Last week nearly 10,000 people invaded the French Quarter of New Orleans for a three-day conference. It wasn’t a convention of Mardi Gras mask-makers, a congregation of Bourbon Street miscreants, or an assembly of Hustler devotees. No, this was the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. This is a collective of the world’s religious scholars. SBL is the largest society of biblical scholars on the planet. The program of lectures and meetings is the size of a phone book for a mid-sized city. Too many choices! So many great biblical scholars were there: N. T. Wright, Jon Dominic Crossan, D. A. Carson, Bart Ehrman, Stanley Porter, Frederick Danker, Alan Culpepper, Craig Evans, Robert Stein, Joel Marcus, April Deconick, Elaine Pagels, John Kloppenborg, R. B. Hays, Peter Enns, Buist Fanning, Harold Attridge, Luke Timothy Johnson, Peter Davids, Craig Keener, Ben Witherington, Rikki Watts, Robert Gundry, Emanuel Tov, Walter Brueggemann, Eric Myers, Eugene Boring, J. K. Elliott—that’s just a small sampling of the names. Liberals and evangelicals, theists and atheists, those who are open and those who are hostile to the Christian faith—all were there.
Overall, the Society of Biblical Literature is comprised of professors who teach religion, humanities, biblical studies, history, ethics, English literature, and theology at virtually all the schools in the nation that offer such subjects. Not just the United States, but a multitude of other countries are represented (although because of the long distances and short conference, many scholars did not come). Private schools, public schools, elite schools, and unknown schools—all were represented. Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Tübingen, Chicago, Duke, Dallas Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Seminary, Princeton, Yale, Biola, Claremont, Manchester, Durham, St Andrews, Westminster Seminary, Wheaton, Gordon-Conwell, Emory, TCU’s Brite Divinity School, SMU, University of Texas, Northwestern University, Rice, Brandeis, London School of Theology, Münster University, Notre Dame, community colleges, even unaccredited schools were represented.
As remarkable as it may sound, most biblical scholars are not Christians. I don’t know the exact numbers, but my guess is that between 60% and 80% of the members of SBL do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead. The post-lecture discussions are often spirited, and occasionally get downright nasty.
The annual SBL conference is a place where young scholars can present their papers, meet senior scholars, and talk to publishers about book projects. Great opportunities are at SBL! Master’s students meet with professors whom they’d like to study with for their PhDs. They make appointments, go out for coffee, or just happen to bump into them at the conference.
Now, what I’ve said about SBL so far sounds like an exciting, positive event in which a good exchange of ideas occurs, and people grapple with what the Bible is all about. To a degree that is true, but a darker underbelly to the conference, never far from the surface, shows up often enough. It has to do with the posture of many liberal scholars toward evangelicals.
One of my interns, a very bright student who is preparing for doctoral studies, met with one scholar to discuss the possibility of studying under him for his doctorate. The scholar was cordial, friendly, and a fine Christian man. He encouraged James to pursue the doctorate at his non-confessional school in the UK. (We have found the UK schools to be far more open to evangelical students, since they are more concerned that a student make a plausible defense of his views than that he or she holds the party line.) Later, James met a world-class scholar of early Christian literature and engaged him in conversation. James demonstrated deep awareness of the professor’s field, asking intelligent questions and showing great interest in the subject. Then, the professor asked him where he was earning his master’s degree. “Dallas Seminary” was the response. The conversation immediately went south. The scholar no longer was interested in this young man. James was, to this professor, an evangelical and therefore a poorly educated Neanderthal, a narrow-minded bigot, an uncouth doctrinaire neophyte—or worse.
This was no isolated case. I’ve seen it happen time and time again. There is an assumption that students from an evangelical school—especially a dispensational school—only get a second-class education and are blissfully ignorant of the historical-critical issues of biblical scholarship. Many of the mainline liberal schools routinely reject applications to their doctoral programs from evangelical students who are more qualified than their liberal counterparts—solely because they’re evangelicals. And Dallas Seminary students especially have a tough time getting into primo institutes because of the stigma of coming from, yes, I’ll say it again—a dispensational school. One of my interns was earning his second master’s degree at a mainline school, even taking doctoral courses. He was head and shoulders above most of the doctoral students there. But when he applied for the PhD at the same school, he was rejected. His Dallas Seminary degree eliminated him.
The prejudice runs deep—almost as deep as the ignorance. Yes, Dallas Seminary is a dispensational school. But it’s not your father’s dispensational school. Progressive dispensationalism, engineered by Darrell Bock, Craig Blaising, et alii, about twenty-five years ago has tied a dispensational hermeneutic to a more nuanced appreciation of the biblical covenants. Gone are the days of seeing two New Covenants, of distinguishing the ‘kingdom of God’ from the ‘kingdom of heaven’ in Matthew, and of seeing eschatology as not-yet but not already. The differences between other hermeneutical systems and the dispensationalism of today are not nearly as great as they used to be. But much of liberal scholarship has simply not kept up. There is widespread ignorance about what dispensationalists believe along with what seems to be an unwillingness to find out.
Further, the great irony is that so many liberal scholars don’t even realize that Dallas Seminary not only has only one unit on dispensationalism, but it has never required its students to adhere to this system of interpretation. So much more could be said here; I would simply invite those who are interested in learning more to read Progressive Dispensationalism by Bock and Blaising.
