Westminster Seminary has stood their ground and let go of Pete Enns. There are a host of issues surrounding Enns' dismissal. Out of them all, the main item is the direction the seminary wishes to take within the next forseeable future. Having graduated from Westminster myself, I think I can say that I understand the dilemma.
Westminster is a school that exists primarily to produce pastors for its constituency--and even if this is not its primary objective, it's likely how the school makes most its money. What is such a school to do when faculty begin teaching material that students cannot practically use while pursuing ordination? In other words, what responsibility does the school have when it turns out to be the case that if students parroted back its own faculty's teaching during the course of an ordination examination that those students would not be approved for ordination? WTS would then be failing in its primary objective and in effect cutting itself off from its primary source of income. Such a school would certainly be forced into some type of action and the action they took in this particular case makes quite a lot of sense when viewed from this vantage. I think all discussions surrounding Enns' book have diverted attention from the more fundamental aims that the seminary must continually focus upon such as: why does the seminary exist and is it doing its best to sustain its capacity for accomplishing its primary tasks?
Whether it is time for the culture of the school's church constituency to change is quite another matter. It goes without saying that I think it does, but I think WTS is saying here (among other things) that 1) it will certainly not be the arbiter of such change; 2) it does not (at least publicly) see that there is presently a need for such change; and 3) it will continue to serve the churches it services irrespective of directions taken in contemporary biblical scholarship.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Dust off your Mounce and Wallace
According to the University of Leipzig, Codex Sinaiticus is about to become Cyber Sinaiticus over the next year or so.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080721/lf_nm_life/bible_internet_dc
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080721/lf_nm_life/bible_internet_dc
Monday, July 14, 2008
Whose job is it to get us out of this mess?
Carl Trueman observes: "Nonetheless the battle within evangelicalism today is once more focused on the divine authorship of scripture. It is not, I would suggest, the humanity of scripture which is generally being neglected by the guild of evangelical biblical scholars. Thus, while evangelical systematicians may need to think out their position on human authoriship more thoroughly, biblical scholars certainly need to be made to take account of divine authorship, and to do so sooner rather than later. The lack of critical reflection within evangelical biblical scholarship upon what the statement that scripture is God's Word actually means, what limits this places upon investigation, what implications it has for method is a worrying sign." (The Wages of Spin, [Christian Focus Publications, 2004], 100)
Whose job is it to get us out of this mess? Carl Trueman seems to say that it falls upon both systematicians and biblical scholars, but he also seems to come down especially hard on biblical scholars. Are biblical scholars in a position to do what Carl asks of them? Is the question, What does it mean for scripture to be God's Word? a systematic question or a biblical studies question? It would seem to me a theological question. So how explicitly involved in theology is biblical studies? Very, if biblical scholars are the ones who should answer this question. But there's a catch: only a restricted set of answers to this question will be accepted by the systematicians.
So now one might ask, How explicitly involved in biblical studies is theology? Considerably, but from whence does systematics get its primary materials for the work of systematizing? Biblical studies? Or is it already there in the theology itself? This is a dog chasing its tail. Each discipline apparently has its own set of tools and each discipline studies a very different sort of data set, yet somehow the systematic dimension is assumed to have priority (especially in the present context). Not only that, but Carl seems to imply that the discipline of biblical studies has not been holding its own and is now expected to fall back in line (with systematics, that is).
Yet biblical studies is theoretically what provides systematics with the materials for its theologizing. Without this data, the theology produced would not be scriptural, which is the ultimate goal. Theology also has as its resource all of what has come before in historical theology. Still, scripture is supposed to be given priority. But for the last 20 years or so the materials set forth by evangelical biblical scholars have increasingly become of such nature that suggests systematics should begin pondering whether it is in need of revision. But this is not what will happen, not in evangelicalism, that would go against evangelicalism's very raison d'etre. Instead, the biblical scholars will rather be told to go back and take another look at their work or they'll be pressured to sit on things awhile and keep things to themselves.
But in such a stalemate, who is the one who should go back and rethink things? Who is obligated to rework what it means to say that the Bible is the word of God? This has indeed really become some mess and it's only going to get worse with time. In fact, a new evangelical era is already upon us but culturally we're being forced to keep it under wraps.
Whose job is it to officially get us out of this mess?
It's up to the philosophers. Everybody's going to have to wait for them. I'm not sure if they've started yet, started thinking about a way out. I don't even know if they know about it, if they realize everyone's waiting for them.
Whose going to get us out of this mess? The philosophers. So if you know a philosopher whose still busy writing about material constitution, or the nature of universals, or the epistemological status of religious experience, or what it might mean to be an intelligent designer, go get their attention and tell them that we're waiting for them. Tell them that everyone needs them. Tell them there's an important job to do.
