I think the Biblical Inerrantists can just stop pretending that they're historians now.


http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2011 ... ogist.html

As reported by Christianity Today (see here), New Testament scholar Michael Licona has apparently lost both his job as research professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary and been ousted as apologetics coordinator for the North America Mission Board (NAMB).

Why? In his 700-page book defending the historicity of Jesus' resurrection, Licona proposed that the story of the resurrection of the saints described in Matthew 27 might be metaphorical rather than literal history. Why is this a problem? As a result of Licona's questioning of Matthew 27, apparently some evangelical scholars, most notably Norman Geisler, accused Licona of denying the full inerrancy of the Bible.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/201 ... ebate.html

Oh look. It's that favourite blood sport of supernaturalists ... pointing to those who disagree with their favourite orthodoxy, and labelling them "heretics". Which is basically what these people are doing in all but name.

I also love the way in which the people ganging up on Licona are doing so, because he dared to suggest that one relatively peripheral part of mythology might not be established fact. This despite his writing 700 pages of text, aimed at trying to tell the world that a far more remarkable assertion, contained in the same mythology, is purportedly "established fact".

If one of us invented this scenario as part of a piece of fiction, the howls of derision from supernaturalists, all whingeing and bleating at the erection of a strawman caricature, would be deafening. Yet, lo and behold, supernaturalists make the caricature a reality.

Good. I'm glad this happened. I don't want to revel in the misfortune of Licona, but this sort of thing simply exposes the idiocy of belief, and drives this particular stripe of supernaturalist bollocks to a greater extreme of stupidity. That's good, in the sense that it leaves less wriggle-room for those who claim 'this bit is literally true, that bit is allegorical', and presents to everyone else, a self-contradictory text, with no escape from the contradictions. It leaves a tale that is full of holes, paradoxes, contradictions and just plain idiotic nonsense, with no means of explaining them away, other than to pronounce, 'it's all literally true, just believe!' Further, it essentially sets out to exclude all those who don't share in this collective madness, including otherwise orthodox, believing christians, and of course the cultural christians. If only all church organisations were like this; here in the UK, it would be even more of a minority sport than it is.

I don't take any pleasure in Licona's downfall, but honestly, if ya choose to make your bed with inerrantists, you can't complain about a rude awakening.

Any "scholarship" that assumes its conclusions and limits itself on theological grounds is no scholarship. A few more like this, and the silly misnomer of "liberal" and "conservative" biblical scholarship will be replaced with an acknowledgement of the true situation: scholarship, and worthless dogmatism.

Check out Licona's response to Norman Geisler who accused him off denying Biblical inerrancy: the whole thing from begin to end is Licona assuring Geisler that he has not stopped assuming his own conclusions and making the evidence fit with it no matter what.

Amazing how these guys can even pretend to be scholars.

Reminds me of the problems the creationist Michael Dembski had when he wrote a book agreeing with an old earth and suggesting Noah's flood may have only been a local event:

Southwestern Seminary president Paige Patterson told the Witness that while he disagrees with Dembski’s assessment of the earth’s age, he is confident of his character, Christian commitment and adherence to the Baptist Faith & Message.

Patterson said that when Dembski’s questionable statements came to light, he convened a meeting with Dembski and several high-ranking administrators at the seminary. At that meeting, Dembski was quick to admit that he was wrong about the flood, Patterson said.

“Had I had any inkling that Dr. Dembski was actually denying the absolute trustworthiness of the Bible, then that would have, of course, ended his relationship with the school,” he said.

To fall within the bounds of the Baptist Faith & Message, Patterson said a professor needs to believe only that there was a time when nothing but God existed, that God created the entire universe as an expression of grace and that He created it for His own purposes and plans. He said any belief in theistic evolution is not within the bounds of Southern Baptists’ confession of faith.

http://www.gofbw.com/news.asp?ID=12220&fp=Y

Dembski also felt compelled to produce this written "clarification" of the issue:

My book The End of Christianity is a work of speculative theology. It
assumes that the earth and universe are old and, given that assumption, attempts
to answer how the Fall of humanity could be responsible for natural evil, such as
animal suffering. Since, on the assumption of an old earth, animal suffering
precedes the arrival of humans, the challenge is to explain how the effect (natural
evil) can temporally precede the cause (human sin and the Fall). My solution is to
argue that just as the effects of salvation at the Cross of Christ reach both forward
in time (saving contemporary Christians) and backward (saving the Old
Testament saints), so the effects of the Fall reach forward in time as well as
backward. What makes my argument work is the ability of God to arrange events
at one time to anticipate events at a later time.

