literal reading with all its consequences, so obviously harmful to mankind."

"Certain portions of the text of the Bible, if taken literally, cannot possibly be regarded as in any way conducive to a high moral standard. In Genesis XII: 10- 20, for example, Abraham passes his wife off as his sister that Pharaoh may possess her. His motive in doing so was that his life might be spared and he be greatly rewarded. Isaac transgresses similarly and for the same reason, as stated in Genesis XXVI: 6-11. In this latter case the Lord God blessed Isaac and he becomes rich and prospers. Genesis XXVII: 1-45, recounts a most deplorable example of deliberate deceit by Jacob, who later becomes a favoured patriarch under the inspiration of the Lord."

"The Old Testament is a collection of thirty-nine books containing poetry and philosophy, ritual law and social legislation, history, symbolism and metaphysics. Its oldest passages are thought to have been written in the days of Moses (about 1200 B.C.), and its latest parts belong to 200 B.C. Though now translated into over 1,000 different dialects and languages its original was written in Hebrew, once again the language of a living people dwelling in the State of Israel. More than a hundred authors wrote it, including priests, prophets and social revolutionaries. Whilst the Bible tells the early history of the Jewish people, then still known as Israelites, it differs from all other historical records. First in importance are the Five Books of Moses, known as the Pentateuch (Gr. “five books”) or by the Hebrew term Torah (Heb. “law”)."

"The Torah describes the beginning of the world and the formative history of the Jewish people from Abraham—the first Jew and the creator of the monotheistic Hebrew religion—up to the death of Moses, and contains the Ten Commandments."

"The Bible as a whole is not written systematically, however, but is a collection of books of history, historical metaphor, biography, law and poetry, all leading into one another without an apparent plan. The Books of the Prophets include both historical narrative and an anthology of Divine revelations. Those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings tell the history of the Jewish people from Joshua’s conquest of the Holy Land to the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 586 B.C."

"These Hebrew prophets were the conscience of the people; for in the face of powerful priests and raving multitudes they spoke up with one chief purpose in mind—to teach man “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” (Micah 6: 8). Isaiah writes with dignity and power, condemning social systems which forget the needs of the poor. Amos, a “herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit” (Amos, 7: 14), declared God’s judgment upon the nations and upon Israel, also foretelling Israel’s restoration. Jeremiah dedicated himself to God, but was despised and persecuted by the people. He called for peace when nations prepared for war, and demanded an inward religion of sincerity at a time when priests were enforcing their orthodox codes."

"Volume III"

"The Hidden Wisdom and Why It is Concealed"

"The seeker for wisdom must... be prepared to delve deeply, to discover, and to interpret according to the classical keys, the numberless treasures of spiritual and occult wisdom and law which lie beneath the surface of all allegorical writings, littered with debris though that surface may appear to be."

"...the great Book of Genesis—a marvellous cup filled with the “wine” of the esoteric knowledge of the Sanctuaries of ancient days. Temples of the Ageless Wisdom exist to-day, even if less easily discoverable, and in them are to be found the selfsame teachings, laws, successions, Initiations and radiations of the light of Truth. World changes are not reflected in the Mysteries, which are repositories and conveyors of eternal and unchanging Ideas. A sack of corn containing a silver cup awaits every Benjamin who finds himself called by a Hierophant (Joseph) from the “famine-stricken” outer world to the “storehouse” from which an elder brother (a Master) Who has already attained will, in prodigal abundance, supply a gift of the golden grain of eternal verities."

"The Bible is God’s word, the supreme rule for faith, thought, and practice, the revealed source of the evangelical understanding of grace, faith, and Jesus Christ as well as their respective Reformation solas: sola gratia, solus Christus, sola fide. Undergirding it all is sola scriptura or the “Scripture principle,” namely, the confession that “what the Bible says, God says.” Indeed, the consensus that Scripture is the final and authoritative source for Christian life and theology” represent a basic unifying factor through the whole of contemporary evangelicalism” While the future of evangelicalism may well lie in its ability to preserve the principle of sola scriptura, the particular character of evangelicalism will lie in its ability to specify the meaning of sola scriptura."

