“Why don’t you Christians read some modern biblical scholarship,” asked KiwiAthiest, a commenter on the Being Frank blog.
This is my response.
First, I’ll freely admit that I’m a late comer to modern biblical scholarship. I was put off by the methodologies practiced by the Jesus Seminar people, and it took me a while to realise that they were fringe practitioners.
The field of modern biblical scholarship is diverse, and, like any other field of scholarship, has its radicals, its conservatives, those who are currently in the academic sun and those who are striking out new directions. Biblical scholarship:
asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources were used in its composition and the message it was intended to convey.
It also addresses the physical text, including the meaning of the words and the way in which they are used, its preservation, history and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a wide range of scholarly disciplines including archeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, oral tradition studies, and historical and religious studies. (Wikipedia)
With all this in mind, biblical scholars have a great deal to offer us.
However, even leaving aside the fact that they don’t agree with one another (see below for the heretical scholars), there is also much in what they say that is irrelevant to believing Christians.
(Added for clarity’s sake:) If you believe, as I do, that the Church was guided by the Holy Spirit to select for the New Testament the books that the Holy Spirit wanted in there, then who wrote them and when is beside the point. The miracle is that the Holy Spirit used fallible, venial people as scribes for the teachings that the Church would need down through the ages. The more fallible and venial they are shown to be, the greater the miracle.
But, in any case, I don’t accept that biblical scholars have proved their case regarding provenance, misattribution and so on, because I question on of their base assumptions.
This assumption is a late dating for the books of the New Testament – that is, the idea that the books were largely written after all the eyewitnesses were dead. Below, I give five reasons for believing that the majority opinion on this is wrong.
If it’s a miracle it didn’t happen
Modern biblical scholars start with the presupposition that anything in the Bible that deals with the divine or with miracles is untrue. Science does not deal in miracles, and so neither do biblical scholars.
This leads to consequences that may seem logical to biblical scholars, but which – to my mind – make their findings useless.
For example, the dates given for when books in the Bible were written have been argued about for 150 years. The generally accepted range of dates relies on textual criticism, philological and linguistic evidence, as well as direct references to historical events in the texts. For each book in the New Testament, the range of dates supported by one or another group of scholars is around twenty to thirty years, with the earliest date of the first being 30AD, and the latest date of the last around 130AD. The majority opinion is that all of the books were written between 50AD and 100AD.
One of the criteria is the simplicity of the material. This isn’t to do with the text. The assumption is that the supernatural stories came first, and that later texts were more intellectual and philosophical. Isn’t it possible that the differences relate to the personalities of the writers and what they wanted to say to their audiences? When you consider that the texts were all written within 100 years at the outside, isn’t this a more reasonable explanation?
Another criteria is an assumption that references to prophecies must have been written after the prophecy was fulfilled. Thus, when Jesus says that the Temple will be destroyed, many scholars assume this prophecy was written after the destruction of the Temple.
Now this makes sense if you don’t believe in prophecy. But if you do, then this methodology makes no sense.
Of course, any shonkiness in these two criteria invalidates all other findings based on an assumption that most of the books were written after the first generation of Christians died.
“What otherwise might seem to be a direct proclamation of the divine, can only be myth. It is with this basic conviction that Bultmann, with the majority of modern exegetes (biblical interpreters), read the Bible. He is certain that it cannot be the way it is depicted in the Bible, and he looks for methods to prove the way it really had to be. To that extent, there lies in modern exegesis a reduction of history into philosophy, a revision of history by means of philosophy. . . .” (Pope Benedict XVI)
Other niggling irritations
As a writer, I’ve never much enjoyed watching scholars deconstruct literature in search of meaning; those writers who are alive to suffer the experience almost universally denounce the results of such analysis. CS Lewis pointed out his own experience – that every single analysis of his intent and meaning had been (as far as he remembered) 100% wrong.
Consider with what overwhelming advantages the mere reviewers start. They reconstruct the history of a book written by someone whose mother-tongue is the same as theirs; a contemporary, educated like themselves, living in something like the same mental and spiritual climate. They have everything to help them.
