Loading...One of my classes this semester is a First Year Seminar, designed, obviously for students in their first year of college (either semester) and meant to be a bit more hands-on and with an unusual creative component. I’ve mentioned the course on the blog in previous years; it is called “Jesus in Scholarship and Film.” (The creative element: for a final writing project they have to write a Gospel.)
In preparation for the second meeting of the semester this time I asked the students to reflect on what they thought would be the difference between studying religion – and especially the New Testament and the historical Jesus – in a faith context such as a church, synagogue, or Sunday School, and in a secular research university funded in part by the state.
It led to an interesting discussion and the students had good ideas. Most of the comments were along similar lines, that there must be a difference between discussing biblical writings in light of your faith / personal beliefs and studying them as historical texts.
But several students expressed their views in rather abrupt terms. One student said that, unlike in a church, the study of the New Testament in the university would be “objective.” I asked the student what he meant, and in particular whether he thought that university professors were not biased or opinionated. What would it mean to be objective? Can subjectivity ever be completely avoided?
Another student said that in the university, unlike the church, people were simply seeking “the truth.” I asked her what she thought her pastor would say if she told him that she didn’t think he was seeking the truth (!).
Anyway, I think it’s an interesting issue. What’s the difference in studying the Bible in these two different kinds of settings, and how would or should someone express the difference without creating caricatures?
I’d be interested in your views. What do you think?
Why do so many pastors who have been trained in historical Christianity in their personal ministry preach only a devotional Christianity which has very little to do with historical truth?
Frankly it’s because they don’t want to rock the boat or make people in their congregations doubt or, worse, get angry / upset with them.
Before becoming a blog member all those years ago, I would have felt “at home” studying Christianity among other believers whereas a guardedness would have to be kept up in the other setting to safeguard my faith and beliefs. Now as one who no longer believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, I have no “home” though this blog seems a kind of community for me.
Yes, I understand! There are communities of faith who *do* approach the Bible the way I do. My local Episcopal church does; and Unitarian churches almost always do; etc… If you’re looking for that kind of fellowship, you could maybe ask/look around?
Maybe it’s a matter of geography, but I would guess that very few of the mainline Protestant churches in the Twin Cities areas believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. It’s sad to think that there are parts of the country where “looking around” wouldn’t be good advice.
Teaching about religion should have a couple components. One component is the historical approach, which Bart teaches. Ideally what Bart has done with Christianity and some degree Judaism, should also be done with Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism at least.
Also, for each of the major sects within the major religions, what believers believe about their own faith and why should be covered. The Franciscans at the Catholic grade school I attended did a reasonably credible job of this.
In general, I think there is a HUGE difference in church study versus secular study. I’m inclined to lean towards the view of your student’s comment about “the truth”. My experience is that in churches where there is some form of fundamentalist influence, bible study is about emphasizing why the beliefs of the church are the right beliefs. Text is stretched to fit doctrine. Text is mitigated that can’t fit doctrine. The goal is not truth, but certainty and security. I’ve witnessed Sunday school classes where someone raises a very good question about scripture that challenges the accepted norm, only to be shut down by “the faithful”. I’m a pastor and I have two goals in my ministry. One of them is to challenge traditional views of scripture – to de-deify the bible. It has been a ministry full of turmoil, but, in the end, has been fulfilling. When people can stop looking at their bible as their divine crazy-8 ball, they can start seeing others with new eyes.
I was raised in a fundamentalist tradition and in fact still attend such an assembly (although if they knew how I really understand Christianity today they probably would not let me come back…). Anyway, the idea that they stretch the text to fit their beliefs is an oversimplification. They read the bible literally and consider it their purpose to understand it as God’s instructions. They (at least the group I know) primarily believe that they are led to their understanding by the spirit, and so cling to it ferociously. They often do not know the roots of their own traditions, but in any case believe they are foundational, and not created by them, but are found in the Bible. Why do I remain with them? Because in small and subtle ways I am able to provide gentle pushes in the direction of reality and historical understanding, and so I am able to soften the mindset. It’s both frustrating and rewarding, as you say.
