Does the New Testament Support the Roman Catholic View of Communion?


  DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT SUPPORT

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEW OF COMMUNION?

By Norman L. Geisler

Introduction

In the first three Gospels Jesus is represented as saying “this is my body” and “this is my blood” (Mt. 26:26, 28; Mark 14:21, 24; Lk. 22:19, 21) about the bread and wine at the Lord’s Supper.  This is repeated in 1 Corinthians 15:24.  On another occasion Jesus exhorted his disciples to “eat” his “flesh” and “drink” his blood” (John 6:52-58).  Roman Catholics base their doctrine of transubstantiation on these passages, affirming that bread and wine of the Communion are literally transformed into the physical body and blood of Christ, while retaining the outward appearance and characteristics of ordinary bread and wine.                                               

Roman Catholic Affirmations 

The arguments used by Roman Catholics in support of taking the communion elements in this literalistic fashion include the following:

(1) They affirm that a literal interpretation of the phrases “eat my flesh” and “drink my blood” (in John 6) demands it by:

(a) the literal wording;

(b) by the need of his disciples to understand it clearly;

(c) by the inference Paul draws from it that it is a sin against the “body and blood” of Christ (1 Cor. 11:27), and

(d) by the normal use of the word “is” in Jesus statement, “This is my body” (Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 375).

(2) The words describing it as “true” (alathas, v. 55) food indicate it was literal.

(3) Jesus’ response to the reaction of the crowd’s rejection was not to retract the literal meaning of his claims.

(4) In the Bible eating flesh in a metaphorical sense means to persecute of destroy him (Psa. 27:2; Isa. 9:20; 49:26).

(5) Many of the early Fathers confirm the sacramental view, including Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Augustine.

(6) While all the other Gospels refer to Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper, there is no other reference in John to this important event than in chapter 6.

(7) The mention of blood along with flesh implies that Jesus is speaking of the two elements of the communion service.  Otherwise, flesh alone would have been sufficient.

 

A Response to Roman Catholic Arguments

(1)  A “literal” historical-grammatical interpretation of the Bible does not demand that everything be taken literally. It posits only that all the Bible is literally true, not that everything in the Bible is true literally.  The literal sense (sensus literalis) allows for figures of speech such as speaking of Jesus as “the Bread of Life” which should be eaten (Jn. 6:32-33) which immediately precedes this discourse on “eating his flesh” (Jm.6:52-71).

Also, the context provides evidence that Jesus did not intend his statements to be taken in a literalistic way.  For if they are so taken, then anyone can gain eternal life simply by partaking of the communion elements.  For Jesus said, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…” (Jn. 6:54).  But taking communion is not the condition for receiving the gift of eternal life, only belief is.  For Jesus added that “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life (cf. Jn. 3:14-18), and I will raise him up in the last day” (Jn. 6:40, emphasis added).

As for the other Catholic arguments that: (a) the word “body” has a physical meaning, it should be noted that it can and does have a spiritual meaning in other places in the NT (cf. 1 Cor. 12:13). (b) As for the need of his disciples to understand it clearly, Jesus’ further explanation of it satisfies this demand. (c) As for the inference that Paul draws from it that it is a sin against the “body and blood” of Christ (1 Cor. 11:27), this does not demand a sacramental interpretation.  Since all believers are part of the spiritual body of Christ, thus, a sin against them is a sin against Christ (cf. Acts 9:5).  (d) As for the normal use of the word “is,” it is often employed of figures of speech: Christ is the vine (Jn. 15); He is the water of Life (Jn. 4), and He isthe door (Jn.10).  The Bible is filled with metaphors (e.g., “The LORD is my rock”—Psa. 18:2).

(2) The word describing Jesus’ “flesh” as “true food” in John 6:55) does not mean it must be physical.  Rather, it points to the fact that it was “real” (Gk:alathas), that is, a spiritual reality, not normal physical flesh.

(3)  When Jesus gave the command that they should “eat” his flesh, the crowd reacted negatively (Jn. 6:52, 60, 66). It is objected by Catholics that “Jesus did not retract the promise or try to change their understanding of His words.  He did not say He had been speaking poetically or metaphorically (Ronald Lawler ed., The Teaching of Christ: A Catholic Catechism for Adults,376).  And on other occasions he corrected the disciples when they did not understand him (e.g., Jn. 4:32).

In response, first of all, it should be noted that Jesus did not always correct the disciples misunderstanding directly or immediately.  For example, he did not rebuke is disciples for misunderstanding his statement about destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days (Jn. 2:19).  They did not understand it until after his resurrection (Jn. 2:21-22).

Second, Jesus did try to correct their literalistic misinterpretation of his words in John 6 in several ways: (a) Jesus said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (Jn. 6:63, emphasis added).  (b) He also said, “The flesh is of no help at all” in understanding his words (Jn. 6:63, emphasis added).  (c) Further Jesus equated “eating” his flesh with one who “believes in him” and thereby “has eternal life” (cf. Jn. 3:16, 18, 36). (d) Even Peter, who did not depart on hearing Jesus’ words, said that it was because “wehave believed and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn. 6:69, emphasis added).  So, they did understood the true meaning of his words, but it was not a literalistic but a spiritual meaning.

(4) In the Bible eating physical objects metaphorically does not always means to destroy them (as in Psa. 27:2; Isa. 9:20), as some Catholics argue. When it is used in a positive context, it means to ingest the spiritual reality that God has provided.  For example, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psa. 37:4).  “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters . . .  come, buy and eat” (Isa. 55:1).  Ezekiel was told to “eat” the scroll (the Word of God) in a figurative sense (Eze. 2:8-9). Peter said, “long for the pure spiritual milk that by [eating] it you may grow up unto salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Pet. 2:2-3, emphasis added).

(5) The argument from early Fathers is not definitive for many reasons: (a) The Bible is the authority for doctrine, not the early Fathers. (b) False doctrines, even heresy, began early, even in NT Times (cf. 1 Tim. 4:1f; 1 Jn. 4:1-6; Col. 2:8-23).  There was a false teaching even among the disciples of Christ during the life of the apostle John (Jn. 21:20-23).  (c) The Fathers can be used to support a biblical doctrine, but belief in the doctrine should bebases on God’s revelation in Scripture. (d) When the early Fathers jointly expressed a doctrine in an ecumenical Creed, then it had much more weight.  But this was never done in the early Creeds for the Catholic view of the sacraments since none of the early Creeds or Councils (which is accepted by all major sections of Christendom) ruled on this point. (e) Further, most of the early Fathers for the first few centuries cited by Catholics in favor of their view did not explicitly speak of transubstantiation but at best a Real Presence of Christ at Communion. Unlike many in later Catholicism, St. Augustine (5th cent.) stressed the symbolic nature of the sacraments. No council of the Church affirmed the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation until the Fourth Latern Council (A.D. 1215) and later at the Council of Trent (A. D. 1551).

(6)  The lack of reference to the institution of the Lord’s Supper in John can be explained by his theme and the facts that: (a) He is writing later than the Synoptic Gospels (Mt., Mk, and Lk.) and that he presupposes what the three earlier Gospels have said on matters like this.  (b) Neither is there any reference in John to the birth of Jesus, His baptism, His Temptation, or the calling of the Twelve. It simply presupposes these events.

(7)  Catholics argue that if it is not a reference to Communion, then why is blood mentioned separately in John 6:53?  In response, John Calvin said, “He did so in respect to our weakness.  For when He distinctly mentions food and drink, He says that the life which He bestows is complete in every part, so that we may not imagine some semi- or imperfect life.” (Calvin’s Commentaries: St. John, vol. 4., p. 170).

Arguments Against the Literalistic Sacramental Interpretation

            The actual Communion Service instituted by Jesus is recorded four times in the New Testament (Mt. 26:26-29; Mk. 14:22-25; Lk. 22:14-13, and 1 Cor. 11:17-26).  In each case Jesus is recorded saying, “This is my body,and ‘this is my blood. And they were commanded to “eat” it (and to drink the cup).  The Gospel of John chapter 6 speaks of eating “flesh” and drinking the “blood” of Christ.  Based on these passages Roman Catholics have build their doctrine of transubstantiation, that the bread and wine are transformed into the literal body and blood of Christ, even though they still look, taste, and smell like normal bread and wine.  

            We have just considered the main arguments in favor of transubstantiation and the responses to them.  Now, let’s examine the many arguments in favor of a non-literalistic view of the Communion element. Together, they make a formidable case against the Roman Catholic dogma.

(1) First of all, the sacramental interpretation of this passage is contrary to the historic time context in which it was given in John 6 and 1 Corinthians 11.  The time of the institution of communion was John 13 was after the Passover, not John 6 after the sermon on the Bread of Life.  As John Walvoord noted, “Since the Last Supper occurred one year later than the incidents recorded in this chapter, eating His flesh and drinking His blood should not be thought of as sacramentalism” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary, vol. 2, p. 297).  John 6 is an entirely different time and context.  John Calvin added, “And, indeed, it would have been inept and unreasonable to preach about the Lord’s Supper before He had instituted it” (Calvin’s Commentaries, The Gospel According to St. John, vol. 4, p. 170).

(2)  If “eating his flesh” is taken literally, then everyone who partakes of communion is saved since Jesus said all who partake of it are given “eternal life” (Jn. 6:55). Obviously, this is false since there are those who partake of communion who are unbelievers or apostates.

(3)  There is a text in this context which indicates that Jesus’ words are not to be taken literally: Jesus said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (Jn. 6:63, emphasis added).  As D. A. Carson says on this verse, “To take the words of the preceding discourse literally, without penetrating their symbolic meaning, is useless” (The Gospel According to John, 301).

(4)  Jesus often used figures of speech in the Gospel of John to describe Himself such as, “water” (Jn. 4:14) “bread” (chap. 6:35), “light” (chap. 8:12), the “door” (chap. 10:7, 9), and the “vine” (chap. 15:1). But a literalistic sense makes no sense in any of these cases.  Likewise, it makes no sense when speaking of eating Christ’s “flesh” because strictly speaking it would have cannibalistic overtones to Jews who were strictly forbidden by the Law of Moses to eat blood (Lev. 17:14).

5)  Further, “eating” is a common biblical figure of speech for believing in God and ingesting spiritual nourishment from Him.  The Psalmist said, “I taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psa. 34:8; Isa. 55:1; Eze. 3:2-3; 1 Pet. 2:2, 3).  In the immediate context, Jesus spoke of Himself as the Bread of Life which, like the manna in the wilderness, they were to eat daily (Jn. 6:32-33). Indeed, the verb meno (to abide) in verse Jn. 6:56 expresses continual mystical fellowship between Christ and the believer as in [John] 15:4-7; 1 Jn. 2:6, 27, 28; 3:6, 24; 4:12, 16. [So], there is, of course, no reference to the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist), but simply to mystical fellowship with Christ” (A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures, vol. 5, 112).

6)  The close parallel between verses 54 and 40 reveals that they are referring to the same thing.  The phrases “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood” and “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him” has eternal life are a direct parallel. “Indeed, we have seen that this link is supported by the structure of the entire discourse. “  So, “the conclusion is obvious: the former is the metaphorical way of referring to the later” (Carson, ibid. 297).

(7)  Moreover, “the language of [John] vv. 53-54 is so completely unqualified that if its primary reference is to the Eucharist we must conclude that the one thing necessary for eternal life is participation at the Lord’s Table. This interpretation of course actually contradicts the earlier parts of the discourse, not the least v. 40” (ibid.) which affirms that belief in the Son is the only necessary condition for receiving eternal life (cf. Jn. 3:16; 18, 36).

(8) The promise that those who eat and drink Christ’s body and blood will be “raised up in the last day (Jn. 6:54).”  This leaves “no room is left for a magical understanding of the Lord’s table that would place God under constraint; submit to the rite, and win eternal life!”  Rather, rightly understood, “this parabolically set[s] out what it means to receive Jesus Christ by faith” (Carson, 297.).

(9)  Even St. Augustine, insisted that eating the communion elements did not bring life, unless “what is taken in the Sacraments visibly is in the truth itself eaten spiritually, drunk spiritually.  For we have heard the Lord Himself saying, ‘It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing.’  The words that have spoken to you, are Spirit and Life’’’ (Sermon 81 in Sermons on the New Testament, vol. 6, p. 501).  But according to Jesus, eating the “flesh and blood” of Christ brings eternal life (Jn. 6:54-58) now (cf. Jn. 5:24).  So, he cannot be referring to the physical Sacraments here which do no such thing.

(10) In the communion ceremony Jesus said, “this is my body” (soma), not “this is my flesh” (sarx).” If communion was in mind in John 6, it is more likely that the word “body” would have been used.  But Communion is nowhere in Scripture spoken of as eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood (see Mt. 26:26-29; Mk. 14:22-25; Lk. 22:14-22; 1 Cor. 11:23-26).

(11) The Communion elements in the Gospels and 1 Corinthians 11 were not meant to be understood literally for several reasons:

First, since in the original context, when Jesus said “this is by body,” everyone present knew it was not literally his real body but a piece of bread being held by His real body (hand). So, if it is not understood symbolically, then St. Augustine’s statement is a bold contradiction when he declared; “Christ bore Himself in His hands, when he offered His body saying: ‘this is my body’” (Ott, Fundamentals, 377).

Second, the NT communion service was a memorial of Christ’s death (“Do this…in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25, emphasis); it was not a reenactment of Christ’s physical death, as Roman Catholics claim.

Third, communion was a proclamation of Christ death, not a physical partaking of it, as Rome insists.  Paul said, as often as it is done “youproclaim the Lord’s death” (1 Cor. 11:26, emphasis added).

Fourth, it was a spiritual participation in Christ’s death with others believers, not a physical imbibing of it, as Catholics claim.  Thus, Paul said, “the bread that we beak, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16, emphasis added) which was his spiritual body (see v. 17).

Fifth, the communion elements are  still called “bread” and the “cup” [of wine] or “fruit of the vine” (Mt. 26:29) after it was consecrated and they were eating it, not the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 11:23-28) which it would have been according to the Catholic view.

The reasons the communion elements should not be taken in the literalistic way which Roman Catholics do is summarized here (see Geisler, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, 174):

(a)  It is not necessary since Jesus often spoke in metaphors and figures of speech;

(b)  It is not plausible since vividness is not the proof of physicality;

(c)  It is not possible since Jesus would be holding himself in his own hand (when He said, “this is my body”).

(d) It is idolatrous since if the consecrated host is really Christ’s body, then it can be worshipped (as Roman Catholics do).

(e) It undermines belief in the resurrection because if our senses are deceiving us about the consecrated host, then how do we know they are not deceiving us about the resurrection appearances of Christ which is at the heart of the gospel.

(12)  As A. T. Robertson said, “It would have been a hopeless confusion for the Jews if Jesus had used the symbolism of the Lord’s Supper” of which they knew nothing at that time. Indeed, “It would be real dishonesty for John to use this discourse as a propaganda for sacramentalism. The language of Jesus can only have a spiritual meaning as he unfolds himself as the true manna” (ibid., 112).

(13)  Even some sacramentalists admit that “It may be granted that no one who heard the discourse [of Jesus in John 6] at Capernaum could understand it [as spoken] of the solemn institution [of the Lord’s Supper] which was still in the future, and then wholly outside any possibility of current thought.”  Following a good rule of interpretation (that those who heard him should have been able to understand it), this alone should eliminate a sacramental interpretation. (Ellicott’s Commentary on the Four Gospels, vol. 6, p. 556).  So, it is strangely inconsistent for him to add that “it does not follow that the discourse was not intended to teach the doctrine of the Eucharist” (ibid.).  John 2:22 is cited as proof, but here the disciples should have understood what Jesus meant and later did understand it (Jn. 2:21-22). They were just “slow of heart” (cf. Luke 24:25). Further, if anything, John 2 supports the non-literalistic understanding of the statement of Jesus, just as is the case in John 6.  So, if anything, John 2 supports taking John 6 in a non-literalistic way.

(14) Catholic misinterpretation of the communion holds that the body of Christ is offered over and over every time they have Mass.  It is called the “unbloody sacrifice of the Mass.”  However, according to Scripture, Christ only sacrificed himself once for all in his death on the cross.  Hebrews declares: “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb.10:12, emphasis added).  So, the Roman Catholic belief that eating the “flesh” of Christ is part of celebrations in which Christ is sacrificed over and over and over again is clearly unbiblical.

(15) Catholic misinterpretation of John 6 involves the doctrine of transubstantiation which entails the worship of the Communion elements. The Council of Trent infallibly pronounced that “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation” (CCC, 1376).” The Catechism of the Catholic Church adds that because the elements are transformed into the body and blood of Christ it is appropriate to engage in the “Worship of the Eucharist” (CCC 1378) which is the “worship of adoration” (CCC 1418). From a biblical and empirical perspective, this is a form of idolatry—the worship of created things (Ex. 20:4-5; Rom. 1:25).

Even after the elements are allegedly transformed, they still looked, tasted, and smelled like bread and wine.  So, the God who made our senses is asking us to distrust what He has made.  Even in the biblical miracle of turning water to wine (Jn. 2), one is not asked to believe that when it looks, tastes, and smells like water, it is really wine, and when it looks, smells and tastes like wine it is really water.  In short, even in the case of a miracle we are not asked to believe that our senses are deceiving us!

Conclusion

The sacramental Roman Catholic interpretation of this passage is: (a) contrary to the time context in which it was given; (b) contrary to Jesus’ use of figures of speech in John; (c) contrary to the one condition for eternal life being which Jesus gave being belief; (d) contrary to Jesus statement that “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life”; (e) contrary to the continual nature of the mystical union with Christ indicated  by abiding (Gk:meno); (f) contrary to the close parallel between “whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood” and “everyone …who  believes in him” has eternal life (vv. 40, 55); (g) contrary to the communion formula of “body and blood” (1 Cor. 11:23-26) versus “flesh and blood” in John 6; (h) contrary to the biblical prohibition against eating blood (Lev. 17:14), and contrary to the biblical prohibition against idolatry.

When speaking of this literalistic misinterpretation of Jesus’ words, the great Greek scholar A.T. Robertson declared: “To me that is a violent misrepresentation of the Gospel and an utter misrepresentation of Christ.  It is a grossly literal interpretation of the mystical symbolism of the language of Jesus which the Jews also misunderstood” [So], there is, of course, no reference to the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist), but simply to mystical fellowship with Christ” (Word Pictures, vol. 5, p. 112). It involves an idolatrous violation of God’s command: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him alone shall you serve” (Mt. 4:10).


Dr. Geisler is the author of Should Old Aquinas Be Forgotten? Many Say Yes but the Author Says No. (Bastion Books:2013), What Augustine Says (Bastion Books:2013), Is the Pope Infallible: A Look at the Evidence (Bastion Books:2012), Is Rome the True Church? A Consideration of the Roman Catholic Claim (Crossway Books:2008), and Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences (Baker Academic:1995). For additional resources by Dr. Geisler on Roman Catholicism, please visit http://normangeisler.com/rcc/.

Does Believing in Inerrancy Require One to believe in Young Earth Creationism?


DOES BELIEVING IN INERRANCY REQUIRE ONE TO BELIEVE IN YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISM?

by Norman L. Geisler

The age of the earth is a hotly debated issue among evangelicals.  Old Earthers believe, like most scientists, that the universe is billions of years old. Young Earthers, measure the age of the universe in terms of thousands of years. The debate is not new, but the insistence by some Young Earthers that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible demands a Young Earth position is relatively new.

                                         The Biblical Status of the Young Earth View

            In order to establish the Young Earth view one must demonstrated that there are (1) no time gaps in the biblical record and that (2) the “days” of Genesis are six successive 24-hour days of creation.

Possible Gaps in Genesis

Unfortunately for Young Earthers, these two premises are difficult to establish for many reasons.  (1) There could have been a gap of long periods of time before Genesis 1:1 (called Recent Creationism).  (2) There could be a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 (called the Gap Theory with or without and intervening fall of Satan, as C. I. Scofield had it). (3) There could be long gaps between the six literal 24-hour days (Alternating Day-Age Theory).  The point here is not to defend any one of these views, but it is to note that belief in an Old Earth is not incompatible in principle with belief in inerrancy and a literal interpretation of Genesis. (4) There are known gaps after Genesis. For example, Mathew 1:8 affirms that “Joram begat Uzziah.”  But in 1 Chronicles 3:11-14 it mentions three missing generations between Joram and Uzziah.  Likewise, Luke 3:35-36 lists one missing generation (Cainan) not mentioned in Genesis 11:20-24.

So, with demonstrable gaps in the genealogies, the “Closed-Chronology” view needed to support the strict Young Earth view is not there. This would mean that a Young Earth view of creation around 4000 B.C. would not be feasible.  And once more gaps are admitted, then when does it cease to be a Young Earth views?

Evidence that the “Days” of Genesis May Involve more than Six 24 hour days of Creation

Not only is it possible that there are time gaps in Genesis 1, but there is also evidence that the “days” of Genesis are not 6 successive 24 hour days, called the Day-Age View (see Hugh Ross, Creation and Time and Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth).  Consider the following:

(1) First, the word “day” (Hb. yom) is not limited to a 24-hour day in the creation record.  For instance, it is used of 12 hours of light or daytime (in Gen.1:4-5a).

(2) It is also used of a whole 24 hour day in Genesis 1:5b where it speaks day and night together as a “day.”

(3) Further, in Genesis 2:4 the word “day” is used of all six days of creation when it affirms: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day [yom] that the LORD God made them” (Gen. 2:4).

(4) What is more, on the “seventh day” God “rested” from His work of creation.  But according to Hebrews 4:4-11, God is still resting and we can enter into His Sabbath rest (v. 10).  So, the seventh day of creation rest is still going on some 6000 plus years later (even by a Young Earth chronology).

(5)  Further, there are biblical alternatives to the strongest argument for a 24 hour day.  (a) For example, numbered series with the word “day” (as in Genesis 1) do not always refer to 24 hour days, as Hosea 6:1-2 shows.  (b) Also, “evening and morning” sometimes refers to longer periods of time rather than 24 hours, as they do in the prophetic days of Daniel 8:14.  (c) And the comparison with the work week in Exodus 20:11 need not be a minute-for-minute but a unit-for-unit comparison.  Further, the seventh day is known to be longer than 24 hours (Heb. 4:4-11).  So, why cannot the other days be longer too?  (d) As for death before Adam, the Bible does not say that death of all life was a result of Adam’s sin.  It only asserts that “death passed upon all men” because of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:12, emphasis added), not on all plants and animals, though the whole creation was subject to “bondage to corruption” (Rom. 8:21).

(6)  Others like Hermon Ridderbos (Is There a Conflict Between Genesis 1 and Natural Science?) took the “days” of Genesis as a Literary Framework for the great creative events of the past.  Still others (Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture) considered the “days” of Genesis to be six 24 hour days of revelation (wherein God revealed what he had done in the ancient past to the writer of Genesis) but not literal days of creation.Again, the point here is not to defend these views but to point out that there are alternatives to a Young Earth View, most of which are not incompatible in principle with a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture.

(7) The Relative Time View claims the Earth is both young and old, depending on how it is measured.  Gerard Schroeder, a Jewish physicists (inGenesis and the Big Bang), argued that measured by God’s time when He created the universe it was only six literal days of creation.  But measured by our time, the creation of the universe is billions of years old.

(8) The Apparent Age View proposes that the universe just looks old, even though it is young.  The book by Philip Henry Gosse was titled Omphalos(1857), meaning navel, proposing that Adam had a navel, even though he was created as an adult.   Likewise, on this view the first tree would have had rings in them the day they were created.

If there is evidence for Gaps in Genesis and longer period of time involved in the six day of Genesis, then the Young Earth view fails to convincingly support its two pillars.  At a minimum it leaves room for reasonable doubt.  In view of this, one can ask why is it that many still cling to the Young Earth view with such tenacity.

A Theological Assumption

For some the belief in a Young Earth seems to be based on a kind of intuition or faith in God’s omnipotence.  It reasons that if God is all powerful, then certainly He would not have taken millions of years to make the earth.  However, by reduction ad absurdum, one could ask why God did not create it in six minutes or six second rather than six days? If He is all-powerful and can make something from nothing, then why did He not create the whole thing lock-stock-and barrel instantaneously!

The Evolutionary Fear

Many Young Earthers seemed to be afraid to grant long periods of time for fear that it may help support an evolutionary conclusion.  However, this is unnecessary for two reasons.  First, time as such does not help evolution.  Dropping red, white, and blue confetti from an airplane a thousand feet above the ground will not produce an American flag in one’s yard.  And going up to ten thousand feet (and giving it more time to fall) will not help.  Time as such does not organize things into complex designs; it further randomizes the material.  It takes an intelligent cause to form it into an American flag.  Further, separating God’s supernatural acts of revelation to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and the prophets by many hundreds of years does not make them less supernatural.  It just makes his revelation progressive over a period of time.  The same could be true of God’s acts of creation, if they were separated by long periods of time.

Second, there are plenty of other problems with macro-evolution for it does not explain (without an intervening intelligent cause) how (a) something can come from nothing; b) how non-life cannot come from life; c) how non-consciousness can produce consciousness, and d) how non-rational beings can produce rational beings.  Longer periods of time as such do not overcome any of these problems; it takes intelligent intervention to do it.

As we have seen, both premise of the Young Earth View are open to serous objections.  There is no air-tight case for a Young Earth from a biblical point of view.  So, while it may be compatible with inerrancy, nonetheless, inerrancy does not necessitate a belief in a Young Earth.

The Historical Status of the Young Earth Theory

            Historically, the Young Earth View has never garnered an important, let alone a crucial role in the history of the Church.  It was known to the early Church Fathers (see St. Augustine, City of God 11.6), but it was never made an essential doctrine, let alone given a special status.

First of all, Young Earth creationism was never given a creedal status in the early Church.  It does not appear in any early creeds or in any other widely accepted creed in the history of Christendom.

Second, it was not granted an important doctrinal status by the historic Fundamentalist (c. 1900).  That is, it was not accepted or embraced by the Old Princetonians B. B.Warfield, Charles Hodge, or J. Gresham Machen.

Third, Young Earth creationism is notably absent in the famous four volume series (1910-1915) The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth edited by R. A. Torrey and C. C. Dixon.  In fact, not a single article in this landmark set defends the Young Earth Creationism view.  Indeed, all the articles on science and Scripture were written by scholars favorable to an Old Earth view.

            Fourth, the founders and framers of the contemporary inerrancy movement (ICBI) of the 1970 and 80s explicitly rejected the Young Earth view as being essential to belief in inerrancy.  They discussed it and voted against making it a part of what they believed inerrancy entailed, even though they believed in the “literal” historical-grammatical view of interpreting the Bible, a literal Adam, and the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis. Given this history of the Young Earth view, one is surprised at the zeal by which some Young Earthers are making their position a virtual test for evangelical orthodoxy

If the Young Earth view is true, then so be it.  Let the biblical and scientific evidence be mustered to demonstrate it.  Meanwhile, to make it a tacit test for orthodoxy will serve to undermine the faith of many who so closely tie it to orthodoxy that they will have to throw out the baby with the bathwater, should they ever become convinced the earth is Old.  One should never tie his faith to how old the earth is.

Even if the Young Earth view were true, it would not thereby earn it a position in the Christian Creed or the equivalent.  That is another matter altogether reserved for truth that are essential to the Gospel (see Geisler and Rhodes, Conviction without Compromise).  There are many minor Christian doctrines that have not earned creedal status along with The Apostles’ Creed which declares of creation only that “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth” (emphasis added) and nothing about how long ago it happened.

Some Concluding Comments

After seriously pondering these questions for over a half century, my conclusions are: (1) The Young Earth view is not one of the Fundamentals of the Faith. (2) It is not a test for orthodoxy.  (3)  It is not a condition of salvation.  (4)  It is not a test of Christian fellowship. (5) It is not an issue over which the body of Christ should divide. (6) It is not a hill on which we should die. (7) The fact of creation is more important than the time of creation. (8) There are more important doctrines on which we should focus (like the inerrancy of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and the death and resurrection of Christ, and His literal Second Coming.  As Repertus Meldenius (d. 1651) put it: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things charity.” And by all counts, the age of the earth is not one of the essentials of the Christian Faith.

THE ETS VOTE ON ROBERT GUNDRY AT THEIR ANNUAL MEETING IN DECEMBER 1983


THE ETS VOTE ON ROBERT GUNDRY AT THEIR ANNUAL MEETING IN DECEMBER 1983

The following document was composed by Norman L. Geisler and given to all the membership present at the December, 1983 meeting of the Evangelical theological Society in Dallas, Texas.  It is retained it in its original form without editing so that the reader can get a feel for exactly what occurred at this historic meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.

 

WHY WE MUST VOTE NOW ON GUNDRY’S MEMBERSHIP

  1. The Robert Gundry issue has been pending now for three years since it was first brought to the attention of the ETS Executive Committee.  It is due time for action by the members.
  2. Last year the president announced the Executive Committee’s approval of Gundry’s membership without allowing any discussion or a vote from the ETS membership.  Yet the ETS Constitution requires that action can be taken on “the continued membership of an individual” only after a vote of the membership (Article IV, Section 4).  This is the first opportunity subsequent-to the Committee’s pronouncement for the membership to act.
  3. A petition (Jan., 1983) from representative ETS members across the country was presented to the president of ETS.  It included the signatures of several presidents and deans of schools, as well as those of numerous other members.  The petition read, “We the undersigned, hereby protest the ETS executive council decision (December, 1982) regarding the views of Dr. Robert Gundry.  We call upon the council to rescind its decision.”  In view of the Executive Committee’s choice not to respond to this request and in view of the fact that the Constitution gives authority in such matters to the members, it is imperative that the membership as a whole act at this time.
  4. By the Executive Committee’s favorable decision on Gundry’s membership the impression was left of official approval by the Society as a whole, even though the action was taken without consulting the membership.  For instance, The Presbyterian Journal (Jan. 12, 1983) headlines on the issue declared, “Evangelical Theological Society Retains Controversial Author.”  The lead sentence said, “The Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) has decided not to rescind the membership of a Westmont College Professor over a provocative new commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.”  Even the secular media reported, “Society clears New Testament Professor” (Los Angeles Times, 12-25-82) (emphasis added in these quotes).  So the impression left with the public is that the society as a whole, not just a few individuals, acted in approval of Gundry’s membership.  Since this is not the case, it is now time for the members to express their will.
  5. Subsequent to the last annual meeting, an ETS letter entitled “The Executive Committee Report on Dr. Gundry’s Position” announced to the membership “that at any time at an annual meeting, there can be a call for a question and vote concerning the membership of any one in the society” (p. 2).  This annual meeting is our only opportunity to express these constitutional rights.
  6. Gundry’s views have been plainly stated and thoroughly aired both at the last annual meeting and in eight articles and responses in the March ’83 issue of JETS.  His views are clear, well known (see Notes [below]),–and there is no further need to discuss them.

