Dr. Michael Bird (the oft mistaken Rick Astley impersonator of Highland Theological College & the blog EUANGELION) posted the following questions to leading Reformed theologians. The answers appear to require a book-length well-reasoned argument. But the questions cut right to the core of Biblical Theology and really, any kind of Jewish or Christian theology. Here they are:
1. What is the “Reformed Orthodox” view of using extra-biblical sources in exegesis? What led you to this answer and what (if anything) makes your answer prescriptive?2. Why is Genesis 1-3 similar to the Enuma Elish? On what do you base your answer?3. Did the Apostle Paul believe in the inerrancy of the autographa? Why are Paul’s citation of Scripture often different from the wording and meaning in the original Hebrew Bible and even the Septuagint (to give one example: Isa. 59.20 cited in Rom. 11.26-27)?4. Did the historical person of Enoch prophesy about the coming of the Lord (Jude 14-15)? Why does Jude cite this extra-canonical source (an Enochic tradition?), without differentiating it from the Hebrew Scriptures that he also quotes in his short epistle?
Dru, you know this is why I was taking Bayer’s hermeneutics class years ago. In particular, #3 bothered me. Investigating this lead me to speech act theory (JL Austin) which led me to Wolterstorff and Wittgenstein and away from theology to philosophy (and eventually away from hermeneutics to phil of mind, but that’s a whole different topic).
So. Do you have any ideas as to an answer from a Reformed perspective…?
(And yes, I know that these are prompted by the tempest in a TR teapot over Enns)
CK,
Like I said, the answers to these is at least one or two books of material. But here are my terse leanings:
1. Historical milleiu is always an informant to exegesis. So it has to play some role. That’s just general historical research principle.
2. So if Genesis 1-3 is historically prior to the Enuma Elish, which it is by self report, then the Enuma Elish and Gilgamesh (etc., ad nauseum) are reiterartions of the historically prior account of Gen. 1-3. This is plainly obvious and there is no reasonable argument either way. If you take the Babylonian accounts (etc.) to be historically prior, then Gen. 1-3 is drawing upon it. But, given the deep mystery of the Hurrian/Hebrew appearance issue, this vacancy of historical evidence won’t ever solve this particular problem.
3. I go with Mike Williams here. Inerrancy is an anachronism in the modern Western evangelical sense. Paul’s use indicates his view of the purpose and form of scripture.
4. I know nothing about this.
I think these questions bothered me as well and led me on a similar path, except that I would consider that path to fall entirely under the rubric of theology.
Thanks, Dru. I wasn’t expecting full book length treatments, just curious. Your approach (philosophy v theology) really does hinge upon the kinds of questions you’re interested in–like we talked about the other day.
Eventually, I found that these questions were more easily answered by (from my perspective) discarding some of the assumptions that led to these questions being so problematic. If that makes sense.
Here’s another question about inerrancy. If the inerrancy inheres in the autographs, such that the original Hebrew (or cognate language) is to be given priority, what does one do with the Pauline citations to the Septuagint, especially as the Septuagint diverges from the Hebrew?
BTW, I read the HTFC report, and it made me really sad.
Jonathan,
Congrats on Vanderbilt (BTW). I’ve been thinking about this exact issue a lot lately. Michael Bird had this Craig Koester quote on his blog:
“Reading Heb 1 is something like looking at a mosaic that depicts the image of a person. The artist creates the mosaic by selecting various types of stones and arranging them in a way that conveys the subject’s likeness. Those who look at the mosaic generally do not ask where the individual pieces came from or how each piece functioned elsewhere, but whether the arrangement of the stones conveys a genuine likeness of the person being portrayed. Similarly, to read Heb 1 on the author’s own terms is to ask whether the mosaic of OT quotations is a faithful representaton of the exalted Christ.”
- Hebrews (AB), p. 198.
What I have been thinking about specifically is the ‘prophetic license’ of inter-scriptural quotation. Even more specifically, how do we see the canonical texts of the NT using the OT in contrast to how we see the early Fathers using the NT. It is fairly well known that Papias and Polycarp (1st and 2nd century) were making extended and ‘literal’ quotations of the NT canon, even when they were describing the Gospels as something like the ‘memoirs of the Apostles’.
If we see a trend of marked contrast in the ‘prophetic license’ in quoting scripture against the literal quoting after the period of canonical formation, then we have some precedence to talk about the NT quotations of the OT. For then, we could say that the apostles were acting in line with prophetic tradition, much like we say that the speeches in Acts are well within the prophetic-repentence pattern.