Excerpt from Crisis Over the Word

[ Excerpts from Chapter 1 of Receving the Word: How New Approaches to the Bible Impact Our Biblical Faith and Lifestyle, by Samuel Koranteng-Pipim (Berean Books, 1996). 368 pp. ISBN 1-890014-00-1. US $10.95 (plus US $3.00 shipping and handling in USA) ]

These are exciting days for Seventh-day Adventists. Inspiring mission reports at the General Conference session. Progress in God's work worldwide. Growth of the church, even in the industrialized areas of Australia, Europe and North America. Gathering of God's people from "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Thousands everyday heeding the voice from heaven saying, "Come out of Babylon, my people."

These are, indeed, thrilling days for Adventists around the world.

But alongside revival and rapid growth come disturbing indications that many Seventh- day Adventists, at least in the industrialized world, are facing an identity crisis [1]. The church's most distinctive theological doctrines are being challenged--from within. Uncertainty prevails over the church's unique identity and mission, and its worldwide organizational unity is being defied. This is the crisis facing the church today. But why?

The "Liberal Left" and The "Independent Right"

Both groups are critical of the church because they believe that today's Adventism is not what it should be. So both attempt to "rehabilitate" the church.

In order to make Adventism "relevant" for this generation, the liberals seek to "liberate" the church from its alleged "fundamentalist" doctrines and nineteenth-century lifestyle. In their attempt to bring a "revival" to the church, the independents desire to "reform" the church from its ways of "apostasy." The liberals re-interpret Adventism's historic doctrines; the independents oppose any tampering with the Adventist pillars.

Regarding lifestyle or conduct, the liberals emphasize "love," "acceptance," and inclusiveness. The independents stress "law," "perfectionism," and "uniqueness."

When the liberals on the left speak about the Adventist church, they often seem to see only the independents on the right; and when the independents discuss the church, one could almost believe that all members of the church are liberals.

The independent right is often perceived as siphoning off tithe from the church; the liberal left, which includes many church workers, is paid with tithe money while it often appears to be challenging, if not undermining, the beliefs and practices of the church.

The activities of both groups are often encouraged by the silence and indifference of mainstream Adventism.

Although in recent times an effort has been made to inform church members (not always accurately) about the activities of the independent right [2], little has been done to alert unwary Adventists to the influence of the entrenched liberal left. Ellen G. White stated that "we have far more to fear from within than from without" (Selected Messages, 1:122). If this applies to our current situation, then the mainstream Seventh-day Adventist church, caught in the crossfire, should be more concerned about the liberals within than about the independents without.

The "crisis over the Word" is really a clash between two versions of Adventism that currently operate within the church: mainstream Adventism and liberal Adventism.

This book, Receiving the Word, is a response to liberal Adventism's challenge to the mainstream Adventist faith and lifestyle. It is this challenge, and the sophisticated manner in which it is articulated by some leading thought-leaders, that is creating an identity crisis in the church.

A Crisis of Identity

Recently an Adventist professor of religion captured well the identity crisis plaguing the church. She began with this thought-provoking question: "How seriously should Adventists take apocalyptic books like Daniel, Revelation, and The Great Controversy?" Echoing the concerns of some church scholars and members that apocalypticists (i.e., those holding to unique doctrines about end-time events) "are embarrassing to have around," she continued, "We may even wish to revise our apocalyptic stance. Aren't we triumphalistic in seeing ourselves as the one true church? Hasn't the Sabbath/Sunday issue, so relevant when The Great Controversy was written, become obsolete in today's secular society? Haven't Adventists erred in focusing on the pope while neglecting to take a stand against oppressive dictators of the 20th century? Shouldn't we concentrate on the modern 'beasts' of ethnic hatred, oppression of minorities, and abuse of the ecosystem? Perhaps apocalyptic, with its sensationalism, represents an immature stage of Christianity. Perhaps we should replace it with the gospel of love, acceptance, and forgiveness." [3]

No evidence in the article suggests that its author shares the views of those raising these questions. But as we shall demonstrate in a later chapter, there are troubling signs that some within our membership do want us to reinterpret our distinctive doctrines to accommodate contemporary secular thought.

