Adrift and Robrecht and that's good enough

[Juvenal]

With the permission of the management, if they would be so kind.

A free-ranging invitation-only discussion on apologetics

Adrift, Robrecht, I'd like to pick your brains on apologetics, perhaps challenge some opinions, and hopefully, in the process, have some of mine challenged as well. I feel, hmm, uncomfortably ignorant. There are fairly fundamental questions that need to be understood correctly to have a meaningful view of Christianity.

• Who wrote the Bible?
• In what sense, if at all, is inerrancy necessary, or even preferable for Christians?
• What is the role of tradition, how has it been passed on, and how has it evolved?
• What relation is there between today's Christianity and the Christianity of the earliest followers of Jesus?

I've asked for your comments because you've shown yourselves endlessly patient with even the more difficult students. And also, to be honest, for your bibliographies. I'd like to swat down a book a week, I think, but don't know where to start.


I'd like to thank those of you who've inquired via PM. With courtesy, I won't be responding. I'm fine. Thank you for asking. Things have been going well in my personal and professional lives. I'm on-boarding for a new teaching position beginning in January, and, during the Veterans Day weekend, I'll be in San Antonio with my brother's family to watch my middle nephew graduate from basic training in the Air Force.

Life is good.

[Juvenal]

• Who wrote the Bible?
• In what sense, if at all, is inerrancy necessary, or even preferable for Christians?
• What is the role of tradition, how has it been passed on, and how has it evolved?
• What relation is there between today's Christianity and the Christianity of the earliest followers of Jesus?

This is where I am, right now.

• By "the Bible" I mean, sure, all of it, but principally the Tanakh.

I start with the basic premise of the documentary hypothesis: multiple authors working in collaborative groups at different times in history. Not much to argue there, so to add some controversy, I believe the earliest groups, prior to redaction, wrote from the perspective of worshipers of Yahweh as a tutelary deity specific to Israel, who was part of a larger pantheon ranging across Canaan. That the best guess for me, at present, but it's barely a scaffold.

• Inerrancy is fungible.

The landscape of Christian belief runs the gamut on inerrancy. It certainly serves a purpose, but it's less clear whether that purpose can be equally served by existing alternatives. Inerrancy provides a banner where believers can rally in order to identify themselves as fellow adherents. There are other banners.

• Inerrancy is unnecessary if tradition is sufficient.

Everything written in the Bible began as tradition. But is tradition enough? The earliest gospels show a diversity in the earliest communities far larger than today's. Arguments about the nature of the Trinity are worlds away from arguments about the divinity of Jesus. I see the Bible as an amphitheater where traditions that managed to become written competed for entry. But still, in the church itself, most Christians don't read, or even want to read, their sacred texts. For them, tradition is enough. Perhaps inerrancy, to the extent it's necessary, is only necessary for the priesthood.

• Is it still Christianity?

That's a huge question for me. Yet, I'm not sure it should be. I ask the question because of the early diversity. Many, perhaps even most of the earliest traditions did not survive. But really, does it matter if today's Christianity resulted from an act of divine creation or some form of Darwinian selection. Today's species exists, or exist, and in either case can be understood apart from their origins.

Thank you for your thoughts.

As ever, Jesse

[robrecht]

This is where I am, right now.

• By "the Bible" I mean, sure, all of it, but principally the Tanakh.

I start with the basic premise of the documentary hypothesis: multiple authors working in collaborative groups at different times in history. Not much to argue there, so to add some controversy, I believe the earliest groups, prior to redaction, wrote from the perspective of worshipers of Yahweh as a tutelary deity specific to Israel, who was part of a larger pantheon ranging across Canaan. That the best guess for me, at present, but it's barely a scaffold.

Perhaps because I first recommended it to him, Adrift will also recommend Who Wrote the Bible? by by Richard Elliott Friedman. Written back in the 80s, it is old (but not as old as the documentary hypothesis), and probably still the best explanation of one version of the documentary hypothesis for lay people. It is extremely well written and very easy to follow. European scholars at the time thought Friedman's work was the last gasp of a dying theory, but it has continued to survive. This approach is diachronic, focusing on the historical factors and process behind the current text. It is only an hypothesis, of course, but it has survived because it is a very good one.

