Unlocking the Bible by David Pawson: a conflation of objective and subjective truths
Consider this post a live draft. I’ll keep updating it as I go along.
I also want comments, feedback, challenges and answers. This is a conversation we need to keep going to reach an understanding of Christianity. For a faith that is so heavily reliant on a book, we need to understand what it says. I first saw this book in a Waterstones. I’ve been on a mission to get a Hebrew/Greek/English bible because I get so frustrated with a lack of authenticity in regular bibles. After downloading a bunch of translations and having to cross reference them all to get a sense of understanding what one was saying, I’ve made the decision to skip this nonsense and go back to the beginnings. Starting with a good bible. Anyway, for reasons, I couldn’t get one that day; the world is full of NKJV. So, when I saw this book being thicker than every bible present I picked it up. I flicked through.
A reference book with not a single reference in it? What. I was intrigued. Back to the beginning. An author who writes without a single reference and has only a BA & an MA? Again, what? Published and republished several times over? I was so annoyed by these two things alone I decided I had to read it.
Fairly quickly in, he explains that he is a preacher who focuses on a collective approach to biblical study — highlighting that anyone can find a verse and make it fit their point (something I said in my own MA work). Secondly, he says that this book is the result of a lifetimes work and he didn’t take detailed notes throughout his career because he is not academic and wasn’t ever trying to write a book. This book has been ghostwritten by someone authorised by Pawson and familiar with his work. This work is the collation of sermons and previously released publications/recordings that now make ‘a unique overview of the whole Bible’. I was hoping for answers. I got more questions. I’m keeping this as a draft and I will add to it as I read because each one of these questions I think has the potential to be a bit of a deeper study aid.
If I ever publish this, I hope to God above that someone proves me wrong. I want to get answers, so I really don’t mind being shown to be wrong. I think having questions is a very human thing and to ignore the questions we have of faith is to ignore the essence of what we are and pretend that the act of becoming Christian turns us into some sort of higher beings who no longer have questions.
This is a place for points that I think are important but don’t know where else to put them
- Pawson establishes that the Bible as we know it today is not arranged in Chronological order
On this point alone I feel like I was lied to my whole life. I mean, granted — no-one explicitly said it was in chronological order but they didn’t exactly make it clear it wasn’t. For a book that’s treated as a historical document, that should maybe be in idk, the foreword.
- Genesis was possibly written around the same time as the book of Job since there are parallels with the sort of lives patriarchs would have lived (Pawson, p12)
Genesis
- Self referential statements posited as evidence.
Pg 22–23 “What sort of literature is Genesis?”
— indicating that Jesus spoke about Old Testament events as though they were historical fact does not prove that they are historical fact.
- Paul’s theology presumes that Genesis is true. Still not actual evidence for there being truth to Genesis
- Old testament books referring to characters in Genesis. Still not evidence for the truth to Genesis.
RE: the above — Genesis could have easily been a book with intense popularity mistaken for historical fact. Jewish arrangement — first five books are ‘law’, not ‘history’ books. People are familiar with law, illustrations used within law could be just as well known as illustrations used within fact. For example, were I to write in the style of the bible and make reference to a popular character that has a great deal of significance in the world at present, would a historian in four thousand years from now (assuming ignorance of current archiving systems and practice e.g. a pre-internet era) have access to that particular knowledge?
“And so LeBron said unto them, “Remember Dorothy, her experience and final mantra — follow the yellow brick road,” and the people did heed these words.” — Chris Tucker 11:9
I have made my example fairly obvious as we are all at least relatively familiar with LeBron James and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. It is then not valid for someone else to follow later on with the below:
“Thus sayith the Lord, and lo, have I not assured you of the way? As I told LeBron and Dorothy, I will be with you on the yellow brick road.” — Michael Jackson, 5:12
The latter statement presents both LeBron and Dorothy as if they both exist. As we have the benefit of being alive in 2017, we are able to easily differentiate between the reality of LeBron James being a sports star and Dorothy being a fictional character in the Wizard of Oz. We’ve got enough current sources we can establish that quite easily, without need for further reference or deviation. Because we are there, we can determine what is real, what is allegory and the nuances of context. However, for someone who isn’t there, we cannot take that knowledge for granted. Were that person to ask me, “Did Dorothy exist?”, it is not enough for me (or indeed someone else centuries after I’ve died) to say, “Yeah sure — In the book of Chris Tucker LeBron talks about Dorothy and then Michael Jackson mentions Dorothy and LeBron, and regarding the yellow brick road as a factual place.”
