_awakening

Biblical Historicity.

Any serious undertaking in the study of the scriptures has to address a central question - how are we to understand the historic value of the scriptures? Or put another way, when we say the scriptures are "a historical account," what exactly are we claiming about the nature of the scriptures? Are they "historically accurate?" Is "historicity" even on the radar of the writers?

For some the answer is obvious - of course the scriptures are historically accurate. If we cannot trust them historically, then how are we to trust them theologically? However, this kind of all or nothing thinking causes some difficulties. The scriptures are presented as being either 100% "correct and accurate" or 100% "inaccurate and untrustworthy." Hhhmmm.

While doing some reading for Community of God, I came across this:

Biblical examples of such literature ["historic" texts from the Second Temple period] are Daniel and Esther, both of which have proved problematic for those who believe they recount historical events...

... Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar (called a king although he apparently never did become one) are known from other sources, and Cyrus, too, is familiar. However, in Daniel he is not the conqueror of Babylon, and no one knows who is meant by Darius the Mede, pictured in Daniel as the immediate successor of Belshazzar and thus as the conqueror of Babylon. The Persian king Darius was not of Median extraction, while Daniel's Darius is said to be the "son of Ahasuerus, by birth a Mede, who became king over the realm of the Chaldeans" (9:1). These are only a few of the reasons that have led many scholars to conclude that the stories in Daniel are not historical literature...

... Neither Esther nor Mordecai appears in extra-biblical historical sources about King Xerxes (in them Xerxes has a wife by a different name), and the book has other improbable claims such as the existence of 127 provinces in the empire. So it too does not appear to be a historical account, but like the other texts mentioned above, it pictures capable Jewish people entrusted with high positions in the great foreign empire." [James C. VanderKam, An Introduction to Early Judaism, pp. 10-11.]

Faced with such historical issues, a whole host of questions necessarily arise that we must wrestle with:

How do these historic inconsistencies relate to theologies of scripture, like inerrancy for example? If the text displays historical inaccuracies, can we still claim inerrancy for the text or do we need to therefore amend our definition of inerrancy? Perhaps the issue of inerrancy is arguing the wrong point.

Is the historic accuracy of a particular text the only determining factor of the truth of a text? What is the role of parable and myth in communicating truth? [If Daniel, or Esther, or even Job for that matter, is not historical literature, does it make it any less true per se?]

Did the biblical authors work with the same sense of need for "historicity" that we modern interpreters do? In other words, were the biblical writers completely adverse to passing along traditions that were less than 100% historically accurate to make a theological point?

I think the last line of question is central to this discussion. My own hunch is that when we argue for a 100% historical position, we can actually miss what certain texts and writers are trying to accomplish. Not every writers is trying to portray "what actually happened, the way it actually happened." The main goal of the writers is to present truth utilizing the history, political and social settings, and literary genres of their day.

Thoughts?

Stranger Than Fiction.

Couldn't help myself on this one...

[HT: Chris Brady]

Translation-olatry.

It seems that everyone has an opinion about what translation is best, do they not? While some people are more vehemently opinionated than others, when the discussion moves towards which translation of the biblical text is best and why, watch out. Unfortunately, often these discussions turn into a form of translation-olatry, elevating a particular translation of the text to inspired status.

With all the discussion floating out there about the NIV 2011 version, due out in 2011 [clever, huh], Scot McKnight recently offered this nugget of translation wisdom:

Here's my point: the authority is the original text, not the translation. The original texts are in Hebrew and Aramaic (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament). The authoritative text is not in English, regardless of how accurate the translation. No matter which translation you prefer, it is not the authoritative text for determining which translation is best. Yes, we need more to devote more time to study of the original languages.

