thoughts on biblical scholarship
By diana on Jan 10, 2015 | In the atheist files, capricious bloviations
I'm not sure why I've seen so many articles lately about biblical scholarship. Luck of the draw, perhaps. I always stop and read them even though, at this point, I rarely find anything new. I am interested, at this point, in who is writing them and how they present the information. I also admit a morbid fascination with the train wrecks that invariably happen in the comment sections.
on the weird fact that non-christians know more about christianity than most christians
I'm fascinated with biblical scholarship and I have been for about fifteen years now, but only because I left the church a long time ago. When I was a Christian, I wasn't deeply interested in reading the bible or in any “so-called” “scholarship.” This, I've found over the years, is the rule among Christians, and it makes a lot of sense: if you're already going to church all the time and your life is immersed in worship, you figure you already know all you need to about the bible.
But you don't. In almost every case, for “lay” Christians, they know very, very little about what the bible says and almost nothing that could pass for biblical scholarship. Most of them, in addition, have no basic understanding of what other denominations or religions really believe—but they think they do, which means they are even less likely to investigate anything on their own.* And that's precisely how their “spiritual leaders” want it.
* And even if they do, they are inoculated against any serious, critical examination of those other faiths, because doubt is a tool of the Devil. See how that works?
why am i interested? some church of christ basics
As most of you know, I grew up in the non-institutional Church of Christ. The non-institutional Church of Christ is known, somewhat pejoratively, as “Antis” among almost all other Churches of Christ (because this level of conservativeness in the COC is against one or more things that the “mainstream” Churches of Christ accept and participate in, such as support of orphan's homes). They believe in a literal 6-day creation, they're young earth creationists (“YECs”), and they believe God requires them to meet for worship and to “receive the Lord's Supper” every single first day of the week. However, most of them—through sheer pious peer pressure—go to church every single time the doors are open. You never can be too sure of your salvation, after all, and you shouldn't forsake the assembly of the saints, and you have to set a good example for the weak brother, and so on. There is no instrumental music in church, and no choir; everyone sings. Women have no active role, of course, other than worship. You must be baptized for the remission of sins, and...you get the idea.*
* When I'm looking for a short-cut to explain COC legalism to people who, frankly, have no clue about this strain of Christianity, I call it “Paulianity.” If that helps. Or, "Remember the scribes and Pharisees Jesus condemned for their legalism? Them."
They pride themselves on their biblical knowledge and their command of scripture. At the same time, there is no educational requirement for preachers. The scripture, after all, doesn't suggest such things are necessary; seminary is thought of as “denominational.” There are preaching schools, but COC preachers are by no means required to even graduate from high school. When they argue that all that is required is to believe and “have sound doctrine,” that's precisely what they mean (“sound doctrine,” as it turns out, is essentially code for “you're telling us what we want to hear”).
They view the bible as the inspired and infallible word of God, of course. It all fits together, in their view, to form a coherent whole. Any contradictions are written off as mere “apparent” contradictions, which means to suggest that they aren't really contradictions (if one sees a contradiction, then one is clearly misunderstanding what one is reading). At the same time, the Catholic church is absolutely castigated as a false church. I've even heard, from the pulpit, the claim that the pope is the enemy of God (to put it nicely).
things you aren't taught in the church of christ
There are many, but these two “oversights” are hugely important:
1. The Restoration Movement of the early 19th Century, which was the genesis of what would produce the Church of Christ offshoot in the early 20th Century in the American South. Instead, we were taught that the Church of Christ is the “first Century church.” In eighteen years of attending church every time the doors were open—which in our case was 3-5 times a week—I do not recall a single mention of the Restoration Movement.
2. The evolution of the canon. The COC emphasizes a lot of “apparent” scholarship* regarding Paul's ministry and the meaning of the occasional Greek or Hebrew word which is important to argue specific points of doctrine. These “scholarly” points manage to suggest that the church's doctrine is founded in reliable scholarship, which gives its membership confidence in their beliefs. Meanwhile, the origin and evolution of the books that would eventually make up the Protestant canon is simply not mentioned (Catholic priests, scholars, and historians wrote about certain books and rejected others, and eventually the books were settled upon by—yep!--Catholic councils; you can see how this information makes COCers very uncomfortable).
* ;)
I say “COCers,” but they prefer to be called “members of the Church of Christ” or simply “Christians.” When people invariably ask “What denomination?” they use this as an in-road to pitch their position that they are not a “denomination” because denominations are Protestant, which implies that they are an off-shoot of Catholicism but NO! THE CHURCH HAS BEEN IN EXISTENCE SINCE JESUS CREATED IT IN THE FIRST CENTURY! So again...no mention of the extremely well-documented and historically demonstrable Restoration Movement (also known as the Stone-Campbell Movement; Stone was a Presbyterian minister and Campbell was a Baptist minister). Instead, that gap is filled with the completely undocumented, historically vacuous, and utterly wishful notion that the Church of Christ today is the First Century Church (TM) as Jesus meant it to be.
So anyway...I grew up with this sort of indoctrination. I won't go into the overt encouragement I received for pointedly ignoring any scientific information that might give me reason to rethink the whole young earth theory and creationism right now, but you can probably imagine.