For example, in a book endorsed by several thought leaders of the church, a chaplain and teacher in an Adventist university urges the church to consider seriously the need to embrace the "new ecumenism" of the charismatic movement. In his opinion, Adventist "remnant" theology, which is "more firmly ingrained in the Adventist psyche because of Ellen White's powerful endorsement," leads to "ethnocentrism," "xenophobia," and "paranoia." [4]

On the basis of naturalistic interpretations of scientific data, a retired General Conference vice-president and educator recently announced his belief that animals lived and died for millions of years before human beings came into existence. He asserted that his new belief "is a big step for a Seventh-day Adventist when you are taught that every form of life came into existence in six days." [5]

Various Adventist authors are challenging the necessity of Christ's substitutionary death for sinners, the relevance of the sanctuary doctrine, the spirit of prophecy, and the belief in the nearness of Christ's second coming. Still others are embracing homosexuality, the moderate use of alcohol, the eating of unclean foods, and the wearing of jewelry as acceptable lifestyle elements for Adventists. [6] These authors and scholars suggest that the historic beliefs and practices of the Seventh-day Adventist church, indeed, its self- understanding as God's end-time remnant, represent "an immature stage of Christianity."

What has led to these conclusions?

Crisis Over the Word

The crisis facing contemporary Adventism is not necessarily due to a clash of two cultures--"the church of the West" and "the rest of the church." Rather, it is a crisis over biblical hermeneutics, the appropriate principles for interpreting the Bible. Recently this crisis has spawned much new hermeneutical terminology in our church: casebook vs. codebook, principle vs. literal approach, contextual vs. key text approach, dynamic vs. rigid approach, principle/spirit vs. literal/letter, historical-critical method vs. historical-grammatical method, and perhaps other terms as well.

In addressing the issue of Bible interpretation (hermeneutics), Seventh-day Adventists are faced with only two options: (1) the historic Adventist approach to Scripture, which recognizes that the Bible is fully inspired, trustworthy, and authoritative, and (2) the contemporary liberal approaches to the Bible, which deny the full inspiration, reliability and authority of Scriptures.

Although these two approaches are miles apart, they are both agreed in their rejection of a third approach--namely, the "proof-text" method of interpretation. It may be helpful to explain why.

Proof-Text Method of Interpretation

When we refer to a proof-text method, however, we mean using an isolated text arbitrarily to prove one's own point. Such a proof-text approach emphasizes the practical, devotional application of Scripture to the interpreter's needs. The student goes to the Bible to search for some texts to support or prove positions on which he has already made up his mind. This method is inadequate because it fails to take into account the historical and literary context of each passage of Scripture.

Some Examples. The proof-text method takes passages out of context in order to feed them into the world of one's personal preoccupations. One writer cites the example of a seminary student who, after accepting a call to start his ministry in the North of England, later received a more attractive offer to teach in South Wales. Earnestly seeking ways to withdraw from his previous commitment, he read the words of Isaiah 43:6, "I will say to the north, Give up," and concluded that God was providentially telling him to "give up" his commitment to serve in the North of England! Of course, if he had read the next line of that verse, he would have heard the continuation of God's "providential message." It reads: ". . .and to the south, Keep not back"!

This illustrates the old maxim that "a text without its context becomes a pretext." The proof-text method of Bible interpretation fails to consider seriously the historical context of a given passage. Instead of reading the entire passage in which the texts were found, the interpreter simply chooses several key phrases that coincide with his concerns.

Second, it ignores the literary context in which a given text is found by taking the Bible in a "literalistic" manner. Whereas a sound method of interpretation will recognize the different kinds of literature and idioms in the Bible, a proof-text method reads the Bible naively. . . .

Third, the proof-text method approaches biblical interpretation superficially. Instead of engaging in a responsible and painstaking study of Scriptures, those adopting this method take the easy route, sneaking foreign meanings into a text to obtain a desired response. Often, those resorting to this method are content with studying the Bible only in a particular translation (e.g., the King James Version, Revised Standard Version, New International Version, etc.), with little desire to consult either the original languages in which the Bible was written, or other translations, or even the understanding of the text gained by other godly Christians who also have wrestled with the same kinds of issues.

The proof-text approach to Scripture can lead to misguided conclusions. You probably have heard the story of the man who adopted such an approach to seek the will of God in a major decision of his life. Unwilling to engage in the painstaking effort of studying the Bible in its historical and grammatical context as the basis for drawing valid applications for his situation, he decided to close his eyes, open his Bible at random, prayerfully put his finger down, and get guidance from whatever verse his finger lands on. His first try came up with "Judas went out and hanged himself" (Matt 27:5). Finding these words unhelpful, he tried again and this time got "Go, and do thou likewise" (Luke 10:37). In desperation he tried one more time and this time the text he found was: "That thou doest, do quickly" (John 13:27).

