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[Chaim]

Those scriptures don’t identify the Bible as authoritative. I know that’s how it’s taught but that goes back to earlier discussion of what is scripture.

[jimwalton]

> Those scriptures don’t identify the Bible as authoritative

They most certainly do. To describe the Scriptures as "God-breathed" indicates that God is the source of them. The Scriptures carry the authority of God just as creation did when God spoke or when God appear to Moses as "I AM WHO I AM." And because of that Paul that they have authority over our lives in teaching, conviction, correction, and training in righteousness.

The 1 Thessalonians text gives us the same teaching. These are not the words of mere men, but the words of God Himself, which gives them authority that a human cannot generate. Paul is claiming that their teachings should not be rejected as the mere teachings of men, but as carrying the authority of God Himself.

2 Timothy 2.15 relates the "word" to "truth." "Truth" obviously carries authority all on its own, but since Jesus IS truth (Jn. 14.6), truth, and therefore the word, has divine authority.

> I know that’s how it’s taught but that goes back to earlier discussion of what is scripture.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I have repeatedly shown you that "All Scripture" is God-breathed, the Gospel writers and Paul explicitly consider themselves to have been writing Scripture, and therefore it's ALL Scripture. You have yet to present a case persuasive of any different conclusion.

[Chaim]

My point that I’ve said repeatedly is that your “scripture” is just an agreed upon concept. It’s not even a real thing, but rather a concept which you are biased toward. And not everyone in the church agrees what the “scriptures” are. Catholics, Protestants etc... all have a different idea of what “scripture” means. Both in terms of the actual texts included and the degree to which they are as you say “god breathed” or “authoritative”. All of those terms are merely arbitrary agreements that follow your particular groups biases.

[jimwalton]

> I’ve said repeatedly is that your “scripture” is just an agreed upon concept.

There is no other rational choice. I would be absurd to have Scriptures that were not-agreed upon and see those as authoritative. Of course we agree upon them.

> It’s not even a real thing, but rather a concept which you are biased toward.

This is not true. The point is that the Scriptures have ALWAYS been recognized as such. There is no record of any dispute over any OT book. The Gospels were recognized as authoritative from the time of their writing, as were the epistles of Paul. There are a handful of books that were originally disputed that were included. There's no bias here.

> And not everyone in the church agrees what the “scriptures” are. Catholics, Protestants etc... all have a different idea of what “scripture” means.

This is correct. Catholics include apocryphal books that Protestants do not. But Catholics have always recognized the 66 that Protestants recognize. About 60 of the 66 books have never been disputed by anyone. So it's not just a committee voting some in and others out. It was a council recognizing what always was.

> All of those terms are merely arbitrary agreements that follow your particular groups biases.

They are not. This is incorrect. There was nothing arbitrary about them, and it's not my particular group. At least 60 of the 66 books of Scripture have NEVER been disputed; they were always recognized as authoritative. There's nothing arbitrary or biased about them. If you are claiming otherwise, the burden of proof is on your shoulders to show how these were arbitrary, biased agreements.

[Window Painter]

> But no other theological writing WAS added. There were many choices, but only some were included—the ones recognized as authoritative for Scripture.

by many choices, does that include the book of Enoch?

[jimwalton]

Yes, the book of Enoch would be one of those, as would be all of the books in the Apocrypha. No Jewish scholar or rabbi ever considered any of these books to be Scripture. As far as I know they were never put up for a vote, never arbitrarily rejected; it seems there was unanimous agreement all along among the Jews that these works were not scripture.

[Less More]

> The Bible diverges quite distinctly from mythography and shares little to nothing in common with it.

Genesis?

[jimwalton]

Yes, even Genesis. I would assert that the Genesis story is markedly different in nature and purpose than any of the ancient mythologies, separating it from them. Mythographies are not interested in portraying events (history), but want to show how the cosmos works and how it got that way. A myth is an attempt to explain reality from theological vantage point, and are not meant or trying to connect those stories, as stories, with events in the real world.

It also helps to understand that ancient historiography was not meant to relate what "really happened" the way we in our era approach historiography. T.M. Bolin has shown that we are often interested in historical reconstruction, whereas the ancient Israelites were interested in truth-telling literature. Glassner says, "The Mesopotamians had no profession of historian as we understand it today, nor its methods or perspective. As they saw it, the problem was not critical assessment of sources, nor was the question, fundamentally, knowing how and in what causal sequence events considered unique had occurred. The primary task was to choose, according to a definite focus of interest, among the carefully collected data from past events, certain facts that, from that point of view, had acquired universal relevance and significance." So the Genesis story is "event-oriented, truth-telling literature," but doesn't work the same way as modern historiography does.

In other words, Walton says, "mythography has a different referent than historiography, yet is considered no less real. It may, however, be considered to pertain to a different plane of reality. ... each has a different focus in its expression of reality." I would argue that the stories of Genesis are ancient historiography as distinct from ancient mythography, with a different purpose, referent, approach, format, ideology, and literary form. That's what sets Genesis apart from mythology.

[Less More]

> Mythographies are not interested in portraying events (history), but want to show how the cosmos works and how it got that way. A myth is an attempt to explain reality from theological vantage point, and are not meant or trying to connect those stories, as stories, with events in the real world.

Says who? What is a mythography and how is it different from a myth? The actual definition of a myth is

> a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

which sounds exactly like Genesis to me.

[jimwalton]

> Says who?

Experts in mythology. I gave you some quotes from scholars.

> What is a mythography and how is it different from a myth?

Mythography is how a myth is written down, just as a biography is the writing about someone's life and stenography is the writing of something by a shorthand method.

> which sounds exactly like Genesis to me.

Well, maybe you're thinking Sunday School as a child. Supposing, just supposing, Genesis 1 is not about the material manufacture of the universe, but instead about how God ordered it to function. Bear with me, and try to keep an open mind.

The first "day" is clearly (literally) about a period of light called day, and a period of light called night. It is about the sequence of day and night, evening and morning, literally. Therefore, what Day 1 is about is God ordering the universe and our lives with the function of TIME, not God creating what the physicists call "light," about which the ancients knew nothing.

Look through the whole chapter. It is about how the firmament functions to bring us weather (the firmament above and below), how the earth functions to bring forth plants for our sustenance, how the sun, moon, and stars function to order the days and seasons. We find out in day 6 the function of humans: to be fruitful and multiply, to rule the earth and subdue it. Walton contends that we have to look at the text through ancient eyes, not modern ones, and the concern of the ancients was function and order. (It was a given that the deities created the material universe.) The differences between cultures (and creation accounts) was how the universe functioned, how it was ordered, and what people were for. (There were large disagreements among the ancients about function and order; it widely separates the Bible from the surrounding mythologies.)

And on the 7th day God rested. In the ancient world when a god came to "rest" in the temple, he came to live there and engage with the people as their god. So it is not a day of disengagement, but of action and relationship. We need not resort to the idea that the creation narrative is a myth.

And what about the story of the Flood? Suppose it's not a global flood, but a large regional one. After all, the author uses universal language elsewhere in the book (as well as in Exodus and Deuteronomy) when he is not talking about universal things. Possibly the "all" language is obviously hyperbolic to press a theological point. We need not resort to the idea that the flood is a myth.

The Tower of Babel has certain historical roots in Sumer in about 2300 BC.

And there's nothing about the narratives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph that sound like mythography. They are theological biographies containing a lot of historically and culturally accurate information, which leads one to consider that there's nothing fictional or mythological about the rest of the narrative.

In other words, it may only sound exactly like Genesis to you because you're thinking 2nd grade Sunday School and not with an accurate view of the text. Let's talk about it some more.