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  • From: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org
  • To: decaen AT chass.utoronto.ca, b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: atheism and Hebrew scholarship
  • Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 23:03 -0500 (EST)



Vince wrote:

"I'm a born-again atheist too. is that going to be a problem for you?"

Interesting question! My first reaction was, of course not, your
religious beliefs (including your belief about God that he does not
exist) are a personal matter and irrelevant to studies of b-hebrew. If
anyone is going to have a problem, it is you - if I am right, that God
exists and there will be a judgment.

But then I thought a bit more about the nature of the materials before
us in b-hebrew. Would you, any of you, agree that in order to properly
understand an ancient (or modern) religious text you need to have at
least a sympathetic understanding of the religion of the writers? The
same would apply to e.g. ancient Babylonian or Indian scriptures.
There is of course a difference between a sympathetic understanding
and a personal faith, but I suspect that it is difficult for all but
the most dispassionate scholars to show the proper sympathy for a
religion which is diametrically opposed to our own deeply held
convictions. I trust that Vince can be one of those dispassionate
scholars.

I also suspect that Hebrew biblical studies took a serious step into
wrong directions in the last century when it became dominated by
people whose faith and general world view led them away from
sympathetic understanding of ancient Hebrew religion. For example,
although in general 19th century biblical scholars were theists, their
"liberal" and "enlightened" concept of God could not cope with the
idea of God commanding wars and genocide. (This is of course hard for
me too.) This led them towards theories which make the Hebrew
scriptures into a collection of ancient documents assembled in an
unintelligent way (I am thinking of theories that imply that ancient
compilers didn't notice doublets and allegedly glaring
inconsistencies) and thereby negated their authority. I could also
criticise "fundamentalist" "scholars" who interpret according to the
theories of inspiration and general religious understanding of their
brand of Christianity. But I don't have time for a major article.

Just one more specific point where atheism might affect Vince's work,
such as the dialect study he would like to do - certainly if dating
becomes an issue. I would assume that most atheists presuppose that
prophets cannot have genuine supernatural knowledge about future
events. Therefore, when they come across an apparent prophecy, e.g. of
the Babylonian captivity in "Deutero"-Isaiah and of the Maccabean
period in Daniel, they have to conclude that the book was actually
written after the events described. Theists do not make this
presupposition - though we might accept the conclusions if there are
other convincing arguments. I wonder what Vince's "more than 10
diagnostics of dialect that haven't been looked at" would say about
the dialects and dating of these passages. I also wonder how an
atheist scholar would deal with evidence that (for example, and purely
hypothetically) pointed to "Deutero"-Isaiah being from the same
period, or even the same pen, as Isaiah son of Amoz and contemporary
of Hezekiah. Would the conclusion be accepted? Or would the scholar
suddenly find some reason for rejecting the diagnostics - or quietly
fail to publish the conclusions? (For that matter, what would the
fundamentalist scholar do with evidence that the dialects are very
different?)

OK, just a few points to think about. Yes, if atheists and believers
are to work together in scholarship (and I know I have left out any
special references to our Jewish brothers' presuppositions, if they
have any ;-) ) they need to face up to such questions of
presuppositions, even sometimes prejudice, and not assume that
everyone is an entirely dispassionate scholar.

Peter Kirk






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