I'm not at all familiar with Rohr or his work and I am fairly certain that these paragraphs are not intended to be stand alone statements. I am quite certain that Mr. Rohr would argue that presenting these two paragraphs is an unfairly limited presentation of his point-of-view (and I would agree with him) so my sentiments are more of a response to the statements above and not to Rohr's actual beliefs.
- What do you think of Rohr’s overall point? How would you respond to the two bolded sentences?
Initially Rohr claims that Jesus consistently ignored certain parts of scripture. This could be true, however this statement makes incredibly inaccurate assumption about our knowledge of Jesus' teachings. A (potentially) accurate way to state this is that the gospel authors present Jesus as ignoring certain parts of scripture. It is important to remember that we do not have all of Jesus' statements or teachings. Instead what we have are carefully crafted narratives that are not intended as historical documentaries but are making distinctive claims about the life of Jesus. That means the authors may well have left out much of Jesus' teachings that were not pertinent to their objective. (I Recommend How God Became King by NT Wright).
For one thing the author, rather than taking an objective stance and drawing deductions from facts, has already assumed that it is "pretend" to read scripture as inspired and equally important. Additionally there is a false equivalency made between inspiration and importance though no internal . That is to say a Christian may well believe that all scripture is equally inspired and yet believe that not all is equally important.
- Are there parts of the Bible that are less important?
It is difficult to imagine that anyone would claim that "When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments." (2 Tim. 4:13), however valuable, is as important as, "From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Mt. 26:64; Jesus referencing Dan. 7). In addition Jesus himself does not claim all of scripture as equally important. Of the 613 laws of the Torah he identifies two as the greatest. It would be illogical, however, to conclude from that statement that Jesus does not consider all of the Torah to be inspired.
- How do you think Jesus read and talked about Scripture?
One of the clearest references to Jesus' understanding of scripture is in Luke 24. On the road Jesus begins explaining "...what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." (Jesus references Moses, the Prophets and Psalms, a common way of referring to the TaNaK, i.e. Jewish Bible). It seems as though Jesus finds all of (Hebrew) scripture valuable and specifically (though not necessarily exclusively) in the way they point to Him.
This of course does not have any bearing on the NT writings as those came well after Jesus, however as a side note the author of 2 Peter (2 Peter 3:16) is of the opinion that at least some of Paul's letters are on the same level as the other scriptures.
- What else do Rohr’s words bring up for you?
First and foremost Rohr's words are a caution about drawing conclusions first... As we learned from Sherlock "Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
In addition the importance of applying logic as, at least the two paragraphs presented, are dependent on illogical arguments, i.e. that we know Jesus ignored or denied Hebrew texts when likely the large majority of his teachings are unavailable to us or making a claim that the reason Jesus was seen as teaching with authority is because he saw the Hebrew bible as unequally important and unequally inspired... it is possible that this could be true, but there is nothing in the Mt. 7 passage that makes this claim. Indeed it actually gives the opposite impression, the people are amazed and the reason Matthew gives is simply that Jesus teaches with authority, not that He is making any bold or unusual teachings. (Almost certainly his teachings are unusual for the time, but here Matthew makes no claim to that). So Rohr is making a bold leap with no textual evidence cited.
This is, without a doubt, a very incomplete critique. (we could for example discuss that Jesus himself, while he may ignore Hebrew texts that are exclusive, remains quite exclusive in his own teachings).
I am quite certain that Mr. Rohr would argue that presenting these two paragraphs is an unfairly limited presentation of his point-of-view (and I would agree with him) so my sentiments are more of a response to the statements above and not to Rohr's actual beliefs.
Very interesting! Rohr seems big for folks in my age bracket and has seemed appealing to a number of my former classmates (from a conservative Christian college).
My first thought after reading that excerpt was how protestant Rohr sounds. The approach feels very much like: "Let's take scripture on its own and take a look at what Jesus says and then make some very bold conclusions about the entirety of Holy Scripture as a result of our own personal analysis."
This is one of the dangers (in my slowly forming opinion) of studying Scripture apart from a recognition of its purpose as a liturgical book that's best understood/learned through the liturgical life/services of the Church. Not saying that we should do away with private/devotional reading at all. Just seems pretty clear (from the Bible—lol) that Scripture is not meant to be understood through "private interpretation" (2 Peter 1). In the same way that Jesus explained the Scriptures to his disciples, the Church continues to explain them.
I understand why Rohr would make this argument and how he would get there, but I think this line of thinking comes from a misunderstanding of what scripture actually is. Last year, I read //Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch// by John Webster and it completely revolutionized the way I understand what Scripture is and what we mean when we say it is “Holy.” Webster asserts that Scripture is God’s self-revelation to His people (not the full self-revelation that happens in the Incarnation, but the purpose of God’s Word is to reveal Himself to us. If we make the claim that Scripture is Holy, we mean that every part of it contributes to that revelation. Every word, every contradiction (because there are some, as much as we want to believe there aren’t), every difficult passage, ALL of it is meant to reveal the Person of God to us. We are meant to grapple with the difficult passages and the contradictions because in doing so we are drawn closer to the very heart of God. So no, we can’t ignore parts of scripture. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, bears ALL of the seeming contradictions/paradoxes/difficulties in Himself, redeeming and redefining them.
I’m probably not even close to doing Webster’s work justice, so the best I can say is, read his book on Holy Scripture. All of Scripture matters. All of it is important. All of it is God’s self-revelation to us.
"Jesus had a deeper and wider eye that knew which passages were creating a path for God and which passages were merely cultural, self-serving, and legalistic additions."