I was not allowed to go to church with my friends who were not COCers, of course. I could not be exposed to “false doctrine.” Thus, I was quite well and thoroughly indoctrinated with the Church of Christ (non-institutional) throughout my formative years. I thought I knew my bible (and compared to other denominations, I did, but that's because “proof-texting” is a peculiar COC vanity). I could quote scripture (still can, of course) to the point of intimidation. I believed this meant that I knew my bible.
then i got an education
I'm skipping many years to get to my point: a bachelor's degree (which is necessarily a “liberal education”) was eye-opening, but a graduate degree in English literature helped me put my finger on a big problem of biblical interpretation: When a text comes to you from a time and culture you know little or nothing about, you will interpret it through the only lens you have: the one given to you by your culture, and you will get it wrong. Even when we know a great deal about a given culture—such as Elizabethan England—we're still prone to routinely misunderstand Shakespeare's words and simply miss his allusions to contemporary culture. But when a layman tries to understand an anonymously-written text from, about, and for a culture that is so drastically different from his own, his interpretation will be utterly unreliable (and I'm being generous here). This is how we end up with old myths like that gate in Jerusalem called The Eye of the Needle: they help people find meaning in a text whose intended audience died in a far-away land almost two millenia ago.
Studying scholarship of these ancient texts is most instructive. You learn that there are many passages scholars themselves do not understand to this day (an honest translation of the bible will admit this). Another thing these studies will teach you: over the centuries, scholars have disagreed heartily on meanings of the “important” passages, and doctrines have evolved based on new information and contemporary, culturally-driven understandings of what is right and wrong.
For example, the COC teaches that Jesus turned the water into what amounted to grape juice. They argue that the wine was so weak that a person would be unable to drink enough to cop a buzz. (Silly, isn't it? The story itself argues against such an understanding, but the COC came of age concurrently with the Temperance Movements of the 19th and 20th Centuries. In their support of these movements, they had to explain away that inconvenient Wedding at Cana story.) My point is that COCers are teetotalers as a matter of doctrine to this day, despite the fact that Jesus came eating and drinking and was called a glutton and a drunkard, etc. That doctrine arose directly from the place and time in history the COC was “born,” if you will; their distorted interpretations that support their doctrine against alcohol of any kind are relics of that culture.
Scholars also readily acknowledge that certain books, still contained in our “inspired” canon, are known forgeries, and parts of others we have reason to believe were added/extrapolated.
Even biblical scholars still can't say for certain what Paul or any of the anonymous authors meant. All they can really do is argue for probable context, audience, and intent.
In other words, the whole thing is an unrecoverable mess. I still find it a fascinating mess, particularly considering its undeniable influence on western culture, but it's certainly a mess. And I'm appalled at how many uneducated laymen insist that they can know, from whatever modern English translation, what God wants for everybody.
It's unspeakably arrogant of them. But here's the thing: they don't know any better. You'll find precious few, if any, of these laymen who have a clear idea of the process whereby we came to have our “bible” and thus have no inkling of how ideas are lost in every translation, or of the unreliability of the texts that have come down to them. They don't know anything about the cultures under discussion. They're simply ignorant that there are crucial details they must have in order to even get close to the intended meaning.
As far as they are concerned, they've been reading this book their whole lives and they understand it. Period.
I sometimes point out the blaring lack of humility in their taking that position, but the irony is lost on them.
d
5 comments
Intresting, to say the least! I’ll probably come back at least once or more, just to understand all you said. I have to think about some of it, too, before I even have a comment.
Diana,
I grieve that you were raised in such an abusive environment. A bright, inquisitive person like you should have had your intellectual light nurtured from the moment you were born.
It speaks volumes of your resolve and downright gumption to get an education, go out into the world, and to accomplish what you have and are accomplishing.
-Lorraine
Lorraine, thank you for the compliment, but I’m not sure I’d call it an “abusive” environment–not based on this, anyway. My therapist, after hearing a fraction of what I’ve just described, termed my upbringing “spiritually abusive,” which I merely find interesting. From the inside looking out, however, people who believe like that are simply dedicated to following/obeying the Lord with all their might, and certainly do not see what they’re doing as “abusive” in any sense.
I do understand why you might understand it that way, though, and many of my Christian friends see it the same, and clearly feel that, had I been raised in a less literal, less legal strain of religion, I might not be an atheist.
Perhaps that is true. I cannot say.
Michelle and I were discussing child abuse yesterday morning, because she’s reading The Wild Truth, the book by Chris McCandless’s sister about their upbringing and why he left to go Into The Wild. The book is a study of child abuse, on the level–according to many people–of A Child Called It. Michelle reads these books but I cannot stomach them. Michelle remarked that, had my upbringing been different, I might want and have my own family. (She finds it interesting that my big brother is also childless, and my little brothers have, erm, “troubled” families. None of us have what could possibly be termed a “normal, functional family,” by any stretch. Frankly, until she mentioned it, I never saw it in that light.)
I think you both make interesting points (if I understand yours correctly), but again…I cannot say. I only know what is, not what might have been if.
d
Interestingly enough, I learned all about the Stone-Campbell movement when going to a CoC in Japan. For some reason these non-American CoC folk, while still super conservative and anti-everything, are more comfortable with the actual history behind the denomination.
Intriguing, Jamie.
I’d never heard of it until Mich and I got together. She was raised Church of Christ and at some point decided to look into it (I’m not sure what provoked her research), and had discovered…well…the less-than-1st-Century origin. I’d long since left the COC and also long since understood and accepted that I was an atheist, but this was still mind-boggling to me. I mean, the origin of the sect is even quite recent. And yet, I’m sure that most COCers have never even heard of Stone-Campbell.
d
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