This story may not be true, but it aptly illustrates the dangers inherent in the prooftext method. Though this approach takes the Bible as God's inspired, trustworthy and authoritative message for all people--a foundational assumption that must be shared by every Bible-believing Christian--yet the proof-text method fails to "rightly divide the word of truth" (2 Tim 2:15). It looks for meaning in Scripture not by probing the historical-grammatical context, but by discarding it.

Correct biblical hermeneutics seeks to discover the original meaning of Scripture in its proper context and to draw out principles for contemporary application. We must always read what is there in the text, not read into the text our own presuppositions. Bringing out from the text what is already there is called exposition; the technical name is exegesis. Reading into the text one's opinions, ideas, or assumptions is known as imposition; the technical term is eisegesis.

Not a Legitimate Approach. Because of the proof-text method's inadequacies, no serious Seventh-day Adventist Bible student accepts this method as legitimate. This is why, in the present crisis over the Word, proponents of the two methods currently competing for audience in the church have rightly rejected the proof-text method of biblical interpretation.

These two methods to which we shall now direct our attention--mainstream Adventism's plain reading of Scripture and contemporary liberalism's historical-critical method--seek an understanding of Scripture that takes into account the historical and literary contexts of the Bible. But as we pointed out earlier, these two approaches differ in their views regarding the full inspiration, trustworthiness and authority of the Bible.

The Cause of the Hermeneutical Crisis

The Quail Problem. Most Christians tend to skip over the details of the "quail story" in the Bible, but those details can present a challenge to serious Bible students. Numbers 11 records how, in response to the cries of the wandering Israelites for meat, God provided so many quails to be eaten that in one month the meat would virtually come out of their nostrils and become "loathsome" to them. The quails are reported as covering territory extending a day's journey on each side of the camp--an area some forty miles across, and two cubits (about three feet) high above the ground (Num 11:4-23, 31-35).

Are the details in this quail story trustworthy? Or is the Bible simply teaching that God miraculously sustained Israel in the wilderness? Should we consider all the information recorded in the account as inspired, or are some things in the account not inspired?

Similar questions also confront Christians on the issue of the Genesis creation account. When the Bible says God created the world in six literal days, is the statement trustworthy? Or do the Scriptures simply seek to teach us Who is the ultimate Creator, not necessarily how He created and how long it took? Shall we accept the principle that God is the Creator but discard the literal six-day creation as uninspired, culturally conditioned, an un-scientific myth, or even a minor error?

Compounding the Issue. Regarding the quail, critics of the Bible often raise "troubling" issues regarding the sheer number of birds involved (Num 11:31). Assuming that one's understanding of the Bible is correct in maintaining that God caused the birds to be piled up three feet deep over an area of 1600 square miles (40 miles x 40 miles), Bible- believers are faced with two major problems.

First, since some of the birds would die from the sheer pressure of those lying on top of them, how could Israel cope with the resulting health hazards and environmental problems? Second, and more significant, is the problem of the number of quails to be consumed by each Israelite to consume during the thirty days. Assuming that the birds were distributed equally to each Israelite, each person would have had to eat about 52,100 bushels during the month. This works out to approximately 578 bushels of quails per person per meal, three times a day for each of the thirty days! This is equivalent to eating some 742 roasted turkeys at each meal! [8]

Clarifying the Issues. Assuming that we have not misread the biblical account and that our calculations are correct, are we really to believe that each Israelite ate 578 bushels of quail meat at each meal? If not, does it mean that while we may accept the fact that God provided quails for the wandering pilgrims, we cannot trust the reliability of the data? The Bible says, "And there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth" (Num 11:31).

Should we accept the fact of God's providence of quail but not the associated details? Is the Bible fully inspired or partially inspired--that is, did God inspire the Bible writers to record these details, even though they appear to us unrealistic?

The answers one gives to such questions determine whether one will uphold the historic Adventist approach to Scripture or the contemporary liberal approaches, collectively known as the historical-critical method. These two approaches to Scripture have become the focal point of Adventism's crisis over biblical authority and interpretation. The quail story, to which we will return, illustrates the two major attitudes regarding biblical authority and interpretation.

The Historic Adventist Approach: Plain Reading of Scripture

Method: Plain Reading. Seventh-day Adventists have always adopted the approach advanced by the Protestant reformers, in which they sought the simple, plain, direct, or ordinary sense of Scripture. Technically, this method of studying Scriptures is known as the historical-grammatical method, a term dating to 1788 [9]. . . .