But there might be a small problem, though. The question we need them to answer is unabashedly parochial, it's not just religious, not just theological, but quintessentially evangelical. I'm not sure how in these kinds of questions are right now in evangelical philosophy, that is, conservative evangelical philosophy. So we might have to wait a bit for someone to give an answer. But hopefully it won't take too long to get their attention because I think they are the only ones who can get us out of this mess.
Whose job is it to get us out of this mess? Carl Trueman seems to say that it falls upon both systematicians and biblical scholars, but he also seems to come down especially hard on biblical scholars. Are biblical scholars in a position to do what Carl asks of them? Is the question, What does it mean for scripture to be God's Word? a systematic question or a biblical studies question? It would seem to me a theological question. So how explicitly involved in theology is biblical studies? Very, if biblical scholars are the ones who should answer this question. But there's a catch: only a restricted set of answers to this question will be accepted by the systematicians.
So now one might ask, How explicitly involved in biblical studies is theology? Considerably, but from whence does systematics get its primary materials for the work of systematizing? Biblical studies? Or is it already there in the theology itself? This is a dog chasing its tail. Each discipline apparently has its own set of tools and each discipline studies a very different sort of data set, yet somehow the systematic dimension is assumed to have priority (especially in the present context). Not only that, but Carl seems to imply that the discipline of biblical studies has not been holding its own and is now expected to fall back in line (with systematics, that is).
Yet biblical studies is theoretically what provides systematics with the materials for its theologizing. Without this data, the theology produced would not be scriptural, which is the ultimate goal. Theology also has as its resource all of what has come before in historical theology. Still, scripture is supposed to be given priority. But for the last 20 years or so the materials set forth by evangelical biblical scholars have increasingly become of such nature that suggests systematics should begin pondering whether it is in need of revision. But this is not what will happen, not in evangelicalism, that would go against evangelicalism's very raison d'etre. Instead, the biblical scholars will rather be told to go back and take another look at their work or they'll be pressured to sit on things awhile and keep things to themselves.
But in such a stalemate, who is the one who should go back and rethink things? Who is obligated to rework what it means to say that the Bible is the word of God? This has indeed really become some mess and it's only going to get worse with time. In fact, a new evangelical era is already upon us but culturally we're being forced to keep it under wraps.
Whose job is it to officially get us out of this mess?
It's up to the philosophers. Everybody's going to have to wait for them. I'm not sure if they've started yet, started thinking about a way out. I don't even know if they know about it, if they realize everyone's waiting for them.
Whose going to get us out of this mess? The philosophers. So if you know a philosopher whose still busy writing about material constitution, or the nature of universals, or the epistemological status of religious experience, or what it might mean to be an intelligent designer, go get their attention and tell them that we're waiting for them. Tell them that everyone needs them. Tell them there's an important job to do.
But there might be a small problem, though. The question we need them to answer is unabashedly parochial, it's not just religious, not just theological, but quintessentially evangelical. I'm not sure how in these kinds of questions are right now in evangelical philosophy, that is, conservative evangelical philosophy. So we might have to wait a bit for someone to give an answer. But hopefully it won't take too long to get their attention because I think they are the only ones who can get us out of this mess.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Evangelical scholars writing with kid gloves
Kent Sparks observes: "First, it appears to me that many evangelical biblical scholars have not yet adequately synthesized their theological commitments with critical scholarship. Scripture's difficultites are clear enough to them, but so long as it is unclear how these difficulties relate to biblical authority, these scholars will be...tentative about the critical conclusions that they embrace. Second, a number of conservative scholars...have pastoral hearts and so wish to shield their readers from disruptive, faith-testing bouts with cognitive dissonance...A third reason for the rhetorical ambiguity of evangelical biblical scholarship is that evangelical scholars are often wedged uncomfortably between their desire to be good scholars and their desire to sell books to conservative readers...To put it baldly: it seems to me that serious scholarship does not sell among conservative Evangelicals. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, there are institutional issues at stake." (God's Word in Human Words, 167.)
There's a secret waiting to come out in conservative evangelical scholarship: the critics were right! Who will be the one who will begin telling their constituencies what they have found? When will that one be in a position where they can actually and finally tell?
There's a secret waiting to come out in conservative evangelical scholarship: the critics were right! Who will be the one who will begin telling their constituencies what they have found? When will that one be in a position where they can actually and finally tell?
