Biblical scholarship
Sunday, 8 April 2007 19:52 — monadoFrom the Truth Journal, “Modern Biblical Scholarship, Philosophy of Religion and Traditional Christianity” by Professor Eleonore Stump:
In recent decades biblical scholarship as practiced in secular universities has been dominated by a certain historical approach…. [W]ith the related disciplines of archaeology, classical languages, and near-Eastern studies, this approach has made significant contributions to our understanding of the historical context in which the biblical texts were composed. But to many outsiders what has been at least equally noteworthy about this approach is the havoc it has wreaked on traditional Christian and Jewish beliefs. In their effort to discover and present what is historically authentic in the Bible, the practitioners of this approach have in effect rewritten the Bible. They have cut the Old and New Testaments into a variety of snippets; some they have discarded entirely as not historically authentic, and others they have reassembled in new ways to form what these scholars consider the truly original historical documents or traditions. They have denied the traditional authorship of certain books of the Bible-for example, they tend to hold that the pastoral apostles (the one to Titus and the two to Timothy) were not really written by Paul-and they have claimed to find the sources for other biblical texts in such clearly human products as Hittite suzerainty treaties and Hellenistic philosophy.The general result of such scholarship is, for example, that a text which a church father such as Augustine may have used to support a particular theological doctrine on the grounds that the text was composed by a disciple of Jesus who was an eye-witness to the events recorded may now be classified as a much later document fabricated by certain anonymous Christians for theological motives and derived by them from identifiable pagan sources. But if the biblical passages on which traditional doctrines are based are truly of such a character, they provide no credible support for the doctrines. [Yes.] And so the general effect of this approach to biblical studies has been a powerful undermining of classical Christian doctrines and a powerful impetus to religious skepticism.
And that’s a bad thing because…?
The author uses rhetorical innuendo to make research into the sources and history of biblical text seem questionable (”a certain approach, “as practiced,” even “But”–where’s the contrast? And why should outsiders care? I should think church insiders would take more note.)
She says they’ve rewritten the bible–why not restored it, or un-re-written it?
The researchers have cut the bible into “snippets” and “discarded” parts of it–how callous and disrespectful of them! Discarding suspect texts is a fine old Biblical tradition: that’s where we got the Apocrypha–books of the bible that were discarded because they were unreliable or contained unpalatable teachings, such as stories of heroic women.
They have “denied the traditional authorship”–or should we say “disproved folklore attribution?
They “tend to hold” opinions — not “they’ve spent years analyzing and now believe that the balance of probabilities is strongly…”
They have “claimed to find” that some epistles weren’t written by the purported author, Paul, but composed later. As someone once said, “Do you claim to have had breakfast this morning or did you have breakfast?”
And an eye-witness texts “may now be classified as”–how about “has been revealed as” a much later document? (Although it’s odd that anyone thinks we have eye-witness reports at all–who are these Biblical naifs?) I’m sure I’ve read that the first mention of Mary and Joseph was in 107 A.D., in a letter from a Bishop.
See also “Christ’s ascent into heaven” or “Dates for early Christian writings“.
