Getting Jiggy With Your Bible
Well if we haven’t had enough adventures in missing the point lately with the Jesus is my boyfriend song movement along comes a ‘theology’ that is so infantile, ignorant, and immature it’s hard to even begin to get one’s mind around the staggering stupidity.
“Dr.” Jack Schaap has written a book, Marriage: The Divine Intimacy. Something tells me his title is honorific or from Liberty University because… well… just read this:
Psalm 119:30 says, ‘I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.’ That word laid is a sexual term which literally means the same thing as a man laying with a woman. God was saying that God’s laws should be as intimate as a marriage partner in a sexual liason.
In the next verse, David gets more graphic. ‘I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame.’ That word stuck means ‘the act of a man entering his wife’; it is sexual intercourse. God says that the Word of God should be the Christian’s lover, and nothing should be closer to him than the Bible. The Words of God are supposed to be the most intimate lover of his life.”
- Dr. Jack Schaap, “Marriage: The Divine Intimacy“, p. 50.
I guess we’ll have to amend Jesus’ words: “For this reason, a man shall leave his mother and father, and do it with his Bible.”
My suggestion? Watch out for paper cuts!
One would hope that the insanity would end there right? Nope. No such luck. Along comes good old Steven L. Anderson. You remember him: tazed by the Arizona officials, and preacher of several of the most offensive and ignorant sermons in the history of mankind including the Pisseth Against the Wall, and Jesus Didn’t Wear No Dress craziness.
Steven is going to take Schaap to task for his interpretation. Anderson, in an uncharacteristic manner, begins his argument with a brief moment of lucidity, “This is the most disgusting blasphemy I have ever heard out of the mouth of a Baptist preacher.Dr. Schaap’s use of the word “intimacy” is not what is blasphemous. What is blasphemous is his twisting the word of God into a sexual connotation where none exists.”
At this point I’m almost a little worried. I sort of agree with Anderson, and he seems semi-coherent. Surely the world is coming to an end! Fortunately, Steven goes on to explain why he disagrees with Schaap’s understanding of Psalm 119.
Do you honestly believe that when David said, “Thy judgments have I laid before me,” that he was referring to sex? Dr. Schaap here is twisting the English language. The word “lay” (present tense) is never used to refer to sex. The word “lie” (present tense) is what God uses to refer to sex. While the past perfect
of the word “lie” is “lay” (see 1 Samuel 2:22), they are two completely different words. The word “lie” is intransitive, and the word “lay” is transitive.The past participle of lie IS NOT LAID! The past participle of lie is LAIN!
Dr Schaap is a very smart man, and I doubt that he does not know this basic knowledge of English grammar. Therefore he is either intentionally being misleading as to the English term, or he believes that KJV is wrong in its usage of the word “laid” as opposed to “lain.” (This would be preposterous since the
sentence in Psalm 119:30 is transitive.)
Wow. I’m not even sure what to say to that. The logic is… something.
Let me give you a hand Steven because the solution is real easy: the word used by the author of this Psalm is שׁוה and it doesn’t have sexual connotations(though your gymnastics with English grammar and the word lay was ‘special’), that and, you know, the little fact Dr. Schaap wants to have sex with a book. Just some small indicators you could use to make some simpler, but yet, just as effective arguments.
I hope whatever Schaap and Anderson have (lots of stupid!) isn’t contagious because I’m supposed to be writing coherent material over the next few days.
(HT: Stuff Fundies Like)
Simply put, this whole thing brought a tear to my eye. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t see straight.
It’s perfectly understandable why Schaap had to come to this conclusion – he didn’t listen to the women who wanted to set him straight on his theology:
Maybe Hyles-Anderson College would like to take that honorary doctor degree back. After all, they state on their website:
“To achieve our academic goals at Hyles-Anderson College, we blend the finest of scholarship with the best practical teaching possible.”
Then again, maybe it would be a bit embarrassing to do that to someone who taught there for over 20 years and was its own vice president!
I did some more research on the college who conferred the honorary doctorate: it was founded by Schaap’s father-in-law Jack Hyles who purposely resisted accreditation of the school. Reasons for that decision are listed here:
http://www.jackhyles.com/accreditation.htm
Here’s a little excerpt:
Schaap became pastor of First Bapist Church of Hammond, IN, after his father-in-law, who pastored the church for 42 years, died in 2001. Schaap is still chancellor of the college and the college itself is run as an official ministry of Schaap’s church.
