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.)
Thanks for this substantive article. I have strong disagreements with what you have set forth, but it is helpful to learn in more detail what your approach and viewpoints are.
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.
In particular, I think that these comments are problematic, especially your second paragraph that I have quoted. You assert that narrative details have other purposes "probably sometimes."
That is a point that needs to be probed deeply.
Feel free to dig into that. Maybe this will help:
We all know that narrative details are almost always there to tell us about what happened and/or about the persons involved. This is inherent in what makes it narrative.
Can we learn other things, too? Well, let’s remember that the central problem is the need to justify interpretive claims. Can we we justify claims that are unrelated to the events, locations and persons in the narrative?
Well, it’s fair to say that if we are making a small enough ‘outside the narrative’ claim, sure, it can be done. I’ll give an example or two in a minute. But with these really small/modest claims, we’re generally talking about things that are either already obvious or things that have strong support in other passages—making the claim unnecessary.
Examples.
Example 1, Esau’s meal (Gen 25:29-34): Esau comes back from hunting, is super hungry, finds Jacob cooking some red stew, with lentils, makes a deal to get the stew in exchange for his birthright.
What can we learn about stews in general and lentil stews in particular vs. other stews? It’s a silly question, because the point of the story is the bad deal Esau made and how the deep rift with Jacob started. It could have been a plate of donuts. But we’re told it was lentil stew, so can we make interpretive claims about stew and lentils unrelated to the narrative—and justify them?
Some really small claims:
- People eat food.
- Stew can be really appealing.
- Lentils can be an ingredient in stew.
We could list a few more things at that level, but they’re all things we already know and that there is not much value in “learning” from the text. … and there is a kind of disrespect of the text involved in using it that way.
But the reasoning seems valid.
Example 2, carting the ark (2 Sam 6:3-8): The ark of the covenant has been recovered and David is returning it to Jerusalem. They put it on a nice new cart. Along the way, Uzzah feels the need to keep the ark steady, reaches out and grabs it, is struck dead.
Can we learn about wheeled conveyances, carts, and propulsion systems (here, oxen)? Again, the question seems silly because we know the main point has to do with the holiness of the Ark, and the rules God had given them for moving it from place to place (to respect His holiness)—which involved priests carrying it on staves. This is all contextual. Other strong contextual points include aspects of God’s character and our relationship with Him.
Can we learn things unrelated to the narrative? Sure.
- Carts are one way things can be moved from place to place.
- Carts can be unsteady on rough terrain.
- Cargo can be unstable.
Well, these are all ‘evident’ as assumptions in the narrative, but again, why would we need to learn these things? And again, it’s a kind of insult to the text, because that information isn’t there for that purpose.
As soon as we try to make larger claims, like “maybe lentil stew is bad” or “maybe lentil stew is especially seductive,” we have gone way out on a limb with a claim that would be very difficult to prove.
Likewise, with the cart example, if we tried to claim that “carts are inferior to hand conveyance,” we have a larger claim that would really be tough thing to prove.
… unless we had, say, Paul the apostle writing in the Epistle to the Colossians that Christians should avoid lentil stew and not use carts, maybe with a reference to Esau or Uzzah.
But if we had that, why would we need to try to milk that out of Gen 25 or 2 Sam 6? We would already have unambiguous teaching on these topics.
There could be exceptions to this, I suppose, but almost always an “outside the narrative” claim based on “inside the narrative” details is not worth making. It’s either so small as to be obvious or larger but then requires corroboration from somewhere else… making use of the narrative in that way pointless.
Now I have occasionally done something sort of like this in sermons: A narrative detail adds a nuance to the story that can lead us to a number of other passages that make a relevant point. I don’t have an example handy, but this is consistent with what I’ve been saying. In those cases, I’m not deriving the claim from the narrative detail. I’m using it as a hitch to other passages and relying on those to make the claim. There is a difference.
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.
