Faith & Intellectual Honesty

One of my reasons in writing on apologetics and critical Bible scholarship was to highlight how theological approaches to the text can sometimes be intellectually dishonest when they prize the maintenance of the belief system over an open-minded analysis of the evidence.

The conversation continues today with Scott Bailey’s review of a book that attempts to offer an answer for balancing a Christian approach to the text with an academically faithful one. According to Scott’s review, the book fails to offer anything meaningful to move the discussion forward.  Here’s a telling quote from Scott:

But the way they read (the “right” “Christian” and “biblical” way) the Bible is  a hindrance to the sort of rigorous academic investigation of biblical studies which is quite ironic in a book about academic faithfulness.

A short while later, James McGrath posted about having an introspective faith, being open to honestly considering one’s own traditions.  Here’s his opening paragraph:

The unexamined faith is not worth having. Religion has had many critics from without, and still does. But one characteristic feature of the Biblical tradition is that it is full of critics from within, those who examine their own tradition and challenge themselves first, and then their contemporaries, to rethink it and to live it differently.

So, I recommend Scott’s review for an example of thinking that’s holding back progress (the book’s, not Scott’s) and James’s post for an example of the kind of thinking that moves things forward.

Bizarre Bible Stories 2: Jdgs 19-21

As I noted in my earlier treatment of this subject, the Book of Judges is perhaps the best repository for bizarre stories from the Bible. The value of these stories in the biblical record is hard to grasp when taken at face value. At the very least, they scan as morally questionable; at worst, they appear to be completely at odds with the teachings of Torah. In the latter regard, they fit well with the rest of the Deuteronomic History, reflecting a disconnect between the Prophets and the Law already noted in the 19th century by Graf and Wellhausen.

Judges 19 and the story of the Levite and his concubine has always puzzled and fascinated me. The bizarre crime committed in Gibeah leads to civil war and the near-extinction of the tribe of Benjamin in Judges 20-21. Such a simple summary makes the narrative arc sound fairly tame, but these inter-connected stories take one bizarre turn after another as they draw the Book of Judges to a close.

Piquing the interest of the close reader even more are the frequent echoes of earlier narratives and the foreshadowings of what’s to come in 1 Samuel. For example, the story of the Levite and his concubine fits the general outline of the events leading up to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen 19. The ensuing battle in Jdgs 20 reflects a winning strategy reminiscent of Joshua’s conquest of Ai in Josh 8. Looking ahead, the calling of an assembly at Mizpah and the focus on Gibeah foreshadow the importance of those places in 1 Sam 10.

Let’s turn now to some of the bizarre details from Judges. First of all, we have a Levite from Ephraim traveling to Bethlehem to collect his concubine who returned to her father’s house after being unfaithful. If she’d been unfaithful, shouldn’t she have been put to death according to Lev 20:10?

When the Levite finally heads back to Ephraim with his concubine, he foregoes stopping at Jebus, a Canaanite city, in favor of spending the night at Gibeah, an Israelite city. Once there, he’s eventually taken in by an Ephraimite sojourning there. Then the events similar to Sodom unfold. The men of Gibeah surround the city and demand the Levite be given over to them so that they can get to “know” him. I don’t think they just wanted to chat over coffee since the old Ephraimite offers his virgin daughter and the concubine to them instead. As the mob got more unruly, the Levite pushed his concubine out to them where she was gang-raped and abused all night long.

In the morning, she lies dead on the threshold, but the Levite shows no regard for her, calling to her to get up so they can leave until apparently realizing she’s dead. He takes her body home and cuts her into twelve pieces, sending a piece to each tribe of Israel. How does that work to send the proper message? Something must have been sent along with the body part, but it’s not mentioned. How do the recipients know how she died? The text doesn’t even recount the Levite telling the old man that she was dead. For all they know, she died at the edge of his knife. Maybe the response recorded in Jdgs 19:30 was actually a reaction to the horror of getting a body part in the mail! (Of course, 1 Sam 11:7 makes that unlikely where Saul sends a similar message with pieces of cut up oxen. The difference is the verbal content of Saul’s message is preserved.)