"What sets the sixty-six books apart from and over all other human texts and makes them suitable to “rule” (“canon”=rule) is their being uniquely “of God.” Evangelicals concur with the Bible’s own claim to be “breathed out” (theopneustos) from God (2. Tim 3:16). Typically translated as “inspiration,” this notion speaks directly to the nature of the Bible and its divine origin. Evangelicals concur with the Great Tradition in viewing the Bible to be the product of God’s own authorship through the words of human witnesses who nevertheless used their own wits to compose under the Spirit’s supernatural supervision. Evangelicals put great emphasis on the Bible’s self-attestation (e.g., Ps. 119; Rom. 3:2; 2 Pet. 1:20-21) and especially on Jesus’ attitude toward the Old Testament Scriptures (e.g., Mt. 5:17-19; M. 7:6-8; 12:36; Jn. 10:35). If Jesus recognized the Scriptures as God’s own word, surely his followers should do no less. That God spoke “by the prophets” (Heb. 1:1) meant by their writings as well, and hence, by extension, the New Testament documents, too. Indeed, most evangelicals came to associate inspiration with the words rather than the authors of Scripture (or their ideas). Inspiration is thus “verbal” and “plenary” because each and every words pulls its weight in communicating God’s word. The inspiration of Scripture is the means whereby God preserves in writing his revelation in the history of Israel and Jesus Christ. The primary emphasis is on god’s providential guiding of the process of the texts’ composition. BB. Warfield defined inspiration as “that extraordinary, supernatural influence…exerted by the Holy Ghost on the writers of our Sacred Books, by which their words were rendered also the words of God.” Though it is common for outsiders to associate verbal plenary inspiration with the so-called “dictation” theory, such a view fails to do justice to what evangelical theologians actually have said and believe. What matters to evangelicals in the inspired result, not a detailed knowledge or uniform understanding of the process."

"It is one thing to say elevated things about Scripture, quite another to let scripture have its say. Evangelicals are not content to admire Scripture. To acknowledge the supreme authority of the Bible is to let it have the final word in matters concerning Christian faith and practice-indeed, in all areas of life to which it speaks. The Bible’s authority is the medium by which God exercises his own authority, that is, his rightful power to determine belief or command action and to expect obedient assent. The Reformers took a decisive step in proclaiming the final authority of Scripture over tradition. ‘’Sola scripture’’ means that neither oral traditions, nor the magisterial teaching authority of the Roman Catholic church, nor new Spirit-given revelations can supplement the Bible (“it is written”). On the contrary, Scripture, as the product of God’s authorship, is sufficient, authoritative, and infallible-the later concept signaling its utter trustworthiness in guiding the church to knowledge of God and salvation in Christ. Since the Reformation, evangelicals have tried to balance the supremacy of Scripture alongside other authoritative sources of theology with varying success, with some favoring church tradition, others personal experience, and still others the leading of the Holy Spirit. In modern times, the most precarious balancing act involved revelation and reason, especially when the Bible became a document of the university and began to be read “like any other book.” Confronted with an academic tide of historical criticism, some evangelicals modified their position on biblical authority, arguing that the Bible speaks reliably only on matters off faith and salvation. As to history, geography and cosmology, the Bible is as weak as any other human text. Others, such as the Princetonian theologians Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield, responded by attacking head-on this skeptical attitude towards the Bible’s historical reliability. They developed the doctrine of infallibility further, making the Bible’s utter truthfulness in matters salvific and scientific alike more explicit by speaking of inerrancy and claiming that thought “the word [inerrancy] sis 19th century... the belief it expresses is as old as Christianity.” Contemporary inerranists typically acknowledge ancient literary conventions (e.g., nonchronological narration) and phenomenological language (e.g., the sun “rising”), recognizing the assertion of the Bible’s utter truthfulness presupposes right interpretation."

