WM 314: Review: Meade on "I've heard it said the Old Testament is full of errors"

 

I want to offer a brief review of a video and an article that was recently posted to the Crossway website (October 29, 2024) in the series titled “I’ve heard it said.”

This short video (less than two minutes) features Dr. John D. Meade, OT professor at Phoenix Seminary, and a recent critic of the Reformation Bible Society and its defense of the traditional MT of the Hebrew OT.

Meade’s segment is titled “I have heard it said that the Old Testament is full of errors,” This video (and others in this series) are meant to address various controversial topics on theology or apologetics from a contemporary evangelical perspective.

Let’s listen to the video and then I’ll offer a few observations.

Meade’s video is presumably meant to defend the authority, authenticity, and integrity of the text of the OT against unnamed modern skeptics who argue that it cannot be trusted because it is full of errors.

If you listen to Meade’s presentation, however, you will find that he does not deny or refute the charge that the text of the OT is full of errors. In fact, he agrees with and affirms this perspective.

Meade begins by noting, rightly, that there are no longer any extant autographs or original manuscripts of the OT books. We do not, for example, have any of the books of the Pentateuch handwritten by Moses. We do not have autographs but only apographs, copies of the OT books. The Puritan John Owen speculated that God did not allow the autographs to be preserved because he knew that men would be tempted to worship them.

Meade then adds that these copies of the OT are riddled with human “fragility” and are filled with transmissional errors. He says it is not a question as to whether or not there are errors, affirming plainly, “There are errors.”

Meade then suggests, however, that this admitted situation of an overwhelmingly corrupted OT text should not lead to pessimism or despair. Despite this confused textual situation, Meade says, one cannot conclude “We don’t have the Bible.” He assures his listeners, in fact, that we have “a wealth of manuscripts” (some modern scholars are fond of saying we have “an embarrassment of riches”).

Our saving grace (or saviors), Meade asserts are “textual critics” who can compare manuscripts, “sift out” copyist errors, and “actually restore the original text,” by comparing all of the evidence.

Meade concludes by saying he is “optimistic, that we can get back to the original books of the OT.”

Let me offer five observations on Meade’s presentation:

First, as already noted, Meade is NOT refuting the charge that the OT is full of errors. He is in basic agreement with that assertion. The title of the video might well have been, “I agree that the OT is full of errors, but I am nonetheless optimistic we can almost fix it.”

His approach here reminds me of the veritable cottage industry that developed among evangelical scholars a few years ago in order supposedly to “refute” the textual criticism of Bart Ehrman. The only problem was most of these men who lined up to “refute” Ehrman confessed that they basically agreed with Ehrman that the text of the NT was overwhelmingly corrupt, that traditional passages like Mark 16:9-20 and John 7:53—8:11 are spurious, and that it is the task of scholars to attempt to reconstruct it to some semblance of what the original might have been. These evangelical scholars did not so much disagree with Ehrman as to whether the NT text was grossly corrupt and needed reconstruction, but only as to whether, under these circumstances, it could still be said to be inspired and to hold authority for faith and practice.

Meade is essentially suggesting a similar approach with regard to the text of the OT, though he does not explicitly cite a “Bart Ehrman” type OT scholar as a foe.

Second, Meade is promoting in this video a modern restorationist view of textual criticism. This view suggests that the text of the Bible is rather hopelessly corrupted, but that modern academic scholars can examine the extant empirical evidence and use human reasoning to at least “reconstruct” a close approximation to the original text. Such scholars are typically clear to point out that they cannot guarantee that the text they reconstruct is, in fact, the authorial text. It will be subject to change based on new discoveries and methods developed by scholars.

Third, this modern reconstruction model is a departure from the classic Protestant approach to the text of Scripture. That view held that the Bible had been immediately inspired by God, and it has been kept pure in all ages (see WCF/2LBCF 1:8). This view holds that though the autographs have not been preserved, they remain accessible through faithful copies (apographs). There were some scribal discrepancies in transmission, but these were minor and could be easily corrected using those faithful copies and the consensus of the rule of faith.