Though the term may seem new to some readers, it represents the Adventist church's historic practice of interpreting Scripture according to its simple, literal, plain, direct, or ordinary sense. The specific details of this historical-grammatical method are spelled out in a 1986 General Conference Annual Council document called "Methods of Bible Study," published in the Adventist Review of January 22, 1987, and reprinted here in Appendix C. Opposite to "historical-grammatical" is "historical-critical," a relatively new term for what was long known as "higher criticism."

Assumptions About the Bible. Adventism's plain reading of Scripture (the historical- grammatical approach) recognizes that the Bible is (a) fully inspired, (b) absolutely trustworthy, (c) solely authoritative, and (d) thoroughly consistent in all its parts, since it comes ultimately from one divine mind. . . .

Adventists and Quails. Regarding the "quail problem," those who adopt the historic Adventist approach insist that the Bible is fully inspired and trustworthy even in the details about the quails. Therefore, in the face of an unresolved difficulty, rather than maintaining that the Bible writer was mistaken in his figures, we carefully re-study the biblical account to see if we have not erred in our interpretation. We shall explore the quail problem more fully shortly, to show in detail how a Bible-believing student may approach it.

[In chapter 2 of Receiving the Word, titled "Trusting the Word," we set forth the biblical position of Bible-believing Adventists.]

The Contemporary Liberal Approach: The Historical-Critical Method

Two Kinds of Liberalism. Since the historical-critical method is the method of liberalism, it may be helpful to note that two kinds of liberalism operate in Christian churches: (1) classical (radical) liberalism and (2) moderate (progressive) liberalism.

Classical liberalism denies God's supernatural intervention in the world; hence, it denies the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ, miracles, etc. Because of classical liberalism's anti-supernatural assumptions, it cannot accept the Bible's claim to be divinely inspired by God. The Bible is "inspired" in the sense that Shakespeare is inspired; it is an inspiring book that reflects the religious expressions of certain ancient people. All the miracles in the Bible are myths designed to teach truths. Because of this naturalistic outlook, liberal scholars in conservative churches cannot be liberals in the classical or radical sense; they choose moderate liberalism.

Unlike classical liberalism, moderate liberalism attracts some scholars in Bible-believing conservative churches, who present themselves as "moderates" because they perceive themselves as standing between the "extremism of the left" (classical liberalism) and "the extremism of the right" ("fundamentalism" or "ultra conservativism"). Although moderate liberals reject classical liberalism's outright denial of supernatural events in the Bible, they nevertheless endorse liberalism's skepticism regarding the full inspiration, trustworthiness, and authority of the Bible. In their attitude toward the Bible, the liberalisms of both the moderate and classical stripe are basically the same; they differ only in degree. Because moderate liberalism does not accept the full authority, authenticity, historicity, and reliability of the Bible, its followers rely on the methods of classical liberalism to determine which parts of the Bible are inspired and trustworthy.

Liberalism's Method. Both forms of liberalism deny the full inspiration of the Bible, choosing to approach Scripture "like any other book." In doing so, liberalism offers a number of "scientific" methods collectively called the historical-critical method. [11] Although the roots of the historical-critical method go back as far as the seventeenth century, the nineteenth-century German theologian and historian Ernst Troeltsch (1865- 1923) holds the distinction of formulating the cardinal principles of the historical-critical method. [12] . . .

Both classical and moderate liberalism employ historical-critical methods; they differ only in how far they go in denying explicit biblical teaching. Moderate liberalism, the kind found in conservative Bible-believing churches, believes that it can employ the methods of classical liberalism without accepting its anti-supernatural presuppositions. But moderate liberalism and classical liberalism are basically the same in their methods of approaching Scripture.

Assumptions. Unlike the traditional Adventist approach, the historical-critical method assumes that: (a) the Bible is not fully inspired (i.e., some parts of the Bible are more inspired than others [13]); (b) the Bible is not fully trustworthy (because of alleged discrepancies, contradictions, and mistakes); (c) the Bible is not absolutely authoritative in all that it teaches or touches upon (portions allegedly shaped by the personal or cultural prejudices of the writers and their times are "uninspired" and not binding on us); and (d) because of the Bible's many human writers, there is "diversity" in Scripture (i.e., pluralism or conflicting theologies in the Bible).

[In chapter 3 of Receiving the Word, titled "Doubting the Word," we discuss the three major pillars of the historical-critical method.]

Liberals and Quail. The two kinds of liberals are likely to respond in slightly different ways to the quail story.