Sorry, the excerpt got lost for some reason:
“Superiority should not seek accreditation from inferiority. The Christian school movement in America is so superior to the public school system that it is absurd to think of our seeking their approval upon our superior kind of work. I was interviewed by a reporter who was chagrined by my philosophy. In frustration the reporter shouted, “Why, oh, why won’t you be accredited?”
I replied, “For the same reason that Mickey Mantle didn’t seek accreditation from the little leagues.”
I have to add this one too, the man is just a goldmine:
Wow, how do they even invent these things in their minds, I mean it takes some doing!
I love so much that Anderson based his argument on the english translation. The inanity makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Adventures in missing the point.
I once heard a new age lecturer say the Solomon’s temple was a temple to the sun and then proceeded to deconstruct the name solomon.
i’m not kidding, this is what he said
Sol – Latin for Sun
Om – Hindu/Eastern (he was pretty hazy) for sun
On – Egyptian for sun
Never mind that his name was Shlomo…the insanity is to much fun!
I once heard a radio preacher PROVE FROM SCRIPTURE (TM) that Aslan of Narnia was The Antichrist and C.S.Lewis was Demon-Possessed (TM) when he wrote Chronicles of Narnia, using similar parsing.
From then on, “Aslan-Is-The-Anticrhist preaching” has been my standard term for this sort of thing.
I think he hit on a whole new devotional practice. Make love to the scriptures and whatever is “hightlighted” is the verse you stick with all day long. Of course it will increase bible sales as I bet after a while pages might stick together and such. But hey Bible sales must be a good thing. And this practice excludes those pesky women who might want to interpret scripture and teach us about theology. What’s not to like if you are an ignorant bigot like Schaap the FAP!
The only problem is whether or not it is ok to turn down the lights and play Barry White during devotions? Could someone please help me with that one?
No. You obviously would play Rick Pino. Much sexier than Barry White.
Steven Anderson’s academic credentials are just as impressive as “Dr.” Schaap’s. Here is Faithful Word Baptist’ Church’s own description of their pastor:
“Pastor Anderson started Faithful Word Baptist Church on December 25, 2005. He holds no college degree but has well over 100 chapters of the Bible memorized word-for-word, including approximately half of the New Testament.”
A lot of Talibani had memorized the entire Koran.
By age six.
By Force.
And then there’s the Kentucky Mountian complement to a preacher:
“He Has NO Book Larnin, And He Is LOUD!!!!!!!”
I memorized the first half of “The Idiot’s Guide to Appendix Removals”. I’m off to start a free clinic.
How about the Dead Sea Scrolls? Any sex involved with them? I mean – I think a scroll would technically work better.
LOL… yes technically it would work ‘better’… Any sex? As far as I can tell, dealing with anyone that was involved with the production of the scrolls, they were about as much fun as having a heart attack while simultaneously getting kicked in the junk and punched in the face… so you can imagine just how awesome their views on sex were. I mean, these guys pooped in a hole and covered it up so they wouldn’t offend the sun. We’re not exactly talking about the least repressed dudes of all time.
And they also wouldn’t poop on the Sabbath.
(Don’t know if they also wouldn’t pee on the Sabbath, but it wouldn’t surprise me.)
In the next verse, David gets more graphic. ‘I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame.’ That word stuck means ‘the act of a man entering his wife’; it is sexual intercourse. God says that the Word of God should be the Christian’s lover, and nothing should be closer to him than the Bible. The Words of God are supposed to be the most intimate lover of his life.”
Have any of you heard of something called “Bridal Mysticism”?
I don’t mean the current “Jesus Is My Edward Cullen”, I mean the full-strength “Thrust me thru with Thy Divine Love! Fill me with Thy Holy Spirit as with child!” Bridal Mysticism you saw in a lot of late-Medieval convents. Well, that is its logical end state.
Do you honestly believe that when David said, “Thy judgments have I laid before me,” that he was referring to sex? Dr. Schaap here is twisting the English language. The word “lay” (present tense) is never used to refer to sex. The word “lie” (present tense) is what God uses to refer to sex. While the past perfect
of the word “lie” is “lay” (see 1 Samuel 2:22), they are two completely different words. The word “lie” is intransitive, and the word “lay” is transitive.
“It all depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”
– William J Clinton