From the vantage of a young earth, my book may seem like a vain
exercise (given a young earth, natural evil comes directly after the Fall and is a
clear consequence of it). Yet, the evidence of science suggests that the earth and
universe are much older than the chronologies in Genesis 1–11 would indicate. It
is classical Christian orthodoxy that the Fall of humanity was responsible for both
moral evil (the evil that humans commit against each other) and natural evil (the
evil that nature commits against creatures capable of experiencing pain). Has
science conclusively proved its case that the earth is old? Science is not infallible,
and readers of my book should not interpret it as proclaiming otherwise. My book
is not an attack on the young-earth position. Rather, it is an attempt to create
conceptual space for the old-earth position in light of Christian orthodoxy, which
has always taught that the Fall is responsible for both moral and natural evil.

If I were to write The End of Christianity now, I would do several things
differently. At the top of the list of things I would change is its problematic
treatment of Genesis 4–11. The book’s main focus is Genesis 1–3, and my
argument for ―the retroactive effects of the Fall‖ does not require going beyond
these first three chapters. Yet, in a brief section on Genesis 4–11, I weigh in on
the Flood, raising questions about its universality, without adequate study or
reflection on my part. Before I write on this topic again, I have much exegetical,
historical, and theological work to do. In any case, not only Genesis 6–9 but also
Jesus in Matthew 24 and Peter in Second Peter seem clearly to teach that the
Flood was universal. As a biblical inerrantist, I believe that what the Bible teaches
is true and bow to the text, including its teaching about the Flood and its
universality.

In writing The End of Christianity today, I would also underscore three
points: (1) As a biblical inerrantist, I accept the full verbal inspiration of the Bible
and the conventional authorship of the books of the Bible. Thus, in particular, I
accept Mosaic authorship of Genesis (and of the Pentateuch) and reject the
Documentary Hypothesis. (2) Even though I introduce in the book a distinction
between kairos (God’s time) and chronos (the world’s time), the two are not
mutually exclusive. In particular, I accept that the events described in Genesis 1–
11 happened in ordinary space-time, and thus that these chapters are as historical
as the rest of the Pentateuch. (3) I believe that Adam and Eve were real people,
that as the initial pair of humans they were the progenitors of the whole human
race, that they were specially created by God, and thus that they were not the
result of an evolutionary process from primate or hominid ancestors.

http://www.baptisttheology.org/document ... ianity.pdf

I guess intellectual integrity goes out the window when you're under threat of being Expelled.

Tankbuster wrote:Check out Licona's response to Norman Geisler who accused him off denying Biblical inerrancy: the whole thing from begin to end is Licona assuring Geisler that he has not stopped assuming his own conclusions and making the evidence fit with it no matter what.

Amazing how these guys can even pretend to be scholars.

Oh, they can pretend: what's amazing is that anyone joins in their delusions. If you let dogma dictate your scholarship, you're not an academic, end of.

LIcona's response is as wretched a bit of weaseling as I ever did see. I can have no respect for someone who feels the need to affirm dogma in the course of defending their scholarship. What's worse is that I have no doubt that Licona believes every bit of what he says.

It's like watching a supralapsarian and a postlapsarian Calvinist duke it out in the ring: both sides are equally dotty, and it's a headfuck to even understand the point of contention.

Sad events like this make it all the more urgent to arrange the debate between William Lane Craig and David Icke.

I have no sympathy at all. If you live in the land-of-make-stuff-up then any ones view counts and the powerful will win.

A pox on ALL their houses.

