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Loading...Here now is my second post on that intriguing little article by Louis Markos in the journal First Things, which he entitled “Errant Ehrman.” If you’ll recall from my last post, Markos starts the article by indicating that he felt “great pity” for me because I was the wrong kind of fundamentalist back when I was a conservative Christian. My problem, he indicates, is that I applied modern standards to decide whether the Bible was inerrant. Here are his words:
He [Ehrman] was taught, rightly, that there are no contradictions in the Bible, but he was trained, quite falsely, to interpret the non-contradictory nature of the Bible in modern, scientific, post-Enlightenment terms. That is to say, he was encouraged to test the truth of the Bible against a verification system that has only existed for some 250 years…..
And so, as I pointed out last time, the right kind of true believer is obviously one who does not “test the truth of the Bible” by modern standards using modern criteria, but only by pre-modern, pre-Enlightenment ones. I suppose I could live with this criticism if I had even the most remote sense that Markos really means it. But I simply don’t think he does. And not only for the reasons I pointed out before.
Here’s another one. The prompt for this discussion of my pitiable state is a book by Craig Blomberg that Markos is reviewing for the journal (why he put my name in the title rather than the name of the author of the book is somewhat beyond me). In this review he points out that, unlike me in my fundamentalist days, Blomberg has the right understanding of the Bible as having no contradictions or mistakes of any kind. This is what Markos says:
Blomberg offers as his definition of inerrancy one penned by Paul Feinberg: “Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.”
I have to say that I wonder if Markos really intends us to take him seriously. On the one hand he wants to argue that we are not to evaluate the Bible on post-Enlightenment terms, and yet he also wants to argue that
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If “Innerancy” was so important to early Christians, why was it not enshrined in the Apostles Creed? I suppose they realized that, even then, there were many viewpoints in interpreting scripture. Do you feel innerancy is a response to the “relatively new” Enlightenment?
Exactly. Yes, the modern doctrine of inerrancy evolved out of the modernist-fundamentalist debates that started cranking up in the 1890s and then hit big time in the 1920s.
Well, does it not then follow that if the Bible can be evaluated on the basis of Fundamentalist Inerrancy, a “ verification system that has only existed” within the “last some 250 years…..” and is “modernist” post dating the advent of “ modern, scientific, post-Enlightenment terms”, then the author’s criteria conflict?
Yup.
Bart, what book/paper would you recommend as a history of the concept of inerrancy? It seems to me a natural transition from getting rid of the magisterium (sola scriptura and all that) to changing from Pope-olatry to Bible-olatry and ultimately inerrancy. With infallibility of Pope and inerrancy of Bible appealing to people who crave certainty about the Unknowable. But that would locate its origins possibly much earlier than the 1890’s.
I really like the classic by Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism. The main more recent scholarly treatments are by George Marsden, another great scholar.
off topic: how do you understand the different uses of “to know” in greek?
eg in Matthew 24:36-39
“about that day and hour no one knows (οιδεν) not even the angels nor the son … ”
“… they knew not (γνωσαν) until the flood came and took all away”
seems to be the same concept but uses different greek word?
GINOSKO typiclaly means something like to “come to know,” “to perceive,” “to learn,” “to observe and come to a judgment about”; OIDA is a perfect tense of EIDO — the word for “to see” — and meanssomething like “to know something,” “to know well” “to know how to do something.” In many contexts it’s difficult to distinguish them, and so they can be used as synonyms (just we might use “notice,” “perceive,” “observe” just for the sake of variety for the same sense experience)
Perhaps between the 5th and 7th plagues, the Egyptians managed to ship in some more cattle from Texas 😉
That’s what I’m thinkin’.
The title “ First Things” is pretty cool though.
Great points, Bart.
Off track question for you: Are there indications that Jesus planned his moment of anger at the Jerusalem temple?
No indications per se. He does predict that the temple will be destroyed earlier, and his actions may be carrying out a symbolic display of what is to come.
Blomberg offers as his definition of inerrancy one penned by Paul Feinberg: “Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and PROPERLY INTERPRETED will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences.” Gee, I always thought “inerrancy” meant no errors. How do you interpret the errors out of something? (Rhetorical question. You interpret the errors out of something by making up something else that supports your belief system and then pretending it applies to the errors.)
Sure, if you say that it’s inerrant when “properly” interpreted, well, I suppose you could say that about most any book. Just interpret it in a way that does not lead to an error….
Now if only everyone would take the care to interpret me in this way . .
Plus, the Bible inerrant only in the “original autographs” which no longer exist. So we’re told that a book that no one has seen, and no one possesses, is inerrant, if “properly” interpreted. How does Prof. Markos propose to properly interpret a non-existent book?
Inerrantly.
