Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism

Hays, Christopher M., Ansberry, Christopher B., Christopher M. Hays, Christopher B. Ansberry

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780801049385
• eBook ISBN:
  9781441245755
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Many introductions to biblical studies describe critical approaches, but they do not discuss the theological implications. This timely resource discusses the relationship between historical criticism and Christian theology to encourage evangelical engagement with historical-critical scholarship. Charting a middle course between wholesale rejection and unreflective embrace, the book introduces evangelicals to a way of understanding and using historical-critical scholarship that doesn't compromise Christian orthodoxy. The book covers eight of the most hotly contested areas of debate in biblical studies, helping readers work out how to square historical criticism with their beliefs.

1

Towards a faithful criticism

CHRISTOPHER M. HAYS

Current relations between evangelicals and historical criticism

This is a book about historical criticism. This is not a book about inerrancy. What is tricky, however, is that one can hardly address the topic of historical criticism without at least reflecting on whether and how Scripture might be authoritative and true.

Scholars at the more conservative end of the guild contend that the Scriptures are inerrant, unswervingly true and accurate not only on issues of faith and morals but also on matters of historical fact. The Bible is, they aver, a historical document, but under divine care the Bible has been preserved from the erroneous vulnerabilities of other mundane historical documents. So, when conservative scholars approach Scripture as the word of God, they have a dual commitment to apprehending its theological message and affirming its factual integrity.

At the other end of the halls of the academy are the historical critics. While many of these scholars would indeed affirm that Scripture is the word of God, they do not feel the need (or, indeed, the freedom) to see the Bible as historically pristine. So, when they approach Scripture as a historical document, they bear dual commitments to understanding the message of the text itself and to investigating whether there might be slippage between the way that the Bible describes historical events and the way those events actually occurred in time and space.

As is typical in human disagreements, members of these opposite parties tend to caricature each other, polarizing conversations even further. Historical critics frequently construe conservative inerrantists as woefully naïve or wilfully ignorant fundamentalists. The nasty rhetoric that sometimes accompanies this dim view is often the consequence of autobiographical chagrin, as many more-liberal critics are themselves ‘lapsed’ conservatives. Conversely, conservative inerrantists sometimes lambast historical critics as godless atheists, arrogantly derogating the divine voice. This hostility often derives from a protective impulse, insofar as conservative scholars have tearfully witnessed bright and promising students engage with liberal research and then abandon their faith entirely.

The reality is that neither denunciation is baseless, though neither is fair. Perhaps the people who know this best are the evangelicals, as we stand somewhere between these two poles, oftentimes bleeding into one camp or another, while feeling the tug of each. It is most of all for such students, seminarians, pastors and scholars, that we write this book.

As we said, this is a book about historical criticism, not inerrancy; yet we recognize that, for evangelicals, these are not entirely separable issues. In fact, modern debate about inerrancy is (among other things) a reaction to the rise of historical criticism. In the US, the writings of late nineteenth-century historical critics sparked heated disputes, as those critics impugned the historical veracity of the biblical depictions of numerous events. Sadly, the 1920s and 30s witnessed the retreat of the predecessors of American evangelicalism from the cutting edge of the discussion. Conservative Christian academics forged intellectually infelicitous alliances with popular revivalism and dispensational fundamentalism. Even the best conservative scholars of that generation left historical criticism to Harvard and Princeton in favour of founding Westminster Theological Seminary and, shortly thereafter, Fuller Theological Seminary.[1] In the ensuing decades, however, the schools founded by proto-evangelicals came to produce first-rate students, who, in varying degrees, re-appropriated the tools, the literature and the assumptions of the biblical academy. The question that we now face is: how exactly do we relate to the historical criticism that drove our predecessors away from the universities in the first place?

Opinions vary, but Mark Noll has helpfully schematized the range of perspectives on historical criticism within the evangelical camp. He makes a major division between ‘critical anti-criticism’ and ‘believing criticism’.[2] The critical anti-critics, Noll explains, are inerrantists whose academic research engages with the broader academy in an apologetic endeavour to protect traditional interpretations of Scripture; critical anti-critics typically consider inerrancy to be the epistemological foundation of Christian theology.