John

I see a gulf between academic theology, and pseudo-"theology" that assumes its conclusions. I'd be outraged if an academic theologian at a reputable institution had been dismissed for their opinions, but an inerrantist at some crank school, dismissed for having a different understanding of inerrancy to the boss-inerrantists? You might as well rate the pox and the clap in order of preference.

Hang on, Licona believes that the 'historical' evidence/fact of the empty tomb can be best explained by the resurrection.

Is he doing history or theology here?

John

z8000783 wrote:Hang on, Licona believes that the 'historical' evidence/fact of the empty tomb can be best explained by the resurrection.

Is he doing history or theology here?

John

Perhaps he's channeling William lane Craig.

No, it's all been attested independently I am given to understand.

John

z8000783 wrote:Hang on, Licona believes that the 'historical' evidence/fact of the empty tomb can be best explained by the resurrection.

Is he doing history or theology here?

John

Making historical claims is one of the criteria I use to filter junk theology (alongside "proving" the Christian God's existence, and reading the views of frigid 16th Century protestants back to 1st Century Palestinian Jews).

Tankbuster wrote:Check out Licona's response to Norman Geisler who accused him off denying Biblical inerrancy: the whole thing from begin to end is Licona assuring Geisler that he has not stopped assuming his own conclusions and making the evidence fit with it no matter what.

Amazing how these guys can even pretend to be scholars.

Merely adding more supporting evidence to my postulate that supernaturalism, at bottom, consists of "if reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right". Which is, after all, what the "inerrantists" are effectively asserting, namely that their pet mythology somehow dictates how reality behaves, regardless of whether reality agrees with this or not, and that this is the case even when the mythology erects contradictory assertions. Indeed, taking a look at that link, Licona has the bare-arsed cheek to call his apologetic force-fitting of reality to doctrine "historiographical", an abuse of the word that will have many genuine historians barfing.

Meanwhile ...

Shrunk wrote:Reminds me of the problems the creationist Michael William Dembski

Fixed.

Shrunk wrote:had when he wrote a book agreeing with an old earth and suggesting Noah's flood may have only been a local event:

Oh lovely. Now I wonder how he squares that with his continued "fellowship" at the Duplicity Institute? If my understanding is correct, the only reason Philip Johnson cobbled together that organisation, was to find a sneaky, back-door way of forcing creationist orthodoxy into science classes in violation of the Establishment Clause, without appearing on the judicial radar, an exercise that has, of course, manifestly failed. My understanding is that the 'big tent' approach was a sham anyway, and that at bottom, most of the DI's lucratively paid mouths on sticks are fully paid up members of the YEC orthodoxy.

Anyway, let's take a look at this ... this should be hilarious ...

Southwestern Seminary president Paige Patterson told the Witness that while he disagrees with Dembski’s assessment of the earth’s age, he is confident of his character, Christian commitment and adherence to the Baptist Faith & Message.

Well this is more than slightly problematic, given that earlier on in the same article, we read this:

“The young earth-solution to reconciling the order of creation with natural history makes good exegetical and theological sense,” wrote Dembski, who holds Ph.D. degrees in both philosophy and mathematics and is a leading proponent of the Intelligent Design movement. “Indeed, the overwhelming consensus of theologians up through the Reformation held to this view. I myself would adopt it in a heartbeat except that nature seems to present such strong evidence against it.”

Wow. Dembski accepting that evidence from reality trumps mythological assertion? This is a truly startling development. There may be hope for him yet. Trouble is, of course, that accepting the validity of real world evidence is the last thing YECs want to do, precisely because that evidence flushes their doctrine and its assertions down the toilet, pulling the flush with enough force to register on the Richter Scale. Which of course takes me back to my above remarks about the conflict between reality and doctrine, with which I opened my post.

Patterson said that when Dembski’s questionable statements came to light

HA HA HA HA HA HA! I really love the way in which acceptance of real world evidence, no matter how grudging, is described by the ideological stormtroopers for creationist doctrine as "questionable". Which tells you all you need to know about YECs in particular, and also points embarrassingly to the true nature of supernaturalism full stop. The only difference between people like Patterson above, and so-called "moderates", is that the "moderates" still accept, in principle, that the core assertions of their pet mythologies purportedly constitute "axioms" about the world, to be treated unquestioningly in this manner, but they don't bother making public spectacles of themselves.

he convened a meeting with Dembski and several high-ranking administrators at the seminary. At that meeting, Dembski was quick to admit that he was wrong about the flood, Patterson said.