On the one hand, classical (or radical) liberalism, denying any possibility of miracle, rejects as a myth the account of God's provision of quails. At best, it will re-interpret the miracle and reconstruct the biblical account along this line: "A group of nomadic tribes of pre-historic Israel (numbering far less than the 600,000 figure given in the Bible), while wandering in the wilderness, came across a few migrating birds which had paused to rest for the night. Seeing this phenomenon for possibly the first time, the Israelites attributed it to their God and exaggerated the number of birds 'rained down' to highlight their God's omnipotence."

On the other hand, moderate liberals accept the miracle of God in providing quails. But because of such problems as the 578 bushels per meal per person and the environmental hazard, they discount the accuracy of the story. They are likely to argue that Christians should not be concerned about how God provided the quails. The important point in the story, they would say, is that God did provide food for His people, a truth that is valid even though the details about it may not be trustworthy. The underlying assumption is that some parts of the Bible are inspired while others are not.

Although moderate liberals differ from classical liberals in their attitudes toward miracles, they both share a skeptical attitude toward the full inspiration and trustworthiness of Scripture. In order to arrive at a more "realistic," "objective" or "scientific" understanding of the quail story, they both employ liberalism's historical- critical method.

This manner of addressing the "difficulty" in the quail story finds expression also in other issues, such as the Genesis creation account, the universality of Noah's flood, the account of the Exodus, the question of God's showing a real sanctuary to Moses as the model upon which he was to construct Israel's tabernacle, the veracity of the four gospel writers in reporting the same events, etc. In short, a misunderstanding about the nature of the Bible's inspiration, trustworthiness, authority, and interpretation influences one's views about other doctrines of the Bible.

Historic Adventism and Contemporary Liberalism

Similarities and differences. Both the historic Adventist approach and the contemporary liberal approaches seek to understand, through a careful study of the historical setting, literary characteristics, grammar, syntax, etc., what Scripture meant to its original recipients. Both also apply Scripture's message to contemporary situations. They differ not only in how they accomplish their common goal of elucidating the meaning of Scripture, but more importantly, in their assumptions or presuppositions regarding the nature of Scripture itself.

One knowledgeable Adventist scholar has summarized the difference between these two approaches: "The historical-critical scholar comes to the [biblical] text with a natural bias against the historicity of the events described therein. The historico[-]grammatical scholar comes to the text with a natural bias in favor of the historicity of the events described therein. How, then, shall the matter be settled? There should be a neutral ground upon which the matters involved could be examined dispassionately and objectively. Unfortunately, there is not." [14]

Yet, in spite of the fact that even some reputable non-Adventist scholars have found the use of historical-critical methodologies to be "an illusion," [15] "secular and profane," [16] and even "bankrupt," [17] some Adventist Bible scholars believe they can reasonably use a little of the historical-critical method without adopting the naturalistic presuppositions on which the method is founded [18]--a claim to which Eta Linnemann responded bluntly: "One can no more be a little historical-critical than a little pregnant." [19] Linnemann, by the way, is unquestionably a world-class expert in, and a former advocate of, the historical-critical method. [20]

[In chapter 4 of Receiving the Word, titled "Quarreling Over the Word," we show how the theological polarization among SDA scholars concerns the moderate use of the historical critical method.]

Quail Revisted. We promised to return to the quail story and look at it using the historic Adventist approach, the perspective of faith rather than of doubt. This approach rejects liberalism's skepticism regarding the full inspiration and trustworthiness of the Bible account. Heeding Mrs. White's counsel and example, its practitioners "take the Bible just as it is, as the Inspired Word," and they "believe its utterances in an entire Bible" (Selected Messages, 1:17). If they find difficulties they cannot immediately resolve, rather than considering them as mistakes or exaggerations of the Bible writers, they prayerfully seek guidance from the Holy Spirit to open their minds to see the divine truthfulness of the Scriptures.

Regarding the quail, the Bible simply states: "And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth" (Num 11:31). Notice that the Bible doesn't say that the quails were packed solid, or piled up two cubits (three feet) deep, from ground up, over a territory forty miles across. Rather, Scripture says that the birds were brought "two cubits high upon the face of the earth." The New International Version translates it, "Now a wind . . . brought them down all around the camp to about three feet above the ground, as far as a day's walk in any direction." The Bible is merely saying that instead of the birds flying so high that they were out of reach, God brought them so low--about three feet above ground level--that anyone could take as many as he wanted (note Num 11:32).