I can speak to issues in New Testament studies at Dallas Seminary, which I know best. Our NT faculty have degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Sheffield, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Dallas Seminary, and Glasgow. We teach a historical-critical method of interpretation, tempered by our presuppositions that the universe is not a closed-system but one in which God has been active. Our students are trained extensively in exegesis of the New and Old Testament, are conversant with the secondary literature, and are able to interact with various viewpoints. Something like 80% of our doctoral dissertations are now getting published—and in prestigious, world-class series no less. (The same, by the way, is true of our master’s students who earn their doctorates elsewhere.) When Harold Hoehner was alive, there were three members in the department who were members of the prestigious Society of New Testament Studies. Now, down to two, we are anticipating several others getting voted in, in due time.
What irritates me is that so many so-called liberal scholars have already predetermined that DTS students get an unacceptable education. They are closed-minded themselves, thinking they know what is taught at the seminary. A genuine liberal used to be someone who was open to all the evidence and examined all the plausible viewpoints. Now, “liberal” has become a hollow term, invested only with the relic of yesteryear’s justifiably proud designation. Today, all too often, “liberal” means no more than left-wing fundamentalist, for the prejudices that guide a liberal’s viewpoints are not to be tampered with, not to be challenged. Doors have been shut in the students’ faces, opportunities denied. Spending $100 on an application is too frequently a waste of time and money, since applications coming from DTS students are routinely chucked into the round file.
If we’re to judge liberal vs. conservative by one’s method, then the new liberal is the evangelical and neo-evangelical who is willing to engage the evidence, examine all sides, and wrestle with the primary data through the various prisms of secondary literature. He’s open. I tell my students every year, “I will respect you far more if you pursue truth and change your views than if you protect your presuppositions and don’t.” And they know my mantra, “Go where the evidence leads.” Sadly, some of the most brilliant scholars in biblical studies have become radically intolerant of conservatives. When conservative professors have that same attitude, they’re usually afraid of having their ideas challenged because they’re insecure in their beliefs. And they’re labeled as fundamentalists. When many “liberal” scholars are just as intolerant, what should we call them?
583 replies to "Frustrations from the Front: The Myth of Theological Liberalism"
I’ve been pondering John’s question of why would a conservative evangelical who wants to work in secular academics opt to go to a conservative evangelical school. So here is what I’m wondering. Education at a conservative evangelical school would be more likely to accommodate a voice from one trained within its ranks. But is there a bias that goes the other way? What of conservative evangelicals that are trained at liberal mainstream universities? Will they still be afforded the same voice and respect in conservative evangelical circles? That might be why exclusively liberal training might be avoided.
On a further note, I don’t want to study at a university because I think their philosophical persuasion is brilliant. I want to study there because I like the programs there, and because I would actually like to publish my Biblical studies stuff and teach at a graduate level. It is less than likely that these two goals of mine will occur from my acquiring a seminary PhD (although occasionally this does happen, I’m not willing to sink more money on a bet).
Yes, I made 350! That was my short term goal in life.
Lisa,
It is not the same. In fact, a university training is desired by most evangelical institutions. The prestige of the name, as well as the rigorous programs employed, give more weight to one who has university training under the belt. It may also be an unconscious approval of someone who’s scholarship has “gone through the fire” and was able to hold his own.
Bryan, your statement is assuming that one is going from a university into an evangelical graduate or post-graduate program. I was thinking of the PhD who had never set foot in an evangelical school.
Bryan #342 —
You were upset before when I was defining empiricism. This is a key point of empiricism. If it is permanently impossible to distinguish between me having eaten fruit-loops or Cookie Crisps, that is to say given perfect knowledge of the present I can make that determination then there is no distinction between me having eater fruit-loops and cookie crisps. The difference doesn’t exist at all. In a very real sense I did either one, neither and both.
Bryan,
I doubt that there is such a thing as completely objective scholarship. However, there is scholarship that is more objective and scholarship that is less objective. There are scholars whose conclusions are influenced by their presuppositions and there are scholars whose conclusions are predetermined by their presuppositions. There are scholars who grapple with their presuppositions and strive to make them clear so that their conclusions can be evaluated accordingly and their are propagandists who seek to conceal the effect of their presuppositions in the hopes that their conclusions will be given more weight than they deserve. There are scholars who fairly meet the strongest arguments against their conclusions and scholars who sweep them under the rug or cavalierly dismiss them.
I don’t think that striving after objective scholarship is futile. A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.
Hi Lisa,
Actually, I was talking about scholars who apply to an evangelical seminary to teach there. Gleason Archer is a good case in point. All of his degrees, I believe, were from Harvard, and that was seen as a great thing among evangelical institutions.
CD,
I didn’t say it was permanently impossible to distinguish them. I said it was impossible of attaining the knowledge of what occurred in reality without believing testimony concerning that reality. You are, once again, assuming that if knowledge cannot be obtained empirically then it is not knowledge. I deny this.
Vinny,
a person cannot transcend his own mind and the finite and cultural limitations thereof. Therefore, he is not able to conduct even a tad bit more of an objective study of the matters we’re discussing than a person who purposely hides and conceals information. The only difference you have described is a person who is consciously manipulative with the information, and does so on purpose, and a person who is unaware of the fact that no matter what he does his presuppositions will determine his conclusions.
Once again, maybe his predetermined beliefs are correct and accurately, or at least sufficiently, describe reality. So be it. My point is that this knowledge is not gained from objective analysis in the slightest. Hence, to draw it back to Dan’s discussion, there is no reason to dismiss evangelicals because they have presuppositions that limit their study because every scholar is in the exact same boat.
Seminary education and Masters in Theology show up where in the bible??? What was the name of the NT seminary that the 12 apostles studied? Why do you care what liberal theologians think? They need the Gospel more than anything.
