UPDATE: Welcome, visitors from The Contemporary Calvinist! Allow me to direct you to some other posts you’ll disagree with, on the topics of literature, pride, evangelism, Arminianism, and the Manhattan Declaration.
A certain person who attends my care group owns the Reformation Study Bible. My first reaction was “That Bible probably has the Book of Piper right in it!”; my second reaction was that it might be the worst Bible ever and is certainly in the broad category of “worst Bibles ever,” barring those with actual translation issues. This has very little to do with its actual content, which, not having looked through it, I can’t evaluate. It’s just an inherently flawed and, in fact, anti-Christian concept. The blurb says:
“The Reformation Study Bible contains a modern restatement of Reformation truth in its comments and theological notes. Its purpose is to present the light of the Reformation anew.” -R.C. Sproul, general editor
Okay, it’s edited by R.C. Sproul, which immediately vaults it into “probably terrible” territory, but that’s not the central problem. The real problem is the same thing that is, or would be, wrong with a feminist study Bible or the Scofield Reference Bible or The Green Bible or or a pacifist study Bible any other Bible that promotes a specific issue or viewpoint. It is reducing the Bible to a resource used to support a position–environmentalism, pacifism, Calvinism, or whatever else–that someone already held. In other words, it elevates one hermeneutic to, and above, the level of Scripture.
Flying in the face of the Reformed doctrine of sola scriptura, the Reformation Study Bible shows that, in the eyes of its creators anyway, the words of Scripture are not sufficient. They need to be propped up with notes guiding the reader to the correct interpretation, putting emphasis on verses that support Calvinism and glossing over ones that don’t. Also in contradiction to Reformed tradition, the reader can’t be trusted alone with the Word of God: he or she needs a framework to ensure that he or she comes to the right conclusions about it.
Reformed people seem to be immune to the irony here because, for them, Reformed truth is Biblical truth. As I said before about R.C. Sproul and his ilk:
Notice that the Biblical gospel is “articulated in the Protestant Reformation”–not in the Nicene Creed or even the Bible itself. For R.C. Sproul, the Reformation is the gospel. We are called, not to preach Christ crucified, but to preach TULIP.
So for them, infusing the Bible with their hermeneutic isn’t wrong because their hermeneutic is Biblical truth, pure and simple. This is the essence of hubris: the assumption that the editors know everything about the Bible. They understand what it really means to say; if it’s unclear, they’re there to fix it. This is anti-Christian. Any study Bible written from this mindset seems to me a strong contender for the title of Worst Bible Ever.
I do own a study Bible myself. It’s a Zondervan NASB Study Bible, and its notes are mostly moderate and uncontroversial, focusing on textual structure and cultural context and often putting forward multiple interpretations on divisive issues rather than choosing a side. Nevertheless, if I were to choose a Bible now, I would pick one with no notes at all. The Word of God is the Word of God and the words of man are not worthy to stand beside it.
—-
Image from The Apologetics Group.
Talk about hubris. I’m praying for you.
Do you have a rebuttal?
How can you describe the ‘Reformation Study Bible’ as “putting emphasis on verses that support Calvinism and glossing over ones that don’t”, when you admit you haven’t “looked through it”?
Because it’s flawed in concept. Something flawed in concept can’t be good in execution.
When it comes to bible and commentaries and study bibles, not to mention being able to study and translate what is being read….you are young and naive. Also it seems that you reject a historic view of Orthodox and mock the very people who have been the cause of your religions freedoms to day. That is if your not Catholic.
Also why should we listen to your opinion over others? Why should I think your view is right over and against R.C. Spoul’s? If your saying all you need is to read the bible, then your saying in essence that you need no one else to tell you about what the word of God means! Do you go to Church? If so then why? if all you need is the bible, aren’t you listening to just another man’s view of scripture?
Sola scriptura is a Reformed doctrine. To introduce a Bible stuffed with notes about Reformed tradition is to contradict the basic Reformed teaching that tradition is not authoritative.
What Bible do you use? I like the NKJV and also The Living Bible translation at times.
You didn’t answer my question.
This is what I suggest: Get your NASB and your friend’s Reformation Study Bible. Choose any verse from your NASB and then compare it’s equivalent in the Reformation Study Bible. If you find a major difference in articulation that can distort the essential meaning of the verse, then I will readily concede. Seriously. -.- Examples would help back up your claim. As you said, good concept leads to good execution. Why don’t you execute/put to the test your concept that the Reformation Study Bible is one of the worst Bibles?
SleepyDog and Kurt:
If the Reformation Study Bible is, in fact, “a modern restatement of Reformation truth” that “present[s] the light of the Reformation anew,” as R.C. Sproul claims, then it’s using the Bible as a platform to promote one’s personal hermeneutic, which is terrible. If it doesn’t do that, then it’s a book that fails to accomplish its stated purpose, which makes it pretty terrible too.
