Alex’s Heresies – embracing a physical reality

Prior to the European Enlightenment most people accepted the Bible’s account of history. There was no question that the world was created in six days or that the 600,000 or more Hebrews escaped from Egypt after God had orchestrated a series of plagues on the hapless and arrogant Egyptians. Since the Enlightenment we have come to expect a more scientific world-view where truth and actuality are in some way associated with verifiable evidence. Claims of revealed knowledge are seen as more and more embarrassing to modern Western sensibilities.

So what has that done for biblical scholarship? Over the last 200 years many biblical scholars have, at least nominally, applied techniques of historical research to the biblical texts – Jewish scriptures (Old Testament, Tanakh or Hebrew Bible) as well the Christian scriptures (New Testament). Firstly, the historical perspective has been applied to the construction of the texts themselves. Scholarship tries to identify multiple authorships, editors and copyists from earlier-sourced documents and oral stories. They also apply historical research to the social and political settings of the authors to understand their worlds and motivations better. So would this be the same as examining any other historical document? No and that is the problem.

Whether scholars are in strictly religious institutions – many are – or attached to secular universities, they are typically seeking greater theological meaning from their scriptures: that is why they started their studies in the first place. They are hardly disinterested researchers. Many biblical scholars today malign historical methods as being either ineffectual or moving too far away from the messages of the divine word. Much of their understandings come from the supernatural aspects of the biblical histories and historical methods like those of science do not recognise any non-physical events. So commonly these scholars promote literary or theological methods as more effective. I see this as coded language for less threatening. Even those advocating historical research (and they are getting fewer) seem to be less dispassionate and seek to approach their research with “sensitivity”.  This isn’t surprising as truly critical scholars of the past have lost their teaching posts in retribution.

Am I too cynical? Apparently not, for John Barton in Historical-critical approaches (The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation p14) says

“… the general impression an ordinary historian is likely to form after reading books dubbed ‘historical-criticism’ by theologians is that they are predominantly literary in their interests.”

Ironically, though, I too believe that biblical historical research has been relatively ineffective, though for quite different reasons. It is the case of asking too much from too little. Apologists often claim that there are more surviving manuscripts, whole and partial, of biblical texts than other historical texts. And that’s true. However theologians often seek draw highly detailed interpretations from the word-use nuances that we do not with other historical texts. I regularly come across optimistically detailed interpretations, such as Paul used this Greek word here while Luke used a similar but slightly different one here and that also differed from Mark’s use here and all this means that…. This is all on the amazing assumptions about the accuracy of particular manuscripts as well as our detailed understanding of language usage and writer motivations at the time. It is worth commenting here that we have no original manuscripts of even the last books written in either scripture, only copies of copies of copies and so on.

From an historical perspective there is very little extrabiblical evidence supporting the detailed (or in many cases even the broad) claims made by either scriptures. The historical reality is that the Israelites were of little importance in the ancient world and therefore not written of by others. Their lands were surrounded or invaded by the true superpowers of the day – the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman empires. We may see the Jewish and Christian as history important today through our religious education, but that is far from the reality of the ancient world. Their achievements seem insignificant compared to their neighbours.

Jesus is a good example. The evidence outside of the Christian sources confirms that people subsequently believed that he existed and was executed as a criminal. Followers believed he was divine. However we have no records of birth or execution and no contemporaneously written accounts of his deeds that appeared so momentous according to Christian scriptures. So, if he did exist, then the best we can say is that he was one of many self-declared prophets who raised the ire of the Jewish leadership. The rest comes from the Christian scriptures that were written thirty to eighty years after his death and by people who wanted to promote his divine status. I must say in fairness that many biblical scholars have designed criteria to assess the potential reliability of scriptural text. Does the story come from multiple sources? Is it unpleasant for Christians? Is it consistent with first century Middle East and so on? However, often, these criteria are ignored when there are other overwhelming needs to include the text. The liberal Jesus Seminar is often criticised in this regard.

Ultimately biblical scholars may be better not pretending to do historical research or at least acknowledge the inherent limitations applying it to scripture. The theologians continue derive detailed interpretations from the biblical texts “as is” regardless on any historical reliability – that’s what they do. Ultimately they face the dilemma that Christianity considers itself a religion based on historical fact. Either way historical research is never going to get them closer to their God.

Alex McCullie