The Problem of Biblicism 5<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Christian Smith, in his must-read and challenging book, Bible Made Impossible, The: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Problem of Biblicism 5\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Christian Smith, in his must-read and challenging book, Bible Made Impossible, The: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-05T10:13:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-07-25T02:05:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/files\/2011\/07\/Screen-shot-2011-07-11-at-8.26.20-PM-300x217.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/\",\"name\":\"The Problem of Biblicism 5\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-08-05T10:13:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-07-25T02:05:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Christian Smith, in his must-read and challenging book, Bible Made Impossible, The: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Problem of Biblicism 5\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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{"id":18895,"date":"2011-08-05T05:13:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T10:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/?p=18895"},"modified":"2011-07-24T21:05:41","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T02:05:41","slug":"the-problem-of-biblicism-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2011\/08\/05\/the-problem-of-biblicism-5\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem of Biblicism 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Christian Smith, in his must-read and challenging book, Bible Made Impossible, The: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, contends that what many of us (evangelicals) affirm is impossible to hold with intellectual integrity. He calls this belief \u201cbiblicism,\u201d and if you want to read what it is read this post<\/strong><\/a>. The fundamental problem that undercuts biblicism as a sufficient basis for articulating the Christian faith is interpretive pluralism<\/em>. That\u2019s the big idea.<\/p>\n

In the first three chps Smith unpacks the meaning and problem with biblicism, but he\u2019s not done. He then pokes into nine more factors, and once again, Smith\u2019s done a great job of making his readers say, \u201cOK, uncle, tell me your theory.\u201d We won\u2019t get that today. Instead, I will sketch (briefly) nine more problems with biblicism, which can sometimes be expressed as Bible-only-ism. (Come back Monday, when I will sketch Smith\u2019s essential approach to Bible reading.)<\/p>\n

Can biblicism be practiced consistently? I\u2019m particularly interested in what you think of #5 below \u2014 how the biblical passages don\u2019t add up to the case for biblicism?<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Blatantly ignored passages\/teachings. A biblicist has no ground to dismiss or set aside or enculturate passages, but all of them \u2014 so far as I know \u2014 do just things with texts like (Smith\u2019s examples) greeting one another with a holy kiss. C\u2019mon, you say? Here this out: on what grounds does the biblicist dismiss such passages? Where is the hermeneutical guide? He gives other examples, including women being silent, etc.
\n2. Arbitrary determinations of cultural relativism: this ties to #1. Sometimes biblicists are comfortable saying something is cultural, like women being silent, eating pork, covering heads, etc.. But what is the ground if biblicism is right?
\n3. Strange passages, and here he pokes at Titus 1:12-13 where Paul, at the least, trades in a less than noble form of ethnic stereotyping \u2014 all Cretans? always? lazy? liars? Always? really? Or the Nephilim of Gen 6:1-4.
\n4. Populist and expert practices diverge from biblicistic principles: far too often people find what they already believe instead of finding what is there. He refers there to some serious scholarship examining just this (Bielo and Bartkowski).
\n5. Lack of biblical self-attestation. The most important texts on the Bible \u2014 John 10:35, Rom 15:4, 1 Tim 4:13, 2 Tim 3:15-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21 \u2014 do not add up to biblicism but to divine inspiration. It requires supplementary arguments to get from such texts to how biblicism frames things (see the link in the first paragraph to this post to see the ten items).
\n6. The genuine need for extrabiblical theological concepts: you can\u2019t find things just in the Bible that are central to the faith of orthodox Christianity. Trinity, etc.
\n7. The Bible-only-ism approach was first put into the circuit by Enlightenment liberals, and it was designed to attack creedal orthodoxy, and it is now embraced \u2014 in almost the same forms (see Noll, Hatch) by biblicist evangelicals.
\n8. The biblicist framework has never been able to adduce a solid comprehensive social ethic, and this is one reason it has been both so absent and built at times on thin foundations.
\n9. Pastoral: the biblicist model, when encountering non-biblicists of both a liberal or more creedal form, leads to crises, sometimes to abandoning the faith.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"