On Bible Interpretation, Evidence, and Music
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2 Timothy 3:16 reveals that all of Scripture is God-inspired and instructive. Taken with Romans 15:4, similar verses, and examples of NT use of OT passages, some have concluded that even incidental narrative details are potential sources of doctrine.
Since OT narrative details reference everything from clothing to cooking, tools, weapons, vehicles (carts, chariots), and so much more, there are, of course, references to music. There are even references to specific instruments, moods, and uses of music.
I want to offer a few thoughts here for two audiences. The first is those who claim the hermeneutic (interpretive approach) that takes every narrative detail as a potential source of doctrine. The second audience is those who have participated in conversations, debates, or quarrels on the topic of “what the Bible teaches about music” and sensed that there was some kind of disconnect regarding how to use Scripture to address features of present-day culture.
Maybe something here can help a few understand each other a little bit better on these topics and more accurately identify points of agreement and disagreement.
Narrative and Evidence
I’ve written about proper use of narrative before, with a focus on why we should avoid “spiritualizing” elements of narrative—whether OT or NT. Many of the same problems afflict efforts to extract doctrine from narrative details.
Here, we’ll focus on the role of evidence in Bible interpretation, especially narrative.
It should be a given that since we’re talking about God’s Word, and teaching we are going to claim is “biblical,” any interpretation we take of any passage of Scripture—narrative or not—needs to be justified by evidence and reasoning. Saying “God meant this when He said that” is a weighty claim! It needs to be justified.
In other words, whenever we claim, “This information in this text has this meaning for us,” we should be expected to prove it. The “proof” may be informal, as it usually is in preaching. Still, we should expect listeners to want reasons. Our beliefs and assertions should be warranted, and we should help others see why they are warranted.
Narrative is no exception to this duty—any more than poetry, prophecy, or epistles.
Classifying Evidence
Some years ago, I wrote about casting lots as a thought experiment on handling biblical evidence. A lot of readers wanted to debate the validity of casting lots—but my intent was to stir curiosity: Why don’t churches or individual believers generally make decisions that way today?
There’s a reason we don’t. It has to do with evidence.
I’m going to talk about three qualities of evidence, two types of evidence, then five sub-types.
First, three qualities:
- Consistent with
- Supportive
- Conclusive
Say a building burned down, and we discover that Wolfgang was at the location when the fire started. His presence there is consistent with the claim that he started the fire, but it doesn’t support that conclusion at all. This is more obvious if lots of other people were there, too.
But suppose we also learn that Wolfgang had publicly said he wished that building would burn. He also bought lots of flammable liquids earlier that day. That still doesn’t prove he did it, but it is supportive. Though inconclusive, it is evidential for the claim that Wolfgang started the fire.
Now suppose Wolfgang was the only person there at the right time to have started the fire. Suppose the building was recently inspected and found to have no faulty wiring. There were no electrical storms that day, either.
We are now probably “beyond reasonable doubt” about Wolfgang’s guilt. The evidence is conclusive in the sense that it warrants a high-confidence conclusion.
On to the two types:
- Internal evidence
- External evidence
In reference to the Bible, internal evidence is anything within the 66 books of the Bible. External evidence is everything from human experience, human nature, and the whole created world outside the Bible.
Simple enough. On to the five sub-types. These are types of internal evidence. We could choose almost any topic, then classify every (or nearly every) biblical reference to it as one of these types. I’ll use music for this example:
- Direct teaching on the nature and purpose of music in all contexts.
- Direct teaching on the nature and purpose of music in a particular setting.
- Examples of people using music, with contextual indications of quality, and evidence of exemplary intent.
- Examples of people using music, with contextual indications of quality but no evidence of exemplary intent.
- Examples of people using music, but no contextual indications of quality or exemplary intent.
What do I mean by “exemplary intent”? Sometimes we read that person A did B, and the context encourages us to believe we’re seeing an example of good or bad conduct. For example, we read that Daniel prayed “as he had done previously” (Dan 6:10). The context encourages us to see Daniel’s choices as both good (“contextual indications of quality”) and something to imitate in an appropriate way (“exemplary intent”).
Evidence and Certainty
Why bother to classify evidence? Because classifying the information (evidence/potential evidence) guides us in evaluating how well it works as justification for a claim. In turn, that shapes how certain we can be that our understanding is correct and how certain we can encourage others to be.
