Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Kevin,

> == I think that we need to be clear that we all have a presupposed theology.
>
> We all have assumptions, which means nobody can be truly objective, 
> but not everyone has "theological" assumptions. These are the most 
> dangerous because it immediately sets the limits as to what a 
> scripture can and cannot say.

HH: How can one come to the Bible without theological assumptions?

> == Indeed, a rejection of divine authorship of Scripture for 
> example, is a presupposition many critical scholars bring to the 
> text.
>
> Please demonstrate one single example where a rejection of this 
> assumption serves as a tragedy in exegesis.

HH: It's a difficult challenge because who keeps a running record of 
bad interpretations he has run across?

> == I think that this gross misrepresentation of a biblical/seminary 
> education. While I can't speak for all seminaries and Bible 
> colleges, I am a product of both. What is your experience? While I 
> can't speak for all programs I can tell you that in my experience we 
> often used the same books as non-Evangelical institutions. We were 
> required to use the standard language tools such as BDB, HALOT, DCH, 
> BAGD (now BDAG), TDNT, TDOT. LSJ and so forth. Furthermore, 
> especially in the OT, we were required to interact with critical 
> commentaries and special studies. We were required to parse verbs 
> and memorize paradigms and vocabulary (to the chagrin of many 
> students!)  just like anyone else.
>
> I'll let the words of Bart Ehrman make my point:
>
> "No wonder that most of today's NT scholars, by their own admission, 
> are not capable of rendering independent judgments concerning 
> textual variants preserved in the tradition (I except my NT 
> colleagues here, by the way; and they will for the most part agree, 
> I think, with my opinion on this point). It strikes me as a pity 
> that most doctoral candidates in New Testament are not trained even 
> to use the apparatus of the standard Greek text, the Nestle-Aland 
> 27th ed., that most divinity school students are not taught the 
> fundamental problems of the textual tradition that they are expected 
> to teach or preach, and that most of the laypersons in the churches 
> to which the graduates of divinity school go are left completely 
> unaware of the problems of the texts of the books that they 
> themselves revere as Scripture." 
> http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol05/Ehrman2000b.html

HH: Ehrman as a text critic makes a comment about his experience with 
"most of today's NT scholars." This is a comment that applies across 
the theological spectrum. But the NT commentaries I read do make 
independent textual judgments and give reasons for them.

> Then have at it. Please show me one example of an exegesis gone 
> awry, because the scholar didn't assume inerrancy or divine 
> providence.

HH: I can't give you an example offhand because I try to forget bad 
ideas. But I know that it can make a difference, because I have often 
had to lament the unreliable content of commentaries I read. Varying 
reasons exist for unreliable content, but one I am quite familiar 
with is unbelieving assumptions by the author. It seems to me to be a 
big issue, not a minimal one. What someone believes about the nature 
of the text affects how he approaches the text. I am reading John 
Oswalt's NICOT commentary on Isaiah 40-66 right now, and he has to 
spend a good deal of space refuting wrong ideas from liberal 
exegetes. I believe many of these wrong interpretations arise from 
wrong presuppositions.

One example from Oswalt that comes to mind is this footnote:

Whybray [R. N.] mounts a concerted attack on the idea that the 
Servant of this passage [Isaiah 53] actually dies (Thanksgiving for a 
Liberated Prophet, pp. 79-105). One wonders why, since the death of 
the Servant has been obvious to Jewish and Christian interpreters 
alike for many centuries. (Even the Targ., while making the death 
apply to the enemies of the Servant, clearly understands the passage 
to be speaking of actual death, not near-death, as Whybray would have 
it.) To be sure, death is not stated in baldly literal terms; it is 
the logical conclusion of the implications of what is said. But 
surely the author would be a poor poet if he had been baldly literal. 
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the argument against 
the death of the Servant has sprung from a desire to avoid the 
consequences that come from the idea of a dying Servant, not from a 
desire to take the text at face value. For there is not just an 
allusion or two that different persons may read variously; at least 
half a dozen statements point in the direction of the Servant's death 
(vv. 5, 8, 9, 10, etc; thus it takes Whybray many pages to deal with 
them all). If the author is not asking the reader to understand that 
the Servant has died, then he is guilty of serious misdirection. This 
issue illustrates one of the problems with Whybray's attempt to make 
53:1-12 refer to the maltreated and almost-killed "Deutero-Isaiah." 
The problem lies in the nature of the poem itself. It is too lofty, 
too convoluted, too atmospheric, and too mysterious to have sprung 
from such a mundane event as that (completely) hypothetical event 
would have been. If one puts the accounts of Jeremiah's imprisonments 
and releases into a poetic format like that of Ps. 73, one would have 
a much more likely prototype for what Whybray wants to hypothesize 
than can be found in this gloriously angular and unmanageable 
masterpiece, with its towering theologizing on sin and death, 
suffering and salvation. The person whom Whybray wants to put on this 
throne is simply too small to fill it.

                                        Yours,
                                        Harold Holmyard