I recently posted a clip from an interview with John Dominic Crossan discussing the difference between literalism and fundamentalism.

Today some more on the same topic by Jacob Schriftman.

This is taken from Jokim Schnoebbe’s blog, he is also known as the Author Jacob Schriftman. I first met Jokim a few years back in South Africa and we traveled together for a teaching tour in the far east. We also lived together here in Sweden for a few months where we both were involved in a course with YWAM. He is a talented speaker,artist,teacher,author,father,husband and fotball player (and a few other things). I warmly recommend his work.You can read more about him on his site schriftman.net and purchase his books on Amazon as Jacob Schriftman or as Jokim Schnoebbe.

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Jacob Schriftmans latest book the C.S Lewis book on the bible has been an insightful, thought provoking and truly enjoyable read. It’s one of those books I will return to, and enjoy again. Schriftman gives us a carefully-reasoned yet entertaining read. His writing style is superb and clear.

The book centers around two parts. The first part is a critique and a defense on how we know whether the Bible is from God (epistemology) and the second part centers around; the study of the general principles of biblical interpretation. (hermeneutics)

Both of these parts are then divided into two parts a critique and a defense. My favorite parts were the critique presented throughout the book. The arguments were clear and well presented. Only the critique parts are a must read for anyone interested in apologetics, or a student of religion and faith in general.

Schriftman critiques, and explores the arguments used in a big part of the evangelical (it would be good with a definition of what is meant by evangelical) part of Christianity. An evangelical Christian could say; the Bible must be inspired by God because of how the bible changes lives or fulfilled messianic prophesy to name a couple examples Schriftman critiques.

In each case the argument falls short to justify the bibles claim to be from God.

Schriftman tells the story of how C. S Lewis came to accept the Bibles inspiration not as a starting point but as the final conclusion. An important part of the book follows Lewis argument and Journey towards the acceptance of the Bible as inspired by God.
A part of that journey consisted of understanding the Bible differently from for example Francis Schaeffer. Schaeffer viewed the first eleven chapters of Genesis, the same way as the rest of Genesis. Lewis on the other hand read the first eleven chapters as myths.
Schriftmans is at his best in this part of the book, and shows a deep understanding of Lewis when he takes us on a journey of thought with Lewis.

The second part of the book is also a gem waiting to be uncovered, explored and thought through. I enjoyed the parts where Schriftman gives examples of how the Bible fails to live up to the perfection many Christians demand from it. Part of the conclusion in this part is as follows.

”The above should be sufficient to show in what sense the Bible cannot be from God. It cannot be a kind of divine encyclopedia, a catalogue of”thus-saith-the-lord” articles on various topics.” Then how can it be from God? Scriftman ends the book by answering that precise question.

The book is not only a dive into the mind of C. S Lewis and his student mister Schriftman. It is a critique against a Christianity that is afraid to lose its faith by asking difficult questions. Schriftman puts it like this.

” Many denominations, movements, and individual Christians hold to a certain position not because they have honestly examined all possible viewpoints and then arrived at their conclusion; they simply believe what they believe because they have never heard anything else. Or, if they heard of an alternative, they immediately dismissed it without serious consideration – because they felt threatened in their beliefs and were perhaps frightened that their strong fortress would turn out to be a house of cards.”

This book deserves a wide audience, and is certainly a starting point not only for C. S Lewis fans but also anyone wanting to explore faith, God and the bible from a different perspective than what is the norm in a big part of western Christianity. The 12 dollar price tag is a bargain considering you actually get two books in one. An engaging, liberating and highly recommended read.

You can buy your copy here.

Jacob Schriftman is the pen name of Jokim Schnoebbe. I first met Jokim a few years back in South Africa and we traveled together for a teaching tour in the far east. We also lived together here in Sweden for a few months where we both were involved in a course with YWAM. He is a talented speaker,artist,teacher,author,father,husband and fotball player (and a few other things).

By Jokim Schnoebbe

There are many Christians who defend their faith in the inspiration of the Bible by saying (in effect) that they have accepted it by faith. They have thus, as it were, accepted their faith by faith.

This might lead us to suppose that all of them regard their faith as something subjective, but this is not so. Many of them claim that their faith is true, that their opinions correlate to objective reality. When asked why they believe this, most of them say it is because they have the inner assurance that their faith comes from God.  Therefore it is the true faith.

