Craig A. Carter's "Thought Experiment" on the Modern Historical-Critical Method

Still working my way through Craig A. Carter’s Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition (Baker Academic, 2018) and getting closer to the end.

One of the most refreshing aspects of this book is Carter’s unrelenting critique of the sterility of the Enlightenment-influenced, modern historical-critical method of Biblical studies.

In a closing chapter, Carter offers this “thought experiment”:

Consider the following thought experiment. If astronomy ceased to use telescopes and never looked at the stars, focused all its attention on mentions of the stars in literary sources and the history of human thought about the stars, all the while entertaining an ongoing discussion of the sense in which stars could be legitimately be said to exist, with the most radical astronomers expressing doubts about the very existence of the stars in the traditional sense, and if astronomers  debated endlessly about what earthly realities the idea of “star” might be said to refer to and whether and to what extent traditional ideas about stars reflected class, gender, or racial bias—would we be justified in viewing the endeavor as “astronomy”? There might still be university departments of astronomy, learned societies at which papers were presented, journals of astronomy, conferences on topics of interest to astronomers, and doctoral programs in astronomy, but would it be astronomy? Or would it be something else operating under the name “astronomy”? And if we were persuaded to call it a science, would it really be the science we know today as “astronomy”? (p. 217).

JTR

Theological Schizophrenia

At the close of WM 98 I offered two conflicting quotes from the Preface and Acknowledgements to Craig A Carter’s Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis (Baker, 2018), a book I have just begun to read.

First, in the Preface Carter says,

My hope is to overcome the Enlightenment by showing that the Enlightenment movement of “higher criticism” is a dead end, a sideshow, a deviation from orthodoxy, and a movement that is now in the late stages of self-destruction (xviii).

Then, in the Acknowledgements, Carter says,

All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version of the Bible, unless otherwise noted. I use, recommend, and thank God for the ESV Study Bible, which is a marvelous tool for anyone wanting to study God’s Word today (xx).

The contradiction: On one hand Carter (rightly) challenges the Enlightenment influenced modern historical-critical method. On the other hand, however, he chooses to make use of a translation that is the fruit of the Enlightenment deconstruction of the Biblical text (the ESV coming in a direct line from the English Revised Version of 1885, based on Wescott and Hort’s 1881 Greek NT). How is it that conservative and orthodox men can rightly critique the problems with modern theology in areas like the classical theism, but neglect to see those same problems in text criticism?

JTR