Confronting Old Testament Controversies

Pressing Questions about Evolution, Sexuality, History, and Violence

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• Publisher: Baker Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493416301
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

For many people, skeptics and believers alike, the Old Testament is rife with controversial passages and events that make both belief and sharing our beliefs with others difficult. Often our solutions have tended toward the extremes--ignore problem passages and pretend they don't matter or obsess over them and treat them as though they are the only thing that matters. Now with clarity of purpose and fidelity to the message and spirit of Scripture as a whole, Tremper Longman confronts pressing questions of concern to modern audiences, particularly young people in the church: - the creation/evolution debate
- God-ordained violence
- the historicity of people, places, and events
- human sexuality Pastors, leaders in the church, and thoughtful and troubled Christians in the pews will find here a well-reasoned and faithful approach to dealing with the Old Testament passages so many find challenging or disconcerting.

1
Creation and Evolution

Are the Bible and Science in Conflict?

After teaching all day at a church retreat in the fall of 2009, I was tired. Don’t get me wrong. I was enjoying my weekend assignment to open up the grand narrative of the Bible to a group of bright young professionals from the San Francisco area, and the setting at a resort on Lake Tahoe was amazing. But still, I was hoping to get away that evening and fallow my mind by watching some football.

In a moment of weakness, however, I agreed to allow one of the attendees, a professional filmmaker, to ask me questions on film. I didn’t know what he would ask or what he was doing with the film. But once we started, I enjoyed the time. He asked a number of questions about the Old Testament, and then came the one that ended up affecting my research and thinking agenda for the next decade. “Is it necessary that Adam be a historical individual for the early chapters of Genesis to be theologically important and true?”

I’ll be honest. At this stage I didn’t know that evolutionary biology provided overwhelming evidence that humanity did not emerge from its primate past through a single couple but rather through a population of some thousands of individuals. I didn’t even know that in some circles the question of the historical Adam was already a raging controversy. I was just thinking of the nature of Genesis 1–11 when I replied that, because of the highly figurative nature of the description of actual events in this first portion of Genesis, it was not necessary that Adam be a historical individual.

I didn’t think much about this filming, and I went off and watched some football. About five days later, I got a call from an administrator of a seminary where I was going to teach a course in two weeks. While the following is not a verbatim recounting of our conversation, it is my best remembrance.

The administrator, a friend, said, “Tremper, our school has become aware of the clip that you did on Adam on YouTube.”1

“What’s YouTube?” (Remember it was 2009, and I am technologically challenged.)

“Do you really believe what you said about Adam on that video clip?”

“Of course, or I wouldn’t have said it.”

“If that is what you believe,” he said, “you can’t teach at our school. We have an unwritten policy, based on our understanding of the Westminster Confession of Faith, that people who hold that opinion can’t teach for us.”

“Really? I did not know that. Well, then, I’ll teach this class and we’ll part ways.”

“No, you can’t even teach that class.”

“I have twenty-five students in that class who are expecting me to teach them!”

“Sorry, my hands are tied.”

“Well, you are going to have to fire me, because I don’t want you walking into class to tell them I resigned.”

“Sorry, Tremper. It’s not my decision. But because of the position of our seminary, I have to fire you.”

I had violated an unwritten policy. Though my class had nothing to do with Adam, creation, or the book of Genesis, I was out.

I’m not looking for pity here. Though I enjoyed the job, I was being fired from a part-time adjunct teaching position. My day job (as the Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies at Westmont College) was quite secure, and I had a lot more adjunct opportunities as well. Indeed, as word got out, I got even more speaking opportunities. Also, I want to be clear that I maintain my friendship with the administrator and also appreciate the school that fired me (though they have a blind spot here). I am telling this story to highlight how I discovered just how controversial the issue we are about to discuss is. Passions flare on all sides.

Let’s dive in. The issue of creation and evolution has to do with the nature of the biblical witness, the relationship between science and faith, the theological impact of certain contemporary scientific theories, and much, much more. As I said, this issue evokes a lot of passion. Particularly in the present political atmosphere, there is a tendency on the part of both sides to demonize others. “What a fundamentalist!” or “Are you even a Christian?” are not arguments but rather attempts to silence what is an important discussion.

Recent surveys show that an alarming number of young people are abandoning the faith because they feel that they must make a decision between what they learn in their science class and what they hear in church.2 Others decide not to go into the science field even though they find it intriguing. I believe that we must learn from science but that it is more important that we maintain our fidelity to God and Scripture than to what scientists may be telling us at any given time. But does the Bible actually teach that God created two humans from a nonorganic past?

How Do We Interpret the Bible?