In other words, Dembski assured Patterson and the other ideological stormtroopers for doctrine, that he continued to regard blind mythological assertion as dictating to reality. But then we've seen this sort of two-faced approach from William Lane Craig, with his weaselly "agnostic about evolution" statement, which effectively means that he's lying to at least one part of his audience.

“Had I had any inkling that Dr. Dembski was actually denying the absolute trustworthiness of the Bible, then that would have, of course, ended his relationship with the school,” he said.

In other words, "conform to doctrine or else". Let us all breathe a sigh of relief, that these people aren't in a position to fire up another Inquisition, which they surely would if they had the power. Now that would have been funny to see - Dembski being "Expelled" by his fellow creationists, for failing to conform to orthodoxy, and being labelled a heretic. What a pity we were all denied that piece of hilarity.

To fall within the bounds of the Baptist Faith & Message, Patterson said a professor needs to believe only that there was a time when nothing but God existed, that God created the entire universe as an expression of grace and that He created it for His own purposes and plans. He said any belief in theistic evolution is not within the bounds of Southern Baptists’ confession of faith.

Once again, forget "teach the (entirely synthetic and duplicitous) controversy", instead, it's "enforce the orthodoxy". It's not as if we haven't seen supernaturalists tread this path before.

I note with interest that a part of the above orthodoxy Patterson wants to see enforced, is a flat refusal to accept that his magic man might have used evolutionary processes to achieve the desired end result. Did he actually ask his magic man if this was the case, I wonder? Funny how supernaturalists possess this level of hubristic certainty about such matters.

Shrunk wrote:Dembski also felt compelled to produce this written "clarification" of the issue:

Translation: "Dembski fabricated an apologetic escape route". Amazing what you can achieve with made up shit in the supernaturalist parallel universe, isn't it?

My book The End of Christianity is a work of speculative theology.

Er, isn't ALL theology precisely that, namely speculation and fantasy centred upon an invisible magic man?

It assumes

No change there I see.

that the earth and universe are old

Except that we have evidence for this. Which is why those of us who accept real world evidence in preference to mythological fantasies, enjoy moments of merriment seeing doctrine-addled supernaturalists engage in apologetic gymnastics to try and reconcile reality with doctrine.

and, given that assumption, attempts to answer how the Fall of humanity

A merely asserted event. I'll leave aside for a moment how the entire bad fairy tale about the magic fruit is a manifest put-up job.

could be responsible for natural evil, such as animal suffering.

A problem that vanishes in a puff of smoke if you're not trying desperately to prop up mythological assertions about a magic man.

Since, on the assumption of an old earth

Which those of us who accept real world evidence don't have to "assume", or more correctly, presume, as Dembski does in his apologetics ...

animal suffering precedes the arrival of humans, the challenge is to explain how the effect (natural evil) can temporally precede the cause (human sin and the Fall).

Oh this I just have to see. Even if we allow Dembski his numerous assumptions, I'd really love to see how an event can supposedly influence the past, without invoking some wonderfully paradoxical constructs.

My solution is to argue that just as the effects of salvation at the Cross of Christ reach both forward in time (saving contemporary Christians) and backward (saving the Old Testament saints)

Which of course is merely asserted to be the case. And is nothing more than an assertion that magic processes exist facilitating this, none of these asserted processes ever being accompanied by any detail, of course. But then Dembski is well known for having cultivated a disdain for detail with his past IDist assertions, when he said that ID did not purportedly need to bother itself with the same level of detail as evolutionary biology. How we all laughed at that one.

so the effects of the Fall reach forward in time as well as backward.

Again, effectively nothing more than an assertion that this can happen courtesy of Magic Man and his magic.

What makes my argument work is the ability of God to arrange events at one time to anticipate events at a later time.