With respect to the OT the Protestant fathers affirmed that these ancient “oracles of God” had been preserved by the Jews in the traditional Masoretic Text of the Hebrew OT (cf. Romans 3:2). This text had then providentially come into print at the dawn of the Protestant era (first published by Daniel Bomberg in 1524-1525). These printed editions of the Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Old Testament were used as the touchstone and standard for all the classic Protestant translations of the Bible.

The Dutch divine Petrus Van Mastricht declared, “Neither the Hebrew of the Old Testament, nor the Greek of the New Testament has been corrupted” (TPT 1:164).

The English divine John Owen suggested that to attempt to amend or alter the traditional text would be “to make equal the wisdom, care, skill, and diligence of men, with the wisdom, care, and providence of God himself” (Works 16:357).

Fourth, the reconstruction method is advocating departure from the traditional Masoretic Text, affirmed by both Jews and Protestants for centuries, in favor of a modern critical text, reconstructed using reasoned eclecticism.

Fifth, as indicated by Meade’s answer, and as touched on above, those who hold to this modern view do not believe that we currently have the text of the OT rightly reconstructed in hand. They are only “optimistic”—to used Meade’s term— that perhaps a very close approximation of the text might be achieved sometime in the future, as a result of the application of modern textual criticism.

Sadly, we seem to be observing the same undermining of the stability and authority of the OT text, under the application of modern textual criticism, as has already largely taken place among many evangelicals and mainline Protestants with respect to the NT text. No doubt many evangelical scholars making use of this reconstruction method would be willing to say of the OT text what Daniel B. Wallace has already said of the NT Text. Something like:

We do not have now—in our critical [Hebrew] texts or any translations—exactly what the authors of the [Old] Testament wrote. Even if we did, we would not know it [cf. Gurry and Hixson, Eds. Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism, xii].

Let us, finally, return to the topic. “I’ve heard it said that the OT is full of errors.” Is it possible that we might still respond to this topic in the way that Van Mastricht and Owen the Westminster divines and the Particular Baptist fathers did in their day?:

The Hebrew OT is not full of errors. It was immediately inspired by God and has been kept pure in all ages in faithful copies. As it did for the ancient Jews and for men of the Reformation, the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text continues to provide for Bible-believing Protestant Christians a clear and authoritative canonical standard for both the sacred books and the sacred text of the OT.

JTR

WM 146: Text and Academy: Mormon Editor for the OT?

Image: BYU professor Donald W. Parry studies an OT ms.

I have posted WM 146: Text and Academy: Mormon Editor for the OT? Listen here. Here are my notes:

In WM 146 I want to look at three items all related to the topic of “Text and the Academy.”

Before we get started with today’s topic, let me also share some feedback from a past podcast. WM 137 was titled Are Reformed Baptists “Reformed” and featured a pastors’s round-table discussion of the book On Being Reformed.

Several weeks ago, one of the authors of that book, and the general editor of it, Dr. Crawford Gribben, from Queen’s University in Belfast, tweeted out a link to that podcast, and then last week one of the authors, Chris Caughey, who co-authored the opening essay in the book with Gribben, sent an email, a part of which I’d like to share with his permission. He wrote:

Hello Pastor Riddle,

My name is Chris Caughey.  Crawford Gribben had tweeted out a link to your discussion of On Being Reformed.  I appreciated the discussion, and I just wanted to send a quick note.

My name doesn't matter that much, but it sounded like it was really bothering you, whether you were getting the pronunciation right.  Growing up, we pronounced it "Coy."  But then I did my PhD at Trinity College Dublin (under Crawford Gribben), and the Irish pronounced it "Caw-hee."  Since it is an Irish name, my family and I decided to change the pronunciation to the Irish one.