Friday, July 11, 2008
Here a Briggs, there a Briggs, everywhere a Briggs
Gary Johnson, in an essay that recounts some of the polemical exchanges that went down between Briggs and Warfield over inerrancy, makes the following contemporary assessment:
"Briggs is pretty much a forgotten figure today. Other than the famous A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament that he produced along with Francis Brown and Samuel Driver, his books are no longer in print, and his name rarely surfaces in today's theological discussions except in an occasional Ph.D. dissertation. However, even though Briggs might not be referenced as such, his views do have a following, and a significant one at that. In other words, views that were champioined by him in his lifetime are alive and well today. No doubt some of those I have linked to Briggs will protest that they have never heard of him, much less been influenced by his writings. But this is like the claim that we often hear today from well-meaning individuals who espouse an identical understanding to doctrines closely associated with Jacobus Arminius (i.e., libertarian free-will, conditional election, resistable grace), and yet protest that they have never read him and therefore should not be identified as Arminian. Nevertheless, in theological parlance they are classified as 'Arminian,' protest notwithstanding."("Warfield and Briggs: Their Polemics and Legacy," in B. B. Warfield: Essays on His Life and Thought, ed. G. L. W. Johnson [Presbyterian and Reformed, 2007], 217-218)
Then come the comparisons, but only after establishing one last time that Briggs exemplified an "overt rejection of the Old Princeton understanding of inerrancy." The implication is that anyone who is critical of Old Princeton in almost any way is by default "following" Briggs! Not only that, but since Briggs adopted so many different strategies during the course of his protracted dispute with Old Princeton and other inerrantists, it may not be the case that anyone differing with Old Princeton today will be able to come up with an original criticism. What's more, no thought is given by Johnson to the possibility that one or more of the specific criticisms against Old Princeton's inerrancy position might actually be right. One of the main objectives of his essay is to suggest that since Briggs voiced these several concerns so vociferously, anyone after Briggs who expresses any of the same concerns regarding inerrancy (or any other doctrine for that matter) can be said to be "following" Briggs.
To the extent that this explication is the one Johnson intends, I protest that I don't find this line of reasoning either compelling or helpful. It seems to me more of a rhetorical magic wand in the making, one that conveniently causes any contemporary anti-inerrantist --badda-bing-badda-boom-- to harmlessly be assimilated into inerrantist categories by the mere waving of a hand. All critics of inerrancy morph right into a modern day Briggs. Once the critic is successfully assimilated by the inerrantist, the response is predictable: You are a Briggs; Warfield already dealt with you definitively at the turn of the last century. Without much interaction and almost less work, the said assimilation translates contemporary challenges to inerrancy into tamer and more familiar terms for the inerrantist comprehend.
I should say that it would not bother me if anyone called me a follower of Briggs (Johnson already has), any more than if people called me a follower of Nietzsche, a follower of Aristotle, or a follower of Karl Marx. I do not consider myself any of these, but I am sure that among these posts on my site people could find ideas or trains of thought that these thinkers (and many others besides) have thought before me. So if I am a follower of so many varied thinkers, then that raises the question of what it takes to be a follower and whether the criteria employed by Johnson are practical and reasonable. For Johnson wants to make clear that it does not matter whether a critic has read Briggs or even heard of him; Johnson can still say that the critics are influenced by Briggs if he wants to.
Ok, so let's take for an example, as Johnson points out, how Briggs once wrote, "The antitheses of the sixteenth century are to a great extent antitheses of one-sidedness, which the modern world has outgrown. The world has moved since then. The world has learned many things. We have new views of God's universe. We have new scientific methods. We have an entirely different psychology and philosophy...All along the line of life, institution, dogma, morals new situations are emerging, new questions pressing for solution; the perspective is changed, the lights and shadows are differently distributed. We are in a state of enormous trasition, changes are taking place whose results it is impossible to foretell--reconstruction is in progress on the grandest scale..." (cited on 217)
Quantum physics, the Big Bang, general relativity, DNA, Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple Judaism, the fundamentalist/modernist controversies, the rise of postmodernism, developments in philosophy of science-- all cultural developments that happened after Briggs-- insofar as they are cultural developments at all will still put me in line with Briggs simply because I am a critic of inerrancy and there are similarities in argument. It would not serve me, in Johnson's view, to argue that the nature of these advances in knowledge since the time of Briggs are of such magnitude that when I say something similar to Briggs (without having read any of Briggs' writings!) I might actually be saying something qualitatively different. But I would still "following" Briggs so long as I am saying something similar to him with respect to my criticism of inerrancy.
