Transcript
Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome you to the TSF Noontime Forum of Dr. Metzger Unplugged. We look forward to hearing Dr. Metzger speak to us this afternoon. Let's first start with an opening prayer. Please bow your heads. Heavenly Father, we come to you this afternoon and we pray that you will be in our midst. Lord, be with us as we prepare to go home next week or wherever we might be to give thanks to you for
the many blessings that we have. We thank you for all that you give us and especially for your son. In your name we pray. Amen. As you come in the door, you may receive a question form. Please fill those out and pass them to the outside aisles and someone will be there to take them up. After Dr. Metzger speaks, when we get to question and answers, Spencer will go through those, pick out some of the really
good ones and intriguing ones and give those at the microphone and then afterwards you're invited to come line up over here and ask your question in the microphone. Please be sure to speak into it so that we can get it on the recording. First I'd like to announce some upcoming TSF events. Tonight TSF invites anyone who is interested in becoming involved with Friday Night Fellowship, the Noontime Forums, Charles Todd Society, or a Prayer and Affirmation Committee
to come to a dessert tonight in the main lounge. It will be at 6:30. Free dessert and coffee and come find out what ministries are out there that you can become involved with. On Thursday at 12:30 in the main lounge, TSF and Seminariums for Social Change will co-sponsor a noontime forum with the Reverend Chibuzi Okori. He is from the Gethsemane Church in Brooklyn, New York. As he was a former prisoner, he now operates
an active ministry to prisoners and to their families. Today I have the pleasure of introducing to you Dr. Bruce Metzger. You know, very few people have had two audiences with the Pope and with an ecumenical patriarch. Married the daughter of a Princeton Seminary president, Dr. McKay, have chapters in their book entitled Translating the Bible, the Revised Standard Version, and then another one, Translating the Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, and also have over 250 entries in
the Princeton Seminary Library when you type their name in the computer. Yet today I'd like to tell you a couple of things that you may not know about him. Dr. Metzger is an ordained evangelist in the Presbyterian Church USA. He's taught or preached in over 2,500 ministry settings. Dr. Metzger has served as a delegate to the General Assembly and has even kept up a correspondence with prisoners and encouraging them to learn Greek and to unwrap
the mysteries of God's Word. He truly sees his work as a ministry for God. It was because of Dr. Metzger that I chose to come to seminary. On a prospect weekend, I went to Friday night fellowship, and what better Friday night fellowship than to hear Dr. Metzger and his wife give their testimony and talk about their love for each other and their love for the Lord. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Bruce Metzger. The subject that
I'll speak to you about now for about 30 minutes, I think, will be three ways of reading the Bible academically, homiletically, and devotionally. First, reading the Bible academically. In order to do this, I think it would be wise if you would acquire several different translations of the Bible into English. A very helpful book is the Precise Parallel New Testament edited by John Kohlenberger and issued by the Oxford Press in New York. Wherever you open that book,
on the two pages facing you, there are eight sections of the same scripture lesson, one in Greek and the other seven in seven different English translations, two of which are Roman Catholic produced and five of which are standard Protestant translations. That's a very convenient way in which to study the Bible academically. In addition to looking at the text specifically in various translations, read a passage of scripture with the help of a commentary, presumably a commentary on
either the Hebrew or the Greek text. As you can see, it's very easy to build what the passage means strictly. Of course, in studying something academically, one needs to look precisely at what is said and to think now and then, when it's appropriate, what is not said. For example, in First Epistle of John, Chapter 1, Verse 5, we have the statement that God is light. Now, it might have said for example, God is a light. It
doesn't say that, which would suggest if it's a light that there are other lights in addition to God being light. It might have said God is the light, the light with regard to certain created objects. It does not say that. It suggests that God reveals God's self. And this is the wonderful truth in that passage. Look exactly what it says. Or for example, if you're reading in First Corinthians, Chapter 3, where Paul speaks about, you are
the temple of God. Now, in English language, the word you no longer distinguishes between singular you and plural you. Here, the New Revised Standard Version has a footnote that says, here the word you is plural number, which means therefore that it does not mean primarily that one's own body is the temple individually of the Holy Spirit. It means that the whole church in Corinth is the temple of God. For example, there is also something that needs
to be taken into account in a very precise and structured way, how the text is printed on the page. There are two ways in which the word Lord is printed in the English Bible in the Old Testament. Sometimes the word Lord is printed with four capital letters. Sometimes it's printed with the initial capital letters. Capital L. That suggests that there are two Hebrew words lying behind those two different ways of representing in English the word Lord.
