January 19, 2011

• (book review) "The Christian Delusion" - Ch. 6: The Bible and Modern Scholarship (part 2)

  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 has been 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 educational and perhaps the best that I personally can contribute to improving the online dialogue between Christians and non-believers on popular battleground issues.
  
  

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  Who cares if the Bible gets some things wrong?

  But before we get into the issue of scholarly authority and bias and the details of atheist, Paul Tobin's chapter, a surprising number of Christian reviewers seem relatively okay with an errant word of the Christian god.  Let's take a look.

  Looney said this:

  My bet is still on Luke getting it right - especially since he writes much closer to the events - but if he gets one event a bit confused, it certainly won't shake my faith.  [emphasis mine]

  I assumed Looney was an inerrantist, but perhaps not.  It seems he is of the opinion at least that inerrancy is optional.

  Diglotting said this:

  ...as with a lot of this essay, I am left thinking, “so what?” If the Genesis flood narrative never actually took place, what does that prove? That Jesus was never resurrected and is not Lord over all creation? Hardly. It only proves that perhaps the genre and literary purpose of Genesis needs to be rethought.  [...]  if  Luke was just plain wrong, what does it prove? That the rest of what Luke wrote is historically false and should not be believed? If Luke was historically inaccurate on the census issue, I guess it could be a problem for those who hold to a scientific/historical view of inerrancy.  [emphasis mine]

  Jayman777 said this:

  Like the previous chapter, an individual Christian’s response to this chapter will depend largely on his views of inspiration and inerrancy.  There are numerous Christians who are modern scholars and have felt no need to leave Christianity because of their findings.  [...]  The bulk of the section is spent attacking the historicity of the infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke.  Raymond Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah is a scholarly treatment of the infancy narratives.  He does not attempt to defend every historical detail of the narratives.  I must also note that if a passage in the Bible is of a genre of literature that is not concerned with history then it is pointless to criticize that passage for not being history.  [...]  I agree with Tobin that the prophecies he mentions from Ezekiel were not fulfilled.  [emphasis mine]

  I'm not clear on what Diglotting and jayman777's views on inspiration are (and I recall that jayman777 doesn't have his views 100% crystallized yet).  Presumably they are fine with their god's word being as generally true and reliable as other human works.  One wonders why a most excellent god aimed so low in terms of quality control, but okay.  The expectations of fundamentalists seem more philosophically justified at face value.

  Randal Rauser said this:

  Tobin talks about "forgeries" in the Bible, what New Testament scholars call pseudopigraphy. To call them forgeries is about as blunt as calling a polygamist living in sub-Saharan Africa an "adulterer".  [...]  So let's say that 2 Peter is pseudopigraphic – it was not written by Peter but rather by someone emulating his style (rather unsuccessfully it must be said) and claiming his authority. Tobin's argument presumably would be that God cannot appropriate a pseudopigraphic text, that is, he cannot include it within a canon of literature that through the providential course of history will come to be recognized as authoritative in matters of faith and action by a specific community of faith.  Why not Mr. Tobin? What's the problem? [emphasis mine]

  Rauser's view of inspiration is the most unsettling since the Christian god can appropriate literally anything that he wants to.  Perhaps mythicism is true and Christianity started out as a mystery cult with a cosmic Jesus who never even existed.  Why couldn't this god just use the urban legend style gospels as "authoritative" and divinely insist the church take historicity seriously?  Maybe Rauser wouldn't have a problem with that, or with my proof that the character of god in the Old Testament lies to Abraham.  I don't know.  But we have to admit here that modern Christians have some extremely lax standards of "inspiration" as far as truth goes and then still manage to be confounded when outsiders looking in have an eyebrow raised.  The only thing left to grant errant documents divine authority is Rauser's flimsy "god perception evidence" and perhaps the "unfair cultural mystique" of the Bible that was discussed in Jason Long's chapter 3.

  
  

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  Outro:

  Each of these Christian folk are willing to defend Biblical contradictions when they think skeptics have gone too far, but ultimately inerrancy (or at least Tobin's standard of inerrancy) isn't an issue for them.  That's a slight majority of Christian reviewers.  The three Triabloggers in The Infidel Delusion will presumably not be giving ground. 

  This situation might be inspiring if I thought that the more liberal Christian reviewers were necessarily going to compromise on some of the more important errors in the Bible (as in, something that might help the Christian population get along with the modern world) rather than just covering the Christian god's behind and maintaining the general status quo of mere self-satisfying belief.  I'm not familiar enough with any of their stances on various modern issues to know for sure.

  Ben

  • 9:12 am
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