The sweeping conclusion is this: unless you can read the original languages, you should avoid making public pronouncements about which translation is best. Instead, here's my suggestion: if you don't know the languages and can't read them well enough to translate accurately on your own but you want to tell your congregation or your listeners which translate is best, you need to admit it by saying something like this: "On the basis of people I trust to make this decision, the ESV or the TNIV or the NRSV or the NLT is a reliable translation."

You can read the rest of Scot's thoughts here. [In case you're wondering, I'm a bit partial to the NRSV.]

Community of God.

Recently I had a conversation with Jamie about the need to find something to keep me more connected to the academic world... and then this. I was asked to help TA a course at the Haggard Graduate School of Theology at Azusa Pacific by my thesis advisor, Karen Winslow. We had had the conversation a ways back about the possibility of me sitting in one of her classes as a TA and the timing couldn't be better. So starting next week, I'll be helping with GBBL 631 - Community of God.

This class in particular was one that played an important roll in my academic journey. It was because of this class that I was exposed in a much deeper way to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran community. Here's the class description for GBBL 631:

When Jews returned from exile in Babylon, they constructed a Jewish identity around the Torah, other ancient traditions, and the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, During the period of our study, 537—AD 70, they lived under the control of Persians, Greeks, and Romans, except for the century of Hasmonean rule. The ancient resources for our study include Ezra, Nehemiah, 1-2 Chronicles, certain prophets, the Elephantine papyri, Jubilees, the Qumran library, the Targums, Josephus, and Philo. This study of diverse Jewish communities of the “Second Temple period” forms a context for understanding the early Jesus movement, as well as for Rabbinic Judaism, which emerged after the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE.

The class is pretty comprehensive as students are exposed to a wide variety of texts and current scholarship on the time period. The required reading looks like this:

An Introduction to Early Judaism - James C. VanderKam

The Dead Sea Scrolls Today - James C. VanderKam

Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World - Alan F. Segal

Early Judaism: Religious Worlds of the First Judaic Millennium - Martin S. Jaffee

Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism - Gabriele Boccaccini

I'm totally looking forward to the class. It should be quite the experience. I'll post more later from the goings on of class as I can.

The Road to Nicaea.

April DeConick recently started a new series of posts entitled Jesus on the Road to Nicaea. The series explores the issues, both theological and sociological, that influenced Nicaea. While definitely a quick overview, she provides some food for thought. You can read her posts here:

Jesus on the Road to Nicaea 1: The Controversies

Jesus on the Road to Nicaea 2: The Lay of the Land

Jesus on the Road to Nicaea 3: Anti-Semitism

Thesis Abstract.

So today I spent the better part of the day working on my thesis paper. [With it being so blasted hot, this worked out really nicely.] Anyway, if you're interested, here's the abstract in working form. Enjoy.

The interaction between God and his people is one of covenantal journey, one marked by faith and a deep hope. Perhaps nowhere is this ideal more captured than in the textual writings of the Second Temple Period, especially within those texts often demarcated as “apocalyptic” writings. These texts, formulated by various communities within the Second Temple Period, display a yearning and a strong belief that God is not absent, but quite present in their midst. Trusting in his past faithfulness and promises, these communities believed that God was about to act significantly in their present context, bringing about the expectant hope of complete restoration.

To more deeply appreciate these texts and the communities that developed them, we must initially explore the development of apocalyptic literature as a genre and a vehicle for this expression of faith and hope. How did this genre develop and why was it chosen as a central vehicle of the Second Temple Period? Secondarily, we must explore the texts themselves and their relationship to received texts and traditions. How did these authors and redactors see their texts? Were they “scripture” on equal footing as the received texts of their day? How did they use the vehicle of apocalyptic literature to portray their dreams, desires, and understanding of God and his activity in the world? On a broader scale, what can we learn about the category of “scripture” from the texts collected and produced in the Second Temple Period?