When it's printed with all capital letters, that's the representation of what's called the Tetragrammaton, the word Yahweh, or the word Lord, whereas the term Lord is a title, the other word as an I, my Lord. These are things that need to be given strict attention to. The lawyers say that one should construe the law with strict construction. Also, to study the Bible academically means to look at it strictly, exactly what it says. In this way, you
will come to have a better grasp of that particular information. Not only then read what is said and perhaps now and then mull over to yourself what is not said, but besides examining the content, examine the form. Aristotle tells us that the form in which something is disclosed, whether orally or in written form, helps one to understand the meaning of that passage because poetic form, historical form, literary letter form, history, prophecy, all of these are different
literary forms that require slightly different approaches in understanding what is conveyed through that particular literary form. Martin Luther was certainly right on track when he said in his very wonderfully direct way, don't think that when the Bible says under God's wings thou shalt trust, don't think that therefore that means that God has feathers. This is a poetic image and so the way in which we study and analyze what is said in a poetic form is different
from the way in which we read a law, a letter. A letter is also chancy in this regard you hear only half the conversation. It's as though you're in presence of someone on the telephone. From what that person is saying you gather in general what the other person that you don't see and don't hear has been saying, questioning, conversing, you must put together from the response. So too in reading the letters and there are twenty-one
of them in the New Testament. Did it ever strike you that the letter form is the predominant literary form in the New Testament out of twenty-seven books? Seven-ninths of them, twenty-one, are in the letter form and that means that the individual who is writing whether it's Paul or one of the general letter writers, that letter writer can address the specific problems that arise. Studying then in the way in which you need to do
it academically, look carefully at the text, not only what is said but how it is said and in this way you will be able I think to make better understanding as you analyze what the critical approach is to the Bible. Now the critical approach sometimes entails some sorrow. A botanist might dissect a beautiful rose stripping petal from petal from petal and ruining the aesthetic beauty of that blooming rose. But the scientist does that in order to
gain a better understanding of the structure and the formation that goes into the making of that rose. Now besides reading the Bible academically, I want to speak briefly about reading the Bible homiletically. As pastors or as teachers, you will have responsibility to present the word of God in a way that you provide to people whether regularly on Sunday or sometimes in other circumstances. You should read the Bible in order to gain information what would be the
most appropriate thing to say to this group, to that group. If there are church members, it is to help them to grow in the understanding of their faith, to help them to know better the moral values in the holy scriptures. If sometimes you're doing the work of an evangelist, then you must proclaim the gospel and in this proclamation say directly that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him
might not perish but have everlasting life. It is in this way that you will minister to those who already belong to God's people and to those whom you're inviting to associate themselves with the church. Now in order to prepare sermons, one would read the Bible having in mind the group and the needs of that group that you are to address. Basically there are two kinds of sermons. There is the textual sermon. In developing the topical sermon,
you unpack the idea logically and try to display who and what and where and why as you develop that theme. When you're dealing with a textual sermon, you announce my text is in such a book, chapter so and then give out that text which you then will expound. You will try in that case to see how the inspired writer develops the thought in that passage. Now to do this and to conserve what you already have studied
previously, my advice would be acquire an inexpensive copy of the English Bible and write in that Bible at the chapter and verse of passages that strike you in reading for homiletic purposes certain ideas that associate themselves as you think about that verse, this verse. If you come across what you feel is a very apt illustration, put in the margin at least a few words that will recall to you what that illustration is. The Chinese I believe
have a comment, a proverb that the faintest ink is more lasting than the strongest memory and how frustrating it is to say, well I'll never forget that very apt illustration and then when you want to dredge it up and bring it to the surface of your memory, it does not appear. But if you put down a few words that will spur your memory. As we approach the Christmas season, there are a number of natural texts that
