"The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eye witnesses during the life time of other eye witnesses that report supernatural events which took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim to be divine rather than human in origin."
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Why Dr. Voddie Baucham Trusts the Bible
I can dig this. Voddie has a sweet name and a sweet story: raised by a single Mom who was a Hindu living in South Central LA. He ended up getting out of Oxford with a Ph.D and he's a lecturer and a Christian minister. Here's why he trusts the Bible. It's not because he believes it, or because it worked for him, or because he was raised to believe it:
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12 comments:
But why can't the same argument be made for the Koran?
Heeeeyyyyy is that you again, Anon? Would love to know your name, broseph, but I understand the benefit of anonymity. Thanks for the dialogue nonetheless.
The Koran is not a report on historical supernatural events. By genre, it is wisdom literature meant to be heard and acted upon by the Muslim people.
I'll let R. Stephen Humphreys, professor of Islamic History at UC Santa Barbara take this:
"To represent the Koran as historical would in effect delegitimize the whole historical experience of the Muslim community. The Koran is the charter for the community, the document that called it into existence. And ideally -- though obviously not always in reality -- Islamic history has been the effort to pursue and work out the commandments of the Koran in human life. If the Koran is a historical document, then the whole Islamic struggle of fourteen centuries is effectively meaningless."
There are some great defenses for the Koran out there, but this one doesn't quite fit simply because the Koran is not a historical document written by witnesses of the history that took place. As far as I understand the book, it's a timeless collection of proverbs and law. The eyewitnesses of the Koran were witnesses of Muhammad's words and stories, but not any of his actions or major historical events.
Yes; I prefer anonymity, and hope that it will not impede meaningful conversation.
I am skeptical that Humphreys represents the consensus of Islamic thought. I would venture that, since he does not claim to be of the Muslim faith (as far as I can find), his statement is more than a little presumptuous.
Additionally, the rise in Islamic creationism leads me to believe that at least some Muslims interpret parts of the Koran to be historical.
I concede that much of the Koran is probably not written by eyewitnesses. As you have noted, Muslims have many other arguments (such as alleged scientific foresights) for the divine nature of the Koran.
Back to your original post, are you really crediting the entire Bible as "written down by eye witnesses during the life time of other eye witnesses"? Including the Torah? Or were you only speaking with regards to the New Testament?
As far as I understand it, the rise of Islamic Creationism is due to the Hadith...but I'd like to steer away from discussing Islam seeing as I am far from an expert on it. It'd be best to get input from someone else.
The quote is from Voddie Baucham. I'm not sure about your question. Certainly the clause regarding eyewitnesses writing during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses only pertains to the NT.
I am trying to get the extent to which you support Baucham's quote. I'm glad I don't have to argue over whether the Torah was written by eyewitnesses. :)
With respect, there is in fact controversy as to whether even the New Testament gospels were written down by eyewitnesses. Most scholars place the earliest composition of the gospels to at least thirty years after Jesus' death. Given a lack of consensus over authorship of some gospels (John is an excellent example) questions necessarily remain as to what extent the gospel accounts were corrupted by at least three decades of oral tradition.
that's where I find the NT most credible.
Thirty years is not a long time. These writings of eyewitness accounts were written down during a time in which other people from Jerusalem could have easily refuted such claims.
Think about the people who say the Holocaust never happened. They are on the margins and considered absurd and that happened nearly 60 years ago.
When you have historical accounts being written and distributed widely just 30 years after the event, there are still people living to either support of deny the historicity of the claimed event.
The Biblical writers actually speak to this, challenging their readers to investigate the claim of a resurrection (because there were so many claims of resurrection in the first century, there was trouble validating Christ's accomplishment).
"After his death, Christ appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive..."
-1 Corinthians 15:6
Or how Luke introduces his account:
"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account of it all."
-Luke 1:1-3
St. Peter wrote this:
"For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of majesty...we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him."
-2 Peter 1:16-21
People challenged the validity of such a historical event, but because there were so many people still living who were witnesses to it all, the challenges were squelched due to the vast credibility in the sheer number of witnesses in Galilee, Samaria, and Judea.