For me, this isn’t enough. At all. Saying that Paul’s theology presumed Genesis was true isn’t enough either. Speak to any flat-earthers about their beliefs and they can put together a seemingly coherent argument against what much of the world believes to be true. Having a theology means nothing. The collection of biblical books that form the canon was decided in C4 AD. Equally today, we could have a collection of Suzanne Venkers writings ended up in a curated collection about gender equality. It’s not hard to get that by. For all we know those priests in the 4th Century could have included certain books for lessons they teach that are out of step with current understandings. I’ve slipped ironic and sarcastic comments into many of my writings over the years. Imagine if they were translated by someone centuries later — would they pick up on these nuances? My humour has always been to say the exact opposite of what I think in deadpan delivery because… oh I don’t know, I’m really good at it? Would this translate? Anyway, I deviate.
Anyway, those three points are enough for a case study about whether or not self-referential statements are truth, if referring to other books in the bible is self reference and all sorts.
Another problem I have with the book is the weak af evidence for the existence of God. p28 “There had to be an eternal something or someone before the universe existed and the Bible is clear that this person is God.”
He prefaces this by saying philosophical questions about where God came from are really non questions. How about no? I want to sit him down and shout, “Now you explain yourself, mister!” Philosophical questions about where God came from have been around since ‘time immemorial’, and probably won’t ever go away as long as Christianity exists. If you want to talk about getting people to understand the bible, believe in Jesus and become a Christian, sidestepping big questions won’t get you anywhere. Existing believers are often happy to put those to one side, because they’ve learnt how to do it in the pursuit of ‘faith’ or have other questions they want answering first, or some are even just satisfied with what they’ve been told. That is not a message that will convince someone who isn’t raised in the modern church. Side stepping questions makes me want to scream.
Pawson goes on to say that the fundamental assumption of the bible is that God exists so we don’t need to explain it, we need to explain the existence of everyone else. Not everyone reading the Bible will take that as a given, so we cannot use this as an excuse to not even attempt to explain — or lay out the arguments [look up opposite of polemic from the introduction to theology audiobook] against and justify why we accept it. If my only evidence for the existence of God was my Bible, I probably wouldn’t believe in God.
Now, in the time since I wrote the aforementioned rant, my husband did tell me about a particular line of thought which explained the idea that God has to exist by the virtue of the concept of God alone. It kind of added some legitimacy to this bit, but I’m planning to read further on that because there’s more to know.
Another thing I have a problem with but don’t know where to complain about it (still p.28):
“Certainly when Moses was writing, every Hebrew knew that God existed. He had rescued his people out of Egypt, divided teh red see and drowned the Egyptian army, so their personal experience told them that God was there. Further proof was unnecessary.”
Okay, so the basis of my personal faith comes through my personal experience with God so I’m not exactly in a position to poke too many holes in that argument. What I will say is that people could see God show up, give them a high five and then radically intervene in their situations and still potentially rationally believe that God does not exist. Saying further proof was unnecessary is inappropriate. If you look a little further down and hear the stories of Mount Siani and the ten commandments, idolatry carried out by the Israelites then even by their own standards, further proof was necessary. Many people today do not have the luxury of a parting of the red sea as the canvas to paint their belief of disbelief on.
A Picture of the Creator
Interpretations that Pawson makes based on Genesis. Each one of these could be an essay, so I’m writing my questions in now.
- God is Personal
okay, so god has a heart that feels, a mind that thinks, and speaks his thoughts, god has a will, makes decisions and sticks to them. all this forms what we know as a personality. God is not an it, God is a he. He is a full person with feelings, thoughts and motives like us.
Actually so when I started writing I thought this one was okay but I’m also mad with this one too.
I might never get to the end of this book.
This whole thing is pretty ableist anyway, but we’ll come onto that for another point. Right, if God has a will — what does that imply for humanity. Do we have any choice about what we do if God’s will overarches everything. God makes decisions and sticks to them. Okay, so can God make an incorrect decision. Can God make mistakes. Can God learn from his mistakes. Can God change his mind? Also, why do you think God is a he? Why does Pawson identify these characteristics as a personality? What ON EARTH does he mean by identifying God as a PERSON, but not only that a ‘full’ person, with feelings thoughts and motives?
How can we identify God’s motives? How can we trust them? Does God act on feelings? Do we want to follow a God that acts on feelings? Because if God has feelings, I’d really like to know where he was in the Syrian civil war. Does it take something higher to trigger God’s feelings for us. Are we okay to live with that? Or is God colder than us? Is it nicer to think that God doesn’t have feelings than think God does have feelings but doesn’t care/chooses not to care about us in a way that we expect?