All the mathematical calculations showing that each Israelite had to eat some 578 bushels of quail meat per meal and all the worry about environmental hazards resulting from the carcasses of tons of birds are misdirected. The "troubling problems" raised about the quail story do not reside in the text but in the minds of critics who read the Bible superficially. Ellen White may have been referring to such situations when she wrote about the dangers of presenting the works of infidel authors to students of the Bible: "Scientific research becomes misleading, because its discoveries are misinterpreted and perverted. The word of God is compared with the supposed teachings of science, and is made to appear uncertain and untrustworthy. Thus the seeds of doubt are planted in the minds of the youth, and in time of temptation they spring up. When faith in God's word is lost, the soul has no guide, no safeguard. The youth are drawn into paths which lead away from God and from everlasting life" (Christ's Object Lessons, p. 41).

The simple resolution of the quail problem should encourage us always to trust the Word as God's inspired revelation, even if we face apparent difficulties. "The Bible is a book which has been refuted, demolished, overthrown, and exploded more times than any other book you ever heard of. Every little while somebody starts up and upsets this book; and it is like upsetting a solid cube of granite. It is just as big one way as the other; and when you have upset it, it is right side up, and when you overturn it again, it is right side up still. Every little while somebody blows up the Bible; but when it comes down, it always lights upon its feet, and runs faster than ever through the world." [21]

[In chapter 10 of Receiving the Word, we resolve some of the alleged discrepancies in the Bible.]

Moderate Liberalism: A Challenge to Adventism

Although moderate liberals are not comfortable with classical liberalism's outright denial of supernatural occurrences in the Bible, they do, however, imbibe its skepticism regarding the full inspiration, trustworthiness, and normative authority of the Bible. Therefore, at the level of attitude toward the Bible, moderate liberalism and classical liberalism are basically the same; they differ only in degree.

The Church's Challenge. We must be clear about it. The crisis of identity in the Seventh-day Adventist church is a crisis over Bible interpretation. It arises from the fact that some in our ranks believe they can safely use elements of the historical-critical method without adopting the naturalistic presuppositions upon which the method was founded. However, in the words of one non-Adventist scholar, the attempt to do so is "as futile and absurd an undertaking as eating ham with Jewish presuppositions." [22]

Indeed, as some of our Adventist scholars have begun using the higher critical approaches of liberal theology, the church has seen challenges to its distinctive truths--the prophetic significance of 1844, the necessity and relevance of the sanctuary doctrine, the inspiration of Ellen G. White, a literal six-day creation, the necessity of Christ's substitutionary atonement for sinners, and the self-understanding of the Seventh-day Adventist church as God's end-time remnant. At the same time, the church has been thrown into turmoil over abortion, polygamy, divorce and remarriage, women's ordination, and homosexuality.

[In chapter 5 of Receiving the Word, we offer extensive documentation of how historical-critical assumptions are leading some of our scholars and writers to re-interprete our traditional doctrines.]

In the coming days, the Seventh-day Adventist church will be focusing on the issues of biblical authority and interpretation. Reading the Bible through one or the other of the two basic hermeneutical lenses--Adventism's plain reading of Scripture or the historical- critical method of contemporary liberalism--will result in either a clear perception or in a blind deception regarding the Bible's message. Bible-believing Adventists must look beyond the fancy labels and claims, inquiring to what extent these new approaches uphold the Bible as fully inspired, trustworthy and the sole authoritative norm for every doctrine and practice. Such a test will uncover the foundations and ultimate destinations of the new methods of biblical interpretation. It will also reveal whether the new approaches will result in either trusting the Word or in doubting the Word. Subsequent pages in this book will explore this issue in greater depth.

ENDNOTES

[2] See, for example, the North American Division's Issues: The Seventh-day Adventist Church and Certain Private Ministries (Silver Spring, Md.: North American Division, 1993). This work takes issues with the activities of private organizations such as Hope International, Hartland Institute, Prophecy Countdown, Inc., and Steps to Life. For a response to the above work, see Hope International's Issues Clarified: A Clarification of Issues: The Seventh-day Adventist Church and Certain Private Ministries (Eatonville, Wash.: Hope International, 1993); cf. Hartland Institute's Report and Appeal of Hartland Institute to Seventh-day Adventist Leadership and Worldwide Membership (Rapidan, Va.: Hartland Institute, 1993). Although some independent self-supporting ministries are often lumped with the independent right, readers should understand that there are many legitimate independent ministries whose goals and methods complement the work of the mainstream church.