Except that if this is the case, Dembski old chap, this means that the actual cause of that natural evil you're so worried about, isn't the so-called "fall" or "human sin", but the actions of your magic man arranging those events. But I don't suppose Dembski will trouble himself over such an elementary flaw in his apologetic gymnastics.

From the vantage of a young earth, my book may seem like a vain exercise (given a young earth, natural evil comes directly after the Fall and is a clear consequence of it).

Well, we'll leave the absurdities of that for another time.

Yet, the evidence of science

Oh LOOK AT THAT, boys and girls - Dembski accepting scientific evidence over mythology! Wonder what Patterson and the other ideological stormtroopers for doctrine will have to say about this?

suggests that the earth and universe are much older than the chronologies in Genesis 1–11 would indicate.

Er, I think you'll find that the scientific evidence does more than merely 'suggest' this, old chap.

It is classical Christian orthodoxy

And the whole business of "orthodoxy" is what is wrong with supernaturalism. Namely, the idea that all one has to do is alight upon the purportedly "right" assertions about magic entities, and the result of so doing will be that the keys to the cosmos will magically appear in your hand. We all saw how well that worked in 1348.

that the Fall of humanity was responsible for both moral evil (the evil that humans commit against each other) and natural evil (the evil that nature commits against creatures capable of experiencing pain).

An idea that is thoroughly rogered from behind by real world evidence.

Has science conclusively proved its case that the earth is old? Science is not infallible

It's a lot less fallible than making shit up. But don't let this elementary fact stop you from continuing to make shit up.

and readers of my book should not interpret it as proclaiming otherwise.

Translation: "I'm trying to have my cake and eat it at the same time". Namely, by accepting scientific evidence on the one hand, when it is simply too compelling to ignore, and on the other hand, trying to uphold the purported "supremacy" of blind mythological assertion over reality. Which is why, Dembski old bean, you're turning into a human Klein bottle with these gymnastics.

My book is not an attack on the young-earth position. Rather, it is an attempt to create conceptual space for the old-earth position in light of Christian orthodoxy, which has always taught that the Fall is responsible for both moral and natural evil.

In other words, another force-fitting exercise, only this time trying to force-fit one orthodoxy to another.

If I were to write The End of Christianity now, I would do several things differently. At the top of the list of things I would change is its problematic treatment of Genesis 4–11.

Now that's something you don't see a supernaturalist do very often, admit that he's made a hash of things. At this rate, people will be accusing him of being an atheist.

The book’s main focus is Genesis 1–3, and my argument for - the retroactive effects of the Fall - does not require going beyond these first three chapters.

Actually, there's nothing in those chapters supporting this fantasy fabrication. But once again, don't let this stop you from engaging in said exercise.

Yet, in a brief section on Genesis 4–11, I weigh in on the Flood, raising questions about its universality, without adequate study or reflection on my part.

You don't say? Oh this is hilarious to observe, isn't it?

Before I write on this topic again, I have much exegetical, historical, and theological work to do.

Sod the scientific evidence then? Wondered when you'd return to this.

In any case, not only Genesis 6–9 but also Jesus in Matthew 24 and Peter in Second Peter seem clearly to teach assert that the Flood was universal.

There, fixed it for you. But then, that's all your mythology does - assert that things happened.

As a biblical inerrantist, I believe that what the Bible teaches is true and bow to the text, including its teaching about the Flood and its universality.

Once again, "if reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right" ...

In writing The End of Christianity today, I would also underscore three points:

These being?

(1) As a biblical inerrantist, I accept the full verbal inspiration of the Bible and the conventional authorship of the books of the Bible. Thus, in particular, I accept Mosaic authorship of Genesis (and of the Pentateuch) and reject the Documentary Hypothesis.

Once again, "if reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right" ...

(2) Even though I introduce in the book a distinction between kairos (God’s time) and chronos (the world’s time), the two are not mutually exclusive. In particular, I accept that the events described in Genesis 1–11 happened in ordinary space-time, and thus that these chapters are as historical as the rest of the Pentateuch.

So why did you even bother with this book, if this is the case? Why didn't you just say, flat out, "I think mythology dictates to reality, regardless of whether or not reality agrees with this"?