one would preach on. The second chapter of Matthew with regard to the coming of the wise men who follow the star. This account is from the point of view of Joseph. Luke chapter two, the account of the shepherds who hear the song of the angels glory to God in the highest. And this account in Luke is written from the point of view of Mary. Whether you deal with one or both of these, you can speak about
the fact that religion and the Christian religion included involves both the intellect and the emotions, the head and the heart. So that the symbolism of the guiding of the wise men by the star and the song of the angels that brings joy, this is the combination at the birth of Christ of both what is beneficial to the intellect as well as to the emotions. Now in addition to the normal things that you'd be preaching about from
those passages, there is also in the apostle Paul's letter of the Galatians, a wonderful text that can also serve as an unusual entry into a sermon belonging to the Christmas season. I refer to Galatians chapter four, verses four and five, which runs in the traditional rendering. When in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law to redeem those that were under the law that we might receive the
adoption. That's a wonderful insight giving to us the three topics, the plan of God in sending his son, the gift of his son, both human and divine, and the purpose of the sending of his son that the Jew and the Gentile might be brought together to redeem those that were under the law that we, the Gentiles, might receive the adoption of membership into the family of God. The term in the fullness of time suggests the way
in which an ancient clock operated. The water clock, a clepsydra, was used in the fourth and third centuries BC, for example, to determine the time at which a person would have in making a plea in court. And the fullness of time meant that as a trickle of water entered slowly into a vessel, whether of ceramic or metal, on the inner wall of which at various levels there were marks, that at a certain predetermined level as the
water rose in that water clock, that level would be the water clock. The fullness of time. Paul makes use of this image that in God's cosmic clock there was a time when it was appropriate that God should now, at length, send his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those that were under the law, that's the Jewish people, that we might receive the adoption. And here he associates himself with the Gentile Galatian
readers. Well, in these ways, reading the Bible homiletically will, I think, enable you not only to study it academically, that's the foundation, but also in a useful way to present it for the needs of your congregation, that they may grow in their understanding as a face and that they may develop morally to live better lives. To read the Bible devotionally is what all of us needs to do, whether a pastor or a teacher. All of us
need to meditate and think about the passage of scripture that we're reading as a letter from God to me as I open that holy scriptures. Now in this case, to read it devotionally, I think that I come to the Bible with at least two pre-understandings of the Bible. There is the same God that is revealed in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. And the three features of that one God are it is a
God who acts, it is a God who redeems, and it is a God who gives hope. That binds together the revelation of God, a God who acts, a God who redeems, a God who gives hope. As to the main theme of the Bible, I believe myself that both Old Testament and New Testament belong together and that there is one theme throughout the holy scriptures, the theme the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament
gives to us preparation for the gospel of Jesus Christ in which through ethical monotheism people are brought to an awareness of who God is and what God requires of us. And there is a preparation for the coming of the prophet, priest, and king, Jesus Christ. The four gospels continue the gospel of Jesus Christ and they present the manifestation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, whether for Jewish peoples through Matthew, for Roman peoples through Mark, for Greek
people through Luke, for the church universal through John. The book of Acts is a book of church history and speaks to us of the propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Carrying the gospel from the capital of a backwards nation, Israel in Palestine, to the capital of the then civilized world in Rome. And the way in which that gospel is proclaimed to all in sundry, the author very neatly brings out in three successive chapters that the
same gospel is proclaimed to people from Africa, people from Asia, people from Europe. Chapter eight, the gospel is proclaimed to a black man, the Ethiopian eunuch. Chapter nine, the gospel is proclaimed to a Jew from Tarsus of Asia Minor. Chapter ten, the gospel is proclaimed to a Gentile, a Roman from Europe. So that the three main continents Africa, Asia, and Europe hear through their representatives the same gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mentioned earlier today