There are two main avenues of critique of the documentary hypothesis, both of which I support. The first is also diachronic, and seeks to either further define or obscure the various sources, authors, and editors. I don't think we can have any certainty about more detailed versions division of sources, but I do believe that reality is often more complicated in the various details than our ability to hypothesize with much confidence. The other main avenue of critique has been the development of a variety of modern synchronic approaches which focus on the final form of the text as we have it now. If we cannot know all that much about the various sources and how they were variously redacted and thereby trace the changing meaning of a story in its various forms as it evolved, we can at least focus on the final version of a story.

There is no reason why one cannot combine both approaches, taking into account what we do know about earlier versions of some stories and also emphasizing the interpretive work of the final editors and even some copyists. We may not know exactly how the story changed over time, but we do know that some of the stories were clearly indebted to older versions. We can look at the whole of a current work and see how the story functions within a given chapter or book or group of books and that may give us some insight into why some aspects of a current biblical story are different than an older version that we do have. I sometimes speak of at least the last of the various authors of a work to accommodate the legitimacy of both diachronic and syncronic methodologies.

I don't think it is at all controversial, at least not among scholars and anyone that has taken a good high school or college course in biblical studies at a secular or Catholic university, that some of the early writers and even some of the later ones believed in Yahweh as the God of Israel among other gods of other nations. Over time this developed into a more monotheistic vision.

I will get to some of the additional areas as time permits.

[robrecht]

• Inerrancy is fungible.

The landscape of Christian belief runs the gamut on inerrancy. It certainly serves a purpose, but it's less clear whether that purpose can be equally served by existing alternatives. Inerrancy provides a banner where believers can rally in order to identify themselves as fellow adherents. There are other banners.

• Inerrancy is unnecessary if tradition is sufficient.

Everything written in the Bible began as tradition. But is tradition enough? The earliest gospels show a diversity in the earliest communities far larger than today's. Arguments about the nature of the Trinity are worlds away from arguments about the divinity of Jesus. I see the Bible as an amphitheater where traditions that managed to become written competed for entry. But still, in the church itself, most Christians don't read, or even want to read, their sacred texts. For them, tradition is enough. Perhaps inerrancy, to the extent it's necessary, is only necessary for the priesthood.

Personally, I do not hold to any doctrines of scriptural, papal, conciliar, episcopal, pastoral, congregational, or individual innerancy or infallibility. In this sentence, however, you will see the seeds of several different models of ecclesiastical leadership, and I do believe that each of these models has some validity. I just don't think any leadership is infallible. That to me sounds more like what most people would think of as a cult so long as they're speaking of some other group, one in which they do not find themselves. It does seem necessary, at least for many, to believe in some sort of inerrancy or infallibility but I don't think they are really necessary. Perhaps they help human institutions survive and adapt over centuries, but they also tend to support calcification and stifle free thought, which I think is one of the greatest benefits of believing in God. The biblical texts reflect the glory of God but are not God himself. They also reflect some of the best (and worst) traits of their human authors, likewise every other form of conciliar or other texts.

I am not so sure that the earliest gospels show a diversity in the earliest communities far larger than today's, but perhaps that's because I am aware of some very divergent communities today and throughout the history of the church.

• Is it still Christianity?

That's a huge question for me. Yet, I'm not sure it should be. I ask the question because of the early diversity. Many, perhaps even most of the earliest traditions did not survive. But really, does it matter if today's Christianity resulted from an act of divine creation or some form of Darwinian selection. Today's species exists, or exist, and in either case can be understood apart from their origins.

