Bad Bible Scholarship

[Kushana]

Two recent articles on professional websites address 1) quacks:

I believe that the public deserves —
and wants — better. We have an obligation to challenge the lies and the hype, to share the real data, so that the public discussion can be an informed one ....

Why are we [scholars] sitting the battle out?

Partly, this is a matter of a strain of snobbery that runs through many academic fields: a suspicion of colleagues who venture too far from "serious" topics or appear in the popular media
too often.

http://www.sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=735


2) my colleagues' tendency to ignore the public:

If we are going to avoid being blockheads, we are going to have to start writing books that more people will want to buy as something besides remainders.

As a graduate student, I remember being warned that writing for mainstream audiences would become a red flag in my Google portfolio that I would never be able to escape. And Ph.D.'s who contribute to the blogosphere have been warned by the famous Ivan Tribble to watch their words.

In many quarters -- particularly at research universities -- anything but scholarly articles in refereed journals and university press books indicates a lack of seriousness and commitment to the profession. And that attitude often trickles down to many lesser institutions that would be better served by more flexibility with regard to faculty work.

Somehow, speaking to anyone outside of one's narrow specialty can be construed as a damning breech of academic punctilio.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/2006/02/20060 ... htm?pg=dji

I'm glad to see two issues that consistently get my goat being addressed (and, I hope, discussed) in my field at large. Since you're the most important part of it, what do you think? What obligations do specialists owe the folk who pay their salaries (directly or indirectly)?

-Kushana, who blogs obliquely

[Primula Baggins]

Kushana, what a fascinating question, and it really applies to any field that has strong popular interest and a strong scholarly tradition.

As a layman, I would like to see experts more engaged in some of these discussions. I'm not talking about circus stunts such as staged public "debates" about evolution, but about availability to the press, willingness to write "popular" articles, willingness to explain complicated points.

As a layman, I am always sorry to see people with extreme views hold the floor while scholars in the field hold back for all the reasons you describe. Everyone within a field knows who's worth listening to on a particular topic, and who is not. The problem is that the press and the public don't know those things. A person who presents himself as an expert is treated as one. And if genuine experts assail his credentials, they can be made to seem petty, as if they do it only to protect their scholarly prestige.

Then there is the problem that the press feels obliged to present every "controversy" as a clash of two equal and opposite positions, to which they give equal space and weight even if the actual "controversy" is a small group of self-styled experts matched against the whole range of modern knowledge.

I would like to see more scholars who are willing and able to speak to the press and the public, not as a matter of PR but in order to give the truth a fighting chance (and to make real controversies understandable).

[Jnyusa]

Then there is the problem that the press feels obliged to present every "controversy" as a clash of two equal and opposite positions, to which they give equal space and weight even if the actual "controversy" is a small group of self-styled experts matched against the whole range of modern knowledge.

Yes, this is a serious problem in scientific reporting, not least because the journalists themselves are now discouraged from serious investigation by their publishers.

If I can play the devils's advocate for one moment, I often wish that economics were not a topic where everyone feels free to have an opinion, with or without training. It does allow the unscrupulous among us to commandeer terminology, such as "free market," and to have it be bandied about without anyone in the public knowing what it actually means within the discipline.

I don't know what the equivalent of that would be in Bible studies, but I can imagine that there is one.

It's bad for the experts to be off in their ivory towers, and it's bad for the public to be denied access to professionals, but it's also bad for the profession to be exposed to the twistiness of the media and open to exploitation by half-baked scholars who can only get published in the Sunday Supplement.

I guess good examples of the happy medium would be persons like S.J. Gould or Loren Eiseley, who had a gift for enticing the average person with highly specialized ideas ... or Elaine Pagels in your discipline, Kushana, popularizing quite an esoteric topic. But this really is a gift, I think, which most scientists don't possess and don't really need in order to be successful in their serious pursuits.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Kushana, I'll be back to answer your question when I can give it proper consideration. For now, I'll just say that I'm glad to see you!

[Faramond]

When I think popular books about the bible I think of books that claim the bible is full of secret codes, or the ones about the bible endorsing greed or telling you how to get rich. I'm not surprised that Bible specialists are leery of trying to speak to the mainstream. Look at the company they'd be in!

