{"id":31435,"date":"2015-08-24T06:26:11","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T10:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=31435"},"modified":"2015-08-24T06:26:11","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T10:26:11","slug":"talking-back-to-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/08\/talking-back-to-the-bible.html","title":{"rendered":"Talking Back to the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>For the inerrantist, it is all supposedly about getting \u201cback to the Bible,\u201d and there have been numerous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1166596435\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1166596435&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=SIVOGHNSS2VOLPJ7\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">fundamentalist<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00GKG0PGM\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00GKG0PGM&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=V7ATV2XLJHAN723Y\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">pamphlets<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B008T49AHI\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B008T49AHI&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=HLLR44N6WFIQPRQX\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">books<\/a>, and sermons with that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0847444058\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0847444058&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=ICGIFA7TNJUIFCWQ\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">title<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Once we escape the grip of inerrantism, we can instead <em>talk back to the Bible<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>As I wrote in response to a Facebook comment on a recent post, instead of feeling that we are merely passive listeners to a communication from God, with our only responsiblity being to understand God correctly, we become active participants in a conversation, and can give Biblical authors push-back, once we recognize that, for all their historical importance in connecting us with the past, their views are no more infallible than our own.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-21639\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/02\/Inerrrancy-is-not-a-victimless-crime.png\" alt=\"Inerrrancy is not a victimless crime\" width=\"490\" height=\"296\"><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the inerrantist, it is all supposedly about getting \u201cback to the Bible,\u201d and there have been numerous fundamentalist pamphlets, books, and sermons with that title. Once we escape the grip of inerrantism, we can instead talk back to the Bible. As I wrote in response to a Facebook comment on a recent post, instead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":21639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,139,43],"tags":[767,1140,3675,13912],"class_list":["post-31435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-fundamentalism-religion","category-inerrancy","tag-arguing","tag-bible","tag-fundamentalism-religion","tag-wrestling"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Talking Back to the Bible<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For the inerrantist, it is all supposedly about getting &quot;back to the Bible,&quot; and there have been numerous fundamentalist pamphlets, books, and sermons\" \/>\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\/religionprof\/2015\/08\/talking-back-to-the-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Talking Back to the Bible\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For the inerrantist, it is all supposedly about getting &quot;back to the Bible,&quot; and there have been numerous fundamentalist pamphlets, books, and sermons\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/08\/talking-back-to-the-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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