_{Handout 40}

Critical Scholars and the “Scientific” Interpretation of the Bible (from the late 1800’s until now)

A. The Major Development in Western History that the Stage for the “Scientific” Approach to the Bible (also known as “Historical Criticism): The Enlightenment

In western history, in the 1500’s through the 1700’s, there was considerable progress in science & math.

You might recognize names such as: Da Vinci, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.

So there was a great rise in confidence in science, math, and in logic / in human reason.

But sadly, there was also a loss in confidence in the church, because science was disproving things that the church had taught.

Three examples:

• The earth is flat.
• The earth is the center of the universe.
• The sun orbits around the earth.

In view of this, among the educated classes, there was a growing question:

Should our beliefs be governed by religion (= by what the church tells us), or, by science and reason?

The movement towards using science, math & human reason to explore and understand the world, instead of being told what to think by the church or by a king, came to be called the Enlightenment.

It can reasonably be dated from the mid-1600’s to about 1800 ( = from René Descartes to Immanuel Kant).

The Enlightenment is sometimes described as the time in the West when → “we learned to think for ourselves.”

B. The Effect of The Enlightenment on How Intellectuals Viewed the Bible:

• There was a growing assumption that . . . even Scripture must agree with reason, with science.

• There was an early confidence that the Bible would fit with the conclusions reached by logic and reason. John Locke wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695).

• But eventually: by ±1720, the leading intellectuals concluded that . . . reason has the right to judge everything, including the Bible.

  One of the early thinkers to assert this was: Benedict Spinoza, 1670.

  If you take any Intro to Philosophy course, you will learn of Spinoza.

• “Rationalism”: In its full extent, the Enlightenment led to rationalism, the philosophical position that: only that which can be derived by reason or by scientific observation can be accepted as true.

• According to rationalism, the very idea of revelation from God was rejected, because it cannot be derived by pure logic, nor verified by scientific observation.

• Definition: A “rationalist” is . . . a person who believes in rationalism.

  By way of a clarification: For Christians, using reason, in general, is entirely okay. We are rational, but we are not "rationalists."

• So for rationalists, the Bible was no longer viewed as authoritative revelation from God; it was no longer viewed as “God’s word to man.” Rather, they say the Bible is → man’s word about God.

C. The Effect of Rationalism on How Scholars Studied and Interpreted the Bible, The “Scientific” Approach to the Bible = the “Critical Approach” to the Bible.

1. Many Bible scholars who accepted rationalism continued to study the Bible. But again, they no longer viewed the Bible as revelation from God. Rather, they now viewed the Bible as → the product of human authors who were themselves products of their times.

2. And they will now study the Bible “scientifically”; this means:

   1. The Bible will be studied . . . for what it really says, rather than . . . having the Church tell you what it means. // Note: This does sound a little like Martin Luther–but Luther believed the Bible was true.

   2. They will not interpret it allegorically; they will not spiritualize it.

      Rather, they will interpret it . . . according to normal ways that literature is read, and with a definite emphasis on its historical setting. // Does this sound a little like what I have taught you? Yes.

      But here is the big difference between the critical approach vs. what I have taught you:

   3. In particular, they now interpret the Bible . . . according to what reason & science can allow.

      Another way to say this is: They no longer read the Bible “uncritically”; rather, . . . reason and science are now the judge over the Bible. Reason & science tell us what can and what cannot actually happen. They sometimes refer to the earlier approach as “pre-critical.”

3. The third item listed just above had two very big, very quick, results:

   • The miracles recorded in the Bible were rejected as impossible.
   • The idea of genuinely predictive prophecy was also rejected, because that would also be a miracle.

D. Is the “Critical Approach” to the Bible Simply a Method of Interpreting the Bible?

1. Critical scholars commonly refer to their approach as the critical method of interpreting the Bible. For example, they pay close attention to: the meanings of the words, the context, the genre, the historical setting, etc. Does any of that sound familiar?

   • Q: So is the critical approach to interpreting the Bible simply a method?

     A: __ __ .

   It is not simply a method, it involves . . . an underlying worldview: rationalism.

   And that worldview rejects . . . miracles / rejects real prophecy.

2. Their worldview drives how they “interpret” any OT passage which presents itself as a prediction. They handle them in one of two ways:

   1. If event that was prophesied took place during the OT, they say that . . . the passage was written after the event. So for them, any passage that seems to predict the exile → was actually written after the exile.

   2. If the events that are apparently predicted take place after the end of the OT, . . . they re-interpret the prophecy to be about something else. Because for them, the OT cannot possibly predict the distant future. // In particular, they deny that any OT passage is a genuine prophecy about Jesus.

E. So → How Do Critical Scholars View the Writers of the OT, Who Did(!) Believe in Miracles?

In general, critical scholars are somewhat charitable in their comments about the Bible writers themselves.

