Resident Theologian
About the Blog
Second naivete
A personal scholarly trajectory regarding the historicity of ancient scriptural narrative.
My latest: on Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis in LARB
A link to my review of Marilynne Robinson’s new book, Reading Genesis, in The Los Angeles Review of Books.
The metaphysics of historical criticism
Fifty metaphysical propositions that underwrite the practice of “historical-critical” biblical scholarship.
A test for exegesis
Is God merely a character within the text? Or also an author of the text? The difference matters for scriptural interpretation.
If not inerrancy or tradition … then what?
Earlier this year I wrote a couple of posts about what I call Post-Biblicism Biblicism, or PBB, a phenomenon I’ve observed among professors in theological higher ed. This post extends those reflections, only from the perspective of the pews.
Pseudo-Scorsese
It’s come to my attention that there are discrepancies in the filmography of American director Martin Scorsese. To be precise, certain films attributed to him evidently qualify as pseudirectoria (pseudokinemagraphia? pseudeikonzon?)—that is, instances of unnamed others claiming his name as director of a cinematic artifact, although the evidence suggests otherwise.
I’m in CT on the conquest
I’m in Christianity Today with a review of Charlie Trimm’s new book, The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation.
“The latest scholarship”
One often hears folks in biblical studies refer to “the latest scholarship” on such-and-such topic. Or they will refer to author X or book Y being “out of date.” Or when writing a scholar will refer to “the latest studies” or “the most recent research.” I’ve poked fun at this tendency before. A few years back I penned “An honest preface to contemporary academic interpretation of the New Testament.”
A sheep among wolves
If, after reading [this book], you now turn to study the historical evidence for yourself, begin with the New Testament and not with the books about it. If you do not know Greek get it in a modern translation. Moffat’s is probably the best: Monsignor Knox is also good. I do not advise the Basic English version. And when you turn from the New Testament to modern scholars, remember that you go among them as a sheep among wolves.
Subjunctive scholarship
If you read enough biblical scholarship, you come to realize that one of the guild’s endemic features—for at least a century, probably two—is an overweening confidence in its claims. Such claims usually partake of a rhetoric of calm certainty; all too often what are contestable judgments based on slim evidence are instead asserted as facts, or at least as bearing a supreme likelihood of being true.
Peter van Inwagen on disciplinary hubris, relevant expertise, expectations of deference, and ordinary prudence
In the early 1990s the philosopher Peter van Inwagen wrote an essay called "Critical Studies of the New Testament and the User of the New Testament." It is a long, detailed philosophical investigation of the epistemic nature, or status, of academic biblical scholarship; specifically, it asks whether…