Our church song leader is named Wolfgang. Seems ironic, given the underlying argument behind your article
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
Your church building OK, Don? :^)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
To the point about narrative, the point that it is "that which is" more than "that which ought to be" is well taken--though one can often infer that the participants in the narrative did believe that something was "that which ought to be", or "that which ought not to be."
That noted, a lot of the worst knock-down, drag out arguments I've seen here and elsewhere are when arguably one or more participants simply are taking the text somewhere it simply does not go when one looks at the historical context, original languages, and such. A lot of that happens when people view things through the lens of their own microculture so strongly that the ordinary tools of exegesis simply don't seem to penetrate.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I did an interview with Mike Riley this morning closely related to this topic. It will show up on our podcast in a few weeks (shameless plug)
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
I find it perplexing that you consider paying the closest possible attention to what the Spirit in His wisdom has inspired to be in His Word as somehow insulting to the text. I think that holding that the details of narratives a priori are mere story details is insulting to the Holy Spirit.
I also think that your asserting that biblical historical narratives are no different than any other stories concerning their details is not tenable. Aside from the obvious false statements of evil entities, etc., every inspired historical narrative in the Bible is 100% factual, historically true information about actual events that actually happened as the Spirit has inspired them to be recorded.
As such, every detail attests to the fully true historical nature of that information.
Moreover, we can learn profoundly important doctrinal information by paying the closest possible attention to the details of biblical historical narratives.
For example, consider what we learn from Exodus 8:26:
Exodus 8:26 And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us?
This text reveals to us a very important truth about the false worship of the Egyptians--the Egyptians regarded what the Jews sacrificed to Yahweh to be an abomination. It wasn't, therefore, just that the Egyptians worshiped different gods than the One that the Israelites worshiped.
In their worship of their false gods, they offered things in sacrifice to their gods that were not what the Israelites offered to Yahweh. Consequently, Egyptian idolatry was not just sinful because it was worship offered to false gods. It was also sinful because what was offered to those false gods was not what God had ordained was acceptable to Him to offer in sacrifice.
Our theology of false worship must not be one of holding that what makes false worship sinful is only the hearts of the people and the wrong objects to whom they offer worship. False worship also includes offering things in worship that are not acceptable to God for any use in worship.
Without giving proper attention to the fully authentically historical and factual information of passages such as Exodus 8:26, many have come to false notions about what worship God accepts and what worship He does not.
Can we learn things unrelated to the narrative? Sure.
- Carts are one way things can be moved from place to place.
- Carts can be unsteady on rough terrain.
- Cargo can be unstable.
Well, these are all ‘evident’ as assumptions in the narrative, but again, why would we need to learn these things?
What is claimed to be "'evident' as assumptions" is highly debatable concerning many things about what the Bible reveals about music. In fact, unbiblical and false presuppositions, assertions, and assumptions about music and human musical activity is one of the root causes of faulty views about music and worship.
I find it perplexing that you consider paying the closest possible attention to what the Spirit in His wisdom has inspired to be in His Word as somehow insulting to the text.
Where did I say paying attention was insulting? You are conflating categories. These are two different things:
- Paying attention every minute detail the Spirit inspired.
- Taking the detail the Spirit inspired in a direction contrary to what He intended.
Item one is handling accurately the Word of Truth. The latter is the insult to the text.
I think that holding that the details of narratives a priori are mere story details
Where did I say a priori or “mere”?
Again, these are two different claims:
- The narrative details are “mere story detail.”
- The narrative details have dubious meaning apart from the persons, events, etc. of the story.
I reject that there is anything “mere” about any of the details. I’ve been absolutely clear on that point. This is different from saying we’re free to run wild with our imagination in finding meaning in the details unrelated to the context.
I also think that your asserting that biblical historical narratives are no different than any other stories concerning their details is not tenable. Aside from the obvious false statements of evil entities, etc., every inspired historical narrative in the Bible is 100% factual, historically true information about actual events that actually happened as the Spirit has inspired them to be recorded.
