peter enns reviewed greg beale’s the erosion of inerrancy in evangelicalism in the most recent volume of the bulletin for biblical research (BBR 19.4 (2009): 628-31). the review is made available here with permission from the author as well as the editor and publisher of bbr. you can download a .pdf scan of the article [link] or read the review below.
Greg Beale is concerned that the foundations of evangelicalism are shifting. He lays much of the blame at the feet of a rising generation of evangelical biblical scholars with degrees from major research universities, who have “assimilated to one degree or another non-evangelical perspectives” (p. 20). A related cause is the creeping influence of postmodernism among evangelicals, where “conviction about anything is out of vogue” (dedication). These two interrelated influences have been contributing to the erosion of the “conviction that all of Scripture is true” (dedication). Beale’s response to this dual threat is a call for evangelicals to return to the “standard evangelical view of biblical inerrancy” (p. 21) expressed in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (CSBI), which heretofore represented the “broad consensus among American evangelical scholars about the inerrancy of Scripture” (p. 19). The Erosion of Inerrancy, a republication and/or reworking of a number of previously written essays, is Beale’s defense of his understanding of biblical authority against these eroding influences. Because Beale focuses on me as a leading proponent of these new challenges to biblical authority, and so directs four of the books eight chapters in responding to his understanding of my views, it is apparent that I am not writing as a disinterested party. This fact, however, has not skewed my assessment of the book, and I am thankful to the numerous scholars who have read this review and concurred with that judgment.
To summarize, the introduction lays out the concerns of the book by means of a fictional dialogue between “Progressive Pat” and “Traditional Tom.” Chapters 1-4 are a rehearsal of the exchanges Beale has had with this reviewer. Beale’s reviews/responses are published in full with minor changes to accommodate the change in literary venue. My own responses, however, have been briefly summarized by one of Beale’s doctoral students at Wheaton College in an effort to “achieve the greatest possible objectivity” (p. 57).
In chapter 5, Beale argues that the only viable option open to evangelicals concerning Isaianic authorship is to take at “face value the repeated affirmations of Jesus and the New Testament writers that the prophet Isaiah wrote the entire Old Testament book known as Isaiah” (p. 123). In chapter 6, Beale rehearses some well-traveled territory in OT scholarship, the ideological connection between cosmos and temple. Based on this, Beale argues in chapter 7 that the biblical creation story can be reconciled to modern science, since Genesis 1 is only secondarily about the creation of the physical universe and primarily a reference to the universe’s theological and symbolic significance as a temple.
In appendix 1, Beale revisits a debate with NT scholar Steven Moyise, a “soft-postmodernist,” who errs in suggesting that John in Revelation provides “new understandings” to the OT. In the addendum to this appendix, Beale contends that “conservative systematic and biblical theology and biblical interpretation in the Western world” has much to offer the global church rather than being a western imposition. In Appendix 2, Beale reproduces the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy with Exposition. Finally, Appendix 3 is a selection of quotes from Barth’s Church Dogmatics that undergirds the faulty view of Scripture espoused by some evangelicals.
It is not possible to do a thorough review of Erosion, but a general assessment presents itself quite easily. The value of Erosion is that Beale is very clear about what he thinks constitutes a proper evangelical view of biblical authority. In fact, he seems to have drawn a line in the sand, and it is good to know what Beale thinks evangelical biblical scholarship should look like.
Apart from the clarity with which Beale stakes out his ground, however, I cannot say that Erosion will be helpful in clarifying the specific issues under consideration. The most serious problem with Erosion, which is the source of every difficulty that burdens the book, is likely from Beale’s point of view the book’s great strength. Beale assumes the very point that many evangelicals call into question, namely, that one particular evangelical understanding of inerrancy, promulgated in CSBI, is the non-negotiable standard by which any differing assessments should be judged. Beale does not countenance the possibility that the current level of unrest among evangelicals, leading to its doctrinal formulations being so widely scrutinized, suggests that perhaps a re-evaluation of these commitments is in order through patient listening and scholarly dialogue.
By assuming the inviolability of his position, Beale’s argument is like that of a defense attorney out to defend his client at any and all costs, rather than a scholar weighing evidence. Such a defense attempts to establish the client’s innocence by casting some shadow of doubt, however minimal, on the prosecution’s case. Hence, Beale is free to employ rhetorical tactics that would normally be dismissed in moderated scholarly exchanges, among which are: argument from authority (e.g., appeals to J. I. Packer or the CSBI settles arguments); guilt by association (e.g., Barth citations); minimizing/ignoring counterevidence (e.g., for multi-authorship of Isaiah); overwhelm the opponent with marginally relevant but impressive data (e.g., pages of post-biblical references to support 8th century authorship of Isaiah; see also pp. 136-42); logical leaps or mere assertions at crucial junctures (pervasive); mischaracterizations and use of polarizing labels (e.g., postmodernism, “soft” postmodernism, Beale’s use of “myth”); obscurantist attention to his opponents’ “ambiguities” or “lack of clarity,” etc. (various places), and so on.