[Kushana]

Dear Primula Baggins,

... it really applies to any field that has strong popular interest and a strong scholarly tradition.

I do not know if all such fields have a tendency towards reticence like mine. (This may have served us in the past, but now - especially with the internet - it creates a vacuum that pseudoscholarsip fills.)

As a layman, I would like to see experts more engaged in some of these discussions.... I would like to see more scholars who are willing and able to speak to the press and the public, not as a matter of PR but in order to give the truth a fighting chance (and to make real controversies understandable).

As an expert, I would, too! (And I couldn't agree with you, more.)

I'm not talking about circus stunts such as staged public "debates" about evolution ...

No, me neither. Can folk think of no better 'hook' than "this will cause a big fight"? Is that the sole point of interest in these topics, the sole angle of approach?

/K. looks askance at her colleagues who teach Journalism.

... willingness to write "popular" articles, willingness to explain complicated points.

Alas, my field does not cultivate this. We train for technical complexity and forget to then go in the opposite direction...

A person who presents himself as an expert is treated as one.

You've put your finger on an important problem for many disciples, including mine. I don't want to hit people over the head with a sheepskin, but right now it feels like the burden of proof is on the scholar to distinguish themselves from the pretenders. (Which means the fact-checking process has broken down somewhere else, somewhere earlier.) [Occasionally a genuine scholar does go soft in the head -- indeed I swear there is a subset of fields in my discipline that seems to induce it more often than others -- but that's a different problem.]


Dear Jnyusa,

Yes, this is a serious problem in scientific reporting, not least because the journalists themselves are now discouraged from serious investigation by their publishers.

Maybe this explains the decay of fact checking?

... I often wish that economics were not a topic where everyone feels free to have an opinion, with or without training. It does allow the unscrupulous among us to commandeer terminology, such as "free market," and to have it be bandied about without anyone in the public knowing what it actually means within the discipline.

There are issues like that in my field, also. Or worse, the popular version of the term is packed with misinformation. (i.e. "Q" -- such a simple idea that Christian bookstores sell posters of it (I can't name another concept in my field where that's the case.))

It's bad for the experts to be off in their ivory towers, and it's bad for the public to be denied access to professionals, but it's also bad for the profession to be exposed to the twistiness of the media and open to exploitation by half-baked scholars who can only get published in the Sunday Supplement.

I agree: the talk I heard this spring on the Gospel of Judas was exactly on the 'twistiness of the media' and how to (try to) counteract it. The piece of it that irritates me is, fortunately, the one I can do most about: the idea that we shouldn't talk to the groundlings.

I guess good examples of the happy medium would be persons like S.J. Gould or Loren Eiseley....

I miss Dr. Gould -- his field could use him perhaps more than ever.

(To Dr. Pagels name I could add a few others: Gnosticism has been unusually fortunate in attracting scholars with just that aptitude and a wish to speak to the public. Going through the original translators of the Nag Hammadi Library, I can name five who've written for the public, and I should add Dr. Samuel Lieu for Manichaeism. Yet no one, individually or collectively, has taken up a Gould-like mantle to talk about our entire field, in general -- and anyone in our field who's ever worked in a small department or had to teach breadth classes is qualified to do so.)


Dear Voronwë_the_Faithful,

I'm glad you're reflecting the visible light spectrum, also.


Dear Faramond,

I'm not surprised that Bible specialists are leery of trying to speak to the mainstream. Look at the company they'd be in!

I don't know what's behind my field's reticence. Maybe it is this ... but I can't think of anyone who's shaking in their boots at their inability to write differently than Dan Brown.

I suppose the issue I'm puzzling over is whether 'expert' necessarily means 'recluse'.

Yours,
Kushana

[axordil]

The reason the tower is there is to keep you from being distracted. The reason it's ivory is to entice people into trying to distract you.

But remember the lesson of The Lady of Shallot.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't know what's behind my field's reticence.