In view of the ample time, thorough discussion, and apparent ETS approval of Gundry’s status without input, it is now time that the members exercise their constitutional obligation and become involved in this decision.

 

 

WHY WE MUST VOTE NO ON GUNDRY’S MEMBERSHIP

  1. ETS is not merely a theological debating society.  By its very name it is the “Evangelical Theological Society.”  Besides this unspoken consensus on evangelical theology, the Constitution spells out an explicit, undebatable “doctrinal basis” which confesses “the Bible in its entirety is the Word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs” (emphasis added).   The official brochure of “The Evangelical Theological Society” (1978) calls this the “creedal statement” of “conservative scholars.”  But in spite of this unequivocal creedal affirmation that the entire Bible is without error we find ourselves debating about whether someone can belong who has denied that some of the things reported in the Gospel actually occurred (see Notes [below]).  There should be no debate about this issue.  Our name and Constitution are unequivocal on this point.
  2. The ETS Ad Hoc Committee on critical methodology has recommended the adoption of the ICBI Statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics (reported to ETS members, October 20, 1983, p. 2).  Gundry’s name was explicitly mentioned in plenary session by the drafters of the ICBI Statement on Hermeneutics as one who propounded a view which is excluded by this document (see Articles XIII & XIV quoted below).  The official ICBI commentary on this point (Summit II: Hermeneutics, 1983) also has Gundry’s position in view (p. 11), and the ICBI “Executive Council” voted unanimously to inform ETS that “Robert Gundry is inconsistent with the ICBI Summit II statement” (ICBI Council “Minutes,” October 21, 1983, p. 3).
  3. It has been and remains a firm conviction of evangelicals that no “discourse or saying reported in Scripture was invented by the biblical writers or by the tradition they incorporated” (as noted in ICBI Hermeneutics Statement, 1982, Art. XIV). The Statement adds, “We deny that genre categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual” (Art. XIII). But despite semantical maneuverings to the contrary, this is precisely what Gundry rejects.  For Gundry holds that numerous sayings of Jesus and events recorded on the Gospel of Matthew were invented by the author and did not actually occur.  Gundry states very clearly, “Hence ‘Jesus said’ or ‘Jesus did’ need not always mean that in history Jesus said or did what follows…” see Notes [below]).  This is a de facto denial of inerrancy which excludes him from membership in ETS.
  4. Few ETS members agree with Gundry’s unorthodox views, and scarcely any New Testament scholar have embraced them.  Indeed, most members of ETS flatly disagree with Gundry’s interpretation which claims that Matthew invented certain sayings and events in his Gospel.  In fact, many are frankly shocked by it.  Two of our long-standing, most reputed ETS members expressed their concern as follows:  “The kind of interpretation provided by Dr. Robert Gundry appears scandalous!” (Roger Nicole, letter to President Goldberg, 12-22-82).  “No more damaging approach to Biblical authority can be found than this.  The pall of doubt cast over the recorded sayings of Christ will open the gate wide for all and sundry to apply for membership in the ETS if Gundry’s membership is going to be upheld in our Society (Gleason Archer, letter to President Goldberg, 1-11-83).  If we do not act decisively on Gundry’s membership, it will have a dangerous, precedent-setting influence on ETS. [That was 1983. Clearly, there are many more today.]
  5. Many ETS members agree with what the president of one of our largest seminaries put bluntly in these words: “If Gundry stays in ETS, then I am leaving.”  In point of fact many are already discussing the possible need to begin a new theological society which takes seriously its view on inerrancy.  If we do not act now, then we are in danger of losing large numbers of our members who want to preserve the strong stand on inerrancy ETS was founded to perpetuate.
  6. Good hermeneutics demand that we exclude Gundry from our membership.  For the issue boils down to how we are to interpret the ETS constitution and doctrinal basis.  1) Will we interpret them as the authors meant them?  2) Or, will we interpret them for what they mean to us?  In short, if we approach the ETS statements the way “evangelical” and “conservative” scholars (which we claim to be) have historically approached the Scriptures, then we must reject Gundry’s view of Scripture as unorthodox.  Certainly it is not in accord with the “evangelical” view of inerrancy (as envisioned by the ETS founding fathers) to deny the historicity of sayings or events reported in the Gospel record.  And it clearly is not in accord with the ICBI statements which the ETS “Ad Hoc Committee” on critical methodologies recommends to clarify the ETS position.
  7. Gundry made it clear in his response in JETS (March ’83, p. 114) that he believed ETS membership should not exclude anyone who sincerely signs the ETS doctrinal statement, including people like Origen, Averroes, Karl Barth, and even May Baker Eddy!  But if the ETS statement is made so all-inclusive, then ETS has lost its evangelical identity and its doctrinal integrity.  There are other scholarly organizations which take no stand on inerrancy (e.g., SBL).  Let those who cannot conscientiously sign the ETS statement in the historic sense identify with these groups which make no pretense to believe in inerrancy.  But let ETS and its members make no pretense about their belief in inerrancy.  Integrity is the issue.
  8. The present ETS Constitution provides that “in the event that the continued membership of an individual be deemed detrimental to the best interests of the Society, his name may be dropped from the membership roll at an annual meeting…” (Art. IV, Sect. 4).  We believe that the membership of Dr. Robert Gundry fits clearly into this category.  We thereby urge that the membership vote to preserve the integrity of ETS.
  9. Organizationally, the choice before us is this:  Will ETS as an organization continue to carry the torch for inerrancy as envisioned by its founders, or will it be necessary to start a new organization to accomplish the original goal of ETS?  Wisdom dictates that it would be better to reaffirm than to reorganize.  But history is replete with examples of new organizations which have arisen to fulfill the original goals of once evangelical groups which have since drifted from their solid evangelical commitments.  Let us pray that history does not repeat itself in the current crises of the Evangelical Theological Society.

 

In consultation with many concerned ETS members

Norman L. Geisler

 

 

 

NOTES

Quotations from R. Gundry’s Matthew Commentary (Eerdmans, 1982).

  1. “Clearly, Matthew treats us to history mixed with elements that cannot be called historical in a modern sense.  All history writing entails more or less editing of materials.  But Matthew’s editing often goes beyond the bounds we nowadays want a historian to respect.  Matthew’s subtractions, additions, and revisions of order and phraseology often show changes in substance; i.e., they represent developments of the dominical tradition that result in different meanings and departures from the actuality of events” (p. 623).
  2. “Comparison with the other gospels, especially with Mark and Luke, and examination of Matthew’s style and theology show that he materially altered and embellished historical traditions and that he did so deliberately and often” (p. 639).
  3. “We have also seen that at numerous points these features exhibit such a high degree of editorial liberty that the adjectives ‘midrashic’ and ‘haggadic’ become appropriate” (p. 628).
  4. “We are not dealing with a few scattered difficulties.  We are dealing with a vast network of tendentious changes” (p. 625).
  5. “Hence, ‘Jesus said’ or ‘Jesus did’ need not always mean that in history Jesus said or did what follows, but sometimes may mean that in the account at least partly constructed by Matthew himself Jesus said or did what follows” (p. 630).
  6. “Semantics aside, it is enough to note that the liberty Matthew takes with his sources is often comparable with the liberty taken with the OT in Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Targums, and the Midrashim and Haggadoth in rabbinic literature” (p. 628).
  7. “These patterns attain greatest visibility in, but are by no means limited to, a number of outright discrepancies with the other synoptics.  At least they are discrepancies so long as we presume biblical writers were always intending to write history when they used the narrative mode” (p. 624).
  8. “Matthew selects them [the Magi] as his substitute for the shepherds in order to lead up to the star, which replaces the angel and heavenly host in the tradition” (p. 27).
  9. “That Herod’s statement consists almost entirely of Mattheanisms supports our understanding Matthew himself to be forming this episode out of the shepherd’s visit, with use of collateral materials.  The description of the star derives from v. 2.  The shepherds’ coming at night lies behind the starry journey of the magi” (p. 31).
  10. “He [Matthew] changes the sacrificial slaying of ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,’ which took place at the presentation of the baby Jesus in the Temple (Luke

2:24; cf. Lev 12:6-8), into Herod’s slaughtering the babies in Bethlehem (cf. As. Mos. 6:2-6” (pp. 34, 35).

 

 

Editorial Comments on the ETS Gundry Decision in 1983

By Norman L. Geisler

2/1/2014

 

First, it can be agreed that the process by which Gundry was removed from ETS was not a rush to judgment.  Actually, it was a long and patient procedure covering some three years.

Second, the basic issue was the influence of genre criticism on New Testament studies which was centered on the views of Robert Gundry.  The legitimacy of his views was apparently supported by many ETS members (since 30% of them voted to retain Gundry in ETS membership).

Third, the vast majority of the membership felt obliged to act since the leadership failed to consult them in the Gundry decision which was contrary to their views.

Fourth, the vote was not a bare majority or even two-third majority.  It was a very significant 70% majority in favor of dismissing Gundry from ETS for his views.

Fifth, “the ETS Ad Hoc Committee on critical scholarship” recommended unanimously [10/20/83] the adoption of the ICBI Statements on Inerrancy [1978] and Hermeneutics [1982] and noted that Gundry’s view were inconsistent with these statements.  ETS failed to do this.

A CRITICAL REVIEW OF DONALD HAGNER’S “TEN GUIDELINES FOR EVANGELICAL SCHOLARSHIP”


A CRITICAL REVIEW OF DONALD HAGNER’S

“TEN GUIDELINES FOR EVANGELICAL SCHOLARSHIP”

 

By F. David Farnell and Norman L. Geisler[1]

 

The International Council Statements on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) and Hermeneutics (1982) presented evidenced a long, protracted struggle by evangelicals against decades of critical, liberal scholarships attacks on the integrity of Old and New Testament.  Now the Scripture, as well as these documents, are again under systematic assault, this time, however, not from liberals but from the rapidly developing “critical-evangelical scholarship” that espouses similar, if not the same, kind of arguments producing the same kind of results that the ICBI documents fought so hard to prevent.  Typical of this new trend in critical-evangelical scholarship is Donald Hagner’s “Ten Guidelines For Evangelical Scholarship.”  This advocacy for Hagner’s principles, if allowed to continue, will destroy any gains made by the ICBI documents among evangelicals.  These critical-evangelical scholars high-handedly disregard lessons of history evidenced by the hard-won battles of the ICBI documents.

 

INTRODUCTION

Baker Books blog recently published on March 12, 2013, Donald Hagner’s “Ten Guidelines for Evangelical Scholarship.”[2]  These guidelines were then praised by Craig Blomberg[3] in the first blog comment on the baker blog where Blomberg noted, “Excellent, Don, excellent. And I’m so enjoying reading your book. I hope you still have several more good ones to come!” immediately below Hagner’s listing of ten guidelines.  Here are Hagner’s guidelines (and we suspect many more critical, evangelical scholars would concur with his list).  We cut/paste verbatim from the Hagner’s blog: “Ten Guidelines for Evangelical Scholarship” by Donald A. Hagner:

“Proposals for an evangelical criticism that affirms the indispensability of the critical method, i.e., being “reasonably” critical:

We must:

  1. See what is there (avoiding maximal conservatism, anachronistic approaches, harmonizing and homogenizing, partial appeals to historical evidence).
  2. Affirm the full humanity of the scriptures (the word of God in the words of men).
  3. Define the nature of inspiration inductively (not deductively), i.e., in light of the phenomena of scripture (doing justice to it as it is).
  4. Acknowledge that no presuppositionless position is possible and that the best we can do is attempt to step outside of our presuppositions and imagine “what if.” (Only a relative degree of objectivity is attainable.)
  5. Modify the classical historical-critical method so far as its presuppositions are concerned, i.e., so as to allow openness to the transcendent, the action of God in the historical process, the possibility of miracles, etc. Develop a method not alien but rather appropriate to what is being studied.
  6. Maintain a unified worldview, avoiding a schizophrenic attitude toward truth and criteria for the validation of truth. That is, all truth is God’s truth, including that arrived at through our rationality.
  7. Acknowledge that in the realm of historical knowledge, we are not dealing with matters that can be proven (or disproven, for that matter!), but with probability. Historical knowledge remains dependent on inferences from the evidence. Good historical criticism is what makes best sense, i.e., the most coherent explanation of the evidence.
  8. Avoid the extremes of a pure fideism and a pure rationality-based apologetics. Blind faith is as inappropriate as rationalism. Faith and reason, however, both have their proper place. What is needed is a creative synthesis.
  9. Develop humility, in contrast to the strange (and unwarranted!) confidence and arrogance of critical orthodoxy (concerning constructs that depend on presuppositions alien to the documents themselves).
  10. Approach criticism by developing a creative tension between intellectual honestly and faithfulness to the tradition (each side needs constant reexamination), with the trust that criticism rightly engaged will ultimately vindicate rather than destroy Christian truth.

Note: The Holy Spirit cannot be appealed to in order to solve historical-critical issues or in the issue of truth-claims. Nevertheless, it is true that for the believer the inner witness of the Spirit confirms the truth of the faith existentially or in the heart.

Concede: Our knowledge is fragmentary and partial, and all our wisdom is but stammering. Full understanding can only come after our perfection, and then it will no longer be understanding alone but also worship.” (italics in the original)

 

          Analysis of Proposed Guidelines

Now let us respond to each of Hagner’s ten evangelical scholarship “guidelines,” even though the “proof in the pudding” is readily seen in what has been written already.  The bottom-line is that critical evangelical scholars are becoming so much like their left-wing counterparts that little differences remain on the whole.  Ability to distinguish between these two groups in terms of presuppositions and conclusions is blurring rapidly.

PROPOSED GUIDLEINE ONE:

“See what is there (avoiding maximal conservatism, anachronistic approaches, harmonizing and homogenizing, partial appeals to historical evidence).”

 

            RESPONSE

  1. Historical criticism is really the anachronistic approach, spawned by Spinoza in the       17th century and aided by hostile, negative presuppositions.  Please read, Norman Geis- ler, “Beware of Philosophy,” JETS 42:1 (March 1999) 3-18.[4]
  2. Historical criticism does not accept “what is there” but wants only to see what they a   priori have chosen NOT to be there (i.e. slaughtering of the babies in Bethlehem           [Gundry], resurrection of saints in Matthew 27:51-52 [Licona].
  3. Historical criticism, no matter how “modified,” assaults the integrity of God’s Word, i.e. this is the automatic “fruit” of historical criticism.   It assaults rather than affirms; casts doubt, rather than to confirm.  Liberal scholars admit this, but evangelical critical scholars seem to be blind to such effects.
  4. No matter how much Hagner would attempt to modify historical criticism, would true historical critics (i.e. non-evangelicals) accept that modification?
  5. Plenary, verbal inspiration allows for harmonization, while historical criticism divides   God’s word into what is acceptable and what is NOT acceptable to the individual histori           cal critic.

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE TWO: “Affirm the full humanity of the Scriptures (the word of God in the words of men).”

 

            One would guess that Hagner means that the Scripture can err since it is a human prod      uct.

 

RESPONSE

  1. Although the full-humanity of Scripture is true, since God is author of Scripture and    God cannot lie or err, the Scripture cannot err (John 14:26; 16:13; John 17:17).
  2. The Bible is fully human without error; it is God’s Word as well as man’s words (2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Tim 3:16).  It is a theanthropic book, as Christ is a theanthropic person.
  3. By Hagner’s same logic, Jesus must have erred (and sinned).

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE THREE:

“Define the nature of inspiration inductively (not deductively), i.e., in light of the phenomena of scripture (doing justice to it as it is).”

           

 

 

RESPONSE

  1. This is a false disjunction since both induction and deduction are involved in determining the doctrine of Scripture, as they are in other doctrines as well.
  2. The doctrine of inspiration is based on a complete inductive study of all of Scripture  which yields two basic truths: a) the Bible is the written Word of God; b) God cannot error.  From which we rightly deduce that a) The Bible cannot err.  As the Westminster Confession of Faith put it, the basis for our faith is “The whole counsel of God… [which] is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture (I, VI, emphasis added).
  3. Of course, the doctrine of Scripture should be understood in the light of the data of Scripture.  However, as the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy [ICBI] put it, “We further deny that inerrancy is negated by the Biblical phenomena… (Article XIII).  The data of Scripture do not contradict the doctrine of Scripture; they merely nuance and enhance our understanding of it.[5]

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE FOUR:

“Acknowledge that no presuppositionless position is possible and that the best we can do is attempt to step outside of our presuppositions and imagine “what if.” (Only a relative degree of objectivity is attainable.)”

 

            RESPONSE:

  1. While this is true in a very important sense, Hagner is apparently ignores the history and presuppositions of historical criticism to his own detriment.
  2. The question is not whether one approaches Scripture with presupposition, but which presuppositions he uses.
  3.  As evangelical scholars, we approach the Bible as the inerrant written Word of God  by way of the historical grammatical method of interpretation.  Current critical scholarship denies both of these in the historic evangelical sense.
  4. As ICBI stated it, “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking in account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture” (Article XVIII).
  5. ICBI adds importantly, “We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text of quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship” (Article XVIII).  But this is exactly what  Hagner and his British trained NT cohorts do.
  6. Hagner comes dangerously close to denying that one can truly obtain an “objective” interpretation of Scripture.  Besides being a self-defeating claim to objectivity in denying objectivity, he apparently has not read and interacted with the excellent work by Professor Thomas Howe titled, Objectivity in Biblical Interpretation.[6]

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE FIVE:

“Modify the classical historical-critical method so far as its presuppositions are concerned, i.e., so as to allow openness to the transcendent, the action of God in the historical process, the possibility of miracles, etc. Develop a method not alien but rather appropriate to what is being studied.”

 

            RESPONSE:

  1. If the “historical-critical method” needs to be “modified” before it can be safely used, then this is an admission that        it is a dangerous method.
  2.  Further, if is it modified of its anti-supernaturalism, then why accept the method to begin with.
  3. What value does this critical methodology have that could not have been gained by the traditional historical-grammatical method?
  4. If it is not radically modified, then it does not help evangelicals. But if it is radically modified to suit evangelicalism, then why accepted it to begin with. If you have to radically modify a Ford to make a Cadillac, they why not start with a Cadillac?
  5. Methodology determines theology, and an unorthodox methodology will yield unorthodox theology.

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE SIX:

“Maintain a unified worldview, avoiding a schizophrenic attitude toward truth and criteria for the validation of truth. That is, all truth is God’s truth, including that arrived at through our rationality”

 

            RESPONSE:

  1. As the ICBI framers put, “Truth is what corresponds to the facts” (ICBI Article XIII, official commentary), whether God revealed it in Scripture (Jn. 17:17; 2 Tim.3:16) or in nature (Psa. 19:1; Rom. 1:1-20), and God does not contradict Himself (ICBI Articles V and  XIV).
  2. We deny that truth is “arrived at through our rationality,” as Hagner meant it, since God is the source of all truth, whether in general or special revelation.  The ICBI framers declared emphatically, “We affirm that the written Word in its entirely is a relation given by God… [and] We deny that the Bible …depends on the responses of men for its validity” (Article III).  As for other alleged sources of truth, “We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth’s history be properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture” (Article XII).
  3. However, good reason must always be in accord with and enlightened by revelation and God’s Holy Spirit.   As Article XVII declares: “We affirm that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Scriptures, assuring believers of the truthfulness of God’s written Word.  We deny that this witness of the Holy Spirit operated in isolation from or against Scripture.”

 

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE SEVEN:

“Acknowledge that in the realm of historical knowledge, we are not dealing with matters that can be proven (or disproven, for that matter!), but with probability. Historical knowledge remains dependent on inferences from the evidence. Good historical criticism is what makes best sense, i.e., the most coherent explanation of the evidence.”

 

  1. Historical knowledge can rise above mere “probabilities.” One can have moral

certainty about many things. Luke spoke of “convincing proofs” of the resurrection of       Christ (Acts 1:3–NAU).

  1. Luke begins his Gospel with the assurance to the reader that he “may have certainty      concerning the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:4-ESV).
  2. In determining the truth of a historical presentation one certainly wants the

interpretation thatmakes best sense, i.e., the most coherent explanation of the evi dence.”  However, it begs the question whether what Hagner means by “good historical           criticism” is the best way to achieve this. As a matter of fact, as manifest in the writings             of many contemporary scholars who have adopted this method, it clearly did not lead to          the best conclusion. Certainly, it did not lead to the most evangelical conclusion.

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE EIGHT:

“Avoid the extremes of a pure fideism and a pure rationality-based apologetics. Blind faith is as inappropriate as rationalism. Faith and reason, however, both have their proper place. What is needed is a creative synthesis.”

 

            RESPONSE:

  1. To speak of “blind faith” as one of the poles, is a stray man since one can be a Fideist (e.g., like Alvin Plantinga) without having blind faith.
  2. True Christian scholarship involves “faith seeing understanding,” as Bible exhorts when it asks us to “give a reason for the hope that is in us” (1 Peter 3:15).  Indeed, God said through Isaiah, “Come let us reason together…” (Isa. 1:18).  And Jesus commanded that we love the Lord our God with our “mind,” as well as with our heart and soul (Mark 12:30).
  3. There are other apologetics alternatives to Fideism and a Rationally based approach.  Aquinas spoke of faith based in God’s Word but supported by evidence.[7] And Cornelius Van Til’s transcendental reduction to the necessity of accepting the Trinue God revealed in Scripture was certainly no a form of pure fideism or pure rational in apologetics.
  4. Faith and reason do both have a proper place and need a “creative synthesis,” but they do not find it in critical method proposed by Donald Hagner’s “Ten Guidelines for Evangelical Scholarship.”

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE NINE:

“Develop humility, in contrast to the strange (and unwarranted!) confidence and arrogance of critical orthodoxy (concerning constructs that depend on presuppositions alien to the documents themselves).”

 

            RESPONSE:

  1. This guideline is an ironic example of the very orthodox view it is criticizing.  It is hardly an example of humility to exalt one’s own methodology and stereotype one’s opponent as having a “strange and unwarranted!) confidence and arrogance.”  Humble statements do not condemn others as having unwarranted confidence and arrogance”!
  2. The humble thing to do would have been to show some respect of the orthodox view of Scripture.[8]

 

 

 

PROPOSED GUIDELINE TEN:

 “Approach criticism by developing a creative tension between intellectual honestly and faithfulness to the tradition (each side needs constant reexamination), with the trust that criticism rightly engaged will ultimately vindicate rather than destroy Christian truth.”

 

            RESPONSE:

  1. Certainly Hagner does not mean what he says, since he says “intellectual honesty”         needs “constant reexamination” too!
  2. Further, “faithfulness to the tradition” one has should not be a goal.  Rather, it should be faithfulness to the Word of God.
  3. Further, the phrase “rightly engaged” is bristling with presuppositions that Hagner         leaves unstated, unspecified.
  4. Judging by these 10 guidelines, Hagner is “engaging” in a form of biblical criticism        that is ill-founded and destined to disaster.  For bad methodology leads to bad theology, and he has adopted a bad methodology.

 

PROPOSED HAGNER NOTE:

“Note: The Holy Spirit cannot be appealed to in order to solve historical-critical issues or in the issue of truth-claims. Nevertheless, it is true that for the believer the inner witness of the Spirit confirms the truth of the faith existentially or in the heart.

Concede: Our knowledge is fragmentary and partial, and all our wisdom is but stammering. Full understanding can only come after our perfection, and then it will no longer be understanding alone but also worship.”

 

            RESPONSE:

  1. This is an odd comment coming from an evangelical since Scripture affirms the role of the Holy Spirit in the production of His Word: John 6:63—“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” and 2 Peter 1:19—“And so we      have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.” (2Peter 1:19 NAU).
  2. The Spirit of God never affirms anything contrary to the Word of God.  Further, the Holy Spirit is essential in a proper interpretation and application of the Word of God (see ICBI Statement on Hermeneutics, Articles IV, V, VI).  As the Holy Spirit lead the apostles in writing the Word of God (John 14:26;16:13), even so he leads the believers in understanding the Word of God (1 John 2:26-27).
  3. Just because perfect understanding of Scripture does not come until heaven (1 Cor. 13:10-13) does not mean we cannot have an adequateunderstanding of it here.  Nor does it relieve us of our obligation, to “test the spirits” to discover the “false prophets” and to know “the Spirit of truth” from “the spirit of error” (1 John 4:1, 6).  After all, we have in Scripture “a sure word of prophecy” (2 Peter 1:19), and we are exhorted to use it to “contend for the Faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

 

 

 

 

 

THE RESULTS OF FOLLOWING THESE GUIDELINES

IN HAGNER’S WRITINGS

 

Now let us look at the consequences of these principles that Hagner’s own recently published New Testament Introduction operates from, i.e. Donald W. Hagner.  The New Testament A Historical and Theological Introduction.  Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012.

The work is praised as follows on the Amazon website, reflecting similar wording on its jacket cover: “This capstone work from widely respected senior evangelical scholar Donald Hagner offers a substantial introduction to the New Testament. Hagner deals with the New Testament both historically and theologically, employing the framework of salvation history. He treats the New Testament as a coherent body of texts and stresses the unity of the New Testament without neglecting its variety. Although the volume covers typical questions of introduction, such as author, date, background, and sources, it focuses primarily on understanding the theological content and meaning of the texts, putting students in a position to understand the origins of Christianity and its canonical writings.”  The book includes summary tables, diagrams, maps, and extensive bibliographies.  It is praised by such scholars as James D. G. Dunn, I. Howard Marshall, Craig Keener and Thomas Schreiner.Show more

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One may note two strategic factors regarding Hagner’s New Testament Introduction:  First, his work represents the cutting edge of evangelical, British-influenced and trained critical scholarship who are currently teaching the next generation of preachers and scholars in the United States, both on a college and seminary level.  Second, Hagner’s work will most likely replace the late Donald Guthrie’s New Testament Introduction that was last revised in 1990.  If one wants to know where evangelical critical scholarship is moving, Hagner’s work provides that trajectory.

These two strategic factors are also the works gravest weaknesses.  The work attributes the word “inspired” to the New Testament Scripture.[9]   Yet, Hagner maintains, “the inspired word of God comes to us through the medium of history, through the agency of writers who lived in history and were a part of history” which “necessitate the historical and critical study of Scripture.”[10]  He says that the use of the word “critical” does not mean “tearing it down or demeaning it—but rather to exercising judgment or discernment concerning every aspect of it.”[11]  Therefore, Hagner asserts that “[w]e must engage in historical criticism, in the sense of thoughtful interpretation of the Bible” and “the historical method is indispensable precisely because the Bible is the story of God’s act in history.”[12]  What Hagner means by this is the need for historical critical ideologies rather than grammatico-historical criticism.  This is the first signal that British-influenced evangelical scholars are shifting markedly away from the Reformation tradition of grammatico-historical criticism and training the next generation of preacher’s in historical-criticism that markedly differs in approach both presuppositionally, historically, and in the qualitative kind of conclusions such an ideology reaches.  Like many British-influenced evangelical critical scholars, he believes that he can use historical-criticism and be immune from its more negative elements: “The critical method therefore needs to be tempered so that rather than being used against the Bible, it is open to the possibility of the transcendent or miraculous within the historical process and thus is used to provide better understanding of the Bible.”[13]  This latter admission is telling, since it is an admission, no matter how indirect, of the dangers of historical criticism.  Hagner argues that “[k]eeping an open mind concerning the possibility of the transcendent in history does not entail the suspension of critical judgment.   There is no need for a naïve credulity and acceptance of anything and everything simply because one’s worldview is amenable to the supernatural.”[14]  Hagner apparently believes that he has discovered the proper balance of presuppositions and practice in the historical-critical method displayed in this work: “It must be stressed once again that the critical method is indispensable to the study of Scripture.  It is the sine qua non of responsible interpretation of God’s word.  The believer need have no fear of the method itself, but need only be on guard against the employment of improper presuppositions” (p. 11).  An old pithy saying, however, is that the “devil is in the details.”  Hagner’s argument here ignores the marked evidence or proof from history of the presuppositions and damage that historical criticism has caused by even well-intentioned scholars who have eviscerated the Scripture through such an ideology.  History constitutes a monumental testimony against Hagner’s embracing of the ideologies of historical criticism as well as the damage that it has caused the church.

Hagner excoriates “very conservative scholars” and “obscurantist fundamentalism” that refused to embrace some form of moderated historical critical ideology.  Hagner commends Hengel’s belief that “fundamentalism” and its accepting belief in the full trustworthiness in Scripture is actually a form of atheism ,[15] quoting and affirming Hengel’s position that “Fundamentalism is a form of ‘unbelief’ that closes itself to the—God intended—historical reality.”[16]  Hagner insists that “[r]epudiation of the critical Study of Scripture amounts to a gnostic-like denial of the historical character of the Christian faith.”[17]  He argues that “[r]epudiation of the critical study of Scripture amounts to a gnostic-like denial of the historical character of the Christian faith.”[18]  Apparently, Hagner agrees with Hengel that, Fundamentalist polemic against the ‘historical-critical method’ does not understand historical perception” and that “Fundamentalism is a form of ‘unbelief’ that closes itself to the –God intended—historical reality.”[19]  Apparently, Hagner (and Hengel) believes that since the Scriptures were mediated through history and human agency, this opens the documents up to the documents being fallible human products.  Because of the Scripture being based in historical knowledge, one cannot use the word “certain” but only “probable,” for Hagner insists that the “word ‘prove,’ although perhaps appropriate in mathematics and science, is out of place when it comes to historical knowledge.”[20]   In studying Scripture, compelling proof will always be lacking.[21]

In response, Hagner (and Hengel) apparently do not understand the issue, for fundamentalism (e.g. The Jesus Crisis) never argued against criticism but only the kind of criticism utilized and the philosophical principle involved in such criticism that closed off the study of Scripture a priori before any analysis could be done, i.e. historical-critical ideologies.  Historical criticism is a purposeful, psychological operation designed to silence Scripture and deflect away from its plain, normal sense implications, i.e. to dethrone it from influence in church and society.  While left-wing critical scholarship will openly admit this, “moderate” evangelicals like Hagner choose to ignore the intent of historical criticism.

