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Monday, September 02, 2013

The setting of Scripture


i) Writers like John Walton, Peter Enns, Paul Seely, Bruce Waltke, and Tremper Longman are lobbying to redefine inerrancy. Trying to shift how we view the Bible. Yet they also claim that, in a fundamental respect, they are not saying anything new. They are simply attempting to make evangelicals more consistent with hermeneutical presuppositions that conservative scholarship has accepted for some time now.  
We ought to understand the OT in its ancient Near Eastern context or setting. That's part and parcel of the grammatico-historical method. Who could object to that? 
There's something  right in what they are saying, but there's something wrong in what they are saying. And that makes it initially difficult to identify the source of the problem. I've seen their critics struggle to formulate the problem.
ii) One aspect of the problem is easy to identify. Although they talk about the original setting, their real frame of reference isn't the ancient Near East but the HMS Beagle. They think science has decisively refuted Gen 1-11. There's no going back from that. 
So in that respect, all their talk about the ancient Near Eastern context of OT scripture is an exercise in misdirection. Mock pious window-dressing. The scientific establishment is their real standard of comparison. That's what they measure the Bible by.
iii) But there's another aspect to the problem that's less overt. What do they mean by the ancient Near Eastern "setting" or "context"? What do they mean by "background information"?
Briefly put, they lay myopic emphasis on comparative literature. Walton, for one, talks about the "cognitive environment," or "world of ideas" which OT writers held in common with their neighbors and contemporaries. If you stop to think about it, that's a very revealing and very narrow way to frame the issue. That's a seriously deficient definition of background information.
Notice what is implicitly missing in his comparison. He accentuates the literary setting rather than the geographical setting. The cognitive environment rather than the physical environment. The world of ideas rather than the world of nature.
Writers like Walton, Enns, et al. focus on ancient Near Eastern literature rather than the actual world which informed or produced ancient Near Eastern literature. They focus on the effect rather than the underlying cause.
Now, there's some value in comparative literary approach. That can help us to identify the genre of an OT book, or rhetorical conventions. That helps us to interpret the book.
But consider all of the background information which comparative literary analysis ignores. Climate. Terrain. Fauna. Flora. Diet. Natural resources. Technology. Transportation. Architecture. Politics. Economic systems. Social structures. Urban life. Rural life.
For me, that kind of background information is far more useful to reentering the world of the OT than comparative literature. That helps a modern reader reconstruct what it was like to live back then. A day in the life of an Egyptian fisherman in the 2nd millennium BC. 
If we could step into the time machine, and go back to prediluvian times, what would we see? What's an average day in the life of Noah? 
When, for instance, commentators talk about Eden, they focus on intertextual allusions to the tabernacle, or alleged parallels to other ancient Near Eastern literature. They spend little if any time trying to realistically envision a day in the life of Adam and Eve. The climate. The terrain. They stay outside the text rather than projecting themselves into the world the text describes. 
Likewise, when they talk about the flood, they focus on Mesopotamian flood traditions. They spend little if any time on the technicalities of flooding. They fail to discuss various types of flooding (areal, riverine, estuarine, coastal), and which type of flooding matches the Genesis account. They don't discuss whether the water table would affect the duration of the flood. They don't make the same effort to situate the event in a real-world setting outside the text. 
This deficiency is due in part to the limitations of their training. Their specialization lies in the language and literature of the ancient Near East.
This deficiency is due in part to their lifestyle. Most OT scholars have a lifestyle that doesn't bear any resemblance to the lifestyle of an ancient Near Easterner. They aren't primitive hunters or farmers or fisherman. They don't live off the land. 
As a result, commentators talk about what they know about. But what they don't know about may be far more germane to understanding Gen 1-11 than comparative literature.
iv) Bill Arnold is another good example. Two things stand out in his commentary on Genesis:
a) He views the stories in Gen 1-11 as redacted traditions or redacted legends. Literature interacting with other literature. They don't go back to real world events. 
b) His viewpoint is methodologically naturalistic. And that's because, I daresay, his personal experience is effectively secular. Angelic apparitions are alien to his experience. Things like that never happen to him, so they have an air of unreality. Same thing with other liberal commentators (Alter, Brueggemann, Childs, Driver, Fretheim, Gunkel, Sarna, Skinner, Speiser, von Rad, Westermann). For them, Gen 1-11 is obviously mythological. It radically conflicts with their plausibility structures.  
Far from attempting to view the world from within the outlook of the narrator, they keep that at a studied distance. 

14 comments:

  1. Amen! I was just thinking about this too.

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  2. Who are some good OT scholars who believe in the Chicago statement on inerrancy, who don't use this naturalistic methodology?

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    1. I think most-all of these probably fit the bill: Desi Alexander, Daniel Block, Robert Chisholm, John Currid, Duane Garrett, Michael Grisanti, Richard Hess, James Hoffmeier, Horace Hummel, John Mackay, Kenneth Mathews, Thomas McComiskey, Eugene Merrill, J. A. Motyer, John Oswalt, Richard Pratt, O. P. Robertson, Gary Smith, Andrew Steinmann, Douglas Stuart, David Tsumura, Barry Webb, Christopher Wright.

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  3. Bill Barrick, a colleague of Michael Grisanti, is working on a commentary of Genesis as we speak. I can't wait for it to come out. It will be a tour de force.