Also with respect, your Wikipedia scholarship of the NT needs more citations. I think a lot of it is acceptable, but much scholastic skepticism has been silenced as of late thanks to Bauckham's, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2008). Rodney Stark is another important person to read.
I find your general argument to be well-reasoned, and in my experience within the mainstream of Christian theological thought.
However, you have made two claims that I find to be of dubious value:
Firstly, your comparison of the time delay between the gospels and the Holocaust is too simplistic. To support our understanding of the Holocaust, we have considerably more accessible evidential volume with effectively zero time delay (letters from Nazi leaders, photos immediately following liberation of the death camps, etc) between the event and the evidence. To disregard these differences between the two cases would, in my view, be disingenuous.
Secondly, your claim that "much scholastic skepticism has been silenced as of late thanks to Bauckham's, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (2008)" was entirely unsupported. Given the volume and diversity of skeptical thought with regards to the NT, I would ask you to justify this rather extraordinary claim.
Finally, a question: which of my references did you find under-cited?
On a tangential note, I subscribe to evidence that indicates Wikipedia to be nearly as accurate as orthodox encyclopedias like Encyclopedia Britannica. I also acknowledge that it is vulnerable to all flavors of human error, and its claim should not be accepted uncritically. That said, I link to it as a way of pointing to the mountain of accumulated knowledge at our fingertips.
I have discovered more information that address your intonations of squelched skepticism.
Here is a summary of modern thought concerning the historicity of Jesus. Of particular note is the directly cited claim that most modern scholars reject [Baucham's] claim that all of the gospels were written by eyewitnesses. While I affirm that consensus does not dictate historicity, I submit to you that your claims of squelching skepticism on the historicity of certain Biblical events appear to be inaccurate.
At any rate, I would also like to encourage interested readers to explore the following compilation of resources Wikipedia has to offer concerning modern scholarship wrt Biblical historicity.
On a philosophical note, I affirm that you can expect to find misrepresentations and bias in any resource. However, this consideration should not justify inhibition towards exposure to alternative viewpoints. And I submit that Wikipedia is a reasonable place to start.
dude Wikipedia fail...
All the sources you cited as rejecting Bauckham were all written before Bauckham (1985, 2004, and a summary of the argument from the journal of biblical lit written in 2003). From the journals I read, the current trend of NT scholarship is leaning toward the eyewitnesses and a true Jesus.
In fact, the most current source on that whole page is Bauckham himself...it's time to update that article. I stopped reading when an article from 1956 was cited.
Oh, about "time delay" of the manuscripts in comparison with the Holocaust (this is off the cuff so I might mis-quote something about Caesar. It's been a while since I've done this homework):
Instead of the Holocaust, take any example of ancient history with little manuscriptual evidence.
Caesar's Gallic Wars are a fact written across human history and not really disputed amongst historians or textbook writers. While details of motive and number of people are lost, the main events are considered factual world history: Caesar lead a series of campaigns against Gallic tribes which resulted in the furthering of the Roman Empire.
Yet evidence is shaky. We have under 10 manuscripts that record the events of the Wars between 60-50 BC. These original and authentic manuscripts were not written until somewhere in the 9th or even 10th century. Very distant from any man who lived to see or fight in those wars. How can we be sure that it was Caesar's campaign?
Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Poetics are in similar situations along with most of my beloved Greeks. Very late manuscripts and very little number. The earliest original manuscripts from the Post-Socratic era date to 700 A.D. And that's generous.
Yet the Biblical manuscripts are dated just thirty years after the event and we have 5,686 Greek manuscripts of the NT that all range within 100 years of the originals/copies we have found. That's not counting the 19,000-ish manuscripts that were found in Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages.
Beyond that, the copies have an unreal accuracy of something like 99%
If you disregard the NT's accuracy, you must disregard much of ancient history's accuracy. Especially the Greeks. And how can we give up the Greeks? If the Bible is under such a hot microscope of skepticism, the very foundations of Western thought and history must be questioned or thrown out.
