The standard Adventist and Evangelical slogan The Bible and the Bible Only (BBO) obfuscates as much as clarifies. A dramatic illustration of the problems with BBO is the list of those who say it will solve our theological dilemmas. The list includes people who are adamantly opposed to each other, who even in some cases anathematize each other. (See "Lesson from History" in this issue.) Names that might be familiar to our readers include Samuel Koranteng Pipim and Dale Ratzlaff, John McArthur and Jack Hayford. If we agree to settle our arguments using BBO, we will discover that the arguments simply become sharper and more acrimonious. A commitment to BBO does not always lead to theological convergence.

"The Bible says it; I believe it." But what does it mean? There is no such thing as receiving the Bible without interpretation. We always have to trust someone's mind. My own? A scholar's? The prophet's? The church's? If I never trust my own mind over the minds of others I will be gullible and contribute to the careers of con artists, arrogant educators, narcissistic religious leaders, and abusive spouses. On the other hand, if I always trust my own mind over the mind of others I will be socially dysfunctional, if not dangerous. Health is a balance of self-confidence and respect for others.

A case in point: Traditionally, Adventists have believed that earth's ecosystem was naturally deathless before Adam and Eve sinned. However, according to Genesis 1-3, had Adam and Eve continued to eat from the Tree of Life after they sinned they would have continued to enjoy immortality. Death did not come as a natural consequence of sinning but as a result of the direct action of God in stationing an angel to prevent them from approaching the Tree of Life. The converse of this is that before the Fall, people were not naturally deathless, but were supernaturally sustained by eating from the Tree of Life.

We can explain the text in ways that are congruent with our traditional interpretation, but the plain meaning of the text, at the very least, allows other interpretations. Which raises the question, where did our traditional understanding come from? That is not an unanswerable question. We can trace the historical and cultural roots of our standard interpretation of Genesis. Recognizing that our version of the Creation story is not a simple restatement of the unfiltered, self-evident meaning of Genesis does not invalidate our traditional understanding. It does call for humility when we are disputing with someone who assigns greater verisimilitude to different parts of the text than we do.

Classic Christian spirituality has long promoted humility by counseling submission to one's spiritual superiors. The third monastic vow was obedience. However, humility alone cannot tell us the truth. It increases our receptivity and capacity to learn, but we still have to do the hard work of studying and thinking. Adventist theology is not the inevitable outgrowth of the plain meaning of the Bible. It is a creatively constructed, divinely inspired, pastorally effective theological system with roots in at least five "books." (See the accompanying article, "The Five Books of Adventism.") Genuine humility will prompt us to attend to the Mind of God in all the books he has inspired.