another provocative cartoon from David Hayward<\/a>:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2013\/01\/gods-bible-590x310.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
David points out that the Bible\u2019s repeated references to \u201cthe Word of God\u201d are not about something that can be called \u201cthe Bible.\u201d This is true \u2013 and ought to be obvious \u2013 for several reasons. First and foremost, when the texts that eventually came to make up what we call the Bible were written, they were not yet part of a collection known as \u201cthe Bible\u201d and so could not yet be referring to a collection that included those same writings. Second, the usage within the Bible is much broader, ranging from God\u2019s word that creates and which confronts human beings through the prophets in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, to the Word as Jesus in parts of the New Testament.<\/p>\n
This is a crucial point to grasp, whether for understanding the Bible, or avoiding bibliolatry, or understanding why it is folly to ignore evidence from anywhere other than the Bible when assembling one\u2019s viewpoint on a given matter.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll say it again, since it is a crucial point: When the texts that now make up the Bible were written, there was as yet no Bible. And so to use those texts to justify limiting the \u201cWord of God\u201d to the Bible is to make them mean something very different than they meant when they were written.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s another provocative cartoon from David Hayward: David points out that the Bible\u2019s repeated references to \u201cthe Word of God\u201d are not about something that can be called \u201cthe Bible.\u201d This is true \u2013 and ought to be obvious \u2013 for several reasons. First and foremost, when the texts that eventually came to make up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,131,139,42,43],"tags":[1140,1625,2484,3675,4005,10940,13843],"class_list":["post-12088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-christianity-religion","category-fundamentalism-religion","category-humor","category-inerrancy","tag-bible","tag-cartoon","tag-david-hayward","tag-fundamentalism-religion","tag-god","tag-scripture","tag-word-of-god"],"yoast_head":"\n
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