With this operating assumption about understanding Scripture, some sampling highlights of Hagner’s “balanced” approach to historical-critical ideologies:  First, “we have no reliable chronology of Jesus ministry” in the Gospels.[22]  Since the Gospels are “historical narratives” they involve “interpretation” by the evangelists and that “level of interpretation can be high.”[23]   Since the gospel writers largely (but not completely) reflect ancient Roman bioi as the “closest analogy” from antiquity” and since bioiwere not necessarily always without interpretation,[24] the “[t]he Evangelists compare well with the secular historians of their own day, and their narratives remain basically trustworthy.”[25]

Second, like other critically-trained European scholars, Hagner accepts Lessing’s “ugly ditch” and the German/British concept of historie– (actual verifiable events) vs. geschichte—(faith interpretations of events) of a dichotomy between the Jesus of the Gospels and the “historical Jesus.”[26]   Although critical of some historical Jesus research, Hagner concedes that “the Jesus of history was to some extent different from the Gospels’ portrayal of him” and “if we cannot look for a one-to-one correspondence between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of the early church’s faith, we can at least establish a degree of continuity between the two.”[27]  Furthermore, “we are in no position to write a biography of Jesus” based in the information from the New Testament since the gospels are “kerygmatic portrayals of the story of Jesus.”[28]

Third, Hagner embraces the idea that a book can be “pseudonymity” as acceptable in the New Testament canon.  Hagner argues, “We have very little to lose in allowing the category of Deutero-Pauline letters.  If it happens that some other person have written these four, or even six documents [e.g. Ephesians, Pastorals] in the name of Paul, we are not talking about forgery or deception.[29]”  He continues, “The ancient world on the whole did not have the same kind of sensitivity to pseudonymity that is typical in the modern world, with its concern for careful attribution and copyright.”[30] And “The authority and canonicity of the material is in no way affected” by books put into final shape by disciples of the prophets.”[31]  “The fact is that the Pauline corpus, with deuteron-letters as well as without them, stands under the banner of the authoritative Paul.”[32]   Hagner supports British scholar, I. Howard Marshall’s view on “pseudonymous” writings in the New Testament: “In order to avoid the idea of deceit, Howard Marshall has coined the words “allonymity” and “allepigraphy” in which the prefix pseudos (“false”) is replaced with allos (“other”) which gives a more positive concept to the writing of a work in the name of another person .[33]  Hagner notes that another British scholar James Dunn has come to a similar conclusion.  Hagner says, “We do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are Deutero-Pauline letters in the Pauline corpus, but if in the weighing of historical probabilities it seems to us that there are, we can freely admit that this too is a way in which God has mediated Scripture to us.”[34]  Apparently, to Hagner and others, God uses false attribution to accomplish his purpose of communication of His Word that encourages the highest ethical standards upon men!  Thus, for Hagner, most likely did not write Ephesians as well as The Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy and Titus).[35]  They should be viewed in the category of Deutero-Pauline letters.[36]  Hagner even devotes a whole section of his Introduction to this category of Deutero-Pauline letters.[37]  He regards the book of James as possibly not written by James: “we cannot completely exclude the alternative possibility that the book is pseudonymous. Already in the time of Jerome it was regarded as such” . . . Least likely of all, but again not impossible, the letter could have been written by another, little known or unknown, person named ‘James.[38]’” (p. 675).  2 Peter is “Almost certainly not by Peter.  Very probably written by a disciple of Peter or a member of the Petrine circle.”[39]  The author of Revelation is “Almost certainly not by the Apostle John.  Possibly by John ‘The Elder” but more probably by another John, otherwise unknown to us, who may8 have been a member of the Johannine circle.”[40]

Due to space limitations, a final concatenation surrounding Hagner’s view of the composition and authorship of the NT must satisfy for various assertions of Hagner’s Introduction: The Gospels involve “interpretation,” that “level of interpretation can be high” at times,  and display “basic reliability,” “basically trustworthy” in their presentation; [41] “[I]t is a great pity that the word ‘Pharisee,’ which out to be a complementary term, has become in the English language synonymous with ‘hypocrite,’ “to be a Pharisee was to wear a badge of honor,” “to a considerable extent, Jesus himself, in his call to righteousness, actually resembled the Pharisees, as has been rightly pointed out by many Jewish scholars. And, of course, one tends to be most harshly critical of those who are closest to the truth;”[42] “[t]hat the Jesus of history was to some extent different from the Gospels’ portrayal of him can hardly be doubted,”  in the Gospels “details were added or altered to make narratives clearer or more applicable to the church.  An example, in Peter’s confession, is Matthew’s alteration of Mark’s simple ‘You are the Christ” to “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” [i.e. meaning that Peter did not originally say the whole statement but Matthew added to it for further meaning]; “if we cannot look for a one-to-one  correspondence between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of the early church’s faith, we can at least establish a degree of continuity between the two;”[43]  the oral transmission of the Gospel material has “basic reliability;” “to a certain degree, even a number of his [Jesus’] sayings are reworked by the early church, but the primary goal in all of this has been to understand them better;”[44] Hagner assumes modern historical-critical approaches such as form and redaction criticism: “[t]hat the tradition of Jesus’ words and deeds experience some degree of transformation in the different between the first [i.e. the Sitz im Leben of Jesus] and the third time frames [i.e. the Sitz im Leben of the Evangelist] seems inevitable.  Nevertheless, such a view is not incompatible with the conclusion that the tradition has been handed down in a substantially accurate and trustworthy form.  We are not talking about the kind of modifications of the tradition that end up in a gross distortion wherein Jesus of the church bears little relationship to the Jesus of history;”[45] “Mark serves as a model followed by the Evangelists Matthew and Luke;” “the content of Mark is of fundamental importance and provides the basic building blocks of Jesus;”[46] [although] the disciple Levi-Matthew possibly is the collector and editor of the five Matthean discourses, the Gospel as it stands likely is the work of an unknown disciple or disciples of the Matthean circle—that is, associated with Matthew;”[47] “[t]he fact is that the Pauline corpus, with deutero-letters as well as without them, stands under the banner of the authoritative Paul;”  From a canonical perspective, the corpus as it stands represents Paul, even if the Deutero-Pauline letters require special awareness and care when they are used to speak of Paul himself.  It is not unfair to say that the deutero-Pauline letters represent Paul in their own way as much as the authentic letters.  But it is indeed Paul whom they represent, and therefore to that extent they involve no deception;”[48] “[t]here is nothing crucial at stake here for those who, like, myself, treasure the NT as Scripture.  The acceptance of this kind of pseudonymity, based on actual association with and dependence upon Paul or other Apostles, should in no way threaten the canonical authority of these documents;”[49]  Hagner lists the following four books as deutero-Pauline [i.e. not written by Paul]: Ephesians (“probably by a disciple of Paul’)[50] and the Pastoral Epistles of 1-2 Timothy and Titus (“a slight probability favors a disciple or disciples of Paul, possibly making use of fragments of Paul”);[51] [w]e do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are Deutero-Pauline Letters in the Pauline corpus, but if in the weighing of historical probabilities it seems to us that there are, we can admit freely that this too is a way in which God has mediated Scripture to us;”[52] the book of James “very possibly by James, the brother of Jesus.  But it is equally possible that the prescript is pseudonymous (or ‘allonymous’), so that the real author is unknown to us.  A third possibility is that he material of the epistle traces back to James but was put into its present shape by a later redactor,”[53] the book of 1 Peter “very possibly Peter, through Silvanus, but if not, possibly by a disciple or associate of the Apostle;”[54] the authorship of Jude has “[n]o certainty possible, but probably Judas, the brother of Jesus and James;”[55] 2 Peter “[a]lmost certainly not by Peter.  Very probably written by a disciple of Peter or a member of the Petrine circle;”[56] although he says he favors the authorship of the Johannine Epistles to that of the Apostle John, he also argues that “[a]uthorship of the letters by a member of the Johannine circle remains a possibility;”[57] and as for Revelation, Hagner argues “[a]lmost certainly not by the Apostle John.  Possibly by John ‘the Elder,’ but more probably another John, otherwise unknown to us, who may have been a member of the Johannine circle.”[58]

In sum, Hagner’s work represents what may well replace Guthrie’sNew Testament Introduction.  One can only imagine the impact will be that British and European evangelical critical scholarship represented by Hagner’s assertions regarding his “balanced” use of historical-critical presuppositions will have on the next generation of God’s preachers and teachers!  As Machen said long ago, “as go the theological seminaries, so go the churches.” [59]

 

RECENT SALIENT EXAMPLES FROM EVANGELICAL HISTORY

THAT DEMONSTRATE THE MAIN THESIS OF THIS ARTICLE:

BEWARE OF PHILOSOPHY

 

Many other British- and Continental-trained critical scholars, like Craig Blomberg noted above, appear to find significant hermeneutical benefit in Hagner’s principles.  As noted, Blomberg commented on Hagner’s principles on the website by saying, “Excellent, Don, excellent. And I’m so enjoying reading your book. I hope you still have several more good ones to come!”[60]  Many critically trained evangelicals perhaps also would decry these objections to Hagner’s principles as Hagner is wont to do in his New Testament Introduction as fundamentalist nonsense and attribute such conclusions to the latter’s alleged acute ignorance or misunderstanding of historical-criticism even in its “modified” form.  Instead, they would give hearty chear to Hagner’s ideas above, especially of a “modified” historical-criticism as giving great benefit to exegesis.  Church history, as well as more recent Evangelical history, however, stands as a monumental testimony that every time the orthodox church has adopted these principles (knowingly or unknowingly), the church has lost its spiritual, as well as intellectual, foundations in being faithful stewards of both the Old and New Testaments (1 Cor 4:1-2—“Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.  In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.”   Clearly, one would hope that critical scholarship would always understand the higher calling of faithfulness in the academic task in relationship to scholarship.  This, unfortunately, is not always the case.

What are the practical examples when these principles are imbibed, not only in Hagner’s Introduction, but in the history of evangelicalism in the 20th and 21st Century?  A few recent examples must suffice to solidify the assertions of this article.  After this strategic withdrawal by fundamentalists of the first generation who fought the battle to preserve Scripture from the onslaught of historical criticism as well as its subsequent searching for the historical Jesus, subsequent generations from fundamentalist groups grew discontent with isolation from mainstream biblical scholarship that was dominated by liberals.  By the mid-1960s, prominent voices were scolding fundamentalists for continued isolation.  Dialogue and interaction once again became the rallying cry.  Carl F. H. Henry’s criticisms struck deep, “The preoccupation of fundamentalists with the errors of modernism, and neglect of schematic presentations of the evangelical alternative, probably gave neo-orthodoxy its great opportunity in the Anglo-Saxon world . . . .  If Evangelicals do not overcome their preoccupation with negative criticism of contemporary theological deviations at the expense of the construction of preferable alternatives to these, they will not be much of a doctrinal force in the decade ahead.”[61]

Echoing similar statements, George Eldon Ladd (1911-1982) of Fuller Theological Seminary became a zealous champion of modern critical methods, arguing that the two-source hypothesis should be accepted “as a literary fact” and that form criticism “has thrown considerable light on the nature of the Gospels and the traditions they employ” adding, “Evangelical scholars should be willing to accept this light.”[62]  Indeed, for Ladd, critical methods have derived great benefit for evangelicals, “it has shed great light on the historical side of the Bible; and these historical discoveries are valid for all Bible students even though the presuppositions of the historical-critical method have been often hostile to an evangelical view of the Bible.  Contemporary evangelicals often overlook this important fact when they condemn the critical method as such; for even while they condemn historical criticism, they are constantly reaping the benefits of its discoveries and employing critical tools.”[63]  Ladd asserts, “One must not forget that . . . everyday tools of good Bible study are the product of the historical-critical method.”[64]  George Ladd catalogued the trend of a “substantial group of scholars” whose background was in the camp of “fundamentalism” who had now been trained “in Europe as well as in our best universities,” who were “deeply concerned with serious scholarship.”[65]  He chided fundamentalists also for their “major preoccupation” with defending “inerrancy of the Bible in its most extreme form,” but contributing “little of creative thinking to the current debate.”[66]  He encouraged his students to gain academic prestige by attending British and Continental prestigious schools that had long ago abandoned faithfulness to God’s Word (e.g. Robert Guelich)   Although Ladd acknowledged that historical-critical ideology was deeply indebted for its operation in the Enlightenment and that German scholarship who created it openly admitted that its intention was designed for “dissolving orthodoxy’s identification of the Gospel with Scripture,”[67] instead, Ladd sent many of his students for subsequent study in Britain and Europe to enlarge the influence of conservatives, the latter of which influence was greatly responsible for the fundamentalists split at the turn of the 20th century.[68]

Today, Ladd serves as the recognized paradigm for current attitudes and approaches among evangelical historical-critical scholarship in encouraging evangelical education in British and Continental education as well as the adoption and participation in historical criticism to some form or degree, which actions previously were greatly responsible for the fundamentalist-modernist split.[69]   Lessons from what caused the last theological meltdown had been long forgotten or carelessly disregarded.[70]

Yet, significantly, Ladd had drawn a line for his scholarly participation that he would not cross.   Ladd (d. 1982) lived during the second “’search for the historical Jesus.’”  Ladd correctly perceived, “The historical-critical method places severe limitations upon its methodology before it engages in a quest for the historical Jesus.  It has decided in advance the kind of Jesus it must find—or at least the kind of Jesus it may not find, the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels” and “If the Gospel portrait is trustworthy, then ‘the historical Jesus’ never existed in history, only in the critical reconstructions of the scientific historians.  A methodology which prides itself in its objectivity turns out to be in the grip of dogmatic philosophical ideas about the nature of history.”[71]  Ladd countered, “[i]n sum, the historical-critical method is not an adequate method to interpret the theology of the New Testament because its presuppositions limit its findings to the exclusion of the central biblical message.”  Instead, Ladd, recognizing the contribution of a “historical-theological” method of theology based in the Heilsgeschichte (“salvation history) approach that takes the NT as serious history: “[m]y own understanding of New Testament Theology is distinctlyheilsgeschichtlich.”[72]

In 1976, a book appeared upon the scene that sent massive shock waves throughout the evangelical movement: The Battle for the Bible by Harold Lindsell.[73]  Lindsell catalogued what he perceived was alarming departure from the doctrine of inerrancy among evangelicals.  Francis Schaeffer around this same time had argued, “Holding to a strong view of scripture or not holding to it is the watershed of the evangelical world.”[74]  Lindsell catalogued departures from inerrancy by the Lutheran Missouri Synod, the Southern Baptists, and other groups.  He listed what he perceived as deviations that resulted when inerrancy is denied as well as how the infection of denial spreads to other matters within evangelicalism.  Because Lindsell was part of the founding members at Fuller Seminary, he especially focused on what he felt were troubling events at Fuller Seminary regarding the “watershed” issue of inerrancy.[75]  Most strategically, Lindsell attributed the “use of historical-critical method” as a foundational cause of the destruction of inerrancy among denominations.  He noted, “there are also those who call themselves evangelicals who have embraced this [historical-critical] methodology.  The presuppositions of this methodology . . . go far beyond mere denial of biblical infallibility.  They tear at the heart of Scripture, and include a denial of the supernatural.”[76]  In The Bible in the Balance, Lindsell dedicated a whole chapter to historical criticism, labeling it “The Bible’s Deadly enemy”:

Anyone who thinks the historical-critical method is neutral is misinformed . . . . It appears to me that modern evangelical scholars (and I may have been guilty of this myself) have played fast and loose with the term because the wanted acceptance by academia.  They seem too often to desire to be members of the club which is nothing more than practicing an inclusiveness that undercuts the normativity of the evangelical position.  This may be done, and often is, under the illusion that by this method the opponents of biblical inerrancy can be won over to the evangelical viewpoint.  But practical experience suggests that rarely does this happen and the cost of such an approach is too expensive, for it gives credence and leads respectability to a method which is the deadly enemy of theological orthodoxy.[77]

 

As an interpretive ideology, Lindsell noted that historical criticism, displayed in its disciplines form and redaction criticism, as destroying the historical trustworthiness of the Gospels.  He noted: “When the conclusion is reached that the Gospels do not reflect true history the consequences are mind-boggling.  We simply do not know who the real Jesus was. This undermines Scripture and destroys the Christian faith as a historical vehicle.  It opens the door wide to a thousand vagaries and brings us right back to trying to find the canon within a canon.”[78]

Reaction to Lindsell’s book was exceedingly swift and decidedly negative, especially as evidenced from British and Continental influenced scholarship.[79]   Yet, in response to it, many Bible-believing and concerned evangelicals in 1977 began to form what would become known as the “International Council on Biblical Inerrancy” that would produce the Chicago Statements on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) and Hermeneutics (1982) as a response.[80]  Lindsell himself catalogued the reaction in a second companion volume, The Bible in the Balance.[81]  Donald Dayton recounted the fear that it produced among evangelicals in the following terms “Evangelicals are jittery, fearing Lindsell’s book might herald a new era of faculty purges and organizational splits—a reply of earlier conflicts, this time rending the evangelical world asunder.”[82]  Dayton again wrote that “’Evangelical’ and ‘fundamentalist’ controversies over scriptural authority and biblical inerrancy seem endless” citing Lindsell’s work as continuing to disturb the evangelical world.[83]

In 1979, then Fuller professor Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim responded directly to Lindsell’s assertion that plenary, verbal inspiration was the orthodox position of the church in their The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible, by attempting to argue that Lindsell’s position on inerrancy was inaccurate. [84]  Similar to Hagner’s more recent statements, they argued, “The Bible was to be interpreted as a document in which God had accommodated his ways and thoughts to our limited, human ways of thinking and speaking.  They argued that modern views of inerrancy did not reflect the church’s historic position, but resulted from “extreme positions” taken both from fundamentalism and modernism” “regarding the Bible.”[85]Lindsell’s and many others’ views of inerrancy, Rogers and McKim alleged, were from “the old Princeton position of Hodge and Warfield” who had drunk deep from “Scottish common sense realism” rather than reflecting the historic position of the church.[86]  They noted, “Our hypothesis is that the peculiar twists of American history have served to distort our view of both the central Christian tradition [concerning inerrancy] and especially of its Reformed Branch.”[87] They went on to note: “The function, or purpose, of the Bible was to bring people into a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  The Bible was not used as an encyclopedia of information on all subjects.  The principle theological teachers of the church argued that the Bible not be used to judge matters of science, for example, astronomy.  Scripture’s use was clearly for salvation, not science.  The forms of the Bible’s language and its cultural context were open to scholarly investigation.  The central tradition included the concept of accommodation . . . . God had condescended and adapted himself in Scripture to our ways of thinking and speaking. . . . . To erect a standard, modern technical precision in language as the hallmark of biblical authority was totally foreign to the foundation shared by the early church.”[88]   The Bible was to be viewed as reliable in matters of faith and practice but not in all matters.  Just recently in 2009, as an apparent result of his approach to Scripture, Rogers released Jesus, The Bible and Homosexuality that calls for evangelical tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality, gay, lesbian and transgender issues not only for church membership but ordination for ministry.[89]

As a direct response to Rogers and McKim, John Woodbridge’s Biblical Authority, A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal issued an effective rebuttal of their proposal.[90]    Lindsell’s negative historical take on problems has received counter-balancing by Marsden’s Reforming Fundamentalism produced in 1987.[91]  By 1978, conservative evangelicals felt the need to produce The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, and in 1982 produced another on Hermeneutics to reaffirm their historical positions in these areas as a response to Rogers’ and McKim’s work.[92]  The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy also produces official commentaries on both documents (see Explaining Biblical Inerrancy at www.BastionBooks.com).

As a direct fallout from these events experienced in evangelicalism, in 1982, Robert Gundry was removed from membership of ETS as a member due to his involvement in alleged dehistoricizing of Matthew reflected in his commentary, Matthew, A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art.[93] Using redaction critical hermeneutics centering in genre issues about Matt 2:7-8, he argued that the theological editor of Matthew redacted/edited the offering of two turtledoves or two young pigeons in the temple (Luke 2:24) and transformed it into Herod’s slaughter of the babies in Bethlehem.[94]  By way of another example, Gundry also asserted Matthew transformed the Jewish shepherds that appear in Luke 2 into Gentile Magi.[95]  He has changed the traditional manger into a house.   For Gundry, then, the nonexistent house was where the nonpersons called Magi found Jesus on the occasion of their nonvisit to Bethlehem.  His removal, still causes strong feelings among evangelical scholarship.   The vast majority of evangelicals in the Evangelical Theological Society were alarmed by Gundry’s use of genre issues based in historical-critical ideology (redaction criticism) as a means to negate the historicity of events that were always considered genuine historical events by the orthodox community from the beginnings of the church.

Also as a result of Lindsell’s works as well as the ICBI formation, British-trained critical theologian James Barr responded with two strategic works.  In 1977, Barr composed his Fundamentalism   as a direct reaction against the “fundamentalism” of Lindsell, noting in his forward: “It is not surprising that, in a time of unusual ferment and fresh openness among evangelicals, there should appear a book like Harold Lindsell’s The Battle for the Bible . . . insisting on a hard position of total inerrancy of the Bible.”[96]  Instead, Barr praised Jack Rogers work, Confessions of a Conservative Evangelical[97] as “a work indicating an openness to new trends among evangelicals” and characterized it as “an interesting expression of a search for an evangelical tradition different from the dominant fundamentalist one.”[98]

In Fundamentalism, Barr urged evangelicals to separate away and reject fundamentalism’s characteristics in three specific areas:

(a)    a very strong emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible, the absence from it of any sort of error.

(b)    a strong hostility to modern theology and methods, results and implications of modern critical study of the Bible;

(c)    an assurance that those who do not share their religious viewpoint are not really ‘true Christians’ at all.[99]

 

In 1984 again, in his work, Beyond Fundamentalism, Barr continued to urge evangelicals to continue separation from fundamentalism in these areas: “This [work] seeks to offer help to those who have grown up in the world of fundamentalism or have become committed to it but who have in the end come to feel that it is a prison from which they must escape.”[100]

Lindsell’s work, as well as ICBI, continued to send shockwaves through evangelical society.  In 1982, Alan Johnson in his presidential address to ETS through analogy asked whether higher criticism was “Egyptian gold or pagan precipice” and reached the conclusion that “the refinement of critical methodologies under the magisterium of an inerrant scriptural authority can move us gently into a deeper appreciation of sacred Scripture.”[101]

Not all agreed with Lindsell’s approach apparently.  In 1982, Alan Johnson in his presidential address to ETS through analogy asked whether higher criticism was “Egyptian gold or pagan precipice” and reached the conclusion that “the refinement of critical methodologies under the magisterium of an inerrant scriptural authority can move us gently into a deeper appreciation of sacred Scripture.”[102]

Craig Blomberg, in 1984, right after the ICBI statements raised questions regarding biblical interpretation in the Gospels.  In reference to Matthew’s story of the coin in the fishes Mouth in 17:24-27, Blomberg defended Robert Gundry’s midrashic approach to the Gospels in the following terms:

“Is it possible, even inherently probable, that the NT writers at least in part never intended to have their miracle stories taken as historical or factual and that their original audiences probably recognized this? If this sounds like the identical reasoning that enabled Robert Gundry to adopt his midrashic interpretatoin of Matthew while still affirming inerrancy, that is because it is the same. The problem will not disappear simply because one author p[Gundry] is dealt with ad hominem . . . how should evangelicals react? Dismissing the sociological view on the grounds that the NT miracles present themselves as historical gets us nowhere. So do almost all the other miracle stories of antiquity. Are we to believe them all?”[103]

 

Barr’s criticisms also had stung deep among critically trained evangelicals.  At an annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting in Santa Clara, California in 1997, Moisés Silva, who himself had studied with Barr (“my admiration for Barr knows no bounds”), in his presidential address, chided conservative scholarship for their lack of openness to methods of modern critical methods in an address entitled, “Can Two Walk Together Unless They Be Agreed? Evangelical Theology and Biblical Scholarship.”[104]  He took his mentor to task for misrepresenting evangelicals in terms of not recognizing that many evangelicals were open to critical methods espoused by Barr, citing not only recent evangelicals who were about also Machen and Stonehouse as among those who took “seriously liberal teachings.”[105]  Silva asserted that “there is the more direct approach of many of us who are actually engaged in critical Biblical scholarship.”[106]  Thus, by 1997, many evangelicals were openly departing from Lindsell’s warning regarding historical criticism.

The next year, in 1998, ETS president Norman Geisler, took another tone, warned evangelicals regarding the negative presuppositions of historical-critical ideologies in his “Beware of Philosophy.”[107]  In his presidential address, Geisler featured a 1998 work entitled, The Jesus Crisis that detailed growing evangelical involvement in historical-critical ideologies like questing.  Just like Lindsell’s books, The Jesus Crisis created a hornets’ nest of controversy among evangelicals.  To say the least, Geisler’s address as well as his praise for The Jesus Crisis revealed a significant cleavage within evangelicalism that had developed since ICBI.  While some praised The Jesus Crisis as needing to be written,[108] other evangelicals disdained the work as strident, fundamentalistic rhetoric that was closed-minded to a judicial use of historical criticism.[109]  Darrell Bock, mentioned in The Jesus Crisis, reviewed it in the following terms: “As a whole, The Jesus Crisis displays a lack of discernment about the history of Gospels study. The book should have given a more careful discussion of difficult details in the Gospels and the views tied to them, especially when inerrantists critiqued by the book are portrayed as if they were denying the accuracy of the Gospels, when in fact they are defending it.”[110]  Bock contends, “Careful consideration also does not support the claim that even attempting to use critical methods judiciously leads automatically and inevitably to denial of the historicity of the Gospels. Unfortunately this work overstates its case at this basic level and so places blame for the bibliological crisis at some wrong evangelical doorsteps.”[111]

In a highly irregular move for the Evangelical Theological Society, Grant Osborne was given an opportunity in the next issue of JETS to counter Geisler’s Presidential address, wherein Geisler’s address was criticized as well as The Jesus Crisis saying, “the tone is too harsh and grating, the positions too extreme.”[112] In 2004, Geisler, a world-renown Christian apologist and long-time member of ETS, cited the Society’s acceptance of open theists among the ETS group and withdrew as a member perceiving a drift in the wrong direction for the Evangelical Theological Society of which he was a founding member (see “Why I Resigned from ETS” at www.normangeisler.net/articles).

In 2001, Craig Blomberg, in his article “Where Should Twenty-First Century Biblical Scholarship, decried the Jesus Crisis: “It is hard to imagine a book such as Thomas and Farnell’s The Jesus Crisis ever appearing in Britain, much less being commended by evangelical scholars as it has been by a surprising number in this country.  Avoiding Thomas’s and Farnell’s misguided separatism and regular misrepresentation of others’ works, a higher percentage of us need to remain committed to engaging the larger, scholarly world in contextually sensitive ways that applaud as much as possible perspectives that we do not adopt while nevertheless preserving evangelical distinctives.”[113]  Blomberg went on to praise his own brand of scholarship: “It still distresses me . . . how many religious studies departments in the U.S. (or their libraries) are unaware of the breadth and depth of evangelical biblical scholarship.  This situation need not remain this way, as witnessed by the fact that this is an area in which our British counterparts have made considerably more progress in, at times, even less-promising contexts.”[114]

Interestingly, more recently, Craig Blomberg blames books like Harold Lindsell’s Battle For the Bible (1976) and such a book as The Jesus Crisis for people leaving the faith because of their strong stance on inerrancy as a presupposition.  In a web interview in 2008 conducted by Justin Taylor, Blomberg responded this way to books that hold to a firm view on inerrancy.  The interviewer asked, “Are there certain mistaken hermeneutical presuppositions made by conservative evangelicals that play into the hands of liberal critics?”  Blomberg replied,

Absolutely. And one of them follows directly from the last part of my answer to your last question. The approach, famously supported back in 1976 by Harold Lindsell in his Battle for the Bible (Zondervan), that it is an all-or-nothing approach to Scripture that we must hold, is both profoundly mistaken and deeply dangerous. No historian worth his or her salt functions that way. I personally believe that if inerrancy means “without error according to what most people in a given culture would have called an error” then the biblical books are inerrant in view of the standards of the cultures in which they were written. But, despite inerrancy being the touchstone of the largely American organization called the Evangelical Theological Society, there are countless evangelicals in the States and especially in other parts of the world who hold that the Scriptures are inspired and authoritative, even if not inerrant, and they are not sliding down any slippery slope of any kind. I can’t help but wonder if inerrantist evangelicals making inerrancy the watershed for so much has not, unintentionally, contributed to pilgrimages like Ehrman’s. Once someone finds one apparent mistake or contradiction that they cannot resolve, then they believe the Lindsells of the world and figure they have to chuck it all. What a tragedy![115]

To Blomberg, apparently anyone who advocates inerrancy as traditionally advocated by Lindsell is responsible for people leaving the faith.