You don’t seem to be reading what I’ve written. I absolutely agree with all of the above. Biblical narrative is indeed different in that particular way.
As such, every detail attests to the fully true historical nature of that information.
Moreover, we can learn profoundly important doctrinal information by paying the closest possible attention to the details of biblical historical narratives.
The first sentence of these two is quite correct. The second has no relationship to the first. You made a leap there. I’ve explained why it can’t really work that way. In what way(s) are my evidence and reasoning faulty?
In their worship of their false gods, they offered things in sacrifice to their gods that were not what the Israelites offered to Yahweh. Consequently, Egyptian idolatry was not just sinful because it was worship offered to false gods. It was also sinful because what was offered to those false gods was not what God had ordained was acceptable to Him to offer in sacrifice.
I think you have misunderstood the passage.
Since what you’re doing with the details is directly related to the people and events, it’s not a case of finding meaning unrelated to the narrative.
But all interpretations need to be justified, and in this case, it’s just not possible to read it that way given the context.
25 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” 26 But Moses said, “It would not be right to do so, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the LORD our God are an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? 27 We must go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the LORD our God as he tells us.”
The “what” they would offer there would have been fine in God’s eyes. It just would have been abhorrent to the Egyptians. (‘Abomination’ does not mean what it is often understood to mean, by way.) Looking at the larger context, it’s evident that Moses is just trying to find a reason Pharaoh’s suggestion isn’t good enough—because the goal is to get out of Egypt.
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.
In their worship of their false gods, they offered things in sacrifice to their gods that were not what the Israelites offered to Yahweh. Consequently, Egyptian idolatry was not just sinful because it was worship offered to false gods. It was also sinful because what was offered to those false gods was not what God had ordained was acceptable to Him to offer in sacrifice.
I think you have misunderstood the passage.
Since what you’re doing with the details is directly related to the people and events, it’s not a case of finding meaning unrelated to the narrative.
But all interpretations need to be justified, and in this case, it’s just not possible to read it that way given the context.
25 Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Go, sacrifice to your God within the land.” 26 But Moses said, “It would not be right to do so, for the offerings we shall sacrifice to the LORD our God are an abomination to the Egyptians. If we sacrifice offerings abominable to the Egyptians before their eyes, will they not stone us? 27 We must go three days’ journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to the LORD our God as he tells us.”
The “what” they would offer there would have been fine in God’s eyes. It just would have been abhorrent to the Egyptians. (‘Abomination’ does not mean what it is often understood to mean, by way.) Looking at the larger context, it’s evident that Moses is just trying to find a reason Pharaoh’s suggestion isn’t good enough—because the goal is to get out of Egypt.
Actually, no, you misunderstood what I am saying. Let me try again.
The Israelites wanted to offer what they knew was acceptable to God.
The Egyptians regarded what the Israelites offered to God as abominations.
What, then, do we learn about what the Egyptians offered to their gods?
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. Instead, they would offer other things--that were different from the acceptable sacrifices that the Israelites offered to Yahweh--to their false gods.
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.
Clearly, the "main point" of Daniel 10 is not to teach about what demons are doing with reference to groups of people. Daniel 10, however, reveals truth about demonic princes over entire empires that is truth that is nowhere else in the Bible revealed specifically:
Daniel 10:13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
Daniel 10:20 Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? and now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come.
Based on Daniel 10:13 and 10:20, we have absolute certainty that there were demonic princes over those two empires.
Someone could try to argue that we should stick to inferring this truth from other teaching that is not in a narrative. I reject that notion categorically. There is no biblical basis for someone to say that this truth is not doctrinally important for our doctrine of demonology (and other doctrines) simply because it is in a narrative where demonology is not the "main point."
>>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.<<
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.
Dave Barnhart
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.
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.
Clearly, the “main point” of Daniel 10 is not to teach about what demons are doing with reference to groups of people.
Demons are characters in the narrative, so there are some entirely valid ways to learn about them from the details of the narrative.