Looking at the five types of internal evidence above, the evidential weight and certainty decrease as we get further down the list. By the time we get to type 5, we may not have evidence at all—in reference to our topic or claim. Depending on the size of the claim, there might be information that is consistent with a claim, but not really anything supportive, much less conclusive.
As we move up the list of types, relevance to the topic becomes far more direct, and interpretive possibilities are greatly reduced. Certainty increases because there are fewer options.
There is no Bible verse that tells us this. It’s a function of what is there in the text vs. what is not there. We know there is a difference between an apostle saying, “Do this for this reason” and an individual in an OT history doing something, with no explanation of why it’s in the text. The relationship of these realities to appropriate levels of certainty follows out of necessity.
How Narrative Is Special
Speaking of differences between one genre of writing and another in Scripture, let’s pause to briefly note a few things about narrative.
- Humans pretty much universally recognize narrative. They may not be able to explain what sets it apart from other kinds of writing, but they know it when they read or hear it.
- The characteristics of narrative that enable us to recognize it are not revealed in Scripture. There is no verse that says “this is the definition of narrative.” We just know.
- Those characteristics include the fact that many details in narratives are only there to support the story. They are not intended to convey anything to us outside of that context.
- There is no Bible verse that tells us narrative works this way. We just know. It’s built into the definition.
What does this mean when it comes to evidence and justifying our claim that a passage reveals a truth or helps build a doctrine?
It means that narrative detail has a different burden-of-proof level by default. Because the story-supportive role of narrative detail is inherent in the nature of narrative, our starting assumption with these details is normally that they are there to give us information about the events and characters, not to provide other kinds of information.
Can a narrative detail have a secondary purpose of revealing to us the nature of, say, hats and other clothing, carts and other vehicles, stew and other dishes, axes and other tools, lyres and other musical instruments? Probably sometimes. As with any other interpretive claim, the burden of proof lies on the interpreter to justify it. In the case of narrative, though, the interpreter has a lower-certainty starting point, and a longer journey to arrive at a warranted belief.
The Profitability of All Scripture
2 Timothy 3:16 and Romans 15:4 do indeed assure us that all of Scripture is important. “Verbal, plenary inspiration” describes our conviction that every original word of the Bible is fully and equally from God. So we don’t look at any words and dismiss them as unimportant. What we do is ask how do these words work together in their context to provide us with “teaching… reproof.. correction… and training in righteousness.”
Narrative details are important. They’re so important that we’re obligated to stay out of the way and let them do their job.
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
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The Egyptians regarded what the Israelites offered to God as abominations.
"What, then, do we learn about what the Egyptians offered to their gods?"
Nothing. The text doesn’t even say the Egyptians offered sacrifices.
"Because the Egyptians regarded what the Israelites offered to Yahweh as abominations, they would not offer those things (that were acceptable to Yahweh but abominations to the Egyptians) to their gods."
Well, it’s reasonable to surmise that the Egyptians would not do what they thought was abominable, and that their worship was not acceptable to God. We are not told this is specifically because of what they offered.
"Thus, we have certainty that what the Egyptians offered to their gods was not acceptable to Yahweh because the Egyptians regarded what was acceptable to Yahweh as abominations."
No, we have a situation where what is said about the Egyptians is consistent with the idea that their offerings were of the wrong stuff. But nothing in the text says so.
Nothing in that verse has to say that because we know from the true context of the passage (the entire Bible and all that it reveals about the false worship of the Egyptians) that the Egyptians worshiped false gods, had houses for those gods, and priests. We know from Scripture that priests offered sacrifices to their gods.
We know from explicit statements in Exodus that God judged the false gods of Egypt. Knowing that what was offered to those gods was not what was acceptable to Yahweh is important information, and Exodus 8:26 gives us important insight about that aspect of the false worship of the Egyptians.
If the goal is to make the point that what we offer to God is important in worship, not just why and Whom we offer it to, there are passages that are actually clear on that point and we should use those.
A vital part of how God instructs us about what He wants us to do in worship is learning what He wants us to learn from all that He has revealed in Scripture about unacceptable worship.
For example, God has inspired explicit information about the false worship in the Golden Calf Incident in six books of the Bible. Clearly, God intends for us to profit from what He has revealed about that false worship, even as Paul explicitly teaches in 1 Cor. 10.