It is also the hermeneutic of historical criticism through which Blomberg developed his “globalization hermeneutical approach.”  In a very telling article of Blomberg’s historical-grammatical hermeneutical approach, he advocates “The Globalization of Biblical Interpretation: A Test Case John 3-4.”[116]  This “hermeneutic” clearly has an a priori agenda that is imposed on the text when Blomberg summarizes the approach as “asking new questions of the text, particularly in light of the experiences of marginalization of a large percent of the world’s population.”[117] From Blomberg’s perspective “[s]tudents of scripture . . . have realized that the traditional historical-critical interpretation has been disproportionately Eurocentric and androcentric . . . and various new methodologies have been developed to correct this imbalance.”[118]  That such a conclusion has any substantial basis in fact, beyond opinion, is not substantiated by the article.  Apparently for Blomberg, the goal of exegesis and interpretation is not to understand the text as was originally intended but to search the biblical text for an already prescribed agenda of “globalization.”  This is telling, for under this scheme the meaning and significance of the biblical text would be its usefulness in promoting an agenda that is already predetermined, i.e. subject the Scripture to these shifting sands of interpretation that Blomberg identifies as follows: “issues of liberation theology, feminism, religious pluralism, the disparity of between the world’s rich and poor, and contextualization of biblical material.”[119]

An even more recent example is that of Bart Ehrman at the beginning of the 21st century.  Interestingly, Bart Ehrman directly blames historical criticism as a large reason for his departure from the faith.  Ehrman is very honest and open to note that an important, strategic factor in his loss of confidence in his faith was explicitly that of historical-critical ideologies and their impact on seminary students’ thoughts:

The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic mainline seminaries is what is called the ‘historical-critical” method . . . The historical-critical approach has a different set of concepts and therefore poses a different set of questions . . . . A very large percentage of seminaries are completely blind-sided by the historical critical method.  They come in with expectations of learning the pious truths of the Bible so that they can pass them along in their sermons, as their own pastors have done for them.  Nothing prepares them for historical criticism. To their surprise they learn, they learn, instead of material for sermons, all the results of what historical critics have established on the basis of centuries of research.  The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable contradictions . . . . But before long, as students see more and more evidence [of contradictions], many of them find that their faith in the inerrancy and absolute historical truthfulness of the Bible begins to waver.  There simply is too much evidence, and to reconcile all of the hundreds of differences among the biblical sources requires so much speculation and fancy interpretive work that eventually it get to be too much for them.”[120]

He goes on to note that “I came to see the potential value of historical criticism at Princeton Seminary, I started adopting this new (for me) approach, very cautiously at first, as I didn’t want to concede too much to scholarship.  But eventually I saw the powerful logic behind the historical-critical method and threw myself heart and soul into the study of the Bible from this perspective.”  He then comments, “It is hard for me to pinpoint the exact moment that I stopped being a fundamentalist who believed in the absolute inerrancy and verbal inspiration of the Bible.”[121]

From Ehrman’s comments, perhaps he should be seen, not so much as a defector, but as an example of the tragic failure of evangelical mentoring in biblical education.  He began his training in a conservative theological school (i.e. Moody).  Someone along his path, however, at Wheaton College encouraged him to attend a more prestigious “critical” school (i.e. Princeton) to study.  It was at Princeton Seminary, which long ago had left any sense of faithfulness to God’s Word, exposed Ehrman to historical criticism.[122]  Moreover, these evangelical institutions that had previously trained him apparently did not prepare him for the onslaught of historical criticism that would impact his thinking.  Erhman should serve rather as a salient, very recent example that Hagner is wrong, both academically, but especially spiritually, in encouraging students toward historical criticism.  When Seminaries become degree mills proud of numbers with attention on academia, with little attention to the quality of spiritual formation of the individual student through careful mentoring, disaster ensues.  Notice that while Marshall, Hagner and other evangelicals call pseudepigraphy by a euphemism and accept it as in line with inspiration, Ehrman recognized the complete inconsistency and was honest enough to call such activity what it truly is: FORGED! [123]

While Ehrman is honest, evangelicals who are involved in historial-research are not quite as open and frank.  Ehrman would find commonality in Linnemann’s assessment that historical-critical ideologies are an overwhelmingly strategical, negative influence.  Harold Lindsell, in his workThe Battle for the Bible (1976) as well as his subsequent work, The Bible in the Balance (1978), was instrumental in sounding the warning among Bible-believing people of historical criticism’s destruction on inerrancy and infallibility.  Lindsell warned “The presuppositions of this methodology . . . go far beyond a mere denial of biblical infallibility.  They tear at the heart of Scripture, and include a denial of the supernatural.”[124]  In the Bible in the Balance devoted a whole chapter entitled “The Historical Critical Method: The Bible’s Deadly Enemy.”  In it, he argued,

Anyone who thinks that the historical-critical method is neutral is misinformed.  Since its presuppositions are unacceptable to the evangelical mind this method cannot be used by evangelicals as it stands.  The very use by the evangelical of the term, the historical-critical method, is a mistake when it comes to his own approach to Scripture . . . . It appears to me that modern evangelical scholars (and I may have been guilty of this myself) have played fast and loose with the term perhaps because they wanted acceptance by academia.  They seem too often to desire to be members of the club which is nothing more than practicing an inclusiveness that undercuts the normativity of the evangelical theological position.  This may be done, and often is, under the illusion that by this method the opponents of biblical inerrancy can be won over to the evangelical viewpoint.  But practical experience suggests that rarely does this happen and the cost of such an approach is too expensive, for it gives credence and lends respectability to a method which is the deadly enemy of theological orthodoxy.” [125]

Yet, these evangelicals apparently believe that they themselves are immune to its subversive power.  Yet, it was Lindsell himself who was a vital player in the ICBI 1978 and 1982 statements on Inerrancy and Hermeneutics that was designed to be a warning and a guard to future generations of evangelical scholars.

In yet another work, evangelical Daniel Wallace also plays down the importance of inspiration and inerrancy.  In statement from his Chapter entitled Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? The Uneasy Conscience of a non-Charismatic Evangelical,” Wallace admits a personal struggle:

            (3) This emphasis on knowledge over relationship can produce in us bibliolatry. For    me, as a New Testament professor, the text is my task–but I made it my God. The text       became my idol. Let me state this bluntly: The Bible is not a member of the Trinity. One       lady in my church facetiously told me, “I believe in the Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy         Bible.” Sadly, too many cessationists operate as though that were so.  One of the great           legacies Karl Barth left behind was his strong Christocentric focus. It is a shame that too             many of us have reacted so strongly to Barth, for in our zeal to show his deficiencies in             his doctrine of the Bible, we have become bibliolaters in the process. Barth and Calvin      share a warmth, a piety, a devotion, an awe in the presence of God that is lacking in too    many theological tomes generated from our circles.”[126]

 

The present writer finds this kind of statement very strange and not in accordance with the assertions of Scripture itself.  Scripture presents its foundational importance of inspiration and inerrancy with a few verses of hundreds of verses that present this constant truth of God’s Words exalted status, e.g. “I will bow down toward Your holy temple And give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word according to all Your name” (Psa 138:2); God’s Word is a sanctifying force” “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. (John 17:17 NAU) John 17:17; Matthew 10:38, Jesus affirmed “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35 NAU) or 2 Timothy 3:16-17: All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”  Wallace’s logic here is startlingly poor: If the documents cannot be trusted, if they are not inspired and inerrant, then one cannot have a “christocentric” anything.

In seeking to counter the damage to the determination of the wording of Scripture by Bart Ehrman work Misquoting Jesus, Wallace demotes inerrancy to a “peripheral” belief:

Second, what I tell my students every year is that it is imperative that they pursue truth     rather than protect their presuppositions. And they need to have a doctrinal taxonomy that      distinguishes core beliefs from peripheral beliefs. When they place more peripheral doc           trines such as inerrancy and verbal inspiration at the core, then when belief in these doc trines starts to erode, it creates a domino effect: One falls down, they all fall down. It    strikes me that something like this may be what happened to Bart Ehrman. His testimony        in Misquoting Jesus discussed inerrancy as the prime mover in his studies. But when a       glib comment from one of his conservative professors at Princeton was scribbled on a   term paper, to the effect that perhaps the Bible is not inerrant, Ehrman‘s faith began to          crumble. One domino crashed into another until eventually he became ‘a fairly happy     agnostic.’ I may be wrong about Ehrman’s own spiritual journey, but I have known too many students who have gone in that direction. The irony is that those who frontload             their critical investigation of the text of the Bible with bibliological presuppositions often speak of a slippery slope on which all theological convictions are tied to inerrancy. Their         view is that if inerrancy goes, everything else begins to erode. I would say rather that if       inerrancy is elevated to the status of a prime doctrine, that‘s when one gets on a slippery     slope. But if a student views doctrines as concentric circles, with the cardinal doctrines     occupying the center, then if the more peripheral doctrines are challenged, this does not        have a significant impact on the core. In other words, the evangelical community will      continue to produce liberal scholars until we learn to nuance our faith commitments a bit   more, until we learn to see Christ as the center of our lives and scripture as that which points to him. If our starting point is embracing propositional truths about the nature of             scripture rather than personally embracing Jesus Christ as our Lord and King, we’ll be on       that slippery slope, and we’ll take a lot of folks down with us.”[127]

 

Even more startling is Wallace’s assertion’s regarding evangelical theological views, like inerrancy or inspiration, that apparently reflects a similar view to Rogers and McKim (mentioned earlier in this article): “our theology is too often rooted in Greek philosophy, rationalism, the Enlightenment, and Scottish Common Sense realism” which he defines as “Scottish Common Sense Realism is a philosophical departure from that of the sixteenth-century Reformers, tough it was a handmaiden of Princetonian conservative theology in the nineteenth century.”[128] For Wallace, evangelicals operate on a “docetic bibliology” regarding Scripture when they insist on the ipsissima verba or similar ideas.[129]  Thus, Wallace’s view encompasses such ideas as Luke altering the meaning of Jesus’ words in Luke 5:32 (cp. Mark 2:17; Matt. 9:13) so that he asserts that “To sum up: There seems to be evidence in the synoptic gospels that, on occasion, words are deliberately added to the original sayings of Jesus” and “[i]n a few instances, these words seem to alter somewhat the picture that we would otherwise have gotten from the original utterance; in other instances, the meaning seems to be virtually the same, yet even here a certain amount of exegetical spadework is needed to see this.  On the other hand, there seem to be examples within the synoptics where the words are similar, but the meaning is different.”[130]  These statements leave one to wonder if Jesus truly said what is recorded in the Gospels or that the substance has been changed redactionally.   Wallace concludes, “it seems that our interpretation of inspiration is governing our interpretation of the text.  Ironically, such bibliological presuppositions are established in modern terms that just might ignore or suppress the data they are meant to address and which are purportedly derived.  And there is an even greater irony here: the fact of the Incarnation—an essential element in orthodox Christology-invites (italics in original) rigorous historical investigation.  But what if our bibliological presuppositions reject (italics in original) that invitation.”[131]  What “rigorous historical investigation entails is not clearly specified, except that it would involves at least the utilization of the criteria of authenticity and dissimilarity.[132]

Wallace in a recent blog (www.danwallace.com) related that “I am unashamedly a Protestant. I believe in sola scriptura, sola fidei, solus Christus, and the rest. I am convinced that Luther was on to something when he articulated his view of justification succinctly: simul iustus et peccator (“simultaneously justified and a sinner”).”[133]  Yet, he laments the lack of unification on Protestant theology, and says that three events in his life are having an impact on his thinking: (1) His attendance at Greek Orthodox worship: “I have spent a lot of time with Greek Orthodox folks. It doesn’t matter what Orthodox church or monastery I visit, I get the same message, the same liturgy, the same sense of the ‘holy other’ in our fellowship with the Triune God. The liturgy is precisely what bothers so many Protestants since their churches often try very hard to mute the voices from the past. “It’s just me and my Bible” is the motto of millions of evangelicals. (2) his own personal experience of seeing a personal friend of his in Protestantism deny Jesus’ deity, where he laments the lack of an ecclesiastical hierarchy “This cancer could have been cut out more swiftly and cleanly if the church was subordinate to a hierarchy that maintained true doctrine in its churches. And the damage would have been less severe and less traumatic for the church;” and (3) his realization on ecclesiastical hierarchy involved in canon formation, “What is significant is that for the ancient church, canonicity was intrinsically linked to ecclesiology. It was thebishops rather than the congregations that gave their opinion of a book’s credentials. Not just any bishops, but bishops of the major sees of the ancient churches.”  He relates, “we Protestants can be more sensitive about the deficiencies in our own ecclesiology rather than think that we’ve got a corner on truth. We need to humbly recognize that the two other branches of Christendom have done a better job in this area. Second, we can be more sensitive to the need for doctrinal and ethical accountability, fellowship beyond our local church, and ministry with others whose essentials but not necessarily particulars don’t line up with ours. Third, we can begin to listen again to the voice of the Spirit speaking through church fathers and embrace some of the liturgy that has been used for centuries.”  These factors of a unified ecclesiastical hierarch superceding the local church appear to be persuading toward seriously contemplating membership in the Anglican Church.[134]

Russ, I have thought about the Anglican Church quite a bit actually. I love the liturgy, the symbolism, the centrality of the Eucharist, the strong connection with the church in ages past, and the hierarchy. And yes, I have seriously considered joining their ranks–and still am considering it. There are some superb Anglican churches in the Dallas area. Quite surprising to me has been my choice of academic interns at Dallas Seminary in the last few years. Over half of them have been Anglican, and yet when I picked them for the internship I didn’t know what their denominational affiliation was. Exceptional students, devoted to the Lord and his Church, and committed to the highest level of Christian scholarship. And they have respect for tradition and the work of the Spirit in the people of God for the past two millennia.[135]

 

Sadly, what Wallace fails to discern is that such overwhelming ecclesiastical hierarchy is what caused the need of reformation since the Church rotted from the top down with the rise of Romanism and Anglicanism.  Infection spreads much more readily, quickly in “top-down” hierarchies.  Independent local churches such as those exhibited in Protestantism generally preserve a greater safeguard against spreading heresy.

Interestingly, William Craig, professor of apologetics at Talbot School of Theology, uses historical criticism to question the veracity of guards being at Jesus’ tomb.  In a 2010 Ankerberg interview, Craig negates the guards in the following manner.  In response to Ankerberg’s question, “Were there guards at the tomb?” Craig replied:

Well now this is a question that I think is probably best left out of the program, because the vast, vast majority of New Testament scholars would regard Matthew’s tomb story, or guard story as “unhistorical.” Um, I can hardly think of anybody who would defend the historicity of the guard at the tomb story and the main reasons for that are two: one is because it’s only found in Matthew, and it seems very odd that if there were a Roman guard or even a Jewish guard at the tomb that Mark wouldn’t know about it, and there wouldn’t be any mention of it. The other reason is that nobody seemed to understand Jesus’ resurrection predictions. The disciples who heard them most often had no inkling of what he meant, and yet somehow the Jewish authorities were supposed to have heard of these predictions, and understood them so well that they were able to set a guard around the tomb. And again, that doesn’t seem to make sense. So, most scholars regard the guard at the tomb story as a legend or a Matthean invention that isn’t really historical. Fortunately, this is of little significance for the empty tomb of Jesus, because the guard was mainly employed in Christian apologetics to disprove the conspiracy theory that the disciples stole the body—but no modern historian or New Testament scholar would defend a conspiracy theory because it’s evident when you read the pages of the New Testament that these people sincerely believed in what they said. So, the conspiracy theory is dead, even in the absence of a guard at the tomb. The true significance of the guard at the tomb story is that it shows that even the opponents of the earliest Christians did not deny the empty tomb, but rather involve themselves in a hopeless series of absurdities trying to explain it away, by saying that the disciples had stolen the body. And that’s the real significance of Matthew’s “Guard at the Tomb” story.[136]

In reply to this “logic” of Craig, note that if evangelicals accepted what the early church always and consistently witnessed—that Matthew was the first Gospel written—instead of accepting historical-critical presuppositions,  then Mark actually left out Matthew’s guard story. Moreover, if Matthew made up the guards around Jesus’ tomb, then what stops Craig’s reasoning from being extended to the idea that the writers made up the “sincere” response of belief, or, for that matter, the whole idea of the resurrection?  To start throwing out parts of the Gospels because they aren’t recounted in Mark or because “no modern historian or New Testament scholar” thinks they are historical is not only illogical but dangerous to Christianity.

In an earlier statement (1984), Craig seems to give credence to the guards:

 

So although there are reasons to doubt the existence of the guard at the tomb, there are also weighty considerations in its favor. It seems best to leave it an open question. Ironically, the value of Matthew’s story for the evidence for the resurrection has nothing to do with the guard at all or with his intention of refuting the allegation that the disciples had stolen the body. The conspiracy theory has been universally rejected on moral and psychological grounds, so that the guard story as such is really quite superfluous. Guard or no guard, no critic today believes that the disciples could have robbed the tomb and faked the resurrection. Rather the real value of Matthew’s story is the incidental — and for that reason all the more reliable — information that Jewish polemic never denied that the tomb was empty, but instead tried to explain it away. Thus the early opponents of the Christians themselves bear witness to the fact of the empty tomb.[137]

 

The impression one might get from this statement is that Craig believes the guards at the tomb story to be genuine. However, the fact that he leaves it an open question means that he is actually not sure of its validity.  Although in this case he doesn’t deny the account of the guards outright, he acknowledges that there are “reasons” to doubt its authenticity and suggests that we cannot know for sure, casting serious doubt on the integrity of God’s Word. If eyewitness Matthew said guards were there, can it be left an “open question” for those who believe in the trustworthiness, let alone, inerrancy of Scripture?

Alarmingly, Craig is clearly inconsistent on this issue.  In his summary on his own website “Reasonable Faith”[138] regarding the guards:  He says two self-contradictory things about the guards:  (1) On one hand he places in the summary top of his own website: “a reconstruction of the history of tradition lying behind Jewish-Christian polemic makes the fictitiousness of the guard unlikely.”  (2) On the other hand, he places at the bottom of his own website regarding the tomb article the already cited statement from his 1984 NTS article:  “It seems best to leave it an open question. Ironically, the value of Matthew’s story for the evidence for the resurrection has nothing to do with the guard at all or with his intention of refuting the allegation that the disciples had stolen the body.”  So, here’s the problem for Craig’s reasoning:  He both defends and attacks the guard at the tomb story all in one package.  He can say he believes it but he does not believe it.  Since when is equivocation like this “reasonable faith”?  Would not apologetic opponents of the Gospel point this out and destroy such inconsistency?  One cannot have it both ways.  This inconsistency needs to be noted.

His genre hermeneutic is both historical affirmation and denial all at the same time.  So is Licona, so Bock, so is Blomberg, etc. of this NT group cited in this article. They all would say that they affirm inerrancy, and yet have statements that are inconsistent with such a belief at the same time by their replies and use of genre issues.  Genre is now used as a proverbial “loophole” to negate inerrancy.   While many of these evangelicals apparently sign statements where they teach that affirm inerrancy, at least on paper, yet many of their statements cited in this article place that affirmation in doubt.  They play both sides.  They cannot have it both ways.

Finally, the most recent example of those who adopt historical-critical ideologies among evangelicals is Michael R. Licona in his work, The Resurrection of Jesus A New Historiographical Approach.[139]  Licona’s work exhibits many commendable items.  For instance, it presents a strong stance on the historical basis for Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead.  One can be encouraged that in light of historical criticism’s attack on the miraculous since Spinoza and the Enlightenment, Licona has maintained the historical, orthodox position of the church.

Yet, like Robert Gundry before him in 1983, Licona in 2010 uses genre issues in historical criticism to negate portions of Scripture that have always been considered historical by the orthodox Christian church from the earliest times.  He has stirred up a hornets’ nest of controversy that parallels that of the Gundry/ETS circumstances that resulted in the ICBI documents of 1978 and 1982.

Being influenced by historical criticism, Licona has accepted a consensus that has emerged among critically-trained historical-critical scholars that the Gospels are a form of ancient bios.”[140]  He echoes the thinking of Charles Talbert and British theologian Richard Burridge who popularized this view.[141]  The implication of bios is that since ancient biography (bios) was not always accurate but erred at times or should not be accepted as always indicating literal events, the gospels would exhibit a similar characteristic.  Yet, this assertion that the gospels being a form of ancient bios is fraught with dangers for historical matters surrounding the Gospels since it can lead readily to de-emphasizing the Gospels as historical documents.

For example, this opinion of the  gospels as bios has recently created a storm of controversy with Michael Licona using bios as a means of dehistoricizing parts of the Gospel (i.e. Matthew 27:51-53 with the resurrection of the saints after Jesus crucifixion).   Licona argued “Bioi offered the ancient biographer great flexibility for rearranging material and inventing speeches . . . and they often included legend.  Because bios was a flexible genre, it is often difficult to determine where history ends and legend begins.”[142]

Licona asserts that Matthew 27:51-53, with especially its mention of the resurrection of saints after Jesus death, should not be considered historical.  Instead, it is figurative as genre.  While admittedly Licona’s work defends Jesus’ bodily resurrection ably in his work, Licona outright dismisses the historicity of this passage in Matthew 27 under the assumption of genre hermeneutic known as apocalyptic or eschatological Jewish texts and under an operating assumption of the Gospels as bioi wherein the latter genre is not always understood as indicating historical events.  In doing so, he effectively undermines His strong defense of Jesus’ resurrection.  Licona labels it a “strange little text”[143] and terms it “special effects” that have no historical basis.[144]  His apparent concern also rests with only Matthew as mentioning the event.  He concludes that “Jewish eschatological texts and thought in mind” as “most plausible” in explaining it.”[145]  He concludes that “It seems best to regard this difficult text in Matthew a poetic device added to communicate that the Son of God had died and that impending judgment awaited Israel.”[146]

This conclusion, however, is subjective, arbitrary, and hermeneutically quite unnecessary.  Nothing demands such a conclusion in the context or supports such a conclusion unless one believes that historical-critical principles such as Licona follows derive a benefit here.  If the events in Matthew 27:51-53 are held that way, nothing—absolutely nothing— stops critics from applying the same kind of logic to Jesus’ resurrection.  Licona’s logic here is self-defeating and undermines his work on defending the resurrection.  Several grammatico-historical (as opposed to historical-critical) arguments prevail against Licona.  Many have already been mentioned.  So I will add only a few.  First, Licona appears to take other events in immediate context in this passage as historical (Jesus crying out, veil of temple split, earthquake, the centurion crying out).   Merely because he finds the resurrection of the saints as “strange” is rather subjective.  His idea of “What were they [the resurrected saints] doing between Friday afternoon and early Sunday morning?” shows that an acute subjectivity reigns in Licona’s hermeneutical scheme.

Second, strategically, no literary/genre signals exist to the readers that Matthew has switched from historical narration of the events surrounding the crucifixion.  The passage flows both before and after as a telling of the events with no abrupt disjuncture.  How would Matthew’s readers have recognized that the events, before and after, were historical in time-space but not the immediate passage?  How would Matthew’s readers have been able to distinguish the genre change from historical narrative to what Licona term’s “symbolic” based in eschatological Jewish texts.  It is highly dubious that Matthew 27:51-53 or Revelation should be associated with Jewish Apocalyptic literature.  While Revelation may share some highly superficial characterstics, such as symbolism, it does not share the dualism, pessimism, determinism, pseudonymity or rewritten history transformed into prophecy that characterized such Jewish literature (see Leon Morris,Apocalyptic, 1972).  Licona’s decision for such a genre linkage has no substantial reason.  It is arbitrary.  Finally, since as Licona argues most of our historical knowledge is fragmentary, should not the passage be given the benefit as history.  Nothing in the context precludes its history and nothing in the context negates its history, except a subjective bias that the story is “strange.”  This is a subjective interpretation of what something means “to me” (i.e. Licona).

William Lane Craig echoed a similar statement to Michael Licona regarding the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27:51-53.  In a Youtube video of Craig debating in 2007 at the University of Sheffield, in the United Kingdom against James Crossley on the bodily resurrection of Jesus, Craig sets forth the idea that admitting to legendary elements in the gospels (i.e. the resurrection of the saints) “does nothing to undermine the remaining testimony of the gospels to things like the crucifixion of Jesus, the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances” (citing Dale Allison as his authority for this statement).  When asked directly by a questioner in the audience if he believes in the story of the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27:51-53, “I not sure what to think.”  He also says “it could be part of the apocalyptic imagery of Matthew which isn’t meant to be taken in a literal way.  That this would be part of the typical sort of apocalyptic symbolism to show the earth shattering nature of the resurrection and need not to be taken historically literally.”  He goes on to conclude, “this is not attached to a resurrection narrative.  This story about the Old Testament saints is attached to the crucifixion narrative.  So that if you try to say that because Matthew has this unhistorical element in his crucifixion account, that therefore the whole account is worthless, you would be led to deny the crucifixion of Jesus which is one indisputable fact that everyone recognizes about the historical Jesus.  So it really doesn’t have any implications for the historicity of the burial story, the empty tomb story or the appearance accounts.  It’s connected to the crucifixion narrative.”  Notice that his adoption of historical criticism drives him toward allowing for non-historicity in narrative accounts in the Gospels.[147]  The key question for Craig must be if they made up stories of saints’ resurrection what would stop them from making up stories about Jesus’ resurrection?  One cannot have it both ways, i.e. one story is historical but the other may be made up fiction due to apocalyptic imagery.

 

CONCLUSION TO HAGNER’S PRINCIPLES

Church history testifies against Hagner’s principles as being profitable for orthodox Christianity as well as evangelicals as a whole.  Such principles are not “excellent” but disastrous for the inerrancy and inspiration of the Scripture.  When adopted by evangelical scholarship, such principles lead to a denigration of Scripture.  No compelling reason exists for their adoption.  Rather, they seem to be driven largely by a desire motivated to gain some form of acceptance by critical scholarship.

In 2007, Andreas Köstenberger edited a work entitled, Quo Vadis Evangelicalism?  The work consisted of a highly selected choice of Presidential addresses of Evangelical Theological Society scholars who, in the history of the Society, favored the move in the Society toward historical critical ideologies.   No presidential addresses that warned against historical-critical ideologies were allowed.  The work related that ETS has been “polarized” into two camps, one represented by Eta Linnemann and Norman Geisler who warned against historical-critical ideologies and that of Darrell Bock and others who heartily embrace “the judicious use of a historical-critical approach.”[148]  The book was extremely prejudicial toward one side, hardly objective.  Köstenberger never stated what a “judicious” use of historical criticism was or whose version would be accepted.  He did note, however, that the pendulum [at ETS] seems to have swung toward the side of the latter [“judicious use] group.”[149]  It actually constituted a personal vanity toward praising a direction that the editor apparently embraced.  He concluded his preface by noting “Speaking personally, reading and digesting  these presidential addresses—spanning a half-century and delivered by some of evangelicalism’s most distinguished leaders—has given me, a third-generation scholar in the ETS, a much fuller and deeper appreciation for the history of the evangelical movment and my place within it.”[150]  He concluded with “In my judgment the present volume offers great hope for the future of a movement whose best days, by God’s grace and abundant mercy, may yet lie ahead.”[151]

One writer of this present article had a rather aged church history professor during his days at Talbot Seminary who issued a warning that he has not forgotten to this day.  He would say that church history teaches consistently that by the third generation of any Christian group, the original intent of the organization was lost (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.) and the loss in these organizations is always away from a steadfast trust the Word of God.  What is noticed here is that Köstenberger admits that ETS is now in its third generation.  It is now open to many of Hagner’s principles in historical criticism.  The new third generation is in charge.

Long ago, Harold Lindsell, the scorn of much of these younger scholars today, said this about his own day:

Anyone who thinks the historical-critical method is neutral is misinformed.  Since its presuppositions are unacceptable to the evangelical mind this method cannot be used by the evangelical as it stands.  The very use by the evangelical of this term, historical- critical method, is a mistake when it comes to describing its own approach to Scripture.  The only way he can use it is to invest it with a different meaning.  But this can only confuse the uninformed.  Moreover, it is not fair to those scholars who use it in the correct way with presuppositions which are different from those of the evangelical.  It appears to me that modern evangelical scholars (and I may be guilty of this myself) have played fast and loose with the term because the wanted acceptance by academia.  They seem too often to desire to be members of the club which is nothing more than practicing an inclusiveness that undercuts the normativity of the evangelical theological position.  This may be done, and often is, under the illusion that by this method the opponents of biblical inerrancy can be one over to the evangelical viewpoint.  But practical experience suggest that rarely does this happen and the cost of such an approach is too expensive, for it gives credence and lends respectability to a method which is the deadly enemy of theological orthodoxy.[152]

 

Church history stands as a monumental testimony against this third generation of ETS evangelicals who somehow have thought that they are somehow special, endowed with exceptional abilities, and able to overcome historical criticism’s negativity that no one else in church history has been able to accomplish.

 

[1] A brief edition of this article originally appeared in the Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics, 6/1 (April 2013) 179-205.  This article is an expansion of it.

[2] http://blog.bakeracademic.com/don-hagners-ten-guidelines-for-evangelical-scholarship/ and was accessed by the authors of this article April 16, 2013.

[3]Please also read Norman L. Geisler and F. David Farnell, “The Erosion of Inerrancy Among New Testament Scholars” at http://normangeisler.net/articles/Bible/Inspiration-Inerrancy/Blomberg/DenialOfMiracleStory.htm) on Dr. Geisler’s personal website (normangeisler.net).

[4] Also available at http://bastionbooks.com/

[5] See Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Bethany House, 2002), vol. 1, chap. 12.

[6] Altamonte Springs, FL Advantage Inspirational Books, 2005.

[7] See Norman L. Geisler, Thomas Aquinas: An evangelical Appraisal (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1991, chap.5)

[8] John D. Hannah, Inerrancy and the Church (Chicago: Moody, 1984); Norman L. Geisler, Biblical Inerrancy: the Historical Evidence (available at www.BastionBooks.com. 2013) and the venerable historical-grammatical way of interpreting it (see ICBI Hermeneutics Articles and Commentary, 2013 (available at www.BastionBooks.com. 2013).

 

[9] Donald A. Hagner, The New Testament A Historical and Theological Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012) 4.

[10] Hagner, The New Testament A Historical and Theological Introduction, 4.

[11] Ibid. 5.

[12] Ibid. 5.

[13] Ibid. 7.

[14] Ibid. 7.

[15] cp. Martin Hengel, “Eye-witness Memory and the Writing of the Gospels: Form Criticism, Community Tradition and the Authority of the Authors,” in The Written Gospel.  Eds. Markus Bockmuehl and Donald Hagner.  Cambridge: University Press, 2005) 70-96.

[16] Hengel, “Eye-witness Memory”, 94. n. 100.

[17] Hagner, The New Testament A Historical and Theological Introduction, 10.

[18] Hagner, The New Testament, 10.

[19] Hagner, The New Testament, 10 and also page 10 footnote  17.

[20] Hagner, The New Testament, 9.

[21] Ibid 9.

[22] Ibid 63.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid. 61.

[25] Ibid. 65.

[26] Ibid. 83-104.

[27] Ibid. 97.

[28] Ibid. 98.

[29] Ibid. 429.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid. 431. See I. Howard Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, 84.

[34] Hagner, New Testament Introduction, 432.

[35] Ibid. 428.

[36] Ibid. 429.

[37] Ibid 585-642.

[38] Ibid. 675.

[39] Ibid. 714.

[40] Ibid. 761.

[41] Hagner, Introduction, 64-65;

[42] Hagner, 35.

[43] Hagner, Introduction, 97.

[44] Hagner, 115.

