tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post114591930561679161..comments2024-01-03T07:56:32.311-05:00Comments on quaker oats live: early friends and the bibleAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07488876505679035140noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-1146159592692641492006-04-27T13:39:00.000-04:002006-04-27T13:39:00.000-04:00It is very true that early Quaker writings are rif...It is very true that early Quaker writings are rife with Biblical allusions. I've read the Bible, in fact read it regularly, but I don't get half, or probably even a quarter, of the references. But what strikes me about the way early Quakers used the Bible is something you refer to as well, Cherice: that they had in a sense internalized it. It was not an external guide to be refered to; they had, in a sense, absorbed it into themselves so they could now live it rather than quote it. How typical that was for the time, I don't know (I don't mean familiarity with the Bible, which was obviously very common, I mean the way it was used). And whether that is "typical" of evangelical Christianity today I am also perhaps not qualified to say, although the bits I've read and the services I've attended tended to me to stress the "Bible as authoritative text" model rather than the "Bible as lived experience" model. But certainly, given the Quaker emphasis on the Living Spirit, and the Spirit as lived, internalizing the Bible and making it part of your own identity, as it were, makes sense from a Quaker perspective.<BR/><BR/>I'm looking forward to your future posts, Cherice.<BR/><BR/>DavidDavid Korfhagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08483910268144751116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19785125.post-1146050491222525972006-04-26T07:21:00.000-04:002006-04-26T07:21:00.000-04:00Dear Cherice, this is a fine posting. Nearly all ...Dear Cherice, this is a fine posting. Nearly all of what you say here I gladly affirm & concur with.<BR/><BR/>I would like to make a minor correction, though, regarding your statement that "...the Bible to the early Friends was still the Word of God...." There are many places in the writings of leading early Friends where they state <I>explicitly</I> that the Bible is not the Word of God. For example:<BR/><BR/><I>They asked me whether the Scripture was the word of God; I said God was the word, and the Scriptures were writings; and the word was before writings were, which word did fulfill them.</I> (George Fox, the <B><I>"Short Journal"</I></B>, describing experiences in 1653)<BR/><BR/><I>The Scriptures are not that living Word, which is appointed by God to be the rule of a Christian; but they contain words spoken by the spirit of God, testifying of that Word, and pointing to that Word which is to be the rule.</I> (Isaac Penington, <B><I>The Way of Life and Death Made Manifest and Set Before Men...</I></B> [1658])<BR/><BR/><I>...We own not the said alterable and much altered outward text, but the holy truth and inward light and spirit to be the Word of God, which is living [and] the true touchstone....</I><BR/>(Samuel Fisher, "Preface to the Reader", <B><I>Rusticus ad Academicos ... The Rustick's Alarm to the Rabbies, Or The Country Correcting the University and Clergy...</I></B> [1660])Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com