"If the Bible is God’s word, then there is no more important mandate for the people of the book than to understand and respond to what God is saying. The authority of the Bible must be not only professed but lived out. All the treasures of divine wisdom count for nought unless the church knows how to make withdrawals from the deposit of truth in order to formulate its doctrine and apply its life-giving light to new issues and contexts. Evangelicals have tended to follow the Reformer’s principles that, first, the authoritative sense is the literal sense, and second, Scripture interprets Scripture. Debate has centered on the meaning of the literal sense: is the most relevant factor the human author’s communicative intention, determined by grammatico-historical exegesis that recovers linguistic meaning by reconstructing the author’s historical context-of the divine author’s intention, which is best determined in light of the canonical context? The second principle is handy for resolving any ambiguities: read unclear passages in light of those that are more clear. The overall aim is to recover what the authors, as commissioned mouthpieces for God, are saying rather than to read one’s own ideas and interests into the text. Because evangelicals believe that God’s message for the church is applicable to every age, there has been a tendency to apply apparently time-bound passages by isolating the universally valid principle behind the text in order to find its equivalent present-day cultural clothing. The same principles thus get applied to new particular cases. Here, too, the main impulse is conservative or, better, ‘preservative’’: namely, preserving divinely revealed truth. Yet evangelicals also want to bring biblical authority to bear on new problems, and some are looking for ways of interpreting the Bible with creative fidelity that go beyond “principlizing.”"

"Does being a people of the book preclude being a people of a tradition? The Reformers set their principle of the priesthood of all believers in contrast to the older Roman Catholic notion that only official church officers could authoritatively interpret the Scriptures. Some evangelicals, perhaps under the influence of the modern notion of individual autonomy, misappropriated this principle, claiming “No creed but the Bible,” thereby confusing one’s personal responsibility to read Scripture with one’s right as an individual to say what one thinks it means. In response, some so-called “postconservative” evangelicals gave gone post-modern, emphasizing the rationality of community traditions rather than of autonomous knowers, and pointing out that the Bible itself represent “the self-understanding of the community in which it developed.” Others, too, in order to avoid collapsing the voice of the Spirit into that of the Bible, acknowledge that the Spirit guides individuals into the truth precisely by guiding the whole church. The open question, then, is whether, and how, evangelicals should affirm the priesthood of all believers, the authority of the Great Tradition or, somehow, both. Stated differently: Is “the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures” functionally equivalent to “the Holy Spirit speaking to the church as she ‘’reads’’ the Scriptures”? The Spirit’s illumination is related to the clarity of Scripture as well: Is the perspicuity of the Bible an objective property of the text or the result of the Spirit’s work in readers? At any rate, there is renewed interest in recovering ancient traditions of interpreting Scripture, at least in part because of a recognition that, first, reader’s interpretive practices are formed by traditions and, second. Such traditions may be the Spirit’s work."

"The evangelical intuition is correct: the Bible is what it says it is, namely, God’s word. The God of Scripture speaks, and Scripture is a result of that divine speaking. The grounding theological insight of an evangelical doctrine of Scripture is that God himself is doing things in and through the human discourse of the Bible in order personally to relate to his people. Indeed, God so invests and identifies himself in his words that to fail to respond to the word of God is to disobey God himself. The Bible, then, is itself one of God’s mighty acts, a form of God’s own communicative presence. Without these scriptural acts we would have no reliable means of interpreting god’s acts in history. According to the Scriptures, however, God’s revelatory words always accompany God’s redemptive deeds. We can go further: according to the Scriptures, God often acts in the world by speaking. When God speaks, he is also doing thing with words (e.g., commanding promising, warning etc.). It follows that Scripture is a medium of God’s communicative activity and thus an extension, as it were, of his personal presence. To view the Bible as composed of diverse divine speech acts is to overcome the long-standing dichotomy in evangelicalism between propositionalists, for whom the Bible is a book of divinely revealed information, and pietists, for whom the Bible is primarily a means of personal address and spiritual sustenance. The way out of this head vs. heart cul-de-sac is to recognize that God relates personally to his people precisely by doing various things with propositions beyond merely informing. The Bible is the God-ordained means of communicating the terms, and the reality of the covenant whose content is the God-ordained means of communicating the terms, and the reality, of the covenant whose content is Jesus Christ. What is God saying/doing in Scripture? He is administering his covenant: promising, commanding, exhorting comforting, and in general presenting himself (and his Son) while simultaneously soliciting our response. God is relating to his people as Savior and Lord via the medium of written words. God is as agree to do this as he was free to relate to the apostles via the medium of the living Word, the humanity of Jesus. As to the Bible’s humanity,” it is fully buy not merely a human product. Like the church, Scripture is a fully human phenomenon subject to the contingencies of language, culture and society. There is therefore a place for reason to examine what the authors likely meant given their historical context. Yet the discourse of the discourse of the Bible is also god’s communicative work: God-voices, God-worded, God-breathed. The Old Testament prophets were “moved by the Holy Spirit” and “spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:21). Those who deny verbal inspiration typically have diluted view of divine providence. But is it harder to move an apostle to write an epistle than to raise a man from the dead? Evangelicals believe that this “moving” is not oppressive but organic, an instance of god’s providential ordering and preparation of both author and situation. The human discourse has integrity, but is ultimately commissioned, enabled, and authorized by the divine playwright who coordinates diverse voice into a rich harmonic canonical whole.”"