OK, assuming we know from this that the Egyptians did not offer to their gods something that’s acceptable to God, I still think that’s not really important to the passage for a couple reasons.
- We still don’t know what was being offered, just that it wasn’t the same as Israelite sacrifices.
- #1 is really unimportant to us anyway, because even if the Egyptians had had an exact copy of the Pentateuch (which of course didn’t exist yet) and followed the rules on what to offer to the letter, except that they offered them to Ra instead of God, it still would be an abomination to God.
So I contend that what they offered was mostly unimportant to us (maybe not completely an incidental detail, but mostly), since they weren’t worshipping the true God. Sure, it’s a detail, and one we can note, but not one of any significance to us. (It might help some biblical historians trying to track differences in the cultures mentioned in the Bible.) Since we know worshipping a false god is already wrong, we don’t really need the details of their worship, any more than we need details of what happened in the temple of Aphrodite.
Actually, not knowing what the unacceptable-to-God things were that the Egyptians offered to their gods makes the passage more valuable because had there been specific information provided, an intense effort would have been made to limit its applicability to only those specific things being unacceptable to God. By not having specifics, the passage has broader significance by way of principle.
Knowing that the Egyptians offered things to their gods that were not what was acceptable to Yahweh is important information because it shows that the sinfulness of their false worship was not limited to only the wrong objects of worship and having wrong hearts.
There are no so-called “best” texts that are comprehensive treatments of all truth that God has revealed about a subject. Claiming, therefore, in effect that we should limit ourselves to using so-called “best” texts deprives us of the God-intended profit from other passages about that subject.
When did I say limit? I think my reasoning was pretty clear. When you have strong evidence and your point is proved, why would you go looking for weak evidence? Further, if God gave us passages for the purpose of teaching particular things, why would we say “No thanks, God, I’m going to try to learn the lesson from a passage You provided to teach a completely different truth”?
Of course there are best passages.
Learning from Daniel 10 that there are demonic princes over entire empires and that they fight against godly angels in connection with what is taking place in the lives of important people in empires is not a small claim.
I agree. As I said, the demons are characters in the story. The information about their workings at that time and place are vital for understanding and/or feeling the story as we’re meant to.
But my actual point, which keeps getting lost somehow, is that the further we get from the persons, places, events of the narrative, the more questions we unavoidably have about the narrative details.
In this case, how do we know demons normally behave in ways we see them behave in Daniel 10? How do we know something special wasn’t going on? Well, we have other passages that help fill in the gaps. Still, the level of certainty should align with what we’re actually told. Nothing in Daniel 10 says demons act exactly like this in all ages and all places.
So, to make sense of how interpretation works, we have to get away from all or nothing thinking. The choices are not “there is one best passage for a truth and we should use no other” vs. “there are no best passages.” There are like continents between those two extremes. Likewise, with narrative details and what sorts of claims we make from them, there is a wide range of distance from the context and a wide range of certainty, a wide range of what we know is so vs. what we think might be so.
Here’s the bottom line, and I think I’ll just abandon all the rest: An interpretation must be justified and a text does not say what it does not say. If somebody wants to try to interpret using a “every detail can provide sure knowledge for other contexts” approach, they certainly don’t need my permission.
But what will happen is people will hear or read and wonder, “How are you getting that from that text?” If you can arrive at a warranted belief and appropriate level of confidence, great.
If you’re working with narrative, though, you’re going to find that the further you get from the context, the harder that is to achieve, and if you arrive at belief and a level of certainty that isn’t really warranted, people will not find it persuasive.
It makes more sense to start study of any topic with the passages that speak most clearly and directly on the topic, given the context, etc. Then work your way down to less clear, less direct, less certain passages. You’ll probably find that with many topics you have all the answers you are ever going to have before you get all the way down to the least certain passages. Or, if we don’t have all we could have, we have more than enough to guide us or keep us busy.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
It may be best to just give up now.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
It may be best to just give up now.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Before stopping, how about giving a list of passages that mention something to do with music that you regard as having little to no doctrinal value for our understanding of music. We do not have to discuss any of them, but I would like to see some specific examples of such passages based on your understanding of what is proper interpretation of the Bible.
I'll help you get started: Exodus 32:17-18.