The difficulty with reviewing Erosion is that the types of problems glimpsed above permeate the entire volume, beginning already on the dedication paragraph, and so a thorough recounting of these and other problem would yield a review of unwieldy length. Still, a few further observations can be offered. (I will not revisit here the issues that occupy chapters 1-4, Inspiration and Incarnation. Space is limited, and I do not seem to have been successful in my previous responses to convince Beale that further scholarly dialogue is needed. It would not be fruitful to pursue those matters here again.)
Dialogue. The dialogue between Traditional Tom and Progressive Pat is no doubt intended as a congenial attempt to clarify the issues to be considered in the book. But, rather than clarifying, we see a distracting collection of unexamined notions of truth, history, error, falsity, authority, “natural” ways of understanding, scientific accuracy, straightforward readings, etc., etc. Delineating what these and other terms mean in the context of the present debate is the entire point, and Beale needs to move beyond simple reassertion. To boot, the “progressive” position is weakly articulated and defended, and suggests that Beale does not fully appreciate the position taken by those against whom he is contending (e.g., Pat’s failure to expose Tom’s obscurantist comments about error on p. 14; Pat’s obeisance to postmodernism on p. 15; Pat’s limp response to Tom’s defense of traditional Isaianic authorship at the bottom of p. 16). Even though so much of the book is directed toward my own alleged “postmodern” views (they are actually more “modernist,” “progressive,” or better “synthetic,” although I do not wish to encourage further Beale’s attraction to labeling), I do not feel that my position is fairly represented.
Isaiah. The reason many evangelical scholars ascribe to some developmental model of Isaianic authorship is not because they fail to take Jesus at his word, have bowed the knee to unbelieving scholarship, or have a low Christology. Incredibly, Beale fails to offer more than a passing acknowledgment that there are positive reasons for multi-authorship and postexilic final redaction based on evidence within the book of Isaiah itself. Pages of biblical and extra-biblical citations (pp. 126-36, what Beale calls “evidentiary literature,” p. 126) neither engage nor counter those reasons. I understand that Beale is troubled that an erstwhile Evangelical consensus on Isaiah is “eroding,” but had Beale engaged the various reasons why scholars across the theological spectrum have adopted in some form the non-traditional position, rather than simply reasserting traditional (and often irrelevant) arguments, the present chapter would have been wholly rethought, if not abandoned.
Cosmic Temple. The ideological connection between houses of worship and cosmology is a well-known topic among biblical scholars. Beale enters that discussion in chapter 6. His handling of this issue is not without its shortcomings, but the far greater problem is Beale’s desire to co-opt that discussion to speak to the Bible/science debate in chap. 7, which yields at best an idiosyncratic use of the evidence. Beale insists that cosmic temple imagery in the OT is in no way mythic or guilty of promoting an errant cosmology. Instead the imagery is merely of a theological/symbolic nature that employs phenomenological language. Other reviewers will hopefully address this arbitrary view in more detail, but no one I know of, least of all the scholars Beale cites in support of his cosmic temple theory, would even think to make such a claim. Myth is the conceptual and narrative foundation of ANE cosmic temple imagery. Separating the two is only required in a theological framework where the OT needs to be shielded from its environment.
Barth. Beale concludes with several pages of citations from Barth’s Church Dogmatics. To collect some quotes from this enormously prolific and complex theological thinker and pose this as in any way contributing to an argument, does justice neither to Barth nor to the issues before us. It is rhetorically effective, though, particularly in the closing moments of Beale’s plea for his particular brand of Evangelical orthodoxy. In my opinion, this maneuver is an apt summation of the type of argumentation that pervades the entire volume.
Beale laments that the doctrine of inerrancy is eroding. In my opinion, the reason for this is not the insidious influence of a new breed of evangelical scholars, but the very thinking displayed in this book. If Erosion represents the kind of work necessary to defend the model of inerrancy Beale fancies, the erosion he fears may quickly become a landslide.
Peter Enns
Landsdale, PA
14 January 2010 at 3.27 pm
I remember reading a quote recently, but don’t know exactly where it came from. It revolved around evangelical liberalism and how evangelicals, in their search to become respected in the academic world, are only recognized at the points where they are the least evangelical (from the author’s view of what evangelical theology is of course). So why would an evangelical desire to be lauded by academia? I hope the debates between Enns, Sparks, Waltke, and Beale should help clarify what an evangelical theology of scripture really is.
14 January 2010 at 3.40 pm
Jeremy:
Sounds like Carl Trueman’s article on evangelical scholarship. Is that what you were thinking of?
14 January 2010 at 3.46 pm
I thought it was him, but I wasn’t sure because I couldn’t find it.
14 January 2010 at 3.51 pm
This is Trueman’s quote in entirety. “It remains true (as James Barr pointed out years ago) that evangelical academics are generally respected in the academy only at precisely those points where they are least evangelical. There is a difference between academic or scholarly respectability and intellectual integrity. For a Christian, the latter depends upon the approval of God and is rooted in fidelity to his revealed Word; it does not always mean the same thing as playing by the rules of scholarly guild.”
http://www.9marks.org/CC/ejournal/2010v7-1/article_trueman.htm
I think I agree with the substance of Trueman’s point, but the debate lies in being able to demonstrate specifically what an evangelical theology is and what it is not. Enns is probably just as evangelical in intent as Beale is, but they obviously come to two different positions.
