December 16, 2010
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(book review) "The Christian Delusion" - Ch. 6: The Bible and Modern Scholarship (part 1)
Intro:
This series is an atheist's review of an important anthology critical of Christian beliefs called, "The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails" (TCD), that is likely to be popularly discussed across the web. I'll be reviewing the book in light of just about every other response to TCD on the web (pros and cons) and responding to new Christian objections as I find them. I think this will be the best that I personally can contribute to improving the online dialogue between Christians and non-believers on popular battleground issues.
Chapter 6, "The Bible and Modern Scholarship" by Paul Tobin:First impressions: This chapter covers way too much ground and doesn't appear to do it very well (since some of the problems are fairly evident in just a first reading). It is barely argued, mainly asserted and takes for granted the perspective of the first four chapters, where in any other case, we'd just accept secular scholarship and dismiss every defense of supposedly inerrant magical books. It is a summary of part of another book and Tobin references books that seem to be summaries of conclusions reached by scholars rather than the under-structure of those arguments. In other words, Tobin opens up a huge cans of worms and leaves himself open to a lot of criticism even if every conclusion he touches on about the Bible and modern scholarship happens to be completely correct. Many Christian reviewers simply pointed to other evangelical scholarship and said "they disagree." Any Christian who has some investment in apologetics already and who took offense to the first 3 chapters and especially the "outsider test for faith" in chapter 4 will be unimpressed with Tobin's contribution to TCD (unlike Babinski's chapter 5 which stands on its own merits).
I will take each issue in turn to the best of my ability and call the debate as it stands presented in TCD vs. the all the responses from Christian reviewers. As you can see from this post, I will be bringing the entire conversation to my readers, chunk by chunk and will use Christian reviewer, Steve Hays' 36 numbered points (that Tobin uses as well in his responses to Hays) and supplement that framework with the random tidbits less thorough reviewers have contributed. The table of contents below will eventually be a full set of links for future posts (and I've thrown in some other links for basic reference purposes). By the end of this survey hopefully it should be clear where each issue stands insofar as what is available online is concerned. Arguments that require the supplement of books and unavailable academic papers will take a hit in terms of my provisional non-professional conclusions. It's important though to see how things look through the eyes of the internet-only crowd and people who are in the know can easily figure out which chunks need to be online in the future and easily accessible to all.
Table of contents for my review series on chapter 6 of TCD:1: Does Genesis 1 contradict Genesis 2 on when plants and animals are created?(see here and here) Tobin appeals to consensus authority on the validity of the documentary hypothesis to justify the probability of the contradiction, and Hays and others provide an argument that is persuasive, imo.2: Does Genesis 6 contradict Genesis 7 in terms of the number of clean animals taken aboard Noah's ark?
3: Is Deuteronomy 23:3 an example of Biblically mandated racism?
4: Does Ecclesiastes contradict Proverbs?
5: Does James contradict Paul on the relationship to faith and works?
6: Is the young earth creationist version of Noah's Flood a scientific impossibility?
(see here)7: Are parts of the Genesis story dependent on the epic of Gilgamesh?
8: Could Abraham have been from Ur of the Chaldees?
9: Could Isaac have met a king of the Philistines at Gerar?
10: Had camels been domesticated at the time of Abraham and Joseph?
11: How could circumcision set God's covenant with Abraham apart if all the other cultures were doing it, too?
12: Is the story of Moses a meaningful parallel with the story of Sargon?
13: Does the Bible give Moses' father-in-law three different names indicating different traditions?
14: Should we expect Moses' name to be Hebrew rather than Egyptian?
15: Does the uncertainty of the dating of Exodus matter to authenticity?
16: Is the Exodus historical?
17: Is the conquest of Canaan by Joshua historical?
18: Is the Hebrew monarchy historical?
19: Should we expect King David and King Solomon's empires to be vast (in contradiction to the archeological evidence)?
20: What's wrong with talking snakes and talking donkeys?
21: Does the virgin birth of Jesus parallel other pagan stories?
22: Is Herod's massacre of the infants in the gospel of Matthew a fiction?
23: Should it have been God's intention to avoid infant massacres?
24: Can the nativity of Jesus be discounted because it is the aggadic midrash genre?
25: Does Matthew contradict Luke on the nativity of Jesus (this is the census of Quirinus issue)?
26: Is Matthew 2:14-15's use of Hosea 11:1-2 an example of a fake/unfulfilled prophecy?
27: Does Matthew misuse Isaiah 7:14?
28: Does Isaiah 19:5-7 get the prophecy wrong about the Nile river drying up?
29: Does Isaiah 17:1-2 get its prophecy wrong about Damascus ceasing to be a city?
30: Does Ezekiel 26:7-14 get its prophecy wrong about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Tyre?
31: Does Ezekiel 29:8-12 get its prophecy wrong about Egypt becoming uninhabited?
32: Does Ezekiel 29:19-20 get its prophecy wrong about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Egypt?
33: Does Jeremiah 36:30 contradict 2 Kings 24:6 about Jehoiakim, king of Judah, having a successor?
34: Did Paul expect the end of the world in his own lifetime?
35: Does the ecclesiology of 1 Corinthians contradict the ecclesiology of 1 Timothy and Titus?
36: Are many books (and portions of books) of the Bible pseudonymous?
The online conversation so far (This list is updated as of mid-December 2010):
Christian reviewer, Looney:Christian reviewers at Theologyweb (Seasanctuary and GakuseiDon):
Christian reviewer, Diglotting:
Christian reviewer, jayman777:
Christian reviewer, Peter Pike:
Triablogue (Christian reviewers, Steve Hays, Jason Engwer, and Paul Manata, click here for updates from Triablogue):The Infidel DelusionSee the three articles on chapter 6.Atheist contributor, Paul Tobin (click for updates coming in January 2011):
Paul Tobin Responds to The Infidel Delusion (Part 1)
Christian reviewer, Jason Engwer:
Craig Blomberg On His Choice To Adopt And Defend InerrancyMaterial On Christmas Apologetics
Just links.
Christian reviewer, Steve Hays:
Christian reviewer, Patrick Chan:Paul Tobin's credentialsShows the backcover of Tobin's book to make fun of Tobin's lack of qualifications.
Christian reviewer, Cory Tucholski:Just links.
Christian reviewer, Randal Rauser:The Christian Delusion, Paul Tobin, reasoned faith and inspirationInspiring thoughts on biblical inspiration and skeptical arguments
The Tentative Apologist digs into his fan mail ... and comes up with Dostoyevsky
The Bible and Metallica seeks to win over Susan Boyle fans (but not really)
Christian reviewer, Victor Reppert:Archaeological Support for ScriptureBrief complaint.
Please note that you can search all the above links here.
Outro:So this is going to take a while, but should be educational. In my next post I'll address Christian reviewers who didn't seem to care too much about the issue of inerrancy. Then I'll deal with general issues overshadowing all the points here on how non-scholars should deal with modern scholarship from their position of relative ignorance. After that, there's the issue of evangelical loyalty to faith-approved conclusions before getting into all the Bible issues below. [note, links won't become available until later] Finally I'll get onto the 36 points between Hays and Tobin and then add posts on top of that if other things turn up that need to be covered.
Ben