Where we get into trouble is (a) when we try to extract meaning that is independent of the narrative (not about the persons, events, places, etc.) or (b) reason in invalid ways from what is there.
In the first case, we’re either limited to making a very small claim with high certainty or a larger claim with very low certainty. In the second case, well we’re just not really proving what we think we’re proving. People are not going to find us persuasive, unless they’ve already decided (in which case, they still aren’t really find us persuasive).
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.
A point that might get lost in the back and forth, so I want to make it before I forget: Part of holding the work of the Spirit and the principle of verbal inspiration in high regard is using the best texts to make points.
In preaching, we’re not usually doing systematic theology, though sometimes we do a little mini-systematic study to strengthen a point we’ve come to in the text. But if we’re preaching a topic, we ought to prioritize where God has most clearly and directly spoken on that topic.
When doing systematic theology as a study, we cast the net a lot wider, to pull in internal evidence. Still, we prioritize passages that speak most clearly to the questions/topics in focus. And having clearly established a truth, we don’t dig for more weaker evidence to accumulate. If you have strong evidence and you’ve used it in your argument, there is no point in gathering weak evidence to add to it.
And if weak evidence is all there is… well, is it worth doing? It might be. But we should adjust our expectations. We’re not going to end the process with something really meaty and high-confidence. It could be “food for thought” though.
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.
A point that might get lost in the back and forth, so I want to make it before I forget: Part of holding the work of the Spirit and the principle of verbal inspiration in high regard is using the best texts to make points.
In preaching, we’re not usually doing systematic theology, though sometimes we do a little mini-systematic study to strengthen a point we’ve come to in the text. But if we’re preaching a topic, we ought to prioritize where God has most clearly and directly spoken on that topic.
When doing systematic theology as a study, we cast the net a lot wider, to pull in internal evidence. Still, we prioritize passages that speak most clearly to the questions/topics in focus. And having clearly established a truth, we don’t dig for more weaker evidence to accumulate. If you have strong evidence and you’ve used it in your argument, there is no point in gathering weak evidence to add to it.
And if weak evidence is all there is… well, is it worth doing? It might be. But we should adjust our expectations. We’re not going to end the process with something really meaty and high-confidence. It could be “food for thought” though.
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.
This discussion is not about preaching and what should be done in preaching. ST concerns itself with determining what is true, regardless of where the information is found in Scripture.
Demons are characters in the narrative, so there are some entirely valid ways to learn about them from the details of the narrative.
Where we get into trouble is (a) when we try to extract meaning that is independent of the narrative (not about the persons, events, places, etc.) or (b) reason in invalid ways from what is there.
In the first case, we’re either limited to making a very small claim with high certainty or a larger claim with very low certainty. In the second case, well we’re just not really proving what we think we’re proving. People are not going to find us persuasive, unless they’ve already decided (in which case, they still aren’t really find us persuasive).
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. It has profound implications for our understanding of world events, governments, etc.
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.
Concerning the notion that we must use a "best-passages" approach to hermeneutics and theology, the following points need to be considered.
1. It assumes without any biblical warrant that I know of, that such passages exist for every subject or area of interest. Someone could rightly say that 1 Cor. 15 is the best passage for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead or at least among the best passages on that doctrine. We certainly should make use of that passage for establishing our understanding of that doctrine. We must not, however, hold that passage teaches us everything that is important to know about that doctrine.
Holding that there are passages that as 1 Cor. 15 is for the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, so there are such passages for all other areas has no biblical basis.
2. The writer of Hebrews did not employ a "best-passages" approach to what the Spirit inspired him to set forth in Heb. 11-12. Instead, he set forth more than two dozen different narrative events as his basis for his teaching about how the just are to live with a faith that pleases God.
It is plain that he did not regard one or a few of those narrative passages as the so-called "best passages" to use to give his instruction.
3. He does not cite what clearly is the best biblical material--the example of Christ--until he has first presented those more than two dozen other narrative events as the basis and support for his inspired instruction about living a life of faith that pleases God.
