The Bible does not say that. . .

For as long as Scripture has been there have been those who lived on its edges rather than deep in its words.  We have suffered mightily those who insist that absent an explicit word on this or that, the Scriptures could or should be taken differently than has been understood.  It is wearisome enough when this comes from those who are refusing the implication inherent in the Word but it is downright foolish when it comes from those who insist that they are only trying to let Scripture speak.

Take, for example, the oddity of a Christianity Today column which purports to say that the Bible never actually says that Jesus was nailed to the cross.  You can read for yourself:

The Bible doesn’t describe Jesus being nailed to a cross.

Telling the story of Christ’s death, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John simply say that Roman soldiers crucified him. They don’t say how. Each of the Gospels include specific detail about the soldiers’ method of dividing Jesus’ clothes—a lottery—but none describe the way the soldiers put him on the cross. There are no nails mentioned in any of the four accounts of Christ’s death.

How odd it is when doubts about the traditional understanding of anything in Scripture comes from sources which ordinarily could be counted upon to respect the conservative reading of the text.  You might expect anything and everything from the media or from the known suspects of a skeptical reading of the Bible but not from someone who teaches at an "evangelical" seminary.  

Jeffrey P. Arroyo García, an evangelical Bible scholar who teaches at Gordon College, thinks maybe there weren’t any nails.

“The word used there, stauroo, just means ‘to hang on a cross,’” García told Christianity Today. “But it doesn’t give the method of how they hang, right? Maybe the reticence is telling.”

In an effort to justify the lack of mention of the nails, someone who claims to be a Bible scholar seems to have forgotten that Thomas did not ask to see rope burns but the marks of the nail.  It is exactly this kind of omission that is too often the reason for getting it wrong about a lot of things.  Baptismal regeneration is not mentioned once but so strongly implied in many texts that it is foolish to argue against it.  The Real Presence of Christ's real flesh and blood in the real food of bread and wine is so implicit in everything that Scripture records and says of the Holy Eucharist that it is more telling about the deniers than it is what they deny here.  The creation of male and female and its constant weaving of this order throughout the Scriptures is so strong that it reveals a certain blindness to suggest that many genders does not conflict with what God has said.  The push toward the single life, divorce, same sex marriage, or an intentionally childless union searches in vain for Scriptural support and ignores the way marriage, children, and family are spoken of in Scripture.  The coexistence of evolution with the Biblical text has many defenders but it ignores how Jesus speaks of the creation and especially of Adam and Eve.  Rome condemning justification by grace through faith is another one of those can't see the forest for the trees kind of things that insists if something is not said explicitly it cannot be presumed (even when it is actually said pretty well in the Biblical text!).

I could go on.  It is mystifying how we insist upon Scripture being explicit in its reference before we will acknowledge what is so implicit in it.  Like Jesus being crucified with ropes instead of nails.  Wow.  Thankfully the author acknowledged this in a later version but it is the strangest thing that it happened in the first place.