Noble-Broadmindedness

There’s a certain noble-broadmindedness about this claim:

On the historicity of Genesis, I suspend judgment, officially.  For rhetorical and investigative purposes, however, I'm going to proceed AS IF every word in Genesis speaks of historical fact.  If that's true, goody.  If that's not true, so what?

If Genesis isn’t true, then so what?

There is a lot of stake here.

There is the inspiration of Scripture. If God-breathed it out, then it must be true. Simplistic? Perhaps. But what else do we say about a God for whom it is impossible to lie? There is nothing in the Genesis account that would cause us to read it any way other than as historical fact. And there’s nothing in the character of God or the Bible’s teaching about itself that allows us to read it as anything other than historical fact.

There is the reality of brokenness in the world. If not for the historical fact of Genesis, there is no explanation for brokenness and fallenness in the world. Sin makes no sense other than as a cultural category rather than a moral category. Death is not the result of sin, and if not for sin, we would all die anyway.

There is the sufficiency of the atonement of Christ. If not for the historical fact of Genesis, there is no expectation that sin is a real problem that can only be dealt with by the seed of the woman conquering the serpent. Jesus’ death becomes only a moral example, a parable about the cost of sin, which really doesn’t matter anyway because sin doesn’t bring death.

And there are myriads of other implications.

The fact is that we cannot treat Genesis so glibly. There is a renewed battle over inerrancy, I think. And it starts where the word starts and where the Bible starts—in Genesis.

These superficial treatments of Scripture are unworthy of the grandness of God’s revelation that alone provides a rational metanarrative for life in this world.

Let us not be intimidated by those with no anchor. Their high-sounding language is really worldly and empty chatter, falsely called “knowledge.”

We know better.

Or at least we should.

The Truth of the Bible

Someone presents an argument: If all the Bible isn’t true, then none of it is true.

Now I have never heard anyone actually make this argument. Perhaps you have. I have only heard people who disagree with the argument say it.

It is a stupid argument? Well, yes, in a way. But calling it that probably won’t open a door for conversation.

The argument should actually be made quite differently: If all the Bible isn’t true, then we have no way to know what is true in it.

Some people argue for a limited inerrancy. They want to say that the Bible is inerrant in all that it affirms, but is not necessarily inerrant in all that it says about matters of science, geography, etc.

First, the very notion of “limited inerrancy” is, well, shall we say non-sensical. Inerrancy is binary. Something either is inerrant or is not inerrant.

Second, the notion of “limited inerrancy” really says nothing specific. Virtually everything but the baldest of bald-faced lies partakes of limited inerrancy. The problem with people who lie sometimes is that you never know what to believe.

Third, the notion of “limited inerrancy” is a charade of the worst sort. It is a construct of modernity, a way to affirm a historic teaching without actually affirming the historic teaching. It is a way of maintaining the dignity of a name without partaking of its corresponding indignity (as some would consider it).

Fourth, the notion of “limited inerrancy” does not comport with the Bible’s affirmations. When the Bible teaches that Moses parted the Red Sea, that is presented as a historical fact to be believed. It is teaching us about the life of Moses. When the Bible says that “X did Y,” it is teaching that as a fact to be believed. These teachings are no different than affirmation the the Lord will accomplish salvation for his people.

Now, to be sure, “inerrancy” does not require (and has never required) that one hold to the notion that trees clap or that stars sing. Inerrancy has never claimed that figures of speech should be anything other than a figure of speech.

Inerrancy has never required that people ignore the cultural and historical context in which the Scripture were written.

But what we must recognize is that figures of speech and historical and cultural contexts do not mean that the Bible is inaccurate.

And we cannot legitimately define “inerrant” or “truthful” to be something other than “truthful.”

This is an area where not much critical thinking has been done. People blindly accept the assertions of limited inerrancy or cultural accuracy without considering the serious ramifications of it. As a result, we are left not knowing what in the Bible is actually true.

We need a more robust scholarship, not a lesser one. We need a revival of historic bibliology that refuses to kowtow to modern notions of intellect that defy the propositions of Scripture.

Waltke and Enns on Enns

The recent edition of the Westminster Theological Journal has an exchange between OT scholars Bruce Waltke and Peter Enns on Enns’ book Inspiration and Incarnation, which I commented on recently here. (They are re-published at Peter Enns Online.)

Waltke concludes,

A theory that entails notions that holy Scripture contains flat out contradictions, ludicrous harmonization, earlier revelations that are misleading and/or less than truthful, and doctrines that are represented as based on historical fact, but in fact are based on fabricated history, in my judgment, is inconsistent with the doctrine that God inspired every word of holy Scripture. To be sure, the Scripture is fully human, but it is just as fully the Word of God, with whom there is no shadow of turning and who will not lie to or mislead his elect.

Waltke claims that his comments and conclusions are strictly exegetical and a posteriori, which is to say that he is not writing out of his pre-determined theological commitments. Enns, in his response, gently ribs Waltke for his “apparent claim to have achieved exegetical objectivity” (p. 97).

