Is Scripture free from human perspective?
Noah, who was a farmer, was the first man to plant a vineyard. After he drank some of the wine, he became drunk, took off his clothes, and lay naked in his tent. When Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that his father was naked, he went out and told his two brothers. Then Shem and Japheth took a robe and held it behind them on their shoulders. They walked backward into the tent and covered their father, keeping their faces turned away so as not to see him naked. When Noah sobered up and learned what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “A curse on Canaan! He will be a slave to his brothers.”
(Genesis 9:20-25)
Whoa, just one minute. Shouldn’t that read, “A curse on Ham?” How did we jump to next generation Canaan? Well, in case you are unaware of the history, God would later raise up an army in Egypt to invade Canaan and exterminate the culture there. “So you see, Israelite boys and girls, Canaan was cursed from the very beginning!” Here the quintessential expression of human perspective in Scripture.
Should that come as a surprise? As mentioned in Adam (The Essentials), God is committed to working through us but whenever we are involved, it’s always, always messy. We need to recognize that. Those that God uses to communicate his truth have perspectives and it behooves us to take those into account to assist in our understanding. There is the absolute truth of which there is a reflection of that in Scripture of which there is a reflection of that in our heads of which there is a reflection of that in what we actually live out. Humility is in order.
The Jewish Law is not a full and faithful model of the real things; it is only a faint outline of the good things to come.
(Hebrews 10:1)
Were you aware, for example, that Jesus referred to himself exclusively as the “Son of Man” – almost 100 times in the Gospels! His disciples? They referred to him only once as such. Why? Perspective. Shouldn’t we rather be referring to Jesus by the title he chose for himself?