Saturday, April 23, 2022

The Greater And Lesser Teachings Of The Bible

The many statements of the Bible and the concepts behind them have far from equal importance.  Executing rapists (Deuteronomy 22:25-27) is an objectively more important part of Biblical morality than random acts of kindness (with these acts being good but not obligatory as it is) because rape is worse than mere unkindness.  That the Bible teaches that there is an uncaused cause is a more philosophically significant doctrine than its claims about the Second Coming because it is logically necessary for there to be an uncaused cause, while the future is epistemologically uncertain.  Passages about God's nature are more vital to Christian theology than random historical details about the Jewish monarchy because the ideas expressed in them are more vital.

Affirmation from Jesus is in no way logically or textually necessary to prove that some concepts have larger ramifications or are more foundational than others, but even Jesus directly acknowledges that some parts of what we would now call the Bible are more important than others.  Matthew 23:23-24 sees him call justice, mercy, and faithfulness the "more important matters of the law" when he condemns the Pharisees for giving a tenth of their spices while neglecting the true core of Mosaic Law.  The issue was not that they gave the required amount of their spices, but that they trivialized or ignored commands far greater than this while they acted like carrying out minor obligations made them moral giants.

Some entire books of the Bible are less crucial than others to Christian theology.  Haggai or 3 John are not particularly important books of the Bible.  Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Matthew, and John are examples of books that are objectively more important for understanding Christian metaphysics, ethics, and soteriology than the vast majority of other books.  Books that are less significant overall might even have several verses that need to be grasped with or without even bothering to read the other portions.  It would not even logically follow from all of the Bible being divinely inspired that all of it is absolutely vital!  However, there is an epistemological irony to this.  One could not reason out which books are more or less important than others without directly reading the text.

The irony lies in the fact that, short of having omniscience, one would have to read each of these books and make no assumptions as they let reason reveal the concepts therein to discover if they are important or unimportant.  No one just automatically knows that some parts of the Bible are comparatively trivial and objectively irrelevant to its most important commands, verses, and doctrines.  One must read--and even then, reading while making assumptions or not actively reasoning out what the text says snd what its ramifications are is not sufficient--to realize which aspects of the Bible call for more attention, reflection, and emphasis.  Still, a single reading can be all that is necessary to realize that a given book has little importance on a foundational level or one of extreme precision.

What this does not mean is that the less important parts of the Bible are therefore unimportant.  They might be less important or unimportant by comparison to something else, but if the Bible is true, then there is genuine philosophical/theological significance to all of its contents.  From the genealogical passages to the context-limited commands to sacrifice animals to the most vague eschatological prophecies, all of the Bible would have some place in the spectrum of information that God would have conveyed through it.  Then, of course, reading most of the Bible would be a prerequisite to actually pinpointing which passages and broad books have more substance, greater foundational weight, or larger moral significance.

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