{"id":3119,"date":"2014-10-02T11:59:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T15:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/roadsfromemmaus\/?p=3119"},"modified":"2014-10-02T12:19:30","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T16:19:30","slug":"bible-church-chat-moses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Bible “above” the Church? A Chat with Moses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"11th<\/a>
11th c. Hebrew Bible manuscript with targum (explanation) in Aramaic<\/figcaption><\/figure>I recently engaged in a sort of thought experiment about what it would be like for someone who believes that the Bible is “above” the people who actually produced it to have a chat with the earliest name associated with the production of the Scriptures. Here’s the result:<\/i><\/p>\n

“Moses, Genesis is above you.”<\/p>\n

“Um, I wrote it.”<\/p>\n

“But it is above you.”<\/p>\n

“Yeah, well, I wrote it, so I know what it says.”<\/p>\n

“No, you are wrong, for it does not say what you say.”<\/p>\n

“Dude, I saw God Himself on Sinai! I know what it means!”<\/p>\n

“I can read the Scripture better than you, Moses. It’s obvious even to children.”<\/p>\n

“Sure, but your kids don’t read proto-Hebrew. You know I wrote it in proto-Hebrew, right? And how do you know where the vowels go if I don’t tell you? And what about the bits that have my name on them but couldn’t have been written by me, such as my funeral? I was dead, you know.”<\/p>\n

“God preserved it, even in my translation, Moses. And He set the canon. People just ‘recognized’ it. They didn’t make any actual choices.”<\/p>\n

“Did God tell you to read it that way? And do you even know how much back-and-forth there was in canon formation? Looks like choices to me. You do know that Jews alive in Jesus’ time had different canons, right? Did you just pick your favorite Jewish sect to copy? I assume you also know about what they call the ‘oral Torah’ that is necessary to understand the ‘written Torah,’ right?”<\/p>\n

“I don’t need that stuff. I know how to read it because it is obvious to all.”<\/p>\n

“Tell that to the heretics.”<\/p>\n

“Heretics are outside the boundaries of Scripture, Moses.”<\/p>\n

“Says who? You?”<\/p>\n

“The Bible, Moses.”<\/p>\n

“My Bible doesn’t talk, man.”<\/p>\n

“It’s obvious what it says, Moses! Even kids get it without any help!”<\/p>\n

“Why isn’t it obvious to the heretics, then?”<\/p>\n

“Because they are bad people.”<\/p>\n

“So everyone who disagrees with you is bad?”<\/p>\n

“Some are also ignorant. Some are maybe just too dumb to understand, I guess.”<\/p>\n

“So everyone who disagrees with your reading of the Bible is either dishonest, uniformed or unintelligent?”<\/p>\n

“How else could they be getting it wrong?”<\/p>\n

“So, just collect all the honest, smart and well-read people in the world, and they will all read the Bible the same way. Right?”<\/p>\n

“I don’t know, Moses. People make mistakes.”<\/p>\n

“Do you think they ever found whole new denominations based on those mistakes?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, but I can tell who’s wrong because the Scripture is above them.”<\/p>\n

“I say you’re wrong. What do you say to that?”<\/p>\n

“The Scripture is above you, Moses.”<\/p>\n

*Moses mutters something colorful in Yiddish and walks off.*<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently engaged in a sort of thought experiment about what it would be like for someone who believes that the Bible is “above” the people who actually produced it to have a chat with the earliest name associated with the production of the Scriptures. Here’s the result: “Moses, Genesis is above you.” “Um, I wrote it.” “But it is above you.” “Yeah, well,\u2026 <\/i> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[582],"tags":[749,750,864],"class_list":["post-3119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripture","tag-canon","tag-moses","tag-scripture"],"yoast_head":"Is the Bible "above" the Church? A Chat with Moses — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is the Bible "above" the Church? A Chat with Moses — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I recently engaged in a sort of thought experiment about what it would be like for someone who believes that the Bible is “above” the people who actually produced it to have a chat with the earliest name associated with the production of the Scriptures. Here’s the result: “Moses, Genesis is above you.” “Um, I wrote it.” “But it is above you.” “Yeah, well,\u2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andrewstephendamick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andrewstephendamick\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-02T15:59:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-10-02T16:19:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"568\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"662\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@frandrewsdamick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@frandrewsdamick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/\",\"name\":\"Is the Bible \\\"above\\\" the Church? A Chat with Moses — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-02T15:59:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-10-02T16:19:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#\/schema\/person\/18eab8a45916faa6327a92fd04c88675\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg\",\"width\":568,\"height\":662,\"caption\":\"11th c. Hebrew Bible manuscript with targum (explanation) in Aramaic\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Is the Bible “above” the Church? A Chat with Moses\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/\",\"name\":\"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\",\"description\":\"Neither polemic nor compromise, but engagement\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#\/schema\/person\/18eab8a45916faa6327a92fd04c88675\",\"name\":\"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/01\/profile-pic-e1673451002804-150x150.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/01\/profile-pic-e1673451002804-150x150.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick\"},\"description\":\"The Very Rev. Archpriest Andrew Stephen Damick is Chief Content Officer of Ancient Faith Ministries, former pastor (2009-2020) of St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, and author of multiple books from Ancient Faith Publishing and host or co-host of many podcasts from Ancient Faith Radio. You can follow him on YouTube, Facebook, Telegram and Instagram.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/andrewstephendamick.com\/\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andrewstephendamick\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/asdamick\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@frandrewstephendamick\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/author\/asdamick\/\"}]}<\/script>","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is the Bible \"above\" the Church? A Chat with Moses — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is the Bible \"above\" the Church? A Chat with Moses — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","og_description":"I recently engaged in a sort of thought experiment about what it would be like for someone who believes that the Bible is “above” the people who actually produced it to have a chat with the earliest name associated with the production of the Scriptures. Here’s the result: “Moses, Genesis is above you.” “Um, I wrote it.” “But it is above you.” “Yeah, well,\u2026","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/","og_site_name":"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andrewstephendamick","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andrewstephendamick","article_published_time":"2014-10-02T15:59:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-10-02T16:19:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":568,"height":662,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@frandrewsdamick","twitter_site":"@frandrewsdamick","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/","name":"Is the Bible \"above\" the Church? A Chat with Moses — Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg","datePublished":"2014-10-02T15:59:56+00:00","dateModified":"2014-10-02T16:19:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#\/schema\/person\/18eab8a45916faa6327a92fd04c88675"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg","width":568,"height":662,"caption":"11th c. Hebrew Bible manuscript with targum (explanation) in Aramaic"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/2014\/10\/02\/bible-church-chat-moses\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is the Bible “above” the Church? A Chat with Moses"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/","name":"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","description":"Neither polemic nor compromise, but engagement","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#\/schema\/person\/18eab8a45916faa6327a92fd04c88675","name":"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/01\/profile-pic-e1673451002804-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2023\/01\/profile-pic-e1673451002804-150x150.jpg","caption":"Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick"},"description":"The Very Rev. Archpriest Andrew Stephen Damick is Chief Content Officer of Ancient Faith Ministries, former pastor (2009-2020) of St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church of Emmaus, Pennsylvania, and author of multiple books from Ancient Faith Publishing and host or co-host of many podcasts from Ancient Faith Radio. You can follow him on YouTube, Facebook, Telegram and Instagram.","sameAs":["http:\/\/andrewstephendamick.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andrewstephendamick","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/asdamick\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@frandrewstephendamick"],"url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/author\/asdamick\/"}]}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2014\/10\/Targum.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3119"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3124,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119\/revisions\/3124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ancientfaith.com\/asd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}