4. He does not even mention godly king Hezekiah who is explicitly extolled as exemplary for his trusting in God unlike any king that was before him or after him:
2 Kings 18:5 He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.
What's more, he cites people like Samson by name! Certainly, Hezekiah was far superior to Samson in his trust in God, living by a faith that pleases God, etc., and yet he is not set forth by name but Samson is.
Plainly, the writer of Hebrews has not used at least by direct mention one of the best narrative passages/personages that could have been used to support his instruction.
5. He makes use of narrative material where there is no mention of the faith of the exemplars that he refers to (for example, Abel and Enoch).
Yes, we should make use of biblical revelation that directly addresses the area of interest, provided such revelation exists. Even then, in keeping with what the writer of Hebrews 11-12 did, we must make full use of all other material that pertains to the matter of interest. We also must not hold that any one or more "best passages" teach us everything that is important to know about the subject in which we are interested.
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.
Feel free to tell us what the “much more is,” and how you know it’s there. But of course, it may be there yet also be available as teaching in a far more clear and direct passage.
There might sometimes be a good reason to use information from a text in way that ignores the primary message of that passage. It should be pretty rare, and it doesn’t make sense to ever do that when there is a better text to make the point.
I’ve already explained why, but one more time: If you have conclusive evidenced for a claim in passage A, there is no reason to add mere consistent with information from another passage. That adds nothing to the evidence.
Going back to Wolfgang and the burning building, if you have a video recording of Wolfy lighting the fire, there is no reason to submit separate evidence that he was there that day. It just doesn’t make sense.
As for the the “use the best texts” principle, I’m not sure you’re understanding what I’m saying about that. I’m not sure how to make it clear. Maybe it helps to go at it negatively. The concept…
- is not that there is one and only one clearly-best passage for every idea
- is not that when there is a best text, no others should ever be used at all in any way
- is not that there can only be a small number of best texts to support a truth
- is not that we should never do a focused study of what a particular section of Scripture or author says about a topic
- is not that we shouldn’t survey Scripture exhaustively to see if we’ve missed something
That last one second to last one is partly what’s going in Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews definitely used the best texts for his purposes, both for the point he was making and the primary audience he had in mind. (Also he was not just trying to ‘prove’ a point, he was trying to make his readers feel it. So he alludes to a lot of narrative—narrative where faith is indeed very much on display.)
The best texts principle really simply this: use the strongest internal evidence to support a claim. If there are passages that are clear, direct, and contextually on point, prioritize them.
If the evidence there is conclusive, don’t go looking for more evidence in passages that are, at best, going to provide weaker evidence.
Passages that are actually about the topic in question are always going to be better places to learn about that topic than passages that are about something else. This is self-evident.
So, with music, or clothing, or food, or transportation, etc., start with the best passages, then go from there.
I’m not against looking for more, but by the time we’ve exhausted the most clear and relevant passages, there is—on lots of topics, not going to be much more. Realistic expectations might lead to less eisegesis.
But I really think a lot of this is tangential.
People will be mostly on the right track if they just focus on the fact that any interpretation needs to justified by evidence and valid reasoning. If you want to go looking for evidence in places it is very unlikely to exist—and you have time for that—I don’t see any harm in it. It just isn’t likely to be there, or is likely to be a repetition of what is already clear in a more direct passage.
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.
A factor that definitely matters in this conversation but I don’t think I’ve said much about: we all go to Scripture with a tendency toward eisegesis. That is, we aren’t neutral. There are answers we hope to find or not find.
I know these are familiar terms to many, but just in case:
- Exegesis: drawing meaning that is actually there out of the text
- Eisegesis: reading our own ideas into the text… that aren’t actually there
So one of the reasons for the ‘use the best texts’ rule of thumb is that it’s one of the disciplines that helps us avoid eisegesis.
The way we approach study can set us up to be more likely to lean toward exegesis or toward eisegesis. This is why understanding the main purpose of narrative and what the details are there for is important. It sets us up to lean toward exegesis rather than eisegesis.