I grew up in an ultra liberal Methodist Church in Tampa Florida. So liberal they to this day hold a joint thanksgiving service with a nearby reform Temple. That Temples Rabi taught Wed. night Old Testament Bible study at the Methodist Church… he also held the Chair of Religious Studies at nearby University of Tampa.
I will always remember his characterization if the OT as a collection of stories about a people, their origins, their god and their history and its bond that holds them together to this day. They must be read in the context of when they were written. He said if you find that strange, consider that you are here because you say you believe one of those people is your god…..
Yes, truth can be pursued in religious formats but I fear it is rare. I think that makes it more valuable.
Jscheller, someone needs to put “The Bible is not your divine crazy-8 ball!” on a tee shirt.
(Although, as an editor, I feel compelled to point out that the proper name of the referenced novelty item is “Magic 8-Ball,” a trademark currently owned by Mattel.)
Ha! I like “Magic” better. That would make a great T-shit. Or maybe it could be printed in white on the front of a red cap!
I also think of R W Emerson and the transcendentalists. They sought to live a life of magic, not read about one. Emerson wrote:
Our age is retrospective.
It builds the sepulchres of the fathers.
It writes biographies, histories, and criticism.
The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes.
Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?
Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?
Depending on what branch of Christianity you come from, a lot of Pastors already know the “Truth”. Their job and commission is to convince as many as possible about this “Truth” to save their soul from an eternal hell. You guys in the universities that challenge the virgin birth, resurrection and atonement for our sins are obviously tools of the devil sent to deceive. That was my stand before years ago making the mistake of buying a four gospel parallel and studying the gospels horizontally. Stumbled on you in a Youtube video several years ago and this continued my journey toward a different “Truth”. Thank you for being out there for us who will never attend a University to study Christianity! My thoughts are that the internet is in many ways exactly like the printing press, giving the masses a window into another point of view. Your debates and books, Yale’s free Youtube college courses on the New (Dale Martin) and Old Testament (Christine Hayes) give us such wonderful resources and a first hand view of the scholarship being used to uncover what is actually known! Thank you!!
I’m listening to Dale Martin’s Intro to the New Testament on Spotify. Very educational!
After years (I’m in my 80’s) of trying to determine religious truth, I finally came to believe that there are two quite different kinds of truth — shared truth and private truth. Shared truths may be defined precisely, communicated clearly, and tested and verified independently. Private truths are validated for a person by their own learning and experiences, but can be described only poetically (since there is no common language), and can be testified to but cannot be productively debated since there is no way to test and verify any claims. It is a shared truth to explain the mechanics of why our time is divided into days and nights, but there is no way to prove private truths about the purpose of this phenomenon. Sharing testimonials to our private truths about the matter can be useful in broadening our understanding, but debating these private truths is a non-productive waste of time. A believer at a secular university should be expected to assess the probabilities of claims to religious public truths (such as that Jesus was an itinerant teacher in a small Jewish province) but not the private truth of what God intended as the purpose of his mission.
I think there is a difference between studying ‘religion’ or ‘the bible’ and studying ABOUT ‘religion’ and ‘the bible’. Studying the bible/religion in a religious setting is focused on supporting one’s religious beliefs more fully. Studying the bible/religion in a secular setting, meaning in a non-religious way, is more akin to studying history, culture, etc., in order to understand how those subjects help us understand OUR world. Of course there can be overlap. It’s interesting that much of modern textual studies originated in religious schools. I’m thinking about places like Princeton Theological, etc.
The assumption of sunday school etc is that the students should change their lives and behavior to conform to the lessons they are learning, to manifest those lessons in their daily lives and their interactions with others, and to draw others into living such lives themselves, all in the service of the deity in question and without much of a thought about where the holy books came from or how they assumed their current form.
The assumption of a secular, state-funded university is that students will learn what can be known about the human, historical origins, transmission and history of the texts without much concern over whether or not it has any effect on how they live their daily lives, their interactions with others or their relationship to the deity.
Interestingly (perhaps), the way that christian scriptures are taught in many roman catholic and mainline protestant seminaries/theology schools is much closer to the way they are taught in secular, state-funded universities than the way they are taught in sunday schools.