that there are 21 of the 27 books in the New Testament in the form of letters. And these letters are directed to church groups and to individuals. These are helpful with regard to a devotional reading. They help us to understand the content and doctrine of our holy Christian faith. When you're teaching in a class of communicants how to do devotional reading the Bible, then I think that you might say something like this, that if you're reading,
let us say, from the account in the gospels of Jesus calling Peter by the Sea of Galilee, a fisherman, think about that and picture it to yourself very vividly, the hot Syrian sun beating down that day, the lapping of the water at the edge of the sea, maybe the odor of fish. Think vividly of that picture and then consider it in a more devout way, ponder its significance for me. Jesus said to me, if you're reading
Peter, follow me, I will make you fisher of people, not just of fish. God speaks to me. Jesus Christ claims me as a follower and asks me to be a fisher of people. And then having pictured it and pondered it, pray and promise to God that we will be a fisher of people with his help, I will be able, hopefully, to go forward and put into my active life Christian witness what is involved in that devotional
reading. In the case of a passage from a doctrinal account in one of the epistles, consider how this might support my intellectual understanding of Christian doctrine or, on the other hand, the passage might support the way in which I develop and wish to live better in the sight of God day by day. These then are some of the things that I wanted to bring to your attention with regard to understanding how to read the Bibles. All
Christians must read the Bible devotional study in order to grow and develop in their spiritual direction. Let me conclude by suggesting that in reading a passage, whether in the morning in preparation for the day or at night time, try to select a verse that you will memorize. And don't hesitate if there are several verses, a psalm, a short psalm. Memorize that psalm. That's going to be helpful in many, many respects, personally and corporately in your pastorate.
Secondly, read through the Bible in its entirety, at least some time in your lifetime. Read through it at least once. That can be done in one year's time by reading three chapters a day and five on Sundays. And by that way, you'll be in 365 days having read all 66 books of the Bible. It's not necessary that you read consecutively from Genesis, Exodus. Move around. Read some of the Psalms, a Gospel, then some of the Old
Testament, and so forth and so on. Well I would like to conclude by quoting a motto that a professor of Greek who edited the Greek New Testament and published it in Germany in 1734 has as his motto on the page facing the title page. Johann Beck, he has said in Latin, Johann Bengel has said in Latin in two lines what in English runs like this, and I leave this motto with you. Apply yourself that's what we
all must do. Well thank you for listening. Thank you Dr. Metzger. At this time we'll take some questions and answers from Dr. Metzger. Because this is being recorded, we invite you to come up here to ask the question and then we can make sure that it's on the tape as well as Dr. Metzger giving the room here to make sure that he can be able to hear it. Some questions for... Spencer, before you give me some
questions, let me say now what I once heard Dean Caldwell at the University of Chicago say years ago. At a similar situation to answer a question he said, well now do you have any questions that I'm able to answer? I don't pretend to be an oracle to answer just every question, but I'll do my best. Somehow I think you might have an opinion. The first question I have here, the question is how do you account for
the different descriptions of the resurrection in the four gospels? I account for that in a very natural way. First, that it was such an exciting thing and so unexpected that different people had different impressions and recollections of what had happened. I account for it also with the understanding that there might well have been two angels on one occasion and one angel on the other. Or it might be that one of the angels took the primary steps
and did most of the communication and to that person witnessing this it would be the important thing would be the one that did most of the speaking. So I account for these differences in a natural way as it seems to me and in a way that also confirms to my mind the reality and truthfulness of what is said. If there had been no such disparities, that would certainly then leave open the understanding that there was collusion
and getting together and making up something that would have no chinks, no loopholes, would not make some difficulty. Something that would be made up ahead of time would be made up so as to avoid that kind of embarrassing questions that could be raised. So the very presence of difficulties seems to me strengthens my understanding of the verisimilitude, the historicity. Here's a question from someone as well and I'll just say it as is. Is the Bible inerrant?