I also wanted to let you know that I am not a Baptist…

Anyway, thanks again for the discussion you hosted.  It was helpful to hear about it from Baptist perspectives.

In Christ,

Chris

It turns out Chris is Presbyterian, and even studied at Westminster Seminary West, but differs from Hart and Clark in their narrower definition of what it means to be “Reformed.”

Thanks to Chris for these clarifications.

OK now on to today’s Topic: Three short “look ins” on the topic of Text and Academy: (1) my blog post from Ian’s Murray’s book Evangelicalism Divided, (2) an observation made in Richard Brash’s recent book on the preservation of the Bible, relating to a Mormon scholar being added to the editorial committee for the scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible; (3) a brief comment made by Tommy Wasserman on an Evangelical Text criticism blog post.

First, I want to review (provide an audio version of) the content from my November 25 blogpost on Iain Murray’s book Evangelicalism Divided, which was titled “Iain Murry on the Evangelical Search for Academic Respectability.”

Second, I want to share just one brief statement or factoid that was mentioned in Richard Brash’s booklet A Christian’s Pocket Guide to How God Preserved The Bible (Christian Focus, 2019).

You might recall that in WM 128 I reviewed Brash’s 2019 WJT article on the Reformed Orthodox’s understanding of the “originals.”

Brash’s new booklet is interesting just for the fact alone that it addresses the doctrinal issue of the providential preservation. Unfortunately, from my perspective, he does not defend the traditional Protestant view of preservation but a modern reinterpretation of that doctrine.

I could offer a review of the entire book, but I want to focus, for now, on just one sort of side comment made on pp. 48-49. Here Brash is discussing John Owen’s view of preservation, including his defense of the Masoretic Text, including even it vowel points and accents.

Brash says that one of the errors in Owen’s approach was the fact that he believed “only the true people of God could preserve the written Word of God” (48).

Was that an error on Owen’s part?

Brash writes, with respect to this “error” in Owen: “there is no reason to assume that God cannot use unbelievers, such as the Masoretes, to preserve his written Word” (49).

He then adds the following: “Indeed, one of the editors of the latest critical edition of the Old Testament (Biblia Hebraica Quinta) is a Mormon professor from Brigham Young University” (49).

A footnote links to a news article from 2009 from BYU about Dr. Donald W. Parry, an Isaiah specialist, becoming one of a couple dozen scholars tasked with the responsibility of editing the current scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible.

Brash adds: “Can God Use a (non-Trinitarin) Mormon to work on textual criticism of a Hebrew text that will likely form the basis of future Bible translations across the world? History suggests that he can” (49).

I was not aware of the fact that a Mormon scholar was now serving as a steward and gate-keeper for the scholarly text of the OT.

This sort of issue arose with respect to the NT back in the 1980s when Carlo Maria Martini (1927-2012), a Jesuit scholar and later Archbishop of Milan and RC Cardinal, was named to the very small editorial committee that oversaw the scholarly text of the NT. Martini was at least Trinitarian!

To respond to Brash’s critique of Owen’s view that “only the true people of God could preserve the written Word of God” my inclination is to defend Owen.

Here are three rejoinders Brash’s argument against Owen:

First: He suggests there is a precedent for “unbelievers” preserving the Word, because of the Masoretes.

But, we would point out, the Masoretes, were not polytheistic pagans (as are the Mormons) but monotheistic Jews. Furthermore, there is a longstanding Christian (especially Protestant Christian) view that the Jews were given special responsibilities in preserving the OT for the people of God. This included the scribes who copied and collected the OT writings but also the Masoretes who carefully preserved and transmitted the text up until the time of the invention of the printing press. A key text often cited by the Protestant orthodox is Romans 3:2, where Paul says, “unto them [the Jews] were committed the oracles of God [ta logia tou theou].”

Second: The Masoretic tradition, for both the consonants and vowels, went back to the second temple period and the restoration era, of Ezra and men of the Great Synagogue. Those godly Hebrews were hardly “unbelievers.”