The superiority in judgment and diligence which you are going to attribute to the Biblical critics will have to be almost superhuman if it is to offset the fact that they are everywhere faced with customs, language, race-characteristics, class-characteristics, a religious background, habits of composition, and basic assumptions, which no scholarship will ever enable any man now alive to know as surely and intimately and instinctively as the reviewer can know mine.
And for the very same reason, remember, the Biblical critics, whatever reconstructions they devise, can never be crudely proved wrong. St. Mark is dead. When they meet St. Peter, there will be more pressing matters to discuss. (CS Lewis)
Scholastic heretics
My esteemed opponent informed me that the only voices raised against the general consensus of modern biblical scholarship were those of fundamentalist Christian scholars.
Not quite so. Item one: manuscript evidence .
“Some 25 years ago, Fr. Jose O’Callaghan, S.J. identified a papyrus written in Greek which was found in the cave Number 7 in Qumran, the “7Q5,” as being a fragment of St. Mark’s Gospel (6:52-53) and another papyrus from the same cave as being a fragment of 1 Timothy (1 Tim. 4:1b). Nobody supporting the late dating has ever credibly questioned the fact that these caves were closed in 68 A.D., dating therefore their content from earlier than this date.” (Marie Christine Ceruti Cendrier)
Item two: evidence from philology.
Fr. Jean Carmignac, one of the greatest experts in biblical studies in the world, and recognised as foremost in the knowledge of the Qumran Hebrew set out a number of years ago to translate the New Testament synoptic Gospels from Greek back into the Old Hebrew of the Qumran texts. To his amazement he found they slipped easily back into Hebrew – and made more sense that way. Sentences that sounded awkward in Greek were natural in Hebrew. Puns suddenly appeared in the texts.
Claude Tresmontant, lecturer for the Institut de France who taught for a long time in the Sorbonne University did the same for all four Gospels, and made the same discovery. Between them, they provided hundreds of proofs that all four Gospels were first written in Hebrew – a language that was useless or even dangerous after the destruction of the Temple in 70AD.
Item three: evidence from archaeology.
There are many, many examples, but I’ll content myself with one:
In John 5:1-15 Jesus heals a man at the Pool of Bethesda. John describes the pool as having five porticoes. This site had long been in dispute until recently. Forty feet underground, archaeologists discovered a pool with five porticoes, and the description of the surrounding area matches John’s description.
Is it likely that someone writing thirty to sixty years after the destruction of Jerusalem would have remembered the detail of the five porticos?
If you hunt for it, you’ll find quite a bit of this kind of material.
The Jesus Seminar
The Jesus Seminar suffers from the same issues as I’ve discussed above – with an added wriggle.
They vote on any contentious issues and decide the matter by democratic majority vote.
That’s right. They think democratic voting is a way of arriving at scientific truth. This from their website:
Debate on any item is closed by a ballot to test the degree of group consensus about the relative value of that item as historical evidence. The weighted average of the votes determines what items are accepted as the Seminar’s data base of verifiable information about Jesus himself.
Thanks for a neat, clear and concise response.. I love the banner!
Modern biblical scholars start with the presupposition that anything in the Bible that deals with the divine or with miracles is untrue.
They do ?
Some do but there are many excellent modern Catholic biblical scholars who make no such presupposition.
Are you just standing outside and looking in, judging the lot?
http://www.beingfrank.co.nz/?p=3224
God Bless
Chris, I think your ‘some do’ understates the case. As far as I can see, the field is dominated by those who hold the views I’m talking about – some of them Catholic, many of them not. I concede that there are excellent scholars (Catholic, yes, and also Protestant and Jewish) who do not. I didn’t tease that point out because it wasn’t the focus of my post.
I was focused on why the dominant view – the one heard and pushed by KiwiAthiest, JJR and Fishe – is both irrelevant to me and not as well founded as its adherents would like to believe.
JP,
Interesting article, but unusually for you, thin (and selective) on fact (I feel).
For a start, you seem to be assuming that Biblical Scholars are coming at it from a mainly literary perspective. This is only one of the many different tests that a modern historian uses in their search for truth. You also state that
“… Modern biblical scholars start with the presupposition that anything in the Bible that deals with the divine or with miracles is untrue. Science does not deal in miracles, and so neither do biblical scholars.”