When did I say limit? I think my reasoning was pretty clear. When you have strong evidence and your point is proved, why would you go looking for weak evidence? Further, if God gave us passages for the purpose of teaching particular things, why would we say “No thanks, God, I’m going to try to learn the lesson from a passage You provided to teach a completely different truth”?
For the record, I have never done either of the following things that you talk about in the quote above:
1. When you have strong evidence and your point is proved, why would you go looking for weak evidence?
2. Further, if God gave us passages for the purpose of teaching particular things, why would we say “No thanks, God, I’m going to try to learn the lesson from a passage You provided to teach a completely different truth”?
There are key presuppositions, assumptions, and assertions that various Christians bring to the music discussions for which I believe that they have no biblical evidence or passages that God has given "for the purpose of teaching [those] particular things."
I would be interested to learn how your hermeneutical method approaches what presuppositions, assumptions, and assertions you believe are legitimate to bring to the music discussion.
For example, an influential Christian musician has said,
Actually, it seems that God likes music of all kinds. No one style can sufficiently capture his glory or even begin to reflect the vastness of his wisdom, creativity, beauty, and order. That doesn't mean some kinds of music aren't more complex or beautiful than others. It just means no single genre of music is better than the rest in every way.
Tellingly, he offers no Bible to support these statements. According to your understanding of proper hermeneutics what are the best passages that God has given for teaching these particular things that are so confidently set forth that no need is even felt for providing biblical support for them.
Regarding Exodus 32:17-18, the only thing we know is that they heard singing.
So because the behavior--including idolatry and who knows what else--was overall an abomination to God, we therefore ban singing? We might sadly joke that this is the application too often made by church congregants, but I have trouble reconciling that to Psalms 149-150 and Ephesians 5:19, to put it mildly.
Certainly the text does not go in places where you've tried to take it, Rajesh.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
First, apologies: this is long and rambling. I don’t have time to edit it down.
Before stopping, how about giving a list of passages that mention something to do with music that you regard as having little to no doctrinal value for our understanding of music. We do not have to discuss any of them, but I would like to see some specific examples of such passages based on your understanding of what is proper interpretation of the Bible.
I’ve already provided several examples in the main article and linked articles as well as in the comments here. They didn’t happen to be about music, but the approach is not different for music than for things like food, clothing, wheeled vehicles, tools, etc. ,etc.
But I don’t mind taking a look at one you’re interested in…
I’ll help you get started: Exodus 32:17-18.
… it’s actually a great example of what I’m talking about: specifically the fact that (a) an interpretation needs to be backed with evidence, and (b) narrative details tend to have a lot of possible interpretations even in context, but rapidly multiplying if we try to generalize outside the context.
Here’s the text…
17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” (Ex 32:17–18)
Read in context, the scene details here clearly make us feel the drama of the event more deeply. They help us ‘be there,’ so the events are more real to us. You can feel Joshua’s surprise. A wild party was not on the schedule of events.
Can we learn anything about music from this?
Some very small, pretty obvious claims are possible:
- Singing can be loud.
- Singing can be hard to distinguish from shouting.
From the context beyond those two verses…
- Singing can be part of a wild party.
- Singing can occur in the context of idolatry.
There might be a few more similarly small claims the text could prove—because the story doesn’t make sense unless these things are assumed.
As a reader, I’d be following the sequence of events, and trying to learn about music would not even occur to me. (Even as a guy who has music on his mind pretty much all the time now!)
What if there was a point we wanted to make, that we brought to the text to try to prove?
This changes the dynamic. So, suppose we wanted to find evidence that there is a special kind of music that is associated with idolatry. Do we see that idea here?
This is where enormous amounts of uncertainty come, because there are so many possibilities and so much we are not told in the text (or any other—I’ll get to that).
Questions:
- Is the singing loud and similar to shouting because they are worshipping an idol, or just because they are having a wild party?
- Does “noise” (קוֹל qol) mean what we usually associate with the term noise, or can it mean simply “sound”? (Spoilers: it can mean simply “sound” but a good strong volume is usually there. KJV translates it ‘voice’ 383 times, sound 39 times, even thunder about a dozen times)
- Sorry. Got in the weeds a bit on that one!
- Does the singing sound like that because the party is wild or just because it’s really exuberant?
- Would exuberant singing in a different setting sound different to Joshua or would he also have confused it briefly with shouting?