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  4. It might also be helpful to get an atlas with photos like The ESV Bible Atlas authored by John Currid and David Barrett. Obviously the photos don't depict ancient Israel or any of the ANE cultures. Nevertheless I think there's something to be said for being able to see the land and geography with one's own eyes albeit in modern photos. It may not be as helpful as, say, regularly traveling to Israel. But it's at least a step or two closer to reality, and away from the intellectually isolated ivory tower.

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  5. Currid is a rising star in terms of the ANE background of the Pentateuch defending its inerrancy. Noel Weeks is another but hasn't anything published like Currid and the others but, he's more of an ANE scholar than Biblical his Ph.D is in ANE and his Th.M. is from Westminster. Having conversed via email he is helpful and a staunch defender of the inerrancy and historicity of Genesis.

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  6. Thanks for that list, Steve.

    I recognize some of the names like Richard Pratt and Eugene Merrill, Motyer, Douglas Stuart, O. Palmer Robertson, Chisholm is at Dallas Seminary, John Currid, and Daniel Block. Some of the others I have seen their names, but most others I was unfamiliar with, so that is helpful.

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  7. What about C. John Collins?
    (professor of OT at Covenant)

    Chisholm mentions him as writing a book responding to Peter Enns, in this panel discussion at Dallas Seminary about the historical Adam.

    http://www.dts.edu/media/play/cultural-engagement-historical-adam-panel-faculty/

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    1. http://jimhamilton.info/2007/10/19/review-of-c-john-collins-genesis-1-4/

      http://byfaithonline.com/the-case-for-adam-and-eve-our-conversation-with-c-john-collins/

      http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2012/02/c-john-collins-replies-to-rich.php

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  8. Steve, I apologize for an extremely long comment, however I participate with a group of guys who like to bat around ideas and this blog post has become our most recent fodder. One response was a bit critical of your post and we were curious how you would respond to it. I will copy the critique below. I realize it's too long; if you would rather delete it and just email a response, you can email me at natsimms@gmail.com. So without further adieu...

    Let me start with a summary of my understanding of his argument. He starts the argument recognizing the shared assumption, "We ought to understand the OT in its ancient Near Eastern context or setting. That's part and parcel of the grammatico-historical method." The question that naturally follows this assumption is, what is the best way to recover this context? He suggests that modern conservative scholarship relies primarily, if not entirely, on comparative literature. The problem, as he points out, it that literature is a response to the context, as opposed to the actual context. In his words, "They focus on the effect rather than the underlying cause." His solution seems to be the development of a more general approach that seeks to put yourself into the shoes of the historical everyman.

    My question is what does he mean by "understand the OT?" It seems to me that he is making the mistake of conflating understanding with relating. I'll try to explain.

    He is focusing on the way of life of the characters in Genesis 1–11, but the book was not written by or to people who were familiar with this way of life. The original author likely found the idea of a 950 year old man to be every bit as foreign as we do. My point is that the ultimate goal in reading is not to know what life was like for Noah, rather it is to decipher the purpose for which Moses is recounting the story of Noah.

    I am concerned that this approach emphasizes the historical setting and diminishes communicative act. It produces a Discovery channel documentary rather than a sermon. Consider the statement,

    "But consider all of the background information which comparative literary analysis ignores. Climate. Terrain. Fauna. Flora. Diet. Natural resources. Technology. Transportation. Architecture. Politics. Economic systems. Social structures. Urban life. Rural life.For me, that kind of background information is far more useful to reentering the world of the OT than comparative literature. That helps a modern reader reconstruct what it was like to live back then. A day in the life of an Egyptian fisherman in the 2nd millennium BC."

    But, what would make these things significant? Why would a familiarity with a day in the life of an Egyptian fisherman in the 2nd millennium BC help me understand a book written by and to people who were also probably not very familiar with a day in the life of an Egyptian fisherman?

    I think this analysis does not sufficiently treat the Bible as communication. To claim that the Bible is communication means that it has an author and the author is writing to an audience to accomplish a purpose. The context that is most important is not the context of the people in the story, but the context of the people telling and hearing the story. And even then, its not heresy to point out that not all context is relevant. If I could get back into a time machine and find out Moses' shoe size, the quality of his shoes, and his favorite color, I would be no closer to understanding Genesis. That is because, even though this could be considered historical context, it is not relevant to the communicative act.

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  9. This brings me back to the categories of understanding and relating that I mentioned above. I am not sure that there is sufficient evidence for me to be able to relate the 2nd millennium fisherman. In fact, I don't know if I even have enough information to know what is like to grow up in Baker county. But I don't have to be able to relate to you, I don't have to know the role of farming in Baker county, in order to understand you when you speak. Similarly, I don't have to walk a mile in the shoes of a 2nd millennium fisherman in order understand Moses when he writes. My goal in reading Moses is not so much to relate to Moses, but to understand the purpose for which Moses wrote and to have that purpose accomplished in me, the reader.

    One more point, I agree with the author, comparative literature is often overused or misused. However, as the author points out, [a comparative literary approach] can help us to identify the genre of an OT book, or rhetorical conventions. That helps us to interpret the book." In my opinion, issues like genre and rhetorical convention are far more helpful for determining the rules that govern communication than things like flora and fauna. For that reason, if I have limited time to study context, I will probably spend more time on comparative literature than on the farming habits in the 2nd millennium BC.

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    1. I've answered you here:

      http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/09/communication.html

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