They do not tend to view the Bible writers as being outright dishonest when they describe OT events as miracles. Rather, critical scholars will point out that the Bible writers lived in a pre-scientific age, and therefore when they call something a miracle, they are explaining it as they understood it. But now, critical scholars will say, we know better.

Critical scholars will allow that there might have been some pious exaggeration of natural events to depict them as miracles.

E.g., perhaps an earthquake resulted in temporarily making some part of the Red Sea very low, such that the Israelites were able to cross, but that the water returned as the Egyptians were following them, etc.

But for thorough-going critical scholars, the bottom line is that → there were no actual miracles in the Old Testament, because miracles are impossible.

F. So their worldview drove them to look for the “real” authors of several OT books.

If Moses did not write the Pentateuch, if Jeremiah did not write all of the book of Jeremiah, who did?

Eventually, critical scholars rejected many of the people that the OT presents as the authors of the books.

[For example: Isaiah, Daniel.] But this raises the question: Who were the true authors?

Critical scholars went on massive hunts to look for clues as to who really wrote the OT books, and when were they really written. They tried to identify different writing styles, different vocabulary, or different theology, in the text. Their “critical method” of studying the Bible generated an entire field of critical studies.

But Note: The fact that they rejected several persons that the OT presents as the authors of the books was not the result of their method; it was the result of their rationalistic worldview.

Happily, we do not share their worldview, so this is not our problem.

G. Some Benefits to Conservatives from Critical Scholarship:

We do not have the same worldview that critical scholars have. Their worldview is __ .

And we profoundly disagree with many of the conclusions critical scholars have reached.

Nonetheless, there have been some benefits to conservatives from critical scholarship.

1. At some points critical scholars have done some detailed interpretive work which is very good.

2. They have been particularly strong at relating books of the Bible to the history of the times in which they were written. // In particular, hey have helped us to understand the covenants in the Old Testament much better. [I myself read much of their work in this area for my dissertation.]

3. They have motivated conservatives to be better scholars, and to read their Bibles more carefully. They have made us think harder. One positive result is that since the mid-1900’s, conservatives(!) have produced several excellent sets of commentaries on the Bible.

4. This has helped conservative pastors to become more careful interpreters of Scripture. This can help their preaching to be more biblically sound.

H. The Regrettable Harm that Critical Scholarship Has Done to the Church:

Most university professors who teach Bible courses are critical scholars. Sadly, many seminary professors are now critical scholars. And they teach their students (= future pastors) that the Bible is not really true, the miracles recorded in it did not actually happen, and its prophecies are meaningless.

This has led to major denominations in the US, Canada, & Western Europe walking further and further away from the Bible, and from the gospel. They all give lip-service to the Bible. But several denominations give it little regard; they do not preach it. That is an undeniable effect of the critical approach to the Bible upon the church.

I. Summary & Conclusions:

The “scientific” interpretation of the Bible = the critical approach to the Bible, is not simply a method of interpretation, but is driven by an underlying worldview / underlying philosophy: rationalism.

That worldview, that philosophy grew out of . . . the Enlightenment.

What is rationalism? → Only what can be established by science, math or logic can be accepted as true.

Therefore, rationalism rejects → miracles, and in specific: predictive prophecy.

So while critical studies of the Bible are often quite detailed and careful, the critical approach to the Bible is not neutral. It is not just a “method.”

Rather, it is tied to a worldview, rationalism, a worldview which rejects(!) the worldview of the Bible, the very book it seeks to explain.

By way of a fun little parting note–

In the early 1900’s a major German critical scholar, Bernhard Duhm [pronounced “doom”], did an extensive analysis of the book of Isaiah. He concluded that the final form of the book of Isaiah was probably written about 70 BC (yes, just seventy years before Jesus was born). This is in stark contrast to the way the OT presents the prophet Isaiah; it places him in & around 740 BC. Nonetheless, Duhm championed his conclusion that the final form of the book of Isaiah was reached around 70 BC, and many critical scholars favored Duhm’s view.

However, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1948 at an ancient site named “Qumran” (located just northwest oif the dead Sea); they contained a complete manuscript of Isaiah which undeniably dates to approx. 130 BC.

This manuscript is called the "Great Isaiah Scroll"; the formal designation of this manuscript is: 1QIsaa (which means it was found in the first cave where scrolls were found at Qumran, and it is the first scroll of Isaiah found in that cave). It is approx. 24 feet long, and is housed in Jerusalem in the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum. The funding to build the specific museum portion (the "Shrine of the Book") that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls was donated by the Rockefeller Foundation.

And that manuscript of Isaiah itself is obviously a copy of an earlier manuscript, which could easily date back to 200 BC, or earlier. This was all rather embarrassing for the critical scholars who had agreed with Duhm’s view that the final form of Isaiah was not reached until 70 BC. Facts are stubborn things.