I chose to be OK with 10 manuscripts written several hundreds of years later because I trust the oral process to a certain degree. So I'm also ok with thousands of manuscripts written over 100 years.
Jeeze let's just get a cup of coffee already and record a convo. I'll post it to the blog and we'll split the google ad money 60/40.
Back to business:
1) You claim "From the journals I read, the current trend of NT scholarship is leaning toward the eyewitnesses and a true Jesus." Like your previous claim ("much scholastic skepticism has been silenced..."), this argument remains wholly unsupported. That is to say, both I and your readers do not have, and may indeed benefit from, exposure to the evidence informing your conclusions. I urge you to provide justification for your claims.
2) I agree that article to which I linked could certainly be brought more up to date, particularly if the academic environment has been so impacted by Bauckham as you claim. I still subscribe to its overall descriptive power, and do not share your discouragement when encountering the occasional outdated citation.
3) I appear to be incorrect in my assertion that Wikipedia describes a recent (namely, proceeding Bauckham's latest work) consensus. However, you have yet to produce evidence that Bauckham has altered what had been a definitive consensus within the academic community.
4) I am impressed that you chose to abandon the Holocaust comparison, as I find the comparison to ancient history to be much more tenable and interesting.
5) To my understanding, your assessment as to the volume and timing of ancient historical documents to be largely precise.
6) Obviously, there are many arguments that further support and further tear down your (still-loosely-defined) assertions of Biblical historicity. If you desire to continue this thread, either here or in a separate post, I would submit the following issues for your consideration:
A) The issue of bias/non-objectivity/evangelistic motive on behalf of the disciples. This observation is tightly linked to the fact that all contemporaneous historians without a spiritual stake in the resurrection of Christ (with the arguable exception of Josephus and a few others) fail to affirm the historicity of many high-visibility events in his life.
B) The observation that many people who build upon Greek philosophy are more meaningfully impacted by their ideas irrespective of their origin or their underlying historicity. Conversely, Christian apologetics as I understand it is much more committed to protecting the historicity of Jesus’ miracles. This suggests that your analogy of Greek historians to Christian apologists to be flawed.
Back to business:
1) You claim "From the journals I read, the current trend of NT scholarship is leaning toward the eyewitnesses and a true Jesus." Like your previous claim (that "much scholastic skepticism has been silenced..."), this argument remains entirely unsupported. That is to say, both I and your readers do not have, and may indeed benefit from, exposure to the evidence informing your conclusions. I urge you to provide justification for your claims.
2) I agree that article to which I linked could certainly be brought more up to date, particularly if the academic environment has so dramatically changed in the past five years as you claim. I still subscribe to its overall descriptive power, and am not discouraged by the occasional outdated citation.
3) I appear to be incorrect in my assertion that Wikipedia describes a recent (namely, proceeding Bauckham's latest work) consensus. However, you have yet to produce evidence that Bauckham has altered what had been a definitive consensus within the academic community.
4) I am impressed that you chose to abandon the Holocaust comparison, as I find the comparison to ancient history to be much more tenable and interesting.
5) To my understanding, your assessment as to the volume and timing of ancient historical documents to be largely precise.
6) Obviously, there are many arguments that further support and further tear down your still-loosely-defined assertions of Biblical historicity. If you desire to continue this thread, either here or in a separate post, I would submit the following issues for your consideration:
• The issue of bias/non-objectivity/evangelistic motive on behalf of the disciples. This observation is tightly linked to the fact that all contemporaneous historians without a spiritual stake in the resurrection of Christ (with the arguable exception of Josephus and a few others) fail to affirm the historicity of many high-visibility events in his life.
• The observation that many people who build upon Greek philosophy are more meaningfully impacted by their ideas irrespective of their origin or their underlying historicity. Conversely, Christian apologetics as I understand it is much more committed to protecting the historicity of Jesus’ miracles. This suggests that your analogy of Greek historians to Christian apologists to be flawed.
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