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.
The mishandling of music passages in the Bible includes dismissing details of narratives because of faulty presuppositions and theological reasoning. Many hold that the so-called "best" passages say nothing about such and such a point concerning instrumental music, and therefore, such and such a point concerning instrumental music is not true. Their assessment of the teaching of those "best" passages, however, is based on their faulty presuppositions that they bring to those passages.
Then, based on that faulty reasoning with those passages, they use their mishandling of the "best" passages to dismiss negative evaluations or presentations in other passages that speak of sinful human musical activity with musical instruments by saying that those negative evaluations or presentations do not reveal anything negative about the instrumental music itself.
This is another form of importing one's own ideas and biases into narrative passages.
The mishandling of music passages in the Bible includes dismissing details of narratives because of faulty presuppositions and theological reasoning.
I’ve explained at length what my own view on that actually is and, more importantly, I’ve explained why.
I can’t really speak for anyone else’s view on that in any authoritative way, of course, but I think that some have overstated what their own view on that is, and their view is closer to mine.
- The details matter.
- They matter in different ways based on the context.
- When there are many possible ways to interpret a narrative detail, high levels of uncertainty are impossible to avoid.
- The further (as in less connected) we get from the context, the less there is to support one interpretation over another: uncertainty increases dramatically.
- It is better to use low-uncertainty passages vs. high-uncertainty ones.
I doubt I have anything more to offer on the topic, other than repackaging what I’ve already said.
Edit: Ok, yes, this is worth restating, because it’s really the core of the matter:
- Whatever interpretation we claim, we need to support it/justify it with evidence and sound reasoning.
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.
Ok, so what are the "best" passages that teach that the instrumental music that was played in any biblical account of music was itself always amoral or neutral or inherently good so that the instrumental music that was played in any biblical account was itself always pleasing to God and acceptable to Him?
Put differently, what are the "best" passages that show that in any of the accounts in the Bible where there is a negative evaluation or presentation of the playing of instrumental music, the sinfulness in that account never included the instrumental music itself?
It's clear from the book of Galatians that God has made us for freedom, not bondage, and hence the primary question to be asked here, from a systematic theology point of view, is not what ought to be allowed, but rather whether we have some reason to prohibit certain instruments, techniques, or the like.
And along those lines, here is a complete list of passages that would tend to prohibit certain genre, instruments, and the like:
Regarding the acceptability of the various families of instruments, genre,, and musical expressions, it's worth noting that when one compares the Psalms and Daniel's account of Nebuchadnezzar's orchestra for his idol, they're the same basic classifications of instruments. In the same way, God commands His people to sing His praises both in the Old Testament Hebrew contexts and in the New Testament Gentile contexts. If there were some "tainted" genre or instrument, we would expect Paul and others to mention this. But God tells His people to praise Him in song in both Hebrew and Greek, among the further peoples, and He doesn't say "but don't use this instrument", and He doesn't say "and don't use this genre."
I think we should take the hint.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Without any biblical evidence, the claim is asserted that Pauline prohibitions such as Ephesians 5:11 do not apply at all to musical instruments or "genres":
Ephesians 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Unless it can be shown directly from the Greek text that there is an inspired footnote to Ephesians 5:11 saying, "Of course, 'unfruitful works of darkness' does not apply at all to musical instruments or 'genres,'" any such claim is entirely a question-begging claim that has no merit or validity at all.
....Scripture's definition (context) of "unfruitful works of darkness." Ephesians 5:11 follows a list of behaviors by Paul where he is fleshing that out--and it does not include "using the wrong instruments" or "using the wrong genre in music".
If this were the gigantic issue you'd make it out to be, Rajesh, Paul has a splendid opportunity to do so right there--he's writing to a mix of Jews and Gentiles with two different languages, probably more, and multiple favored genre of music that they will (Ephesians 5:19) adapt for songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. But; Paul does not do this.
