Down with History, Up with Reading: The Current State of Biblical Studies

by Gary A. Rendsburg

(now: Chair, Department of Jewish Studies, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)

Lecture given at McGill University Jewish Studies 30th Anniversary Conference (1999)

Gary Rendsburg masterfully encapsulates the current approaches to Old Testament study and places them in a broader social context.  Since this lecture does not appear to be widely noted outside the world of biblical scholarship, I thought it would be worth noting some of his key insights here.

Down with history

Rendsburg tells us that thirty plus years ago there was a general consensus that the Bible recorded reliable history even if it was not accurate in every detail.  Scholars generally believed that “the Torah is comprised of four major documents, at one time existing independently of one another, but brought together by an exilic or post-exilic redactor to produce the final product of Genesis through Deuteronomy” and that “the text of the Bible was viewed as the product of generations of scribal activity, a process which resulted in the introduction of numerous errors in the text,” but that “such minor problems have no effect on the larger picture, for the basic storyline is trustworthy.”

But the situation has changed over the years, not only in biblical studies, but in all other areas as well: “The positive historicism of Albright and the others gave way, not only in biblical studies, but in the humanities in general, to the relativism, skepticism, and indeed nihilism which now dominates.”  Rendsburg gives specific illustrations which the reader can pursue in his article, but the thrust is that skeptics began with the assumption that evidence must prove that an event occurred before it is accepted as credible.  If you look around in society you can see “evidence-based” thinking in many professional areas ( e.g. 1- 2 ). 

Here is Rendsburg’s summary for biblical studies:

In short, the paradigm has shifted from a maximalist stance to a minimalist one. A few definitions of these terms.

The maximalist holds that since so much of the biblical record has been confirmed by archaeological work and by other sources from the ancient Near East, for example, the aforementioned Mesha Stele, that even when there is no corroborating evidence, we can assume that the Bible reflects true history, unless it can be proved otherwise. 

The minimalist approach is exactly the opposite. Because so much of the biblical record is contradicted by archaeological work and by other sources from the ancient Near East, for example, the lack of any conquest at Jericho and Ai, we must assume that the Bible is literary fiction, unless it can be proved otherwise.

So what is happening in biblical studies is that you might hear some writers saying such things as David never existed, or even that the nation of Israel never existed.  Rendsburg gives a helpful and explicit guide to some of the key people in this movement, who are very prolific in promoting their views, as well as an evaluation of their overall perspective.

Rendsburg discusses a number of illustrations and summarizes with:

In my estimation, what began as a healthy and constructive enterprise, questioning the teachings of our teachers, exploring new methods, and in many cases demanding more explicit evidence before jumping to conclusions, soon devolved into an unhealthy and deconstructive project, resulting in a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bath water.

 

Up with reading

Rendsburg also shows how the Bible as literature movement developed:

Indeed, right around the time that Albright and his contemporaries were passing from the scene, the literary study of the Bible began to develop among younger scholars. ….So the two factors just described, the entrance of Jews into the field of literary study, and the desire for a new approach to the Bible, combined to create the field of biblical literary criticism. This development had a tremendous effect on biblical studies.

On the one hand, this movement has been good for biblical studies in that it has led to a greater appreciation of the Bible.  But on the other, it has played into the hand of those who Rendsburg describes as minimalists and nihilists (since they do not believe there is any basis for reasonable knowledge in these matters):  “No one speaks of Genesis as representing history any more, certainly not the minimalists and not even the maximalists.  Instead, the focus is on how these stories operate as literature.” ….”the story is presented as a literary masterpiece.”

Rendsburg argues that the minimalists “capitalize on the fact that biblical narrative prose is viewed as highly sophisticated literature, to further their view that the Bible has little historical value. But such an approach clearly is wrong. The fact that a literary work is a literary work first and foremost, with its own agenda, does not automatically mean that it lacks any historical value altogether.” 

Rendsburg places high value on the historical reliability of the Bible.  He has an interesting and valuable Teaching Company course available called the Book of Genesis (on sale once a year at less than one third the usual price).  Transcript books are available separately.  

As an example of his views, Rendsburg holds that Genesis is a unified composition that was compiled during the monarchy period around 1000 BCE.  He places himself in the maximalist camp as defined above.  Of course, this approach will not satisfy the ancient Jewish approach which holds that the entire oral law, including the Torah, was revealed to Moses; nor will it satisfy the most conservative Christian approach which understands Jesus’ use of phrases such as “Moses said” to mean that Moses actually wrote those books, rather than being colloquialisms for the body of literature associated with his teaching.  But this is a digression from the focus of this post.

What Rendsburg has done in this lecture is put his finger on a cultural trend that has affected biblical studies.  As knowledge has multiplied so prolifically in recent years, it has become ever more important to filter out what is worthwhile and reliable.  Putting it all together into meaningful patterns is another dimension of the problem - as some have put it: we know more and more about less and less.

It is easy to misuse the concept of “evidence” for arriving at conclusions.  Only in areas where there is a significant amount of study and a pool of possible evidence to draw from can there be a call for evidence-based conclusions (see example).  By way of contrast, in unexplored areas there is not yet a basis for establishing a standard for adequate “evidence.”   The further back we look into history, no matter how much we try, the less solid evidence we are likely to find for particular events.  Any ancient reference to an event is a piece of evidence, including the biblical record.  When an abundance of tangible evidence is lacking, then the real challenge becomes giving coherence to the evidence we do have.

When we grasp this requirement for “evidence-based” conclusions, we can better appreciate the strength of Rendsburg’s own conclusions regarding the historical reliability of the biblical record.