Analogously, Grenz and Franke are "mak[ing] a very Briggs-like shift by following the lead of Schleiermacher in positing three sources or norms for theology: Scripture, tradition and culture." In fact, Stanley Grenz, Andrew Sandlin, John Armstrong, Peter Enns, C. Peter Wagner, Jack Deere, William DeArteaga, John Ruthven and many others can all be connected to Briggs. How? In short, because each of these have argued against Warfield either directly or by association on some point or other and, by arguing against Warfield, these varied Christian writers inevitably take on different semblances to Johnson's Warfield-nemesis, Charles Augustus Briggs.
I do not find Johnson's catch-all "Briggs" category to be very helpful. According to Johnson, Briggs was 1) critical of inerrancy, 2) critical of Reformed "scholasticism," 3) critical of a theology that emphasizes propositional truth, 4) critical of traditional Reformed understandings of justification, 5) critical of the way conservative Reformed circles privilege their specific creeds, 6) critical of others who do not seem to want developments in scholarship to inform one's theology, 7) critical of denominationalism and there are a few other areas of criticism mentioned. Now when a contemporary thinker is critical in one or more of these ways, he is said to be basking in Briggs' legacy. This way of defining the matter seems to me to confuse more than it clarifies and it seems to me an over-simplification at best.
Let us say I argue for a theological legacy, "Italian Sub," and enumerate seven identifying markers: 1) cappicola, 2) ham, 3) provolone, 4) lettuce, 5) tomato, 6) oregano/salt/pepper, 7) oil and vinegar. I then point out that the overall motivation for the Italian sub is to get eaten. What I see Johnson doing is pointing to a sub with turkey, roastbeef, provolone, lettuce and mayo, and emphasizing how this sub, too, was made to be eaten, and then reminding readers how both the progenitor Italian sub and this new contemporary sub both have provolone and lettuce. Thus we must conclude that they are both Italian subs, and since it is not the Italian sub that "stands fully in the Reformed tradition that traces itself back through the Westminster divines to the Protestant Reformers," the contemporary upstart surely cannot either. Thus at least two goals are easily and simultaneously accomplished: a) the inerrantists are reassured that the critics in question are not within the fold (on account of their association with Briggs); and b) the inerrantists are not obligated to engage the contemporary criticism as a new and potentially legitimate criticism but are rather encouraged to invoke Warfield and passively defer to his engagement with the errantists of his time (namely Briggs). Yet these appear to be rhetorical gains on Johnson's part, not theological or otherwise theoretical.
[That said, I can see how the Briggs-construct might help historical theologians identify past controversies with similitudes to current discussions about inerrancy in order to help them gain an initial understanding of what theological issues might ultimately be at stake. But I think Johnson is going further and trying to dismiss a whole swath of contemporary writers in one fell swoop.]
Now let's grant that the provolone and lettuce might be such significant theological criteria that the mere presence of either or both of these would be a paramount indication of this or that theological tendency. Then even here, it seems to me that the categories of interest would not be "Italian sub" or even "wanting to get eaten," but rather the "lettuce" and "provolone" individually, considered as a duo and also by themselves. In other words, I think Johnson is illegitimately leveling the conservative theological playing field, one with an uncomfortably unwieldy and variegated topography. In order to facilitate the grouping of an increasingly wide range of conservative writers into two distinct black-and-white categories (Briggs/Warfield), he's foreswearing not only provolone and lettuce, but subs of any kind-- except, of course, that one favorite sandwich that Johnson likes so much!
"Briggs is pretty much a forgotten figure today. Other than the famous A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament that he produced along with Francis Brown and Samuel Driver, his books are no longer in print, and his name rarely surfaces in today's theological discussions except in an occasional Ph.D. dissertation. However, even though Briggs might not be referenced as such, his views do have a following, and a significant one at that. In other words, views that were champioined by him in his lifetime are alive and well today. No doubt some of those I have linked to Briggs will protest that they have never heard of him, much less been influenced by his writings. But this is like the claim that we often hear today from well-meaning individuals who espouse an identical understanding to doctrines closely associated with Jacobus Arminius (i.e., libertarian free-will, conditional election, resistable grace), and yet protest that they have never read him and therefore should not be identified as Arminian. Nevertheless, in theological parlance they are classified as 'Arminian,' protest notwithstanding."("Warfield and Briggs: Their Polemics and Legacy," in B. B. Warfield: Essays on His Life and Thought, ed. G. L. W. Johnson [Presbyterian and Reformed, 2007], 217-218)
Then come the comparisons, but only after establishing one last time that Briggs exemplified an "overt rejection of the Old Princeton understanding of inerrancy." The implication is that anyone who is critical of Old Princeton in almost any way is by default "following" Briggs! Not only that, but since Briggs adopted so many different strategies during the course of his protracted dispute with Old Princeton and other inerrantists, it may not be the case that anyone differing with Old Princeton today will be able to come up with an original criticism. What's more, no thought is given by Johnson to the possibility that one or more of the specific criticisms against Old Princeton's inerrancy position might actually be right. One of the main objectives of his essay is to suggest that since Briggs voiced these several concerns so vociferously, anyone after Briggs who expresses any of the same concerns regarding inerrancy (or any other doctrine for that matter) can be said to be "following" Briggs.