I would say if you treat Christian texts the same as other religious texts, you are on the right track. Several years ago, I reviewed a high school level Introduction to the Bible course through a public records request. One teacher actually had a lesson plan on the divine inspiration of the Bible. In my report to the school superintendent, I asked whether the same teacher would be concerned about the divine inspiration of Homer’s Illiad. Anyway I got in touch with the People for the American Way who sent a letter to the school administration telling them that they must either stop promoting religion or get sued. They complied.
Churches are for the like-minded of faith, for the most part. Some, like Unitarian Universalists, share a belief system, not necessarily based in faith. Universities are focused on demonstrable knowledge based understanding. I think that’s the distinction.
Truth can be found in either or without them at all. So can knowledge. You can also find faith in either or without them. Humans gonna be human wherever you find them.
As Pilate said: What is truth? Ha! I love your comment: “Humans gonna be human wherever you find them.”
In these days of “alternative facts” and “fake news”, nothing seems to be “truer”. Whether Jesus actually said this or not, “Man does not live on bread alone” should be easily seen by anyone that’s looking. There’s a hunger for truth that is insatiable in humanity and so many restaurants with a thousand items on the menu but no food.
“There’s a hunger for truth that is insatiable in humanity and so many restaurants with a thousand items on the menu but no food.”
I agree, and perhaps by design. Thank you for your response.
Christian religious texts tend to start with the premise that God inspired the Bible. That bias shapes everything else. The proof texts are duly construed. No historian could start from that premise is s/he is “truthful”!
I won’t be able to go to a university to take a course in World Religions… but I did the next best thing. I picked up a book. Huston Smith’s “The World’s Religions” has been such an eye opening and inspiring read. Smith takes the reader on a flight over the world’s religions and from a very elevated perspective. Instead of writing it from the position of a caterpillar in the ground surrounded by one expression of “faith”, he takes the reader on a butterfly’s vantage point to see what one can see from the top. There doesn’t seem to be any agenda except to see what every one has to offer in beauty of expression. It’s not a technical primer, but an invitation to see the world differently through the eyes of other humans. I wish this kind of look at life was offered in bible schools and churches. But in churches there seems to be more agendas to conform with the caterpillars than invitations to explore different worlds as butterflies.
I would say the difference is not so much church/school as theologian/historian. The theologian wants to teach how religion is relevant to the students’ lives. The historian wants to teach how religion came to be.
Is Harvard Divinity or Yale Divinity School still considered secular? For example Dale Martin taught in Yale University about New Testament but there is the Yale Divinity School again and I bet they still teach New Testament there.
Will the Yale Divinity School disagree with Dale Martin on Yale University?
Dale taught courses at the Div school as well, but when he taught those courses he did it differently from the courses in the department in the university; as a believer he could approach the matter theologically in a divinity school, which would not have been appropirate in the university classroom.
At my college it was a requirement.
One class. At first, I dreaded it.
I was there to play baseball and train with the cross country team.
I thought I’d just tolerate it but as it turned out it was one of the greatest experiences I had at college.
First off, my mandatory theology class was held in the oldest classrooms at the college. It gave it that deep thoughtful, university used bookstore atmosphere, complete with those steam heating metal things that made clanging noises from time to time.
The philosophy classes that I took later on, Existentialism, logical positivism, ancient and medieval were taught in the same classrooms.
It just added something to it.
Gabriel Marcel, Martin Buber, I recall.
And the professor a GREAT fellow and wonderful teacher put in me, a jock, whose still a jock that spark of curiosity that years later caused me to keep searching.. he did his job well and… I’m here, still searching, still curious, after nearly 50 years.
A common response is that everyone has a bias. That misses the point. One a scale that has “most objective” at one end and “least objective” on the other, the only question is toward which end of the scale would you prefer the teachers who teach you the Bible to be, even knowing that odds are against any teacher being at either extreme.
I’d imagine the agenda of study in a faith setting would have different priorities than study in a secular research setting. Certain topics of study would be of more or less interest based upon the faith setting.
