Even more deck-clearing

If I take Article V seriously, then I can throw out all kinds of baggage and nonsense to make the journey easier

• Nowhere does the Bible say how it is to be read
• "The plain sense" is not a scriptural phrase. In fact, the scriptural evidence seems to point in the other direction. Jesus had to open up the scriptures several times, including on the walk to Emmaus. And the first Gentile convert needed help from Philip:

  Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. Luke 24:25-27

  So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him" Acts 8:27-31

• We get, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2Tim 3:16) But what Paul meant by scripture, and what Timothy understood by scripture was the Hebrew Bible, not the Christian writings (New Testament), most of which didn't even exist when Paul was writing to Timothy!
• The words "infallible," "inerrant," etc. do not show up in scripture; nor (in my opinion) can they be proved by scripture
• Nowhere in scripture does it say there is an internal unity to scripture; the scriptural evidence points the other direction:
• We have 4 Gospels, which share many things in common, but also have real differences.
• We have at least two tellings of the major history of the Israelite kingdoms (Kings / Chronicles) which tell very different stories
• We have at least 4 different creation stories, none of which are close to the others (Gen 1, Gen 2, Job 38, Is 48:13)
• Note: this does not mean scripture is a code to be cracked or gnosis reserved for the few elite, just that "the plain sense" is not privileged

With all these non-scriptural assumptions about scripture out of the way, I can rethink how I think about scripture! Maybe, just maybe, the differences, tensions and outright contradictions aren't a problem to be solved, but a part of the gift; we want an algebra textbook and we've been given a library. The problem isn't the contradictions; the problem is our misplaced expectations.