[45] Hagner 119.

[46] Hagner, 163.

[47] Hagner, 194.

[48] Hagner, 429.

[49] Hagner, 431.

[50] Hagner, 586.

[51] Hagner, 615.

[52] Hagner, 432.

[53] Hagner, 672.

[54] Hagner, 689.

[55] Hagner, 708.

[56] Hagner, 714.

[57] Hagner, 728.

[58] Hagner, 761.

[59] J. Gresham Machen, The Christian Faith in the Modern World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1936) 65.

[60] http://blog.bakeracademic.com/don-hagners-ten-guidelines-for-evangelical-scholarship/ accessed on April 16, 2013.

[61] Carl F. H. Henry, Jesus of Nazareth, Savior and Lord (London: Tyndale, 1970 (1966), 9.

[62] George Eldon Ladd, NT and Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967) 141, 168-169.

[63] Ladd, NT and Criticism, 10.

[64] Ladd offers two examples:  Kittel and Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament and Arndt, Gingrich, Baur and Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament].”Ladd, NT and Criticism, 11.

[65] George E. Ladd, “The Search for Perspective,” Interpretation XXV (1971), 47.

[66] Ladd, “The Search for Perspective,” 47.  In a hotly debated book, Harold Lindsell in the mid-1970s detailed the problems facing Fuller, the Southern Baptist Convention and other Christian institutions due to the encroachment of historical criticism from European influence.  See Harold Lindsell, “The Strange Case of Fuller Theological Seminary,” The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 106-121.  Marsden’s book also covers this period inReforming Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).

[67] Ladd, “The Search for Perspective, 49 cp. Ladd’s citing of this admission by Ernst Käsemann may be found in the latter’s, Essays on New Testament Themes (London: SCM, 1964), 54-62.

[68] An example of one of Ladd’s students is the late Robert Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount, A Foundation for Understanding (Waco, TX: Word, 1982), 23 promoted an exegesis “that . . . makes use of the literary critical tools including text, source, form, tradition, redaction, and structural criticism” and goes on to assert “for many to whom the Scriptures are vital the use of these critical tools has historically been more ‘destructive’ than ‘constructive.’  But one need not discard the tool because of its abuse.”

[69] Mark Noll conducted a personal poll/survey among evangelicals and has, as a result, described Ladd as “the most widely influential figure on the current generation of evangelical Bible scholars.”  Ladd was “most influential” among scholars in the Institute for Biblical Research and was placed just behind John Calvin as “most influential” among scholars in the Evangelical Theological Society.  See Noll, 97, 101, 112-114 [note especially p. 112 for this quote], 116, 121, 159-163, 211-226.  Moreover, Marsden described Noll’s book, Between Faith and Criticism, as making “a major contribution toward understanding twentieth-century evangelical scholarship.” See George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 250 fn. 9.

Since Noll marked out Ladd as the outstanding figure influencing the recent paradigm-shift in twentieth-century evangelical scholarship toward favoring historical-critical methods and since Marsden promotes Noll’s book as making “a major contribution toward understanding twentieth-century evangelical scholarship,” this paper uses Ladd as the outstanding paradigmic example, as well as typical representative, of this drift among evangelicals toward historical-critical ideologies that favor literary dependency hypotheses.

[70] For further historical details, see F. David Farnell, “The Philosophical and Theological Bent of Historical Criticism, in The Jesus Crisis, 85-131.

[71] George E. Ladd, “The Search for Perspective,” Interpretation  XXV (1971) 51.

[72] Ladd, “The Search for Perspective,” 47.

[73] Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976).

[74] Francis A. Schaeffer, No Final Conflict, p. XXXX

[75] Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, 23.

[76] Lindsell, Battle for the Bible, 81; 204.

[77] Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance, 283.

[78] Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance, 297

[79] For a more detailed history on this period, see Chapter 1-3 detailing the developmental, historical details surrounding the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy,  Norman L. Geisler and William C. Roach, Defending Inerrancy (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 17-42.

[80] Christianity Today, “Taking a Stand on Scripture (December 30, 1977), 25.

[81] Harold Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979).

[82] Donald W. Dayton, “’The Battle for the Bible’: Renewing the Inerrancy Debate,” Christian Century (November 10, 1976), 976.

[83] Donald W. Dayton, “The Church in the World, The ‘Battle for the Bible’ Rages On,”Theology Today (January 1, 1980), 79.

[84] Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: An Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper & Ro2, 1979). Rogers and McKim relied heavily upon the work of Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism British and American Millenarianism 1800-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970).

[85] Rogers and McKim, “Introcution,” xxiii.

[86] Rogers and McKim, 289-298.

[87] Rogers and McKim, xxii.

[88] Rogers and McKim, xxii.

[89] Jack Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality.  Revised and Epanded Edition (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2009).

[90] John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).

[91] George Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995 [1987]).

[92] “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” JETS 21/4 (December 1978) 289-296 and “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics,” JETS 25/4 (December 1982) 397-401.

[93] Robert H. Gundry, Matthew, A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982).

[94] Gundry, Matthew, 34-35.

[95] Gundry, Matthew, 31.

[96] James Barr, “Foreward to the American Edition,” in Fundamentalism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), vi.

[97] Jack Rogers, Confessions of A Conservative Evangelical (Philadelphia: Westminster 1974).

[98] Barr, “Foreward to the American Editon,” in Fundamentalism,  iv.

[99] Barr, Fundamentalism, 1.

[100] James Barr, “Preface,” in Beyond Fundamentalism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), vii.

[101] Alan F. Johnson, “Historical-Critical Method: Egyptian Gold or Pagan Precipice,” JETS 26/1 (March 1983) 3-15.   See also, Carl F. H. Henry, “The Uses and Abuses of Historical Criticism,” vol. IV: God Who Speaks and Shows, in God Revelation and Authority (Waco, TX: Word, 1979) 385-404.

[102] Alan F. Johnson, “Historical-Critical Method: Egyptian Gold or Pagan Precipice,” JETS 26/1 (March 1983) 3-15.   See also, Carl F. H. Henry, “The Uses and Abuses of Historical Criticism,” vol. IV: God Who Speaks and Shows, in God Revelation and Authority (Waco, TX: Word, 1979) 385-404.

[103] Craig L. Blomberg, “New Testament miracles and Higher Criticism: Climbing Up the Slippery Slope,” JETS 27/4 (December 1984) 436.

[104] Moisés Silva, “Can Two Walk Together Unless They Be Agreed? Evangelical Theology and Biblical Scholarship” JETS 41/1 (March 1998) 3-16 (quote from p. 4).

[105] Silva, Can Two Walk Together,” 8.

[106] Silva, “Can Two Walk Together,” 10.

[107] See also Norman L. Geisler, Ed. Biblical Inerrancy An Analysis of its Philosophical Roots(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981).  The book gives the philosophical background to ideas that lead inevitably to a denial of inerrancy and result in a supposition of errancy regarding Scripture.  It is available at http://bastionbooks.com.

[108] See the back cover page of the work where some called it “a blockbuster” and “the best up-to-date analysis in print of the dangerous drift of evangelical scholarship into negative higher criticism”— Robert L. Thomas and F. David Farnell, The Jesus Crisis, The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1998).

[109] Osborne’s article constitutes a criticism of not only Geisler but The Jesus Crisis, Grant Osborne, “Historical Criticism and the Evangelical,” JETS 42/2 (June 1999) 193-210.

[110] Darrell L. Bock, “Review of The Jesus Crisis, Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (April-June 2000) 232.

[111] Bock, “Review of The Jesus Crisis,” 236.

[112] Osborne, Historical Criticism and the Evangelical,” 209.

[113] Craig Blomberg, “Where Should Twenty-First Century Scholarship Be Heading?,” inBulletin for Biblical Research 11.2 (2001): 172.  This article was repeated as “The past, present

[114] Craig Blomberg, “Where Should Twenty-First Century Scholarship Be Heading?, 172.

[115] See http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2008/03/26/interview-with-craig-blomberg/ accessed on April 18, 2013.

[116] Craig L. Blomberg, “The Globalization of Biblical Interpretation: A Test Case John 3-4,” Bulletin of Biblical Research 5 (1995), 1-15.

[117] Blomberg, “The Globalization of Biblical Interpretation,” 1.

[118] Blomberg, “The Globalization of Biblical Interpretation,” 1

[119] Blomberg, “The Globalization of Biblical Interpretation,” 2; Cp. Craig L. Blomberg, “The Implications of Globalization for Biblical Understanding,” in Globalization.  Eds. Frazer Evans, Robert A. Evans, and David A. Roozen (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993) 213-28; 241-45.

[120] Bart D. Ehrman, “A Historical Assault on Faith,” in Jesus Interrupted (New York: Harper One, 2009), 4-6

[121] Ehrman, “A Historical Assault on Faith, Jesus Interrupted, 15.

[122] See Ehrman, “Preface,” in Jesus Interrupted, x-xii.

[123] Bart D. Ehman, Forged and Counterforgery The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (Oxford: Oxford University, 2013) and Forged Writing in the Name of God—Why the Bible’s Authors are Not Who We Think They Are (New York: Harper One, 2011).

[124] Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, 205.

[125] Harold Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), 283.

[126] Daniel Wallace, “Who’s Afraid of the Holy Spirit? The Uneasy Conscience of a non-Chrarismatic Evangelical,” in M. James Sawyer and Daniel B. Wallace (Dallas, TX: Biblical Studies, 2005), 8.

[127] Daniel B. Wallace, “The Gospel according to Bart, A Review of Bart D. Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Bible Studies Foundation, 2006 Bible.org) http://bible.org/article/gospel-according-bart. Note: this quote is from the full version of Wallace’s review.

[128] Daniel B. Wallace, An Apologia for a Broad View of Ipsissima Vox,” Presented at the 51stAnnual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, November 18, 1999, 1 (also note p. 1 ft. 2).

[129] Wallace, “An Apologia,” 10

[130] Wallace, “An Apologia,” 12.

[131] Wallace, “An Apologia,” 19.

[132] Wallace, “An Apologia,” 15.

[133] http://danielbwallace.com/2012/03/18/the-problem-with-protestant-ecclesiology/ (accessed on 5/10/2013).

[134] Wallace sights a work by Dungan that strongly influenced his belief in an ecclesiastical hierarchy.  See David Laird Dungan, Constantine’s Bible Politics and the Making of the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007).  Dungan’s work highlights Eusebius’ record (Ecclesiastical History) of the influence of ancient bishops in canon formation. Dungan, however, records the formation of canon prior to the onslaught of Romanism as well as Greek Orthodoxy.

[135] http://danielbwallace.com/2012/03/18/the-problem-with-protestant-ecclesiology/ (accessed on 5/10/2013).

[136] Transcribed from youtube video of Ankerg interview of Craig on May 25, 2010.  Accessed and transcribed on June 22, 2013 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8UMb7NlxkU).  This interview was subsequently taken down by Ankerberg.

[137] William L. Craig, “The Guard at the Tomb” New Testament Studies 30 (1984): 273-81(quote from page 80).

[138] http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-guard-at-the-tomb (accessed on June 26, 2013).

[139] Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2010).

[140] Bock also accepted this genre classification, see Darrell L. Bock, “Precision and Accuracy: Making Distinctions in the Cultural Context,” in Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?(Wheaton: Crossway, 2012) 368.

[141] See Charles H. Talbert, What is a Gospel?  The Genre of the Canonical Gospels(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977); Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography.  Second Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2004).

[142]  See Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 34.

[143]Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 548.

[144] Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 552.

[145] Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 552.

[146] Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 553.

[147] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SNuhjRZZI4 (accessed on September 30, 2013).

[148] Andreas Köstenberger, Quo Vadis Evangelicalism? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 18.

[149] Köstenberger, Quo Vadis Evangelicalism?, 18.

[150] Köstenberger, 26.

[151] Köstenberger, 26.

[152] Harold Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979) 283.

A RESPONSE TO KEN HAM AND ANSWERS IN GENESIS ON DOES INERRANCY REQUIRE BELIEVE IN A YOUNG EARTH?


A RESPONSE TO KEN HAM AND ANSWERS IN GENESIS ON DOES INERRANCY REQUIRE BELIEVE IN A YOUNG EARTH?

 

By Norman L. Geisler

 

 

Introduction

 

Let me begin by acknowledging the serious anti-evolutionary work of Ken Ham and the Young Earth creationists at Answers in Genesis (AIG). They have a sincere desire to defend the inerrant word of God and its “literal” historical-grammatical interpretation of Genesis. They have built an impressive organization and Creation Museum in Kentucky (which I have visited).  I personally respect the Young Earth view and once held it myself. Indeed, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I still lean toward it.  I even fought for their right to teach the Young Earth view and creation along side of evolution in the public schools as an expert witness at the “Scopes Two” Trial in Arkansas (1981) (see Geisler, Creation and the Courts). Further, I hope and pray that the Young Earth view is true (because it would be a good argument against evolution). Unfortunately, however, I believe the weight of biblical and scientific evidence does not favor it.

 

However, whatever uncertainty there may be about the Young Earth view, I am convinced of one thing—the age of the earth is not a test of orthodoxy.  Thus, I wrote the article: “Does Believing in Inerrancy Require One to Believe in Young Earth Creationism?” in which I came to a negative conclusion. Answers in Genesis responded to my article in a piece titled “The Ultimate Motivation of This Prominent Theologian.” However, despite their kind words and good intention, their response missed the main point of my article.  It was, as the title affirms, aimed at answering the question of whether belief in inerrancy demands a Young earth View.  My point was not to determine whether the earth is young or old. Nor was the point to deny a connection between belief in the historical grammatical method of interpretation and the doctrine of inerrancy. I believe there is, and as a framer of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy (1978), I strongly affirmed that there is (in Article XVIII), declaring: “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis….” Later, in the ICBI Hermeneutics statement on inerrancy, we added: “We affirm the necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its literal, or normal, sense.  The literal sense is the grammatical-historical sense…” (Article XV). So, the point in my article was simply to determine whether or not believing in inerrancy and the historical-grammatical interpretation of the Bible “requires” a belief in a Young Earth.  And AIG avoided answering the central point of my article.  Several of their points call for comment.

 

First, AIG’s response stressed my alleged “motivation” and “ultimate motivation” for holding to an Old Earth position as being the desire to accommodate the evolutionary view of long time periods.  But why should I want to do that when I don’t believe in Evolution and would be happy if the Young Earth view was true.  Indeed, one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time (St. Augustine), who lived a millennium and a half before Darwin, did not hold to a young earth.  So, it is not a question of motivation but of interpretation of God’s revelation in Scripture and in nature that is the issue. My motivation is to know the truth, and to find the truth I must examine the evidence. When I do, I find the evidence for a Young Earth—both biblically and scientifically–less than definitive.

 

As for my “ultimate” motivation, how could any mortal know this?  I believe that AIG would agree that our ultimate aim should be the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).  And as for immediate motivation, neither most Old Earthers nor I base our biblical view on alleged evidence for the old age of the earth.  Further, as mentioned in the article, long time periods do not hurt creation (in which I believe) nor does they help evolution which they believe. Time as such does not bring order; it brings disorder, as the Law Entropy reveals.  What is more, one’s motivation does not determine truth.  For a person can hold a false view with good motivation, or he can hold a true view with bad motivation. So stressing, as AIG did, the alleged motivation of Old Earthers, really reduces to diverting the issue.

 

Second, since AIG is strongly concerned with the age of the earth, it was understandable that it was easily distracted from the focus of my article to this issue. But the issue was not the age of the earth but whether or not there was a necessaryconnection between the age of the earth and inerrancy.  That is, does belief in inerrancy demand a Young Earth view?  AIG did not really address this question directly.  It does not actually matter to our point whether the earth is young or old.  For even if it is young, it still remains to ask whether such a belief is necessarily tied to inerrancy.  In actuality, there are Young Earthers who do not hold to inerrancy and non-Young Earthers who embrace it but who do not believe that inerrancy demands a Young Earth view.

 

Third, AIG virtually admits what logicians call the “Slippery Slope” fallacy, insisting that our view “unlocks the door” that opens doubt about the rest of the Word of God.  They add, such doubt can (and does) put many people “on a slippery slide of unbelief toward the Word of God,” even though AIG acknowledges that it did not happen in my case.  Nor, we may add, has it happened in the case of the vast majority of all the founders and framers of the inerrancy movement for the last 100 years.  As a matter of fact, there is no logically necessary connection between one’s view on how old the universe is and unbelief in the Word of God

If anything, the opposite is true.  For unnecessarily tying inerrancy to a Young Earth view can easily lead some to give up the Christian Faith. For example, if they believe that Young Earth and inerrancy are logically connected and then comes to believe for whatever reason that the Earth is old, then logically they would have to give up their faith.  This is not so for those whose faith is not logically tied to the age of the earth.

 

Fourth, AIG mistakenly assumes that Old Earth Creationists have “adopted two different hermeneutical principles.”  That is, they claim that we depart from the historical-grammatical hermeneutics when we interpret the early chapters of Genesis. But this is clearly not so, for the ICBI statements, of which the framers were committed to a strong and comprehensive statement on hermeneutics and inerrancy by ICBI (seewww.bastionbooks.com for Explaining Biblical Inerrancy).  For example,–

 

(1) ICBI affirmed that the “text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico—historical exegesis….” (Inerrancy article XVII).  It adds, “We affirm the necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its literal, or normal sense.  The literal sense is the grammatical-historical sense…. Interpretation according to the literal sense will take account of all figures of speech and literary forms in the text” (ibid., emphasis added).  All the Bible is literally true, but not all the Bible is true literally.  There are figures of speech (e.g., Jn. 10:7; 15:1) in the Bible.  What is more, some figures of speech related to days.  For example, the “dawn of civilization” and the “twilight of human history” mean something longer than a 24 hour day. One must remember that the “literal” (sensus literalis) interpretation does not demand a literalistic interpretation of the word “day,” as the biblical phrase “the day of the Lord” indicates (e.g., Joel 2:1; 2 Pet. 3:10).

 

(2) ICBI also declared that “Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book,” adding, “We deny that the teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical and that scientific hypotheses about earth’s history or the origin of humanity may be invoked to overthrow what the Bible teaches about creation” (Hermeneutics Article 22).

 

(3) ICBI further affirmed that there was a literal Adam and that evolutionism is false.  When they denied that generic categories should be used to “dehistoricize” the Bible, the official ICBI commentary adds, “the Denial is directed at those, for instance, [that] take Adam to be a myth, whereas in Scripture he is presented as a real person” (Hermeneutics Article XIII).

 

(4) ICBI also declared that “Scripture should [not] be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism” (Hermeneutics, Article XIX).  The official ICBI commentary adds, “These accounts [of creation and the Flood] are all factual, that is, they are space-time events” which “actually happened.”  Likewise, “the use of the term ‘creation’ was meant to exclude the belief in macro-evolution, whether of the atheistic or theistic varieties” (Official commentary on Article XXII).

 

In short, the most comprehensive and definitive statement on inerrancy by a large group evangelical scholars (the ICBI) in the twentieth century defended the historicity of Genesis, the actuality of Adam, and the doctrine of creation–all without any commitment to the age of the earth. Of course, one could always claim that Old Earthers are inconsistent with their historical-grammatical hermeneutic, but this is an assertion without demonstration.  Further, this would mean that the leaders and defenders of inerrancy for last the hundred plus years from Warfield and Hodge to Francis Schaeffer and J. I. Packer were all inconsistent with their own principles, and only Young Earthers are consistent with their principles. Besides being unlikely, such a claim lacks both humility and verifiability.

 

Fifth, another problem is that AIG downplays (and virtually denies) the validity of general revelation as a legitimate source of truth.   The Bible clearly states that God has revealed Himself in nature (Psa. 19:1; Rom. 1:19-20; Acts 14 and 17).  In fact, this general revelation is so “clearly perceived” that non-Christians are “without excuse’ (Rom. 1:20).  In spite of this, AIG refers to knowledge from general revelation as “fallible man’s ideas.”  However, general revelation outside of the Bible teaches us that the world does not literally have “four corners” (Rev. 7:1), thus correcting a long held misinterpretation of the Bible by many Christians.

 

Likewise, we know from a proper scientific interpretation of general revelation that the sun does not move around the earth, thus correcting a long held interpretation of many theologians of the Bible that the sun does move around the earth.  Of course, it is true that scientists sometimes misinterpret general revelation (e.g., their belief in macro-evolution), but this does not negate the fact that general revelation, properly understood, teaches the creation of the world, of every type of animals, and of human beings in the image of God (Gen. 1:1, 21, 27).

 

So, the issue is not whether general revelation can be a source of truth and that it can even at times prompt one to correct a misinterpretation of the Bible.  The issue is which interpretationof the Bible and of general revelation is correct.  Thus, it is not, as AIG would lead us to believe, the Word of God versus fallible man’s ideas outside of God’s Word.  Nor is the issue a conflict between God’s special revelation in the Bible and His general revelation in nature.  God does not contradict himself.  As the ICBI Hermeneutics statement (1982) declares: “We affirm the harmony of special and general revelation and therefore of biblical teaching with the facts of nature” (Article XXI). The real issue is whose interpretation of God’s written revelation and His general revelation is correct.  A more detailed answer is found elsewhere (see my Systematic Theology, in One Volume, chap 4).  So, the conflict is not between the Infallible Word of God and the fallible words of human beings.  Rather, the argument is between opposed fallible interpretations of God’s infallible revelation. The problem with many Young Earthers, if I may put it boldly, is that they tend to equate their fallible interpretation on this matter with God infallible revelation.

Sixth, our point in the article was not to deny there is a connection between belief in the literal historical grammatical method of interpretation and belief in inerrancy. Rather, it was to show there is no necessary connection between a Young Earth view and Inerrancy. To date, Young Earthers and AIG have not demonstrated any logical connection between inerrancy and the age of the earth.  The truth is that one can believe in the literal historical–grammatical interpretation of Scripture, as the founders and framers of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy did, and yet not restrict it to a Young Earth view.  That is, the historical-grammatical method allows for an Old earth view which affirms the historicity of Genesis, Adam, and creation.

 

Some have supposed a parallel between the above argument and the claim of some current New Testament scholars (see Mike Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 35, 36, 306, 552, 553) who are using extra-biblical sources to deny or cast doubt on the historicity of sections of the Gospels.  However, the two issues are not the same. For these NT scholars are not using God’s general revelation in nature to override the historicity of the biblical text.  Rather, they are employing extra-biblical data from Hebrew or Greco-Roman sources to “dehistoricize” sections of the Gospels.  But this process is explicitly condemned by name in the ICBI statements (Inerrancy Article XVIII) when it declares: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual” (Hermeneutics Article XIII).  Also, “We deny that extra-biblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it” (ibid., Article XXI).

 

Seventh, AIG overlooked or misconstrues some arguments against its view.  For example, they ignore that the word day (yom) is used of more than a twenty four hour period of time right in the Genesis creation account when it refers to all six days of creation as “in the day (yom) in which the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”  Further, “day’ is used of half of a 24 hour day, as in daylight (Gen. 1:4-5a).  Also, AIG overlooked the fact that numbered days sometimes refer to days longer than 24 hours (Hosea 6:1-2).  In addition, the word “day” is used in the Bible of longer periods of time, as in “the day of the Lord” (e.g., Joel 2:1; 2 Peter 3:10). AIG also misinterprets Hebrews 4:9-10 which affirms God is still resting in His “Sabbath rest” from creation (Heb. 4:4-9) thousands of years later. Further, while AIG noted a list of arguments we gave for an Old Earth, it failed to point out  that I also believe that “none of these [arguments] is foolproof, and all of them may be wrong” (Systematic Theology, in One Volume, ibid., p. 1534).  What is more, AIG uses eisegesis (reading into the text) on Roman 5:12 which says only that “death passed on all men” (not on all animal too) because of Adam’s sin. They also assumed that only a Young Earth view is compatible with God pronouncing the world was “good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12 etc.) since there was animal death before Adam.  But “good” (Heb. tob) is not a moral term as used here or in most places in the OT, nor is it an evil that higher forms of life can live off  lower forms—otherwise we would have to stop eating!

 

Eighth, AIG mistakenly argues that we appeal “to New Testament abbreviated genealogies that contain no chronological information to argue for gaps in the detailed genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 in the Old Testament.”  First of all, since both AIG and myself believe that both Testaments are divinely inspired, there is no reason we cannot appeal to both which is precisely what we did to show threre is a gap in Genesis 11:12 (which leaves out Cainan—Lk. 3:36).  Further, even within the Old Testament there are gaps in the geologies from one list to another (see Ezra7:2 and 1 Chrn. 6:6-14).

 

Ninth, AIG almost totally ignored the real crucial questions posed in the article, namely, (1) Is the age of the earth a test of orthodoxy?  (2) Is the age of the earth a fundamental of the Faith?  (3) Is it a test of Christian fellowship? (4) If so, why has it not been recognized as such by any of the great creeds of the Christian Faith?  (5) Why is it that even the modern founders of Fundamentalism and the inerrancy movements did not hold this connection?  (6) Does not insisting that the Young Earth view is “required” tend to undermine the faith of young believers who may not be convinced that the age of the earth is necessary to orthodoxy?  At a minimum, an acknowledgement by Young Earthers that the age of the earth is not a test of orthodoxy would greatly further the dialogue and lessen the tensions between Young and Old Earthers.

 

Conclusion

 

The truth of the matter is that the age of the earth has never been a test for orthodoxy in the long history of the Christian Church.  The age of the earth is not a matter of definitive revelation but of debatable interpretation.  It is not, as AIG proposes, a question of the infallible Word of God vs. fallible human opinions. It is a matter of the conflict of opinion about God’s written Word (the Bible) with opinions about His general revelation.  As such, the age of the earth is not a fundamental of the Faith.  While belief in the “Creator of the heaven and earth” is an essential Christian belief found in the creeds, but the age of the universe is not.  Rather, it is in the category of non-essential beliefs and should not be used as a test of orthodoxy or of Christian fellowship.  In fact, insisting that it is a test for orthodoxy may unnecessarily influence some believers to leave the faith who (for one reason or another) come to believe that the world is older than 6000 B.C.

Is Genre Criticism of the Gospels Contrary to the Inerrancy of Scripture?


Is Genre Criticism of the Gospels

Contrary to the Inerrancy of Scripture?

 

By Norman L. Geisler

 

 

Introduction

Since many evangelical scholars are involved in genre criticism, even some who claim to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, it behooves us to examine the connection between genre criticism and inerrancy.  In order to do so, we must first define what we mean by the terms inerrancy and genre criticism. Once we define the terms, then we will examine whether genre criticism is compatible with inerrancy.

The Meaning of Inerrancy

By “inerrancy” we mean unlimited inerrancy which holds that everything the Bible affirms is true, including historical and scientific matters. In short, it is the view that the Bible is without error as defined by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI).  There are many reasons for accepting this definition of inerrancy.

First, it was composed by the largest group of evangelical scholars in the world to write systematically on this topic.  It resulted from the work of nearly 300 evangelical scholars from around the country and several other countries that came from diverse denominational backgrounds and ecclesiastical traditions.  Virtually all of them were recognized scholars in their biblical and theological fields.  Some of them were pastor-scholars, a concept very compatible with the Reformation.  The earlier Lausanne Covenant statement (1974) was good and widely represented, but it was not systematic or comprehensive. The relevant part reads simply: “We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” While this statement is good in general, it is not specific enough to deal with the issue at hand in genre criticism and the Bible.

Second, the ICBI view on inerrancy was comprehensive and complete, consisting of two major statements with affirmations and denials in each one, including official commentaries on each set of propositions so that later individuals could not interpret the statements any way they wished. The four major ICBI documents on the meaning of inerrancy are:

1) The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)

2)  The Official ICBI Commentary on the Chicago Statement

3)  The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics (1982)

4)  The official ICBI commentary titled Explaining Hermeneutics: A Commentary on the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics

The last document is listed as “Appendix B” in the official ICBI book on Summit II.  It contains the papers from that conference, the officialStatements on Biblical Hermeneutics with Affirmations and Denials, and the official Commentary on the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics  by the “General Editor, ICBI” (p. viii) of the series of ICBI books on inerrancy.  For convenience, all four of these crucial documents have been placed in one volume:  Explaining Biblical Inerrancy: Official Commentary on the ICBI Statements (available at http://bastionbooks.com/shop/explainingicbi/).   

It is important to note that the commentaries were officially ICBI endorsed commentaries.   The particular editors of these statements were framers of the documents and were chosen by the ICBI and represented the official ICBI view on the topic. They were all published as part of the official ICBI literature.

Third, the ICBI work took place over a period of ten years (1978-1988), including three major Summits. However, the third and final Summit which dealt with applying inerrancy (1988) did not deal with the meaning of inerrancy (as the first two summits did) but with its application to the life of the church.  It produced a document titled Applying the Scriptures (Kenneth Kantzer ed., Academie Books, 1987).

Fourth, in addition to these documents, ICBI produced a series of books containing chapters on the various aspects of inerrancy. These books form the biblical and theological background for the four crucial documents defining and explaining inerrancy listed above.  These background books are mentioned in the ICBI book on Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible, p. ix as follows:

________________________________________________________________________

“General Editor’s Introduction

    This book is part of a series of scholarly works sponsored by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI).  They include the following areas:

General—Inerrancy (Zondervan, 1979), Norman L. Geisler, ed.

PhilosophicalBiblical Errancy: Its Philosophical Roots (Zondervan, 1981), Norman L. Geisler, ed.

TheologicalChallenges to Inerrancy (Moody, 1984), Gordon Lewis and Bruce Demarest, eds.

HistoricalInerrancy and the Church (Moody, 1984), John Hanna, ed.

Hermeneutics—Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible (Zondervan, 1984), Earl Radamacher and Robert Preus, eds.

The ICBI does not endorse every point made by the authors of these books, although all the writers are in agreement with the ICBI stand on inerrancy. Freedom of expression of this commitment was exercised throughout the various books.  All wrote with the hope that believers in Christ will become increasingly assured of the firm foundation for our faith in God’s inerrant Word.

Norman L. Geisler

General Editor, ICBI” ______________________________________________________________________________

Although there was freedom of expression in other written expressions by ICBI authors, there was complete unanimity on both ICBI statements and in the two commentaries on them. Those who did not agree with every point were free not to signs the statements, but very few did not sign them.