The story of Israel’s war against Benjamin is not technically that bizarre.  The fact that 26,000 Benjaminites repelled attacks from 40,000 Israelites on two separate days is remarkable (though not quite to the caliber of the 300 Spartans). Of course, Israel eventually realizes they should just make use of their superior numbers (400,000) and a near-total victory ensues. All but 600 Benjaminites are killed.  This sets up the problem solved by the other bizarre details of this account.

The problem is that the tribes of Israel realize after the fact that exterminating one of their own tribes is a bad idea. But they have another problem because they all swore not to give their daughters to Benjamin as wives.  They find a bizarre solution to the problem.  Determining that Jabesh-Gilead didn’t send anyone to the summons at Mizpah, they sack the city and devote all to destruction except for 400 virgins found there. This solved the problem for all but 200 remaining Benjaminites who are instructed to kidnap wives for themselves when the daughters of Shiloh come out for an upcoming festival.

Perhaps this bizarre chain of events is meant to underscore the social and political chaos of pre-monarchic Israel. That this is likely the case is seen by the way the book ends with the well-known refrain: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Jdgs 21:25)

On the one hand, this appears to be looking favorably on the order brought by having a king. On the other hand, the story disparages Saul’s ancestry since it suggests he must have been descended from one of the 600 survivors of Benjamin, and it reflects badly on his hometown of Gibeah.

So what to make of this story? Did it really happen or is it just a reflection of the failure of Saul’s kingship? Makes for a good story – “Yeah, Saul didn’t really work out as a good king, but you know he had it rough, came from bad stock there in Gibeah. Did I ever tell you about the time . . .”

It seems like the end of Judges is setting us up for the later conflicts from the books of Samuel and Kings, but the formulaic nature of the stories (i.e., major plot points are reworked from other stories that are likely prior) suggests they are rather retrojecting later conflicts into the time of the judges.

A.D. Riddle offered an insightful comment on my earlier post that I think deserves the final word as a good statement of what is likely going on here.

These stories certainly make the case that things are not right, and they might be setting up the tension between David (of Bethlehem) and Saul (of Gibeah in Benjamin), and the later conflict between Judah and Ephraim as the Southern and Northern kingdoms.

There are many more bizarre narratives to explore, so the series may continue. (Perhaps Tod will favor us with a discussion of 2 Kings 2 for part 3.)

John & Acts: Life Application Bible Studies

Some time ago I received for review two of the Bible studies in Tyndale's Life Application Bible Studies series. Now I've finally had a chance to look at the one for Acts and the one on the Gospel of John enough to have a few things to say about them.

First of all, I should point out that they live up to their name as a study primarily devoted to application of the text to the life of the reader. In other words, they don't really fit with the academic approach that I usually take on this blog because the series is more theological and devotional.

In terms of format, the first half of the book contains the full NLT text of the biblical book with the articles and notes of the Life Application Study Bible. This is a nice feature because everyone doing the study (if you were to use it in say a Sunday School class or small group Bible study) can have the exact same text in front of them. It's also an affordable way to introduce people to the NLT.

The book introductions and the notes contain a basic but adequate coverage of issues that might come up when reading John or Acts. For more in-depth treatment of background issues, I recommend using them alongside the NLT Study Bible. I will say, however, that this study's application-oriented approach did enrich my understanding of a few verses by offering in the note a way of thinking about the verse that wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise.

The second half of the study consists of 13 Lessons. Each lesson is divided into 5 segments: Reflect on your life, Read the passage, Realize the principle, Respond to the message, and Resolve to take action. I found the questions difficult to answer, probably because I spend most of my time reading the Bible academically and answering a completely different set of questions about the text.  For a church group, however, they've proven to stimulate discussion and reflection in a positive way. I think that is, after all, the point of the series.