“The more human intellect blossoms, the less room there will be for belief systems”
Sadhguru.
Sadhguru “This life for me is an endeavor to help people experience and express their divinity. May you know the bliss of the Divine.” –Sadhguru
We hear often enough at this time of year about pagan influences on Christianity. I’m wondering about the other direction. Do we know of ancient pagan groups who could be said to have been “influenced” by Christianity or perhaps in a fit of syncretism “absorbed” the worship of Jesus into their pre-existing liturgies without actual conversion? It seems reasonable to suppose such a thing might have occurred in the second and third centuries as Christianity grew but did not yet have the power to prevent it.
Thanks,
Happy Holidays!
It surely happened in teh fourth century and later. There are questions, for example, about whether Apollonius of Tyana’s stories were influenced by teh stories about JEsus.
Off-topic: In Mark 12:42 about the widow’s offering, it says she put the money in the treasury. Do we know what the funds in the treasury were used for? The upkeep of the temple? Salaries for the priests? Charity for the poor?
I watched a very off-putting appeal for donations by a fundamentalist Christian cult leader who referred to this story in order to bolster his appeal that even poor church members should donate (The money is used to run the church, not for charity!) He made the point that Jesus lauded the widow, rather than telling her to keep her meagre funds for her own living expenses. Ergo, even poor church members today should donate to the church. (This is a church that has zero transparence about the use of its funds.)
I found this wholly unsavory, but when I read up the verses in Mark, it seemed to kind of support this reading: If Jews felt that donating to the Temple was like giving to God, then a church member today might feel that donating to the church they believe to be true is like giving to God.
The temple funds were principally used, I believe, for the support of the Temple, not for giving alms to the poor. It was an expensive operation, a major enterprise. I don’t know, however, how the money was divied up; priests and levites had to be supported and there were sacrifices that had to be made and…. Apparently the temple treasury involved a ton of money. Conquering monarchs would plunder it.
Regarding the ascension and Acts 1:9-10, did the author intend, and did the first century readers infer that Jesus was physically floating *up* and was alighting somewhere physical above them?
Apparently so. Just as it was expected that he was “up there” now and “coming down” soon.
One wonders when “fundamentalism” evolved into “evangelicalism”. My memory is that in the 1970s and 1980s there were many proud fundamentalists, but the word has a negative connotation these days. Was it in September 2001 when “fundamentalist” became a bit of a slur in Christian circles?
Historically, of course, fundamentalism emerged *out of* evangelicalism, over time but especially starting in the 1890s and hitting seriously in the 1920s. And yup, when I was at Moody in the 1970s we were not ashamed of being called fundamentalist; it must meant that we held seriously to the fundamentals of the faith. Today it’s a four-letter word, except among the really hard-core. My sense is that for most very, very conservtaive Christians, a fundamentalist is the crazy person to the right of you, no matter how far right you are.
Am I the only one who sees it as ironic that he seems to decry the “verification system that has only existed for some 250 years,” and yet Fundamentslism itself is not yet 200 years old?
Exactly!
Off topic: In Revelation John starts off introducing Jesus in v. 5: “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” This sounds like Jesus could be an exalted human. At the end in Rev. 22:16 he has Jesus say, “I am the root and the descendant of David…” which still sounds human to me. But just before that in v. 13 he has Jesus say, ““I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” which sounds like he’s equating Jesus with the Father. In fact, Jesus appears to start speaking in v. 12 but doesn’t identify Himself until v. 16. Is it possible verses 12 through 15 are an interpolation or alteration? Especially since it mentions “the dogs and the sorcerers…” etc. that John already disposed of in the lake of fire? Perhaps to dispel an adoptionist or exaltation type of Christology?
It’s possible, to be sure. But the more I’ve studied Revelation, and the other apocalypses, and texts on heaven and hell generally, the more I’ve given up trying to find anything like internal coherence and consistency….
Well OF COURSE if you assume things like, you know, modern science, physics, textual criticism and such, you’re going to find contradictions in the Bible. If you stick with ancient Mesopotamian cosmology, as God intended, however, it makes perfect sense. QED.
I guess a question I’ve had for a while is at least partly fitting to this post.
I’ve heard Mark Goodacre’s example for Literary fatigue of Matthew’s version of the calming of the Sea of Galilee in Matt 8.
In Vers 24 the word commonly translated as storm is in this case σεισμὸς (seismos) what seems to be a typical Matthean change according to Mark Goodacre.
All translations I looked up use a word like storm to translate it when it seems to me some kind of earthquake seems the more natural translation. I have absolutely no knowledge of Greek so I wanted to ask about your opinion of the common translations. Is it fair to translate it as storm or are the translations trying to brush over an inconsistency?
