{"id":5928,"date":"2012-01-27T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-27T15:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=5928"},"modified":"2012-01-27T10:00:56","modified_gmt":"2012-01-27T15:00:56","slug":"paul-was-not-a-biblicist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/01\/paul-was-not-a-biblicist.html","title":{"rendered":"Paul Was Not A Biblicist"},"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><a href=\"http:\/\/experimentaltheology.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/why-bible-made-impossible-is-impossible.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Biblicism<\/a> \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/biblicism\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the view that one should adhere strictly to what the Bible says, word for word and letter for letter<\/a> \u2013 is the stance adopted (at least theoretically) by many Christians today.<\/p>\n<p>It was not the stance of the apostle Paul.<\/p>\n<p>Isaiah 59:20 says \u201c\u201dThe Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,\u201d declares the LORD.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paul \u201cquotes\u201d the text in Romans 11:26 as follows: \u201cAnd so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: \u2018The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.'\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clearly neither the letter nor the meaning of Scripture was sacrosanct to Paul. Whether consciously or subconsciously, he rewrote it when necessary to make the point he wished to.<\/p>\n<p>I should add that I\u2019ve been <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceandtheology.wordpress.com\/2012\/01\/26\/the-evolution-of-adam-blog-tour\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">reading Pete Enns\u2019 book<\/a> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/158743315X\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=158743315X\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn\u2019t Say about Human Origins<\/a><\/em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=158743315X\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"> in preparation for participating in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebrazosblog.com\/category\/evolution-of-adam-blog-tour\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the upcoming blog tour<\/a>, and the spark for writing this post came from there (p.110). As Enns puts it a couple of pages later, for Paul, \u201cThe text is not the master: it serves a goal\u201d (p.113).<\/p>\n<p>This seems like a particularly clear example of Paul not treating the text of Scripture as unalterable or definitive, even while quoting it to make a point. What do others think?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biblicism \u2013\u00a0the view that one should adhere strictly to what the Bible says, word for word and letter for letter \u2013 is the stance adopted (at least theoretically) by many Christians today. It was not the stance of the apostle Paul. Isaiah 59:20 says \u201c\u201dThe Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,43,71,101],"tags":[1140,1154,5154,5406,6621,8815,8994,10537],"class_list":["post-5928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-inerrancy","category-paul-and-his-letters","category-theology","tag-bible","tag-biblicism","tag-inerrancy","tag-isaiah","tag-literalism","tag-paul","tag-peter-enns","tag-romans"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Paul Was Not A Biblicist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Biblicism -\u00a0the view that one should adhere strictly to what the Bible says, word for word and letter for letter - is the stance adopted (at least\" \/>\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\/2012\/01\/paul-was-not-a-biblicist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Paul Was Not A Biblicist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Biblicism -\u00a0the view that one should adhere strictly to what the Bible says, word for word and letter for letter - is the stance adopted (at least\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/01\/paul-was-not-a-biblicist.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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