I don't know for sure, but perhaps it is related to the fact that the nature of your field it to examine objectively the foundation of many, many people's fundamental beliefs. The reticence may well be a defense mechanism against offending the sensibilities of the many people whose relationship with the Bible is based on faith, not reason.

[Kushana]

Dear Voronwë_the_Faithful,

My latest irritable jag is wishing folk would read the Book of Job more often: where God is an ambitious character, Satan is an ambiguous character, the justice and order of the universe is questioned, God is challenged, God is cursed. Yet is is also one of strongest visions of divine power and majesty in the Bible.

After reading it, could a person of faith imagine that anything we silly humans say could in the least touch God?

(A lifetime of reading religious texts leads me to think that the divine is far less fragile than many seem to suppose: in many traditions It seems quite capable of looking after Itself.)

I don't know for sure, but perhaps it is related to the fact that the nature of your field it to examine objectively the foundation of many, many people's fundamental beliefs. The reticence may well be a defense mechanism against offending the sensibilities of the many people whose relationship with the Bible is based on faith, not reason.

(Some of the greatest people of faith I have known have been adamant that reason must be part of that process. This includes many of the Church Fathers. They seemed to regard faith as a capacity of the heart -- which is wonderful, but not the only part of our natures. They also did not equate thinking with sin -- sin can also begin in the heart, after all, or anywhere else in our fallen natures.)

I would agree with your sense of 'reticence as defense mechanism', except I've seen the same attitude in scholars who study topics that no one within a thousand miles (or a thousand years) could take offense at. (Perhaps they borrowed it from those of us who study living religions; perhaps it is because all of us study a topic that is off limits in polite conversation.) I assume these professional traditions developed for good reason ... but part that bothers me is the air of "we know things that the groundlings don't deserve to know: it's too good for them." At the moment that sitting very uneasily against our role as educators for me and I feel all the stranger that the few who are pointing this out are largely met with quiet and inaction on the part of our colleagues. Just what are we fencing off -- and why?

I do not mean the sentiment of "this topic is so esoteric and technical that it would probably bore you", I mean the positive sense that we have secret knowledge that's so ours that we will scarcely mention it to non-scholars. At first I mistook this for a series of other, more natural and forgivable, things (especially for this or that person getting off on the wrong foot with what we're about) -- but this spring's talk on the Gospel of Judas has made me look back over the past and now I see some things differently. (Thanks to the openness of the scholars working with the Gospel of Judas and their efforts to not repeat the mistakes made with the publication of both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library.)

-Kushana

[Voronwë the Faithful]

My dear Kushana, the Book of Job is actually the ONLY part of the Bible that I have any real familiarity with, or that has had a profound effect on my personal belief system.

I do not mean the sentiment of "this topic is so esoteric and technical that it would probably bore you", I mean the positive sense that we have secret knowledge that's so ours that we will scarcely mention it to non-scholars.

I think that is a reflection of human nature more than anything else. I certainly see a similar trend in my own profession, where attorneys go so far as to scarcely discuss the legal issues that will determine the fates of their clients with those clients.

[Kushana]

My dear Kushana, the Book of Job is actually the ONLY part of the Bible that I have any real familiarity with, or that has had a profound effect on my personal belief system.

/K. smiles

I think it is one of those splendid works that one could read over an entire lifetime and still benefit from: it can even be read as a folktale (just read the very beginning and the very end). (I include the Lord of the Rings in the same category.)

I think that is a reflection of human nature more than anything else. I certainly see a similar trend in my own profession, where attorneys go so far as to scarcely discuss the legal issues that will determine the fates of their clients with those clients.

!

That could be: the one truism of departmental culture is that people love knowing what others don't. I have been worrying that I sounded naive: most scholars I know are friendly, open people who enjoy teaching and writing (in some combination and under most circumstances.) When we gather we don't form a cabal on how best to keep information to the public - and we lament anyone who delays publishing valuable work. Yet we also tend not to talk about what academic culture is and how it works: the products of that culture are blamed on misbehaving individuals or an external factor <insert a long elaborate story about working conditions or troubles at publisher or internal politics here -- perhaps quite truthful but also beside the point.>

At the risk of sounding Taoist -- how do we see what is invisible? How do we change what is silent? Am I passing this on? What can I do (other than my odd little experiment with new technology)?