Third: I do not believe there is any Biblical or historical evidence for polytheistic pagans being given the task of preserving God’s Word.

In conclusion, let me add that I do not see the inclusion of  Mormon scholar on the editorial team of the BHQ as an evidence of divine preservation. On the contrary, I am bothered by the fact that a Mormon is a now a gate-keeper for the text of the OT that will be studied and translated and read and preached by otherwise orthodox Christians who make use of modern Bible translations.

This is yet another reason IMHO as to why we should prefer the confessional text position.

Third, I wanted to share a comment that struck me which read on a post on the Evangelical Text Criticism blog.

This was a post by Peter Gurry back on November 23, 2019 titled ‘First Century Mark’ SBL Panel.

As the title indicates, the post was about a panel held at the annual SBL meeting on the supposed “First Century Mark” which Dan Wallace had appealed to, several years back, in a debate with Bart Ehrman as proof for the Gospel’s antiquity. Problem is, the Mark fragment proved not to be dated to the first century. Ehrman and some other liberal scholars were on the panel and, apparently “evangelical” text critics took some heat in the discussion. Some even took “woke” aim at supposed evangelical “male white privilege.”

The comments section on the post was lively (it currently has 74 comments) and interesting. Here were many academically credentialed “evangelicals” getting pushback from unbelieving scholars for being too narrow in their study of the Biblical text. So much for earning academic respectability!

The comment that stood out to me was one by the Swedish Baptist scholar Tommy Wasserman. Wasserman is a respected scholar who co-authored with Peter Gurry the introductory book on the CBGM, from SBL. Last year he also co-authored with Jennifer Knust the book To Cast the First Stone (Princeton, 2019). I met Dr. Wasserman a couple of years ago at the SEBTS conference on the PA and enjoyed catting with him, though we obviously disagree on text cricism. He is a really nice guy and has a very charitable spirit. I also know this was just an informal blog comment. Here is what TW wrote:

In any case, for me a high view of Scripture is a matter of personal belief. I have no intention of trying to prove that this or that textual variant is the original word of God. I would like to work as a text-critic as if God didn't exist, so to speak. On the other hand, I have a personal faith which certainly affects also my scholarship, and I try to be honest about that. I am certain that other people's belief or disbelief affects what they do to. I prefer not to be put in a box of privileged white male text-critics who just pretend to do real scholarship.

TW, seemed to be wincing at the criticism and was questioning the value of the label “evangelical.” What does that term even mean anymore?

But it is also interesting to hear in that comment how even such scholars who might broadly identify with being “evangelical” have been influenced by both the modern and postmodern perspectives.

With regard to the postmodern, TW says he does not think it is possible to prove any variant is the “original” word of God.

With regard to the modern, he suggests that text criticism should be done “as if God did not exist.” That is, I take him to mean, without any consideration of religious beliefs or spiritual/theological presuppositions.

It is this type of notion that leads evangelicals to say it’s OK to have a RC edit the NT and a Mormon the OT.

Again, I like TW personally and have no desire to bash him.

But this comment, to me, exemplifies the problems that emerge when evangelicals attempt to embrace modern text criticism (as part of the wider modern historical critical method), and it confirms my resolve to advocate for the superiority of the Confessional Text position.

JTR

Eusebius, EH.4.26: Melito of Sardis

Image: Remains of the synagogue of ancient Sardis, c. AD third century, Manisa Province, Turkey

This is an occasional series of readings from and brief notes and commentary upon Eusebius of Caesarea’s The Ecclesiastical History. Here is Book 4, chapter 26. Listen here.

Notes and Commentary:

This chapter focuses on Melito of Sardis, though brief reference is also made at the start to Apolinarius of Hierapolis, whose work will be covered in 4.27.

It is noted that both Melito and Apolinarius wrote apologies to the Emperor (Marcus Aurelius, who ruled from 161-180).