To the extent that this explication is the one Johnson intends, I protest that I don't find this line of reasoning either compelling or helpful. It seems to me more of a rhetorical magic wand in the making, one that conveniently causes any contemporary anti-inerrantist --badda-bing-badda-boom-- to harmlessly be assimilated into inerrantist categories by the mere waving of a hand. All critics of inerrancy morph right into a modern day Briggs. Once the critic is successfully assimilated by the inerrantist, the response is predictable: You are a Briggs; Warfield already dealt with you definitively at the turn of the last century. Without much interaction and almost less work, the said assimilation translates contemporary challenges to inerrancy into tamer and more familiar terms for the inerrantist comprehend.
I should say that it would not bother me if anyone called me a follower of Briggs (Johnson already has), any more than if people called me a follower of Nietzsche, a follower of Aristotle, or a follower of Karl Marx. I do not consider myself any of these, but I am sure that among these posts on my site people could find ideas or trains of thought that these thinkers (and many others besides) have thought before me. So if I am a follower of so many varied thinkers, then that raises the question of what it takes to be a follower and whether the criteria employed by Johnson are practical and reasonable. For Johnson wants to make clear that it does not matter whether a critic has read Briggs or even heard of him; Johnson can still say that the critics are influenced by Briggs if he wants to.
Ok, so let's take for an example, as Johnson points out, how Briggs once wrote, "The antitheses of the sixteenth century are to a great extent antitheses of one-sidedness, which the modern world has outgrown. The world has moved since then. The world has learned many things. We have new views of God's universe. We have new scientific methods. We have an entirely different psychology and philosophy...All along the line of life, institution, dogma, morals new situations are emerging, new questions pressing for solution; the perspective is changed, the lights and shadows are differently distributed. We are in a state of enormous trasition, changes are taking place whose results it is impossible to foretell--reconstruction is in progress on the grandest scale..." (cited on 217)
Quantum physics, the Big Bang, general relativity, DNA, Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple Judaism, the fundamentalist/modernist controversies, the rise of postmodernism, developments in philosophy of science-- all cultural developments that happened after Briggs-- insofar as they are cultural developments at all will still put me in line with Briggs simply because I am a critic of inerrancy and there are similarities in argument. It would not serve me, in Johnson's view, to argue that the nature of these advances in knowledge since the time of Briggs are of such magnitude that when I say something similar to Briggs (without having read any of Briggs' writings!) I might actually be saying something qualitatively different. But I would still "following" Briggs so long as I am saying something similar to him with respect to my criticism of inerrancy.
Analogously, Grenz and Franke are "mak[ing] a very Briggs-like shift by following the lead of Schleiermacher in positing three sources or norms for theology: Scripture, tradition and culture." In fact, Stanley Grenz, Andrew Sandlin, John Armstrong, Peter Enns, C. Peter Wagner, Jack Deere, William DeArteaga, John Ruthven and many others can all be connected to Briggs. How? In short, because each of these have argued against Warfield either directly or by association on some point or other and, by arguing against Warfield, these varied Christian writers inevitably take on different semblances to Johnson's Warfield-nemesis, Charles Augustus Briggs.
I do not find Johnson's catch-all "Briggs" category to be very helpful. According to Johnson, Briggs was 1) critical of inerrancy, 2) critical of Reformed "scholasticism," 3) critical of a theology that emphasizes propositional truth, 4) critical of traditional Reformed understandings of justification, 5) critical of the way conservative Reformed circles privilege their specific creeds, 6) critical of others who do not seem to want developments in scholarship to inform one's theology, 7) critical of denominationalism and there are a few other areas of criticism mentioned. Now when a contemporary thinker is critical in one or more of these ways, he is said to be basking in Briggs' legacy. This way of defining the matter seems to me to confuse more than it clarifies and it seems to me an over-simplification at best.