For that reason, I would recommend this series of Bible studies for anyone looking for a good application-oriented Bible study for a Sunday School or group Bible study. The questions and notes are widely accessible to most lay people and encourage them to talk about the Bible in thoughtful way.

Apologetics, Logic, and Critical Bible Scholarship

One of my professors tells an anecdote about a prominent evangelical Old Testament scholar's visit to our (secular) biblical studies program many years ago.

According to the tale, nearly the first words out of the scholar's mouth were "I'm trained as a lawyer and I'm here to defend the Bible." My professor recounts being taken aback and thinking, "But no one's attacking it here."

This story illustrates perfectly the unilateral war waged by some conservative scholars against the evil empire of "secular" and "liberal" critical Bible scholars. In other words, the conservative side defends and "refutes" the results of the "liberal" side which in turn mostly ignores the attack completely.

Ironically, there was a time when I wanted to be that guy from the story. I was interested in "proving" the Bible was history, and his articles and books were the pinnacle of biblical scholarship in my view. I once asked one of my Bible professors if I should pursue Apologetics as scholarly career, and he gently dissuaded me. At least I realized that what I was doing in arguing against the results of historical-critical Bible scholarship was Apologetics, not critical scholarship.

I've had a lot of time to reflect on some of the issues and arguments that I was passionate about back then, and I've detected a pattern in the kind of argument that conservatives typically marshal against theories like the Documentary Hypothesis, three-part authorship of Isaiah, or the date of the Exodus. The reason their "counter-attacks" are ignored by mainstream Bible scholars is that their logic starts with theology, not textual evidence. The argument goes something like this.

Starting Point:  Theological commitment to the literal accuracy of the text.

Step 1:  Harmonize all evidence that doesn't quite jive with the literal reading of the text.

Step 2:  People who reject the literal meaning of the text are heretics, liberals, and non-believers with an agenda to prove the Bible is false.  Demonize them.

Step 3:  Reject and refute their critical arguments about the text. If those arguments are wrong, then the literal reading must be right.

Result:  Vindication of the theological commitment to the literal accuracy of the text.

The problems with this chain of reasoning should be immediately apparent. First of all, it's circular.  Classic "begging-the-question."  If you already know the answer that must be reached, how can you objectively handle the evidence? 

Second, the "if they're wrong, then we must be right" argument does not prove anything. It's just playing the fallacy of the false dilemma. There are only two options so disproving one, proves the other.  Sorry....it doesn't.

Along with that, the uncertainty or flexibility inherent in critical arguments cannot serve as proof that their conclusions are invalid. The argument that if the source hypothesis for the Pentateuch was correct than all scholars would divide the sources exactly the same way is flawed in this way. The fact that so many scholars notice something about the text that leads them to make those divisions speaks to the fact that there's an issue there to explore. Differing on the details doesn't disqualify the question. Retreating to a literal or traditional answer is often simplistic, ignoring the depth and complexity of the biblical tradition.

Since apologetic logic starts with a theological commitment, the apologists assume that their opponents (critical Bible scholars) are similarly starting from a philosophical commitment and are motivated chiefly by a desire to prove the Bible is false. The argument is about belief first, evidence second. This is, in my view, an unfortunate caricature. I'm not saying that all Bible scholars are objective and uninfluenced by their world views. Indeed, a few seem like they are chiefly motivated by a desire to disprove the Bible. (I can think of one in particular.) But by and large, critical Bible scholars have reached their "heretical" conclusions after honestly wrestling with the evidence of the text. The conclusion is dictated by the evidence; it is the end result, not the beginning premise.

This was the startling revelation that I experienced when I read Wellhausen for myself. I came to learn that his Documentary Hypothesis was borne out of an earnest struggle to understand the text of the Bible on its own terms, driven by his love for the Bible, not a hateful desire to disprove it.