So absent a really strong argument--for starters one that does not work from guilt by association fallacies--we really ought to hesitate to proscribe that which the Bible itself does not proscribe.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
No, a proper contextual understanding of "the unfruitful works of darkness" in Ephesians 5:11 is not limited to the few, specific sinful behaviors spoken of in just some short span of verses that precede that verse. The inspired unit is the whole book--there were no chapter or verse divisions that God inspired.
When Ephesians 5:11 is properly understood in the context of the whole book, it is very clear that what Paul is prohibiting is not just human sinfulness in a few specified ways. What the Spirit reveals in Ephesians is that all unbelievers are energized by the devil himself, and that energizing plays a vital role in their disobedience to God.
There is no biblical justification for holding that the demonically energized disobedience of sinful humans does not include anything that they do with musical instruments and the "genres" that they play on them.
Paul also explicitly says that there are evil supernatural beings who rule over the darkness of this world. When all that Paul reveals in Ephesians is brought to bear on the right understanding of what the unfruitful works of darkness comprise, it is impossible to legitimately limit those unfruitful works of darkness to exclude sinful human musical activity on musical instruments and the "genres" that humans play on those instruments.
There is no biblical justification of any kind to hold that the prohibition in Ephesians 5:11 and many other similar passages does not apply at all to what sinful people do on musical instruments and the "genres" that they play on those instruments.
Rajesh, you seem to be channeling Humpty Dumpty from Alice in Wonderland--"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
In other words, you're assuming that Ephesians 5:11 provides an open ended provision for defining unfruitful works of darkness in ways that are not only not stated in Ephesians 5, but are not related to the topics discussed in Ephesians 5, and most importantly, are never stated as such anywhere in Scripture.
Rajesh, you don't get to just make this stuff up as you go. You must tether it somehow plausibly to Scripture, or you are simply indulging eisegesis.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I'm surprised Rajesh didn't cite this verse as a support:
1 Thessalonians 5:22 (ESV) Abstain from every form of evil.
This was the "go to" verse to support cultural fundamentalism in the churches I attended. Never mind the immediate context (1 Thes. 5:19-22).
Certainly, we could wrestle with this verse to include certain musical instruments and genres because they are used for evil purposes today.
I'm surprised Rajesh didn't cite this verse as a support:
1 Thessalonians 5:22 (ESV) Abstain from every form of evil.
This was the "go to" verse to support cultural fundamentalism in the churches I attended. Never mind the immediate context (1 Thes. 5:19-22).
Certainly, we could wrestle with this verse to include certain musical instruments and genres because they are used for evil purposes today.
I tend not to use that verse much at all because other verses are stronger. Ephesians 5:11 is very clear about "works of darkness" having direct connection to Satan's energizing all unbelievers in their disobedience (Eph. 2:2-3) and wicked spirits who are the rulers of the darkness of this world (Eph. 6:12).
In other words, you're assuming that Ephesians 5:11 provides an open ended provision for defining unfruitful works of darkness in ways that are not only not stated in Ephesians 5, but are not related to the topics discussed in Ephesians 5, and most importantly, are never stated as such anywhere in Scripture.
Rajesh, you don't get to just make this stuff up as you go. You must tether it somehow plausibly to Scripture, or you are simply indulging eisegesis.
Before I answer your claims here, I want to make sure exactly what it is you are claiming. Surely, you are not claiming that Ephesians 5 is an independent inspired unit that is separate from the rest of the book, are you?
If you are, the burden of proof is on you that Paul wrote Eph. 5 separately from the rest of the book, that the Spirit inspired that "chapter" separately from the rest of the book, and some unknown person later inserted that "chapter" into the book.
As for what you assert is "never stated as such anywhere in Scripture," what exactly are you speaking of that you believe is never stated in the Bible?
I tend not to use that verse much because other verses are stronger
Rajesh, it's obvious you understood Aaron's "best text" principle and were just obfuscating.
I tend not to use that verse much because other verses are stronger
Rajesh, it's obvious you understood Aaron's "best text" principle and were just obfuscating.