14 January 2010 at 4.33 pm
What Trueman’s quote neatly sidesteps is the issue of how do we know who has “the approval of God” and more to the point, what exactly is “fidelity to his revealed Word.”
I think Enns would maintain that he pursued biblical scholarship out of a sincere belief that if we want to have fidelity to the Word, we must be willing to deal honestly with what scholarship is telling us about the historical context and actual phenomena of the Bible. Implying that doing so is automatically “seeking respect in the academy” is both insulting and just plain wrong, at least in the case of the biblical scholars I knew at Westminster (Enns among them).
Trueman assumes a high ground that he cannot prove is justified.
14 January 2010 at 11.00 pm
i think mark is correct here. the argument presented, while rhetorically effective, doesn’t hold water. just because evangelicals aren’t presenting papers on the ontological trinity at sbl doesn’t mean that they are only respected in “the academy” where they are “the least evangelical.” many evangelicals make positive contributions to the guild of biblical studies. the idea that they don’t is nonsense.
the argument sounds pious (i.e., the big, bad secular academy doesn’t like jesus, so we shouldn’t try to impress them) but assumes too much to be true that actually isn’t.
15 January 2010 at 10.24 am
I’m going to make some further critiques of Dr. Trueman’s essay, but let me preface my remarks by saying that nothing I say here should be construed as a personal attack on Dr. Trueman. While it is quite true that Dr. Trueman and I found ourselves on very opposite sides of an issue at Westminster Theological Seminary, I retain tremendous respect for him as a teacher. His church history classes were among the best I took at WTS, and many of his insights from those classes still inform and shape my thinking. In addition, I had the privilege of sharing a few beers with him, and always greatly enjoyed and benefited from our conversations. I have to add this preface because, unfortunately, from experience I know that there are those on the web who take anything I say in regard to Dr. Trueman as some kind of personal attack. My remarks are solely about the substance of Dr. Trueman’s essay, and are no reflection of my opinion of him as a person.
That said, a few points about the essay:
1. Both Kent Sparks (author of God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship) and Pete Enns have stated publicly that if they wanted respectability in academia, they wouldn’t write books that say “The Bible is like Jesus” or “God accommodates to human language.” These are not the things that gain you respectability in the so-called guild (whatever that is), but invite the criticism that one”hasn’t gotten over it yet” (meaning religious commitment). In fact, there were as many negative reviews of Pete’s I&I book from liberal scholars as there were from conservative ones. The former dismissed Enns as “too evangelical” and “too conservative(!)” So much for kudos from “the guild.”
2. The rhetorical point can easily be turned on its head: The only way for Evangelical scholars to gain respectability among “the Evangelical guild” is to sound as isolated from the mainstream of contemporary, informed scholarship as possible. Of course, that would be a violent caricature as well.
3. Finally, it seems to escape some that the issue is not whether one “sounds” more Evangelical or not, but what best explains reality. Not to sound too idealistic, but the issue is truth, and any ideology, whether Evangelical, secular academic, etc., that puts self-preservation over that quest ceases being not only truly academically engaged. I think what unites scholars like Sparks and Enns is that they are interested in exploring fresh paradigms that have greater explanatory power for why our Bible looks the way it does, and not simply protecting evangelical boundaries. If maintaining evangelicalism is the goal, than it has ceased being an intellectual model and has become essentially a social entity.
15 January 2010 at 10.26 am
I think (in the off-topic thread on Trueman on scholarship) that the assumption that Biblical Studies is going in a liberal direction because to please the academy puts off the question of politics and power. It’s essentially saying – don’t compromise what you believe for the academy, do compromise your beliefs to please the Church. Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t think either goal is admirable.
(more on topic) beale’s strength is preaching to the choir. I don’t think we’re his intended audience – but i suspect he’s still successful if his goal is motivation rather than stoic persuasion.
16 January 2010 at 11.11 am
Greg Beale came to Gordon-Conwell when my wife and I were students there. Later, when we were both teaching at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa, he came and gave a series of lectures that were well-received by our colleagues and students. So I have respect for him as a person and for his work. However, Beale makes assumptions common to many of the ‘traditional’ Evangelicals attempting to hold the line (or what they understand as the line) in Biblical Studies and Theology, assumptions that perhaps engaged more or less successfully the modernist consensus informing Western academic in the 20th century.
I presently live in Kenya and teach theology to graduate students from all over the continent, and have become increasingly dismayed at the growing distance between Western Evangelical assumptions and on-the-ground reality facing my students, their families, their churches and their cultures. These assumptions have meant that theological education in Africa (for example) means taking bright students from Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, DR Congo, etc and, through the imposition of Western pedagogy, training them to be capable Western Evangelicals. But the fights (theological and hermeneutical) that have set the boundaries assumed sacrosanct by our best North American Evangelicals (or even British, though there is a huge difference even here) seem increasingly irrelevant over here. In order to get my students to believe the ‘right’ things from an Evangelical perspective, I have to make sure they understand Western intellectual history (as Evangelicals and their predecessors have experienced it). But our Western debates about inerrancy, for example, make no sense in my present context. The only time they begin to make sense is if one understands the whole thread of theological and philosophical assumptions informing the debate.