I’m afraid that you’re just flat out wrong on this one. All the biblical historians I’ve read are quite happy to accept that miracles MAY happen, but as I said back on BF, the miraculous explanation must always, by virtue of the fact that a miracle by its very nature suspends the laws of the universe, be the least likely explanation. Therefore, ANY explanation, no matter how seemingly nonsensical MUST be more likely than a miracle.
You have also dismissed at a stroke, the high Christology of the book of John and the well known and proven misattributed, homonymous and pseudepigraphic nature of many books in the NT.
KA
KA, I will get back to you – family event 3 hours drive away taking priority
I’d like to reply to the issues KA raised with the above post:
“For a start, you seem to be assuming that Biblical Scholars are coming at it from a mainly literary perspective. ”
You’re right that I focus in the first part of my article on textual criticism – although I acknowledge the broader sweep in my definition. But if the dates generally given for the documents are wrong, then they’re studying the wrong context.
“I’m afraid you’re just flat out wrong on this one. All the biblical historians I’ve read are quite happy to accept that miracles MAY happen…”
This claim of KA’s about miracles is worth another post to explain the evidence on which I take a completely different view about the likelihood of miracles. I’ll content myself with two points.
First, I’ve amended the post above to include the major miracle of the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Second, the “belief in the divine and miracles” KA and Chris both claim for modern scholars is in many cases self-evidently the JF Kennedy variety; it isn’t allowed to affect their day job. They “remove their personal theology from the picture” as one scholar puts it.
Now I’m not criticising this position – I’m not in their shoes; I don’t have to get published or secure tenure. But I am saying that ignoring the role of the Holy Spirit in the development of the New Testament (let alone the miracles in the New Testament itself) makes what such scholars produce interesting but not relevant.
“You have also dismissed at a stroke, the high Christology of the book of John and the well known and proven misattributed, homonymous and pseudepigraphic nature of many books in the NT.”
Yes. Exactly. I’m both challenging ‘well known and proven’ and saying that the theories are not relevant.
So what do I mean by relevant? Relevant means useful for proving (or disproving) that the Bible is the Word of God.
Biblical scholarship – of both the traditional and the modern kind – offers us superb tools for understanding how to read different books and sections in the Bible. They complement one another. But neither proves or disproves anything. Both start with assumptions.
My post was an attempt to list some reasons why I reject the assumptions of modern biblical scholarship.
Why I believe that the Bible is the Word of God is another post altogether.
JP,
The Bible is not the word of God, the Bible is the word of man. The canon is absolutely the work of man and any attempt to suggest otherwise is disingenuous. How much have you studied the history of early Christianity? If you have, you’ll know that decisions were made based often on the thoughts of only one man (and it was only men). If a certain Bishop thought a certain work was heretical, it was out.
Also, the infighting between the different early groups of Christians is nothing short of ignoble. From the records we know that many groups of Christians were present in the first, second and third centuries, but around the fourth century they started to die out, leaving only the present Catholic orthodoxy (which has been changed, by man, almost beyond recognition since its inception).
Now with your unthinking and unswerving faith I don’t expect you to accept any of this, but I felt I had to say it anyway, for the record.
KA
Joyful -Papist I enjoyed your post about modern biblical scholarship a great deal, it is an area of great interest to me. I saw you said the following in one of the comment sections:
“I was focused on why the dominant view – the one heard and pushed by KiwiAthiest, JJS and Fishe – is both irrelevant to me and not as well founded as its adherents would like to believe.”
I thought it would be worthwhile to share my thoughts on the issue, I suspect there are more differences between KA and I than is apparent when we post on Being Frank.
A quick note on the Jesus Seminar: you and I are in agreement, with one caveat. Fine scholars such as John Dominic Crossan have been associated with the Seminar, although his important scholarship is utterly independent of it. Conservative scholar and Bishop of Durham N.T Wright for example strongly criticizes the Seminar but has the utmost respect for the work Crossan has done, including his books The Historical Jesus: the life of a Mediterranean Jewish peasant, and The Birth of Christianity. Needless to say they disagree with each other strongly, but within the context of serious scholarship and mutual respect. Of the procedures and conclusions of the Seminar itself I will say nothing.