That is quite a statement. I'd be interested to see hear how he justifies that claim that portions of the Bible were merely "self-serving and legalist additions", much less that he knows which ones Jesus would say were not "God-breathed"
I'm not at all familiar with Rohr or his work and I am fairly certain that these paragraphs are not intended to be stand alone statements. I am quite certain that Mr. Rohr would argue that presenting these two paragraphs is an unfairly limited presentation of his point-of-view (and I would agree with him) so my sentiments are more of a response to the statements above and not to Rohr's actual beliefs.
- What do you think of Rohr’s overall point? How would you respond to the two bolded sentences?
Initially Rohr claims that Jesus consistently ignored certain parts of scripture. This could be true, however this statement makes incredibly inaccurate assumption about our knowledge of Jesus' teachings. A (potentially) accurate way to state this is that the gospel authors present Jesus as ignoring certain parts of scripture. It is important to remember that we do not have all of Jesus' statements or teachings. Instead what we have are carefully crafted narratives that are not intended as historical documentaries but are making distinctive claims about the life of Jesus. That means the authors may well have left out much of Jesus' teachings that were not pertinent to their objective. (I Recommend How God Became King by NT Wright).
For one thing the author, rather than taking an objective stance and drawing deductions from facts, has already assumed that it is "pretend" to read scripture as inspired and equally important. Additionally there is a false equivalency made between inspiration and importance though no internal . That is to say a Christian may well believe that all scripture is equally inspired and yet believe that not all is equally important.
- Are there parts of the Bible that are less important?
It is difficult to imagine that anyone would claim that "When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments." (2 Tim. 4:13), however valuable, is as important as, "From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Mt. 26:64; Jesus referencing Dan. 7). In addition Jesus himself does not claim all of scripture as equally important. Of the 613 laws of the Torah he identifies two as the greatest. It would be illogical, however, to conclude from that statement that Jesus does not consider all of the Torah to be inspired.
- How do you think Jesus read and talked about Scripture?
One of the clearest references to Jesus' understanding of scripture is in Luke 24. On the road Jesus begins explaining "...what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." (Jesus references Moses, the Prophets and Psalms, a common way of referring to the TaNaK, i.e. Jewish Bible). It seems as though Jesus finds all of (Hebrew) scripture valuable and specifically (though not necessarily exclusively) in the way they point to Him.
This of course does not have any bearing on the NT writings as those came well after Jesus, however as a side note the author of 2 Peter (2 Peter 3:16) is of the opinion that at least some of Paul's letters are on the same level as the other scriptures.
- What else do Rohr’s words bring up for you?
First and foremost Rohr's words are a caution about drawing conclusions first... As we learned from Sherlock "Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
In addition the importance of applying logic as, at least the two paragraphs presented, are dependent on illogical arguments, i.e. that we know Jesus ignored or denied Hebrew texts when likely the large majority of his teachings are unavailable to us or making a claim that the reason Jesus was seen as teaching with authority is because he saw the Hebrew bible as unequally important and unequally inspired... it is possible that this could be true, but there is nothing in the Mt. 7 passage that makes this claim. Indeed it actually gives the opposite impression, the people are amazed and the reason Matthew gives is simply that Jesus teaches with authority, not that He is making any bold or unusual teachings. (Almost certainly his teachings are unusual for the time, but here Matthew makes no claim to that). So Rohr is making a bold leap with no textual evidence cited.
This is, without a doubt, a very incomplete critique. (we could for example discuss that Jesus himself, while he may ignore Hebrew texts that are exclusive, remains quite exclusive in his own teachings).
I am quite certain that Mr. Rohr would argue that presenting these two paragraphs is an unfairly limited presentation of his point-of-view (and I would agree with him) so my sentiments are more of a response to the statements above and not to Rohr's actual beliefs.
Very interesting! Rohr seems big for folks in my age bracket and has seemed appealing to a number of my former classmates (from a conservative Christian college).
My first thought after reading that excerpt was how protestant Rohr sounds. The approach feels very much like: "Let's take scripture on its own and take a look at what Jesus says and then make some very bold conclusions about the entirety of Holy Scripture as a result of our own personal analysis."
This is one of the dangers (in my slowly forming opinion) of studying Scripture apart from a recognition of its purpose as a liturgical book that's best understood/learned through the liturgical life/services of the Church. Not saying that we should do away with private/devotional reading at all. Just seems pretty clear (from the Bible—lol) that Scripture is not meant to be understood through "private interpretation" (2 Peter 1). In the same way that Jesus explained the Scriptures to his disciples, the Church continues to explain them.
I understand why Rohr would make this argument and how he would get there, but I think this line of thinking comes from a misunderstanding of what scripture actually is. Last year, I read //Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch// by John Webster and it completely revolutionized the way I understand what Scripture is and what we mean when we say it is “Holy.” Webster asserts that Scripture is God’s self-revelation to His people (not the full self-revelation that happens in the Incarnation, but the purpose of God’s Word is to reveal Himself to us. If we make the claim that Scripture is Holy, we mean that every part of it contributes to that revelation. Every word, every contradiction (because there are some, as much as we want to believe there aren’t), every difficult passage, ALL of it is meant to reveal the Person of God to us. We are meant to grapple with the difficult passages and the contradictions because in doing so we are drawn closer to the very heart of God. So no, we can’t ignore parts of scripture. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, bears ALL of the seeming contradictions/paradoxes/difficulties in Himself, redeeming and redefining them.
I’m probably not even close to doing Webster’s work justice, so the best I can say is, read his book on Holy Scripture. All of Scripture matters. All of it is important. All of it is God’s self-revelation to us.
"Jesus had a deeper and wider eye that knew which passages were creating a path for God and which passages were merely cultural, self-serving, and legalistic additions."
That is quite a statement. I'd be interested to see hear how he justifies that claim that portions of the Bible were merely "self-serving and legalist additions", much less that he knows which ones Jesus would say were not "God-breathed"