Ah! I’m afraid I”m out of the country without a single Greek reference work within reach. The word does indeed typically mean “earthquake” but whether it is used for events at sea is an important question. I’ll need t olook it up when I can get my grubby paws on an exhaustive lexicon.
2000 year ago I would probably have said, “Woe, woe to those who walk the path of literality, and are unable to see anything but the literal meaning, and at the same time believe that they will not find any contradictions or errors of any kind in the biblical books, for they will not see the meaning».
Well, sometime I think it is better to live here in Norway and not be have to listen to or even about this type of fundamentalists. Good luck to you 🙂 .
It’s better to live in Norway for lots of reasons. CAn you slip me in? (I’ve been there several times; love it!)
Louis Markos and other like-minded people spend so much time and effort promoting bible innerancy, clearly not defensible, that they neglect what the Bible does have to offer. That is the real pity!
I am not sure that I would worry much about what a person who felt that the Bible was inerrant thought about me. (Unless he was overtly threatening me, of course.)
Good point.
I think we can safely assume that any disagreement between the Genesis account and basic biology are written off by fundamentalists as anti-god corruptions of science.
Can’t have an error if the facts are wrong, after all.
Send like that strain of evangelical thought uses myths like creation as a litmus test. If you can invest enough belief to accept an “ex nihilo” creation (hi, Ken Ham), you can be led to any amount of extremist belief.
I agree Bart, I left Christianity because the Bible didn’t make sense, it contradicts itself in mostly any teaching!
I found it to be a book used to liberate and to slave at the same time!
Just wondering…why is there such an apparent contradiction between the first chapter of Genesis and the second chapter? The first chapter states clearly that the vegetation and the beasts of the field and air are created before Adam and Eve, while in the second chapter it says that no brush or any vegetation had formed before Adam and Eve. Were there two different authors of Genesis 1 and 2? Where these two separate oral traditions that just contradict each other?
I’ll be dealing with this in my upcoming online course “In the Beginning” (not connected with the blog, though blog members will be told about how to get on to it). Short story: the two accounts from two different sources written at different times by different authors with different views, later spliced together. I”ll be showing how that worked in the course.
The Judeo-Christian religions make an astounding claim: Not only does God exist, but also “He” has intervened in human history, nowhere else as much as in Christianity. Thus, historical analysis!
I’ve heard of Louis Markos. In fact, it was from the same place I learned about Bart Ehrman: Teaching Company/Great Courses lectures. I recall Markos giving some articulate and eloquent philosophy lectures on people like Jacques Derrida. I didn’t realize he was a a fundamentalist or inerrantist Christian. Apparently he teaches at a southern Baptist university and specializes in literary theory sorts of things. While I understand the reaction that thoughtful Christians sometimes have to skeptics pulling Biblical passages out of context, interpreting them literally, and pointing out the absurdity of such readings, usually the thoughtful response to that is to say things like, well, it’s not a history book or encyclopedia. You’re not supposed to take everything literally. It’s really more so about moral and religious wisdom. “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.” And you can say yeah there are some contradictions but they aren’t important and you need to interpret them correctly. But Markos wants to go further than that and say that in fact there are no errors, even on questions of science and history. And I think Ehrman is correct to take him to task on that.
Give his proclivities, I bet he had a field day with Derrida!
The right KIND of fundamentalist? As opposed to…? This is like debating the difference between Velveeta and Cheese Wiz. Fundamentally, they ALL share the same, primitive, ‘Golden Calf’ theology — claiming that a manmade, inanimate object can somehow, literally, possess a power/attribute that belongs to God alone!
Instead of believing that ”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” Fundamentalists claim that the “Word of God” is a book. (?!)
“Bible Inerrancy” is IDOLATRY! Plain and simple.
It’s not you but Markos, Blomberg, et al., who are to be greatly pitied as it’s the fate of these blind guides that Jesus had in mind when he ominously warned: “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’” because he “will then declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness!’”
When asked the wonderfully succinct and completely unambiguous question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered: “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery…
“‘You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.” Like the son who says he won’t go work in the vineyard, but ultimately does, it’s about what you DO, not what you say.
Everyone who lives an ethical and compassionate life will be blessed by the Father — like, for example, running this charity blog, “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” THAT is how you “inherit the kingdom.” There’s no mention of any ’Article of Faith’ requirement.
It’s a bit ironic that I — someone who thinks “Bible Inerrancy” is an idolatrous abomination — constantly find myself quoting scripture… to its adherents! But it Is supremely ironic that in demolishing that perverse doctrine, you — a self-proclaimed atheist — are doing more to advance GENUINE Christianity than all the 21st-century churches added together!
Have the merriest Christmas and the healthiest, happiest, most productive and prosperous of new years yet.