I'm going to talk somewhat at length about this but I'll tell you the outset. I do not believe that I could say it's inerrant. Let me start this way. When I became an assistant professor here at the seminary in 19 whatever it was, 40 some, I had to go up front in Miller Chapel with trustees present and affirm my adoption of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which I adopted as I say ex animo from my heart
and I still hold to this definition of the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. I believe that then, I believe it today. The Westminster Confession makes use of the word infallible, not the word inerrant. Infallible means that the Bible in this statement is held to be trustworthy. It's the only book that has that feature of being absolutely trustworthy as a rule or a guide or a norm of faith, that's
doctrine, and of life. So I believe that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and life. Now others may feel that this is not fully in accord with how they understand it. Let me start this way. As a Protestant, I do not think that I should have as a doctrine any doctrine that cannot be substantiated by a proof text from the Bible. Now a Roman Catholic develops certain doctrines that are in accordance with what
the church holds to be the thing that would be appropriate for God to have done. In 1948 and thereafter, every devout Roman Catholic must believe that the Virgin Mary was taken bodily to heaven with her body not subject to decomposition. I do not believe that that is a doctrine that I must adopt because I find nothing in the Bible that would undergird and say that that is so. The Roman Catholic says it would not be appropriate
for God to have allowed the mother of Jesus Christ to have her body decomposed and pose. Therefore we believe that she was taken bodily to heaven without suffering decomposition. Now the person who says that the Bible is inerrant, it seems to me, acts in that same way by saying it would not be appropriate for God to inspire a Bible that has errors in it. Well again, I do not think that I should adopt a doctrine that
I cannot find any proof for in the Bible. And the passages that are alleged by such a person that to his or her mind support this, to my mind do not touch upon the doctrine of inspiration. For example, frequently references made to Matthew chapter 5, not one jot or a tittle shall pass from the law until all shall be fulfilled. But that does not speak to me about inerrancy, that speaks to me about the permanency of
the Bible. Similarly other passages including 2 Timothy 3:16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for proof. That doesn't say how it's been inspired, that it is without error, it says it is inspired and it is useful for these religious purposes. Of course I do not believe the Bible is riddled with errors. But I think as a Protestant, I should not say that it is a doctrine that
I adopt which I cannot support with a text from the Bible. Now finally, for someone who nevertheless, though a Protestant may be acting like a Roman Catholic in this respect by making up doctrine, I would say, how do you define an error? Well it would be an error in science, an error in history, an error of fact. What about an error in grammar? The King James Bible has some grammatical bloopers. Whom do you say that I
am? Where in English, instead of whom, the correct English is, who do you say that I am? And in the Greek New Testament, the nominative form, that after three days Christ will rise again, the nominative form, hemerai, trace, functions erroneously in Greek grammar as the accusative extent of time. It should be hemeros, trace. But the sense is the same whether that small blemish is present or not. So this would be one way that I perhaps might
pursue this if I felt I should. Perhaps I would say simply, if you want to see what I have written on the subject of inspiration, you might consult the 1,000-word article that I was asked to write for the second edition of the Hastings one-volume Bible Dictionary. F.C. Grant of Union Seminary was the New Testament editor, and he asked me to write the article on inspire and inspiration. And I worked very, very hard
to say everything that I thought should be said within that rather small number of words. And to say it clearly, I tried by using chapter and verse to save space so that the passage should be looked up as well as my not giving the wording of this or that passage. Well, I think that's enough, perhaps more than enough in answer to this question. Dr. Metzger, before I ask my question, I think I have to ask that
I might need your help in articulating it a little bit. Will you speak louder, please? Yes. Well, before I ask my question, I want to ask for some help in clarifying it because there are some historical problems here that I am not on top of. But I recall that before the Reformers began to look at the Bible in the particular way that they did, under medieval tutelage the Bible was read in four different ways. And these
are the different ways that I have forgotten. I think there was a literal use and a moral use and then two others that I can't remember. The Reformers found that somewhat, how should I say it, like it choked there, it was too rigid, too strict. And so they adopted rather a plain use of the Bible. Maybe they thought that the church had a little bit too much say in these four uses anyway. But in any sense,