Let us say I argue for a theological legacy, "Italian Sub," and enumerate seven identifying markers: 1) cappicola, 2) ham, 3) provolone, 4) lettuce, 5) tomato, 6) oregano/salt/pepper, 7) oil and vinegar. I then point out that the overall motivation for the Italian sub is to get eaten. What I see Johnson doing is pointing to a sub with turkey, roastbeef, provolone, lettuce and mayo, and emphasizing how this sub, too, was made to be eaten, and then reminding readers how both the progenitor Italian sub and this new contemporary sub both have provolone and lettuce. Thus we must conclude that they are both Italian subs, and since it is not the Italian sub that "stands fully in the Reformed tradition that traces itself back through the Westminster divines to the Protestant Reformers," the contemporary upstart surely cannot either. Thus at least two goals are easily and simultaneously accomplished: a) the inerrantists are reassured that the critics in question are not within the fold (on account of their association with Briggs); and b) the inerrantists are not obligated to engage the contemporary criticism as a new and potentially legitimate criticism but are rather encouraged to invoke Warfield and passively defer to his engagement with the errantists of his time (namely Briggs). Yet these appear to be rhetorical gains on Johnson's part, not theological or otherwise theoretical.
[That said, I can see how the Briggs-construct might help historical theologians identify past controversies with similitudes to current discussions about inerrancy in order to help them gain an initial understanding of what theological issues might ultimately be at stake. But I think Johnson is going further and trying to dismiss a whole swath of contemporary writers in one fell swoop.]
Now let's grant that the provolone and lettuce might be such significant theological criteria that the mere presence of either or both of these would be a paramount indication of this or that theological tendency. Then even here, it seems to me that the categories of interest would not be "Italian sub" or even "wanting to get eaten," but rather the "lettuce" and "provolone" individually, considered as a duo and also by themselves. In other words, I think Johnson is illegitimately leveling the conservative theological playing field, one with an uncomfortably unwieldy and variegated topography. In order to facilitate the grouping of an increasingly wide range of conservative writers into two distinct black-and-white categories (Briggs/Warfield), he's foreswearing not only provolone and lettuce, but subs of any kind-- except, of course, that one favorite sandwich that Johnson likes so much!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Gospels do not need to be historically reliable
I was very happy to read about the connection between having historically reliable gospels and defending the resurrection in the "Preface to the Third Edition" of William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith. Craig explains:
"Keeping the book at approximately the same length was made possible by the deletion of the chapter on the historical reliability of the New Testament, a chapter which a former editor had insisted, depite my protestations, be inserted into the second edition. The inclusion of this chapter (itself a solid piece of work written at my invitation by Craig Blomberg) perpetuated the misimpression, all too common among evangelicals, that a historical case for Jesus' radical self-understanding and resurrection depends on showing that the Gospels are generally reliable historical documents. The overriding lesson of two centuries of biblical criticism is that such an assumption is false. Even documents which are generally unreliable may contain valuable historical nuggets, and it will be the historian's task to mine these documents in order to discover them. The Christian apologist seeking to establish, for example, the historicity of Jesus' empty tomb need not and should not be saddled with the task of first showing that the Gospels are, in general, historically reliable documents." (11)
Preach it!
"Keeping the book at approximately the same length was made possible by the deletion of the chapter on the historical reliability of the New Testament, a chapter which a former editor had insisted, depite my protestations, be inserted into the second edition. The inclusion of this chapter (itself a solid piece of work written at my invitation by Craig Blomberg) perpetuated the misimpression, all too common among evangelicals, that a historical case for Jesus' radical self-understanding and resurrection depends on showing that the Gospels are generally reliable historical documents. The overriding lesson of two centuries of biblical criticism is that such an assumption is false. Even documents which are generally unreliable may contain valuable historical nuggets, and it will be the historian's task to mine these documents in order to discover them. The Christian apologist seeking to establish, for example, the historicity of Jesus' empty tomb need not and should not be saddled with the task of first showing that the Gospels are, in general, historically reliable documents." (11)
Preach it!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Ancient, pre-Christian tablet a prophecy of Christ?
Assume for a moment that the tablet is real (see last post), what would this mean for the faith? Can the faith handle such a discovery? Can the faith accommodate the facts?
At First Things, Mary Rose Rybak writes, "Wow! Could this be prophesy of Christ’s resurrection? Could this be monumental, reinforcing evidence of Christian theology?" She then cites Knohl's interpretation of the tablet: "This should shake our basic view of Christianity. . . . Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story."
"That’s certainly an interesting interpretation," Rybak remarks. "But I’m not as convinced as Knohl that these findings rule out the possibility that the New Testament was not adopted but rather fulfilled by Jesus and his followers."
Knohl's interpretation may not rule out the prophesy possibility, but does such a possibility really need to be ruled out? I for one have been giving some serious thought as to how one might incorporate this finding (if it proves genuine) into their faith; I am mildly concerned about this finding. But claiming that this tablet was an anonymous prophesy that Christ happened to fulfill seems to me to be a perfect example of grasping at miraculous straws.
