Has anyone looked at this? What do you think of the idea?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcus-borg/a-chronological-new-testament_b_1823018.html
A Chronological New Testament...
Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by WestminsterMan, Sep 1, 2012.
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Scarlett O. ModeratorModerator
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If you want the best one, check out Johnston M. Cheney's work, which took him 20 years to complete.
It used to be called "The Life of Christ in Stereo"
... subtitled "The Four Gospels Speak in Harmony"
Awesome ... the 4 fit together beautifully like a giant jigsaw puzzle
(omitting lots of redundant/repeated words).
If you don't think this is possible, you really don't comprehend our Awesome God.
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The idea of a chronological Bible sounds fine. The idea that the Bible can contains error is disturbing. If you can't trust the literal interpretation of the Bible, then you can no longer use it as the supreme/final authority of doctrine and practice. You would have to depend on your pastor or Pope.
The Bible is God's Word. God's Word doesn't change from Creation to the last living apostle.
If God says he created the world in six days, I believe him. I don't try to read into this wording and say: six days to God could mean six billion years or he had to mean six 24 hour days. He said six days and I leave it at that.
When God condemns sexual immorality as sin, I don't read into it a social/historical context that now makes certain sexual behavior acceptable Christian behavior.
When God says that Christ walked on water, that God was with Daniel in the Lion's den, that he created Eve from Adam's rib, I believe Him.
Do I use the Bible as my guide to science? No. But I believe the Bible and science are compatible and eventually, if given time, will be consistent with each other. -
Mushing scripture into one time line imposes one's theology on the text.
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It is simply a study tool?
I have used a "harmony of the gospels" for many years. That does essentially the same the same thing with the gospel. The chronological Bible tackles the entire Bible in the same way. It is a good study tool. For example, in the gospels, there are seven sayings on the cross that Christ uttered. What were they? And in what order did he utter them. It is true I can dig up that information on my own with some study. But if I look in a study tool such as chronological Bible I can find the answer right away. -
So did any Church Father believe that when Christ was speaking in John chapter six he really intended to mean that his disciples were going to roast his body over a pit, cut him up, and eat him??? No, of course not.
This is why looking at the writings of Church Fathers is very helpful. NOT infallible, but helpful.
If a passage of scripture sounds like it might be allegorical or metaphoical, go to the writings of the early Christians to see how they understood the passage. Again, the ECF were not God inspired in their writings. Their writings serve as a guide only, not as an "authority" as that word is defined by Baptists. -
See this exerpt from the article:
Awareness of the above matters not just for historical reasons but also for Christian reasons. American Christianity today is deeply divided. At the heart of the division, especially among Protestants, is two very different ways of seeing the Bible and the New Testament. About half of American Protestants belong to churches that teach that the Bible is the inerrant "Word of God" and "inspired by God."
The key word is "inerrant." Christians from antiquity onward have affirmed that the Bible is "the Word of God" and "inspired" without thinking of it is inerrant. Biblical inerrancy is an innovation of the last few centuries, becoming widespread in American Protestantism beginning only a hundred years ago. It is affirmed mostly in "independent" Protestant churches, those not part of "mainline" Protestant denominations. Catholics have never proclaimed the inerrancy or infallibility of the Bible, even as many have not been taught much about the Bible.
Biblical inerrancy is almost always combined with the literal and absolute interpretation of the Bible. If it says something happened, it happened. If the Bible says something is wrong, it is wrong.
For Christians who see the Bible this way, whatever Paul wrote to his communities in the first century is absolutely true for all time. For them, whatever the Gospels report that Jesus said and did really was said and done by him. So also the stories of the beginning and end of his life are literally and factually true: he was conceived in a virgin without a human father, his tomb really was empty even though it was guarded by Roman soldiers, and his followers saw him raised in physical bodily form.
These Christians are unlikely to embrace a chronological New Testament. It would not only change the way the see the Bible and the New Testament, but also make them suspect and probably unwelcome in the Christian communities to which they belong. -
I would consider the source:
Marcus Borg
Canon Theologian, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
He is most likely to be a liberal who take any opportunity to attack the Word of God, especially its inspiration. Putting the Bible in a chronological order does nothing to the inspiration of the Bible. Scripture is Scripture no matter which order you read it in. -
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I heard Marcus Borg in person. Good speaker, made sense, don't remember the specific topic.
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WM -
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It seems to me that when Baptists use the word "authority" what they mean is an "inerrant source of interpretation". Orthodox Christians use the same word to mean "a guide towards the proper understanding/interpretation".
I don't think any of the orthodox denominations would ever state that the statements of an ECF are inerrant.
Here is how, at least we Lutherans, use the ECF: the statements of the ECF are not inerrant, they are not God-inspired, just as the preaching of any pastor today is not inerrant or God-inspired. However they are a helpful guide to see how early Christians understood the Scriptures. Some of these early Christians were disciples of the Apostles, or disciples of their disciples.
Lutherans would never accept what just one ECF said, as a "guide" to interpretation, if he differed from the overwhelming majority opinion of other early Christians on the doctrine under discussion.
We would not accept a new, minority interpretation of ECF which differed from previously established majority ECF interpretation.
We would only accept interpretations of Scripture that have consistently been present among the overwhelming majority of ECF from the very earliest of writings that are consistent with Scripture.
However, we only accept them as very important, instructive "guides" to interpretation, not as inspired statements or anywhere near the same level of authority as Holy Scripture, the supreme authority of Christian doctrine.
New "doctrines" never specifically mentioned in the New Testament by the apostles AND not mentioned or practiced by the earliest ECF such as:
Purgatory, praying to saints and to Mary, new Sacraments other than Baptism and the Lord's Supper, the infallibility of the Pope, the primacy of the Roman Bishop, indulgences for the punishment of sins, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Assumption to heaven of Mary, mandatory private confession, good works for the completion of salvation, the power to pronounce the absolution of sins limited to priests and not to all Christ's disciples (all Christians) as stated in Scripture, the practice of only giving one kind (bread only) in the Lord's Supper... are suspect practices and very likely false teachings and false doctrine.
The proper use of the ECF is as a guide, not as a God-breathed, inerrant authority.
Any teaching that cannot demonstrate that it was inherited directly from the Apostles is supect and most likely false. Any teaching that suddenly appears as a "new understanding" of Scripture is suspect and most likely false.
Any teaching that was not accepted by the overwhelming majority of the earliest Church Fathers is suspect and most likely false. -
Thanks for the link. It is worth looking into.
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Are you complaining about getting rid of redundant words?
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>This is why looking at the writings of Church Fathers is very helpful. NOT infallible, but helpful.
The Church Fathers are the people who edited the Bible so their opinions should be useful. Especially if they infallibly edited them.
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