I begin with miracles and textual criticism. C.S. Lewis wisely warned us against the modern scholar who will consider any possibility other than that an ancient author may be telling us the truth. We must take ancient authors seriously, and miracles must be taken seriously as well. My approach is most emphatically NOT that of KA:
All the biblical historians I’ve read are quite happy to accept that miracles MAY happen, but as I said back on BF, the miraculous explanation must always, by virtue of the fact that a miracle by its very nature suspends the laws of the universe, be the least likely explanation. Therefore, ANY explanation, no matter how seemingly nonsensical MUST be more likely than a miracle.
Such an approach renders a serious engagement with the texts impossible.
Modern scholarship, modern readers, and the original audience
Regarding dates, the gospels are products of the first century Eastern Mediterranean, within those parameters put them early or late as you please.
The most important contribution scholarship can make to our reading of the New Testament is to help us understand progressively more about how these texts were understood by their first audience. In this respect we enjoy an advantage over (among others) the nineteenth century rationalists. Developments in Social Anthropology, Archaeology, Mediterranean history, and the study of ancient literature allow us to put the first century context of the gospels in higher resolution than ever before. For example Renan in the nineteenth century imagined Jesus living in an idyllic pastoral landscape. Well no, excavations since the Second World War have revealed that the Galilee was highly urbanized, densely populated, and contained extremes of wealth and poverty. Another important advance has been a wealth of scholarship on first century Judaism, its common focus on the temple, and its diversity.
An example of the difference between an ancient and modern reading of a Gospel story can be found in the story of the virgin birth. (For these purposes no judgment is needed as to its historicity). The modern Christian and the modern atheist tend to read the story of the virgin birth as a claim about an exceptional occurrence. So the Christian says there was a virgin birth once in history, the atheist says never. To a modern reader a narrative telling of a virgin birth is striking in and of itself. But this dichotomy between happened once / happened never is entirely foreign to someone from the first century Mediterranean. An early reader of Luke or Matthew is very familiar with the virgin birth as a mark of divinity. By the mid-first century the claim that Augustus had been conceived not by a man but by Apollo was a well established part of cult belief. A first century reader wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a virgin birth, but the ascription of a virgin birth to an executed Jewish peasant would be profoundly shocking. As Crossan puts it, here is a writer who sees God not in the deified Augustus; and not in the temple in Jerusalem, but in a peasant nobody, what manner of God is this? This example brings out a couple of points, firstly we should take the Gospel writers seriously; what are they trying to say? And secondly, much modern discussion along the line of ‘this can’t happen’, ‘this happened once’ are beside the point and foreign to the thinking of the evangelists. J. Papist I make no judgment in this context about the virgin birth as an historical fact (or our old friend the assumption 🙂 ), but it’s possible to read Luke and take the virgin birth literally and yet not see it’s significance.
Miracles
Could Jonah have survived in the belly of the whale? Yes, if God willed it to be so, but why would God do such a thing when he could give us the book of Jonah?
That rather brilliant response to a sneering rationalist was from a Catholic priest.
Modern Biblical scholarship does not begin with the prior assumption that miracles can’t happen. However modern biblical scholarship must treat claims of miracles with methodological consistency. Today a far greater proportion of extant texts from the ancient Eastern Mediterranean have been edited and published than were available to previous generations. This deepens our understanding of the Gospels. We find a literature and a society soaked in miracles, ranging from the profound and significant, to petty stories about magic. The reading audience in the first century had very different expectations from a modern or even mediaeval reader. This brings us to the crucial point from the previous section. Remember the question of the disciples in Mark “who is this man that even the wind and waves obey him?” Think of the relationship between Mark and his first readers, ‘here are miracles, I’m used to that, but what are they pointing to?’ ‘read on, I’ll tell you’.
We do the gospels a great disservice if we imagine the evangelists saying, ‘once and only once in history miracles occurred’.
Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is, some think he is John the Baptist raised from the dead. In the thought world of the first century this was an interpretive option, one among several. That anecdote embedded in the gospel is a reminder that we are dealing with a society that interprets events very differently from our own.
