What is a biblicist?

[Worldtraveller]

I'm not rrally familiar with that particular term, as used here:
<snip> I'm a Biblicist, as is she. As such, we'd be constrained by the principles of the New Testament. Killing is appropriate in self-defense, or to protect the life of an innocent party in imminent peril, or as capital punishment imposed *after* due process of law.
Is that just a shorter way of writing biblical literalist?

[Garnet]

I have no idea. This is the first time I've read the term. However, given the views that NR has espoused, it's clearly something that I should learn more about so that I may actively avoid such people in real life.

[Ray Moscow]

Doesn't it just mean someone who "lives by and believes" the Bible?

I would say that just about all Christians move between "literal" and "symbolic" views of the Bible, as it suits them or their group. Almost no one is completely "literal", although some press that approach pretty far.

[Danhalen]

I am always amused by people who claim to live their lives as if the writings in the bible are to be taken literally. It's not because I think it's necessarily stupid to live your life in such a way (though I do think it is). It's because in living your life in accordance with a work of literature you must interpret what the literature says in some way. Simply dismissing the possibility that some of the stories are parables or metaphor does not free the reader from interpretation.

Two people can both take a work of literature literally and end up with two different accounts of what's going on.

Inerrantist, biblicist or literalist: you're all bat shit crazy if you truly believe you're not interpreting literature.

[Garnet]

Well, Dan, the guy that used the term made a comment in another thread that he would not be opposed to capital punishment for fornication and adultery. He later amended that statement to say something to the effect of he wouldn't have fornication punished as much as adultery because adultery involved the betrayal of trust.

I leave the exercise to you as to whether or not this involved bats in the belfry.

[Anne]

The catchphrase up here is 'bible believing'.

As in 'get yourself to a bible believing church, not one of those other ones...'

I'm always surprised how many bible literalists there are who can't read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew.

As I said in the other thread, though,

In all honesty, I prefer your type of Christian. Bible believers and Messianics and Muslims and Mormons are all easier to pin down than the new agey feel good Christian.

I don't like your type, but I respect it.

[Danhalen]

I leave the exercise to you as to whether or not this involved bats in the belfry.I doubt there's even a bell.

It's sentiments like his that make me feel like it's time for a cleansing. Fortunately [for him] I don't have a God to endorse my thoughts.

[Matty]

"Dear Fundies, please report to one of these death camps at your first convenience. oops did i say death camps? I meant happy funtime rapture camps" :)

[miss djax]

Well, Dan, the guy that used the term made a comment in another thread that he would not be opposed to capital punishment for fornication and adultery. He later amended that statement to say something to the effect of he wouldn't have fornication punished as much as adultery because adultery involved the betrayal of trust.

I leave the exercise to you as to whether or not this involved bats in the belfry.

what makes me nuts about this is that when their spin on this is compared to the taliban, or other ultra extremists, we're the ones who are crazy.

it's the same end result based on the same extremist interpretation of a bronze age text. if you fail to see that comparison, i can't help but think that its willful on some level.

how is nr's view that adulterer's could be stoned/killed any different to what the taliban recently did near the pakistani border?

[Garnet]

Matty, that's not even funny.

[tjakey]

Matty, that's not even funny.

made me smile...

[Matty]

its a bastardised south park quote from when they are rounding up Canadians in the movie.

and i chuckled to myself. :)

[Barbarian]

Matty, that's not even funny.Yeah, giving away crucial elements of our communication plan just like this ...

[Garnet]

Oy. I'm going to pick up my toys and go home! ;)

[Norrin Radd]

I'm not rrally familiar with that particular term, as used here:
<snip> I'm a Biblicist, as is she. As such, we'd be constrained by the principles of the New Testament. Killing is appropriate in self-defense, or to protect the life of an innocent party in imminent peril, or as capital punishment imposed *after* due process of law.
Is that just a shorter way of writing biblical literalist?

That's the common usage (according to my interpretation of the Wikipedia article on "Biblicist"), but it's not the way I use it. I also only learned the term relatively recently, when I read this blog (http://www.jonrising.blogspot.com/2008/09/fridays-with-craig-keener-part-five.html), from whence I grabbed it. It's closer to "Sola Scriptura."

