I heartily concur with David Murray’s list of 10 Problems with Old Testament Teaching.
Messianic Jews are being persecuted in Mevasseret Zion (the town where the closest mall to Yad HaShmonah is).
That times have changed (on the computer) is clear from the fact that Google Desktop is being retired.
TMC is ranked #2 again by US News.
These two humorous videos illustrate the truth that pride comes before the fall.
Maoz Tzion Bet and Mevasseret Zion from south
I have trouble with Murray on problems 1-6 and 8. Murray ‘s concern about excessive Hebrew grammar should not be addressed by doing less Hebrew grammar, and his concern about excessive concessions could be met by making better defenses against (or better alternatives to) higher criticism, not by focusing less on defense or by ignoring higher critical methods. I am not sure how Historical and Literary analysis can be essential yet Historical and Literary criticism can be downplayed, because “criticism” in this sense means “analysis.” He paints a picture of either/or, where we must choose between either the Bible or one of these other issues. I would like to see both/and–graduate students who both know the Bible well and know excessive Hebrew grammar, methods, etc.
It seems to me the bigger issue is the fact that seminaries offer what appear to be graduate level classes/degrees to students many of whom have done little or no undergraduate work in the given field. I would expect that at the graduate level, students should already have a working knowledge of the Bible ‘s content. If they do not, they are probably not yet prepared for graduate school and may need to do some extra study in order to get there.
A.D.,
I am glad we agree on #7, 9 and 10. Those are important ones. On the other, I disagree, and part of my thinking on this has come from my last four years of study. Before that I was much more concerned with issues of background and introduction (authorship, date, etc.). So if I was asked to teach a one-hour class on the whole book of Daniel (not unusual for an OT survey course), it would probably focus on those things. I would defend myself with the notion that “they already know the content of the book.”
Where I have changed is that I don’t believe they do know it, and I’m not sure whether they should be expected to know it, even at the seminary level. Of course I’m talking here about more than the surface details, such as the plot line of Daniel in the lion’s den. But the message of the story as understood through the greater context of the book–this is not something that comes on the first reading. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Those students who have spent so much time learning Hebrew grammar have not had time to learn the way the book holds together. That’s what I’m going to spend my hour on–not on trying to explain why Daniel must not have been written in the 2nd century, not how a certain Aramaic construction is so fascinating. There is a time and place for that, but not when I’m teaching “the Old Testament.”
I don’t know what it’s like at your school, but I know at mine, where Bible is a strong emphasis, students don’t really know the Bible. And by that I am talking about PhD grads in OT. And professors in OT (and NT). They know all the grammar and why the liberals are wrong but they don’t know what the Bible is about. It is such a loss.
I don’t think he is arguing for less analysis, but if you spend all of your time doing analysis on the basis of the presuppositions of the critics (which are entirely antithetical to the biblical worldview), you won’t have much at the end of the day that is profitable for understanding the message of the book.
I’m not sure what Murray means by #8, so maybe I should not have included that one. I ‘m not sure how to supervise #9 and 10. I do not know if that is better addressed in a classroom or in some other setting. I have teachers who refer regularly to their reading of the Bible, so I know they are doing it, and they have encouraged the students many times in class to make sure they are reading the Bible and not just about it. I suppose at a place like IBEX, a teacher might be able to provide instruction and accountability. At a school like the one I am at now, the professors cannot possibly provide that same kind of accountability to each of the hundreds of students here.
I guess if we are talking about a single class that covers the entire OT, then even more of these “either/or” choices have to be made and I would probably want to do something close to what you would do. But I imagine that most seminaries have more than one course in the OT, and Murray seems to be addressing the entire way OT education is carried out. There are no doubt troubles in evangelical seminaries, but I am not sure all of them call for a 180 degree reversal. Here I would want to avoid casting the issue as either/or.
If the meaning of words depends on their context, then it is not enough to read the text without trying to grasp the context. I would say your study of the message is better off because of your grasp of the historical, cultural and geographical context. Others doing the same work but without your background are providing context from somewhere, but it is is probably farther removed from the context of the Bible than the context in which you are able to read it.
I suppose I would draw the lines between background and message more lightly. It seems to me that understanding as much of the context as possible (whether that be linguistic, literary, theological, historical, geographical, etc.) in which the communication was produced helps us know that we understand the message right, or at least it buttresses our interpretations and rules out possible other ones. I am not saying that this is our ultimate goal, but doing this part right is an important task of evangelical scholarship.
I agree on the importance of context. But I am concerned that maybe we can do too much of that. An infatuation becomes true love, and we end up spending less time with the text. I believe the treasures lie in the text and we have to make sure that the tools are serving the means of discovering the treasure and don’t become the treasure themselves.
No one can doubt my love for biblical backgrounds (don’t I have a website and make dozens of CDs, and haven’t I spent nearly every day for the last five months on more of the same), but if the choice was between a teacher who knew no backgrounds and had never been to Israel (horror!) but studied the text very carefully and a teacher who was a master at backgrounds but minimized his time in the text, I’d go with the former every time.