(3) I believe that Adam and Eve were real people, that as the initial pair of humans they were the progenitors of the whole human race, that they were specially created by God, and thus that they were not the result of an evolutionary process from primate or hominid ancestors.

Once again, "if reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right" ...

Shrunk wrote:I guess intellectual integrity goes out the window when you're under threat of being Expelled.

This assumes that Dembski possessed any to begin with. The evidence, however, points compellingly to the contrary hypothesis.

Byron wrote:Oh, they can pretend: what's amazing is that anyone joins in their delusions. If you let dogma dictate your scholarship, you're not an academic, end of.

Yet these people continue to enjoy all the privileges of real academia. Why are we not tossing these fraudsters out? Oh, that's right, because supernaturalism has stolen for itself a vast swathe of priviliges that no other area of human affairs has been allowed to.

Byron wrote:LIcona's response is as wretched a bit of weaseling as I ever did see.

It's worse than that, it's an outright admission that he makes shit up and presents said made up shit as fact.

Byron wrote:I can have no respect for someone who feels the need to affirm dogma in the course of defending their scholarship.

Me neither.

Byron wrote:What's worse is that I have no doubt that Licona believes every bit of what he says.

When you entertain delusions of this sort, it's amazing what you can justify, isn't it?

Byron wrote:It's like watching a supralapsarian and a postlapsarian Calvinist duke it out in the ring: both sides are equally dotty, and it's a headfuck to even understand the point of contention.

Oh indeed, watching theological debates IS hilarious ... "my made up shit is better than your made up shit".

Calilasseia wrote:

Byron wrote:Oh, they can pretend: what's amazing is that anyone joins in their delusions. If you let dogma dictate your scholarship, you're not an academic, end of.

Yet these people continue to enjoy all the privileges of real academia. Why are we not tossing these fraudsters out? Oh, that's right, because supernaturalism has stolen for itself a vast swathe of priviliges that no other area of human affairs has been allowed to.

I put the split at dogma, rather than the supernatural. If academics want to speculate about the supernatural, fine by me, they can make their case and have it shredded (folks like N.T. Wright are forever moaning that academic theology has junked a hypernatural realm). What gets me is declaring certain lines of inquiry off-limits before the get-go.

Southern Evangelical Seminary, and any other school that sacks people for pursuing lines of inquiry that contradict dogma, should be stripped of academic accreditation, to be cast into the outer wilderness, where there is wailing, gnashing of teeth, and Billy Graham replays.

Oh indeed, watching theological debates IS hilarious ... "my made up shit is better than your made up shit".

This sort of theological debate, no doubt. The systematic, Tillich/Barth kind is in another league, more concerned with logic and deduction than spirits in a teacup.

Licona speaks

When the Saints Go Marching In

It seems to me that if you accept Licona's position on this then the term ‘Bible Inerrancy’ is rendered meaningless.

Anything that is deemed to be ‘uncomfortable’ for Christians is simply redesignated as prose poetry or apocalyptic symbols and then inerrancy is restored.

John

Thanks for the link.

Inerrancy needn't be literal, so Licona's position isn't necessarily meaningless, provided he doesn't shoehorn metaphor into history.

Regardless, it's still just as daft.

Byron wrote:Thanks for the link.

Inerrancy needn't be literal, ...

That's my point.

John

The real problem here was Licona went afoul of the ecclesiastical authorities when he raised the perfectly obvious and logical question that, if the resurrection of the saints was a poetic device, then what's preventing us from concluding that Jesus's was also? Inerrantists cannot even allow the possibility of that question to arise in their fiefdoms.

He even seems to catch himself at this point, conceding that, if the raising of these saints, along with Matthew’s other reported phenomena, are poetic devices, “we may rightly ask whether Jesus’ resurrection is not more of the same.”

http://www.christianpost.com/news/bibli ... rsy-55591/

There is every reason within the text to believe that Matthew intends to report historical facts. Matthew 27:51-54 is in the very heart of Matthew’s report of the resurrection of Christ as historical fact. Dehistoricizing this text is calamitous and inconsistent with the affirmation of biblical inerrancy.