Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Jamin Hübner vs. Traditional Protestant Views on Plenary Inspiration and the Canon

Jamin Hübner is a former friend and student of James White, as well as a former contributor to Alpha and Omega Ministries’ blog. In 2020, he wrote a book, Deconstructing Evangelism. There are some arguments against inerrancy of the original autographs and Sola Scriptura.

 

With more study, bigger and bigger holes appeared in what was supposed to be a seamless fabric of unquestionable truths. I was taught and encouraged to teach students in “Intro to Bible” that the Apocrypha simply isn’t “in the Bible,” and that no “biblical author” ever cites it “on the same level.” But this, too, was just a defensive caricature. The biblical authors didn’t really have a sense of canon like we do—who did in fact, cite and/or reference from the Apocryphal works precisely on the same level as our “scripture” [35]. 2 Timothy 3:16 was supposed to amount to verbal plenary inspiration, but in actuality was an extremely mild statement, defining “God-breathed” as “useful,” etc. And in constructing all of our constructions about the Bible, why wouldn’t we “let the text speak for itself,” instead of forcing a 19th-20th century bibliology into two verses in the NT regarding the whole topic of inspiration? [36] Can we really determine what a book is before even reading it as a whole ? Presuppositional apologetics has its contributions against Modernism (e.g., exposing prejudices against religion). But this whole idea of being right in various opinions, just by definition, is no better than the JW that comes to my door and simply says “because God said so,” which we all know is functionally synonymous with “because I say so” [37]. In any case, the credibility of conservative biblicism continued to crumble in front of the most basic questions.

 

[35] In particular, see Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical Canon, 2 vols (New York: T&T Clark, 2017), who was taken Roger Beckwith et al. to task on this for about a quarter century now. Similarly, see the extensive table on Paul’s quotations and use of apocrypha in Timothy Lim, The Formation of the Jewish Canon (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013).

 

[36] And it did no good to “adopt Jesus’ own perspective on the Bible,” as that line too was wrought with countless problems, anachronisms, and readings of verses that were novel and/or incredulous.

 

[37] Sometimes during this period a JWitness came to my door not long after I had watched the film, The Island, and it left a profound impact on me. I realized, to be fair and to truly “know,” I had to genuinely believe and live like I could be that person, stuck in a self-referring world, a “cult,” or whatever, and not know it. It was an uncomfortable, higher level of skepticism that, while I wouldn’t obsess over (as many post-fundamentalists and post-Christians do), couldn’t ignore, either.

(Jamin Andreas Hübner, Deconstructing Evangelicalism: A Letter to a Friend and a Professor’s Guide to Escaping Fundamentalist Christianity [Rapids City, N.Dak.: Hills Publishing Group, 2020], 74-75)

 

In response to John Piper’s A Peculiar Glory, we read that Piper’s books contains

 

the more typical errors and misleading arguments characteristic of this shamelessly fundamentalist perspective, such as the idea that:

 

1. Christianity in general should see (and has always seen) the canon in terms of binary categories (inspired/non-inspired) when in fact the canon has always had a common core with blurred edges—including today throughout global Christianity.

 

2. There is a single autographic text, as if biblical authors sat down and wrote on version of a book that was then transmitted through the ages, when in fact this concept can apply neither to most biblical writings because of their developmental origination (e.g., Psalms, Proverbs, and others are compilations that underwent adaptation, revision, integration, expansion, etc. over time), nor to many NT writings (where authors often keep a copy for themselves, revised another for a particular congregation, sized with a copy down to fit a scroll, etc.), so that speaking of “the original Bible” makes as much sense as saying “the original internet” or “the original Wikipedia.”

 

3. 2 Timothy 3:16 teaches verbal plenary inspiration of the original autographs, when in fact (a) the text is extremely mild in its claims, defining “God-breathed” in terms of making one “wise for salvation” and equipping the person of God for “every good work”, and (b) “scripture” likely refers to the Septuagint (a translation) and not to the Hebrew text at all.

 

4. “Verbal plenary inspiration” is simply the default Protestant (even Christian) bibliology, when in fact there are entire Christian and evangelical denominations that do not hold this view, and Reformed theologians such as Herman Bavinck who intentionally distanced themselves from this rigid perspective (touted by his American friend B. B. Warfield) in favor of “organic inspiration” or “genetic-synthetic” bibliology.

 

5. The idea that Jude wasn’t quoting 1 Enoch (Jude 14-15) as “scripture” or “authoritatively,” when there’s no reason to believe (except preconceived bias) that he is doing anything different.

 

In addition to these and other elementary problems, there are the typical unanswered questions that readers are bound to have, such as:

 

1. If verbal inspiration and words—as opposed to the messages and meaning of the Bible—are so important, why do Jesus and the early church feel free to create their own unique readings that comprise a mixture of the LXX and Hebrew text? (E.g., Mark 7:6-7; Luke 4:17-18; John 1:23; Acts 15:16-18; Rom 2:24; 9:33; 10:20-21; 14:11; Heb 10:5-7, etc.)

 

2. If verbal plenary inspiration and words—as opposed to the message and meaning of the Bible—are so important, why it is continually repeated to being significant that textual variation doesn’t affect essential Christian doctrines? This is significant for Christians who don’t adhere to verbal plenary inspiration, not for those who do. (Piper seems unaware of the possibility that words/wording only matter to the extent that they affect meaning, as opposed to having independent divine value regardless of their functioning in sentences and semantics).

 

3. Why is it significant that the New Testament writers don’t quote from and allude to Apocryphal writings when (a) they actually do (E.g. Sir 4:1 in Mark 20:19 alongside Deut 5 and Ex 20; Sir 17:26 in 2 Tim 2:19-20 alongside Num 16; Wis 14:22-31 in Rom 1:24-32; Wis 2:23-24 in Rom 5:12-21; Ascension of Isaiah 11:34 or Elijah Apocalypse in 1 Cor 2:9; 1 Enoch 1:9 in Jude 14; 1 Enoch in 2 Pet 2:4 and 3:6; Wis 7:25-26 in Heb 1:3) and (b) they won’t quote from many other canonical books as well (e.g., Judges, Ruth, Esther, Ezra, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Song of Solomon, Lamentations)? (Ibid., 146-48)

 

With respect to Bavinck, Hübner quotes the following on ibid., 147 n. 7:

 

[The Bible is] a living whole, not abstract but organic. It is not given to use simply to parrot its exact words and phrases but so that we, drawing from the entire organism of Scripture, as free and thoughtful children, think God’s thoughts after him . . . Taking the text of Scripture seriously as the Word of God does mean that we do not read it atomistically, as though each word or letter by itself has its own divine meaning. Words are included in thoughts and vowels in words . . . not every text or passage or book is equally close to the circle of faith’s center. Not all of the books of the Bible are of equal value.” Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, trans. John Vriend, abridged (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 17, 106.