- Is there evidence of singing and shouting going together in legitimate worship of God? (Spoilers: there is)
- How does the fact that Joshua’s impression that it sounded like a “shout of victory” factor in?
- Is it possible that Joshua associates the sound of war with the singing because Israel had enemies that might be expected to attack and he was worried about that possibility while he was gone?
- Does the text actually say there was anything bad about the singing?
- Does the passage tell us if the noisy singing was part of the idolatry or part of the worship of God that was happening at the same time (Exod 32:5-6)?
- While it’s true that Joshua didn’t hear it and think, “Oh a feast is happening,” we do know it was a feast (32:5). Are we told that the sound of the singing was unusual compared to other feasts? (As noted earlier, maybe Joshua has the risk of attack and war on his mind… he was a general after all.)
- It’s clear that the Israelites saw the situation as a celebration. Are we told that the shouty nature of the singing was unlike their singing at other kinds of celebrations (say weddings, a surprisingly good harvest, an escape from enemies)?
More questions could be raised (and yes, some of those I raised are redundant: just brainstorming). All of them introduce possibilities that make certainty about what we were hypothetically hoping to prove extremely uncertain.
The point of the passage is clearly that Israel’s commitment to God was pretty superficial at that point and they were very much inclined toward idolatry. Given the strong emphasis on that theme in the context (and in NT references to it, e.g., 1 Cor 10.7), we have strong evidence that we’re supposed to be focused on that and to take the scene details as intended to strengthen how we are impacted by the event.
But even if Joshua had said to Moses, “The music I’m hearing is the kind that goes with idolatry!” we would not know what made it distinctive, since loudness and shouting are encouraged in the Psalms. But Joshua didn’t say that.
In the end, regarding the hypothesis that there is a special kind of music that goes with idolatry, the best we could say is that this passage is consistent with that idea. It does not provide supporting evidence for it and so, is also not conclusive (see the main article on ‘consistent with’ vs. ‘supportive’ vs. ‘conclusive.’)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Apparently, my comment, which was made in all seriousness, was taken the wrong way. I have no interest in discussing Exodus 32:17-18. Thanks for taking the time to make your comments; I will consider them privately.
Let me try again:
Setting aside Exodus 32:17-18, how about giving a list of passages that mention something to do with music that you regard as having little to no doctrinal value for our understanding of music. We do not have to discuss any of them, but I would like to see some specific examples of such passages based on your understanding of what is proper interpretation of the Bible.
If you would rather not set forth such a list, no problem. Thanks.
Concerning the doctrinal importance of narratives in Scripture, I posted the following on my blog tonight:
"Profiting Fully from the Doctrinal Importance of Narratives: Hebrews 11:1-12:1
To profit fully from Scripture, we must understand correctly the doctrinal importance of narratives. To that end, we must remember that the chapter divisions and verse divisions in Scripture are not inspired by God.
Hebrews 11:1-12:1 is an important example of this truth. If we do not connect Hebrews 12:1 to all that is in Hebrews 11, we will miss vital truth that God has given us for our profit.
To understand why this is true, note especially how Hebrews 12:1 connects with 11:32-40 (and all that precedes it in Hebrews 11) through the word “wherefore” at the beginning of 12:1:
Hebrews 11:32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: 40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Here, the inspired writer of the book of Hebrews issues two prescriptive mutual exhortations that instruct us that we must profit in our own lives from what God has given us in all of Hebrews 11.
To the extent that we do not profit from the vital connection between Hebrews 12:1 and Hebrews 11:1-40, we will not be fully the holy brethren that we should be.
It is a great mistake to take the position that only what is explicitly stated in the NT (or even in the rest of Scripture) is what matters for us. Rather, this passage vitally teaches us that we must profit from the numerous narrative passages in the OT that God has given us in Scripture, especially all the passages about the prophets who spoke and lived faithfully for God (Heb. 11:32).
What's more, the writer of Hebrews explicitly tells us that he had much more to say than what he did explicitly talk about in Hebrews 11:
Hebrews 11:32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets.
Because he said this, we have full biblical warrant to give close attention to the biblical accounts of all those who are mentioned in Hebrews 11:32 to learn what more the writer of Hebrews would have taught us about faith and other closely related truths had he had the time to talk about those truths in Hebrews 11.