This is a false accusation. If you actually carefully read the things that I said about that matter, you might understand what I was saying. Then again, based on the nature of your previous comments on my threads, in both this thread and others, perhaps you will not because you yourself may actually be the one who has an agenda of obfuscating my discussions.
Rajesh, you're trying to make it look like this is complex, and it's really the basics of exegesis and hermeneutics, using really one of the first laws of linguistics; usage determines meaning. You start with the immediate context and then go to the broader context.
And in this case, it is my view that Scripture nowhere tells us that any instrument or genre is off limits due to its associations with paganism. This is to be expected, since guilt by association is a basic logical fallacy, and God doesn't use bad logic.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Predictably, once it was realized that the claims about Eph. 5:11 and its context were entirely baseless, classic evasion technique was employed to avoid further detailed discussion of Eph. 5:11 in its actual, true context of the whole book of Ephesians.
Ok, so what are the “best” passages that teach that the instrumental music that was played in any biblical account of music was itself always amoral or neutral or inherently good so that the instrumental music that was played in any biblical account was itself always pleasing to God and acceptable to Him?
There is no need to prove a generalization about things being amoral, or whatever, etc.
The burden of proof lies on the interpreter to show that the passage in question means what we’re saying it means.
Where supportive arguments go wrong
I’m not going to be able to keep up with the back and forth, I think because in exchanges between Rajesh and Burt, I usually see problems with the case being made on both sides of that.
So, for what it’s worth, there are two main ways that we go astray when trying to trying to make a case for a claim:
- Errors of evidence
- Errors of reasoning
The two can overlap.
Errors of evidence are when we’ve gotten something wrong in relation to the facts. We’ve imagined something that isn’t there or have misread/mistranslated, etc.
Errors of reasoning take a huge variety of forms, but in my experience, one of the most common is mistaken relevance. Some quick examples:
- Ad hominem: The “find a flaw in the speaker” argument is usually invalid because it usually has nothing to do with whether his claim is true or false. There are exceptions. But almost anybody can be correct and almost anybody can be incorrect, so… it’s low- or no-relevance to the claim.
- Straw man: If we replace a person’s view with something of our own making that only slightly resembles it, we have a relevance problem. The straw man is not the man and so arguments that defeat the straw man are not relevant to the real thing.
- Various species of category collapsing: If we lump a bunch of stuff into category A, then argue against category A, we might have a strong case against A, but we have said nothing at all about not-A. (This is kind of an error of reasoning layered on an error of evidence, since our evidence has lumped dissimilar things together.)
I should throw in one more, because it’s so common—well, it would be, because it’s a catch-all. Non sequitur. This is just your basic “this does not really follow from that” mistake. So we have passionately made a claim that A is true, then moved to a “therefore…” but the “therefore…” does not really follow.
- Argument: The guy down the road ran over a squirrel!! He obviously hates all animals and wants to make them all extinct!
- Counter argument: No, you can’t reason like that. People who run over squirrels are never animal haters!!!
Both of sides have indulged in non-sequiturs, of the overgeneralization variety.
It seems like on cultural topics like music styles, there’s a ton of overgeneralizing all the way around.
I know that’s a generalization, but I think the evidence supports it. 😀
On any controversial topic, we should focus on solid evidence and sound reasoning. The rest is just theater.
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.
On any controversial topic, we should focus on solid evidence and sound reasoning.
No evidence is solider or sounder than God's own words. Ephesians 5:11 states,
Ephesians 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
This is an explicit apostolic epistolary prohibition to all believers. Every believer has an obligation to God to heed fully what it prohibits.
Correctly establishing what this divine revelation prohibits is therefore essential.
Any claim that this verse has no application to human musical activity and its products is a claim that has to be proven biblically because neither the passage nor its context speaks of any such exclusions from its scope of application. To those who espouse such a view, what is your biblical proof that this prohibition has no relevance to human musical activity and its products?
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