Fundamentally Altered Viewpoint
Alan Lenzi, of Bible and Ancient Near East, asks a simple question:
Does awareness of the ANE archaeological, linguistic, cultural, and textual materials discovered in the last 150 years or so fundamentally alter our understanding of the Hebrew Bible?
As soon as I’ve finished writing this short post I’m going to go to his blog and comment with the answer “yes.” (If you want to answer his question, please go there to do so. If you want to comment on my additional notes, do so here or as desired.)
The problem, however, is that the question is not quite that simple, because he uses “our”. If he used “your”, I would be quite comfortable with just a yes. In my personal experience, I moved from believing that God more or less delivered the Bible intact to the various prophets and other authors, to one in which I see them each as recording their experiences with God. That is a fundamental shift, and it resulted from working with ancient near eastern material. It wasn’t a very comfortable process.
But there are two concerns that I have with the answer. If I am to include the Christian church in general, I would say that even in mainline churches many if not most of the members are unaware of the comparative and textual material, and if they are aware, it is a fairly foggy sort of awareness. Just how much of “us” has been fundamentally changed?
Many ministers are well aware of the comparative materials, yet they hesitate to truly educate congregations. One reason, true if not valid, is that some members are going to lose their faith based on this material. I don’t know precisely why different ways of dealing with the data appeal to different people. It’s easy for those on my side, the “faith” side so to speak, to accuse those who leave the church of doing so for reasons other than that they are following the data where it leads them.
Many of those who leave Christianity look back at someone like me and suppose that I am rationalizing my faith. Having pretty much ditched all the fundamentals that got me into a Biblical Languages program in the first place, training to teach, I still try to construct a faith position that, to them at least, looks pretty flimsy.
I’d prefer to allow that we all come to where we are in a substantially honest manner, though I would put an emphasis on the role of the Christian community. One is more likely to construct a workable faith position if one is supported in the community. That cuts both ways as I see it. One could blame departures on a failure of the community to support. I think that does happen. But one could also blame those who stay on the support of the community, rather than intellectual honesty.
The church, in my experience, regularly fails to provide a good environment for intellectual and spiritual searching. Most church members want to see their church more as a destination than a journey, and they don’t want someone running around and shaking the foundations and the framework. In my view that is a weakness. While someone may search while in the church, and may find, it seems to me almost accidental.
So in terms of the church as a whole I would say that many do not have a fundamentally altered viewpoint simply because they ignore the relevant data. I will ignore here those who simply challenge the data as such.
Finally, it’s easy to project one’s personal experience onto the broader movement. My personal movement from a fundamentalist to a much more liberal view of inspiration reflects the historical journey of the church since reformation and enlightenment. Except that it doesn’t. I think there have always been at least hints of handling inspiration, and even those who rejected inspiration based solely on the information that they had at the time. The basic facts are much clearer now, and many more people have had the opportunity to see such material, but the actual impact is smaller than one would imagine.
So, in order, for me, yes. For the church community in America today, not so much. For Christianity as a whole, maybe partially.
Don’t worry. I’ll try to be even less clear next time!
I used the word “our” very purposefully to fend off simple, individualistic answers.
I think he is underestimating the amount of time it takes for things to make it from the academic world to the popular culture. I would say that the discoveries of the 18th century have been incorporated fully, and those of the 19th are almost completely done. The 20th century stuff generally has not been.
For example the idea of religious evolution, that religious ideas progress similarly through culture in a way similar to scientific ideas has been absorbed. Arguably dispensationalism is turning this notion into a core theological principle and reconstructing the theology of Christian history around this 18th century notion.
Another example would be out understanding of polytheism. If you read commentaries form the 18th century the understanding of the religions of Astarte, Baal, Tammuz… was almost non existent. Today the 18th century work on understanding ancient myth and polytheism has paid off on those bible sections. Also our bibles include accurate maps which is again late 18th century discoveries.
But no, I don’t think the 20th century materials have been fully incorporated. Now for example that we know Enoch and Odes to Solomon predate Christianity there is no clarity about how to have a theology which has nothing radical at all happening in the 1st century but rather a natural evolution of ongoing ideas.
Alan-I guessed that, and thus tried to avoid such a simplistic answer.
CD-Host-I’m not sure “fully incorporated” is essential, though it is interesting. There are substantial portions of those interested who range all the way from “all these discoveries might as well not have happened” to “the discoveries change everything.”
I studied under a professor who completely refused to acknowledge the importance of ancient near eastern comparative material except as a rare aid in lexicography. I found that somewhat odd.
Henry —
Well sure there are phases to incorporation, denial being one of them. It is only when denial is no longer possible that other strategies are attempted. These phases explains why it takes so long. At the same time they make popular understanding move in a more steady direction than academia which can almost oscillate.