In the past, we in the West were in a position to assume that our perspectives and arguments were appropriately equated with the Christian position, or at least one of a limited range of acceptable Christian views. But with the explosion of Christianity in Africa, Latin America and Asia, these presuppositions are increasingly exposed for what they are – presuppositions that unnaturally and unnecessarily limit what is understood as appropriate, to what is understood as appropriate if you have grown up in the West and been trained at one of its leading theological institutions. For that reason, systematic theology, for example, is difficult to teach in my present context as anything more than what certain Evangelicals understood at a particular time given their particular intellectual and religious contexts. To attempt to dress up Kenyan Christians in Evangelical clothes is attempt what the British did by insisting that Kenyans must adopt trousers, shirt and tie in order to appear civilized (never mind that we live at the equator and not in chilly London. The British may have succeeded in applying those assumptions, but I don’t know anyone who would claim that things have turned out particularly well as a result. Africans can certainly wear western-style clothes, but we got to this point as a result of a certain amount of cultural imperialism that did violence to already existing cultures and perspectives. Anyway, the idea that the traditional Evangelical doctrine is eroding amongst Evangelicals may be true in the West, or at least a more or less valid observation. Our needs and concerns on this side of the world make such word play seem like yet another Western game. Playing ‘your’ game is a luxury ‘we’ can no longer afford. Anyone interested in playing our game?
16 January 2010 at 11.25 am
Thanks, William, for that excellent comment! A perspective that we American evangelicals need to hear, especially as the “center” of Christendom slips more and more away from us and toward your direction.
I have several friends who are involved, like you, in theological education in Africa, and they all tell stories very much like yours.
Have you ever run across the writings of Harvie Conn? He was a prof at Westminster Theological Seminary a number of years ago who was “missional” decades before that term was even invented. He had been a missionary in South Korea for many years before coming to Westminster. He argued that his fellow Reformed Presbyterians were in severe danger of crippling the growth of native churches overseas by their insistence that the Westminster Standards of 17th century England were timeless, the ultimate expression of Christian truth, and therefore must be imposed upon all churches everywhere. His best book on this subject was Eternal Word In A Changing World: Theology, Anthropology, and Missions in Trialogue (New Jersey: P&R; 1984), which is still in print.
16 January 2010 at 12.09 pm
@William
What is your game, William? Where does a Western evangelical turn to learn more about it?
17 January 2010 at 12.28 am
Can you believe that God, the same God who so loved the world that He sent his only-begotten son really commanded “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man intimately. But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately” (Numbers 31:17-18) ? What kind of command is that? Verses like that cause a problem for inerrancy, unless you like worshiping a God that commands genocide and child rape. Its clear that the OT is not inerrant and even Jesus says so when He accuses Elijah of having called fire down from heaven to murder people by a different spirit than God (Luke 9:54-55) and says that Moses gave a precept on his own authority that was at variance with what God actually wanted (Mat 19:8) and when he says the Jews never saw his Father’s shape nor heard his voice (John 5:37). Again, when he says “You’ve heard it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies…” (Matt 5:43) he shows the Old Testament was in error on what God really wanted. And when he says in Matt 5:45 that His Father “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” he shows that God didn’t really cause a three year drout in the days of Elijah due to the king being wicked, for God “sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” That drout, therefore, must have only be natural and not judgment from God according to this doctrine of Jesus that God doesn’t discriminate against the wicked by not sending rain for them.
17 January 2010 at 2.20 pm
rey,
Where is your moral high ground upon which to critique the Bible?
17 January 2010 at 3.53 pm
“rey, Where is your moral high ground upon which to critique the Bible?”
Its Jesus. I just posted what Jesus says about the Old Testament. You do accept Jesus as your Lord, don’t you?
17 January 2010 at 6.42 pm
Yes I accept Jesus as my Lord. But your interpretations and supposed contradictions between the OT and Jesus are really silly. Almost of all them are immediately seen as grasping at straws. Nowhere does Numbers 31 talk about rape. The harem was an act that God said was to show Israel’s allegiance to him, yet you seem to say that it shows God’s lack of allegiance to his creation and their rights. But there is an easy out: Numbers 31 is not historical and was written by the Priestly source, right? Where does Luke 9 say that a spirit other than God called down fire according to Jesus? In relation Matthew 5:43, where does the Bible command God’s people to hate their enemies?
I will admit that Peter Enns has some legitimate questions regarding an evangelical appropriation of the OT. I just don’t think your questions are.
17 January 2010 at 8.32 pm
Outstanding review, Peter. Those were my very concerns with the read. I couldn’t have put it better myself!
17 January 2010 at 10.37 pm
Luke 9:54 “And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?’ But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.’ And they went to another village.” (NKJV)
Perhaps you were reading from Satan’s NIV or from the NRSV which deletes Jesus’ accusation that Elijah called down that fire by a different spirit. They delete these words because Jesus is not their Lord.
