Farrell Till, responding to the article on Sins of the Fathers (TSR, July/ August 1997), did little to advance a constructive dialog on a basic Biblical issue. I want to address the confusion in Till's article because it affects how we look at Biblical interpretation broadly and then focus on the specific arguments that he made.
The confusion begins with a method to interpret Scripture. In his article, Till refers to "an old inerrantist tactic, which says that `scripture must interpret scripture,' but this is fallacious hermeneutics.... In the first place, this claim that scripture should be allowed to interpret scripture flagrantly begs the question of biblical inerrancy by assuming that there are no errors in the Bible, and so when two passages appear to contradict one another, it must be true that one of them does not mean what it clearly says. Inerrantists themselves would never accord this same consideration to any other written documents."
Interpreting Scripture with Scripture is a method no different from defining a word in a sentence by the context in which it is used. We all do it. This has nothing to do with inerrancy as Till would have one to believe; it has everything to do with consistency.
Consistency in writing does not eliminate error. If two statements are true, then they must also be consistent. However, two statements can be consistent even if one or both of the statements is false. Consequently, we do not have to assume anything about the truthfulness of a document in order to understand what it says. When we interpret Scripture with Scripture, we are seeking to understand one passage of Scripture within the context established by all Scriptures. This method is used to determine what Scripture says, not whether it is inerrant. Till confuses the issue with the reference to inerrancy.
Additionally, inerrantists want other written documents to be evaluated in the same manner. Till misleads the reader to think otherwise. When we require that a document be consistent in its presentation of ideas and in its use of language (particularly metaphors), we are establishing a basis for determining exactly what the document is telling us. Once we determine what a document says, then we can determine its accuracy. We should do this for all documents, not just the Bible.
If I want to claim that the Bible is inerrant, then I must, among other things, be able to show that the Bible is internally consistent. However, while internal consistency is a necessary condition for proving inerrancy, it is not sufficient, by itself, to do this. We would have to do much more to prove inerrancy than just show consistency.
Let's use an example. Genesis 1 describes how God created the heavens and the earth in six days and it uses the Hebrew word yom for day. Is Genesis 1 telling us that God created everything in six 24-hour days or that He did it over some longer time period? To determine what Genesis 1 is telling us, we interpret Scripture with Scripture. This requires that we do two things. We look at every instance in which the Hebrew word yom is used in the Bible outside Genesis 1 to see if there is one consistent definition that can be determined by the context in which the word is used. We also look at all other references to the creation in the Bible to see if a consistent theme is expressed with regard to the length of a day.
When we do this, we find that yom is always used outside Genesis 1 to mean a 24-hour day (with one or two exceptions that do not affect our conclusion) and that all other references to the creation also point to a 24-hour day. By interpreting Scripture with Scripture, we conclude that Genesis 1 is telling us that God created the heavens and the earth in six literal 24-hour days. By interpreting Scripture with Scripture, we find that the Bible consistently expresses this theme. This consistency does not prove that Genesis 1 provides an inerrant account of creation. Further, we do not have to assume inerrancy in order to understand what Genesis 1, or the Bible, says about the creation. Interpreting Scripture with Scripture is a methodology for determining what the Scriptures say. It is not fallacious hermeneutics. Till's reasoning in this instance is fallacious and not good hermeneutics.
In the original article, I compared Scripture with Scripture to show that the Bible consistently teaches that children are not to be punished for the sins of their fathers. Even Till conceded this point. This brings us to the situation involving David and Bathsheba which Till has muddled unmercifully. It is often the manner in which issues are defined that lead to confusion. An example is where Till states, "In the story of David and Bathsheba, however, there is nothing to indicate that the death of their son resulted from a cause-effect factor. To the contrary, the biblical text clearly states that `Yahweh struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David' (2 Sam. 12:15). If Yahweh had not `struck' the child, he would not have died, so the child's death was not a consequence of David's and Bathsheba's `sin' but rather the result of Yahweh's intervention for the express purpose of killing the child."
This is an interesting argument. Are we to believe that the death of the child born to Bathsheba was not somehow related to the adulterous affair between David and Bathsheba? Of course not. There is a definite relationship. One issue, then, is whether we can use the term, "consequence," to describe this relationship.
Had David and Bathsheba not sinned, no child would have been conceived. The sin of the parents laid the foundation for a series of events that included the conception, birth, and death of that child. Till wants us to believe that the death of the child would have to have been a direct, physical effect arising from the sexual act in order to be labeled a consequence of that sinful act. He argues that intervention by a third party, such as God, in reaction to that sin cannot be described as a consequence of that sin. Till's argument is ludicrous and contributes nothing to the issue.
The basic issue is not whether the death of the child was a consequence of David and Bathsheba's sin. It was. The issue is whether the death of the child was also a punishment for that sin. As Till puts it, "What we have here is a simple case of a diehard biblical inerrantist who refuses to attribute unfairness or injustice to the Hebrew god Yahweh no matter how obvious biblical accounts are in describing Yahwistic actions that are unfair and unjust by any reasonable standard of conduct."
Regardless of Till's inference that God's action in this case was unfair, the issue is whether it was unjust and whether we should conclude that, as Till says, "(T)he Bible contradicts itself by saying in some places that children will not be punished for the sins of their fathers but showing in other places that Yahweh did sometimes punish children for their fathers' sins."
Later in his article, Till asks the rhetorical question, "Is there anything in the story to indicate that this child would have died if he had not been born of an adulterous act?" Here Till argues that the child would not have died if no adultery occurred, so the child should not have died even though the act was adulterous. In other words, the death of the child was not tied to the sexual act so whether the act was adulterous makes no difference. He then asks, "(W)hat else can we call this but a clear example of a child being killed for the sins of his parents?" It turns out that there is more to the story than Till wants to address.
As we read the account of David's sin, we see that, "Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.... Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. And Nathan departed unto his house. And the LORD struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto David, and it was very sick" (2 Sam. 12:7-15). Here, we see that the Bible links the death of the child to the "occasion for God's enemies to blaspheme" and not to the adultery of David and Bathsheba.
With respect to this, Till states, "The text states very clearly that the sickness, which eventually caused the child to die, resulted from Yahweh's striking the child. The way that this story is told, if Yahweh had not `struck' the child, he would not have died, and so there was nothing inherent in David's and Bathsheba's adulterous act that caused the child to die." We can all agree with this. We can also agree that the point is irrelevant. There was nothing inherent in the sexual act that caused the child to die either from a physical medical viewpoint or from the Biblical viewpoint. The Scriptures tell us that the death of the child was not tied to the adulterous act but to the "occasion to blaspheme." The adulterous act merely provided the foundation for a series of events that included the death of the child. These events would not have occurred if David had not sinned.
We now summarize what happened. David and Bathsheba sinned by committing adultery. One consequence of that sin was that a child was conceived and born. Another consequence was that it provided an opportunity to the enemies of God to blaspheme. God then reacts to the "occasion to blaspheme," and takes the child away from David. The death of the child is linked solely to the opportunity for God's enemies to take advantage of David's sin in order to blaspheme God; it is not linked to David's adultery.
The most that we can conclude is that the death of the child was a punishment of David for giving the enemies of God an opportunity to blaspheme. There is no basis to conclude that the death of the child was a punishment for the sin of adultery committed by David and Bathsheba. Consequently, there is no contradiction in the Biblical account.
The allegations of false analogies and diatribes about inerrantist tactics in Till's article were side shows that accomplished nothing. Till's time would have been spent better in addressing the issues.
Roger Hutchinson, 11904 Lafayette Drive, Silver Spring, MD
20902; e-mail, rhutchin@aol.com)