I have to agree with Enns on that point. Exegetical objectivity is a pipe-dream, IMO (although I am as close as anyone I know)*. We all live and study in the sometimes vicious turmoil of the hermeneutical spiral.

Of course, Enns is perhaps a bit condescending when he speaks of allowing a “a responsible reading of Scripture to challenge our own fallen notions of Scripture, God, the gospel, and so forth” (p. 100). It is hard to imagine that Enns means by “responsible reading” anything other than his own approach. His tenor, both in I&I and this response seems to indicate that anyone who doesn’t read it his way is not reading responsibly.

My point is saying that is not to impugn Enns. I do not know him. Waltke affirms his belief that Enns is a man of personal integrity and “unflinching honesty.” Fine. My point is simply to say that Enns, like Waltke (and all of us), can be too in love with our own thinking and not able to see that others might be as “responsible” or perhaps more “responsible” than we are in the reading of Scripture, and still come to different conclusions.**

Having said all that, I think Waltke is right, as I previously expressed. I  think Enns bibliology is woefully lacking. I do not think he has wrestled with inerrancy and inspiration (and incarnation for that matter) in a responsible way. (I recently heard someone say that even the metaphor of incarnation works against Enns because Christ, in human flesh, was sinless. He did not partake of these foibles that Enns would like to thrust on the Scriptures.)

I think Waltke has successfully shown that Enns’ proof-texts can be handled in responsible ways that do not arrive at Enns’ conclusion. I think Waltke has a more coherent view of inspiration.

Enns says he has arrived at this position because has has no other option. I have no problem with that. I am a soteriological Calvinist and a traditional dispensationalist for the same reason: My conscience in the study of Scripture leaves me no other option. But we all (myself and Enns included) must recognize that good-faith study does not make us right. We might mean well and still be wrong.

In this case, Enns makes some good points. I agree with his conclusion that many of these issues are not “open and shut cases” (p. 114). But I still think he is wrong.

______________________________

*I am kidding … Lighten up.

**Which reminds that I recently saw someone fairly young, obviously theologically and socially immature, accuse a more than 40-year veteran of seminary teaching of being clearly wrong. Having witnessed some of the exegetical process and conclusions of both, it is fair to say that some people would be better served by not speaking up, even when you think it.

Apologetics and Critical Scholarship

Douglas Mangum at Biblia Hebraica offers some thoughts on the intersection of critical scholarship and apologetics (Part 1 and Part 2). I won’t repeat the argument here since you can read his argument for yourself. But let me do two things: 1) give two short definitions, and 2) interact a bit with what seems a false dichotomy.

Two short definitions:

1. Critical scholarship – A type of scholarship that arose predominantly in the 19th century that reexamined long held beliefs about the inerrancy of the Bible. It generally concludes that the Bible is not inerrant, particularly in matters of history, geography, science, etc., though it may affirm a belief in “limited inerrancy,” that is that the Bible in inerrant (without error) only in matters of faith and doctrine, not necessarily other areas such as history, geography, science, etc.
2. Apologetics – A defense of the Christian faith.

Mangum’s argument: Many evangelical/conservative arguments against the conclusions of critical scholarship are not based on exegesis and consideration of the evidence. They are, in reality, apologetic arguments to defend a commitment to a particular view of the Bible. Conservative scholars are not really scholars; they are apologists, defending their view of Scripture in spite of the text in many cases, thus taking what would otherwise be clearly an error and harmonizing it to fit it into their view. He argues, in essence, that one cannot be (or at least finds it very hard to be) committed to a particular view of Scripture as inerrant (typically called a “high view of Scripture'”) and still properly use evidence.

Mangum’s examples: Some argue for Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch or the unity of Isaiah based on their view of Scripture, rather than based on the evidence from the Scripture. They argue for an early date of the Exodus (1445 B.C. rather than 12-13th century exodus) based on their view of the Bible rather than based on the evidence from archeology.

My concern with Mangum’s argument: He does not seem to interact in this article with the inseparability of apologetics and exegesis/evidence/argument. We cannot argue from a neutral position (which someone mentions, citing Bultmann that there is no presuppositionless exegesis). All of us are biased.

He does not seem to interact much with the idea that a commitment to inerrancy is not a “theological position;” it is an exegetical position derived from examining the evidence. He references this only briefly in one response (so far as I can tell), and is almost dismissive of it.

If you read Mangum without much thought, I think he makes sense. I don’t think Mangum’s attempt is to undermine Scripture. However, I think he espouses some false dichotomies and some “brush pile theology” that renders him able to make what are some invalid distinctions.

Can we approach Scripture with the values of critical scholarship and still honor what the text says about itself? I think not. If we take seriously the words of the text of Scripture, we must write off much of critical scholarship as misguided error. If we are serious exegetes of the evidence that Scripture gives of itself, we cannot at the same time be critical scholars.

Critical scholars are as much apologists are conservative scholars are. They are simply defending something else.