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

Hi Rich,

I wasn't able to find the cited s.r.c FAQ on inerrancy - even with the
help of Google - so I appreciate the development of your remark about
Gleason Archer.

I've been musing over how to respond to your remarks without being
unduly curt or offensive, and I trust the following three brief remarks
fit the bill;

(1) Please keep in mind that I'm attempting to put myself in Barr's
shoes with respect to what constitutes a scholar at a "world class"
university and that nothing I think on that point should suggest
anything but the deepest respect on my part. And with that caveat, I
simply don't think Barr would regard TEDS as "world-class". That may, as
you suggest, indicate academic pride on Barr's part, but my only defense
of Barr is with respects to his scholarship, not his purported attitude.

(2) What seems to me more important, however, is the context of Barr's
letter. And it seems clear to me that Watson's writing to Barr was in no
small part due to the sort of exegesis made popular by Bernard Ramm's
"The Christian View of Science and Scripture" (1955). This work proposed
a "pictorial day" theory of composition for Gen 1 in which the days
represent not days of creation, but days of revelation to Moses. In such
a view the original author(s) would have been well aware that the
language they were using was not the language of historical description
and that they were therefore (according to the theory) quite consciously
not composing history but something akin to myth. What follows is the
simple point that the historical context of Barr's letter is one which
presupposes the sort of views held by Gleason Archer with respect to
Genesis 1. So to suggest that Barr was ignorant of Archer may be
correct, but it is, in my view, a very great stretch to suggest that
Barr was unfamiliar with the sort of theory of composition Archer espoused.

(3) Your appeal to CS Lewis - which alludes to his essay "Modern
Theology and Biblical Criticism" - is, it appears to me, quite
misplaced. Lewis was arguing against the validity of source critical
approaches to scripture - the idea that one could "disassemble" a piece
of literature, assign the various parts to particular historical
stages, and so discern the historical development of the author's
thought. It was this approach with respect to his own works that
constituted the basis of his "one hundred percent in error" remark. But
he seems not to have been in doubt about the possibility of discerning
what is central to the issue at hand in Barr's letter; the question of
whether an author was writing history or myth. For instance, in
"Reflections on the Psalms" Lewis makes a few cursory remarks about the
criteria upon which an account could be deemed historical or not and
states: "I have therefore no difficulty in accepting, say, the view of
those scholars who tell us that the account of creation in Genesis is
derived from earlier Semitic sources which were Pagan and mythical." I
think clearly Lewis does think it possible to discern the mind of an
author when it comes to a relatively simple question of determination of
genre. Indeed, had he not thought so, then most of what Lewis himself
wrote on literary criticism would have proven to be hubris of the
highest order.

I quite agree, in closing, about your remarks on the need for humility.
I would only offer the observation that in biblical studies, as in the
sciences, an educated assessment is better than a blind guess. My
defense of Barr is purely that whatever the weaknesses of his position
it is surely closer to the former than the latter. Nor is it evidence of
arrogance for a scholar to make an assessment of data, to form a
position on that data, and to defend that position against critiques. To
accuse Barr of arrogance is quite improper if by it one merely means
that he was doing his job. Especially so when that accusation is based
on nothing more than the wording of a single occasional letter which
lacks the space for significant development of thought, and yet still
bears the obvious restriction in scope which Barr included.

Kindest Regards,
Murray Hogg
Pastor, East Camberwell Baptist Church, Victoria, Australia
Post-Grad Student (MTh), Australian College of Theology

Rich Blinne wrote:
>
> 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
> *s**pecifically 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 Sun May 18 18:09:22 2008