This is not directed at Percy, but it was inspired by his post in the
Paul of Tarsus thread.
percy writes:
I can't figure out how to respond to claims of the correctness of any particular Biblical interpretation, not just yours, but Jar's, too. It seems Talmudic, meaning in this case a process that by infinite dissection can yield any particular conclusion you like.
I agree with this, but I think there's a resolution to it.
I like to think that my Bible interpretations are particularly insightful and honest, but probably they're not. Even if they were, others wouldn't agree, and none of us would have any way of knowing who's right.
But some things are beyond Bible interpretion; they are common sense.
In the Paul of Tarsus thread I was discussing with Percy whether Paul taught a particular doctrine. I argued my position vehemently, because I know from history that the churches Paul started and was read in did not teach the doctrine that thread ascribes to him.
If Paul, or anyone else in the Bible, is charged with teaching something, shouldn't there be people in history, around his time, who believed that teaching? Do we really believe that the churches he started and taught in, that spoke the colloquial Greek of that time, and that knew their own culture--do we really believe that they misunderstood Paul, but we, 2000 years later, have figured out what Paul meant when they couldn't? What incredible arrogance! Especially considering the awful example of those who are Bible believers today!
My favorite example of this is the Trinity, because it's so often discussed. If the apostles taught that God is three persons, all co-equal and co-eternal, then shouldn't we be able to find that in the churches the apostles started? At least somewhere? Instead, from Paul's letter to the Corinthians in AD 54 to the Nicene Creed in AD 325 we find the consistent statement that there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ his Son. Every reference for those 271 years says that God is one person, the Father. Though the Son is called God in places, every reference for 271 years says "One God, the Father."
How, then, could the co-equal three persons theory possibly be the theory of the Bible? Did the apostles teach it, and it was immediately lost to every church they started, so that no one remembered it, not even to argue against it? There are arguments recorded against modalism--the view that the Father and Jesus are the same person--but there's not a word breathed about any doctrine that the Father and Son are co-equal.
We can debate which Scripture interpretation is correct, but isn't any interpretation that is not represented in history automatically excluded as a correct interpretation?
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