-Kushana

[Tolkien Forever]

[/b]My latest irritable jag is wishing folk would read the Book of Job more often: where God is an ambitious character, Satan is an ambiguous character, the justice and order of the universe is questioned, God is challenged, God is cursed. Yet is is also one of strongest visions of divine power and majesty in the Bible.

After reading it, could a person of faith imagine that anything we silly humans say could in the least touch God?
[/b]

Kushana:

While I can't make heads or tails about what this thread is about - is it bashing Christian bible scholars or bibliclal archeologists who discredit the bible? (I only took a quick glance at the 2nd article & gave up), I am an expert on the Book of Job from personal experience.....

As a new believer, I prayed for the faith of Job & got the sufferings of Job, at least physically, from a concussion of the top of my head to open sores on my big toes from a nerve disease that required 3 surgeries to fix - Just as Job had sores on his body from head to foot.
Six bad discs in my lower back; 15 surgeries since 2001; 11 months in bed with an infection in my left knee after having it replaced - it was almost aputated; after one foot surgery, 5 infections & several subsequent surgeries, cut down to the bone to finally drain it & get the infection to go away. No tailbone anymore due to a freak accident, yet cronic pain there still, rotator cuff surgery; neck surgery; TMJ; blah, blah, blah.....

Unlike Job, who NEVER cursed God, I did.....

Yet God, in His infinite wisdom, gave me what I asked for.
This past October, He showed me His love in a major way & after 14 years, delivered me from the pain of my past, removed all my bitterness & had me break off the 'curse of Job' I had placed on myself. The second I prayed to break that curse off, I felt a release & I'm slowly but surely feeling better physically, Praise God.

Yet, if I hadn't gone through that, I wouldn't know God's love as I do, or have the faith to move mountains now.

[Primula Baggins]

Tolkien Forever,

First, welcome. We are always glad to have new members, and delighted to see them jump right in and post.

One of the jobs of joining a board is learning to understand the customs and atmosphere—as I'm sure you know, they're all different. One custom of this board that I’d like to draw to your attention is reading threads before responding in them (other than some of the social, chatty threads in Bag End, where the topic changes from page to page). If you had read this thread, you would understand what it is about and that Kushana is, herself, a scholar of ancient Biblical texts and active in the field. As a Christian myself, I find what she has to say informative and fascinating, and you might, too.

A second point I’d like to make is that this board draws its membership from all over the world and from a wide range of beliefs; many of our members are not religious. We like to discuss aspects of religion, and we try to do it in a respectful way. This means specifically avoiding “witnessing” or apologetics. If you live mainly among other enthusiastic Christians, it can be hard to understand how off-putting, and often how hurtful, such a post can be to our many members who are of other faiths or none.

In the two years this board has existed, we have worked out a way that allows us all to discuss our religious beliefs or lack of them in a calm and respectful manner. Part of that is to be careful not to express disrespect for the beliefs of others—to urge or assume that others “should” accept what we believe or to say that they would be better off or happier if they did; or to discuss our own beliefs in terms of how happy we are to be “right.”

We discuss our own beliefs without pressing them on others; we ask questions about others’ beliefs, but only to gain information, not to try to point out something we might see as "wrong" about those beliefs. The point is learning, not teaching.

It’s a difficult nuance to pick up, but it’s important; it has allowed religious discussions to flourish here largely without flame wars or bitter feelings, and I at least have learned much that I didn’t know before.

I suggest that you read a few of our longer threads in Tol Eressëa, in their entirety, and this may show you what I am trying to convey here.

Thanks for reading this.

[Tolkien Forever]

Actualy, I get your point, but I was responding directly to the part about Job....

And I must say I am an expert about The Book of Job through studying at The School of Hard Knocks & not some dead Bible College, although not all Theological Seminaries are'dead' to The Spirit of The Living God - although many are unfortunately...
'Head' knowledge does not equal 'heart' ' knowledge, i.e., you can know all about God without ever knowing him.....

My point was not to 'witness' about God but to describe the true meaning of the book of Job, as it was being taken wrongly.
Sorry that you took it wrongly, but out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak.....