I am currently a graduating ThM student at DTS. When I was a senior in college, I spent the entire year reading catalogues of various instituitions ranging from Yale, Princeton, to Fuller and Gordon-Conwell. The head of my religion department wanted me to attend an Ivey League Divinity School where his students had a legacy of going. My roommate in fact graduated from there with her MDiv. However, I desired to go to a school with a reputable language program. My experience concentrating in Academic NT Studies has been amazing. I do not think any other institution could have given me a better education in this area. However, I have to agree that some aspects of my education at DTS has been less than desirable. Some of the other classes I have taken in other departments have been less than engaging and have not challenged me ideologically and intellectually. I feel that when I graduate from DTS, I will be able to talk intelligently about exegeting Scripture (thanks to the OT and NT departments) but not about Theology. Though I have taken six or seven courses in systematic theology, in only one was I challenged to engage in current issues. The others I breezed through, with very little effort. I unfortunately have had the same experience with the BE department. I encountered some professors who would not even open the class up for debate and if someone would disagree with them, they would simply tell them they were wrong without engaging in discussion. Being an NT person, I found that some of the scholarship in the BE New Testament classes were outdated and lacking, which led to much frustration in class discussions and a lower grade on papers because the grader was not familiar with the issues (but that is just me venting). I probably should stop, considering I have not received my degree yet, and I would like to remain in good standing! 🙂
Would I have chosen a different institution to do my Master’s work? Probably not. I am very grateful to the profs in the OT and NT department who have opened my eyes up to Scripture and haev taught me how to research issues for myself. I would not trade any other education for that life skill. However, I do wish the seminary would evaluate the scholarship of some of the other departments.
Bryan,
I disagree with your assessment. In any case, it seems that you reject the model of intellectual inquiry to which the secular university subscribes. You are certainly entitled to your opinion but I don’t think you should expect it to adopt a new model just to accommodate you. It seems akin to going to a ballet school and demanding that they teach you tap dancing because you think ballet is a waste of time.
Donna,
Those 12 disciples didn’t have the New Testament at all. Should we do away with that since they did not have it? Of course not! So, what is wrong with studying it (since we don’t have the benefit of living it as the disciples did)?
Vinny,
that’s where you’ve misread me. I reject that I must adopt a particular worldview in assessing the nature of reality in order to be a scholar. You would, frankly, not be able to distinguish my commentary and analysis of a text from a person’s in the university unless we both made remarks assuming the metaphysical reality of the Bible. I don’t reject their model of inquiry. I reject the idea that its objective, and that my analysis should be suspect as subjective in comparison to it. I can get along fine interpreting texts without every mentioning any of this in the university. I just won’t be given that chance. I’m OK with that, but would hope that it changes some day.
BTW, the more appropriate analogy would be in being rejected from a ballet school because my other schools promoted a different brand of shoes than they like to use.
As a current student at DTS in the ThM program who may be looking to pursue PhD studies this post is particularly relevant. So thanks to all who have contributed.
I resonate very much with the comments from William Lane Craig that someone posted earlier. Evangelicals (and Christians more broadly) should be at the forefront of any and all good scholarship. For too long we have been dogged by a lingering anti-intellectualism (Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is must-reading here).
But maybe the problem is that we haven’t figured out how to properly be Christian scholars. Dan mentioned in an earlier comment (#269) that he knows of universities that breed the wrong kind of competition. That leads me to wonder what the right sort of motivation for academic work is for a confessing Christian. I have no doubt that there are wrong motivations for a Christian: greed, pride, self-justification, money (okay, probably not money). And here I’m thinking of the recent biography of G. E. Ladd. In Jonathan Pennington’s review in the most recent issue of JETS, he gives a pertinent warning, “Most of us would long to have even half the impact that Ladd has. But at what cost? Ladd was driven to be accepted by the secular academy as a legitimate scholar, and to this end he sacrificed his family relationships… A word of caution regarding the hopes and priorities of younger scholars certainly lies in this story of a flawed but great evangelical man.” (p. 667). So what shall we do? Should be disengage from the hard work of academic inquiry because it carries certain dangers with it? I dare say we should not. But we had better do some deep soul searching so that we do it for the right reasons.
…”are not Christians” because they “do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead”.
So being a Christian is reduced to believing a proposition and not doing the will of the Father. I guess when Jesus says to believers at judgement, Why did you not care for the poor, they will counter, Lord, I believed all the right stuff and never got around to the optional doing. Lord, I’m not a legalist, Lord, Lord…
My 2 cents. I think there are 3 approaches to studying the Bible (or anything for that matter). I’ll use Christ’s resurrection to demonstrate these three approaches.
1. Christ’s resurrection is a historical event and definitely occurred
2. Christ’s resurrection is not a historical event and definitely did not happen
3. Christ may have risen from the grave and he may not have
I would suggest that when doing true scholarship one must (regardless of their personal convictions) attempt to approach the issue as if number 3 is true. Now I know that this is not completely possible because ones beliefs will always shape their investigation to some extent, however I believe approaching something from number 3 should be the goal.
The problem is that most people today either approach the issues from perspective 1 or 2 neither or which is a more plausible approach then the other. The both have philosophical presuppositions which are not provable (no matter what some may say you can not prove that there is nothing beyond the material). Thus we have two diametrically opposed sets of presuppositions with each side (and one side in particular) accusing the other side of not being scholarly. It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Neither one is truly completely open to inquiry. They are both limited by their presuppositions.
