Subject: Re: Liberalism
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 01:02:07 GMT
From:  (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

In <38185909.56440 >,  (Troy Harris) wrote:
>  The fact of the matter is that “what the Bible says “ *and* “what
>the church says “ is enough to settle an argument when both sides of
>the argument assent to their authority- which the liberated faculties
>do not.  To refer to these authorities is part of the whole gamut of
>Christianity- to ignore them is therefore to cut out the root of the
>tree, so to speak.

That is what I am saying, Troy.

Theology faculties do not ignore what the Bible says 
or what the Church says, but they evaluate those sources 
alongside other sources, giving them no special staus.

An example, which has been seen here many times before.

The NT records details of a census which took place 
during the reign of  Emperor Augustus, whilst Quirinius 
was governor of Syria and Herod the Great was on the 
throne of Judea. 

A conservative faculty would say that because the Bible 
records this event, it must have happened.

An academic faculty would look at other sources 
_as well_ as the Bible, and probably conclude that

a) according to extant Roman records there was no 
occasion when Augustine, Herod and Quirinius were all 
in office at the same time.

b) No other recorded cenusus in history has ever 
required people to leave their homes and businesses 
to travel elsewhere to be counted.  The purpose of 
a census is taxation, and so people need to be counted 
where they can be contacted again later.

c) There are discrepancies between the accounts of the 
Nativity in Matthew and Luke which canot be easily 
reconciled.

d) The census is most likely a literary construct by 
the author of the third Gospel to situate the birth 
of Jesus in Bethlehem, based on a particular 
understanding of the messianic prophecies and memories 
of the controversial census which did take place in 
Judea in the year 12.

e) In describing a census in his Gospel Luke is passing 
on the faith of the early Christians that Jesus’ 
birth was a fulfillment of Israelite prophecy.

None of these thoughts are incompatible with Christian 
faith and witness, but only in a ‘liberal’ 
theological faculty would we be free to even canvass 
them as possibilities. If “the Bible says the 
census happened” settles the argument, then we are 
not so free.

cheers
N+
Nigel B. Mitchell