they adopted a process of simply reading the plain words of the Bible. Now, over the past 400 years since that time, it seems that the plain and simple reading of the Bible, maybe in light of historical criticism and such, has become considerably more muddy. And so in listening to your speech today, it almost seems as if you want to return to a step-by-step or different ways of reading the Bible towards different ends, as was
perhaps more common in the medieval period of church history. And I guess my question is, first, would you say that's true? And then secondly, then how does higher criticism, if higher criticism has led to this problem, how does higher criticism work in a beneficial way towards faith and by extension for the church? Well, thank you. I'll try to get a handle somewhere on this question. And if I don't succeed, well, come back to me. Come back
again and ask it further. I think that one way of reading the Bible academically or historically or critically will be to see what the writer originally meant, how the Bible was written. And it will be turned out that different people at different times down through the ages will come to read that passage with the background of the things that they're thinking about in that particular era. It's amazing, for example, how in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul speaks
about the thorn in the flesh that was given to the apostle in order to keep him from being too boastful, too proud. This thorn in the flesh, he prayed that God might relieve him of it. Now, what does Paul have in mind? It's interesting to see how, age by age, different people brought to that passage the particular ambiance that they were interested in at that time. The early writer, Tertullian, takes it to mean that some sort
of bodily ailment. We don't know whether it was epilepsy, malaria, ophthalmic disorder, eye trouble. A little later, among the Greek church fathers, Saint Chrysostom and others, said, no, this has to do with persecution. That's the thorn in the flesh, the troubles Paul. Later, as asceticism developed, the people in monasteries interested in ascetical practices said the thorn in the flesh was sexual and carnal thoughts. They believed they got that, perhaps, from the Latin Vulgate, where thorn in
the flesh is stimulus carnis, the p**** of the flesh. In the following era, at the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther felt that it was the kind of trouble that emerged through the schwemmeri, the people that were making great trouble for the mainline reformers, and this was his thorn in the flesh and he attributed also to Paul. In modern times, it's swung around again, and most people today, in their commentary on 2 Corinthians, say it is
some kind of physical malady. What I'm getting at is it's understandable that there are different ways in which passages that come to us from a different time and a different age and different understanding, historical background, it's understandable that these should be susceptible at different periods of the history of the church in different ways. Now, that doesn't mean that the Scriptures is like a wax nose that can be twisted in any direction at all, but it does
mean that we should be alert to the fact that we read with our special interpretation, and I think I should not be proud that my interpretation is the best one, but be humble and seek out the understanding of the church universal, other Christian believers, now and in the past as to how a particular passage should be read. Thank you, Dr. Metzger. We appreciate your comments. It's right now about 1:20, a little bit past 1:20.
If those of you that need to leave, please feel free to do so, and if Dr. Metzger, would you be willing to answer one more question? Of course, of course. Great. Could you please talk about the Bible on women's ordination? It seems to me that the church universal was very slow being in a patriarchal orientation to take into account the implication of what the New Testament speaks concerning the availability of men and women to undertake religious
service and ordination. It seems to me that even in the Old Testament, the fact that there are women prophets as well as men prophets, in the New Testament, that Paul speaks in Galatians, that in Christ Jesus there is neither the distinction in the sight of God that is a fundamental distinction between Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female. It does not mean that these are abolished, these distinctions having to do with nationality, with regard
to status, bond or free, with regard to sex. They're not abolished, but it means that in the sight of God, they are not determinative of the way in which God can call an individual to serve the church. Therefore, it seems to me that in the New Testament, in the sight of other places in the New Testament, where for the situation at that particular church, the writer gives advice to Timothy, for example, as a pastor at Ephesus,
that seems to go against what Paul says in Galatians chapter 3. It seems to me that for Timothy, at that time and place, it was necessary that the writer direct him, that women should keep silent in the church. But it seems to me that the more generalized form of teaching has to do with the overarching passage that I think is directive for my understanding that women are to be ordained if they're called by God to serve
in the church. Thank you very much. We really appreciate your comments.