[3] Beatrice Neall, "Apocalyptic--Who Needs It?" Spectrum 23/1 (May 1993):46.

[4] Steven G. Daily, Adventism for a New Generation (Portland/Clackamas, Ore.: Better Living Publishers, 1993), pp. 312-315. Because this book has received endorsement from prominent thought leaders of the church--administrators and educators--chapter 5 of Receiving the Word pays closer attention to this work. For a helpful corrective to the challenge to Adventism's remnant doctrine, see Clifford Goldstein's The Remnant: Biblical Reality or Wishful Thinking? (Boise, Id.: Pacific Press, 1994).

[5] Richard Hammill, "Journey of a Progressive Believer," transcript of a talk given to an Association of Adventist Forums convention, Seattle, Washington, October 13, 1989, cited by James L. Hayward, "The Many Faces of Adventist Creationism: '80-'95," Spectrum 25/3 (March 1996):27-28. See also Richard Hammill's other works: "Fifty Years of Creationism: The Story of an Insider," Spectrum 15/2 (August 1984):32-45; "The Church and Earth Science," Adventist Today, September-October 1994, pp. 7, 8; Pilgrimage: Memoirs of An Adventist Administrator (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 1992).

[6] In chapter 5 of this book we shall document some of the sophisticated ways in which the historic Adventist doctrines and practices are being undermined.

[7] For example, see Jack W. Provonsha's analysis of the "Roots of the Crisis" of identity regarding Adventists' understanding of the remnant. Provonsha, A Remnant in Crisis (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald, 1993), pp. 27-35.

[8] The calculation was worked out in this manner: (a) A day's journey is about 20 miles; since the quails fell by the camp "as it were a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp," it suggests that the quails covered a distance of 20 miles on each side of the camp, totaling 40 miles from north to south, and 40 miles from east to east; (b) An estimate of the total amount of quail rained down 3 feet deep and 40 miles across and 40 miles in width gives 133,816 million cubic feet (i.e. 40 miles [211,200 feet] x 40 miles [211,200 feet] x 3 feet); (c) 1 cubic foot = 0.77873 bushels, so that there were over 100 billion bushels (104,206,482,800, i.e., 0.77873 x 133,816,320,000); (d) There were 600,000 men (Num 11:21), so that allowing for children and women, there were about 2 million people. If we divide 104,206,482,800 bushels of quail among 2 million people, each gets about 52,000 bushels in the month. Now if each person eats three meals of quail a day, the average person will eat some 578 bushels at each meal (i.e., if we divide 52,000 by 90 meals [3 meals/day x 30 days/month = 90]); (e) Since 1 bushel = 1.28 cubic feet, if we estimate that one roasted turkey can be contained in a box measuring 1.28 ft. x 1.28 ft. x 1.28 ft., the 578 bushels of quail meat will be equivalent to 742 roasted turkeys.

[9] Evangelical scholar Walter C. Kaiser, drawing on the work of Milton S. Terry, attributed the term "grammatico-historical" to Karl A. G. Keil's Latin treatise on historical interpretation (1788) and his German textbook on New Testament hermeneutics (1810). The aim of this method of exegesis is to determine the author's intended meaning by means of the grammar of his language and by the historical and cultural circumstances. While the historical component is self-explanatory, according to Kaiser "The term grammatico-, however, is somewhat misleading since we usually mean by 'grammatical' the arrangement of words and construction of sentences. But Keil had in mind the Greek word gramma, and his use of the term grammatico approximates what we would understand by the term literal (to use a synonym derived from the Latin). Thus, the grammatical sense, in Keil's understanding, is the simple, direct, plain, ordinary and literal sense of the phrases, clauses and sentences" (Kaiser, Toward An Exegetical Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1981], pp. 87-88; cf. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics: A Treatise on the Interpretation of the Old and New Testaments [New York: Phillips & Hunt, 1890; reprint ed., Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1964], pp. 203-242). Readers should also note that, at least in the nineteenth-century, some higher critics claimed that they were actually using the historical-grammatical method. For a discussion of this, see P. Gerard Damsteegt, Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Missions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 63-77, esp. p. 70.

[10] Robert McIver, "The Historical-Critical Method: The Adventist Debate," Ministry, March 1996, p. 14.