A last observation, someone who knows the stories told in Kings (as first century Jews did) can see the connection being drawn in the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. Someone who doesn’t (as many modern Christians don’t) will miss the point, whether they ‘believe’ the story or not.
Ummm subject headings, paragraph breaks, and quote marks all vanished when my post came up… sorry if it is now hard to follow!!
Thanks for a very thoughtful and thorough response JJS.
As I said at the beginning of the my post, I think modern biblical scholarship has a lot to offer us, and you have illustrated this beautifully.
Regarding miracles – watch for my post on this.
“Now I’m not criticising this position – I’m not in their shoes; I don’t have to get published or secure tenure. But I am saying that ignoring the role of the Holy Spirit in the development of the New Testament (let alone the miracles in the New Testament itself) makes what such scholars produce interesting but not relevant.”
## There is a reason for this “ignoring the role of the Holy Spirit”, though – the Holy Spirit is not *methodologically* relevant. It is good scholarship & good theology to study the texts *as though& they were *merely* human – because God, unlike Hebrew grammar, or Greek vocabulary, is not an object of study: the theologies of the J-author and the P-author of Genesis 1-11 are objects of study, because they are not supernatural; God is not an object of study, precisely because He is supernatural.
The supernatural, and miracles, and the like, are not objects of study. When Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B in the 60s, he appealed to linguistic evidence, not to a vision of King Minos. Quite properly – because a vision, however convincing to an individual, is useless as empirically testable evidence: but in the decipherment of a script, Linear B or any other, historical evidence is important.
So with the Biblical texts: God, and faith in God, & miracles & so on, are not testable, or controllable; so what one person may say of them, cannot be tested by anyone else. If such things were *methodologically* relevant, only believers would be able to study the data of the Bible: but that would imply that one needs a religious faith to
understand a great many matters which can be studied perfectly adequately without it. One would also have to decide which God was to be believed in: does one need faith in Marduk to understand the Babylonian Creation Epic ? Of course not – but any idea that one can use faith in the Jewish God as a tool for study, comes close to saying that one needs faith in the Jewish God so as to understand the OT.
The last thing scholars should do, is subject the data of the Bible to their own religious convictions – this would be catastrophic, because their respective theologies would get in the way of their being able to see what the texts say and mean. The very thing you regret, is what enables them to do their work.
The notion that God has to be dragged into the study of the Bible is mistaken for another reason. If it were really so, why don’t Christian engineers, Christian midwives, Christian plumbers, Christian lawyers, Christian [insert job description]s also stop “ignoring the role of the Holy Spirit” ? Is God not as relevant to them, their work & lives, as to Biblical scholars ? The answer is, that He is present already – & the same is true for Biblical scholars. He is not dependent on us – that is to get things completely back to front. So the Biblical scholars do not need to involve God in their work.
Apologies for the length.
Kerberos, my post was a reaction to another discussion going on at the time, in which the claim was made that modern biblical scholarship proves that there is no God and no supernatural (hence the reference to ‘my esteemed opponent’. My response was outline why modern biblical scholarship has nothing to offer my faith. I did try to make clear that I think they have a great deal to offer in other ways. I then went on to give some arguments against my friend’s claim of universal agreement among biblical scholars.
So, yes, modern biblical scholarship has a great deal to offer – and is a proper tool to understand those great many matters you mention, which can be studied perfectly adequately without a religious faith.
But it talks nonsense when it embarks on an explanation of things outside of that scope – such as: who is the historic Jesus?
Claiming to give a definitive answer on that question (and others like it) is claiming to know that the supernatural elements in the Bible are, in fact, untrue – rather than that they are irrelevant for the purposes of the exercise. In a sense, our culture is at the other end of the spectrum from those who – seeing modern technology for the first time and judging it in the light of their own – assume that the cause must be magic:
Imagine that you are a member of a tribe of the remotest New Guinean highlands, one of the first generation to meet up with modern civilisation, and the first person of everyone known to you or your tribe to be taken out of your remote land. Imagine you spend several weeks in, say, Sydney. You are clever, articulate, and curious. You ask lots of questions and absorb the answers. And when you get back to your people you explain to them about metal boxes that carry people about the streets, and lights that go on at the touch of a switch, and other marvels. And you tell them that these are not wonders at all, but human technologies. And you explain about the internal combustion engine, and electricity. And they think you are stark raving mad and invent another set of explanations that fit the facts but require magic. In an environment and culture where people believe in magic and the supernatural, technology is hard to believe. Yet it is true, and any explanation that refuses to consider it as a truth is not going to make much progress.