17 January 2010 at 10.58 pm
@rey: i welcome all intelligent comments. claiming that someone is not a christian based on their choice of the niv or nrsv fails to meet that requirement.
i’m not interested in debating it, either. so please do not respond with a defense of the textus receptus or whichever translation you believe is the correct one. i’ll buy the idea that the kjv is the only inspired version when either unicorns are found or we come to find out that christ himself translated it between his resurrection and ascention.
sent from my iphone.
17 January 2010 at 11.15 pm
A KJV-Onlyist and a rejection of inerrancy do not usually go hand in hand. Rey, you are the first of that kind of that kind that I have seen. But there’s always a first.
18 January 2010 at 3.22 pm
If you’ve seen the “book of Eli” then Ray might be on to something. Obviously, if a future apocalypse happened and all the book were destroyed then surely God would preserve his word via the KJV!!
Unfortunately, I would bet that this movie generally speaks to the sentiments of a number of Christians. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Christians rallied behind the movie, showing it in Church on Sunday (though with a lot of editing) and appealing to it for teaching points for their doctrine of Scripture.
18 January 2010 at 5.38 pm
The difference here is whether one starts with a conclusion (that the bible is somehow inerrent) and then works backwards to create a theory to justify that belief, which is Beale’s position, or whether one investigates the facts and uses logic and reason and realizes that there is no theory of inerrency that makes the slighest sense, and that incudes Enns’ view.
If one wants to chuck reason to the wind in order to beleve, that has a certain logic. But there is no logic to inerrency.
19 January 2010 at 2.40 am
My biggest issue with Beale’s counter-argument to Enns’ views is that his doctrine of inspiration appears to be quite Docetic or Apollinarian at best. Let me explain.
Enns uses the Christological analogy to argue that Scripture is fully divine and fully human in nature, just as Jesus was fully divine and fully human in himself. This is a very helpful analogy. Enns follows a model of divine accommodation to human literary creativity, which seems quite in step with the biblical view of inspiration and a robust doctrine of the Spirit.
However, Beale seems to downplay the human literary-creative aspect by claiming that it somehow short-circuits the divine origins of Scripture. Accordingly, he seems to give the human side of Scripture’s origins very little substance indeed.
As such, Beale’s argument falls somewhere between a Docetic and an Apollinarian view of inspiration. Firstly, he appears to imply that Scripture only ‘seems’ to be human when in fact it is completely divine. To borrow from Enns’ christological analogy, this is akin to the Docetic view of Christ which said that Jesus was entirely divine and therefore only ‘seemed’ to be human. In other words, the human side of things is effectively denied. Alternatively, Beale is saying that there is a very real human aspect in inspiration, but it is nothing more than an external shell, because really deep down in its essential core, Scripture is completely divine not human. Again, using a christological analogy, this is similar to the Apollinarian heresy which argued that the incarnation was not a union of divine and human natures, but rather the divine nature being confined within a human exterior — much like a driver inside a car. This latter view is virtually identical to the Islamic view of the inspiration of the Qur’an: it is totally divine in nature, but has been received through a human medium.
Whichever way you go on this, Beale’s argument poses what I feel are insurmountable problems, most particularly with the doctrine of the Spirit. A proper pneumatology sees that since God’s nature is to be other-person centred, when the Spirit inspires a human to write Scripture, the Spirit never overrides the human person. On the contrary, the Spirit promotes the human person in the inspiration process. Thus, almost ironically, one of the signs of divine inspiration is the human nature of Scripture.
I know Beale has good intentions and he’s trying to do the evangelical community a favour. However, his argument is evidently very weak. And unfortunately, it seems that his line, rather than Enns’, is moving away from a robust evangelical view.
19 January 2010 at 11.26 am
Jesus was the God-man who did not err or sin. The Bible is the human-divine book that has the possibility of erring in its humanity just as Jesus did, but nevertheless did not. Do you still disagree?
19 January 2010 at 11.36 am
@jeremy: i think that depends on how you define ‘err’ in relationship to jesus. would tripping over a rock be ‘erring’? would getting a runny nose be ‘erring’? would his learning from a child include ‘erring’ (‘erring’ is part of the learning process, after all)?
i’m not sure how you are meaning the term ‘err’ in relationship to the life of jesus. i think it is safe enough, based on what scripture says, that jesus did not sin. i’m not sure i’d say that he didn’t ‘err,’ as a) i don’t think there is enough biblical backing to say such a thing, b) i don’t think it adds anything theologically, c) ‘err’ must be further nuanced in order for the attribution of the term to jesus to have any real meaning.
i’d put it this way: jesus didn’t sin in the same way that the bible does not lead us astray (i.e., it doesn’t lie to us about how we are to relate with god, what the gospel is all about, etc.). but just as jesus may have had the sniffles when he was a child or just as he may have tripped or made a mistake when working as a carpenter with his father, the bible also makes some historical statements or takes on a particular cosmology that does not accurately describe reality. in this case, believing that there is a solid dome covering the earth wherein lay vaults that open when it rains would be the equivalent of jesus tripping on his way to the sea of galilee.
i don’t think either take away from the real purpose of god’s self-revelation.
i hope i’m not pushing the analogy too far, but it’s how i tend to think about things related to this analogy.
