A Response To Lydia McGrew

I was quite saddened to see what was on Lydia's blog post this morning. Saddened because I do have a great relationship with Tim McGrew who I value as one of my dearest friends in this world. I do not want to have this be seen as a personal attack.

As the son-in-law of Mike and Debbie Licona, some might say that I will just walk in lockstep. Not a bit. In fact, Mike and I have had some strong disagreements as have Debbie and I. They know something for sure about me. (Other than the fact that I'm crazy about their daughter.) I speak my own mind and I do not let myself be easily swayed. If I thought Mike was seriously wrong on something, I would tell him. He knows this because I've done it before. 

So let's look at what is said. Lydia starts this off by speaking about how Mike is a New Testament scholar and apologist, which is certainly true, but that he shook up the world by suggesting that the resurrection of the saints in Matthew 27 was a literary device. This part I don't really agree with. Mike did not shake up the evangelical world. It was Geisler who did it for whatever reasons and started his own personal crusade against Mike. This continues to this day where you can go to Norman Geisler's web site and see articles about Mike Licona. (Sadly, just taking a look on this, I see that there's a section of online articles and the response to Mike Licona is put above "How to Know God.")

The reality is I think Michael Patton wrote one of the finest pieces here in this regard. What he said was:

My ears perked up to the conversation between the two gentlemen at the Credo House. Hoping against hope that I would not hear what I thought I might hear, longing for the conversation to dignify truth, justice, and the evangelical way, I tuned in to see how this invite to hear Mike tell his testimony might play out. From behind the bar, this peaceful coffee barista’s countenance turned red-nosed in anger as I heard how Licona was introduced. “You know Mike Licona,” the one man told the other, “the guy who Norman Geisler called on to repent because of his view of the dead saints that rose in Matthew. He believes . . .” I told the guy to stop. I took over and told about the Mike Licona who just produced what might be the best historic defense of the resurrection that an evangelical has ever had his thumb print on. I told about the Mike Licona who is traveling all over the world in the power of the Spirit persuading people that the Christ is alive right now. I told about the Mike Licona who is out on the front lines debating atheists with grace, kindness, and resolve. I told about the Mike Licona who reaches out to those who are doubting their faith with mercy, gently giving hope back to them one gentle spoonful at a time. The Mike Licona that Norman Geisler has created should be nothing more than a parenthetical afterthought.

I could not agree more. Unfortunately, even if you go to Mike's Wikipedia page, there is a whole section on this controversy. This is a controversy that should have never happened. With the way Mike was treated, you would have thought he had been denying the deity of Christ. Instead, Mike writes a whole book defending the resurrection and what happens? He gets called to the carpet.

Trust me. The non-Christian world noticed. I don't know how many skeptics I saw saying that Mike's losing his jobs is proof that in Seminaries and places like that that you can't hold to positions that go against the grain. This to them was all the more reason to not take Christian scholarship seriously. Now of course, we could say the same could happen to a scientist who dared to really question evolution, which I take no sides on, but that people were saying this should concern us.

The reality is most evangelicals just really weren't caring so much as Geisler was. It was not what Mike said that the watching world noticed but how the Christian community was attacking its own. To disagree is one thing, and we should have disagreements, but to go after someone's livelihood is another, and I am thankful to see that Lydia does go against that. Mike had taken the steps to resolve this privately, but the debacle went public instead of being treated in a scholarly conclave like it should have.

By the way, I've seen the way it should happen. I was privileged to go to the last meeting of ETS and be in a session where Mike presented his views with responses from Craig Blomberg and Darrell Bock. Mike responded to them as well. I did not get to see Bock, but at the end of the conference, I did see Blomberg who had disagreed with some of Mike's views. There was no animosity whatsoever. It wasn't even on my mind. This is the way it should have been handled.

And as for the events being a poetic device, my concern here is to say "Well what happens when we see this showing up in pagan literature?" After all, it does. Do we say "Well that's not historical because that's not the Bible, but it is historical when it is in the Bible."? If so, then we are doing what the skeptics regularly do. We are treating the Bible with a different standard. What should have been said is "You know Mike. I'm not really sure about your idea and I think it could be mistaken, but let's investigate it and see what we can find out." I can assure anyone of this. If someone could make a persuasive enough scholarly case against Mike's position, he would change his mind. Mike has to go where the evidence leads. Is that not what we should all be doing?

Lydia now gives us three ways that Mike says the Gospels handled situations differently.

Compression: When an author knowingly portrays events over a shorter period of time than they had actually occurred.
Transferral: When an author knowingly attributes words or actions to a person that he knew belonged to another.
Displacement: When an author knowingly removes an event from its original context and places it in another.

Lydia wants to speak about the word knowingly. Is the Gospel really giving us false information? For instance, she points to John's dating. Why did John do this this way? I don't know. My plan is quite simple. When I get the chance to talk to Mike again, I plan to simply ask him and look at his reply and see what I think of it. Mike's studied this for a long time using the best scholarly material so I take what he says very seriously.

Now as for compression, I have no real problem here with compression. In fact, this could get us to fall into the trap of skeptics. After all, how many times have you heard the thing about Luke not knowing when the ascension took place. In Luke, it seems to happen immediately. In Acts, it's after 40 days. This is compression. This should show us that this took place and if we are going to judge an ancient work, we should judge it by the standards of the time and not by our standards.

Lydia also disagrees with how Mike handles the strained harmonizations. Unfortunately, there are harmonizations like that. Just look at something like The Jesus Crisis. There are too many harmonizations that are just frankly embarrassing. Yet Rob Bowman has commented with a great answer. You can read that here.