Fifth, the ICBI understanding of inerrancy was accepted by the largest group of evangelical scholars in the world (over 3,000), the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS).  ETS began in 1949 based on the single doctrine of inerrancy: “The Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is the Word of God written, and therefore inerrant in the autographs.”  This served the society well for many years until, after a couple major controversies involving the meaning of inerrancy, ETS adopted the ICBI definition of inerrancy (in 2003) which affirms: “For the purpose of advising members regarding the intent and meaning of the reference to biblical inerrancy in the ETS Doctrinal Basis, the Society refers members to the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy(1978).”

Sixth, the first ICBI document on the topic, known as the “Chicago Statement on Inerrancy” (1978), is crystallized in 19 basic statements of Affirmation and Denial.  Several of them touch on topics related to genre criticism, but one relates to it directly. Article 19 reads: “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by the grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and Scripture is to interpret Scripture.  We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claim to authorship.”  The official ICBI commentary on Article XIII adds: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.  Some for instance, take Adam to be a myth, whereas in Scripture he is presented as a real person.  Others take Jonah to be an allegory when he is presented as a historical person and [is] so referred to by Christ.”

In brief, the ICBI view is that of unlimited inerrancy which asserts that whatever the Bible affirms on any topic is true, that is, it corresponds with reality.  Inspiration is not limited to redemptive matters, but it includes historical and scientific matters as well. Further, the Bible is to be interpreted by the historical grammatical method of interpretation.  Hence, when it makes affirmations about the space-time world, they correspond to the facts.  Any attempt to reduce biblical narratives to myth, legends, or allegory is unacceptable and inconsistent with the inerrancy of Scripture.

Several ICBI citations will suffice to support these points: “We affirm that Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God” (Inspiration, Article I). Also, We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write” (Inspiration Article  IX).  “We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.  We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science” (Inspiration Article XII). Furthermore, “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis…. We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text…that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching…” (Inspiration, Article XVIII, emphasis added in all citations).

 

The Meaning of Genre Criticism

Biblical Genre Categories are Acceptable

Now that we have defined what is meant by “inerrancy,” we need to explain what we mean by “genre criticism.”  The word “genre” simply means kind or type. As applied to Scripture, it refers to classifying sections into certain categories such as, history, poetry, parables, allegory, etc.  Two kinds of genre criticism must be distinguished.

First, there is an acceptable use of “genre categories” such as allowed for in the following ICBI statements: “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture” (emphasis added).  Also, we affirm that “Scripture communicates God’s truth to us verbally through a wide variety of literary forms” (Hermeneutics, Article X).  And “We affirm that awareness of the literary categories…is essential for proper exegesis, and hence we value genre criticism as one of the many disciplines of biblical study (Article XIII).

In this sense, genre studies are an entirely proper endeavor by which a study of different types of literature presented in Scripture one can discern the difference between narratives, poetry, parables, allegory, and the like.  This enables the interpreter to know how “Scripture is [properly used] to interpret Scripture.”  This helps, for example, to avoid the confusion of interpreting poetry literally and history allegorically.

Extra-Biblical Genre Criticism is Unacceptable

However, second, there is an unacceptable form of “genre criticism” which is spoken against by ICBI.  It is when extra-biblical genre categories are used to determine what is meant by certain statements or events in Scripture. ICBI condemns this practice, declaring, “We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claim to authorship.”  The official ICBI commentary on Inerrancy Article 18 adds: “It is never legitimate, however, to run counter to express biblical affirmations.”  Inspiration Article XIII declares emphatically: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.”  Hermeneutics Article XIV adds, “We deny that any event, discourse or saying reported in Scripture was invented by the biblical writers or by the traditions they incorporated (emphasis added).

Further, “We deny that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it” (Hermeneutics, Article XX).  Inspiration Article 13 also relates to the topic.  It declares: “We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage and purpose.”  The official ICBI commentary on Article 13 clarifies: “’By biblical standards of truth and error’ is meant the view used both in the Bible and everyday life, viz., a correspondence view of truth.  This part of the article is directed toward those who would redefine truth to relate merely to redemptive intent, the purely personal, or the like, rather than to mean that which corresponds with reality.”   It adds: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.”

The ICBI statements oppose “dehistoricizing” sections of the Gospels by genre criticism. Article XVIII of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy(1978) declares: “We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.”  Further, “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture” (emphasis added).

When Inspiraton Article XIII affirms that we “value genre criticism as one of the many disciplines of biblical study,” it clearly does not mean the kind of genre criticism that denies the historicity of the text since it explicitly condemns “dehistoricizing” the text in the same article.  It means, as it says,“that in some cases extrabiblical data have a value for clarifying what Scripture teaches, and for prompting correction of faulting interpretations” (Hermeneutics Article XX, emphasis).  However, it rejects making anything outside the Bible hermeneutically determinative of affirmations or events inside the Bible.

We deny that extra-biblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it” (Inspiration Article XX).  Thus, “We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism” (Hermeneutics, Article XIX).

Further, “We affirm the necessity of interpreting the Bible according to its literal, or normal sense…. Interpretation according to the literal sense will take account of all figures of speech and literary forms found in the text” (Hermeneutics, Article XV emphasis added).   Thus, ICBI approves only of genre studies that come from studying and comparing individual texts of the Bible by means of the “grammatico-historical” method of interpretation which the ICBI framers were committed to from the beginning (see Article XVIII of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy).  But if externally determined genre is used to govern the meaning of the biblical text, then it is rejected. For in this kind of genre criticism the interpreter must know the genre before he can properly interpret the text. But this is tantamount to imposing genre expectations upon the text.  In hermeneutics, this is labeled eisegesis(reading meaning into the text), rather an exegesis (reading meaning out of the text)!  So, this widely used method of genre determination is contrary to the ICBI understanding of inerrancy.

In fact, ICBI declared: “We affirm that inspiration, though not conferring omniscience, guaranteed true and trustworthy utterance on all matters of which the Biblical authors were moved to speak and write” (Inspiration Article  IX).  “We affirm that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.  We deny that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science” (Inspiration Article XII).   Also, “We affirm the propriety of using inerrancy as a theological term with reference to the complete truthfulness of Scripture” (Inspiration Article XIII).

The ICBI commentary adds, “Though the Bible is indeed redemptive history, it is also redemptive history, and this means that the acts of salvation wrought by God actually occurred in the space-time world” (Article XII).  With regard to the historicity of the Bible, Article XIII in the official commentary points out that we should not “take Adam to be a myth, whereas in Scripture he is presented as a real person.”  Likewise, it affirms that we should not “take Jonah to be an allegory when he is presented as a historical person and [is] so referred to by Christ.”  It adds, “We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and he flood” (Article XII of the “Chicago Statement”).

It is evident from these statements that the ICBI framers rejected any form of biblical criticism, genre or otherwise, which takes priority over biblical teaching, whether it is naturalism, relativism, or evolutionism.  Likewise they oppose using extra-biblical data to “dehistoricize” biblical narratives, whether in the Gospels or elsewhere.  Indeed, the name of Professor Robert Gundry came up in the ICBI proceedings.  It was explicitly mentioned in a plenary session by the drafters of the ICBI Statement on Hermeneutics as one who propounded a view which is excluded by this document (see Hermeneutics, Articles XIII and XIV).  The official ICBI commentary on this point (Summit II: Hermeneutics, 1983) also has Gundry’s position in view (p. 11), and the ICBI “Executive Council” voted unanimously to inform ETS that “Robert Gundry is inconsistent with the ICBI Summit II statement” (ICBI Council “Minutes,” October 21, 1983, p. 3).  From this it is clear that the ICBI statements on Inerrancy (also adopted by ETS for understanding inerrancy), including the one used by Robert Gundry to deny the historicity of sections of Matthew’s Gospel, was deemed incompatible with the ICBI view on inerrancy.  So, the difference between acceptable and unacceptable use of genre in interpreting the Bible can be contrasted as follows:

The Use of Genre in Biblical Studies

Acceptable Use of Genre Unacceptable Use of Genre
To Classify Genre inside the Bible To Critique Bible from Genre Outside the Text
To Use Extra-biblical Genre to Clarify the Meaning of a Text Use Extra-biblical Genre to Determine the Meaning of a Text
Use Biblical Genre to Confirm the Historicity of a Text Use of Extra-biblical Genre to Deny Historicity of a Text
Used as Part of the Historical-Grammatical Method Use of Extra-biblical Genre contrary to  the Historical-Grammatical Method

 

So, using Hebrew or Greco-Roman genre to negate the historicity of sections of the Gospels is clearly contrary to what the ICBI framers meant by inerrancy. Those who make claims to the contrary are creating their own view of inerrancy, but they clearly do not reflect the view of the ICBI framers.

 

Robert Gundry’s View’s on Genre Criticism was Rejected by ETS

As already noted, ICBI rejected the use of extra-biblical genre categories to deny truth affirmed in the Bible.  The genre views of Robert Gundry are an important case in point.

The Views of Gundry

A summary of the objectionable views of Robert Gundry which were rejected by an overwhelming majority of the ETS members are summarized in the following “Notes” given to the membership before they voted on the issue:

 

 

Quotations from R. Gundry’s Matthew Commentary (Eerdmans, 1982).

  1. “Clearly, Matthew treats us to history mixed with elements that cannot be called historical in a modern sense.  All history writing entails more or less editing of materials.  But Matthew’s editing often goes beyond the bounds we nowadays want a historian to respect.  Matthew’s subtractions, additions, and revisions of order and phraseology often show changes in substance; i.e., they represent developments of the dominical tradition that result in different meanings and departures from the actuality of events” (p. 623).
  2. “Comparison with the other gospels, especially with Mark and Luke, and examination of Matthew’s style and theology show that he materially altered and embellished historical traditions and that he did so deliberately and often” (p. 639).
  3. “We have also seen that at numerous points these features exhibit such a high degree of editorial liberty that the adjectives ‘midrashic’ and ‘haggadic’ become appropriate” (p. 628).
  4. “We are not dealing with a few scattered difficulties.  We are dealing with a vast network of tendentious changes” (p. 625).
  5. “Hence, ‘Jesus said’ or ‘Jesus did’ need not always mean that in history Jesus said or did what follows, but sometimes may mean that in the account at least partly constructed by Matthew himself Jesus said or did what follows” (p. 630).
  6. “Semantics aside, it is enough to note that the liberty Matthew takes with his sources is often comparable with the liberty taken with the OT in Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Targums, and the Midrashim and Haggadoth in rabbinic literature” (p. 628).
  7. “These patterns attain greatest visibility in, but are by no means limited to, a number of outright discrepancies with the other synoptics.  At least they are discrepancies so long as we presume biblical writers were always intending to write history when they used the narrative mode” (p. 624).
  8. “Matthew selects them [the Magi] as his substitute for the shepherds in order to lead up to the star, which replaces the angel and heavenly host in the tradition” (p. 27).
  9. “That Herod’s statement consists almost entirely of Mattheanisms supports our understanding Matthew himself to be forming this episode out of the shepherd’s visit, with use of collateral materials.  The description of the star derives from v. 2.  The shepherds’ coming at night lies behind the starry journey of the magi” (p. 31).
  10.  “He [Matthew] changes the sacrificial slaying of ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,’ which took place at the presentation of the baby Jesus in the Temple (Luke 2:24; cf. Lev 12:6-8), into Herod’s slaughtering the babies in Bethlehem (cf. As. Mos. 6:2-6” (pp. 34, 35).  [see N.L. Geisler, The ETS Vote on Robert Gundry at their Annual Meeting in December 1983.]

________________________________________________________________________

 

      The views of Gundry were described by the Christianity Today article on the matter as follows:

Even more controversial [than redaction criticism] has been Gundry’s suggestion that in the ‘infancy narratives’ (Mat. 1, 2) and elsewhere Matthew uses a Jewish literary genre called midrash.  Like many preachers today, the writer of a midrash embroidered historical events with nonhistorical additions…. Gundry says, for example, Matthew changed the shepherds in the fields into the wise men from the East because he wants to foreshadow and emphasize the mission of Jesus to Gentiles.  Gundry does not believe wise men visited Jesus” (Christianity Today, “Evangelical Scholars Remove Robert Gundry for His views on Matthew,” Feb 3, 1984).

This, of course, is the point of contention with genre criticism, namely, it denies the historicity of a number of biblical narratives.  In the words of the ICBI, it “dehistoricizes” sections of the Gospels.  Thus, contrary to the claim of some that there is no presumption of a biblical narrative being historical, the evidence is to the contrary. First, ICBI declared clearly: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual” (Hermeneutics Article XIII).  Second, the “grammatico-historical” method affirmed by ICBI (Hermeneutics XVIII) entails, as the name implies, a commitment to the “historical” nature of the text.  Third, the “standards of truth and error” view of truth embraced by ICBI (in Inerrancy Article XIII) implied a presumption of historicity, stating emphatically, “By biblical standards of truth and error is meant the view used both in the Bible and in everyday life, viz., a correspondence view of truth” (Official ICBI commentary on Article XIII).  But a correspondence view of truth affirms that statements must correspond with the facts.  Thus, when speaking of historical persons and events, the presumption is that the biblical narratives correspond with the actual historical facts.

The ETS Vote on Gundry’s Views

After three years of papers, publications, and discussion of the issue, and the rejection by ETS leaders of a petitions from 59 scholars (including several deans and seminary presidents), the membership of ETS called for a vote on the Gundry issue.  Roger Nicole made the motion: “As one of the five founders of the Evangelical theological Society, with a heavy heart I officially request that Dr. Robert Gundry submit his resignation, unless he retracts his position on the historical trustworthiness of Matthew’s Gospel.”  The vote was 116 to 41 (nearly 74% in favor) to ask Gundry to resign.  After a short speech in which Gundry urged his followers to stay in ETS, Gundry resigned, and the issue calmed down.  However, it did not die out.  According to theChristianity Today article (ibid.), at Gundry’s suggestion, the strategy was “to stay in the organization” and “to recruit evangelical scholars who are more likely to support their viewpoint.” Since ETS allowed members to interpret the doctrinal statement as they wished, it is understandable that the organization gradually moved to the left. ”

A result of this strategy was evident at the November, 2013 annual ETS meeting when one member of the panel discussion on inerrancy (Michael Bird) spontaneously called for an informal vote on how many members present wished to see Gundry return to the Society.  Two independent eyewitnesses reported that about one-third of the audience responded positively.  There has been a rumbling of other voices in favor of overturning the Gundry decision in recent days.  Early on some members have expressed their view in print.  Dr. Craig Blomberg wrote:

Is it possible, even inherently probable, that the NT writers at least in part never intended to have their miracle stories taken as historical or factual and that their original audiences probably recognized this? If this sounds like the identical reasoning that enabled Robert Gundry to adopt his midrashic interpretation of Matthew while still affirming inerrancy, that is because it is the same. The problem will not disappear simply because one author [Gundry] is dealt with ad hominem. . . . How should evangelicals react? Dismissing the sociological view on the grounds that the NT miracles present themselves as historical gets us nowhere. So do almost all the other miracle stories of antiquity. Are we to believe them all?” (Blomberg, “New Testament Miracles and Higher Criticism: Climbing Up the Slippery Slope,”JETS 27/4 [December 1984] 436, emphasis added).

In view of all this, it is evident that if the ETS Gundry decision were ever reversed, it would open the flood gates to the rejection of the ICBI understanding of inerrancy.

This would do two undesirable things:  First of all, it would solve a serious problem for some current ETS members who have not signed the ETS statement in good conscience.  We know they exist based on how they voted on certain issues (like the Gundry and Pinnock cases) and by their own confession. For the report of the Executive Committee, confirmed by the membership vote, knowingly allowed in its membership persons who do not hold the same view on inerrancy as that of the framers of the doctrinal statement.  This they have knowingly done since 1976 when the Executive Committee confessed that “Some of the members of the Society have expressed the feeling that a measure of intellectual dishonesty prevails among members who do not take the signing of the doctrinal statement seriously.”  Other “members of the Society have come to the realization that they are not in agreement with the creedal statement and have voluntarily withdrawn. That is, in good conscience they could not sign the statement” (1976 Minutes, emphasis added).  Further, an ETS Ad Hoc Committee recognized this problem when it posed the proper question in 1983: “Is it acceptable for a member of the society to hold a view of biblical author’s intent which disagrees with the Founding Fathers and even the majority of the society, and still remain a member in good standing?”(emphasis added).  The Society never said No.  The restoration of Gundry to the ETS would certainly calm the consciences of the more “liberal” members who are now signing the ETS statement with mental reservations.

Waiting in the Wings

Second, a reversal of the Gundry decision would mean a reversal of the historic position of ETS (and ICBI) to a more open-ended position in which every member could do hermeneutically what is right in his own eyes!  In short, it would mean the death of the historic view on inerrancy held by ETS and ICBI (see John Hanna, Inerrancy and the Church, 1984).  If the truth be known, there are many non-inerrantists (and those with a moral liberal view on the issue) “waiting in the wings” to join an organization like ETS.  However, honesty demands that they should join other organizations that do not believe in the historic traditional view of inerrancy as held by the ETS and ICBI framers.

One clear example of those hoping for a broader understanding of inerrancy that would be inclusive of genre criticism that “dehistoricizes” sections of the Gospels is Mike Licona.  He has expressed the belief that there is a disagreement among the living framers of ICBI statements as to the meaningof the ICBI statements with regard to this genre issue.  However, that this is not the case is evident from several facts:

(a) Even in its formal statement on inerrancy (“the Chicago Statement” of 1974) there is a reference to the “grammatio-historical” (i.e., literal) method of interpreting the Bible (Article XVIII) which demands that the Gospel narratives be taken in the literal historical manner.

(b) In the same article it condemns “dehistoricizing” the text of Scripture which is what Licona does in several New Testament passages, including the raising of the saints in Matthew 27, the angels at the tomb in all four Gospels, and the mob falling backward at Jesus’ claim (in Jn. 18).

(c) In actuality, all the living ICBI framers (R.C. Sproul, J.I. Packer, and Norman Geisler) all agree that it is contrary to inerrancy (in the material sense) to “dehistoricize” the Gospel record and not take it as literal space-time history.

(d) As noted above, the ICBI framers affirmed a “correspondence” view of truth which demands that the affirmations in the Gospel record must have a literal referent in the real world (i.e., must be historical).  As the ICBI commentary put it, “Though the Bible is indeed redemptive history, it is also redemptive history, and this means that the acts of salvation wrought by God actually occurred in the space-time world” (“Chicago Statement” Article XIII and Sproul, Explaining Inerrancy, 37).

The genre views of Mike Licona are basically the same as those of Robert Gundry who earned his dismissal from ETS by the use of the Hebrew Midrash genre in Matthew. The only difference is that the extra-biblical genre by which the biblical record is “dehistoricized” is Greco-Roman for Licona and Hebrew embellishment and legend for Gundry.  Otherwise, both views fall into the category of unacceptable use of extra-biblical genre by which the biblical text is interpreted.  The result is the same: both views are incompatible with the ETS (and ICBI) view on inerrancy.

 

 

Genre Criticism: A Comparison between Gundry and Licona

                 Gundry                                                Licona

Source of Genre                     Extra-biblical                                   Extra-biblical

Function of Genre                To Determining Meaning                To Determine Meaning

Relation to Historicity          To Determine Historicity                To Determine Historicity

Type of Genre Used              Hebrew Midrash                                Greco-Roman

Relation to Inerrancy           Incompatible                                     Incompatible

 

            As is clear from the comparison, the only real difference between Gundry’s and Licona’s use of Genre is the type of Genre used: Gundry used Hebrew midrash genre and Licona used Greco-Roman type genre.  The function and result are the same: both denied the historicity of certain Gospel texts, and both are incompatible with the ICBI view of inerrancy.

 

Stepping Way Over the Line 

To understand the serious inherent dangers in the genre view, in the Spring of 2009 in a debate with Bart Erhman at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Mike Licona claimed that the Gospel writers stated contradictory days on which Christ was crucified.  Licona said, “I think that John probably altered the day [of Jesus’ crucifixion] in order for a theological—to make a theological point there.  But that does not mean that Jesus wasn’t crucified.”  In short, John contradicts the other Gospels on which day Jesus was crucified.  Clearly this is a denial of the inerrancy of the Gospel record.

Licona attempts to justify this use of genre by contending that the Gospels, being written in Greco-Roman genre (as R. Burridge taught in What are the Gosples?), allow for contradictions.  Licona wrote: “There is somewhat of a consensus among contemporary scholars that the Gospels belong to the genre of Greco-Roman biography (bios).”  Thus, “Bioi offered the ancient biographers great flexibility for rearranging material and inventing speeches,…and they often included legend.  Because bios was a flexible genre, it is often difficult to determine where history ends and legend begins” (The Resurrection of Jesus, 34, emphasis added).  Licona points to similar phenomena in Plutarch where contradictions in his biographies are found.  However, as we have seen, a contradiction anywhere in the Bible is opposed to the doctrine of inerrancy as held by the ICBI.  In fact, it is also opposed to the Bible and to ICBI statements. (a) The Bible says emphatically, “Avoid…contradictions” (Gk. antitheseis).  (b) The Law of Non-contradictions forbids that opposites can both be true, and this Law is undeniable since it cannot be denied without using it in the denial.  (c) The ICBI statements demand that the contradictory statements cannot both be true, as is clear from the following ICBI declarations: “We affirm the internal consistency of Scripture.  We deny that alleged errors and discrepancies that have not yet been resolved vitiate the truth claims of the Bible” (Innerancy Article XIV).  “We affirm the unity, harmony, and consistency of Scripture.”   “We deny that Scripture may be interpreted in such a way as to suggest that one passage corrects or militates against another” (Hermeneutics Article XVII). “We deny that later revelation, which any fulfill earlier revelation, ever corrects of contradicts it” (Inerrancy Article V). “We affirm that any preunderstandings which the interpreter brings to Scripture should be inharmony with scriptural teaching and subject to correction by it”  “We deny that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, in consistent with itself….” (Hermeneutics Article XIX). “We affirm that since God is the author of all truth, all truth, biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere….”  Further, “We deny that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it” (Hermeneutics XX). “We affirm the harmony of special with general revelation and therefore biblical teaching with the fact of nature.  We deny that any genuine scientific facts areinconsistent with the true meaning of any passage of Scripture” (Hermeneutics Article XXI).

The emphasized words make it clear that there is a non-contradictory “unity,” harmony, “coherence,” and “consistency” of the Bible within itself and with all other facts.  Any contradictions or errors must be merely “alleged” but not real.  The Bible never “contradicts” itself or any other truth.  This is all possible only because of the Law of Non-Contradiction which is part of God’s general revelation in nature—the undeniable nature of man as a rational being.  For one cannot deny the law of non-contradiction without using it in the very denial.  Therefore, a real contradiction in the Bible would be a denial of inerrancy.

 

ICBI Framers on Licona’s Use of Genre Criticism

Of course, the ICBI framers were before Licona wrote and, so, did not speak directly to his view.  However, the ICBI principles clearly apply to Licona’s position.  Indeed, Licona supporters often claim that his view is not contrary to the ICBI principles. Some point to a letter [2/12/2012] posted on the internet by a Mike Licona supporter which claims that “the framers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) don’t always agree on how to interpret ICBI.”  He claims to have received a letter from J. I. Packer that this matter of genre criticism and how to view Matthew 27 “is not an inerrancy question.”  However, the above ICBI texts which Packer helped to frame and which he signed is sufficient to respond to this misinterpretation.  And a phone call to my ICBI colleague J. I. Packer and co-framer of the inerrancy statements removed all doubt.  He expressed very clearly to me what I knew to be true from years of working with him on ICBI that:

(a) He was speaking of inerrancy in the formal sense, not the materialsense.  For, being a framer of the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy” (CSBI) Packer held that while hermeneutics and inerrancy are formally distinct, there is a material overlaps between them.

(b) Indeed, he helped to pen the whole article (Inerrancy, Article 18) which is dedicated to hermeneutics and inerrancy.  It reads: “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by the grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of the literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.”

(c) Further, Packer added, “We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing,dehistoricising, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship” (emphasis added).  Having been part of the discussion and drafting committee, I can testify to the fact that the objection to “dehistoricizing”  was aimed at views like Gundry’s which denied the historicity of whole sections in Matthew (like the visit of the Magi).  This became even more explicit in the next ICBI Statement, the one on Hermeneutics and Inerrancy.

(d) What Packer said in the letter posted on the internet (2/12/2012) was that he rejected Licona’s view as not being “plausible.”  This is understandable since it is in fact an example of “dehistoricizing” of the text forbidden by the ICBI settlement (Inerrancy Article XVIII).

While some ICBI proponents may differ on how much symbolism or figures of speech (which are allowed by ICBI Inerrancy Article XVIII and Hermeneutics Article X) are involved in the Genesis story, nevertheless, all agree that Adam an Eve were historical persons and that Genesis 1-11 is a historical record. Hermeneutics Article XXII says explicitly, “We affirm that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book.  We deny that the teachings of Genesis 1-11 are mythical….”

As for the New Testament, the original framer of the ICBI “Chicago Statement,” R.C. Sproul, has spoken explicitly and emphatically to this issue.  He wrote Dr. William Roach:

May 22, 2012

Thank you for your letter.

As the former and only president of ICBI during its tenure and as the original framer of the Affirmations and Denials of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, I can say categorically that Mr. Michael Licona’s views are not even remotely compatible with the unified Statement of ICBI.

You can use this comment by me however you wish.

  1. C. Sproul (emphasis added).

This letter should put the issue of the alleged compatibility of the unacceptable genre views and the ICBI Statements to rest for all but diehards who disregard the meaning of the framers of the Inerrancy Statement in a reckless post-modern manner.  By the same logic, they would reject the views of Washington, Adams, and Madison on the meaning of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, if it conflicted with their more liberal views of the subject.

As for other scholars who approve of Licona’s views as being compatible inerrancy, they either: (a) have their own private (non-ICBI) view of inerrancy, or else (b) they do not understand the ICBI view on inerrancy, or (c) they are putting fraternity over orthodoxy because of friendship with him.  Furthermore, the fact that others may hold views (or approve of views) that are similar to Licona’s does not thereby justify his views.  It simply makes more people guilty of approving the same doctrinal aberrations.  The fact is that Licona (ibid.), like Gundry, has written a major work using genre criticism (and has given scholarly presentations defending this view) which call into question the historicity of certain sections of the Gospels.  As such, this view is open to criticism.

 

                              Conclusion

Scholars like Robert Gundry and Mike Licona who hold to a form of genre criticism which denies the historicity of certain biblical text are not consistent with the meaning of the ICBI framers.  In this sense, the answer to the question with which we began is clearly negative.  Genre criticism used to deny the historicity of a Gospel narrative is not compatible with the ICBI view on inerrancy.  When it is remembered that ETS (2003) accepted the ICBI interpretation on inerrancy, this draws a large circle of evangelicals who reject the Gundry-Licona use of genre criticism to cast doubt on or deny the historicity of certain narrative sections of the Gospels.

In short, scholars who adopt the “New Historiographical Approach” using Greco-Roman Genre have every right to hold whatever view they wish on genre and inerrancy.  Thus, they have every right to reject the ICBI interpretation of inerrancy.  But they have no right to claim that their view—which includes holding that contradictions in the Gospels are compatible with inerrancy—is in accord with the view of inerrancy upheld by the nearly 300 scholars of the ICBI Summit (1978) which was subsequently adopted by the ETS (in 2003) as a  guide to understanding inerrancy in their doctrinal statement.  The two are simply and emphatically incompatible.  To repeat, as the originally ICBI framer R. C. Sproul put it, “I can say categorically that Mr. Michael Licona’s views are not even remotely compatible with the unified Statement of ICBI” (cited above, emphasis added).

A Response to Craig Blomberg’s “Can We Still Believe in the Bible?”


A Response to Craig Blomberg’s Can We Still Believe in the Bible?

 

by Norman L. Geisler

 

Introduction

            The real answer to the question posed by Craig Blomberg’s book title is: Yes, we can believe in the general reliability of the Bible, but No we do not believe in its inerrancy, at least not in the sense meant by the framers of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI).  Blomberg mistakenly attributes his own version of inerrancy to the ICBI.

In general there are many helpful things said by Blomberg in the first three chapters in defense of the reliability, canonicity, and transmission of the Bible.  Indeed, we have often positively cited his book on The Historical Reliability of the Gospel.  However, our focus here is on Blomberg’s strong attack on inerrancy as we presented it in our recent book, Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New Generation (Baker Books, 2011) and in particular his personal attack on the authors of the book and some other supporters of ICBI inerrancy.

However, our response here is not with persons but with principles.  So, our critique is not against any person but only the ideas expressed.  Our evaluation is focused on what they teach, not on their character or motives.  We respect the individuals as scholars who disagree with inerrancy and love them as brothers in Christ.  Our concern is with one thing and one thing only: Is their teaching in accord with the doctrine of inerrancy as defined by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI)?  So, when we use of the word “inerrancy” in this article we mean the ICBI view of inerrancy as expressed in the following documents.

 

The ICBI Documents on Inerrancy

            There were four official documents produced by ICBI related to defining inerrancy as follows:

 

1) The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978)–CSBI

2)  The official ICBI Commentary on the Chicago Statement –CSBI Commentary

3)  The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics (1982)– CSBH

4)  The official ICBI commentary titled Explaining Hermeneutics: A Commentary on the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics—CSBH Commentary

 

These four documents are collected together in Explaining Biblical Inerrancy (Bastion Books: 2013).   Together they express the official ICBI view on the meaning of inerrancy.  Other related books were also published under the ICBI label such as, Inerrancy (Geisler, ed.), Hermeneutics, Inerrancy and the Bible (Earl Radmacher and Robert Preus, eds.), Inerrancy and the Church(John Hannah, ed.), and Biblical Errancy: Its Philosophical Roots (Geisler, ed.).

 

Blomberg’s View on the ICBI Statements

            Blomberg is aware of all these ICBI statements on inerrancy and even cites some of them (Blomberg, Can We Still Believe the Bible? [hereafter B], 136, 149, 170, 178, 222, 262).  He even goes so far as to claim agreement with everything in the “Chicago Statement’ (CSBI) on inerrancy except one implied word (B, 273), the word always in the last line.  He believes that ICBI is claiming that a denial of inerrancy always has grave consequences.  Otherwise, Blomberg even calls the “Chicago Statement” on Biblical inerrancy (CSBI) “a carefully crafted document” (B, 149).  Further, he praises Article 18 of CSBI, saying, “this affirmation reinforces everything we have been discussing” (B, 170).  In addition, he commends the “reasonably well highlighted” statement on genre criticism in CSBI (B, 178).  Strangely, Blomberg even commends one Chicago statement more than the other, declaring: “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics CSBH) has not had nearly the lasting effect that the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy did, which is a shame, because in many ways it is the superior of the two documents” (B, 261, n. 98).