Ultimately the criteria for admission to doctoral level programs (beyond grades, GRE, etc.) should not be the set of presuppositions one brings with them, but their willingness to question those presuppositions and follow their studies wherever they may lead. As I think Dr. Wallace said earlier “Pursue the Truth at all costs.” Right now there are only a very few who are actually doing this.
Very well put, Michael T! (#366)… I concur!
Pursuing the truth is very tough, especially if one if not free from practical or relationship/social/ego pressures, as very few are able to be at any given time.
Bryan said: “Case in point: Muslims are not discriminated against when applying for a PhD in Islamic Studies based on whether they believe the Koran to be true. Most Muslims do believe it is true, and in an inerrant manner at that. Why is that evangelicals are discriminated against because of their belief that the Bible is true?”
To this, CD-Host responded: “No actually they are. Secular Jewish studies departments are not friendly to Orthodox or Hasidic Jews who use religious paradigms for similar reasons. Any Muslim who attempted to argue the Koran as indisputable fact based on direct revelation from Gabriel would have a similar problem.”
CD-Host, I have to take issue with that; I agree with Bryan. Consider the book, Variant Readings Of The Quran: A Critical Study Of Their Historical And Linguistic Origins, authored by Ahmad Ali Al-Iman and published in 2007. I thought this would be good reading, so I picked up a copy. It was Al-Iman’s doctoral thesis at the University of Edinburgh. His professors were Muslims, and he affirmed that the Kethiv-Qere (or, more technically correct, the different ways to point the Arabic) were oral variants, not textual variants (he denied that there are any textual variants in the Qur’an). And that these oral variants were all divinely inspired.
The fact that this student could pass his Viva when his thesis was not falsifiable and it did not address the very real textual variants in the Qur’an manuscripts (yes, they do exist)—and that all this was at a major western university—illustrates that Bryan is quite right: Christians are discriminated against in ways that other religious groups are not. And the disturbing thing is that many evangelical treatments have truckloads of evidence, which is all but ignored because of the source. I know too many doctoral students who had to finish their degrees elsewhere because of the biases of the first school. This may occur at Dallas Seminary, but I have yet to see it. The fundamental critiques made of dissertations by their readers at DTS is that the student didn’t explore all the options, was not fair to those with whom he disagreed, etc. In other words, they are critiqued for not following the evidence where it leads, of not being as open minded as they should be.
Two other comments for the whole group:
First, one of the reasons why conservative students want to study at mainline schools for their doctorates is, as Michael said, reputation. Case in point: a brilliant DTS grad earned his first PhD at a major UK university, followed by a second PhD at another major UK university. He needed credentials for the kind of work he was doing. But he confided in me that he would have gotten a more rigorous, more intellectually satisfying degree had he gone to DTS for his PhD. But because of the goals he had in life (which I am not at liberty to mention), he had to choose the route he did.
Second, there seems to be an illogical inference in some of the comments as follows: There are several anecdotes of DTS and other evangelical seminaries being narrow-minded, not tolerating certain kinds of questions, etc. Granted–these things are true, but they are not the SUM of those schools. And some of us are doing what we can to rid the evangelical schools of their docetic bibliology. At the same time, there are students who “get it.” They understand what genuine biblical scholarship should look like, and they want to further their education by studying under world-class scholars. They know they will be sharpened by the experience and so they apply. Those students seem to be lumped in with some evangelical faculty as though all were narrow-minded bigots. But the real question that this blog post started with was this: Are liberal schools closed-minded when it comes to evangelicals? From the hundreds of comments on this post, I would have to say that yes, for the most part, they really are. And the chief illustration is those of you who are not Christians (in the historic sense that I defined earlier) who often belittle evangelical Christians by lumping them in with flat earthers, and UFO hunters. By slamming anyone who embraces inerrancy (which, I don’t think, has even been defined here yet, though I may have missed it) as out of his mind, doesn’t this reveal both your animosity toward the historic Christian faith and modern-day evangelicals? What are you afraid of? And why are you unwilling to engage in meaningful, substantive dialogue?
Bryan —
You are still using non empirical language. There is no “occurred in reality” apart from the ability to verify it. This the is core idea of quantum physics, that you cannot meaningfully talk about the past apart from interactions that produce effects. No interactions means the event is in an unrealized state.
You are trying to have a higher truth than material reality. That is not permissible within the epistemology of the university. It is not just that there are no verifiable statements about my breakfast (to use your analogy), there are no true or false statements about my breakfast at all. As I said above, and I think Vinny is saying this is the line in the sand. You can’t have a personal definition truth different than this one. Otherwise everything becomes meaningless.
I think this is a good conversation that we have gotten to the root issue.
60-80% unbelievers? There is no way…I’d be hard pressed to even say it was 50-50. If this is the case, then you are using a definition for Christian that would probably exclude some of the 4000 or so attendants at this years Evangelical Theological Society meeting.
Daniel —
You wrote the post but I thought the post was about admissions and being willing to work together. I think it is important to separate about two questions as entirely distinct
1) Does X believe Y’s religion is stupid.
2) Does X believe Y’s religion makes it impossible to work together on Z.
(1) and (2) are pretty independent. The issue as everyone is saying is not whether you believe the bible to be inerrant, AFAIKT none of the secular people had a problem with that. Where the disagreement was whether you were free to draw any conclusions based upon the bible’s inerrancy and not just publicly available data.
