ChrisChillin
October 19th 2004, 12:49 PM
In the past several months I have been on a binge of reading over various books devoted to the question of historical study and the Bible. Studies in biblical history are divided along the maximalist-to-minimalist spectrum. The maximalist (conservative, if you will) view has been largely assumed by many to have been overturned, but it appears that maximalist scholars are now in the process of mounting a counteroffensive. In the spring I ordered a copy of the new On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K.A. Kitchen, professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. His massive volume is just now being joined by The Future of Biblical Archaeology: Reassessing Assumptions and Methodologies, which consists of a series of essays by such personages as William W. Hallo of Yale University and Steven Ortiz of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, whom I met briefly in Israel this summer. I have just received that one in the mail.
This zest of writing by the maximalists seems to have begun with a comparatively slim volume that came out in 2002. Windows into Old Testament History: Evidence, Argument and the Crisis of "Biblical Israel" also consists of a series of contributor essays, but only runs 212 pages. The purpose of the book is both specific and broad: specific in that it seeks to repudiate the radical minimalists of the "Copenhagen School" and broad in that it addresses a range of issues involved in studying the Bible. It is truly an international effort, put together by scholars from America, Canada, England and Denmark - specifically, from a Lutheran seminary in Copenhagen itself, the city that is home to the most prominent minimalists.
The first essay critiques the methodology of the Copenhagers, who operate on the basis of a profound distrust of textual data and instead prefer the supposed "hard facts" of material remains uncovered by archaeology. Of course, the stones do not literally cry out - we need ancient documents to interpret mute rocks. The minimalists also reject historical validity for the Old Testament books because they have ideological or theological purposes. That they are ideologically slanted is undoubtedly true, and the OT writers are selective about their facts. That this means they necessarily must create fiction or distort the facts beyond recognition as history is an assumption.
The second essay is very dense and would be better understood by someone who is conversant with philosophy of language. I imagine I will have to reread it sometime in the future. The next three essays address external evidence that sheds light on what we can possibly affirm about the Bible as history. Richard Hess demonstrates the extent of literacy in Israel throughout its history, as demonstrated by inscriptional evidence. Alan Millard compares the biblical materials to historical and legendary writing in Mesopotamia. After that, the ever-entertaining and ever-knowledgable Kenneth Kitchen demonstrates that an Israelite "mini-empire" under Solomon is certainly conceivable and cannot be simply explained away as a retrojection based on the writer's experience of the Persian Empire.
The next two essays are case studies that analyze specific passages in the Book of Chronicles. This work is widely acknowledged to have been completed long after the Babylonian Exile (ca. 586-515 BC) and is thus assumed to be one of the most unhistorical books of the Bible. Yet the authors of these essays highlight clues that indicate the Chronicler had access to authentic pre-exilic sources and is attempting to relate history, albeit with different goals than the writer of Kings.
The last essay by Iain Provan is the most refreshing. He argues that he does not defend the Bible as a valid source of history not because of his religious beliefs but because the Bible must be treated the same way other ancient sources are treated. He notes that we do not regularly operate with the hyper-skeptical "hermeneutic of suspicion" that the Copenhagers. He asks what would history we could claim to "know" if we demanded the kind of certainty the minimalists call for, and provides the answer - "Very little." What is needed, he says, is a hermeneutic of openness in which we allow the text to serve as a testimony and then later consider whether other sources of information falsifies its claims.
This was an interesting book to read, although I do not recommend it to someone who hasn't learned some of the basics about the issues of biblical history. This book probably is intended for professionals anyway, as it leaves lines of Hebrew and quotes from German scholars untranslated. Nevertheless, even a novice can get a lot out of most of the essays, and Windows can serve as a solid introduction to maximalist biblical scholarship.
This zest of writing by the maximalists seems to have begun with a comparatively slim volume that came out in 2002. Windows into Old Testament History: Evidence, Argument and the Crisis of "Biblical Israel" also consists of a series of contributor essays, but only runs 212 pages. The purpose of the book is both specific and broad: specific in that it seeks to repudiate the radical minimalists of the "Copenhagen School" and broad in that it addresses a range of issues involved in studying the Bible. It is truly an international effort, put together by scholars from America, Canada, England and Denmark - specifically, from a Lutheran seminary in Copenhagen itself, the city that is home to the most prominent minimalists.
The first essay critiques the methodology of the Copenhagers, who operate on the basis of a profound distrust of textual data and instead prefer the supposed "hard facts" of material remains uncovered by archaeology. Of course, the stones do not literally cry out - we need ancient documents to interpret mute rocks. The minimalists also reject historical validity for the Old Testament books because they have ideological or theological purposes. That they are ideologically slanted is undoubtedly true, and the OT writers are selective about their facts. That this means they necessarily must create fiction or distort the facts beyond recognition as history is an assumption.
The second essay is very dense and would be better understood by someone who is conversant with philosophy of language. I imagine I will have to reread it sometime in the future. The next three essays address external evidence that sheds light on what we can possibly affirm about the Bible as history. Richard Hess demonstrates the extent of literacy in Israel throughout its history, as demonstrated by inscriptional evidence. Alan Millard compares the biblical materials to historical and legendary writing in Mesopotamia. After that, the ever-entertaining and ever-knowledgable Kenneth Kitchen demonstrates that an Israelite "mini-empire" under Solomon is certainly conceivable and cannot be simply explained away as a retrojection based on the writer's experience of the Persian Empire.
The next two essays are case studies that analyze specific passages in the Book of Chronicles. This work is widely acknowledged to have been completed long after the Babylonian Exile (ca. 586-515 BC) and is thus assumed to be one of the most unhistorical books of the Bible. Yet the authors of these essays highlight clues that indicate the Chronicler had access to authentic pre-exilic sources and is attempting to relate history, albeit with different goals than the writer of Kings.
The last essay by Iain Provan is the most refreshing. He argues that he does not defend the Bible as a valid source of history not because of his religious beliefs but because the Bible must be treated the same way other ancient sources are treated. He notes that we do not regularly operate with the hyper-skeptical "hermeneutic of suspicion" that the Copenhagers. He asks what would history we could claim to "know" if we demanded the kind of certainty the minimalists call for, and provides the answer - "Very little." What is needed, he says, is a hermeneutic of openness in which we allow the text to serve as a testimony and then later consider whether other sources of information falsifies its claims.
This was an interesting book to read, although I do not recommend it to someone who hasn't learned some of the basics about the issues of biblical history. This book probably is intended for professionals anyway, as it leaves lines of Hebrew and quotes from German scholars untranslated. Nevertheless, even a novice can get a lot out of most of the essays, and Windows can serve as a solid introduction to maximalist biblical scholarship.