bacht

The Protestant reformers who discarded Church tradition and ritual in favour of faith, grace and scripture. The Bible itself became an object of veneration, leading to the doctrine of inerrancy (not unlike later Popes).

Since the vernacular translations became available we have seen a mushrooming of variant interpretations, culminating in 20th C Fundamentalism, the most primitive reading of the text. This was a reaction to liberal scholarship in the 19th C that was dismantling traditional interpretations of scripture through scientific analysis.

Now the text is the final authority, against which every other piece of knowledge must be weighed, such as in the evolution, Creationist and millenialist arguments.

Doug Shaver

Well, obviously, none does literally.

However, any supposition that to question anything in it is tantamount to questioning God himself gets pretty close to biblioatry, it seems to me. Referring to that supposition as "worshipping the Bible" then becomes an acceptable hyperbole, one might think.

bacht

thanks Doug, yes I'm being hyperbolic, I was an apologist myself once upon a time

Casper

Does reverence always equal worship?

A secularist may be offended by torture of kittens. Does that make them worshippers of kittens?

Toto

In some cases, yes, but generally no. You can be offended by the torture of people without worshipping those people.

Bibliolators have more than mere reverence for the Bible. They elevate it above their personal experience. They take offense if it is criticized. They look for answers in it.

bacht

There are at least two reasons for studying the Bible: one is that it is part of our Western cultural heritage, and second as part of the general history of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world.

Worshipping any human artifact is wrong imo. Fundamentalists have been reduced to this because they have rejected virtually everything else in the fifteen hundred year-old Christian tradition. It's a last-ditch defense against science and modernism.

Casper

All I really wanted to put forth was that worship of an inanimate object, in my mind, implies a degree of superstitious animism, and lacking that, the term "worship" seems misplaced.

As an example of that superstitious animism in literature and legend, I offer the idea that Vampires are destroyed by holy water, as if that water posesses some sort of supernatural spirit, or even that a werrewolf is only slain by a silver bullet, even in the absence of any theological overtones (as if the substance silver has some sort of alchemical animism).

Joan of Bark

A poor analogy. A kitten is a living thing that feels pain. The Bible is an inanimate object.

Casper

I fail to see how that makes any difference, but in the interest of staying on course...

... how about a patriot offended at desecration of a nationalist icon, say a flag or a coat of arms?

All I'm saying is that "worship" might not be the best word.

Joan of Bark

I'm arguing that it's a fine line between 'reverence' and 'worship'. Christians being 'offended' by the desecration of a Bible I can understand; imprisonment and execution border on worship.

To clarify my point, some Christians engage in idolatry when they react so violently to criticism of their 'holy' book. Would an Edward Gibbon fan want to throw someone in jail for deriding The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?