I was beginning to worry that you might sell off all your archaeology and geography stuff to go take in more Dallas Cowboy games and play fantasy football.
Interesting discussion. I feel fortunate that I have not had to make that last kind of choice. I would not want to. Either one would leave me wondering what it was the text was actually claiming. I would want text in context. (They say the same thing in homiletics.)
Seminaries do double-duty by training both pastors and scholars. There is a lot of overlap between the two because both seek to exegete and apply the Bible. But it is also true that pastors and scholars have to deal with different sets of issues and these require training in different areas. And, it also matters what kind of work the scholar is called to do. I think Murray has pastors in mind while I have scholars in mind. He mentions preachers a few times at the end of his list. By serving both constituencies, it may be that seminaries will always face this kind of tension between being too focused or specialized, and not being specialized enough.
Text in context, yes. But we can (and do) overestimate the value of extrabiblical context. Biblical context must take priority (and of course that includes a correct understanding of the grammar). But a classic example of failure here is when evangelicals are giving greater weight to Assyrian texts for the interpretation of a psalm than they are to the Old Testament context as well as to the New Testament view.
Everyone who goes to seminary, preacher and scholar, needs to understand the message of the OT. You can’t just do grammar and think that’s enough. You can’t just know the arguments for the date of Daniel and stop there. But too many seminary graduates know grammar and introductory matters but don’t know what the book means. And Murray tells us why: that’s where the emphasis lies in seminary classes.
It seems to me that when it comes to questions of “how” to read the Psalms, in other words, what were their conventions for saying things the way they did (e.g. genre, rhetorical and literary features, poetics, etc.), that here extrabiblical materials can give us greater insight than do non-psalmic biblical texts. To me, that kind of literary context is part of the context for reading and I would not want to downplay it. The extrabiblical material, however, must in all cases be shown to be relevant for reading the Psalms, but without it I do not know how we gain that kind of reading competence, since we do not write Psalms like this in our culture. (I am not disagreeing with the need to look at the biblical context–I believe we need to look at all of these contexts.)
I do not want to throw my hat in the ring with interpreters who are not careful or who are simply infatuated (as you said) with extrabiblical material, just because it sparkles and looks shiny and new (or maybe because it appears to be an exclusive domain of knowledge).
I like how you phrased the last paragraph: it is not enough to stop with this kind of study. I prefer this to wording that would pit understanding the message against grammar, and thus potentially imply that grammar is discretionary.
It depends on what you’re teaching. I’m teaching the HISTORY of Ancient Israel this semester and another class on the Second Temple Period. Both of the stated goals of the classes are that they focus on historical context. Moreover, one of my objectives for HAI is to “foster further independent study.” If this is one of my goals, then of course I’m going to spend some time talking about what other scholars say because pretty much in any book they open up on their own there will most likely say something about how the Bible is wrong here or there. Shouldn’t they be exposed to a bit of what other scholars are saying?
Also, if you’re studying the OLD TESTAMENT, what’s wrong with focusing on the OT? Not to say that you can’t touch the NT, but I’m more of an advocate of sticking to the text you’re looking at rather than using the OT as an excuse to get into the NT. After all, the audience of the OT didn’t have the NT.
Benj – if you’re teaching a course on backgrounds, then obviously that should be the focus. But the writer’s point here was that he was looking at syllabi for OT courses. And I’d go a step further and say that we should be careful in the courses we require and offer to not produce students who know all the background but not the text. This is not an imagined danger.
Similarly with looking at what other scholars say, the point is not that one should never do that, but if that’s the main part of a class which is allegedly on the OT, then the student has been failed. I think we often assume that students know the Bible and so to be interesting and helpful we must teach them something else. This is a incorrect assumption. They don’t know the Bible. And I wonder if the reason why some teachers ostensibly teaching the OT but really teaching OT criticism and OT backgrounds do so because that is what they were taught and they don’t really know the Bible. I’m speaking as much from personal experience and my own failures as anything else.
As for the place of the NT in an OT study, there are two extremes to be avoided. One is what you mention. I heartily agree that if we’re moving quickly from the OT to the NT then we probably have not worked carefully enough in the OT to understand it. (And actually this is not true just of moving from one testament to another but of moving from any text to another.) But the other extreme that the writer has witnessed is one that EXCLUDES the NT from the discussion. This is in fact a passion of mine so I must have addressed it a number of times here and don’t want to be repetitive, but in short: if one comes to a conclusion in the OT and then turns to the NT and finds that Jesus or the apostles have a different conclusion, then you know that your answer is WRONG. You have to go back and rework the math problem in order to arrive at the correct answer. The other alternative is that Jesus is wrong (the view of unbelievers). A silly but popular alternative among evangelical scholars is that both of the two different conclusions are correct.
Back to the issue at hand, I think the proper approach is to study the Bible canonically (according to progressive revelation) and carefully. Don’t rush to the NT but when you get there, don’t reject its relevance for understanding the OT correctly.