As far as apologetics, I don't much care for them myself - arguements ad nauseum.....

I don't get that bit about not witnessing on a religious site.
No freedom to express one's views?
I get the impression that things may somewhat 'legalistic' here as I tried to post on a certain thread and was told that you need to have special acsess to post there - how clique-ish.......

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I get the impression that things may somewhat 'legalistic' here as I tried to post on a certain thread and was told that you need to have special acsess to post there - how clique-ish.......

Tolkien Forever, as a member, you have access to read and post in all the forums. I suspect that you had tried to post before we were able to set your permissions after you registered. If you continue to have problems, please feel free to send me a PM and I will make sure that it gets fixed.

[Primula Baggins]

Tolkien Forever, Voronwë is right: once your permissions are activated you are free to post anywhere. There is nothing cliquish about it; it is the only way to keep spam robots from posting porn links in our forums. Your permissions are all activated.

This is not actually a religious site; it is

an internet community formed to discuss the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and other topics of interest in the Arts, Literature, Politics, and Philosophy. We are open to the public. Our goal is to maintain an atmosphere of quiet and courtesy so that serious discussion can flourish among people with diverse ideas and perspectives.

That is taken from this thread in the Welcome forum, which presents some basic information about our site.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

My point was not to 'witness' about God but to describe the true meaning of the book of Job, as it was being taken wrongly.

That's a pretty strong statement, to say that "it was being taken wrongly". Particularly since Kushana by no means was making a definitive statement on the meaning of the Book of Job, but rather was simply making some brief side comments (with which I fully agree). Are you saying that your interpretation of what is probably the most complex and widely debated portion of the bible is the only possible "correct" interpretation? I gather from your posts that you are looking at it from a Christian perspective. What about the many hundreds of years of Talmudic analysis of the Book? Does that have no value. A good argument can be made that the Book of Job is a profoundly Jewish work. After all, who knows more about suffering than us Jews?

Moreover, not only is not clear just exactly what you believe was "taken wrongly," it is also not at all clear from your post just exactly what you believe is the "true meaning" of the Book. I gather than you feel that its main theme is the importance of faith in God, and I certainly agree with you that is a big part of it. But to my thinking there is a lot more than that. The most important message to me in the Book of Job is that the workings of the Lord are beyond the comprehension of mere mortal men (as Kushana implied). This Job himself is perfectly willing to accept, since it actually bears out the main point that he was making in his debate with his "comforters": that he had not sinned, and that the reasons for all the suffering that he was going through lied with God, not with himself. It is true that God praises Job for his steadfastness and restores his wealth, granting him ten more children and blessing the rest of his days. A happy ending, just as you suggest you are enjoying, yes? Then perhaps you can answer this one question for me. What about Job's original ten children, all of whom died at a young age, simply so that God could make a point to Satan (or perhaps the other way around). What sense is there in their innocent deaths, through no faults of their own; what justice is there for them? If you can answer that question for me, then I will truly believe that you are indeed an "expert about The Book of Job."

[nerdanel]

TF,

You have an uphill battle to convince me that there is ONE 'true meaning' to any book of the Bible, most of all the Book of Job (the paradigmatic "most difficult" book of the Bible, as it's called) rather than varying and sometimes contradictory interpretations that can give the text meaning to different people.

Incidentally, given that the book of Job was undisputedly written, in all that I have read, centuries prior to Jesus' day, I should say that it was a wholly Jewish work from the outset, whatever meanings other later faiths have ascribed to it or found it in it (although V, my understanding is that the Talmudic commentaries on the book are relatively minimal, though they're there.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

V, my understanding is that the Talmudic commentaries on the book are relatively minimal, though they're there.)

Really? Well, you would certainly know better than me.

You know, a long while ago there was some talk about having a discussion thread about the Book of Job. I wonder if there would still be some interest in that. There's certainly a lot to talk about.

[Crucifer]

Of course Job is a Jewish work. If it's from the Christian Old Testament, it's a Jewish work! Old Testament cannot possibly be Christian as it deals with BC!

Sheesh...