[11] The historical-critical method is described as "critical" because, instead of simply receiving the Word as God's inspired and trustworthy communication of His will to all humanity, this approach adopts an attitude of skepticism to the Bible, rejecting those parts of the Scriptures that are incompatible with the tenets of Enlightenment rationalism. Thus, the historical-critical method has correctly been defined as "that principle of historical reasoning . . . that reality is uniform and universal, that it is accessible to human reason and investigation, that all events historical and natural occurring within it are in principle comparable by analogy, and that man's contemporary experience of reality can provide the objective criteria by which what could or could not have happened in the past is to be determined" (R. N. Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism [Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox, 1976], p. 78).

[12] For the contribution of Troeltsch, see Robert Morgan, Introduction to Ernst Troeltsch: Writings on Theology and Religion, trans. and ed. Robert Morgan and Michael Pye (Atlanta, Ga.: John Knox, 1977). For the contributions of others to the historical-critical approach to Scriptures, see Gerhard Maier, Biblical Hermeneutics (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), pp. 251-255; William Larkin,Culture and Biblical Hermeneutics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1988), pp. 29-40; Clark H. Pinnock, Tracking the Maze: Finding Our Way Through Modern Theology from an Evangelical Perspective (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990), pp. 89-106.

[13] This is the moderate view; classical historical criticism would not speak of "inspiration" in this sense at all, since such a concept is unscientific and beyond the assumptions of history.

[14] William H. Shea, "How Shall We Understand the Bible?" Ministry, March 1996, p. 13. Shea correctly concluded that "the subject of hermeneutics eventually comes back to the matter of presuppositions. . . . As far as the presupposition of the historico[-]grammatical method, that presupposition is ultimately one of faith. I commend that presupposition to the readers of this journal. When that presupposition is adopted, scholars are freed from their procrustean bed to examine all of the evidence that comes to bear upon the interpretation of God's Word."

[15] Eta Linnemann, Historical Criticism of the Bible: Methodology or Ideology? Translated by Robert W. Yarbrough (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1990), p. 123.

[16] Edgar Krentz, The Historical-Critical Method (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), p. 67.

[17] Walter Wink, The Bible in Human Transformation: Toward a New Paradigm for Biblical Study (Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress, 1973), p. 2. At the time that some Adventists scholars were hailing the historical-critical method, non-Adventist biblical scholars who had earlier used and recommended the method were abandoning it because of its failure to lead to a true understanding of the Bible. For more on this, see the summary in William J. Larkin, Jr., Culture and Biblical Hermeneutics: Interpreting and Applying the Authoritative Word in a Relativistic Age (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1988), pp. 50-63; cf. Gerhard Maier, Biblical Hermeneutics (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), pp. 247-306.

[18] For example, in 1981, a delegation of North American Bible scholars met at Washington, D.C. and affirmed that "Adventist scholars could indeed use the descriptive [historical-critical] method (e.g., source criticism, redaction criticism, etc.) without adopting the naturalistic presuppositions affirmed by the thorough-going practitioners of the method." See Alden Thompson, "Are Adventists Afraid of Bible Study?" Spectrum 16/1 (April 1985):58, 56; see also his "Theological Consultation II," Spectrum 12/2 (December 1981):40-52; Inspiration: Hard Questions, Honest Answers (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald, 1991), pp. 271-272. The latter work was established on the assumptions of the historical-critical method. A detailed analysis and critique of Inspiration has come from the Adventist Theological Society; see Issues in Revelation and Inspiration, eds. Frank Holbrook and Leo Van Dolson (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Adventist Theological Society Publications, 1992).

[19] Eta Linnemann, Historical Criticism of the Bible: Methodology or Ideology, p. 123. Linnemann is a leading Bultmannian who has turned evangelical. In this work, she argues forcefully that historical criticism is not a scientific methodology as it claims, but rather a pagan ideology.

[20] Robert W. Yarbrough, the translator of Eta Linnemann's book from German into English, writes: "Linnemann lodges a strong protest against the tendencies and methods of a discipline she knows from the inside out. She is not taking potshots from afar; she was a diligent and receptive student of some of this century's truly seminal thinkers in German New Testament scholarship: Bultmann, Fuchs, Gogarten, and Ebeling. Later, inducted into the world's most prestigious professional society for New Testament research, she was the peer of many others of like stature" (Historical Criticism: Methodology or Ideology, p. 7). A later chapter of Receiving the Word ("Testifying About the Word") presents Linnemann's own testimony about how she came to give up the historical-critical method.

[21] H. L. Hastings, Will the Old Book Stand? (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1923) p. 11.

[22] Kurt E. Marquart, Anatomy of an Exploration: Missouri in Lutheran Perspective (Fort Wayne, Ind.: Concordia Theological Seminary Press, 1977), p. 114.

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