Have I succumbed to methodological naturalism? Perhaps. I have to be honest and say, though, that if I have to choose between Knohl's interpretation and Rybak's, Knohl's wins hands down. I'm very reluctant to begin claiming that there is some extra-biblical prophesy contained on an anonymous tablet that Jesus' death and resurrection happened to fulfill. This seems to me a case where a believer is all too ready to invoke a miracle to help save the faith: it sounds very much like special pleading to me. I know I would certainly raise my eyebrows if persons from other faiths (or denominations) resorted to this kind of strategy.
I much rather prefer an interpretation that says something like: "There is evidence for a specific interpretive tradition that was current during 1st cent BCE Judaism that Jesus and his followers may have received and then in turn promulgated." Does such an interpretation have negative implications for the faith, in terms of destroying the credibility of Christ's resurrection? Possibly, but I don't see why it necessarily would.
I think that Christians could always say something like: "The interpretive tradition that got it right--with regard to interpreting extant OT (and perhaps other extra-biblical) passages in terms of trying to discern the fate of the Messiah--is the one represented here on this tablet." This makes Christianity a very historical religion indeed, almost more historical than I'm comfortable dealing with. It's not a road so easily travelled. I can well understand why so many prefer to stay with their pie-in-the-sky theologies. The historical-critical alternative is so unsafe, so precarious, and ultimately out of one's hands.
I myself am hoping that Ridderbos (and others) is right (see two posts below) when he counsels, "[W]e can overcome the fear that we may be on a dangerous pathway if we view the ways of the Spirit in recording the word of God more historically, more critically, as more shaded, than along the way of an exclusively dogmatic reasoning.” I will confess: Christianity is not what I thought it was when I first believed, but like it or not, this seems to me the faith that God has decided to give. Thanks be to God.
At First Things, Mary Rose Rybak writes, "Wow! Could this be prophesy of Christ’s resurrection? Could this be monumental, reinforcing evidence of Christian theology?" She then cites Knohl's interpretation of the tablet: "This should shake our basic view of Christianity. . . . Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story."
"That’s certainly an interesting interpretation," Rybak remarks. "But I’m not as convinced as Knohl that these findings rule out the possibility that the New Testament was not adopted but rather fulfilled by Jesus and his followers."
Knohl's interpretation may not rule out the prophesy possibility, but does such a possibility really need to be ruled out? I for one have been giving some serious thought as to how one might incorporate this finding (if it proves genuine) into their faith; I am mildly concerned about this finding. But claiming that this tablet was an anonymous prophesy that Christ happened to fulfill seems to me to be a perfect example of grasping at miraculous straws.
Have I succumbed to methodological naturalism? Perhaps. I have to be honest and say, though, that if I have to choose between Knohl's interpretation and Rybak's, Knohl's wins hands down. I'm very reluctant to begin claiming that there is some extra-biblical prophesy contained on an anonymous tablet that Jesus' death and resurrection happened to fulfill. This seems to me a case where a believer is all too ready to invoke a miracle to help save the faith: it sounds very much like special pleading to me. I know I would certainly raise my eyebrows if persons from other faiths (or denominations) resorted to this kind of strategy.
I much rather prefer an interpretation that says something like: "There is evidence for a specific interpretive tradition that was current during 1st cent BCE Judaism that Jesus and his followers may have received and then in turn promulgated." Does such an interpretation have negative implications for the faith, in terms of destroying the credibility of Christ's resurrection? Possibly, but I don't see why it necessarily would.
I think that Christians could always say something like: "The interpretive tradition that got it right--with regard to interpreting extant OT (and perhaps other extra-biblical) passages in terms of trying to discern the fate of the Messiah--is the one represented here on this tablet." This makes Christianity a very historical religion indeed, almost more historical than I'm comfortable dealing with. It's not a road so easily travelled. I can well understand why so many prefer to stay with their pie-in-the-sky theologies. The historical-critical alternative is so unsafe, so precarious, and ultimately out of one's hands.
I myself am hoping that Ridderbos (and others) is right (see two posts below) when he counsels, "[W]e can overcome the fear that we may be on a dangerous pathway if we view the ways of the Spirit in recording the word of God more historically, more critically, as more shaded, than along the way of an exclusively dogmatic reasoning.” I will confess: Christianity is not what I thought it was when I first believed, but like it or not, this seems to me the faith that God has decided to give. Thanks be to God.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
1st cent BCE tablet: Messiah to rise in three days!
So now as if to help us out with current discussions regarding how much extra-biblical data should inform our doctrine of scripture, there has been a discovery (or at least just now publicized) of a tablet that contains 87 lines in Hebrew that speaks of a Messiah-figure who will rise from the dead in three days:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Ada Yardeni calls it "a Dead Sea Scroll on stone."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Ada Yardeni calls it "a Dead Sea Scroll on stone."