19 January 2010 at 12.42 pm
Do you think the gospel writers wrote things that did not accurately represent Jesus? If not, why can Genesis do this, but Mark can’t?
Why can the Bible lead us astray in relation to science, but not on ‘spiritual’ matters? This seem too close to some aspects of Gnosticism. I would want to qualify some things I am saying, buy I am on an iPhone.
19 January 2010 at 1.24 pm
@jeremy: it depends on what you mean my “not accurately represent jesus.” as i’m sure you know, there are discrepancies in the gospels if they are read as ‘one-to-one’ historical accounts. but that is not an issue for me because all historiography is shaped by the author.
as to why genesis can do this but mark can’t: the best way to answer that question is to say, as tremper longman consistently said in old testament history and theology, “genre triggers reading strategy.” if the genre of a text leads one to read it in a certain way, then one should follow the text and seek to allow it to speak on its own terms, not terms imputed upon it by people centuries afterwards. in other words, if joshua 6 presents itself as political ideology that mirrors the epic of keret, an ugartic political ideological text, then so be it. the text itself determines how one should read it because of its genre. as for the gospel narratives, they are closer to greco-roman biographies (ala burridge and wright, among others). because of their genre, they can be relied upon to have a closer link to actual history (i.e., what happened in the past in real space and time).
as for your question, Why can the Bible lead us astray in relation to science, but not on ’spiritual’ matters?: it is because the bible is not a science book.
i’m not sure what you are talking about when you conjure up a reference to gnosticism. that seems entirely out of place.
22 January 2010 at 2.09 am
Art,
I think the reference to gnosticism works like this,
His accusation is that you have seperated the physical laws of nature (science) from the spiritual matters of scripture – calling the recording of one in scripture errant, while claiming truth for the other. This is analogous (in the claim) to some gnostic groups who devalued the physical (science?) for the spiritual.
Correct me if I am wrong in that reconstruction Jeremy.
I would add, however, that someone might also accuse a certain segment of the Christian world of a kind of gnosticism; accepting that the overwhelming consensus of the scientific world affirms biological evolution, and yet many people in the evangelical world (you Jeremy?) deny it. It seems to me the case that this denial of the physical realities of the world equate a “gnosticizing” aspect to this segments faith wherein one must alter historical facts in order to retain a certain spiritual belief. In short, it seems some people throw away natural history (as it is, ) in favor of a distorted view of natural history (6k-10k earth) to retain some greater spiritual (gnostic) good.
If you don’t mind the inquiry Jeremy, not attempting to pry, but how do you handle the modern impasse of faith and evolutionary biology?
22 January 2010 at 7.33 pm
Nick, I think the gnostics actually believed in a sort of evolution. Their theory about the demiurge attempting to create a man and woman after the image of a heavenly man and woman he saw briefly from the higher heavens, but the people he created were like animals and could barely walk until subsequent tweaking by his fellow archons and a little help from certain aeons produced mankind as we now it today, is very much like evolution. And gnosticism is more or less the rejection of the partial rejection of the OT as inconsistent with the new, as opposed to the 2nd century Catholic view that every word of the OT is true. Basically all moderns are gnostics to a greater or lesser extent except for lunatic fundamentalists.
22 January 2010 at 7.39 pm
Gnosticism was also very much textual ciriticism and source criticism. Valentinian gnosticism as exhibited in Ptolemy was all about differentiating which parts of the OT came from the demiurge as opposed to which parts came from human corruption of the influence of the devil. Obviously, the Demiurge was understood as being the “Just God” to be the source of “thou shalt not kill” and such-like whereas the Devil was understood to be the source of the genocidal commands and such-like. This is a sort of spiritual source criticism, not entirely unlike the JEDP documentary hypothesis except it deals with spiritual beings rather than human beings. In following this sort of procedure, except viewing it more naturalistically, all scholars are essentially ‘gnostic’. And they should be proud of it, because the alternation (i.e. saying that God really did command genocide) is just disgusting blasphemy.
23 January 2010 at 9.37 am
Rev,
A few things
1.) Not sure what you mean when you say “Gnostics actually believed in a form of evolution” – OUtside of the antichronistic issues with the statement, gnostics were not monolithic, but differed vastly. There was a general tendency to devalue the physical in favor of a platonic spiritual (hence terms like the demiurgos, who appears first in platonic dialogues, and is adapted to gnostic sects.)
2.) Gnosticism is not the rejection of the OT in favor of the new, although certain sects with gnostic tendencies (Marcionites, for instance) did this. Some gnostics were pre Christian Jewish gnostics who accepted the Tanakh.
3.) I’m not seeing the connection between aeons helping to create man and evolution. Nor am I getting the connection you see between text criticism/DH and gnosticism. Perhaps you could clarify what you mean by this.
