FeuchtBlog

The Heresy of Orthodoxy, by Andreas Köstenberger and Michael Kruger ????

This book was written as a defense of Scripture, and contra the Bauer-Ehrman thesis. In short, the Bauer-Ehrman thesis supposes that early Christendom consisted of many “orthodoxies”, and that the rise of Constantine and state church forced a given “orthodoxy” on the rest of us. Concurrent with this thinking, the numerous pseudographia and gnostic texts discovered in the last several hundred years have brought some theologians, Ehrman especially, to consider these texts as on par and equal in consideration as the Scriptures that we have. Also argued is that because of textual corruption, it is impossible to know exactly what the Scriptures are or should be. To this, Köstenberger and Kruger capably argue in opposition. The flow of the book is as follows. In the first section, the authors argue that there indeed was diversity within the early church, but that there was a prevailing orthodoxy, and clear conception even in the first century of heresy. The diversity among orthodox thinking was minor and not related to major issues of gnosticism, or the doctrines of God and Christ. The second section develops the idea that a canon of Scripture was apparent early in the second century, and even in the mid to late first century of Christianity, contra Ehrman who claims a very late concept of the canon of Scripture. It was clear early on which texts did not fit into the canon and which texts did. The last section discusses the preservation of the texts, arguing that an intelligent Christian population existed early on who could copy and read the text, and that although tampering could be seen in the text, it never significantly altered the overall meaning of the text. The book is a worthy read for those interested in one of the many battles occurring over the Scriptures today.

The Christ of the Prophets, by O. Palmer Robertson ?????

I’ve already reviewed a number of books by OP Robertson, and this one is among the best. It is not exactly the book I expected, but actually better than I expected. The layout of the book is quite simple, in that the preliminary chapters introduce the notion of prophetism in Israel, and the general theology of prophecy. The latter chapters run through the various prophets in a chronological fashion, giving a short summary of their environment, thesis, and end result. Overlaid throughout the book is a systematic attack on the new liberal thinking which has even pervaded the writings of many conservative biblical scholars. He shows how the new approaches of redaction and literary criticism tend to offer more confusion than clarity to a text, while simultaneously offering explanations for textual origin that are completely unsubstantiated. Because the Scriptures claim that validity of the prophet is determinant on the truth of the prophecy, to make claim that the prophetic words were written after the fact essentially invalidate the prophet and the Scriptures. Yet, conservative scholars will give in and allow for the claims of higher criticism. The only outcome of this is to allow academia to act as a front for unbelief. Robertson shows quite clearly that there is no reason or justification for not believing the prophetic words of the Old Testament at their face value. The attack on higher criticism found in this book makes it more than worthy of a reading. Robertson is not only the best of the best in academic thinking, but also the best of the best at being entirely Biblical in his thinking and approach to God’s Word.

A Biblical History of Israel, by Provan, Long and Longman ????

This book ended up being considerably different than I expected from the cover, yet was a delightful and very informative read. I had expected a simple biblical narrative rehash of what I already knew from reading the OT 15-20+ times through. This book did not take that approach. The first five chapters were a defense of doing history, especially biblical history. Current modern liberal theologians tend to identify the Old Testament as entirely unreliable in accounting for a true history of events in Palestine, for reasons that include 1) history in the Old Testament mixes theology and history and thus is unreliable, 2) events of the Old Testament don’t precisely match archeological findings, and thus the OT text is in error, and 3) redaction criticism suggests a late writing of biblical history, which must thus be inaccurate. The authors shrewdly work through each of these objections, showing that the OT can be truly used as a legitimate source for ancient historical studies. The second part of the book then works through the narrative structure of the history of Israel, in particular identifying when liberal scholars note a discrepancy and show how variant reads of the OT text, or extreme extrapolations possible lead to errors on the part of the liberal scholars rather than the text of the OT. A simple example suffices. A recent archeological work failing to show proper period pottery in random digs around Jerusalem was interpreted to suggest that Jerusalem was not occupied during the suggested reign of King David. This is as ludicrous as me digging in my backyard, failing to find Indian artifacts, and thus concluding that Indians did not occupy the Pacific Northwest-aruguments of negation rarely ever prove anything. My disappointment with the book (and this is a serious one) is that none of the authors suggest that the OT might be divinely inspired, in spite of the occasional but insignificant corruptions of the original text. The authors may have been writing for a theologically liberal audience that they wished to not confuse, but it still would have been better to admit your bias, unless the authors truly do not hold to the notion that the Bible is the Word of God. Is it really academic to demand a “scientific” approach to the OT when attesting to its veracity? I don’t think so. The authors occasional comment on the mistake of reading the history from the OT in a “literal” fashion as a mistake, yet fail to distinguish how their lack of literalism differs from the liberal school theologians. For example, they go so far as to suggest that [some of the prophecies and wisdom books may be products of a later period (i.e., inter-testamental period), but this is a matter of speculation]. In the end, in their attempt to find acceptance among liberal theologians, the authors are willing to sacrifice a high view of Scripture, which is precisely the first event that led to liberal theology in the first place. Oddly, it makes no sense to placate these higher theologians, since theirs is a willing decision to reject the claims of Scripture even when shown to be substantially more likely than not to be true. Unfortunately, these liberal theologians sit on the faculty of many seminaries and departments of theology, hiding their absence of faith in the God of Scripture through a smokescreen of “academic rigueur”.

An Old Testament Theology, by Bruce K. Waltke ????
This book was a heavy read taking me several months and a number of interruptions to complete the entire text of 969 pages. It was a very rewarding read, as Dr. Waltke was able to impart insights into the Old Testament text that few scholars would be capable of. Every chapter was a treasure house of new understanding of old and familiar texts. Dr. Waltke is truly regarded as one of the pre-eminent scholars of the Hebrew language and Old Testament theology, and is regarded as such by both conservatives and liberals alike. Yet, there is a dark shadow cast over this text. It seems like Waltke, in trying to appease all camps, will often give unnecessary ground to the liberal school of redaction criticism. For example, his discussion of creation is superb, yet he lapses into the theistic evolution interpretation of creation for no compelling textual reason. Throughout the book, he hedges. For Isaiah, he admits that Isaiah I, II, and III were possibly written by the same person, yet allows for a liberal interpretation that each book of Isaiah was written hundreds of years apart. His arguments against Solomon being the author of Ecclesiastes seems a touch weak. I could point out many other examples if I could have remembered them. This should not discourage anybody from reading this text as it is a goldmine of Scripture truth. One must only read the text with caution and discernment.