Conclusion
We must not allow unsound doctrine about the doctrinal importance of narratives to deprive us of the full profit that the Spirit wants us to receive from them!"
Profiting Fully from the Doctrinal Importance of Narratives
I don’t think anyone is actually disputing that. Maybe some are. I’m certainly not.
I mean, Genesis 1 is a narrative and full of theology.
What I’ve been saying, I think repeatedly by now, is that narrative usually speaks to us with greatest clarity and certainty as a whole story. A close second is what it tells us about the individuals and events within it.
So in Genesis 1, God is the main character. Soon, the first humans are introduced. How does the narrative speak to us: Well every detail matters, as I’ve been saying. But the details matter in context, that is, their main job is to tell us about the people and events and other major pieces of the story.
And what they tell us about the people, events, etc., is mostly bounded by the story. That is, the most clear and confident things we can learn from those details are the information that we have to know in order to understand and feel the story as we should.
So, as I’ve said already in various ways, it’s not that there can’t be any information there that works outside the context of the narrative, but once we leave that context, we then have no evidence for what those details mean: we have to get it from elsewhere.
The bottom line, again, is that an interpretation must be justified. The smaller the detail and the further we take it outside it’s context, the more difficult it’s going to be to justify any particular interpretation.
But it’s not always impossible.
Inductive reasoning: Sometimes in theology we do inductive reasoning. We gather a lot of clues and try to add them up to a generalization. These generalizations (“conclusions” might be too strong of a word for a lot of these) are always at various levels of probability and confidence.
An example would be a lot of what we have for angelology. We have a ton of narrative references to angel appearances. They are characters in the stories, so what we learn about them in the context of the event is going be solid. But when we try to generalize about angels, we immediately need more evidence. Each individual reference doesn’t prove a lot by itself but pulling them together, there are some things we arrive at inductively, then also deductively, to learn some things. Fortunately, there are also direct teaching statements about angels that clear up a lot. We rightly prioritize those in how we put it all together.
But the rule of thumb is the smaller the detail, the further from context, the less corroborating evidence, the less certain the conclusion can be.
Setting aside Exodus 32:17-18, how about giving a list of passages that mention something to do with music that you regard as having little to no doctrinal value for our understanding of music.
Well, Exodus 32 would be one. I’m kind of curious now, so….
Disclaimer, this is a quick survey, so I haven’t dug into them in depth. But on first glance, these don’t seem to teach us anything about music that isn’t either a) obvious (i.e., “very small claim”) or b) clearly taught somewhere else.
- Num 21:17-18
- Judges 5
- 1 Sam 18:6-7
- 2 Sam 19:34-35
- 2 Sam 22:1
- 1 Chron 6:31
- 1 Chron 13:8
Well, I’ll stop there.
In some cases, these offer a bit of music theology, but the “bit” is far more clear elsewhere, like the Psalms, for example, or the NT.
But mostly these don’t teach us anything non-obvious about music (i.e., what I’ve called “very small claims.”).
As for larger claims, they offer information that would be consistent with some. There might be some bits of info that are supportive of larger claims, even. But I’m pretty sure that in these instances, there are passages that make these points far more directly, so there would not be any reason to use these passages that way.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Well, Exodus 32 would be one.
It would not be possible to have a profitable exegetical and theological discussion of Exodus 32:17-18 on SI because of the immense interference to such a discussion that several users of SI (I'm not speaking of you) would surely engage in, given their unedifying and ungodly tactics that they directed toward me in the past discussions on that passage.
Disclaimer, this is a quick survey, so I haven’t dug into them in depth. But on first glance, these don’t seem to teach us anything about music that isn’t either a) obvious (i.e., “very small claim”) or b) clearly taught somewhere else.
Well, I’ll stop there.
In some cases, these offer a bit of music theology, but the “bit” is far more clear elsewhere, like the Psalms, for example, or the NT.
But mostly these don’t teach us anything non-obvious about music (i.e., what I’ve called “very small claims.”).
As for larger claims, they offer information that would be consistent with some. There might be some bits of info that are supportive of larger claims, even. But I’m pretty sure that in these instances, there are passages that make these points far more directly, so there would not be any reason to use these passages that way.
Thanks for the list. Having studied all of them to one degree or another in the past, there's much more in at least some of them that many have not appreciated for what they teach.
Discussion