As I mentioned I read and am a fan of the NET bible, Sue can vouch I frequently have called it my favorite evangelical translation. So I’m not bashing but let me give you an example of a place I think you personally did it on a verse of limited theological importance, your text note for 2 Cor 12:4
Assuming that the “first heaven” would be atmospheric heaven (the sky) and “second heaven” the more distant stars and planets, “third heaven” would refer to the place where God dwells. This is much more likely than some variation on the seven heavens mentioned in the pseudepigraphic book 2 Enoch and in other nonbiblical and rabbinic works.
Now this is great because you obviously are familiar with the theory of the 7 heavens, its heavy use and the fact that the 3rd heaven is the realm of Raphael and the tree of life (as per Rev 2:7). You mention all these things so you are familiar with them. And then you rather cavalierly jump to some 3 heavens theory, and cite it as more likely? Based on what?
IMHO it sounds a great deal like you don’t want to admit that Paul is saying “I know a man who went to Venus and heard things too sacred to be put into words”…. because it would mean Paul is a 1st century man that thinks of Venus as a paradisal world and not the world of vicious temperatures, incredible pressures and sulfuric acid for rain modern humanity pictures it as. It is not liberals who insist the bible couldn’t be dead wrong about something that 19th century writers were wrong about.
So let me ask you, because this is a perfect example of a liberal who believes that inerrancy caused you to engage in bad scholarship, and on a a verse where hopefully no one is likely to get too agitated. So in your opinion, what happened? How did you come to that conclusion?
Daniel —
I can understand that. If I think A does bad scholarship then B’s citation of A doesn’t add to B’s credibility. Generally the scholarly procedure when absorbing a discipline from a questionable source is to use the source for inspiration but reprove everything.
Acharya S’s “The Christ Conspiracy” has tons of footnotes, a source for virtually every sentence. There are probably no less than 200 sources accurately cited in that book. The reason it isn’t regarding as having definitively proven much of anything is because the sources themselves are seen as highly questionable.
If an evangelical student believes he can push an idea through he should do so with secular sources. My policy on any citation from an a questionable source would have been, “find a mainstream source or reprove it”. Ten bad cites isn’t worth anything. One of my advisors had spent several years taking a book he thought was of crucial importance which had some rather loose citations and cleaning up the citations to make them firm, and reproving where there was no way to do it. I think that was time well spent.
As for the Muslim student, I don’t know enough about the example you cited. The book itself is published by a semi-religious publisher IIT. I don’t know Arabic but it does sound to me like he had a thesis. If he was able to show that all evidence was consistent with the hypothesis that there were no actual textual variants that sounds like scholarship. Attributing the oral variants to divine inspiration has no place in a scholarly work, we don’t disagree there.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
This post may border on the wrong subject because it’s about evangelicals having a worthwhile position and not being allowed to bring it into the university. Bringing the evangelical to the university might mean that the evangelical’s perspective gets brought up … and if that’s not what this discussion is about, pass on to another post.
One can always find another way to explain something – even to negate something that really happened. It sounds like the courtroom. Regardless of the true story, either the prosecution or the defense has to come up with another plausible explanation in order to win, right? I don’t think that evangelical claims (the defense) should be refused entrance into universities (the courts) because someone else already came up with an explanation (the prosecution) – unless, of course, the verdict has already been unquestionably given, which it apparently has not due to these continued appeals.
The Scene: Jesus appears to ten disciples after his death, talks with them, eats some fish, and disappears.
Disciples can’t help but make a serious mental note after such a singular event in their lives! They also note how they went back to make sure the door was still locked because they were still afraid of the leaders of the Jews taking them to the cross next.
John writes this down … quite some time later.
Many more times later, people read the story. Only for the sake of this story, we’ll assume all these things really did happen. The story goes on trial. The prosecution calls these things into question. How did John remember that the door was locked? Wasn’t he getting a little old by the time he wrote this? Doesn’t this all sound like a nice way to compensate for the loss of this man in whom these people all placed so much stock? Wouldn’t it be a great way to cope, in fact, to keep the dream alive, if we said that jesus appeared to us and did all this stuff – even (hey, throw this in there) ate some fish we had on hand (’cause, you know, four of us are fishermen, so it’s realistic, you know)?
The prosecution rests … when do the defendants present their case? Or has the jury already reached its verdict and decided not to give the defense any hearing anymore? Because we have a way to explain it, why hear any others?
Heidi wrote: “the SBL is very conservative. If it doesn’t fly there, there’s something very wrong.”
Is this how we determine whether someone’s work is good or not? So all the stuff published by SBL is good scholarship by definition? I was under the impression that, in any academic discipline, the quality of scholarly work was to be determined by how carefully and evenly it handles the discipline’s primary data and evidence. If one’s peers are the ultimate imprimatur of scholarship, then we all would still be thinking that the sun orbits the earth. The fact is that outstanding scholarship has often, historically, been a correction to majority views. Dialogue with others is crucial to the scholarly enterprise, but in the end majority opinion (including among supposedly educated people) is not what determines what is correct or true.
If the SBL is, on the whole, theologically and politically conservative, I must admit that I no longer know what the word “conservative” means.
Heidi from Post 346, thanks for the response! I appreciate your time and your thoughts. And, of course, I selfishly appreciate your agreement that all are constrained by personal driving factors 🙂
I’m surprised by your claim that there is no absolute truthful reading of a text because I think that deserves qualification. If I said I had Lucky Charms with milk for breakfast this morning in a blue plastic bowl … well, that’s true. Call it into question as much as you like, but that’s what happened – just to throw in some more info, that’s what happened after my wife and I got out of bed this morning. Why do you claim that, even for members of the same community, era and language (I’m assuming we have enough in common, although we’ve only recently become acquainted through Dan’s blog), you cannot absolutely and truthfully accept what I wrote at the start of this paragraph about my breakfast? Rather, help me out, because I don’t totally understand this spirit of doubt.