Now if all these people agreed about

the content of their faith, we would have to admit that their faith does likely come from God. The trouble is that they do not. Which leads—provided that God exists at all—to two possible conclusions: (1) God grants different people faith for various contradicting opinions. (2) Their faith is not only a God-given thing but also the result of their own reasoning, experience and authority (and often an ill-thought-out jumble of these three).

To Christian apologist C. S. Lewis, the first conclusion was not an option.

Otherwise he would have had to believe that God did not care much for truth. And that would be the same as saying that God did not care for reality, because truth is a description of reality. And how could Ultimate Reality not care for reality? To keep believing in such a “God,” one would have to reduce Him to something very much less than God. He would be some sort of indefinable force that gives people faith no matter what the content of their faith.

Having said this, C. S. Lewis did recognize that all knowledge of God is incomplete, and that people’s use of Reason, Experience and Authority is never perfect. His God was One who saw people’s true desire for Him, even when buried underneath many incomplete and even false conceptions of Him. Lewis believed that “every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him.”

This leaves us with option two. People’s concrete faith is not only a God-given thing but also the result of their own reasoning, experience and authority. The examples one could give in support of this are too numerous to recount.

Can anyone doubt, for instance, that human reasoning is involved in the current debate on homosexuality in the Anglican Church? Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson thinks that homosexuality is a good thing; but a number of his colleagues, particularly in the developing world, think of homosexuality as a serious perversion of God’s creation.

Robinson has obviously a very different kind of faith on this point than his opponents. Both, however, seem to share a strong sense of God being on their side. Robinson described his bishopric as “a calling from God.”  But others, such as Bishop Robert Duncan, were not impressed by his claim of God’s approval. “This body has divided itself from millions of Anglican Christians throughout the world,” he said, adding: “May God have mercy on this church.”

The one believes in a God who blesses the church by giving her homosexual leaders; the other one calls on God’s mercy for the church’s apostasy in this area. Both cannot be right. Their respective faiths cannot both be God-given. They can conceivably be given by a force, by some vague energy, but not by the Ultimate Fact-hood of all existence.

Can a supposedly God-given faith, then, ever be sufficient evidence for the divine origin of the Bible? Judging from C. S. Lewis’ efforts to give reasons for his faith, it is safe to say that he did not think so.

This is taken from Jokim Schnoebbe’s blog, he is also known as the Author Jacob Schriftman. I first met Jokim a few years back in South Africa and we traveled together for a teaching tour in the far east. We also lived together here in Sweden for a few months where we both were involved in a course with YWAM. He is a talented speaker,artist,teacher,author,father,husband and fotball player (and a few other things). I warmly recommend his work.You can read more about him on his site schriftman.net and purchase his books on Amazon as Jacob Schriftman or as Jokim Schnoebbe.

This is taken from Jokim Schnoebbe’s blog, he is also known as the Author Jacob Schriftman. I first met Jokim a few years back in South Africa and we traveled together for a teaching tour in the far east. We also lived together here in Sweden for a few months where we both were involved in a course with YWAM. He is a talented speaker,artist,teacher,author,father,husband and fotball player (and a few other things). I warmly recommend his work.You can read more about him on his site schriftman.net and purchase his books on Amazon as Jacob Schriftman or as Jokim Schnoebbe. I will share a few of his blog entries here from time to time, Enjoy!

British writer and literary critic C.S. Lewis was a Christian who did not overly protect his faith. His reading habits especially exemplify this. Unlike some Christians, he did not only read Christian literature but almost anything. He especially liked imaginative literature and approached it unlike many other Christians.

The narrow-minded Christian, if he reads imaginative literature at all, values it only for telling him truths about life—not truths, however, which he does not yet know, but only confirmations of his preconceived ideas. Those are the only ideas his faith-based narrow-mindedness will permit.

This leads him, of course, to limit his appreciation of authors to those who confirm his own views.

I am in the process of reading Richard Dawkins “the God Delusion”. He is a strong critic of all religion and a practicing atheist. A review on the book and some thoughts will soon follow. My friend Jokim writes in his review of “the God Delusion” the following:

“Now to the critique, which is simply this: The God Delusion belittles its opponents too much and therefore aims too low.

Through the book, as well as through Richard’s book tours, films, and TV appearances, he has created the impression that all religious people (and I mean religious not in a vague sense, but in the sense of giving credence to the supernatural, for instance) are either completely stupid or victims of religious child abuse and thus unable to ever free themselves from the mind-wracking warp of religion.”

To read the whole review go to Jokims blog.

For now hear what Richard Dawkins has to say on BBC s hardtalk.