A summary is given of Melito’s writings, the titles of which Lake notes are sometimes hard to decipher.

The works cited include:

On the Passover

On Christian Life and the Prophets

On the Church

On the Lord’s Day

These seems to be primary, and then there is added:

On the Faith of Man

On Creation

On the Obedience of Faith

On the Senses

On the Soul and Body (Lake notes the text is uncertain for this title)

On Baptism and Truth and Faith and Christ’s Birth (Lake says these may be chapters in the same book)

An unnamed treatise of prophesy

On Soul and Body (same title as above?)

On Hospitality

Key

On the Devil

The Apocalypse of John

On God Incarnate

And To Antoninus (To Antoninus Verus or Marcus Aurelius)

So, Melito was a prolific author. The interest in the Old Testament and Jewish practices seems to belie the fact that Melito was a Jewish Christian.

Eusebius offers a quote from the book On the Passover and notes it was cited by Clement of Alexandria.

He also gives several longer extracts from the apology to the emperor. In them Melito refers to Christianity as a “philosophy” noting that it had originated during the time of Augustus and that it was “an omen of good” to the Romans. He suggests that the Roman Empire had flourished under Augustine, because he did not persecute Christians. He says that only Nero and Domitian had persecuted believers and with them had begun the practice of falsely accusing Christians.

Eusebius also cites the preface to his six-volume work called the Extracts (Eklogai) in which he quotes a letter from Melito to a brother named Onesimus in which he provides a list of the canon of the Old Testament, as accepted by Christians. Here are the OT books as he lists them in this letter:

The five books of Moses:  Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy,

Joshua, the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth,

Four books of Kingdoms [1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings], two books of Chronicles,

The Psalms of David,

The Proverbs of Solomon and his Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Job,

The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, the twelve in a single book,

Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra

Some point of interest in this OT canon list:

1.  The book of Esther is not mentioned.

2.  The book of Lamentations is not mentioned, but it is likely included with Jeremiah.

3.  The book of Nehemiah is not mentioned, but it might have been included with Ezra.

4.  The ordering shows the influence of the LXX. For example:  Ruth is listed with the historical works and Chronicles is listed with Kingdoms rather than at the end with a grouping of “the writings” in the tri-partite Hebrew Bible ordering.

5.  The listing is distinctive, however, in that it does not include the apocryphal books.  The one exception could be the Wisdom of Solomon, but it might be that the phrase “The Proverbs of Solomon and his Wisdom” simply refers to the book of Proverbs.

Conclusions to be drawn from this list:

1. This list shows that the early Christians accepted the OT as part of the Christian Scriptures, contra Marcion.

2. Melito’s OT canon excluded the apocryphal works of the LXX, showing that at least some early Christians rejected these works as canonical and, instead, received the same books as those of the Hebrew Bible.

3. Melito’s OT canon also gives evidence that there was still some apparent controversy about which books were canonical, especially with regard to the book of Esther.

Overall conclusion:

Melito of Sardis was an important figure in early Christianity, another of the “writing bishops.” This description is especially valuable for the insights it provides on the early Christian view of the Old Testament.

JTR

Eusebius, EH.3.9-10: Josephus and the OT Canon

This is an occasional series of readings from and brief notes and commentary upon Eusebius of Caesarea’s The Ecclesiastical History: book 3, chapters 9-10. Listen here.

Notes and Commentary:

Eusebius here offers a sketch of the life and writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian whose works he uses throughout the EH. He also includes Josephus’s description of the canon of the Hebrew Bible.

In chapter 9, he provides the sketch of Josephus.

He notes that Josephus was among the most famous Jews of the first century, having first fought against the Romans and then having joined with them in the Jewish war.

Among his literary works he notes the Antiquities of the Jews in 20 volumes and the Jewish War in 7 volumes.

He also notes another work in 2 books which he calls On the ancientness of the Jews, and which Lake notes is better known as Against Apion.