Uhm. When we say something about theology, it’s inescapable to use the Bible in order to prove its biblicity. Any theology–whether it be liberal or orthodox–commits that in its method of interpretation. The question here is if the method is faithful to what the author really meant, i.e. if it is a grammatico-historical method or not. The Reformed tradition uses the grammatico-historical hermeneutic and is therefore faithful to the essential meaning of the text. I think we have to differentiate between “hermeneutic” and “tradition”. The latter is heavily dependent and arises from the former.
In any case, if it’s a failure of a book then let it be a book that fails to accomplish its stated purpose than be a book that uses the Bible as a platform to promote one’s personal hermeneutic. ^_^ Hurrah for God’s Word!
the concept of a study bible is not to elevate the accompanying notes to the same level of Scripture, but to aid in one’s understanding of Scripture from the notes of those who have studied deeper and have come to a more complete understanding than ourselves. The fact that they are in the same book is for convenience, not to elevate the words to a place of authority.
Would you still take issue if somebody read that translation of bible, and also carried around with them a commentary containing the same notes?
The Bible and the notes being in the same book does not cut across ‘sola scriptura’ in the slightest.
“Sola scriptura is a Reformed doctrine. To introduce a Bible stuffed with notes about Reformed tradition is to contradict the basic Reformed teaching that tradition is not authoritative.”
The introduction of a Bible with Reformed commentaries does not necessarily mean that those who introduced it are declaring the Reformed tradition to be above Scripture. -_-’ Just because I come out with a book full of commentary about the U.S. Constitution does not necessarily mean I am saying that my commentary should therefore be the basis for legislation over and above the Consti. I can simultaneously say how I understand the Constitution and affirm that the Constitution is the highest law of the land without contradicting myself.
But it’s disingenuous to present one specific interpretation of a complex document as though it were the true, obvious, only possible meaning of that document, even while (especially while) acknowledging the text of that document as the highest authority. I wouldn’t put much stock in a commentary on the Constitution written by someone who was very opinionated about an issue of constitutional interpretation (say, a Prop 8 opposer), as that would likely come down to using the Constitution to explain why his/her opinion is right.
“Notice that the Biblical gospel is “articulated in the Protestant Reformation”–not in the Nicene Creed or even the Bible itself. For R.C. Sproul, the Reformation is the gospel. We are called, not to preach Christ crucified, but to preach TULIP.”
I hereby confer to you the award for Straw-man of the Year. -___-
No SleepyDog it’s true, I was on a plane with RC Sproul and lo, I looked and in front of him was a parchment, verily it was the TULIP. Before my very eyes he got down on a prayer rug like the Muslims do (it was made of the same TULIP paper) and worshiped the document. That’s what Calvinism is, worship of the TULIP. Now I’m an honest Arminian, so if you call me out on this story I will have to admit I made the whole thing up, so please don’t.
The Constitution point is probably the best one, SleepyDog, but what katz is saying would only be a “Straw Man” if we didn’t actually know people who thought like that, or if R.C. Sproul didn’t actually assume Catholics or Lutherans or semi-pelagians are basically non-Christians in his writings.
Well, at least R. C. Sproul and friends read the Bible before they offered comments on it. Plus, you can’t tell whether their comments informed their interpretation or the other way around. Since you didn’t read their work it’s certain which way you did it.
“Flawed in concept” is apparently a difficult concept.
http://cboye.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/worst-blog-ever
The Contemporary Calvinist readers continue to be bastions of intellect.
Katz,
What is your theological tradition? In other words, what serves as the informing grid through which you approach scripture? Do you subscribe to Arminianism, “Biblicism,” a moderated Calvinism, Free Grace, Dispensational, etc., etc.?
I would say I follow the Evangelical/Affective Calvinist tradition (in re. to Doctrine of God, Soteriology, Christology), and also I am premil/pretrib/progressive dispy.
Anyway, we all interpretive traditions we follow; the important thing is to recognize that so that we make sure we are not necessarily reading our “traditions” into the text of scripture vs. out of it.
I don’t really have problems with “Study Bibles,” as long as folks can make the recognition I just noted (any commentary is going to be biased and shaped by one “tradition” over against the other — even the NASB Study Bible from Zondervan, I have the NIV Zondervan [well, I have a million different Bibles, but that's another issue
]). “Glosses” included with the Bible are very common, esp. from the Medieval period onward. It’s being able to make the distinction which is at issue to me (between interpretive tradition and the Bible itself).
Pingback: Ebert Should Stick To Movies « Chimaera
Pingback: Oddity of the Week |