Thanks for saying what you did about bringing every tool from your kit to examine the facts – kind of like checking my dishwasher for a blue plastic bowl, or seeing if there’s a box of Lucky Charms in my kitchen (on the fridge) or, if I finished it today, in the garbage. It’s a lot easier to verify these things when they’re very recent – and, naturally, much more difficult when they’re very old …
Rock the 2 Timothy! Go girl! ~ Kit
I don’t disagree that there is discrimination against degrees from evangelical institutions. Two questions that flow from this discrimination are, firstly, whether it is justified and, secondly, what is to be done about it.
With respect to a degree qua degree, DTS would accept (I believe) as adequate a degree from any reputable secular institution. Teh reverse is not true. Why is that? In the first case (secular to confessional) it relates primarily to the student. Even though a student may have got their masters at a secular institution that teaches errancy, the confessional school (e.g., DTS) knows that the student cannot graduate from DTS without believing in inerrancy. The confessional school also knows that the student would not even have applied unless they rejected the errancy beliefs of the secular institution they were at and bought into the inerrancy paradigm. Consequently, the student can be expected to work within the inerrancy paradigm of DTS, to support it, and to further it. The student will graduate from DTS and, because they support the confessional paradigm of DTS, bring honour to it.
The reverse is not true. A student with a degree from an evangelical institution may or may not (and more likely, “may not”) beleive in the errancy paradigm of the university. This will affect how they handle the data, how they work with the profs, the sources they will use and refer to, etc. The student will likely not have any buy in to how the university expects research to be done (i.e., the Bible is human book only, to be only evaluated as such). Furthermore, the student with an evangelical or fundamentalist degree may bring disgrace on the PhD program of the secular, such as what happened with Marcus Ross (see my post 316).
Is the discrimination internally justified also? That is, is the university being internally consistent with its own professed values when rejecting degrees from evangelical institutions? Part of the answer has to do with its prior experience with students with degrees from such institutions (were they well prepared? did they “work out”?). But a large part of the answer has to do with the philosophy of the university as a whole and of the department in particular. I don’t agree that secular universities have as their dominant philosophy “unity in diversity”, nor is it an anything goes.
It is not unreasonable for a university or a department to be committed to either or both of metaphysical and methodological naturalism and materialism. By the same token, confessional instutitions do not need to be committed to that but can require belief in the supernatural. It is not, therefore, inconsistent for a secular university to reject a degree from an institution that has a fundamentally different understanding of reality and approaches to exploring that reality.
regards,
#John
CD,
“You are still using non empirical language.”
Well, of course, I’m not an empiricist.
“There is no ‘occurred in reality’ apart from the ability to verify it. This the is core idea of quantum physics, that you cannot meaningfully talk about the past apart from interactions that produce effects. No interactions means the event is in an unrealized state.”
This is the absurdity of naturalistic empiricism. So are you telling me that if I cannot empirically verify that you ate breakfast this morning, it didn’t happen? Yikes, CD, even most empiricists I know still accept historical data based in believing a report. I’m sure this is not what you’re saying, but the fact that the tree falls in the forest even when no one is there to verify it is still a fact, I think, places our ability to know as the center of reality. And of course in my view someone is always there to verify it. I just have to believe that someone when He reports it.
BTW, I have no empirical evidence that the same CD throughout this post is writing this particular comment, so the assertion that it is is meaningless. Thus, your writing it never took place. 🙂
BTW, doesn’t quantum theory believe in alternate universes? What empirical observations are there for that? A cat in a box?
From the secular viewpoint, here is reasoning why it is proper to reject out of hand degrees from confessional institutions that privilige the Bible as a divine rather than merely human book. The comment below is in regard to the SBL itself, but the thinking and principles are equally applicable to admission to graduate programs:
“First of all, the question of secularism in the SBL is not a peripheral subject but strikes at the heart of the what the SBL is, does, and should be doing to “foster biblical scholarship”. I have heard some opine that since scholarship should be secular, why do we need to talk about secularism at all? The answer, of course, is that Biblical Studies is not fully secular. Many scholars are, but the academy is definitely NOT. And since people continue to attribute to the texts we subject to critical analysis a fundamentally unique status among writings and human thought, the issue of secularism should be a significant topic of discussion. Yet, it is not. The SBL seems to be OK with papers, sessions, and affiliations with faith-based perspectives. This is a major issue and needs to be discussed openly.
Biblical exceptionalism is rampant in the SBL. Rather than offer analysis the Bible as one of the many textual products of human culture, some presentations seem to construe the Bible as the primary human text and even as a divine text. The latter has no place in academia, and the former often strikes me as simply a quasi-secular corollary to overt theological work.
The last point may be a little harsh but at least it deserves to be discussed openly. What is the SBL for? As a short exchange on this blog and elsewhere several weeks ago reveals, there are members of the SBL who simply cannot see the validity or even existence of non-religious thought about the Bible. . . .
Full membership in the SBL should be restricted to people with an academic doctoral degree from an accredited program. Student membership should be restricted to academic doctoral students. We should make it harder to join instead of easier. Furthermore, given the function of what we study for contemporary religion and the fact the membership in a learned society can give credibility to one’s status in the field, it does not seem unreasonable to inform potential applicants for membership about the Society’s orientation to academic Biblical Studies. Namely, the application should make it clear that all members of the Society engage the Bible as a product of and influence on human culture. By joining, members implicitly agree in principle to the practice of using the same critical faculties and exercising the same kinds of judgments on the Bible as one might use on, say, an Assyrian royal inscription or a non-canonical gospel. In other words, it should be clear that members of the SBL do not privilege the Bible with a special mode of inquiry . . .”
http://drjimsthinkingshop…
In response to the previous comment about the SBL – it’s not *only* an academic group in any case, and I really don’t see the argument about unbelievers, etc.