[Hevvin Machine]

I'm not rrally familiar with that particular term, as used here:
<snip> I'm a Biblicist, as is she. As such, we'd be constrained by the principles of the New Testament. Killing is appropriate in self-defense, or to protect the life of an innocent party in imminent peril, or as capital punishment imposed *after* due process of law.
Is that just a shorter way of writing biblical literalist?

That's the common usage (according to my interpretation of the Wikipedia article on "Biblicist"), but it's not the way I use it. I also only learned the term relatively recently, when I read this blog (http://www.jonrising.blogspot.com/2008/09/fridays-with-craig-keener-part-five.html), from whence I grabbed it. It's closer to "Sola Scriptura."

from the jonrising blog
Some non-Pentecostal, noncharismatic scholars have even approached me with their thoughts because they know that I am charismatic. One well-known evangelical scholar was telling me that it looked to him from the Bible like people should get healed on a regular basis. Then here I was, the charismatic, having to answer, "You do seem to be right but I have to admit that is not yet my experience." Being a biblicist, I realize that my experience is likelier the problem than our exegesis. But many people are hungry for more of the experience they see in Scripture. Is this the parapraph from which you bring the term "biblicist"? I'm assuming that it is, since it's the only use of the word that I saw, but maybe I missed something. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not a scholar. But what this looks like to me is biblicist=literalist, in a modern vague way. Mr Keener seems to be saying that it is obvious that God does not heal impulsively: "You do seem to be right", but that he will believe in this anyway: "but I have to admit that is not yet my experience". Mr Keener seems to be avoiding the clear meaning of the term "literalist" by rephrasing it with the vague term "biblicist". He's doing it in a context where clearly the simple and direct word literal will become incoherent, since we all know that God doesn't heal people impulsively, yet he believes that God does.

The reason I'm asking pointed questions here is because I consider myself to be a biblicist. I believe in the Bible. I do not, however, believe in literal interpretations of It when they clearly contradict my experience.
Hev

[David B]

I'm not rrally familiar with that particular term, as used here:

Is that just a shorter way of writing biblical literalist?

That's the common usage (according to my interpretation of the Wikipedia article on "Biblicist"), but it's not the way I use it. I also only learned the term relatively recently, when I read this blog (http://www.jonrising.blogspot.com/2008/09/fridays-with-craig-keener-part-five.html), from whence I grabbed it. It's closer to "Sola Scriptura."

from the jonrising blog
Some non-Pentecostal, noncharismatic scholars have even approached me with their thoughts because they know that I am charismatic. One well-known evangelical scholar was telling me that it looked to him from the Bible like people should get healed on a regular basis. Then here I was, the charismatic, having to answer, "You do seem to be right but I have to admit that is not yet my experience." Being a biblicist, I realize that my experience is likelier the problem than our exegesis. But many people are hungry for more of the experience they see in Scripture. Is this the parapraph from which you bring the term "biblicist"? I'm assuming that it is, since it's the only use of the word that I saw, but maybe I missed something. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm not a scholar. But what this looks like to me is biblicist=literalist, in a modern vague way. Mr Keener seems to be saying that it is obvious that God does not heal impulsively: "You do seem to be right", but that he will believe in this anyway: "but I have to admit that is not yet my experience". Mr Keener seems to be avoiding the clear meaning of the term "literalist" by rephrasing it with the vague term "biblicist". He's doing it in a context where clearly the simple and direct word literal will become incoherent, since we all know that God doesn't heal people impulsively, yet he believes that God does.

The reason I'm asking pointed questions here is because I consider myself to be a biblicist. I believe in the Bible.[b] I do not, however, believe in literal interpretations of It when they clearly contradict my experience]/b].
Hev

A much more sensible approach than complete literalism, IMV, Hev.

Not without problems of its own, though. Am I right in thinking that it was Augustine who was pragmatic about advising Christian proselytisers not to claim as literal truth what people knew to be wrong?

David