We all have prejudices – the critical issue is whether they are enabling or disabling prejudices. It’s an idea that comes from Gadamer, if my memory of university is correct.
There’s no such thing as neutrality / objectivity, but there are undoubtedly some people who are more neutral / objective than others. I find the people who are most invested in the subject matter (i.e have the most to lose if proven wrong) are the ones who are least convincing.
The question reminds me of the situation with the Greek physician and anatomist Galen. In the Middle Ages, pre-Enlightenment, he was considered such an authority that even when they found evidence that he was wrong they tried to conform their findings to his teachings, or assumed that the human body must have changed since his time. This is the problem when you assume the teachings of a book or person are correct without question, as is the case with the Bible in many churches. A public university, ideally, should not start with such assumptions and should be open to going where the evidence leads. But both the church and academia are populated by people, and people tend to have their biases and presuppositions; it’s unavoidable. But in academia there should at least be a major commitment to objectivity and openness, not tradition and dogma.
This has got me thinking. In remembering my days as a church attendee (it has been several years since I’ve been, so this is what sticks out in my memory), scripture was utilized regularly to illustrate how we can apply them to our own lives. Certain stories in the bible would often be used as examples in order to extract meaning from the text (i.e., the woman taken in adultery). Conversely, by studying the text in a secular setting, the purpose changes. It is no longer utilized to apply to our personal lives today. Instead, it can create meaning in a historical context. It can tell us what ancient people believed, and what their beliefs meant to them. It can tell us what types of issues they were faced with in their own day, and the beliefs they held in order to cope with those issues. It can show us how their beliefs evolved over time as they struggled with the issues of their own day. Perhaps how it should be expressed to avoid caricatures, is to highlight on the different interests in the individuals studying the bible (i.e., personal point of view vs. historical point of view)?
One difference is the approach to the text. The historical-critical approach assumes that the text of the Bible can be studied using the methodologies one would use to study any ancient text. From a faith position the text must be regarded as privileged in some way over other ancient texts (even without necessarily buying into any particular theory of “inspiration”.)
I look at the question as one of purpose for the audience. In a secular university’s history department, the goal of the inquiry is to reconstruct what probably happened in the past in light of the text and other known influences – the process is not intended to determine whether the words on the paper reflect some underlying truth but rather the probability as to whether the events described actually happened. In the same university’s philosophy department, the class will explore the thought system of the words on the page and how those words define a particular world view in metaphysics, epistemology, etc. Again, the process is on what the words say and how they fit together, not the underlying truth of the statements. In church, a study of the texts would be designed to reveal and reflect upon the underlying truths of the words with the historical accuracy or internal systemic consistency being secondary concerns. The process is one of exploring faith which is a different inquiry than a quest of historical probability or the (re)construction of a philosophical system.
Researchers from the Perception and Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University have “found that it is nearly impossible to separate an object’s true identity from the viewer’s perception of it.” (Bird, Medical News Today) In other words a person cannot see an object in a way separate from their point of view. I argue this is true for those teaching any subject including religion. A person’s biases will influence how a subject is taught. Our brains are wired to believe things based on our views and to disbelieve things that challenge those views, a phenomenon called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be and should be based on the person’s unique background and experiences. This being said, I would agree the most objective approach to studying religion would be in a secular institution , from a historical perspective, like Bart Ehrman does at UNC-Chapel Hill.
I haven’t studied religion at university, just history and ancient history and a lot of my knowledge of early Christianity comes from your books, Dr Ehrman. I did once get into an argument with a highly intelligent, devout Christian over the authorship of John’s gospel. He was convinced that the apostle John wrote it and became upset when I rehearsed the historical arguments as to why this was virtually impossible. However, so as not to seriously fall out with him I ended up saying that the ‘writer’ might possibly have used material supplied by the Apostle. I guess my point is, perhaps, some degree of compromise is possible in ?most/some cases.
I briefly studied Jesus and the early Christian movement in a history unit I did two years ago. The unit was called ‘The World Before 1770’. It was part of my Bachelor of Education Studies degree. Almost completed the degree now! 🙂
Will a student pass your exam if (s)he writes a kakkagel, that is, a baspel? 🙂
If it’s a good ‘un, absolutely!!
