Back to the Bible

We must find a way to manage our disagreements about the Bible. And that can happen only when we begin listening to each other instead of accusing each other.

Although its been over 40 years, it seems like yesterday that i was sitting in Dr. Bulhof's honors seminar in historical method at the University of Texas. We were learning the difference between chronologie, geschichte, and historie. Thorough Kantians, we learned to distinguish that which could be empirically verified as true events (historie) from the interpretation of the meaning of reported event, whether morally, politically, economically, socially, and so on. 

Of course we distinguished between mere chronologie or an ordered listing of events and geschichte; the exploration of their meaning. 

And of course we studied in some depth what constituted empirical verification of descriptions of past events. Which takes us immediately to the problem of the Bible and whether it is chronologie, historie, and/or geschichte. Specifically, are the gospels empirically verifiable accounts or not? 

Even asking these questions immediately identifies us as modern people; not in that we distinguish between truth and fables, but in that we distinguish between what is empirically verifiable and what is not verifiable, and between mere listing of events and the interpretation of their meaning. The author of Luke states his intention to tell about real things that happened in order. But had he been modern he would have provided the names of his eyewitnesses, specific dates for the events he recounts, and his own name and at least his city. 

He doesn't give us any of that, and neither do any of the other gospel writers. For this reason alone the gospels are not historie in and of themselves.

Luke also states his interpretive purpose, the assumed purpose of all the gospels: "so that you may know with certainty the things you have been taught." But even this doesn’t give us historie, because instilling confidence isn’t the same as offering empirical evidence. 

This doesn't mean the gospels aren't true, just that given the information provided within them they are not verifiable.That is the problem a Josh McDowell's Evidence that Demands a Verdict. It simply takes the gospel accounts as evidence when by modern standards they are not evidence of anything. By modern standards they are just something somebody wrote and which got passed down for generations. 

Surely, I hope you are protesting,  just because Luke didn't use footnotes doesn't mean it can't be historie. After all, accounts can be verified by outside evidence. Indeed this has been the great task of Biblical archaeology and history since the early modern era - the search for evidence to verify the gospel accounts. Specifically there has been the so-called "Search for the Historical Jesus." That search has been well documented and much has been published, so I won't go into detail. 

Except to say this: all that we can empirically verify about Jesus is that there was a man by that name who lived in the first century. He was a Jewish teacher in Judea, and was crucified by the Roman authorities.  If we can't empirically verify the gospel accounts of Jesus' life and ministry (and no one has yet) then that’s all we got. 

But why would we not accept the gospel accounts as evidence? Doesn't a lot of evidence consist of documents; things people wrote down about events that happened in the past? The answer is yes, but again, from a modern perspective there are some problems with these particular documents. 

First of all, the oldest actual manuscript of any of these documents comes well over 100 years after the time that it was supposedly composed. Secondly, none of the documents is signed or dated, or otherwise gives evidence that would help us determine authorship and provenance. All we think we know about the gospels comes from later church traditions about them. Thirdly, their accounts are not internally consistent.

Even the remarkable internal agreements on the things that Jesus said and did in the synoptic gospels don’t mean anything historically if they are all simply versions of a shared original documents. If they are, as most scholars think, then their veracity depends on the veracity of that original document. And we do not have that document. Which gets us back to the same conclusion, that these documents are not historie. They cannot be empirically verified. 

Now I want stress again that this doesn't mean the gospel accounts are not true. It means that they cannot be empirically verified. There is no evidence for their veracity other than that they came to be widely accepted by Christians as having come from the apostles and therefore being reliable. But we don't have, to quote courtroom language, an unbroken chain of evidence leading from what we read today back to an eye witness to Jesus’ ministry.

Some people find this quite troubling. We've drunk the enlightenment kool-aid that tells us that if its not historie then its not true, and if its not true its not important or worse. So evidence or no evidence, we get defensive about our Bibles and declare that the stories of Jesus are history, or historie, when they simply don't match the definition of that word. 

But that isn't the worst of it. We not only declare that the gospels are history, based on nothing but our personal faith that what we've been told about them is true, we then go on to declare that anyone who disagrees isn't a Christian and doesn’t have faith in Christ.

That exercise in accusation is as pointless as it has been destructive and hurtful. Wouldn't it be better to simply admit that our confidence in the Bible is based on two things: 1. Our faith in the testimony of the Church, the Body of Christ, that these are words coming from the Word who is Christ. 2. Our personal and communal experience that these words have proven themselves to be reliable guides as we seek to follow the Christ. 

The Bible cannot be meaningfully or helpfully analyzed within the Enlightenment distinctions between chronologie, historie, and geschichte. Nor for that matter can it be meaningfully analyzed as fable, legend, and fiction. Yes, these words and the associated methods of analysis are quite useful in understanding the Bible as an ancient text.

But we have little interest as Christians in the Bible as an ancient text. Our interest is in the Bible as the Word of God. So these terms tell us little about our relationship to the Bible and our confidence that it tells us the truth about Jesus Christ, not least what he did and what he said. 

Enlightenment agnosticism regarding the veracity of the gospel accounts is not, in short, the same as theological or even spiritual invalidation. 

This is because our understanding of the Bible does not begin with the Bible, and even less with efforts to empirically demonstrate that some parts of it are or could be accurate. Our understanding, our relationship with the Bible, is based on our relationship with Jesus Christ, the Word of God. We cannot know the Bible as Word unless we know Jesus Christ as Word, and that is mediated to us through the witness of the Church. 

Even if our first exposure to Jesus was by reading the Bible, we had that Bible only because it was given us by the Church as an expression of its witness to Christ. The Church precedes the Bible, and the Bible is the Church's book. 

If that sounds strange just read the Bible. The New Testament itself is the witness to the Church that came before the Bible. The Word inspired, but it is the Church that created, the Bible. 

What about the people who don't believe that the gospels are historically accounts of Jesus' life but claim to be his followers? Can they believe that Jesus is the Christ and not believe in the historical accuracy of the Bible? Of course they can. Faith is a gift of Christ mediated by the witness of the Church.  Sola scriptura does not mean the Bible is the only source of faith. It means it is the only source of authoritative teaching about faith and practice. 

That authority is not based on whether its contents can be empirically verified. It is based on the faith of the Church that the Bible, read under the influence of the Spirit, in the presence of the Church's insight garnered over the ages, in concert with God's self-revelation in nature, unfailingly leads us into our mission as followers of Christ. 

I want to end very clearly. Discussions and accusations about "high" and "low" views of the Bible are worthless polemic and a waste of Christian time. Nor is there a basis in Christian doctrine for dismissing God's Word in a discussion of belief and practice. Neither is there any basis in Christian doctrine for regarding disagreements over interpretation of the Bible as signs of infidelity or unorthodoxy. Nor should there be any place for dismissing methods of interpretation (literalism for example) as biblolitry or biblicism. We don't need to agree on the meaning and applicability of particular passages in the Bible to agree that it is God's Word and is authoritative for belief and practice. 

What we must do is find a way to manage our disagreements in the actual living of our corporate life as the Body of Christ. And that can happen only when we begin listening to each other instead of accusing each other.