“The Society of Biblical Literature is the oldest and largest international scholarly membership organization in the field of biblical studies. Founded in 1880, the Society has grown to over 8,500 international members including teachers, students, religious leaders and individuals from all walks of life who share a mutual interest in the critical investigation of the Bible.
The Society’s mission to foster biblical scholarship is a simple, comprehensive statement that encompasses the Society’s aspirations. Our vision is to offer members opportunities for mutual support, intellectual growth, and professional development.”
The Wikipedia article isn’t bad:
[Content edited – Admin.]
Kit@376
You’re talking about a one-line argument, and establishing evidence as you would perhaps in a court of law. The various truths that can emerge out of textual readings (where there is a complicated text or narrative) are of different kinds.
It all depends on your focus. Here’s a simple example, pulled just because I saw it on last year’s SBL blog entry.
“Shander found that meals differ in Luke. In some meals, characters receive Jesus hospitably and receive his kingdom as a lifestyle as well. In contrast, meals sponsored by the Pharisees notably lack hospitable vocabulary. Actually, the meals with the Pharisees climax with their decisive rejection of him and their plot against him, Shander said.
She summarized that, overall, the intimate fellowship through meals embodies the extension of favor to the undeserving groups along with the consequential rejection of Jesus as foretold in the his mission statement at the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:16-30).
Perhaps the most interesting visual part of her poster was what she saw as a chiastic structure of some meals in Luke. Here is her research:
A. Reception hosted by Levi the tax collector (Luke 5:29-39)
B. Meal with the Pharisees and sinful woman (7:36-50)
C. Hospitable meal with women alone (10:38-42)
C’. Meal with a Pharisee alone (11:37-54)
B’. Meal hosted by a Pharisee and the healing of a man with dropsy (14:1-24)
A’. Hospitable meal hosted by Zacchaeus the tax collector (19:1-10)
Shander found that the meals hosted by the tax collectors are geographical bookends regarding Jesus’ Galilean ministry. In B and B’, Jesus turns the criticism of the Pharisees back on the ones giving it.”
Now, that’s just the summary, but you can see that this is a kind of structural reading, not a question about whether the meals actually happened or not.
You are trying to have a higher truth than material reality. That is not permissible within the epistemology of the university.
Wow, this comment takes the cake. Luckily it’s nowhere close to being true, but it’s dramatic and bold!
CD Host, Dan HAS identified textual variants in the Koran MSS (he showed us one MSS which was clearly altered from its original wording –words were ‘erased’ and written over). Muslims as a whole believe staunchly that there are absolutely NO textual variants in the Koran. Islam hangs on this. After all, the Koran supposedly came about as God supposedly needed to correct the corrupted text of the Christians and Jews…..but I’m sure you know much more about that than I do!
CD-Host: “You are trying to have a higher truth than material reality. That is not permissible within the epistemology of the university.”
There may be a grain of truth to those statements with respect to some/many departments in some/many universities.
However, I suggest reading this article titled “The Disenchanted Naturalist’s Guide to Reality” which honestly shows what being a staunch, reflective materialist leads to.
To #John1453:
DTS is an accredited insitution (by both the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Association of Theological Schools) with academically focused degree programs.
A very interesting and worthwhile article, thanks.
Regarding eschatology, I believe the phrase is “already but not yet” (v. not-yet but not already). Yes or no?
David @375 – Either I didn’t express myself very well, or you’ve misunderstood my comment. I meant “conservative” in the sense that the academic viewpoints and methods are slow to change, despite a very wide range of academic work. Also, the subject matter of biblical studies lends itself to a rather somber tone. Unlike, say, the AAR or the MLA, theory isn’t of central concern. The SBL includes Christians of all kinds, including evangelicals (who tend also to be a bit conservative in the political spectrum as well). And – just to be very superficial for a moment – the sheer sea of gray suits and beards is impressive in itself.
“the sheer sea of gray suits and beards is impressive in itself”
If I ever get a doctorate and go to one of these type of things I’m showing up in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.
Susan —
I know that there are lots of credible scholars who claim the Koran has textual variants and have very specific and strong evidence. Essentially the process that has gone on with the NT over the last 150+ years has been started with the Koran this generation. So my guess is that Dan is correct and the Muslim student incorrect.
If (and this is a big if) the student’s work was nothing more than misleading apologetics Dan has a prefect example of a double standard being applied by a secular university and he has every right to criticize them. If the student is instead offering a different interpretation of the evidence (even if wrong), then this is at worst bad scholarship.
[…] in Uncategorized. trackback There has been interesting discussion sparked by Dan Wallace over at Parchment and Pen over the perceived discrimination against conservative/evangelical students in academia – see […]
Bryan —
If it were permanently impossible, that is given access to all possible sense data, to verify that I ate breakfast this morning, then yes it would be meaningless to talk about whether it happened or not. Now in terms of a real breakfast that’s not the case. There is no “really” apart from sense data. Things that “really happened” in the past are those things that have present day traces (given all possible sense data). And contra-positively if there are no present day traces they didn’t really happen.