Before we talk directly about creation/evolution, historicity, divine violence, and sexuality, we need to begin with a subject that will be important throughout all four topics: how we interpret the Bible. Everyone has a strategy for reading the Bible, even if it is just to pick it up and read it as if it were written yesterday, looking for what is relevant to one’s life. God can use that type of reading in our lives, to be sure, but our desire should be to adopt the best possible interpretive approach to hear God’s voice speaking to us from his Word rather than imposing our own meaning on the text.

This attention is particularly important as we discuss controversial issues, as I do in this book. With these issues especially, it is essential that we pay attention not only to what the Bible says but also to how we are arriving at our understanding of it. In each of the four areas we are investigating here, people who hold to the authority of the Bible and agree about what the Bible says still have widely divergent views about what the Bible means, so it is important to look clearly at how we interpret the Bible.

Hermeneutics is the technical term for the science of interpretation, which sounds a little sterile. But everyone who reads the Bible has a hermeneutic, even if they don’t know it. Perhaps it will be clearer if we simply think of hermeneutics as principles of interpretation that lead to a strategy for reading the Bible.3

This book is not the place to do a full hermeneutics,4 but I will focus on those issues that are particularly important to the questions of cosmic and human origins, historicity, divine violence, and sexuality. In this chapter I will look at the nature of the Word of God (canonicity, inerrancy, and clarity), the nature and goal of interpretation (how we find meaning in texts), and the role that genre plays in how we read—issues that are important for all four of the topics in this book. I will then look at the relationship of science and the interpretation of Scripture, an issue that has special bearing on the question of creation and evolution. In each subsequent chapter I will likewise bring in additional principles of hermeneutics that are relevant.

The Nature of the Word of God

As we begin our strategy for reading the Bible, we start by asking, Why do we, as Christians, care what the Bible says about these subjects? We care because the Bible is the Word of God, and that means we, the church, treat it as canon and believe that it tells us the truth.

CANONICITY

The church has recognized the Old and New Testaments as its standard of faith and practice from the very earliest times. But we must be careful not to confuse the church’s long-standing recognition of the canonicity of the books of the Old and New Testaments with the reason they are canonical (the ground of canonicity).5 The church does not define the canon; the canon defines the church. God reveals himself through the Scriptures; the Holy Spirit speaks to the church through these books; and the Spirit that dwells in the church hears and recognizes that authoritative voice.

In short, by saying that the Old and New Testaments are canonical, we mean that the church looks to the Scriptures as the source of authoritative teaching about God (doctrine) as well as for guidance for how we should live our lives (praxis). Though people can point to the occasional question about whether this or that book should have been included or excluded, the church’s recognition of a stable canon through the centuries is remarkable. (One notable exception to this is Marcion, who questioned the canonical status of the Old Testament, and eventually much of the New Testament as well. Since his objections were specifically tied to the issue of divine violence, we will take up this example in more detail in chap. 3.)

Two important comments need to be made concerning the Old Testament canon. First, we acknowledge the difference that exists between the three great Christian traditions on the extent of the canon. Protestants affirm a narrow canon that does not include the apocryphal books recognized as canonical by Catholic and (with differences) Orthodox communities. But what is remarkable is that these three communities all recognize the same core books (those included in the narrower, Protestant canon). In addition, we should realize that recognition of the so-called apocryphal books does not result in significant doctrinal differences—and, most important for our purposes, no difference on the subjects on hand (creation/evolution, historicity, divine violence, and sexuality). Doctrinal differences, of course, do exist between these communities, but they are not the result of the differences of the scope of the canon.

Second, as a Protestant I recognize only the narrow canon as authoritative and, in keeping with Protestant beliefs, treat the apocryphal books as edifying, helpful books, though not canonical. We inherit our Old Testament from the Jewish community, in particular from the Pharisees. As Roger Beckwith thoroughly documents, Jesus disagrees with the Pharisees about a lot of things, but not about the extent of the canon.6 But let me emphasize again the fact that, particularly as concerns the four topics we are covering in this book, even if one accepts the Apocrypha as canonical, it will not change the perspectives advocated here.

INERRANCY

By saying the Scriptures are the Word of God and therefore canonical, we are also making a statement about their reliability and veracity. After all, if we hear the voice of God in Scripture, then we can be assured that these words will not mislead us but, on the contrary, will be truthful, despite the fact that God used human beings to speak and write his words on his behalf. On this basis, evangelical Protestant scholars have generally used the term inerrancy to refer to the idea that Scripture is “without error.” Here is a classic definition of inerrancy taken from the often-cited Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerran...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Creation and Evolution
• 2. History
• 3. Divine Violence
• 4. Sexuality
• Final Word
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index
• About the Author
• Back Ads
• Back Cover