Blomberg’s Views on Inerrancy Contradict ICBI

A Statement of His View

Although Blomberg claims he does not personally hold many of the views which he describes below (see B, 177), nonetheless, he believes that none of them is inconsistent with belief in inerrancy.  In other words, according to Blomberg, one can hold any of the following views without denying the inerrancy of Holy Scripture:

  1. He denied the historicity of Jesus’ command about getting the coin from the mouth of the fish (in Matthew 17:27), saying, “Yet even the most superficial application of form criticism reveals that this is not a miracle story, because it is not even a story” (“NT Miracles and Higher Criticism” in JETS 27/4 [December 1984] 433).  But this is a futile attempt to defend his disbelief by diverting attention from his denial of the historicity of this text on the grounds that it was not a story but a command (B, 263, n 113).  By focusing on these factors, attention is deflected from a crucial point, namely, that Blomberg does not believe this event ever happened, as the Bible says it did.  Blomberg added, “Further problems increase the likelihood of Jesus’ command being metaphorical” (B, “NT Miracles,” 433).
  2. According to Blomberg, “The author’s intention [in Genesis] is almost entirely to narrate the “who” rather than the “how” of creation” (B, 151).  So, almost nothing informs us about how origins occurred, whether by creation or by evolution.
  3. Blomberg claims that “Some [inerrantists] opt for forms of theistic evolution in which God creates the universe with all the mechanisms built in to give rise…to each new development in the creative ‘week’” (B, 151).  This too is deemed compatible with inerrancy according to Blomberg.
  4. He adds, “Must there have been a historical Adam and Eve? . . . Many scholars, including a few evangelicals, think not” (B, 152).  Blomberg adds, “Nothing in principle should prevent the persons who uphold inerrancy from adopting a view that sees adam (“man” or Adam) and hawwa (“life or Eve) as symbols for every man and woman…” (B, 152).
  5.  Further, Blomberg believes that “None of this theology [about Job’s view on suffering] requires Job to have ever existed any more than the teaching of the parable of the Good Samaritan requires the Samaritan to have been a real person” (B, 156).  He added, “Almost nothing is at stake if Job never existed, whereas everything is at stake if Jesus never lived” (B, 223).
  6. Likewise, he asserts that “Surely, however, someone might argue, Jonah must be completely historical, because Jesus himself likens his death and resurrection to Jonah’s experience with the great fish (Matt. 12:40; Luke 11:30).  Actually, this does not follow at all” (B, 157).
  7. Further, “Ultimately, what one decides about its [the Book of Isaiah’s] composition or formation need not have anything to do with biblical inerrancy at all” (B, 162, 163), even though he admits Jesus mentioned “the prophet Isaiah” as being author of texts in both sections of Isaiah (B, 161).
  8. Isaiah may not have predicted “Cyrus” by name 150 years in advance (in Isaiah 45:1) of his reign because “Cyrus could in fact be a dynasty name (like “Pharaoh” in Egypt) rather than a personal name (B, 162).  This too is deemed compatible with inerrancy.
  9. According to Blomberg, the prophet Daniel may not have predicted all the things his book indicates because “Perhaps two works associated with the prophet Daniel and is successor, written at two different times, were combined” (B, 164).
  10. Blomberg, argues that treating sections of “Matthew as Midrash” and not as history would have been taken by his audience “who would have understood exactly what he was doing, not imagining his embellishment to be making the same kinds of truth claims as his core material from Mark and Q” (B, 166).
  11. Likewise, Blomberg believes that the story of “Lazarus” (in Luke 16) is a “parabolic fiction” (B, 150).
  12. Although Blomberg attempts to downplay it (B, 272), he has shown an openness to aberrant views in his book co-authored with a Mormon titled How Wide the Divide in that they agree on 12 affirmations, the first of which is: “1. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one eternal God.”  But anyone who has studied Mormonism knows that Mormons do not believe in the Trinity but in the heresy of Tritheism.  Further, they believe in Polytheism of which the prophet Joseph Smith said: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man for I am going to tell you how God came to be. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity… I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see” (April 6, 1844). Since Mormons have not repudiated the prophetic office of Smith or any of the official Mormon’s many denials of essential Christian doctrines, cozying up to Mormon is not the most doctrinally discerning thing one can do (see Ron Rhodes, Reasoning from the Scriptures with Mormons).

In short, according to Blomberg, it is consistent with inerrancy to deny the historicity of Adam, Eve, Job, and Jonah, as well as the historicity of early Genesis and the doctrine of creation.  Likewise, he holds that an inerrantist need not believe that there was only one Isaiah or that he and Daniel made the supernatural predictions traditionally attributed to them.  He claims that even the Mormon cult has significant commonalities with evangelical Christianity so that the divide is not so wide as evangelicals have traditionally thought, even though Mormons deny the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and Salvation (to the highest heaven) by grace alone through faith in Christ alone, and many other evangelical beliefs (See Geisler and Rhodes,Conviction without Compromise, Harvest House, 2008).

 

Blomberg’s Views Contradict the ICBI View on Inerrancy

Blomberg’s claims to the contrary, one thing is certain: his viewsare contrary to the clear statements of the ICBI.  Consider the following ICBI declarations against Blomberg’s view on some of these very issues:

  1. Genesis 1-11 is Historical. CSBH, Article 22 “affirms that Genesis 1-11 is factual, as is the rest of the book.”  CSBI Article XIII reads: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.  Some for instance, take Adam to be a myth, whereas in Scripture he is presented as a real person.”
  2. Historicity of the Flood.  CSBH: Article XIX affirms “…the factual nature of the account of the creation of the universe, all living things, the special creation of man, the Fall, and the Flood. These accounts are all factual, that is, they are about space-time events which actually happened as reported in the book of Genesis (see Article XIV).”
  3. Theistic Evolution and Genesis. CSBH: Article XIX: “WE DENY that Scripture should be required to fit alien preunderstandings, inconsistent with itself, such as naturalism, evolutionism, scientism, secular humanism, and relativism.”  Further, “… it is important to apply the “literal” hermeneutic espoused (Article XV) to this question. The result was a recognition of the factual nature of the account of the creation of the universe, all living things, the special creation of man, the Fall, and the Flood. These accounts are all factual, that is, they are about space-time events which actually happened as re-ported in the book of Genesis (see Article XIV).” Further, “There was…complete agreement on denying that Genesis is mythological or unhistorical. Likewise, the use of the term ‘creation’ was meant to exclude the belief in macro-evolution, whether of the atheistic or theistic varieties” (ibid., emphasis added).
  4. Historicity of Jonah.  CSBI Article XIII reads: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual….  Others take Jonah to be an allegory when he is presented as a historical person and [is] so referred to by Christ.”
  5. Historicity of the Gospels.  CSBI Article XVIII “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by the grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and Scripture is to interpret Scripture.  We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claim to authorship.”  CSBH Article XIV says: “We affirm that the biblical record of events, discourses and sayings, though presented in a variety of appropriate literary forms, corresponds to historical fact.  We deny that any event, discourse of saying reported in Scripture was invented by the biblical writers or by the traditions they incorporated.”  Further, CSBH Article XIII asserts that “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual.”  Blomberg tries in vain to avoid the impact of this statement by presupposing that the Gospel narratives do not all “present” themselves as historical.  However, this is clearly contrary to (1) what the Gospel of Luke claims (Lk. 1:1-4); (2) the literal historical-grammatical method ICBI adopts; (3) the correspondence view of truth employed by ICBI which presumes narratives are literal unless shown to be otherwise.   
  6. The Use of Extra-Biblical Genre

            Traditionally, many have considered the Gospels to be a genre of their own (sui generis) because of their unique nature as a revelation of God.  However, Blomberg buys into the currently popular notion that the Gospels should be interpreted by extra-biblical genreHe wrote:  “Once we determine, as best we can, what a passage affirms, according to the conventions of its style, and genre, a commitment to inerrancy implies acceptance of the truth of those affirmations.  But a commitment to inerrancy does not exclude a priori any given literary style, form, or genre that is not inherently deceptive” (B, 164).  In short, we must determine first what a passage means according to its genre.  We cannot know in advance that it is going to be historical just because it is a narrative or is in a historical book.  Further, the genre can be an extra-biblical like the Greco-Roman genre.  Hence, an extra-biblical genre can determine the meaning of a biblical text.  This is, of course, contrary to the ICBI statements on genre for several reasons.

First, ICBI Article XIII forbids the use of extra-biblical genre to determine the meaning of a biblical text.  It reads “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual” (emphasis added).  Further, CSBH Article XIV says: “We affirm that the biblical record of events, discourses and sayings, though presented in a variety of appropriate literary forms, corresponds to historical facts” (emphasis added). 

            Second, ICBI demands interpreting “Scripture by Scripture” (CSBI Article 18), not the Bible by extra-biblical genre.  That is, nothing external to the New Testament text should be hermeneutically determinative of the meaning in the text.  In some cases, one can derive the meaning (use) of a term from contemporary use of the word. But the meaning of a text is discovered from studying the text in its grammatical and historical setting, as compared to related Scripture on that text.

Third, the alleged “purpose of the author” of which Blomberg speaks is not the determinative factor in understanding a text.  For there is no way to know what the author had in his mind behind the text except by what he affirmed in the text.  Hence, the appeal to the linguistic philosophy of John Austin to determine the illocutionary (purpose) act or the perlocutionarly act (results) is futile.  Usually, all we have in Scripture is the locutionary act (What is affirmed).  So, the locus of meaning has to be in what is affirmed, not why it is affirmed because often we are just guessing about that.  Thus, the genre critic Blomberg is using extra-biblical ideas to determine the meaning of the biblical text.

 

Blomberg’s Attack on Defenders of the ICBI Statements

            Not only do the ICBI statements repeatedly contradict Blomberg’s view on inerrancy, but he repeatedly distorts the ICBI statements and demeans the character of those who defend the inerrancy of Scripture.  We note first of all his unscholarly and unprofessional characterizations of those who defend the historical biblical view of inerrancy as represented in the ICBI statements.

             His Excessively Negative language about the Defenders of Inerrancy

            Blomberg often employs condemnation and exaggeration instead of refutation related to inerrantists claims.  He labels inerrantists, for example, as “very conservative” (B, 7), “overly conservative” (B, 217), “ultra conservative” (B, 11, 214), “hyperconservative” (B, 13), “extremely conservative” (B, 7).  Of course, this tends to make his views look more moderate by comparison, when, as we shall see, they are in direct opposition to those the mainstream evangelical view as reflected in the ICBI statements.  He even likens ICBI defenders of inerrancy to Nazis and Communist (B, 8)!  He quotes with approval the statement, “the far left and the far right—avoid them both, like the plague” (B, 8). At one point he stops just short of questioning the Christianity of ICBI supporters (B, 254).  What is more, he sometimes makes it very clear about whom he is speaking by name (Robert Thomas, David Farnell, William Roach, and myself)–all Ph.D. in biblical related studies who have written critical reviews of Blomberg’s positions. He also addresses Dr. Al Mohler and Master’s Seminary in negative terms.

Such exaggerated language is not only unprofessional and unscholarly, it borders on being morally libelous, as the following statements reveal.  Strangely and inconsistently, Blomberg responds strongly when other scholars use a negative term about his views (B, 254).

His Unjustified Condemnation of Alleged Motives and Character of Inerrancy Defenders

Blomberg goes further than extremist labeling of inerrancy defenders. He claims that we “simplistically” distorted the evidence in order to oust Robert Gundry from the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) over his midrash denial of the historicity of certain sections of Matthew (B, 167).  He charges that we engaged in a “political campaign” against Gundry (B, 167).  Elsewhere, he alleges that we have utilized a “standard ploy throughout his [my] career” when “trying to get someone removed from an organization” (B, 262 n. 111).  He adds the allegation that inerrancy is used as “a blunt tool to hammer into submission people whose interpretation of passages differs from ours…” (B, 125).  These charges of an alleged sinister and continuous career of unjustified activity on my part are both untrue, unjustified, and unethical. Indeed, they are serious moral judgments of motives for which Blomberg should apologize.  Someone has rightly asked why it is that those who defend inerrancy are attacked and those who attack inerrancy are defended.

Without attributing motives, one thing seems clear: “Blomberg is dead-set on broadening the acceptable borders of orthodoxy on inerrancy, the result of which would be a more inclusive statement that would embrace scholars (like Blomberg himself) who have moved well beyond inerrancy as traditionally understood and as expressed by the ICBI.  This may explain the use of such passionate and uncalled for language in describing those who wish to retain a more traditional stand on inerrancy.  Perhaps a lot of their passion and zeal arises from the fact that those who hold a more liberal view on inerrancy may fear their view may be deemed unorthodox too.

 

His Many Errors and Mischaracterizations of the Defenders of Inerrancy

 

Ironically, Blomberg’s attack on those who defend an inerrant Bible is filled with errant statements. Here is a list of some that come to mind.  Contrary to Blomberg’s charge, it is not true that:

 

  1. No one offered an “intelligent response” to Gundry (B, 167).  Even Blomgberg acknowledged that D. A. Carson wrote a critique of it, as did Doug Moo.  Not to mention the scholarly response given at ETS and articles published in the Journal of The Evangelical Theological Society (JETS, 2003).

 

  1. A majority of speakers at ETS were in favor of retainng Gundry in its membership (B, 166).  This is a misleading statement since, when given a chance to vote almost three-quarters of the membership voted to ask Gundry to resign.

 

  1. The proceeding of the ETS which resulted in Gundry’s removal from membership was not fair or representative (B, 166-167). On the contrary, it was the result of a long (two year) process, during which papers and articles were presented pro and con.  The meeting at which the vote took place was deliberate and orderly and the vote was taken properly.  Even Gundry accepted its conclusion.

 

  1. The vote for Gundry’s removal was not a bare minimum “just over” what was necessary (167).  The vote was 116 in favor of his removal and 41 opposed (as reported by Christianity Today 2/3/1984) which is almost 74% in favor of his removal.  This is nearly three-quarters of the membership present and well over the two-thirds (67%) necessary.

 

  1. ETS did not “expel” Gundry from membership (B, 167).  The vote was to ask Gundry to resign, not to expel him.  If he had refused to resign, then there could have been another vote to expel which was unnecessary because Gundry voluntarily resigned.

 

  1. The process of Gundry’s removal was a “political campaign” in which “circulating advertisements” occurred (B, 167).  This too is false.  No “campaign” was held and no “advertisements” were circulated.  Each ETS member was given a paper with quotations from Gundry’s book so that they could make an intelligent decision on how to vote.

 

  1. “Gundry’s views were simplistically presented…” at the ETS meeting (B, 167). This too is false.  Exact and complete quotations were given of Gundry’s views to each member.  There was nothing simplistic about it.

 

  1. Geisler utilized a “standard ploy throughout his career…when he is trying to get someone removed from an organization,” namely, getting all the living framers to agree with him in order to oust a member (262 n. 111). I never did and such thing.  In the Pinnock issue, Roger Nicole contacted all the founders of ETS, but I was not a founder of ETS and was not part of any such effort.  I have argued Licona’s views are contrary to the ICBI framers, but I was never part of a “ploy” or effort to get him ousted from the ETS organization, nor any other group.  Neither, have I done it “throughout my career” (which is now almost 60 years long because there was never another occasion in all those years where a group of framers were involved in getting someone removed from an organization in which I participated.  These are serious, sinister, and slanderous charges that impugns the character of another brother in Christ and call for an apology from the one who made them.

 

  1. Geisler resigned from ETS because they exonerated Clark Pinnock of the charges against him.  This is partly true.  After all, Pinnock claimed to believe in inerrancy, yet he has said in print that there were false predictions in the Bible (see Pinnock, The Most Moved Mover, 50), and he denied the Bible is the written Word of God (Scripture Principle, 128).  I was also disappointed with the process by which Pinnock was retained because it was not completely fair and open.  However, the main and underlying reason I left ETS was because I believed it has lost its integrity by allowing a scholars to join who did not have to believe the doctrinal statement on inerrancy as the founders meant it (see my article, “Why I resigned from the Evangelical Theological Socity,” at http://normangeisler.net/articles/Bible/Inspiration-Inerrancy/ETS/2003-WhyIResignedFromTheETS.htm.)

 

  1. Geisler has become increasingly more conservative over the years as indicted by the successive schools at which he has taught (B, 143-14).  This is false.  In each case my move to an established school was because I was offered what appeared to be a better opportunity for service.  In the case of the two Seminaries I helped start, they were after I retired and was asked by others to help them start two seminaries (where I still teach) which stress apologetics which has been a passion of mine from the beginning.  It had nothing to do with the degree of conservativeness of the Seminaries.  They all have sound doctrinal statements.  None of them was significantly more conservative than the others.

 

  1. Only a “tiny minority” throughout history held that inerrancy is the only legitimate form of Christianity (B, 221).  This is a purely “Straw Man” argument since almost no one holds this view.  ICBI, the view we are representing, states clearly that “We deny that such a confession is necessary for salvation” (CSBI Article 19).  It adds, “We affirm that the doctrine of inerrancy has been integral to the Church’s faith throughout its history” (CSBI, Article 16).  ICBI also held that there are “grave consequence” (CBSI Article 19) for denying inerrancy.  But it never affirmed that is the only legitimate form of Christianity.  So, this criticism is an empty charge, applying to almost no one.

 

Blomberg’s Misinterpretation of the ICBI Statements

 

Not only did Blomberg attack those who defend ICBI inerrancy but he distorts the meaning of the ICBI statements.  As noted earlier, Blomberg affirms the ICBI statements and even acknowledges the official commentaries.  Nonetheless, he often distorts the meaning of these statements to support his own unorthodox views which are, in fact, contrary to the ICBI statements.  Consider the following examples.

 

ICBI View of Truth as Correspondence

 

 One of the reason Blomberg can claim he agrees with the ICBI statements (and yet hold views opposed to them) is that he misinterprets the ICBI statements. CSBI Article 13 affirms: “We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose.”  But after acknowledging this, Blomberg proceeded to read his own purpose into certain texts of Scripture so as to doubt or deny their historicity (see midrash discussion below).  This he does in direct contradiction to the ICBI official commentary (that he acknowledges) which declares a correspondence view of truth, as opposed to an intentionalist view which stressed (like Blomberg) the alleged purpose of the author, not the propositional affirmation of the author in the text.  This is directly contrary to the CSBI commentary which declares: “By biblical standards of truth and error is meant the view used both in the Bible and in everyday life, viz., a correspondence view of truth.  This part of the article is directed toward those who would redefine truth to relate to merely redemptive intent, the purely personal, or the life, rather than to mean that which corresponds with reality” (emphasis added).  When truth is defined as correspondence with the fact, one cannot easily escape the fact that that the sections of the Gospels doubted or denied by Blomberg, Robert Gundry, or by Mike Licona are a denial of inerrancy (see next).

ICBI View of Genre

It is difficult to understand how Blomberg can praise the ICBI statements as a whole and yet hold a genre view which is directly contrary to the ICBI view.  A hint as to how he does this is when he praises one half of an ICBI statement on genre (which he takes out of context) and questions the other half which speaks directly against his view.  For example, he agrees with CSBI Article 18 when it affirms that “Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture,” especially to the part we highlighted.  However, he is not sure how this is consistent with the very next line which asserts: “We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text of quest for sources behind it that leads to relativizing, dehisorticizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claim to authorship” (emphasis added). And well he should disagree with this part because it is precisely what he approves of in the cases of Gundry, Licona, and himself.  He approves of relativizing, deshistoricisning, and rejecting the claim to authorship as consistent with inerrancy.

Relativizing.  Once the correspondence view of truth is not fully accepted, then truth becomes relativized because there is not objective reality to which it must correspond. Blomberg asserts, “What it means to say he Bible is wholly true varies widely from one genre to the next…” (B, 131).  So, the “truth” is relative to the genre, and the genre choices are not absolute by any stretch of the imagination.

Dehistoricizing.  For example, the choice of a midrash genre (Gundry) or a Greco-Roman genre (Licona) will determine whether or not the narrative is historically true or is just a legendary embellishment (see below).  So, for New Testament critics truth is relative to genre which in turn is relative to the interpreter.

Pseudonymity. Blomberg even allows for the use of an author’s name to be used when in part or in whole he did not write the biblical book with his name on it.  He himself believed that Part of 2 Peter was not written by the apostle Peter, and he allows (as consistent with inerrancy) for whole books to be such (B, 171).

Blomberg’s Defense of Robert Gundry

According to Robert Gundry, whose view is defended by Blomberg as consistent with orthodoxy, whole sections of Matthew (like the Visit of the Magi—Matthew 2) are not historical because the author’s purpose was not to affirm what corresponded with reality (as in a correspondence view of truth), but to use a midrashic embellishment understood as such by his Jewish audience (B, 164f).  So viewing “Matthew as Midrash” and not historical “would have understood exactly what he was doing, not imagining his embellishment to be making the same kinds of truth claims as his core material from Mark and Q” (B, 166).

Of course, Blomberg laments that an overwhelming majority (nearly 74%) of the ETS voted to ask Gundry to resign from ETS because of his denial of the historicity of certain passages in Matthew.  Blomberg remains proud that his is one of the small minority who voted to retain Gundry in ETS. Indeed, as even Blomberg admits (B, 168), the framers of the statement (of which I was one) “had Gundry in mind” when the CSBH statements were made which we certainly did. We wrote: “WE deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual” (CSBH Commentary on Article 13).   No amount of re-interpretation can override the clarity of this statement or the testimony of living framers as to its meaning.  And when the framers die, the written words of the framers (as here) will remain to vouch for the meaning of their words.

Blomberg’s Defense of Murray Harris

            There seems to be a camaraderie among many biblical scholars that blinds them to some serious errors and prompts them to put fraternity over orthodoxy. Professor Murray Harris had claimed the resurrection body was “essential immaterial” (Raised Immortal, 53-54), even though the Bible (Lk. 24:39; Acts 2:31) and the Early Creeds affirmed the resurrection in the “flesh.”  Further, Harris affirmed the ascension of Christ was a “parable” (RI, 92).  Further, he held that believers receive a spiritual resurrection body at death (RI, 44, 100) while their physical bodies remain rotting in the grave.  In spite of all this, Blomberg, in an act that seeming puts fraternity above orthodoxy, defends his fellow New Testament scholar’s view as orthodox.

Further, Blomberg was unaware of what the real issues were (see our Battle for the Resurrection, Thomas Nelson: 1989. Or see the third edition Bastion Books: 2014), namely, that we had written a whole book (titled, In Defense of the Resurrection, Witness Inc, 1993, chap. 5) responding to Harris’s objection.  Neither did Blomberg show awareness of the fact that some 90 counter-cult group pronounced Harris’s views “false doctrine,” “unorthodox,” or even “cultic” (ibid., 189).  Nor was Blomberg cognizant of the fact that Harris had been warned by Trinity that he would lose his position, if he did not change his view on the resurrection of believers.  Harris did change his view over the weekend when the Trinity appointed (not ETS related) a committee of three scholars to met with him.  One would have expected that a scholar of Blomberg’s reputation would have looked into this issue more carefully before pontificating on it.

Blomberg’s Defense of Mike Licona

It is incredible that anyone, let alone a biblical scholar, would defend the orthodoxy (i.e., compatibility with inerrancy) of Mike Licona’s Greco-Roman genre views.  Licona has yet to retract his view that the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27 is a legendary, poetic embellishment (see TheResurrection of Jesus, 552, 553, 548), even though he is now not as sure of it as he once was. Further, Licona embraces the Greco-Roman Bios which admits that it is “a flexible genre [wherein] it is often difficult to determine when history ends and legend begins” (Licona, ibid., 34).  This is ironic in view of Blomberg and Licona’s criticism that the defenders of inerrancy are imposing their modern view of what an error is on the Bible when in fact it is they who are imposing their modern view of genre criticism on the Bible.

More importantly, Licona believes there is a contradiction in the Gospels about the day on which Jesus was crucified, yet he insists this is consistent with a belief in inerrancy!  In a debate with Bart Ehrman (Spring, 2009), Licona said, “I think that John probably altered the day [on which Jesus was crucified] in order for a theological—to make a thelogical point there.  But that does not mean that Jesus wasn’t crucified” (emphasis added).

The ICBI framers condemned Licona’s kind of view in clear and unequivocal language when they spoke against “dehistoricizing” the Gospels (CSBI, Article 18).  Likewise, they affirmed: “WE deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narratives which present themselves as factual” (CSBH Commentary on Article 13).   Licona’s view  is so far from measuring up to ICBI standard for orthodoxy that R.C. Sproul wrote: “As the former and only President of ICBI during its tenure and as the original framer of the Affirmations and Denials of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, I can say categorically that Mr. Michael Licona’s views are not even remotely compatible with the unified Statement of ICBI”(Letter, May 22, 2012, emphasis added).

 

 

Conclusion

            One fact emerges from Blomberg’s recent book, namely, whatever merits it has, the view which he defends is contrary to the ICBI view of inerrancy.  And since the ETS has accepted the ICBI definition of inerrancy (in 2003), it is also contrary the statement of largest group of inerrantist scholars in the world!  So much for Blomberg’s charge that the defenders of the ICBI statements on inerrancy, including living framers like J. I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, and myself, are a tiny extremist minority.  And to debunk the living framers, as Blomberg did (B, 262, n 111), because they will someday be dead, misses the point, namely, they are the best testimony to the meaning of their own words while they are alive.  And their written words will still live on even after they die.

Finally, we do agree with Blomberg’s words when he wrote: we should embrace a “full-fledged inerrantist Christianity so long as we ensure that we employ all parts of a detailed exposition of inerrancy, such as that found in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy…, and not just those sections that are most amenable to our personal philosophies or theologies.  This also means that we interpret the Chicago Statement, like the Bible, in terms of what is actually written, and not merely what one of its authors might have wanted to write or might have wanted it to mean” (B, 222). Unfortunately, however, as has been shown above, such a view is not the view that Blomberg promotes, but it is the view he attacks.

 

 

About the Author

Dr. Geisler is a graduate of Wheaton College (B.A., M.A.), William Tyndale College (Th.B.), and Loyola University (Ph.D.).  He has taught at the College or graduate level for over 50 years.  He is the author or co-author of more than 100 books, including Inerrancy, General Introduction to the Bible, The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, and Defending Inerrancy.  He is a former president of The Evangelical Theological Society and co-founder and first president ofThe Evangelical Philosophical Society.  He was co-founder of theInternational Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) and was a co-drafter of the famous ICBI “Chicago Statement” on inerrancy and editor of the ICBI books.  He has taught at some of the top evangelical seminaries in America, including Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Dallas Theological Seminary.  He also co-founded two seminaries, Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, NC and Veritas Evangelical Seminary in Los Angeles–schools where he still teaches.

 

On Licona Muddying the Waters (2014)


On Licona Muddying the Waters

Norman Geisler

June 5, 2014

 

Cool, Clear Waters

Before Mike Licona wrote his recent article (June 2, 2014) “On Chicago’s Muddy Waters,” the waters were clear.  That is, the “Chicago Statement” on biblical inerrancy was clear on the meaning of inerrancy.  It affirmed that “dehistoricizing” sections of the Gospels, such as Licona has done, was contrary to inerrancy.  It declared that:

“We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claim to authorship” (Articles XVIII, emphasis added in all these quotes).

 

Article XIII declares emphatically: “We deny that generic categories which negate historicity may rightly be imposed on biblical narrativeswhich present themselves as factual.”

 

ICBI Hermeneutics Article XIV adds, “We deny that any event, discourse or saying reported in Scripture was invented by the biblical writers or by the traditions they incorporated.

 

Further, “We deny that extrabiblical views ever disprove the teaching of Scripture or hold priority over it” (Hemeneutics Statement, Article XX).

The official ICBI commentary adds, “Though the Bible is indeed redemptivehistory, it is also redemptive history, and this means that the acts of salvation wrought by God actually occurred in the space-time world” (Commentary on Article XII).

 

 

Cool, Clear Framers Agree

All living framers (R.C. Sproul, J.I. Packer, and N.L. Geisler) agree that ICBI excludes a view like Licona embraced in his book (The Resurrection of Jesus,185-187; 530, 548, 552,553).

 

R.C. Sproul declared clearly and emphatically: “As the former and only president of ICBI during its tenure and as the original framer of the Affirmations and Denials of the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, I can say categorically that Mr. Michael Licona’s views are not even remotely compatible with the unified Statement of ICBI” (Letter, May 22, 2012).  He added, “You can use this comment by me however you wish” (emphasis added).

 

J.I. Packer added plainly: that “As a framer of the ICBI statement on biblical inerrancy who once studied Greco-Roman literature at advanced level, I judge Mike Licona’s view that, because the Gospels are semi-biographical, details of their narratives may be regarded as legendary and factually erroneous, to be both academically and theologically unsound”(Letter, May 8, 2014, emphasis added).

 

Norman L. Geisler: I have spoken repeatedly of the similarity of Licona’s views with those of Robert Gundry who was asked to resign (in 1983) from the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) by an overwhelming 74% vote.  No attempt to minimize this vote can negate its legitimacy, clarity, or finality, no matter how much some may wish to do so. What could be clearer than the ICBI statements on this matter and the clear and emphatic words of the only living framers of the ICBI statements?

 

Casting Mud at Defenders of the ICBI Statement

 

If any waters have been muddied, it is from the mud cast at the defenders of the Chicago Statement on inerrancy.  They call the ICBI defenders “New Fundamentalist” eight times in Licona’s short article. They insist we are “rigid” and engage in “ferocious fratricide.”  They are designated inerrancy “police” or “police officers” who have a “most wanted” list.  They consider an inerrancy defender a “tar baby.”  They “politicize” this issue.  He even goes so far as to question our “motives,” rather than be content with evaluating our statements.