4.) My main point above (which hasn’t yet been addressed so far as I can tell) is what I wish to return to. Any belief which radically denies what we can scientifically confirm as being true about the natural world (say its age at 4.6 billion years as an example) in favor of a “spiritualized natural history” (the earth is 6000 years old) is necessarily gnostic. This move, the rejection of natural history for a spiritualized history of humanity, so far as I can tell, is directly gnostic in tendency. It tends to reject physical realities in favor of assumed spiritual realities. I should also add I dont mean in some way they intellectually do this; rather their entire world view is shaped by this odd gnostic conception of history. In fact, I would argue that fundamentalists and creationists display real gnostic tendencies in their theological formulations of the OT and the world around them. The church ought to repudiate such beliefs for repeating an old heresy, not enshrine them.
On this point, I would really like some critical interaction.
23 January 2010 at 8.41 pm
My point is simple, namely that Gnosticism whether Jewish or Christian Gnosticism, is at its core about the notion that the OT is corrupt because it comes from the Demiurge rather than the Higher Better God. Obviously in the Christian version the Higher Better God would be the Heavenly Father and Jesus XC. In the Jewish versions the Higher Better God might not be so well-defined. But the Demiurge is always rejected as being inconsistent and arbitrary (like evolution) as having attempted to create human beings after a pattern he saw briefly in the heaven of the higher God, and failing and then attempting to improve on the model to make it better match the exemplar (i.e. targeted evolution).
The rejection of the perfection of the OT as a revelation of God is at the heart of all forms of Gnosticism, because the OT’s God is the Maker, the Demiurge, who is rejected as imperfect in favor of a Higher more spiritual God who has no direct connection with this corrupt and miserable world. As such, the beliefs of Theo-evolutionists that the story of Genesis is not true and evolution is, are essentially Gnostic.
23 January 2010 at 8.48 pm
But, Nick, you want to label the view that is contrary to yours as Gnostic even though in reality your view is the Gnostic one. I don’t have this problem because I don’t see Gnostic as a dirty word any longer. Just because the Roman Catholic Church labeled something as ‘heresy’ doesn’t mean it really was heresy. After all, isn’t Roman Catholicism heresy? How can any Protestant continue to just mindlessly reject all those early Christians that Rome condemned as ‘heretics’ and say “yeah, they were heretics, so lets mindlessly reject everything they said”? Rome isn’t God. The fact is the truth is more likely to be found with the so-called ‘heretics’ who non-violently gave their live for what they believed than with the Roman pigs who used the secular sword to murder everyone who disagreed with them. ‘Orthodoxy’ couldn’t establish itself by rational arguments, so it turned to torture and persecution. Marcionism was more rational and would have won in a world where the losers in religion don’t turn to killing their opponents. But that’s not the world we live in, so the truly orthodox (the Marcionites) were exterminated by the real heretics (the Catholics). “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another: by this men will know that you are my disciples.” The Catholics have proven by their hatred and murdering of every other sect that they are certainly the guardians of heresy not orthodoxy, and by extension we know that the so-called ‘heretics’ were actually the truly orthodox.
23 January 2010 at 9.29 pm
@rey: your logic of equating those who take, for instance, genesis 1-11 as less than historic with gnostics is inconsistent. it is the equivalent of saying that christians are essentially moonies because they both believe that people should be abstinent before marriage.
it is not, in any way, shape, or form, gnostic to believe that portions of the hebrew bible are written for theological or ideological purposes and not, necessarily or primarily, to relay history. this is so for two major reasons:
1) like you have said, the gnostics had particular reasons for their beliefs about the hebrew bible. those beliefs are not shared by modern day scholars or readers of the hebrew bible who view portions of it as theologically or ideologically driven. nowhere will you find a side note, footnote, or appendix about the demiurge. it is completely absent from the argument.
2) modern scholars and readers who view portions of the hebrew bible as theologically or ideologically concerned do so because of either the genre of the narratives or because of the similarities the narratives share with cognate ane literature. again, you will not find an argument from a scholar worth her or his weight that includes mention of some demiurge or any type of gnostic thinking.
just because the gnostics viewed the hebrew bible a certain way and you think modern people view it a similar way does not equate the two. you are making an illegitimate argument.
as for your second comment, you need to read more church history. it was the orthodox who were being tortured and killed in the early church, not the heretics. it is true that christians throughout history have acted wrongly, such as the killing of heretics. but that doesn’t give you, or anyone else, the right to re-write church history. you’re logic about the catholic church being heretics and ‘heretics’ being orthodox is so backwards i’m not even sure where to begin…partly because your statement is so un-nuanced and vague that it conveys only your vitriol and no real point of any substance.
to put it bluntly, you’re talking complete nonsense.
24 January 2010 at 12.10 pm
Rey,
Several Things
[quote] But the Demiurge is always rejected as being inconsistent and arbitrary (like evolution) [/quote]
Evolution isn’t arbitrary, rather it has a definitive goal and purpose; Nor is it inconsistent, it is highly consistent and empirically repeatable. Nature is really a glorious system, which should lead us to worship, not to eschew her because what we see in her challenges our preconceptions on how we read our Bible.
