cpickett

Sorry if this has been posted before (I did a quick search and didn't turn anything up...)

Anyway, I stumbled across this<a href="http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm" target="_blank">essay by Scott Bidstrup</a>, and was curious what all of your opinions were on it...

I'm still kind of undecided, some of what he says seems to make sense, but it also seems like a lot of it is unsubstantiated.

Toto

Just from a glance, the author lists a lot of standard references that most liberal religionists and secularists agree on, along with some that are more controversial. But there is a lot of uncertainty in the field. What in particular struck you as "unsubstantiated"?

-DM-

Assuming that this premise is true:

. . . and given that we do not always understand who wrote the individual books, and given that we cannot understand with certainty why they wrote those books, then we cannot really understand the Bible and what it intends to say to present generations.

In fact, even if we knew all of those things--who wrote every book, why every author wrote what he wrote--we still could not be certain of what, if anything, the author intended for present generations given that those authors could not possibly have conceived of life as it is today--unless they were clairvoyant or omniscient.

Still, much of what Bidstrup offers is very good information based on good scholarship. Certainly what is known about who wrote what and the likely reason(s) why does help us to understand the meaning of the Bible.

On the other hand, once you reject the fundamentalist position (as Bidstrup does) and begin denying the infallibility of the Bible, the question arises as to where to stop, what to keep. If you dismiss the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden as nonliteral, then why not also the need for a Savior and the alleged Resurrection?

In spite of Bidstrup's condemnation of fundamentalism, I have much more respect for the fundamentalist position than I do for what I consider the wishy-washy liberal-Christian position. After all, if a perfect and omnipotent "God" had really been involved in the inspiration of a book, as fundamentalists believe is the case with the Bible, then it would be reasonable to expect that book to be the inerrant, infallible "Word" of that "God."

Many liberal Christians have essentially a religion of their own making. In my opinion, they are not always really qualified to call themselves "Christians."

Anyway, to answer your question, Bidstrup's scholarship seems quite reliable, for the most part.

-Don-

[ December 24, 2002: Message edited by: Don Morgan ]</p>

Peter Kirby

I believe that Scott Bidstrup is a secular humanist.

I had a lot of criticisms of a previous recension of a Bidstrup essay, as there were plenty of slips and jumps, but he may have improved it since then. (No, I don't have the e-mail I sent him on file.)

Secular Pinoy

I've read that essay before. I happen to like it.