Is Serious Academic Study of the Bible a Threat to Faith?

For more than fifty years I've been reading the Bible. For the same amount of time I've been studying the Bible. And all that time since University, I've consulted, learned from and valued the dedicated scholarship of the academic guild of Biblical Studies. Commentaries and grammars, dictionaries and lexicons, biblical theologies and ethics, the social background and history of biblical times, theories of hermeneutics and various approaches to biblical literary studies; there is no shortage of resources to dig, to dig deeply, and go on digging into the biblcal text.

One of my particular interests is the history of biblical interpretation, and in particular how historical context decisively influences how a text is understood, interpreted and applied in faith communities and the wider culture. In the nineteenth century, biblical criticism created widely varied responses. There was generally deep suspicion and hostility of conservative scholars to any approach which seemed to undermine the authority of the Bible. On the other side, a growing enthusiastic pursuit of new knowledge and approaches to the biblical texts as historic documents, and the view that they were to be studied and interpreted like other ancient documents, and open to the same tests of historical and literary analysis.

Evangelicalism has at best been cautious and indeed resistant to the more thoroughgoing approaches of historical and literary critics working on the Bible. Words such as "liberal" and "critical" became shorthand epithets for those who were believed to practice a reductionist science which undermined the historical veracity and spiritual authority of the Old and New Testaments. Fear led to witholding trust in a form of scholarship claiming to be objective, historically impartial and increasingly approved in the academy. The result was general reluctance amongst conservative evangelical scholars to read and use and learn from the writing and teaching of "liberal scholarship". Much of conservative evangelical biblical scholarship was apologetic in content, intended either to contradict the findings of the critics, or offering a different textual interpretation controlled in both content and approach by a high doctrine of biblical inspiration.

Those days of polarised positions with parallel but separate tracks of faith and scholarship which seemed destined never to meet, are now much changed. It has taken time, a hundred and fifty years or so. But today some of the finest biblical scholars of international reputation in the Academy are writing from firm confessional convictions which, they argue, are quite consistent with rigorous critical scholarship and analysis of the biblical text and world.

Which brings me to a book which showcases leading biblical scholars who are comfortable with a "both / and" approach to biblical study. Faith and scholarship are not incompatible, they argue. Indeed they need each other, and are indispensable pre-requisites to the proper study of the biblical texts with results both useful to the church and intellectually honest in their claims.  Of course for evangelicals engaged in critical academic biblical studies, tensions inevitably remain. Questions about the nature of biblical authority, the preferred hermeneutical approach, the fruits and outcomes of academic study of the Bible; these will vary. But as shown by the authors of the essays in this book, questions and tensions are held within a strong commitment to the Bible as normative for the life of the Christian and for the Church as the community of faith.

I (Still) Believe is an unusual, and unusually helpful book. The words of the dedication are telling in their pastoral tone. We are told the book is written "For all who have struggled, wrestled, been discouraged, lamented, lost hope, wanted to give up, wondered if it all made sense, but still believe…" That was enough to pull me in.

Eighteen Christian academics who are at the top of their game and who have international reputations as biblical scholars have each written an autobiographical essay on their own faith journey, and the tensions of being a critical biblical scholar and a practising member of a Christian faith community. Some of them are quite moving in their honesty, while others describe how their intellectual and spiritual journey became a coincidence of study and practice. Still others write of how their scholarship compels new understanding, persuades towards changing conviction, and has personal consequences in life transformation and self-understanding.

Now whether you're interested in biblical studies or not, this is an important book. Reading it exposes you the reader to questions others have asked before you, and have persevered in looking for the answers. If you are a Bible reader, and let's face it that's a core practice of Christian living, then you'll discover the so many other ways of reading the Bible responsibly, wrestling  with this transformative, subversive, disturbing and ultimately life saving book. Even if you're not a frequent Bible reader, take time to listen to the why and how of people who are, and whose life work is the study of these ancient texts from ancient cultures. They may well encourage you to go looking for that Bible and try again. 

These are essays of testimony, each an attempt at an honest account of what it means to wrestle with the Bible as Jacob wrestled with the angel, and like Jacob, hanging on for dear life, saying through gritted teeth, "I will not let you go until you bless me." If that sounds like an exaggeration, just wait till you read the essay which tells of the losing of a loved one, and how that loss has impelled the writer to explore the depths of troubling Bible texts and how they relate to human suffering and comfort.

Another, writing of her upbringing in a racially segregated southern church, tells how that experience made such an impression she "would never again read scriptural texts in a way that excludes others." Here is what she writes:"I have ever since been deeply distressed by attempts to draw circles that exclude, whatever feeble grounds are offered, especially when such circles are presented as 'Christian'".  

This is a book that will do good if it is read in the spirit in which it is written. This is heart speaking to heart about how to use, and not abuse, the Bible. It is testimony, academic scholars helping us to put their own writing and studies and scholarship in their own and personal life context. It is a reassuring book, not because it minimises the challenges of critical scholarship, or argues away the problems the Bible poses to 21st Century readers (and the problems are many and they range from big to humungous). But because each writer in and through their scholarly work, has faced up to those hard questions that might put faith in jeopardy. But in obedience to God and in faithfulness to the truth they seek, they have lived with the tension, neither surrendering intellectual integrity nor that faith which requires trust in the One of whom and to whom these ancient texts bear witness.

The essayists in this book are professional and vocational scholars. Day and daily they engage with the Bible critically and honestly, and with the best intellectual tools available; and they still believe.