The aim of this paper is to explore selected writings of the Second Temple Period in order to gain a vision of how various expressions of Judaism understood their relationship with God and their world. By specifically exploring the nature of their writings, both of content and category, we hope to gain a clearer vision of their self-understanding, along with their vision of God and his activity in the present world. Central to our discussion will be how these communities utilized the writings that had been handed down to them in the development of their own textual traditions. It is in this interaction with received texts that we have an insightful vantage point into their self-understanding and their view of their own particular texts.

We will be examining three main texts produced from three different communities, which exhibit varied nuances of “Judaisms” within the larger Jewish community of the Second Temple Period – 1 Enoch, the book of Daniel, and the Habakkuk pesharim from the community at Qumran. All three texts evidence an unfolding theological trajectory rooted in an apocalyptic worldview. They all display a reliance upon received texts and traditions, which are integrated into new forms and endowed with new meanings, resulting in a wholly new textual creation.

Hhhmmm.

An interesting question. What does this have to say about the nature of what is contained in the scriptures?

On Studying the Scriptures.

Pour over it again and again, for everything is contained in it; look into it, grow old and gray over it, and do not depart from it, for there is no better pursuit for you than this.

[Mishnah, Pirke Avot 5:27]

A Priori.

Scott Bailey over at Scotteriology had this to add to the "inerrancy discussion" as of late:

There is one giant problem I see with many discussions on inerrancy. On one level this problem is so insurmountable it is a discussion I don’t even bother having anymore with those of differing views because at the end of the conversation the beginning assumptions are so different that any “common ground” is almost impossible.

In a nutshell, one side of the discussion, conservative inerrantists, prefers a deductive synchronic approach to the text and the other, biblical scholarship, prefers an inductive diachronic approach to the text. These interpretive assumptions and methods are so different as to leave the opposing camps with essentially different Bibles, hence, the arguments.

I think he has hit upon something. When we enter a discussion with an a priori assumption, or pre-arrived understanding, we hinder ourselves from having our assumptions and understandings refined. In the case of the scriptures, it is all too easy to come at the text with a preconceived understanding of the nature of the text based upon a theological position, rather than one derived form the text itself.

Inerrancy is an implicit theological position in regards to the text, but is it explicitly demonstrated in the text?

Inherently Inerrant?

In light of some recent conversations [here, here, and here], I've been doing some extra thinking about the issue of inerrancy. [And yes, this might be a controversial post for some...]

I grew up in a tradition that highly valued the scriptures and highly valued inerrancy. The reasoning went something like this: If the Bible contains errors and contradictions, then how can we trust God? In other words, if the Bible was not "truthful" in everything, then God, as author, could not be trusted as "truthful." Closely behind was the following: If the Bible does indeed contain errors, then God is either not all-powerful [as he cannot somehow keep these errors from occurring], or he is not all-good [as he does not care enough about the witness of the text].

Both of these arguments are admittedly tenuous at best, but that is not the issue here. What I have been pondering lately is the doctrine itself, especially in what the term "inerrant" is meant to convey about the text.

When we speak about the idea of inerrancy, what quality are we trying to bring to the text? Are we saying that the text is "perfect" and without "error"? If this is the case, what are we to do with apparent discrepancies in the text? Do we attempt elaborate harmonizations in order to rectify seemingly contradictory accounts or data?

For some, discrepancies concerning geneologies, names, numbers, and locations are to be accepted, but not when it comes to matters of theology and ideology, which raises the question of whether such separations can even be so cleanly divided in the text. How can we accept some discrepancies one place, but not another? By definition, it seems that the text needs to be either completely inerrant or not.

I think this leads us back to the larger question - What do we mean by characterizing the text as "inerrant"? What are we trying to communicate concerning the nature of the text? Should the discussion and nomenclature we use be nuanced better than it is currently? [Is it anachronistic to use a modern ideological category upon a text and a people who do not carry the same concern with "historicity"?]

It seems to me that this issue has some very profound ramifications attached to it.

I have my own suspicions, but would love to hear other's journey with this. Feel free to jump in, just be civil and play nice...