Furthermore it might be pointed out that not all gnostics had a concept of the demiourgos as the one you suggested above- Neo-Platonists like Plotinus (who had a special influence on Augustine) influenced many gnostic groups who didn’t view the demiourgos as being an evil being, but rather as the manifestation of the Monad (in response to the Timaeus and to Aristotle’s treatment of it.) These groups didn’t repeat the errors of Marcion, the Sethians or Opithes; dichotomizing the OT and NT depictions of God. Although, as you suggest, some groups certainly did but it was not necessarily a function of gnostic thought.
As to the accusation that nuanced views of the OT genre of mythopoeic literature are gnostic, I have only a few things to say. First, I believe Art has sufficiently replied and I would encourage you to interact with him especially on those views of Gen 1-11 which he mentions. Secondly, in agreement with Art, I wish to restate the following. The tactic of throwing out monikers like ‘gnostic’ when dealing with a modern theological opponent rarely serves for more than an epitaph to paint your opponent in a negative light.
I was confused by Jeremy’s original assertion of gnosticism, but I saw the analogy he was trying to draw. My response to him is to say that if any ought to worry about becoming gnostic in form, it would be those who deny the physical realities of our universe (evolutionary biology, cosmology, etc…) in favor a spiritualized history. Rather than a loose analogy to gnosticism, this spiritualizing of history becomes a way to ultimately deny the evidence of the physical world and of our senses (evolutionary theory) in favor or some higher spiritual reality of history (young earth creationism.)
Finally I would like to say that I agree that gnosticism is anachronistic; perhaps the term “Christian Solipsism” better defines the current trend within fundamentalism which I was highlighting. In an age when you can use a 50 dollar telescope, some simple math, and about thirty minutes to confirm empirically that the universes is some 15 billion odd years old, it becomes very hard to deny the veracity of cosmological age. Numerous similar statements may be made about evolutionary biology and some fun home science projects you can do with your kids.
The denial of such simple and concrete evidence is solipsistic to its core and it is not a salve for, but rather a danger to Christian faithfulness.
Any takers?
24 January 2010 at 4.10 pm
I think the Gnostics reasons for their beliefs were essentially the same as ours today but that they represented them in mythical language because it was the style of the time, especially when writing in a semitic language like Aramaic. Essentially the Gnostics were like modern textual critics, except they also had a concept of Kabbalah.
“it was the orthodox who were being tortured and killed in the early church, not the heretics.”
It was always the State Church, the Catholic (that is, Agent of Rome, look up the word Katholikos) Church that was doing the persecuting. The earliest reports of martyrdom are heavy with Marcionite martyrs. Polycarp is essentially the ONLY martyr the Catholic Church can claim during the 2nd century, and he had to BEG to be burned at the stake and promise to stand in the fire without being tied down and put on a good show. Why? Because the persecution (a famous Marcionite presbyter is mentioned in one of the same sources as is Polycarp by the way) was a perscution of Marcionites being carried on by the State Church and its Secular allies. “But the church didn’t merge with the State until Constantine” you will say. No so. Until Constantine Catholicism was not the official religion of the Empire. But from Commodus on there was an official church and the rule was “if you want to be a Christian you have to be part of the Catholic Church or you die.” The change Constantine made was not to legalize Catholicism, but to force everyone (not just from other Christian traditions, but pagans too) to become a Catholic. Anyway, Polycarp wasn’t persecuted by the State Church because he was one of them. But Polycarp perceived that the State Church needed at least one martyr in order to compete with the Marcionites, so he begged them to kill him even though he was on their side, and finally they were persuaded and did so. There is no other way to interpret the odd and ridiculous “persecution” of Polycarp.
24 January 2010 at 5.07 pm
@rey: you’re still speaking nonsense and not engaging with the evidence and arguments that nick and i are presenting.
gnosticism is not the same thing as modern historical-critical research. to continue to state that such us the case simply reveals your ignorance of both.
as for your revisionist history, it is also nonsense….unless we are to believe that early roman emperors who persecuted and killed christians were doing so because the emperors were part of the catholic church? i’d love to hear that argument: nero as proto-pope.
give it a rest rey. you’re only making yourself look more daft with each comment. if you do comment again you must engage with the arguments that nick and i have presented. otherwise don’t bother bc your dribble will be deleted as it is a waste of everyone’s time.
sent from my iphone.
24 January 2010 at 6.13 pm
Rey,
Quid futuo?
3 February 2010 at 12.30 am
[...] This of course resonates with me in light of our lengthy discussion of the need for a better articulation of inspiration and inerrancy. [...]
4 February 2010 at 6.57 pm
[...] Posted by Reformed Reader on February 4, 2010 Though Shane and I took a stab at a critique of G.K. Beale’s The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalismon here on this blog, I just came across a review of Beale’s book by Peter Enns himself, the author of Inspiration and Incarnation and the chief opposing voice in Beale’s volume (HT: Art). [...]
10 July 2010 at 9.55 am
[...] my permission as well as that of the Bulletin for Biblical Research, Art Boulet has posted my published response to Greg Beale’s The Erosion of Inerrancy in [...]