Ridderbos on extra-biblical data and authority
Enns is in good conservative Reformed company in what he's doing in Inspiration and Incarnation, following Herman Ridderbos, for example:
“From the standpoint of faith, the nature of the Scripture and its authority can surely be more sharply, clearly, and precisely distinguished when we see the Bible against the background and in the light of the time in which it was written. Then we come to see on the one hand the incomparable otherness of Scripture, and on the other that which is bound up with and limited to the time.”
“…[R]emember that just those who have occasion to come to a more historical approach to the Bible and its authority will be able along the way to understand the unique and incomparable significance of Scripture. The world of the ancient Near East is being increasingly opened to us. We are discovering very ancient ‘literature’ in which the religious feelings of people who were contemporaries of the biblical writers are expressed. There is increasing Jewish background through the Talmud and through insights into the radical movements in the Judaism of Jesus’ time through the discover of the Qumran writings…All of this teaches us more strongly than ever to be mindful of the relationship between Scripture and the world out of which it arose..there is nothing that more clearly brings to the light the unique character of the Scriptures than the qualitiatve comparison between that which here and that which there steps out to meet us…
…in light of *this* authority authority, we can overcome the fear that we may be on a dangerous pathway if we view the ways of the Spirit in recording the word of God more historically, more critically, as more shaded, than along the way of an exclusively dogmatic reasoning.”
(Ridderbos, Studies in Scripture and Its Authority, 10, 35, 36)
Generally speaking, it seems to me that the Old Princeton concordist attitude toward biblical studies promotes this kind of approach to discerning what type of authority we should say that scripture actually has.
“From the standpoint of faith, the nature of the Scripture and its authority can surely be more sharply, clearly, and precisely distinguished when we see the Bible against the background and in the light of the time in which it was written. Then we come to see on the one hand the incomparable otherness of Scripture, and on the other that which is bound up with and limited to the time.”
“…[R]emember that just those who have occasion to come to a more historical approach to the Bible and its authority will be able along the way to understand the unique and incomparable significance of Scripture. The world of the ancient Near East is being increasingly opened to us. We are discovering very ancient ‘literature’ in which the religious feelings of people who were contemporaries of the biblical writers are expressed. There is increasing Jewish background through the Talmud and through insights into the radical movements in the Judaism of Jesus’ time through the discover of the Qumran writings…All of this teaches us more strongly than ever to be mindful of the relationship between Scripture and the world out of which it arose..there is nothing that more clearly brings to the light the unique character of the Scriptures than the qualitiatve comparison between that which here and that which there steps out to meet us…
…in light of *this* authority authority, we can overcome the fear that we may be on a dangerous pathway if we view the ways of the Spirit in recording the word of God more historically, more critically, as more shaded, than along the way of an exclusively dogmatic reasoning.”
(Ridderbos, Studies in Scripture and Its Authority, 10, 35, 36)
Generally speaking, it seems to me that the Old Princeton concordist attitude toward biblical studies promotes this kind of approach to discerning what type of authority we should say that scripture actually has.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
On the passing of an age
If we are permitted to juxtapose the remarks of Jeffrey Stout regarding an exchange between William Alston and Frederick Will over foundationalism onto current exchanges involving those evangelicals who want to keep "inerrancy" but qualify its meaning and those evangelicals who think it's time to jettison the dogma, one can surmise that the exchanges themselves admit the passing of an age:
"Alston executes what Bloom would call a tessera, by so reading the precursor's work as to retain its terms but to mean them in another sense, 'as though the precursor had failed to go far enough.'...Minimal foundationalism is more like Tillichian theology: the former is to the philosophy of Descartes what the latter is to the Christianity of Aquinas. Both try so hard to say something unobjectionable that they become indistinguishable from their opponents. Both use traditional vocabulary now emptied of content. Both practice conversation by redefinition. Both signal the passing of an age." (The Flight from Authority, [University of Notre Dame Press, 1981], 35-36.)
"Alston executes what Bloom would call a tessera, by so reading the precursor's work as to retain its terms but to mean them in another sense, 'as though the precursor had failed to go far enough.'...Minimal foundationalism is more like Tillichian theology: the former is to the philosophy of Descartes what the latter is to the Christianity of Aquinas. Both try so hard to say something unobjectionable that they become indistinguishable from their opponents. Both use traditional vocabulary now emptied of content. Both practice conversation by redefinition. Both signal the passing of an age." (The Flight from Authority, [University of Notre Dame Press, 1981], 35-36.)
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