I don't want to disparage the contribution to Bible scholarship of those scholars who have taken this more defensive posture in their work. However, it is important to realize that their arguments will not be admitted in a secular biblical studies forum where theological axioms are not valid starting points for debate.

On the other hand, I wonder if they know that their war is one-sided, that the critical scholars pan their arguments if they even bother to pay attention at all. It's just occurred to me that the purpose of apologetics in this context is not to prove to the other side that they're wrong. It's to circle the wagons and keep those young impressionable minds from wandering to the dark side. 

By poisoning the well against the arguments of critical Bible scholarship, they preserve the status quo for the next generation. It's too bad really. Why not just teach them to think for themselves? Contrary to popular belief, critical Bible scholarship and faith are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Reaching for Unity in Isaiah

I was re-reading David Carr's 1993 article "Reaching for Unity in Isaiah" today. It's useful at least for the footnotes that reference many of the most important studies on the composition of Isaiah up until the early 1990s. The main point of the article is that the book of Isaiah is far too diverse to find any overarching literary structure. The last few paragraphs of his study are well worth the read, so I've reproduced them here.

[T]he above arguments for the weakness of the case for literary unity in Isaiah raise some questions about our contemporary compulsion to find literary unity in Isaiah and throughout the rest of the Bible. This tendency has emerged at just the time when attempts to recover the original words of the prophets have proven a less and less reliable guide for interpretation. Faced with such a crisis, the search for literary coherence of the 'final form' of the biblical text has seemed a godsend. Thus, for example, after describing how historical criticism 'divided' the biblical text and thus 'conquered' it, Seitz introduces his essay on 'Isaiah 1-66: Making Sense of the Whole' in the following way:

What I offer, then, is not a complex new literary theory. I hope that by demonstrating something of the Book of Isaiah's own efforts at unity and coherence, I might make our point of standing, as preacher, readers, and hearers of the Word of God in Isaiah, more stable and coherent. (p.107)

Thus Seitz presents his efforts at demonstrating unity in Isaiah as an attempt to reconstruct its authority over against us after the dissolution of the text effected by historical criticism.

Here is an important way in which our hermeneutical presuppositions have exegetical consequences. For if we believe that we must begin our interpretation with understanding of the unitary literary shape of the text's final form, we will be impelled to find such shape in texts whether or not it is there. Having surveyed in this article the limited success of previous attempts to find unity in Isaiah, this is the point to ask, to what extent is the search for unity in Isaiah truly a reflection of the semiotic potentialities in the text itself?

Perhaps texts like the book of Isaiah can teach us the limits of so generally emphasizing a search for structural or literary coherence in biblical texts. As indicated in the above survey, such a search can have great heuristic value, leading us beyond a focus on individual pericopes to see how texts like Isa. 1, 35:1-40:8 and 65-66 'reach for unity', synthesizing the varied materials surrounding them, if only partially. Yet excessive confidence in the existence of a more complete unity in biblical texts--and our need to find it --can blind us to the unresolved, rich plurality built into texts like Isaiah. Just as in its parallel process within the formation of the book, such scholarly 'reaching for unity' can achieve only limited success. At best such study can productively, yet only partially, construe and reconstrue the significance of varied materials not amenable to final closure. (pp. 79-80)

I've added the emphasis to highlight the parts that jumped out at me as particularly worthy of consideration. The rest is provided for context. I've been thinking over the issues surrounding what Carr calls "hermeneutical presuppositions." In some cases, those presuppositions manifest themselves as theological commitments which must be defended at all costs. In the process of defending those commitments, the work of historical criticism on the Bible is often disparaged, caricatured, and accused of having its own anti-faith agenda. Do faith-based seminaries and colleges engage in fair critical evaluation of the work of historical criticism or do they specialize in apologetic refutations of arguments they don't really understand? That's a rhetorical question.

Reference: David Carr, "Reaching for Unity in Isaiah," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 57 (1993) 61-80.