"The Bible is the dramatic discourse: something someone (prophets and apostles; ultimately the Holy Spirit) says (Scripture) about something (the drama of redemption) to someone (the church) at some time (past; present) in some way (a variety of literary forms) for some purpose (faith, hope, and love). The infallibility of the Bible follows from the fact that God is the ultimate authorial agent who is doing things with the words of Scripture. “god has something to say and he is very good at saying it.” Specifically, God is speaking truth in many ways: presenting Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of the law and promises the one through whom all things were related and are being recreated. The words of the covenanting god are trustworthy-utterly reliable-for God cannot deny himself (Heb 6:18; titus 1:2). Indeed, god’s truth is liked to his covenant faithfulness: his words can be relied on absolutely to accomplish the purpose for which they were sent/used (Isa. 55:11). The authority of Scripture derives from the authority of god as he speaks in and through the Scripture. To emphasize Scripture as the speech action of God, then, is not to forget the question of truth. It is, however, to situate truth among the other “perfections” of Scripture in the economy of communication. Everything that God does in Scripture with words is infallible in the sense that it will not fail to achieve its intended purpose. When God makes assertions, those assertions, when properly interpreted, are true and trustworthy, wholly reliable: they accomplish the authorial purpose for which they were sent. The inerrancy of Scripture is that quality of the biblical text that, as God’s communicative act, ensures that what is stated, when interpreted rightly and read in faith, corresponds to the way things in creation and history are. It is important to remember, however, that the Bible is an ingredient in the economy of divine communicative action, not a textual talisman with its own mystical power. It follows that the Bible’s truth serves specific communicative purposes, especially bearing witness to the reality of God, human beings, and the great redemptive work accomplished in Jesus Christ. The truth that the Spirit communicated in Scripture is not merely theoretical and historical, then, but practical, transformative, and relational: a truth that sets free, gives life, and promoted wisdom. It is one thing to say that a statement is true, another to say what it means. Inerrancy offers few interpretive guidelines other than affirming the overall consistency of the Bible’s claims."

"His studie was but litel on the Bible."

"A glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun, It gives a light to every age, It gives, but borrows none."

"One day at least in every week, The sects of every kind Their doctrines here are sure to seek, And just as sure to find."

"And that the Scriptures, though not everywhere Free from corruption, or entire, or clear, Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, entire In all things which our needful faith require."

"Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old."

"The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tablets yet unbroken: The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind."

"It was a common saying among the Puritans, "Brown bread and the Gospel is good fare.""

"Shallows where a lamb could wade and depths where an elephant would drown."

"Bibles laid open, millions of surprises."

"Starres are poore books, and oftentimes do misse; This book of starres lights to eternal blisse."

"So we're all right, an' I, for one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' for an ally."

"The history of every individual man should be a Bible."

"I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditations."

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path."

"The sweet psalmist of Israel."

"Within that awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries! Happiest they of human race, To whom God has granted grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch, and force the way: And better had they ne'er been born, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn."

"But Thy good word informs my soul How I may climb to heaven."

"How glad the heathens would have been, That worship idols, wood and stone, If they the book of God had seen."

"I do not know how far I ought to sit here and suffer a gentleman at the bar to bring forward parts of the Bible in this way. It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to say whether you wish to hear them read."

"If the purity of the Bible is to be maintained, it must be by the King, who is the head both of our civil and religious establishments. It is not only his right, but it is his duty, to preserve the purity of the scriptures."

"Kissing the Book. Morris: My lords, I except against this Brooke. Court: Sir, he is sworn, and you speak too late. Morris: My lord, I appeal to him whether he be sworn or no. Brooke: Sir, I am not to answer you, but the Court. My lord, I did not kiss the book. Court: Sir, that is no matter, it's but a ceremony."

"It is impossible to rightfully govern the world without God and the Bible."

"God helps those who help themselves"