Re: [asa] The Barr quote - observations on critical responses to Barr

On May 16, 2008, at 9:26 PM, Murray Hogg wrote:

> Whilst Blocher therefore cuts it fine, it would still seem that
> neither are credible counter instances to Barr's remarks as to the
> state of OT and Hebrew scholarship in 1984.
>
> Of course, I realize that appeal to such scholars may demonstrate
> that the landscape of Hebrew and OT studies has shifted since the
> time of Barr making his remarks - but I do think Barr deserves to be
> defended from accusations that his position was "a sham".
> Particularly so when those accusations are based on clear
> anachronisms.
>
> Indeed, who knows what Barr might write today if he were given the
> opportunity to revisit the issue?

You have to deal with my quote from 1989. What you don't know is how I
got it. The origin of the quote was conversations I had with Dr. John
Gerstner in the mid-80s. The context was inerrantism and the literal
interpretation of Genesis 1. Gerstner told me that there was a
considerable number of inerrantists who did not hold to the literal
specifically those who were OT and Hebrew specialists. According to
Gerstner, what drove them was not some scientific worldview but their
particular expertise in the OT or Hebrew. At the time Gerstner
believed that amongst the specialists that non-literalism was the
majority report in conservative scholarship. Gerstner had his PhD from
Harvard and was at the time Professor Emeritus of Church History from
Pittsburgh Seminary. A previous pastor of mine complained how it was
the "old" professors were the ones that didn't accept the literal
rendering of waw consecutive, etc.

The example I gave in 1989, Gleason Archer, was a professor of Old
Testament and Semitics of TEDS from 1965 to 1986. In addition to his
Old Testament introduction he was one of the three editors to the
Theological Wordbook of the OT which is to this very day considered a
standard. (I know people here have complained about his Bible
Difficulties book but that just proves Gerstner's point that the
scholars in question were conservative inerrantists and not
"modernists" here.) In other words, he was no slouch and if Barr paid
any attention to evangelical scholarship as Dr. Gerstner did he would
have seen it.

Randy noted that Barr was stating that a literal chronology was
important to the ancient Hebrews. Here Barr should have listened to
another Oxford don, C.S. Lewis. Here Lewis did a thought experiment.
Lewis noted how all his critics were wrong. Wrong not in the sense of
their critique of the quality of his work but in gleaning which
passage was labored or came easy etc. This was not random but rather
Lewis noted the critics were wrong every single time. Lewis -- who was
no inerrantist despite what some evangelical admirers might make him
out to be -- applied this to liberal Bible scholarship and said that
to determine what was the intent of the authors who, unlike Lewis'
critics, did not share a common culture, nor a common language, and
were separated by vast amounts of time.

We see this here when sociologists come in on this list and make bad
and hasty assumptions concerning what our positions are. Then these
sociologists claim that we don't know ourselves and that the ASA
rejects sociology over science when all it rejects is bad sociology.
If they get wrong our positions which we know then how can we trust
them concerning other people we don't know and tempt us to violate the
Ninth Commandment? We also see this in the movie Expelled with all of
its wrong assumptions on what motivates people concerning evolution
and ID. Getting to the issue at hand, we really don't know what
motivated the ancient Hebrews especially if we are asked to read
between the lines.

The take away point should be this, humility is needed in both the
conservative and liberal wings of Biblical scholarship. There is no
"assured results of higher criticism" nor can we be absolutely sure of
what the OT cosmogeny really is. Here we have a classic example where
scholarly pride gets you in a ditch and should be a cautionary tale
for all of us.

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Sat May 17 09:02:49 2008