Similarly, if – as I believe – God was incarnate on earth as Jesus, performed miracles, was raised from the dead, and continues to be active in the world, then an explanation of his life that ignores this or considers it to be a lie will not take us very far.
JP, Your story about the tribesman in Sydney is absolutely relevant to the issues regarding the whole ‘god’ thing. Let’s not forget that at the time of Jesus, the entire world knew very little of what we now take as fact; the status of the Earth amongst the planets and other celestial objects, is one such example.
‘Miracles’ of the type attributed to Jesus were also being attributed to other ‘mystics’ of the time, so if we are to call Jesus’s ‘miracles’ the work of a ‘god’, then the other ‘miracles’ of the mystics should also be so named.
Theists, in general, try to have their cake and eat it; they will posit the argument that their ‘man’ was a god and they have a convenient ‘god-shaped’ explanation for anything that doesn’t fit into our current understanding. Funnily enough, as science disproves the ‘god’ reason and replaces it with sound evidential and rational arguments, the theist will find an explanation for why it was thus beforehand and suggest that it was ‘god’ testing us or some-such other nonsense.
The biblical scholars of today are astute historians and linguists, examining the evidence as it is presented to us through the many texts that remain and in conjunction with archaeological evidence. Most of the texts have errors, sometimes significant, that go against the very argument that any supernatural power was involved in their creation. Surely, an all-powerful, omniscient god could at the very least get his story straight?
KA
I think we’ve already covered this ground, KA. I’m not suggesting that the miracles of the bible prove God – rather, I am saying that it’s silly to believe in the existence and the goodness of God, and his personal interest in us, and cavel over a few miracles.
I know a few ‘theists’ like the one you describe in the third paragraph. Catholics I know, and those I’ve read who have written on such matters over the last 1500 years, don’t see a conflict between science and religion, and think athiests and theists who do are equally wrong. But the whole paragraph is redolent of your favourite ‘god-of-the-gaps’ argument, and I don’t buy into your theory that most theists base their faith on any such discussion. Are you thinking of the young earth creationists, by any chancein your remark about testing – are you thinking of the young earth creationists, by any chance? Not sure what you are referring to, but if so, not guilty, your honour.
Fourth paragraph. Yes, and a million times, yes. Biblical scholars have a lot to offer us. The people who wrote, translated and copied the Bible weren’t God’s secretaries, taking down shorthand. They were human beings. And the texts have different messages for different generations. Ansd some of the significant ‘errors’ turn out on further study not to be errors at all. We are greatly blessed that God gave us tradition and the magisterium, as well as the Bible, to guide us in understanding what the stories are teaching in our generation.
“Modern biblical scholars start with the presupposition that anything in the Bible that deals with the divine or with miracles is untrue.
## Not true.
2 Science does not deal in miracles, and so neither do biblical scholars.”
## True – because the category of the miraculous allows anything to happen. It’s not *controllable*, in the way historical evidence is. Allow the miraculous as a valid part of the critical method, & there is no *rational* answer to the suggestion that Superman was called from 20th-century Metropolis to gather all the animals to the Ark from the four corners of the earth. The difficulty of Noah’s getting all those animals into into the Ark is solved, & the inerrancy of the text preserved.
Since Superman can travel back and forth in time, & can move at enormous speed, it is quibbling to deny that God may have acted in this way – for God can do all things.
That is how “conspiracy theory” history & Church history is written. If available evidence can be ignored, which is what bringing in miracles as explanations makes unavoidable, you get bad history
Kerberos, I – for one – am delighted with the work of modern biblical historians for what it can teach us about history and context. I’ve been a history buff all my life. What I object to in this post is biblical historians being used to teach us theology.