 

Licona and his supporters believe we engaged in a personal “crusade” against Licona.  In what seemed like a kind of doctrinal paranoia, Licona falsely claims Geisler is “criticizing me” or a “crusade against me” (twice, emphasis mine). He said, “I’ve been in the crosshairs of Norman Geisler,” as though he was a special target I wanted to kill.  The truth is we have never attacked him as a person, but only his views. I have said many times that I like Mike as a person and love him as a brother in Christ. However, we try never to put fraternity over orthodoxy or cloud our love for God’s truth by how nice a guy is or how good a friend the person is.  This cannot be said of Licona or his friends for their writings are toxic with personal attacks. One can look to Craig Blomberg’s recent book to illustrate the point.

 

Craig Blomberg, engaged without substantiation in a tirade in print against defenders of ICBI inerrancy (see his Can We Still Believe the Bible?)  He insists that we are “very conservative” (B, 7), “overly conservative” (B, 217), “ultra conservative” (B, 11, 214), “hyperconservative” (B, 13), “extremely conservative” (B, 7).  Of course, this tends to make his views look more moderate by comparison, when, as we shall see, they are in direct opposition to the mainstream evangelical view as reflected in the ICBI statements.  Blomberg even likens ICBI defenders of inerrancy to the extreme views Nazism and Communism (B, 8)!  He quotes with approval the statement, “the far left and the far right—avoid them both, like the plague” (B, 8). He claims that we “simplistically” distorted the evidence in order to oust Robert Gundry from the Evangelical Theological Society (B, 167).  He charges that we engaged in a “political campaign” against Gundry (B, 167).  Elsewhere, he alleges that we have utilized a “standard ploy throughout his [Geisler’s] career” when “trying to get someone removed from an organization” (B, 262 n. 111).  He adds the allegation that inerrancy is used as “a blunt tool to hammer into submission people whose interpretation of passages differs from ours…” (B, 125).  These charges of an alleged sinister and continuous career of unjustified activity on my part are both untrue, unjustified, and unethical.  Someone has rightly asked why it is that those who defend inerrancy are attacked and those who attack inerrancy are defended.

 

When mud-slinging occurs one can be reasonably sure that the attackers have run out of reasons and evidence to use in a rational argument and, thus, have resorted to attacking the person instead of the argument.

 

Muddying the Chicago Waters

 

Licona and his colleagues have insisted on muddying the Chicago ICBI waters by claiming the ICBI position is not clear.  They have charged that:

There are other interpretations of the ICBI Statements on Inerrancy.

 

Of course there are, no one disputes this.  However, that is not the question.  The question is: Are there better ones?  Do they correspond with the meaning expressed by the Framers of the ICBI statements?  The answer is an emphatic “No.” the Framers have spoken in commentaries and letters (see above).

 

Further, the “other” interpretations are not supported by the historical evidence (see Mark Hannah, The Church and Inerrancy).  Church history is virtually unanimous on the orthodox view of inerrancy.  It is unlimited inerrancy as expressed by the ICBI statements (see John Woodbridge, A Critique of The Roger/McKim Proposal).

 

What is more, I know of no other inerrancy statement ever made that was the work of some 300 interdenominational and international scholars that is more extensive and more complete and has been more widely accepted as that of the ICBI. Even the membership of the largest body of evangelical scholars who believe in inerrancy, the Evangelical theological Society (ETS), consisting of over 3000 members, adopted the ICBI statement as the definition of their brief inerrancy statement by an overwhelming 80% vote (in 2006).  If Mr. Licona and his New Testament critical friends think they can improve upon it, let them try.

 

The Chicago Statement is not a Creed.  Of course it isn’t, and it does not claim to be. That does not keep it from being a very good statement, or even the best one produced by a broad group of scholars to date. Nor does it hinder it from being right when it condemns “dehistoricizing” the Gospels as many critical scholars are doing today (see citations above).

 

The Chicago Statement is too “Conservative.”  It all depends where one is standing.  This is a relative term.  If one is already standing left of Scripture, then no doubt ICBI will seem too conservative.  However, when judged by the views of the Fathers of the Church from the earliest times down to and through the reformation to modern times (see John Hannah,Inerrancy and the Church, Moody, 1984),   the Chicago Statement is on target.  In fact, it is the Licona Neoevanglical view of Scripture that is too “Liberal.”

The Lausanne Covenant Statement on Inerrancy is more widely Accepted.  There is no comparison between Lausanne and Chicago statements on inerrancy.  Lausanne has only a brief statement on inerrancy as follows: “We affirm the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice” (1974). The Chicago statement is a more comprehensive statement containing numerous Affirmations and Denials. Indeed, there are two major statements with accompanying commentaries. The ICBI conference, unlike Lausanne, focused only on inerrancy and consisted of scholars trained on the topic.  So, for a detailed statement on inerrancy, the ICBI statement has been the most widely disseminated, embracing the 3000 members of the ETS and influencing numerous denominations, including the largest Protestant denomination in the world—the Southern Baptist Convention.

 

It is noteworthy that Billy Graham signed the Lausanne statement on inerrancy.  However, he also gave money to help start the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy which produced the Chicago Statements on inerrancy. And more recently, both Billy and his son Franklin Graham made statements in support of inerrancy on the www.DefendingInerrancy.com web site.  In fact, the world-wide circulation of Billy Graham’s magazine Decision(May, 2014) on “the dangers of compromise” featured an article defending ICBI inerrancy by the former president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

 

Many Books Defending ICBI Inerrancy were not published by Standard Publishers.

This is an irrelevant and misleading charge for several reasons.  First, numerous books defending ICBI inerrancy have been published through standard publishers.  To name only a few: The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism by B. K. Beale; Defending Inerrancy by myself and William Roach; A Critique of  The Roger/McKim Proposal by John Woodbridge;  Indeed, the ICBI itself produced many volumes defending inerrancy all of which were published by standard publishers (like Zondervan, Baker, and Moody).  These include: Inerrancy, Biblical Errancy: Its Philosophical Roots; The Church and Inerrancy; Hermeneutics, Inerrancy, and the Bible.

Second, this charge is amazing since Licona was able to divine the reason for ICBI inerrantists using a non-standard publisher (like Xulon) was that we “could not find an interested publisher.”  As most writers know, there are other reason for using non-standard publishers as well, including time, money, control of the content, and owning the rights.  And there are also reasons to reject some “standard” publishers who would have published it.

Second, this objection assumes that truth is conveyed best, if not exclusively, by what they view as “standard” publishers. This supports a kind of professional elitism and academic snobbery. Truth is what corresponds to reality no matter who publishes it.

Third, this charge is amusing and ironic since the recent book attacking ICBI inerrancy which was blessed by Licona and many of his New Testament critic friends was self published by Licona’s son-in-law and his friend!

 

Many Muddy Statements by Licona

 

Licona and friends have made many statements that are clearly not traditional orthodox views on Scripture.  They include the following:

(1) Licona charges that we believe the Gospels speak with “legal precision” or “photographcic accuracy.”  The Chicago Statement spoke directly to this point, saying, “We further deny that inerrancy is negated by biblical phenomena such as lack of modern technical precision…and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material…or the use of free citations” (Article XIII).

(2) He believes there are or may be errors in the Gospels, for example: (a) on the report about when Jarius daughter died; (2) on whether the centurion made his request in person to Jesus; (c) whether the woman anointed Jesus two days before the Passover.

(3) Licona even goes so far as to affirm there is an error in the Gospels regarding on which day Jesus was crucified. He said “Jesus may have changed the day and time of Jesus’ crucifixion in order to make a theological point.”  Earlier in a debate with Bart Ehrman at Southern Evangelical Seminary (Spring, 2009) he said, “I think that John probably altered the day [of Jesus’ crucifixion] in order for a theological—to make a theological point there.”

But this is clearly contrary to the ICBI view of inerrancy which demands “the unity and internal consistency of Scripture” (Article XIV).  Also, “We deny that later revelations…ever contradict it” (Article 5).  We affirm the unity, harmony, and consistency of Scripture…. We deny that Scripture may be interpreted in such a way as to suggest that one passage corrects or militates against another” (Hermeneutics Article XVII).  WE affirm that since God is the author of all truth, all truths, biblical and extrabiblical, are consistent and cohere…” (Hermeneutics Article XX).

(4)  Licona affirmed that Joseph Holden, president of Veritas Evangelical Seminary dismissed Gary Habermas and Paul Copan as Adjunct faculty members because “they denied the inerrancy of the Bible on account of their failure to condemn the interpretation of Matthew’s raised saints” (Note 6).  President Holden affirmed in a letter (June 2, 2014) that this is false.  Holden wrote, “In the footnotes, it says I dismissed Habermas and Copan for their support of Licona and failure to condemn his interpretation of Matthew’s raised saints. When in fact, they were dismissed because of their own expressed view of inerrancy that became apparent in their defense of Licona.”

(5) Licona also wrongly affirmed that I was the founder of Veritas Evangelical Seminary.  I was not.  It was Joe Holden’s idea and he asked me to join with him and be a co-founder of the Seminary.

(6)  Licona affirmed that I refused to attend a particular panel discussion.  In any event, one cannot help but be impressed with the quasi-omniscient powers of critics who can read another’s mind.  This leads to arrogant charges like the following: Licona asserted that “In Geisler’s mind, there is no need for discussion in an academic forum because he apparently thinks he already knows the correct answers; all of them.”  I have participated in untold academic discussions and debates over the last fifty years, so I have learned to pick carefully the ones in which I participate.

 

(7) He alleged that we never offered a solution to the alleged contradictions he raised in the Gospels.  This too is false.  I have presented it many times in official presentations on alleged contradictions in the Bible.  Further, it is in one of the “20 articles” Licona said I wrote on the issue, titled “Mike Licona Admits Contradiction in the Gospels” (January 2013) which he apparently did not read.

 

(8) He claims that “Many of the original signers [of the ICBI Statement on Inerrancy] do not agree with how Geisler and others interpret it.”  In response, two brief comments are in order.  First, even according to Licona, the true meaning of a text is in the “intention” of the framers, not the signers.  Second, all living framers (see above) agree on its meaning, especially as it applies to Licona’s view.  So, it is not just my view on the matter.

 

(9) ICBI view of Inerrancy actually undermines Inerrancy.  By a strange twist of logic Licona argues that the ICBI view of inerrancy actually undermines the authority of the Bible because showing one error overthrows the Faith.

 

First, by this same logic people should not believe Christ rose from the dead since a sophisticated naturalist might convince them that miracles are not credible. Or, people should not believe God exists since a sharp atheism might convince them that He does not exist.

Further, this objection confuses reliability and inerrancy.   If a critic could prove (and none have) one real error in the Bible it would overthrow the ICBIview of inerrancy, but it would not overthrow the Faith.

 

Inerrancy is to be distinguished from the reliability of the Bible.  My CPA is a very accurate book keeper.  But if he made one mistake in math that would not overthrow his reliability. On the other hand, if he claimed divine authority and inerrancy, then one error would overthrow his claim to divine authoritybecause God cannot make even one mistake (Heb. 6:18; Titus 1:2; John 17:17).

 

This is what B.B.Warfied meant, and Licona misunderstands.  For Warfield too believed that the Bible was divinely authoritative and inerrant and, as such, one error would destroy that divine authority/inerrancy. However, it would not overthrow the Faith since the Faith could be true apart from inerrancy.  Inerrancy is not a test of evangelical authenticity but of evangelical consistency.  Licona confuses Warfield’s apologetics and his theology.  Warfield used apologetics (based on the evidence to show thereliability of the Bible). But once he knew from good reason that the Bible was more than reliable; it was the inerrant Word of God, then Warfield believed that only an inspired and inerrant Word of God is an adequate basis for our belief in the divine authority of the doctrines of the Bible.

 

So, likewise, Licona misinterprets our statement about inerrancy being a “fundamental” of the Faith.  We said clearly that it is not a doctrinal or theological fundamental; it was an epistemological fundamental. For without an inerrant Bible we have no divinely authoritative basis for our Faith.

 

(10)  Licona also makes other statements that are seriously mistakes.  One is that (a) “the doctrines of the divine inspiration and inerrancy of the Gospels are faith doctrines that cannot be proven.” (b) Another is that a historian should be “making no theological assumptions pertaining to whether they [the Gospels] are divinely inspired or inerrant.”  These are both based on Licona’s admission that he (c) “unashamedly confess[es] the historical critical method.”  Given that Licona sees Genre criticism as part of this endeavor, no wonder he can believe in contradictions in the Gospels (see above) and say “Bioi offered the ancient biographers great flexibility for rearranging material and inventing speeches,…and they often included legend.  Because bios was a flexible genre, it is often difficult to determine where history ends and legend begins” (The Resurrection of Jesus, 34, emphasis added).

 

(11)  Licona contends that “biblical inerrancy is a secondary or tertiary doctrine.” Statements like this show a serious lack of understanding and appreciation for the doctrine of divine inspiration which entails inerrancy as a necessary concomitant.  For a divinely inspired error is nonsense. If the Bible is the Word of God, and that is what divine inspiration means, then it is inerrant.  For God cannot error. So, to attribute error to God’s Word is to attribute error to God Himself.  As John Calvin affirmed, “our faith in doctrine is not established until we have a perfect conviction that God is its author.  Hence, the highest proof of Scripture is uniformly taken from the character of him whose word it is” (Institutes 1.7.4).

 

(12) Licona criticized me for twisting the arms of other seminary presidents. This reckless charge misrepresents the facts. At the same time, he has attempted unsuccessfully to convince some of the orthodoxy of his view.  He even made a yet unadmitted trip of some distance to try to convince one influential Christian leader of the orthodoxy of his unorthodox view—only to be unsuccessful. Another one even set up a forum for him to express his view, after which the Seminary president said he would not hire him on his faculty.  Liconna tried to convince a third seminary to accept his view, after which they dropped him from their Adjunct Faculty. One faculty member who attended the meeting said, “It was worse than I thought.” Yet I did not contact a single seminary and ask them to reject Licona from their faculty. Nor did I “turn” to seminary presidents “to come out publicly” against him when I could no longer get enough high-caliber scholars to speak against his view.

 

Furthermore, this accusation is an insult to the integrity and autonomy of these different seminary leaders.  As for asking others to support the inerrancy cause, of course we do, as do those who oppose it.  In fact, we have a web site dedicated to it defending inerrancy (www.defendingInerrancy.com). Licona’s son-in-law has a web site dedicated to attacking me regularly by name and even making an insulting video for YouTube with Licona’s blessing. Anyone who examines the two approaches can see the difference.

 

(13) He rejected (without giving any evidence) the strong case we made for all the main orthodox Fathers of the Church between the apostles and the Reformers of holding that the story of the resurrected saints in Matthew 27:51-53 as being history not poetry or legend (see “The Early Fathers and the Resurrection of the Saints in Matthew 27” athttp://normangeisler.net/articles/Bible/Inspiration-Inerrancy/Licona/Early%20Fathers%20on%20Matthew%2027.pdf).  Just to cite a couple examples:

 

Irenaeus (AD 120-200), who knew Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John,

wrote:

 

…He [Christ] suffered who can lead those souls aloft that followed His ascension.  This event was also an indication of the fact that when the holy hour of Christ descended [to Hades], many souls ascended and were seen in their bodies (Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus XXVIII, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. I, Alexander Roberts, ibid., 572-573).

 

Even Origen (AD 185-254), who had the Neoplatonic tendency to spiritualize literal events, believed Matthew 27 was literal history, declaring:

“But,” continues Celsus, “what great deeds did Jesus perform as being a God?…Now to this question, although we are able to show the striking and miraculous character of the events which befell Him, yet from what other source can we furnish an answer than the Gospel narratives, which state that ‘there was an earth quake, and that the rock were split asunder, and the tombs were opened, and the veil of the temple was rent in twain from top to bottom, an the darkness prevailed in the day-time, the sun failing to give light” (Against Celsus, Book II, XXXIII. Alexander Roberts, ed. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4, 444-445).

 

St. Augustine (A. D. 3546-430), the greatest biblical theologian of his time, wrote:

 

“As if Moses’ body could not have been hid somewhere…and be raised up therefrom by divine power at the time when Elias and he were seen with Christ: Just as at the time of Christ’s passion many bodies of the saints arose, and after his resurrection appeared, according to the Scriptures, to many in the holy city” (Augustine, On the Gospel of St. John, Tractate cxxiv, 3, Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. VII, 448).

 

John Calvin (1509-1564) added,

 

“Yet we may doubt whether this opening of the tombs happened before the resurrection, for the resurrection of the saints which is shortly after added followed in my opinion the resurrection of Christ.  It is absurd for some interpreters to image that they spent three days alive and breathing, hidden in tombs.”  For “It seems likely to me that at Christ’s death the tombs at once opened; at His resurrection some of the godly men received breath and came out and were seen in the city.  Christ is called the Firstborn from the dead (1 Cor. 15:20; Col. 1:18” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, vol. 3, pp. 211-212).

 

These kinds of statements are found to and through the Reformation to modern times.  So, those who deny the historicity of this Matthew 27 passage on the saint’s resurrection have virtually the whole of the history of the Christian Church against them.

 

Conclusion

 

Mike Licona wrote his recent article (June 2, 2014) on “Chicago’s Muddy Waters.”  But it was not the Chicago Statement or the interpretation of it by the living Framers that muddied the waters.  This represents the crystal clear evangelical view down through the centuries of full inerrancy and complete historicity of the Bible.  To be sure, the waters have been muddied, but they were muddied by New Evangelical scholars like Licona who have adopted the New Historical Critical method and have become New Evangelicals or Neoevangelical on their view of Scripture, creating a New “battle for the Bible.”

 

This leaves us with the conclusion that the ICBI statement represents the biblical view of inerrancy which we call the evangelical view.  Hence, since Licona and his supporters, whom he lists as  Darrel Bock, Dan Wallace, Craig Blomberg, Michael Bird, William Lane Craig, Jeremy Evans, Craig Keener, Lee McDonald, Kevin Vanhoozer, Robert Yarborough, and Gary Habermas) embrace a new kind of evangelicalism–a Neoevangelicalism–with regard to Scripture, which has been its label now for a generation.  It is definitely not the biblical or traditional view, hence, its view of Scripture has no rights to the use the unqualified term “Evangelical.”  It is more properly described as Neoevangelical.  While Licona and Bird would have us believe that they are fighting the barbarians at the gates of the city, in actuality they are escorting the Trojan horse of the barbarians through the gates and deep into the city.

Does Diversity in Protestantism Support the Roman Catholic Position to be the one true Church?


Does Diversity in Protestantism Support

the Roman Catholic Position to be the one true Church?

Norman L. Geisler

Roman Catholic apologists have long argued that the vast diversity among churches is evidence of the need for the Roman Catholic authority in the church over against all the non-Catholic splinter groups including evangelical Protestants of various varieties.  On the surface, there is a certain plausibility in their complaint that behooves further scrutiny.  However, before one swims the Tiber, several things should be taken into consideration.

First, there is an important difference between true spiritual unity and organizational uniformity.  The Roman Catholic Church is an organization—a large and world-wide organization to be sure.  Nevertheless, it is an organization, with a headquarters, a charter, and a hierarchy of officials.  However, all of this would be possible without a true doctrinal, ethical, and spiritual unity.  So, even if the Roman organization is a descendent of the one Christ started, this would not prove in itself that it has preserved the truth and spiritual heritage which Christ had initiated.

For example, the present United States government is the organizational descendent of the First Continental Congress, but knowledgeable people recognized that it has come a long way from the founders in many of its beliefs.  The permission of slavery and forbidding of women to vote are only two such differences.  So, even if there was an organizational identity between the New Testament Church and the present Roman Catholic Church, it would not prove there was a doctrinal, moral, and spiritual unity between them.

Second, even in New Testament times, the split between Peter and Paul reveals that opposition to Peter—heralded by Rome as the first pope—was an important element in the development of the catholicity (universality) of the church.  As noted church historian Jaroslav Pelikan, put it, “to become catholic [universal] the church had to oppose Peter” (The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, 24).  For Christ command to disciple “all nations’’ (Mt. 28:18-20), and the vision of Pentecost (Acts 2), involving the outpouring of the Spirit on people from all nations, was hindered by Peter’s reluctance to see the spiritual equality of Jew and Gentile (Acts 10).  This came to a climax in Acts 15 when at what has been called “the first church council” the matter of the catholicity of the church, with Jew and Gentile, was pronounced by the apostles and leaders of the church.  So, if anything, the first alleged Pope of the Catholic Church (Peter) had to be rebuked by the apostle Paul (Gal. 1), divinely prodded by three visions, and overruled  by the first New Testament church gathering (Acts 15) opposed to make the church truly catholic.

Third, there is no evidence of an organization continuity between the Church at Rome and the current Roman Catholic Church.  The first church was not in Rome; it was in Jerusalem (Act 2).  In fact there was a church in Antioch (Acts 13:1) before there was one in Rome (Romans 1:1; 16:23). So, if antiquity counts for continuity, then there was a church in the East before there was one in the West.  By this reasoning, priority would be given the Eastern Orthodoxy, not Roman Catholicity.  The dominance of Rome was political, not biblical.  So, if anything Rome was a branch from the church in the East , not the reverse.

Fourth, the biggest splits in Christendom happened under the domination of the Roman Church.  The split with Eastern orthodoxy in the 11th century occurred as a result of Rome’s action, not a break off from the East. Pope Nicolas I (d. 867) deposed the Patriarch of Constantinople, Photius (d. 891).  Later in 1204 a Latin Patriarch was established in Constantinople.

So, if having an infallible head, as Rome claims, should protect against splinters, then the first and biggest one happened on Rome’s watch—and largely as a result of their actions.  Likewise, the second biggest split in Christendom—the Protestant Reformation—also occurred while Rome was in charge of most of Christendom in the 16th century.  History records that Luther’s desire was not to start another church.  He wanted to purify the one that was there, namely, the Roman Catholic Church. And Luther did not leave the Catholic Church.  Rather, he was excommunicated from it.  So even a church united under a Roman Pope in the West could not stop the second biggest split in Christendom.

Fifth, numerous splits in Christendom occurred under Roman Popes, showing they were no guarantee against fragmentation in the church.  Indeed, theOxford Dictionary of the Christian Church lists over 35 anti-popes which means there were two infallible popes at the same time!  Sometimes one would infallibly excommunicate the other! This is historic proof that shelter under the Roman umbrella was no guarantee against the storms of disunity.  On one occasion there were three popes—the two who were feuding and the one which the Council of Constance (1413-1418) had to set up over them to resolve the conflict.

Sixth, even Rome, with its alleged infallible leadership, could not avert schisms or even heretical Popes.  Numerous cults and breakoffs from Rome occurred under the Roman reign.  The Arians and Donatists were notable among them.  And at one time the Arian Cult encompassed a large section of Christendom.  Pope Honorius was a heretic condemned by later ecclesiastic authorities. Certainly none of this was due to the Protestant Reformation.  And not all of it was due to the lack of a papal authority.  For, as just shown, much of it involved popes, anti-popes, and heretical popes.  One thing is certain, having an infallible pope was not a guarantee against theological splintering.  This is to say nothing of the thousands Christians Rome pronounced heretics and were martyred in the Inquisition!—one of the tragic events possible only in a totalitarian regime like Roman Catholicism.

Seventh, other than groups that are considered heretical by both Catholics and Protestants, there is doctrinal unity on all essential teachings among all the diverse orthodox churches in Protestant Christendom.  This unity is manifest in the first four centuries.  As it has been aptly codified: “One Bible; Two Testaments; Three Creeds: Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Creed; Four Councils: Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcendon; this doctrinal unity is truly evangelical.  The diversity of doctrines are largely on the non-essentials.  So, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist or whatever, there is an essential doctrinal unity, despite all the non-essential differences.

Diversity within unity is not necessarily bad.  Even Roman Catholicism itself has many diverse orders, some of which strongly opposed beliefs and practices of the other orders.  These bear some similarity to denominational difference among evangelical Christians.  Opposing all diversity is as boring as having only one make of cars or one brand of tooth paste.  Even the rainbow has many colors. The important thing was captured by Repertus Meldinius (d. 1651) when he wrote: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials, liberty, and in all things charity (love).”

Eighth, Jesus’ prayer for his disciples “that they all may be one” (Jn. 17:21) was clearly not a prayer for organizational uniformity.  Rather, it was forspiritual unity (“Just as you Father are in me, and I in You”—v. 21), such as there is in the Godhead.  Of course, Jesus wished that this relationship be visible to the world (v. 21) so that they would see the love of God and come to Christ (v. 23).  Indeed, the true unity is one body of Christ and it is made by God (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 4:4-5).  The church on earth is to be patterned after this and should endeavor to “maintain” a visible manifestation of it (Eph. 4:3).  So, His prayer was not ecumenical but practical.  It was not for a union of churches with each other, but a  unity of individuals with each other in Christ.

In summation, neither the New Testament no church history supports the Roman Catholic claim that the Roman Church, with its hierarchical structure, is the better guarantor of true spiritual unity.  While church splintering since the Reformation is far from commendable, neither is the larger and more serious divisions in and splits from the Roman Catholic Church on their watch.  However, organizational uniformity offered by Rome is not the true spiritual unity for which Christ prayed.


Dr. Geisler is the author of Should Old Aquinas Be Forgotten? Many Say Yes but the Author Says No. (Bastion Books:2013), What Augustine Says (Bastion Books:2013), Is the Pope Infallible: A Look at the Evidence (Bastion Books:2012), Is Rome the True Church? A Consideration of the Roman Catholic Claim (Crossway Books:2008), and Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences (Baker Academic:1995). For additional resources by Dr. Geisler on Roman Catholicism, please visit http://normangeisler.com/rcc/.

The Crusades: Were they Justified? (2015)


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The Crusades: Were they Justified?

Norman L. Geisler

2015

 

 

Recently president Barak Obama made a moral comparison between the Crusades and recent attacks and atrocities of the Radical Islamic group called ISIS, known for beheading, crucifying, and even burning its captives. Not only is there no moral equivalence between the actions of the Crusades and ISIS, this comparison reveals a serious lack of understanding of the Crusades.

The Prologue to the Crusades

Between 1095 and 1400 there were some nine Crusades or expeditions of Western (European) Christians into the Eastern Mediterranean designed to recover the Holy Land from Muslim hands. These were encouraged by the Catholic Church and involved the death of thousands of people.

The Prologue to the Crusades: 500 Years of Muslim Advance

The Crusades can only properly be understood in terms of the 500 years of Muslim advance into the West that preceded them. Muhammad was born in A.D. 570 Mecca in present-day Saudi, Arabia. In 630 he led an army of 30,000 to conquer Mecca. By 711 Muslims took Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Jerusalem. By 732 they had invaded Spain and were turned back at Tours, France by Charles Martel. In 846 they attacked outlying areas of Rome. By the end of the 9th century Muslim pirates had established havens all along the Mediterranean coast, threatening commerce, communication, and pilgrim traffic for the next century. They controlled some 2/3 of Christendom. As a result, many Christians and Jews were enduring persecution at Muslim hands.

 

The Plea for the Crusades

By 1071 Eastern Christians sent appeals to the Western Christians for help. In 1095 Pope Urban II responded by calling on the Knights of Christendom to assist, and the first Crusade began what turned out to be a several hundred years of conflict.

The Purpose of the Crusades

Contrary to some modern secular charges, the Crusades were not colonial attempts to accumulate land and possessions. The primary purpose was spiritual. They wished to liberate the Christian captives from oppression by Muslims. Further, they desired to restore Christian access to the holy sites around Jerusalem. This is not to say that no unnecessary deaths and pillaging occurred. Regretfully, it did.  However, the primary purposes were noble.

 

The Participants of the Crusades

The Crusaders consisted of Western Christians who loved their fellow believers in the East many of whom had lost their homes, land, and even their lives. This opens the door to address several widely held myths about the Crusades that call for a response.

 

Myth #1: The Crusades were wars of unprovoked aggression

against a peaceful Muslim world minding its own business.

 The truth is that the Crusades were a reaction to 500 years of Muslim aggression into dominantly Christian countries. The Crusades were in essence a defensive action against the spread of Islam by the sword. They were undertaken largely out of concern for fellow Christians in the East. In fact, many great saints supported the Crusades, including Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, and peace-loving Francis of Assisi. Troops prayed and fasted before battles and praised God after them. Even many Muslim respected the ideals of the Crusaders.

Of course, there were sins of overreactions by some Crusaders. But most of these were deeply regretted and forgiveness was sought by Christians who participated in them. Unfortunately, this was not so for Muslim exploiters who felt little remorse but looked to a future in Paradise as a reward for their endeavours in stomping out the infidels.

Myth # 2: The Crusades were colonialist imperialists after booty and land.

This charge is contrary to the facts of history. Most Crusaders undertook the 2000 mile trek at great sacrifice of their own wealth. Many sold or mortgaged their own homes, most of which were not recouped. Most never occupied the land they gained from the Muslims. They went out with a sense of duty to God.

Myth # 3: When the crusaders captured Jerusalem in 1099,

they massacred ruthlessly.

This criticism is overstated. Of course, people were killed, but it was not ruthless. It was usually in accord with the norms of war for that time. Cities that resisted were captured and subjugated to the captors, but inhabitants of cities that surrendered were not killed. However, the people who surrendered most often retained their property and worshiped freely (see SALVO, issue 27 [Winter, 2013], pp. 60-62).

The Perversion of the Crusades

If this is so, then why do most people today have a distorted view of the Crusades? It was not always so. During the Middle Ages nearly all Christians in Europe believed the Crusades were morally justified. The modern distortion of the Crusades began with French humanist Voltaire (1694-1778) who abhorred Christianity (see his Philosophical Dictionary). The contemporary anti-crusade stance was set by Sir Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades (1951-1954) and popularized by a BBC/A&E documentary (1995).

Only recently has this negative attitude begun to be corrected. Professor Rodney Stark is a case in point. He wrote, “Not only had the Byzantines lost most of their empire; the enemy was at their gates.” Hence, “the popes, like most Christians, believed war against the Muslims to be justified partly because the latter had usurped by force lands which once belonged to Christians and partly because they abused the Christians over whom they ruled and such Christian lands as they could raid for slaves, plunder and the joys of destruction” (Rodney Stark, God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades (HarperOne, 2009), pp. 33, 248) Other authors have added to this re-evaluation of the Crusades (see also Thomas F. Madden, The New Concise History of the Crusades, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 2005).

 


 

Dr. Geisler is a philosopher, theologian, and ethicist who has authored two books devoted to the subject of ethics: The Christian Love Ethic (Bastion Books: 2012) and Christian Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Options (Baker Academic:1989, 2010)