Do You Really Want To Study The Bible?

This rather embarrassing article started me thinking about my scholastic experiences. Why is it embarrassing you ask? Well, unfortunately, I attended the same University as Nelson for my undergrad. It’s hard to fathom that the same program that turned out myself and some of the great students I had the opportunity to learn and grow with could turn out someone this misguided, but perhaps, with the amount of students with whom I also interacted that made it their goal to be as willfully ignorant and purposefully stupid regarding biblical studies as humanly possible I should not be surprised.

One example shall suffice.

In one of my classes at the graduate level during a discussion of the Hebrew Bible a student definitively declared with an air of finality, “If it is not going to help my faith then I don’t want to deal with it.” At that moment my head almost exploded. Shouldn’t someone have worked through this at least  a little at the undergrad level? Basically, “I already know everything about the Bible so don’t confuse me with none of that there learning.” I have everything figured out; now give me some sources to confirm that.

That my friends is the definition of willfully ignorant; and it’s intellectually and spiritually arrogant to boot.

Might I suggest that if you are unwilling to deal with tough issues that won’t help your “faith” then biblical studies is not for you. Go find a really conservative seminary, or better yet, a one or two year Bible college. You should be able to stay inside your bubble with little cognitive dissonance other than trying to ascertain what God wants for you and “your ministry.”

In the past I have suggested that pursuing biblical studies is akin to taking the red pill in the movie The Matrix: once you do you will never be able to return to the blissful, idyllic world of blind faith. Nope, once you take that pill you’re going to have to deal with tough, tough questions that reject pat answers, and sometimes presents answers quite unpalatable to those who have developed a taste for theories straight from the Sunday School.

Perhaps, the distinction of modality and sodality will help. The church is a modality that all Christians are called to. If you are a Christian you should belong to a church. However, the academy is a sodality, a para-church entity that only some members are called to. In the church “tradition” is protected, generated, and enhanced. In the academy “tradition” is probed, questioned, and sometimes modified.

Because not everyone from the church is called or gifted (to use some Christianese) to the para-church branch of the academy inevitably some misguided souls operating under the delusion that the academy is the place to play protector of tradition some persons can do a lot of damage to their own “faith”, ultimately, even abandoning it.

Sometimes the stated goal of liberal academies is deconstruction of the student and their presuppositions. If your operating strategy during this process is to ignore everything that does not concord with your truncated, immature philosophy then it’s not going to be a pretty sight or very much fun.

If you want to posit arguments about the historicity of Jonah based on Jesus’ assuming it in the gospels then declare “Jesus said it, so I believe it. You didn’t really think that historical criticism would have the last word on the Word Of God, did you?” Then biblical studies is probably not the place for you. Go to a seminary, become a small group leader, or read articles on AiG.

However, if you want to learn Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, German, and a variety of other languages, study hermeneutics, sociology, developments in Israelite religion, history, textual criticism, and a number of other things. Have cognitive dissonance dealt on your assumptions like the plagues on Egypt. Are willing to entertain the possibility that you definitely do not have everything figured out about everything, and there is a whole lot you can learn from people a lot smarter than you.  Perhaps, biblical studies is a sodality you might be suited for.

If your “faith” is dependent on having everything that Mommy, Daddy, or your Sunday school teacher ever said confirmed by your professor and it’s a bedrock of your “faith” that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, or you’re going to take a ride down everybody’s favorite fallacy, the slippery slope, then whatever you do avoid biblical studies.

NOTE: All examples of the word faith in this post are usually gnostic and Cartesian, and in need of much rehabilitation.