Is what still Christianity? Rather than assume that at the beginning there was Christianity and from that other things evolved, I think it is more true to say that various strands contributed to the evolution of Christianity. It was never uniform, in my opinion. Among the first disciples and other hearers of Jesus, there were surely many different interpretations of what he said. Some thought the law of Moses could be done away with while others surely did not. Even before the time of Jesus, there were already widely divergent interpretations of the law. Some early 'Christians' were poor fishermen, some tax collectors, some prostitutes, some gluttons and drunkards (the fun group, no doubt), some Pharisees, some priests, one Syrophonecian woman. While something drew them all together, it would be very unrealistic to assume that a member of the House of Hillel would understand Jesus' teachings the same as a member of the House of Shammai. In Judaism, this diversity of interpretation is a wonderful thing. No reason why such debate and diversity should not continue to thrive among Christians. Personally, I do not think the division of Christianity from the various Judaisms of the time was a good thing.

Thank you for your thoughts.

You're entirely welcome!

As ever, Jesse

Eternally yours, robrecht

[robrecht]

With respect to questions about inerrancy, infallibility, and tradition, the book I recommend most often for understanding the various Christian theologies of Revelation is Models of Revelation by Avery Dulles. It too is from the eighties and it is not as easy to read as Who Wrote the Bible?, but I am sure you would be able to handle it.

[Juvenal]

Mea culpa, Robrecht.

[rogue06]

Mea culpa, Robrecht.

A lao sighting!

Hope you've been well.

[robrecht]

Mea culpa, Robrecht.

I was beginning to think there is no lao tzu ...

[rogue06]

I was beginning to think there is no lao tzu ...

There isn't. I'm now trying to deal with the conundrum of there being a verified sighting of him smiley think-wonder.gif

[shunyadragon]

Is there no Adrift responding to the thread?

[psstein]

With the permission of the management, if they would be so kind.

A free-ranging invitation-only discussion on apologetics

Adrift, Robrecht, I'd like to pick your brains on apologetics, perhaps challenge some opinions, and hopefully, in the process, have some of mine challenged as well. I feel, hmm, uncomfortably ignorant. There are fairly fundamental questions that need to be understood correctly to have a meaningful view of Christianity.

• Who wrote the Bible?
• In what sense, if at all, is inerrancy necessary, or even preferable for Christians?
• What is the role of tradition, how has it been passed on, and how has it evolved?
• What relation is there between today's Christianity and the Christianity of the earliest followers of Jesus?

I'm neither Adrift nor Robrecht, but perhaps I'll be helpful.

With regard to "who wrote the Bible," I think you're asking specifically about the OT? I'm not really well-read on OT, but I deny the principles of the DH that we can easily identify sources and contextualize them. Instead, I follow what's more or less called the fragmentary hypothesis, with the most notable book written by R.N. Whybray (the Making of the Pentateuch). With regard to the prophets and writings, some of them betray henotheistic tendencies (that YHWH is the most high among many) whereas others seem to have a strict monotheistic bent.

About inerrancy: I don't find inerrancy particularly important. I think the Bible is inerrant in what it's supposed to teach, which doesn't necessarily include history/science/chronology/etc. The Bible is many types of literature, but there are areas where it's clearly in error, even if you want to try to find some type of harmonization. Chronicles and Kings can't readily be reconciled.

Tradition: a very complex issue and one that I think difficult to explain. I see tradition as primarily passed down (at least in the NT times) through the proto-orthodox church.

I tend to believe that earliest Christianity and today's Christianity differ in part, but are also fairly similar. I don't think the earliest Christians had particularly developed ideas of Christ's nature/energy/etc. In terms of Trinitarian conceptions of God and the role of Jesus, I don't really know. I'm persuaded that the earliest Christians had a high christology (see Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ), but I'm not so persuaded that they automatically thought that Jesus was consubstantial with the Father, as the Arian heresy and earlier heresies (monarchism, docetism, etc.) display. Unlike Baur, I think the division between Petrine and Pauline Christianity largely is overstated, plus there seem to be good reasons to believe that Gentile Christians were largely similar to Jewish Christians.

As usual, Robrecht has spoken far more eloquently than I can about these matters.