In chapter 10, Eusebius cites a passage in Against Apion in which Josephus describes the Jewish canon as consisting of 22 books (the same number as the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, though Josephus does not make this point). This number is presumably the same as the 39 books of the OT made by joining books into one volume.

He notes three parts of the Hebrew Bible:

First, 5 books of the law of Moses.

Second, 13 books of the prophets, covering the time from Moses to Artaxerxes.

Third, 4 books of “hymns to God and precepts for the life of men.” This would presumably be the Psalms and wisdom books.

He adds that there have been more recent works of history from Artaxerxes to his present (presumably 1-2 Maccabees, etc.) but that these “are not considered worthy of equal credence with the rest.”

He notes especially that the Jews do not dare to make “additions, omissions, or changes” to their Scripture and that they know this innately and are then taught from birth to regard the Scriptures as the decrees of God.

Finally, he notes that Josephus is also credited with writing a work titled “The Supremacy of Reason” or “Maccabees” (Lake: 4 Maccabees).

Josephus’s works are indeed a very important historical source for Eusebius in reconstructing the record of early Christianity. He remains an important source today.

JTR

Book Review: A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism

I have posted a spoken word version of my book review of Mark S. Gignilliat's A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism: From Benedict Spinoza to Brevard Childs (Zondervan, 2012): 84-85 (listen here). The written review appeared in American Theological Inquiry Vol. 7, No. 1 (2014): 84-85. You can read a pdf of the review here.

JTR

Book Review of Currid's "Againsts the Gods" in July 2016 PRJ

My book review of John Currid's Against the Gods:  The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament appeared in the July 2016 edition of The Puritan Reformed Journal (pp. 249-252).  I have posted a pdf to my academia.edu site.  I don't do a lot of reading in OT studies but I used this book a few semesters ago in an Introduction to OT class, found it helpful, and wrote the review then.

Update (8.8.16):  I have also uploaded an audio version of the review (listen here).

JTR

Youngblood: Israelite monotheism not the result of a "process of evolution"

I’ve been getting ready for teaching another Old Testament Survey class this summer by reading a new assigned book, Ronald Youngblood’s The Heart of the Old Testament, Second Edition (Baker Academic, 1971, 1998).  Youngblood traces various OT themes, including monotheism, sovereignty, election, covenant, theocracy, law, sacrifice, faith, and redemption.

I was struck by his discussion of monotheism in the OT.  He notes that modern historical-critical and comparative religion scholars have tended to see monotheism as “a product of evolution.”  So, there was a “process of evolution” in the religion of Israel from primitive animism (belief in spirits in natural objects), to polytheism (belief in many gods), to henotheism (also called monolatry, belief in one superior god among many gods), and, finally, to monotheism (belief in one true God).

Youngblood, however, responds:

But it simply cannot be shown that there is a universal tendency of the part of polytheistic religions to gradually reduce the number of deities until finally arriving at only one deity.  Indeed, in some instances such a religion may even add more deities as its adherents become aware of more and more natural phenomena to deify.  At any rate the Old Testament teaches that monotheism, far from being evolved through the centuries of Israel’s history, is one of the inspired insights revealed to the covenant people by the one true God himself (p. 11).

De Wette's 16 page dissertation

Image:  W. M. L. De Wette (1780-1849)

 

 

 I’ve been reading Mark S. Gignilliat’s A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism:  From Benedict Spinoza to Brevard Childs (Zondervan, 2012).  As the title indicates, the book offers a survey of modern historical-critical approaches to the OT by surveying the contributions of seven key scholars (Spinoza, De Wette, Wellhausen, Gunkel, Von Rad, Albright, and Childs).