In contrast, believing critics are scholars who allow that higher critical research may require the revision of some traditional evangelical beliefs. Believing critics come in different stripes. The more conservative variety is but a slightly less-dogmatic version of the critical anti-critic, only theoretically entertaining the possibility that traditional evangelical beliefs be overturned, though not thinking as much to be demanded by the evidence. The second group of believing critics asserts that certain traditional interpretations of scriptural texts should be revised, but in a manner putatively in keeping with the intention of the biblical documents. And the third group of believing critics not only allows for the reinterpretation of a given passage in Scripture but also agrees with the broader academy that certain errors do exist in the biblical text. Nonetheless, Noll clarifies, ‘on other important matters – belief in the truth-telling character of Scripture, its realistic interpretation, its substantial historicity, its ultimate authority – these critics align themselves with evangelicals who are conservative on critical matters’.[3]

Shifting the conversation: the theological entailments of historical criticism

It is not our intention to offer our pennyworth to the inerrancy debate. Evangelicals have mulled over the vexed subject of the historical reliability of Scripture for well over a century[4] (and even though this has been a largely ‘in-house’ debate, all too often we have allowed the conversation to disintegrate into rather sharp-tongued disparagement of our opponents’ lucidity and charity). In reflection of this diversity within evangelicalism, the present volume includes the insights of collaborators on both sides of the inerrancy debate. Notwithstanding our diverse views of Scripture, we are all convinced that our biblical scholarship cannot be conducted in indifference towards historical-critical questions. So, for the time being, we would like to set aside the subject of inerrancy, especially because evangelicals have been leery of joining in historical criticism for another reason: fear of heresy (i.e., fear of beliefs that imperil the legitimacy of one’s claim to Christianity).

The spectre of heterodoxy deters the engagement of many scholars who are otherwise intrigued by critical questions. These scholars’ reasonable concern is as follows: if the Bible might be historically inaccurate in some regards, then how can we trust it in any regard?[5] How can we know that Jesus really rose from the dead? How can we believe that God led the Israelites out of Egypt? How can we know that God is truly loving, committed to the salvation of his people? If the Bible could be ‘errant’ at some point, then how do we know if it is not errant at every point? This argument from the slippery slope appears frequently in discussions of inerrancy.[6] And once the guard rail of inerrancy is removed, the proverbial slippery slope seems dizzyingly steep.

Consequently, this book discusses the theological challenges that confront the biblical interpreter who engages with historical criticism. We hope to show that the ‘slippery slope’ is neither pitched at such a terrifying angle nor composed of such shifting soil that negotiating it is an impossible feat. There is some tricky terrain to be crossed, without a doubt. But evangelicalism has produced some sure-footed explorers, and we are, of course, not without a divine guide to help us on our trek.

Still, it might be better to problematize the image of the slippery slope altogether. As J. D. G. Dunn aptly observed, some of us have demanded that Scripture rise to such unnecessary heights of precision that we now find ourselves at an altitude from which descent feels hazardous.[7]

It is precisely because some evangelicals pitch their starting point too high, that the only way to progress in knowledge of God and of his truth for some of their disciples is down what they regard as the ‘slippery slope’ – a slippery slope which has been created more by their elevation of their interpretation of Scripture above Scripture (human tradition above the Word of God) than by anything else.[8]

If one comes to think that there may be historical inaccuracies in scriptural documents, then one is compelled to trudge down the slope, to assess the accuracy of the historical claims of the Bible, not as an apostasy from or assault on Christianity, but in the service of Christianity. This is a labour done through historical criticism; this has been the intention of many historical critics. But the long hiatus of evangelical biblical scholarship from the historical-critical fray means that historical criticism still appears threatening to us. As such, it is the goal of the present volume to illustrate that historical criticism need not imperil any of the fundamental dogmatic tenets of Christianity.

We are not alone in disputing the centrality of inerrancy to Christian dogma. Even the great Princetonians A. A. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, in their landmark work ‘Inspiration’, make a salutary distinction between scriptural inspiration and the essential doctrinal tenets of Christianity.[9]

While the Inspiration of the Scriptures is true, and being true is a principle fundamental to the adequate interpretation of Scripture, it nevertheless is not in the first instance a principle fundamental to the truth of the Christian religion . . . Nor should we ever allow it to be believed that the truth of Christianity depends upon any doctrine of Inspiration whatever . . . Inspiration can have no meaning if Christianity is not true, but Christianity would be true and divine, and being so, would stand, even if God had not been pleased to give us . . . an infallible record of that revelation absolutely errorless.[10]

Whatever our differences (and on particular topics they surely are many), the contributors to this book do agree that the Bible is inspired in whatever way God intends it to be.[11] In a similar vein, the scholars in this volume believe that we should approach Scripture as a collection of historical texts; we feel that we should examine the Bible inductively in order to figure out in what way God has inspired his written word.[12]

As evangelicals, we believe that there needs to be space for an approach to Scripture that is historical critical. This endeavour ought well to be historical, because we believe that God has chosen to reveal himself in history, to Abraham, to Israel, and ultimately through Jesus. And this endeavour should be critical because, in the footsteps of the great Reformers, we do not want to confuse our human traditions with God’s own revelation; we do not want to accord such wholesale deference to the presuppositions of our pious but fallible human predecessors that their limitations impair our access to the way God has spoken in Scripture.