May God bless and keep you. Or may the force be with you. It’s all the same to me. 😉
There are a lot of apologists who are now “discovering” that Genesis 1-3 was never meant to be read literally. They want to avoid all the embarrassing details, but they’re still stuck needing Adam, Eve and the Fall. Without the Fall their theology has no foundation. Quite a pickle.
I agree with JAS. And, why spend any time responding to criticisms of a man of so little intellectual integrity? Frankly, you sound defensive when you have absolutely no need to be.
Just having fun. Most fun is frivolous….
Hi Bart,
The cognitive dissonance (CD) within the religious/historian scholarly ranks is a study in and of itself. Belief systems are a hard nut to crack. This is true because victims of CD love their current worldview more than a better enlightenment that beckons real change. Therefore, one’s faith could do irreparable harm if CD isn’t dealt with psychologically. Fundamentalists and anybody else who suffers from CD can be cured, for we are living witnesses. Until then, CD within the scholarly ranks should be exposed and called out for what it is. Bart, what you are doing is both necessary and required as a professional scholar, and I applaud your due diligence towards a better understanding, thanks!
Bart,
I want to ask you something. You wrote “Can Exodus 6:3 be right when it says, quite explicitly, that Yahweh was not known by his name Yahweh to the Patriarchs starting with Abraham in the book of Genesis, when Gen. 4;26 indicates that people were calling upon the “name of Yahweh” long before the Patriarchs, and Gen. 15:6- explicitly says that Abraham believed Yahweh, and that Yahweh says to him “I am Yahweh” and Abraham then addresses him as “Yahweh”?”
There are some Evangelical Christians who will argue that the “not” in Exodus 6:3 and Jeremiah 7:22 is not to be understood as a literal negation but only an idiomatic one. I have seen a Christian author reference a paper by Gordon Whitney ( Whitney, G. E. “Alternative interpretations of Lo’ in Exodus 6:3 and Jeremiah 7:22 with reference to the hermeneutics used in higher criticism.” Westminster Theological Journal, Spring 1986, pp. 151-59.) to support this. I don’t think I can upload the file but if you would like, I can email you a copy of the paper that this title belongs to. I want to know your thoughts on this.
I wonder if Mr. Whitney thinks that the “not’s” in the ten commandments were idomatic and not literal? (I’ve never heard of him, but you will note that he is writing in a conservative evangelical journal published by a theological seminary that subscribes to the inerrancy of the BIble; for such people there can’t be errors in the Bible, so, well, there aren’t. And so if you find a “not” that contradicts another passage, it doesn’t really mean “not.” I used to interpret my parents injunctions this way when it was convenient (they said “not” to come home after midnight but what the really means was that I *should* do that). One needs to ask oneself, how often when we use “not” to we mean “not not”?
Bart,
So you think that Mr. Whitney is playing word games with “not” in Hebrew? I recognize, indeed, that he is an Evangelical scholar who has published in a very theologically conservative journal and that the institution that published it, does indeed, subscribe to biblical inerrancy.
My reason for bringing something like this up is very simple. I believe, like you, that the Bible is a flawed book. There are many discrepancies and just flat-out errors in it. But one of my frustrations with books, articles, and essays published on flaws in the Bible is that such media often alleges flaws but does nothing to demonstrate them. Arguing for a flaw of some type is only half the battle in my view. To make a solid, airtight case, I believe that we need to show where conservative Christians, especially apologists, are wrong.
I have seen Mr. Whitney’s article referenced to in defense of biblical inerrancy and so, not being a Bible scholar myself or an expert in biblical languages, I want to ask those better informed than me what they think of articles like this because I want “our side” to be better equipped to answer these apologists.
Right! I know, it can be frustrating. I’ve sometimes asked biblical scholar friends for what they thought were clear-cut contradictions, and sometimes they’ve come up with rather pathetic examples that could easily be explained; it made me think they weren’t bein very rigorous about it. But I think these examples are air-tight. I haven’t read his article, so I don’t know what kind of odd footwork Whitney is engaged in. Can you explain what he means by saying the “not” is not a literal negative (a pure contradiction) but “idiomatic.” I’m not sure I’ve heard of an idiomatic negation that is not also a literal one.
Actually, I can do better than explain Whitney’s examples. If you would like, I can email you a copy of his paper. It’s not very long and it’s a PDF file, so you can probably read his paper in less than, say, 30 minutes. However, given that I lack any expertise in Hebrew, I can’t expertly evaluate his paper. If you’re interested, please let me know.
One loophole, of course, is that many conservative Christians (perhaps less so true fundamentalists but certainly many evangelicals) use the word “affirms” in a special technical sense and draw a distinction between what the Bible affirms and what it merely states.
Yup! I got to that point to, early after I left fundamentalism and remained an evangelical.