I found one note on De Wette (1780-1849) to be interesting.  His 1804 doctoral dissertation from the University of Jenna was 16 pages in length!  By contrast my 2002 NT dissertation was 341 pages.  De Wette’s dissertation title was A Critical-Exegetical Dissertation by which Deuteronomy, Different from the Earlier Books of the Pentateuch, Is Shown to Be the Work of a Later Author.    Gignilliat observes:  “The work was measured by its quality, however, not by its length” (p. 44).  He points out that several ideas in the dissertation became widely accepted in subsequent OT scholarship , such as a later dating for Deuteronomy than the rest of the Pentateuch and the idea that the law book discovered in the days of Josiah c. 622 BC was the book of Deuteronomy (neither of which I am personally endorsing).

Maybe the lesson of the 16 page dissertation is that we might say more with less. 

Young and Longman on the Genre and Historicity of Esther

In preparation for teaching Survey of the Old Testament this semester, I’ve been reading several introductory works on the OT.  On one hand, I’ve been working my way through Edward J. Young’s An Introduction to the Old Testament, Revised Edition (Eerdmans, 1964).  Young taught OT at Westminster Seminary, was fully conversant with modern historical-critical study of the OT, yet largely rejected it, and defended traditional, pre-critical understandings of the OT, including affirmations of its historicity.  On the other hand, I’ve also been reading Tremper Longman III’s Introducing the Old Testament (Zondervan, 2012; an abridgement of Longman and Dillard’s An Introduction to the Old Testament).  Longman is a contemporary evangelical who attempts to bridge the divide between naturalistic modern historical-critical and traditional approaches to the OT.

The contrast between Young and Longman is evident at numerous points along the way in their handling of the OT.  While Young tenaciously defends the general historical reliability of the OT accounts (creation, exodus, conquest, etc.), Longman offers an excursus on “theological history” in which he argues that one need not defend the historical veracity of OT details in order to appreciate its theological purposes (pp. 84-85).  Thus, Longman states:  “While not all narrative texts are necessarily historical (e. g., Job) and not all historical texts are concerned with the same measure of precision of historical reporting (e. g., Gen. 1—11), historical narrative is important in the Old Testament” (p. 84).  He urges readers to distinguish “between writing about past events and the events themselves,” noting:  “Historical narrative is a representation of the events and involves literary artifice” (p. 84).

I was struck by the divergence of these approaches this week as I read both authors on the genre and historicity of Esther.

Though Longman’s interpretation of Esther is “conservative” in that he does not see the work as purely a work of fiction, he is only willing to offer the tepid affirmation that it is historical “in its broad outline”:

Like Ruth, Esther has been catalogued as a short story or novella, often with the implication that it is a work of fiction.  However, the highly artistic nature of the storytelling does not preclude the idea that the book is telling a story that, at least in broad outline, actually happened in space and time.  Debate will continue, since, while classical and cuneiform sources by and large demonstrate the author’s familiarity with Persian mores and court life, there remain some problems with the historical details of the book (p. 82).

In sharp contrast is Young’s analysis of Esther’s historicity (pp. 355-56).  He acknowledges:  “By many modern scholars, the historicity of the book is completely denied and it is regarded as nothing more than a historical romance” (p. 355).  After sifting through the evidence, Young reaches a conclusion typical for his Introduction:

However, in light of the remarkable historical and geographical accuracy of the book, and in view of the extremely weak character of the arguments adduced against that historicity, in view of the fact that the book purports to be straightforward history and is lacking in the fancy that characterizes mere romances, we believe that the only correct interpretation is to regard the work as strictly historical (p. 357).

These contrasting conclusions highlight two divergent approaches to the study of the Old Testament, the assimilation of modern historical-critical scholarship, and the affirmation of Biblical authority.  Upon reflection it appears to me that the contrast between Young and Longman is not merely that between a “fundamentalistic” and an “evangelical” approach, but that between a “confessional” and a “non-confessional” approach.  Young’s insistence on the historicity of Esther (and the rest of the OT) flows from his commitment to the infallibility of Scripture as expressed in chapter one of the Westminster Confession of Faith.