(The creative element: for a final writing project they have to write a Gospel.) — quote from above.
So that’s where I got the idea that I should write a gospel! I haven’t taken the course, but I have read through the third edition of Ehrman’s THE NEW TESTAMENT, and, about four years ago now, I began to write my gospel. 250,000 words later, I am still at it. One of the most interesting things I have ever done. My method of operation is to put down what I reckon MIGHT have happened, so as to move Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to write what they did. Every time I read it, I become more convinced of its historical accuracy. I won’t let anyone else read it, of course. They might give it a negative review.
I took Eastern Thought from the philosophy department at a state university. Argh, yes, I think it was 1987. It was very good, from history to contemporary belief systems, and with a deep-dive into the philosophically unique aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, and Confucianism. It was analytical and descriptive: X taught A but Z inverted the reasoning and taught B. This went well beyond just historical analysis of texts (although the Rig Veda and the Aryan invasion is crazy interesting) and into what would be considered theology in an expansive sense. I think we had a practicing Buddhist come in at one point, but it was the least interesting part of the class. He just talked about bells and incense and stuff like that.
It seems easy enough to be neutral about a very distant collection of ideas and focus on the analysis and description of them. Applying the same approach to Christianity or Judaism or Islam should be easy, too. One just needs to write the perfect textbook.
In one setting you “Study to shew thyself approved unto God.” In the other setting, you just study. The dichotomy is not one of subjectivity/objectivity, nor necessarily faith/science, but more attachment/detachment. In the church environment, you are told what God wants you to do, and you go do it. In the academic environment you are taught what some people believe God wants them to do, and you can either do it or not, as you please.
Well for me, the study of the New Testament in a (pretty) secular university meant earning one of the three C’s in my otherwise successful academic career. I made a C in first grade Art one six weeks, a C in symbolic logic my freshman year of college, and a C in Wayne Meeks’ New Testament survey. At the time, I found myself entirely unable to understand redaction criticism, lolol.
Thanks, Bart, for stirring fond memories of Bright College Years! <3
Coming from a pretty conservative Christian background—MK in the Belgian Congo; American fundamentalist church in high school—I entered the secular university scene with the ambition to become an informed minister, not trained in a bubble, yet able to credibly defend and proclaim the faith. Needless to say, I ran into some challenges majoring in philosophy-religious studies and psychology. Most of all it was the blast of exposure to a lot of different points of view. Every field of study had contending theories to learn about. Comparative religion was just that, looking at each from something akin to what believers in each subscribe to. Not so much an “objective” approach but there was the “belief” that a “truer” view lay out there somewhere and could best be approached by challenging one’s own ideas through exposure to others. It was a struggle for me, and my received beliefs took a big hit. Lately, I’m hearing an echo of these issues in current political debate, i.e., the bubble vs an openness to learning from others. I’ll add, what didn’t help was mockery and ridicule of the “Fundees” coming from some professors. I came to assume early that resorting to ridicule showed weakness.
Yup, the current splits absolutely parallel the long standing religious ones. It’s very sad to see.
My religious tradition is not as strongly literal as some, but at church I expect mostly historical-grammatical and revealed approaches to the text generally, and with respect to the gospels much effort given to harmonizing. In the academy I expect historical-critical and rational approaches generally, and with respect to the gospels attention to sorting out the historical Jesus and learning from differences rather than erasing differences.
Most of all my religious tradition is wary of the question itself but would like its approach to be the only approach.
It would be extremely interesting to read an analysis of what the students write, e.g. What kind of things they have Jesus say? what parts of the Jesus story do they focus on? what powers does Jesus have? do they write Jesus as just a prophet? do they include the virgin birth, and if so do they connect that to Isaiah? dare I say those could be compiled into a fascinating book!
I think I would start out by telling my students that we are all subjective, no matter how objective we think we are (much like you did in one example here). I would tell them that – IMO – humans are constantly constructing explanations (myths, stories, justifications, cherry-picked statistics, etc) to justify our positions, and that we – all of us – do this all the time. So we have to try and be very aware of our own subjectivity.