Sure the report constitutes sense data. But it constitutes data of report R indicates X said Y did Z. That may or may not lend credence to Y did Z. It comes down how much R is to be believed and how much X is to be believed. If X’s statement left no other trace than it is meaningless to talk about whether the report is “right” or not. If Z left no other trace apart from the report it is meaningless to talk about whether R is “right” or not.
The post itself constitutes evidence that an entity X claiming to be CD-Host wrote these posts. These posts are consistent with other writings of CD-Host. There exist lots of traces tying CD-Host to a real person…. Empiricism is not sophism, it is not essentially that you have current access to sense data just that acquiring that data is in theory at least possible.
CD,
Oh OK, I get you. The problem is that what you’ve said here is irrelevant to our conversation. Traces are left by the report of the Bible. How one interprets those traces is in accord with his presupps. So I think you are confusing what I am saying. I am not saying that knowledge can be gained apart from my experiencing the data, including the report. I am saying that all knowledge cannot be gained by my experiencing the data firsthand. This also means, therefore, that I cannot judge all reports based on my firsthand knowledge, otherwise knowledge can only be acquired through firsthand experience.
If you only allow the report to be credible based on what your commitment to empiricism allows then really you aren’t believing anything.
“If X’s statement left no other trace than it is meaningless to talk about whether the report is “right” or not.”
This is begging the question though. This is to assume that naturalism is true and then limit all meaningful knowledge to that which can be verified by certainty or probability within that closed system.
“There is no “really” [reality?] apart from sense data. Things that “really happened” in the past are those things that have present day traces (given all possible sense data).”
Once again, this is based in naturalistic presupps. In my thinking, God is always present to experience reality. Therefore, it always exists apart from my, or any other human’s, experiencing it.
Second to this, nothing can be said to be perpetually unverifiable, since this would be to say that one knows the future. Heliocentricism may not have been verifiable to ancient man, but the reality existed and was true, as we have come to discover many years later. I don’t believe that it was meaningless to speak of it as true, simply because there was no way to verify it at the time. So there is no way of knowing if something is perpetually unverifiable or not, unless one again assumes that very belief in the first place, and then goes on to argue from there. As I said elsewhere, this methodological assumption is not gained from verifiable inquiry, but instead from an ultimate belief. Hence, the system is self refuting.
So, in short, are our senses always involved in obtaining knowledge? Of course. That was not my objection. My objection centered on the idea that all reality must accord with my firsthand experience, and all knowledge must be gained and verified through firsthand experience. This simply assumes what it has to prove, and in the process implodes upon itself.
“it is not essentially that you have current access to sense data just that acquiring that data is in theory at least possible.”
And how would one acquire the data apart from report? There is nothing to suggest that what I perceive as traces of a past event actually are traces of that past event. Are you suggesting that belief can only discover knowledge if the source is deemed reliable? This isn’t believing the source. I would, therefore, make the claim that empiricism requires firsthand knowledge, or that which accords with it, at all times. Would you agree with that statement?
“One of my advisors had spent several years taking a book he thought was of crucial importance which had some rather loose citations and cleaning up the citations to make them firm, and reproving where there was no way to do it. I think that was time well spent.”
I did this with several articles on gender only to find that the citations did not exist as cited. I don’t know whether this is likely from other institutions or not. I have read some rather light and fluffy liberal writing, but none of it so definitely trying to prove something from nothing.
I understand the three positions, Bible as
!. divine inspiration
2. human product
3. open to both
The trouble is that some people could use the claim of divine inspiration to tell slaves to be obedient and remain in slavery. We all agree that we need some restrictions in a civil society.
There should be outright rejection of a young earth, health and wealth, faith healing, preaching that you are living in sin if you masturbate, fornicate or remarry after divorce, full equality for women and homosexuals. Anything less is not a the sign of a civil society.
Perhaps if an institution is seen as the source of negative articles on any of these things, it hurts the reputation of the school.
I think lots of students would willingly ignore or set aside these issues, but the profs perhaps cannot do so. I understand that too, but its a conflict. The profs want to publish is cohesion with their faith commitments, but this hurts the academic reputation of the school elsewhere.
With reference to a preceding comment.
I know CD-Host by his real name and have read his blog over the years where he reviewed an impressive array of Bible translations and commentaries. I don’t think my endorsement of his site will help him out much here so that’s about all I can say.
I find that most if not all bible bloggers use an array of resources from a wide spectrum. Unlike the men, I check many out but never reference them in a positive way.
I am personally committed to never link to a resource in a positive manner which recommends an “authority and submission” relationship in marriage. I also do the same for any reference to pornography. I don’t approve of either.
I think this is different from ignoring fundamentalist scholarship. I check it out but can’t endorse it in any way, as it is against my conscience.
But my point is that most bloggers have a much wider acceptance than I do and their openness always surprises me.
I know if would be nice to have a third agnostic approach to truth claims, but there really isn’t any such thing. One can approach anything with an agnostic stance, and that may seem like a good approach; however, the problem is that as soon as a person employs a methodology for determining the truth of the claim, he or she is assuming a worldview one way or the other, and is no longer an agnostic concerning the issue. So the problem is not necessarily in someone coming to an issue and explicitly stating their objections or acceptance of a truth claim in the first place, but the assumptions that drive their methodology of inquiry in determining the accuracy of that truth claim.
So that is why I think that the Bible as human product is the wider category, the one which can include everyone in some way. This means that those who believe in inerrancy and contemporary relevance of the text have to yield to the wider claims of a civil society if they want to attend a secular university.
I know that you said you would. But this doesn’t mean that this is not an issue for those deciding on whether to accept students.