Servant or master? Being critical of historical criticism

It should certainly be admitted that historical-critical inquiry does have its dark side, and one need not read long to amass many examples of a certain species of tiresome rhetoric among its adherents (e.g. language of the sort claiming that historical criticism at long last wakens its practitioners from their dogmatic slumber and frees the New Testament from the theological bondage to which it has been forcibly suppressed). One wonders if the cavalier confidence of such historical critics might not render them like the guards in the front matter of this volume. They are so certain that dead men do not rise that they snore at their posts, blithely unaware of the singular eschatological moment occurring at their backs, as the resurrected God-man steps nimbly out of his casket, over their snoozing forms, and strolls out of the tomb, leaving behind those assured that the doors of life and death are firmly barred against the hand of the Pantocrator.

Early exegetes who committed themselves whole-heartedly to a thoroughly critical approach to Scripture did often come into bitter conflict with ecclesial authorities, and one can trace a steady stream of two-way vituperations from that time to this. While the precise origins of the historical-critical approach to Scripture are debated, it seems clear that at least some of its tributaries flowed from English Deism and continental scepticism about the reliability of biblical accounts. The mere mention of names like Hermann Samuel Reimarus and David Friedrich Strauss is sufficient to recall the chequered history of historical criticism’s theological intentions. In this age of ideological awareness, it would be naïve to assume that historical-critical inquiry is value-neutral.

So, at this point, one might raise the question: must historical criticism be viewed as an ideology whose demands are total? If we answer ‘yes’ to that question,[13] if we concede that, in Gerd Lüdemann’s words, anyone who offers to historical criticism their little finger must in the end give his or her whole hand,[14] then evangelicals should steadfastly refuse to practise it. If an ethics of belief will allow only those things that pass the bar of verifiable history, defined in Late Modern terms, then the ideologically determined historical method can permit nothing approaching an orthodox, much less evangelical, Christianity. But if it is possible to approach historical criticism itself critically, to employ its methods in a non-totalizing fashion, to assign to it the position of an unworthy servant in its master’s house, then evangelicals must engage (and criticize) the method with full vigour.

In fact, in offering this call for a re-engagement with historical criticism, this volume does not stand as a solitary ‘voice crying in the wilderness’. Rather, as contributors we lend our voices to the growing chorus calling evangelicals to engage in an intellectually honest and academically rigorous wrestling match with Scripture in all its troublesome particularity. Scripture is certainly not all trouble, and the old post-Reformation tenet of claritas Scripturae expresses an important truth. Any statement of the perspicuity of Scripture, however, becomes irresponsible as soon as it excuses one from the need to join in the laborious task of seeking the perfection Scripture has, and not simply the perfection we would demand of it. In fact, refusing to engage historical criticism at all can only have the effect of preparing the next generation for apostasy – or at least preparing them to leave evangelicalism. What is the thoughtful evangelical to do should she become convinced that some critical conclusions are, in fact, correct? If as academics in service of our ecclesial constituencies we fail to provide an answer to that question, we have failed in our vocation to think on behalf of (and therefore occasionally prophetically against) the Church. As evangelicalism seeks to shed the anti-intellectualism of its youth, it will take more faith, not less, to walk the narrow path of fidelity in the life of the mind. In this, the task of the evangelical biblical scholar must not be to peddle pious truisms but to make plain the witness of Scripture on its own uncomfortable terms.

It may also be that the theological climate is ripe for a re-engagement with critical questions. Following the work of John Webster, one can sense a certain enthusiasm for the dogmatic relocation of Scripture away from the prolegomena of systematic theology (i.e., from the foundational doctrines that determine everything which follows) to the loci of God and the Church, in which Scripture can be seen as one of the means by which God reconciles the world to himself.[15] As evangelicals, together with Christians of other traditions, gradually awaken from our own epistemological slumber, it becomes more and more clear that foundationalist impulses in theological method have as much to do with an Enlightenment yearning for certainty as with a genuinely Christian theological reflection. If Scripture is not strictly prolegomenous to theology, if Scripture is seen as one aspect or one agent of God’s reconciling work through the Spirit in the Church, albeit a uniquely privileged one, then we can pursue theology in the freedom that comes from knowing that the Church and her witness are sustained not by the epistemological certainty of inerrancy b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontispiece
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1. Towards a faithful criticism
• 2. Adam and the fall
• 3. The exodus: fact, fiction or both?
• 4. No covenant before the exile? The Deuteronomic Torah and Israel’s covenant theology
• 5. Problems with prophecy
• 6. Pseudepigraphy and the canon
• 7. The historical Jesus
• 8. The Paul of Acts and the Paul of the epistles
• 9. Faithful criticism and a critical faith
• Bibliography
• Index of ancient texts
• Notes
• About the editors
• Back cover