As for the coming of James and John, what's wrong with Mike's approach? We have seen this elsewhere before. Who came and spoke to Jesus? Was it the centurion or his servants? One account says one thing. Another says another. Why not think the servants came on behalf of the centurion?

Lydia goes on to say that:

1) Disdaining harmonization inflates the number of places where the gospels are actually saying something (in the ordinary sense of "saying something") that is false. Relabeling these false statements as "literary devices" doesn't change the fact that, by abandoning even modest harmonization, you just blew up to much higher levels than necessary the number of places in the Gospels where what the text is to all appearances saying just isn't what really happened.

And the part in italics, which are hers, is the key part. To all appearances. This gets to what I see online with skeptics who want to argue against what the text "clearly" says." When we speak this way, we speak of how it looks to us. We can easily forget how it looks to an ancient person in their society. Would they see the "plain meaning" of the text?

2) Adopting the idea that the evangelists were knowingly changing things all over the place does not eliminate the possibility of actual errors of memory or mistakes in understanding (e.g., Luke's understanding of what was being claimed by one of his sources). It merely brings in an additional source of unreliability. So it's not as though one who adopts this method is somehow protecting the Gospels from claims that one or more of the evangelists made some bona fide error. A highly literary John who says that something happened on a day when he knows it didn't happen doesn't become ipso facto a John with a better memory. Hence one's estimate of the unreliability of the statements in the Gospels should (unfortunately) actually be raised by this approach. Of course, one could simply choose to interpret any putative error as a "deliberate literary trope," but this would be entirely arbitrary.

I think a key issue here is did the audience also know that this was happening? Mike's contention is that the audience would have recognized these literary devices. Consider the case of Paul's dialogue in Romans 7 that so many people today think describes every man's struggle with sin. Most scholars today think it is not autobiographical, but that is not what the "plain meaning" suggests. The difference is the audience would have recognized what was going on. If the audience recognized it, then there is not an issue.

3) Licona does not intend to say that there are usually clues in a given text as to when such a deliberate change is taking place. At one point in the lecture he says that there might be such a clue from "editorial fatigue," because an editor didn't sufficiently "clean up" a passage that he was displacing from a different context, but he does not appear to hold in general that there will be such clues. And that makes sense, given the view he's propounding. One shouldn't expect such clues given his definitions, since the definitions make it clear that the writer is deliberately attempting to write "as if" the event took place at a different time, the words were said by a different person, and so forth. This makes such changes invisible unless we happen to stumble across them by noticing discrepancies with other accounts. Licona claims to have identified quite a few of such tropes; he emphasizes in his talk that the three he discusses in the lecture are only a sample. He also shows great readiness to believe that the evangelists are using them. It would therefore seem that, if his view of the evangelists' modus operandi is correct, the probability is actually "decent" (20%, 30%? more?) in any given passage that the author is deliberately changing something, using one or the other of such techniques, but making it look like he isn't doing so. The rate of the use of such techniques postulated by Licona seems a lot higher than the ordinary rate of minor error on the part of honest witnesses who are in a position to know what happened and who are not trying to fictionalize their accounts. In other words, if we adopt Licona's approach it seems that we have significant reason to distrust the factual statements in the Gospels even where we don't have any other reason to doubt them. Take, for example, Licona's own readiness to believe that Mary the sister of Lazarus actually was the one who anointed Jesus' feet. But why think that? If John had no qualms about changing the date of the event, if the gospel writers had no qualms about putting words in a person's mouth when that person didn't say them, and so forth, why not wonder if John "transferred" the foot anointing from some unknown woman to Mary the sister of Lazarus? And then also transferred the story to Saturday to group all the stuff about Mary close together? The point is that once you start saying that the gospel writers, in essence, made stuff up for literary reasons, this has a tendency to metastasize. And I contend that it spreads far more quickly than the admission that they may, while trying to get it right, have made a few small errors.

And these are good questions worthy of discussion, so how about this? Mike's written a book on this that's due out in the fall. How about we read it and see his case and then critique the case then when we have a much fuller case. A presentation unfortunately cannot give the whole picture as you can't put all the footnotes in you want and everything.

4) In general, this approach runs in precisely the wrong direction, because it presents the Gospels to us as highly "massaged," literary documents in their relationship to the truth, not as honest memoirs just trying to tell it like it happened. What research in areas like unexplained allusions and undesigned coincidences reveals is the latter--the marks of truthful witnesses with the normal variation of detail that we would expect from them, not the marks of literary composition of a fictionalizing sort. The highly literary view of the Gospels tells us to look for hidden meanings and agendas rather than taking them at face value. This causes an artificial view of other evidences as well. For example, consider the evidence of unnecessary details. The Gospels are full of otherwise pointless time indications, statements that one place was "near to" another place, details about how many fish were caught or how many men were fed, and so forth. The historical view of the Gospels would lead us to note that these are prima facie evidences of verisimilitude. This is how real people talk. They throw in unnecessary details, they make unexplained allusions, and so forth. It is part of the dysfunctionality of over-sophisticated New Testament criticism to teach readers to overlook this obvious fact and instead to go off into fancies of literary speculation--e.g., symbolic meanings for specific numbers and names, etc. Licona's approach, while less fanciful than some others, is definitely on the ahistorical, over-literary side of this divide. It thus undermines readers' ability to see the force of other evidences of reliability, since it teaches them to think of the Gospel writers as people who are trying to do lots of invisible altering of the facts for literary or theological purposes.

Now I have no problem with undesigned coincidences and see no reason why both cannot be employed, but I do hesitate when we speak of the way ordinary people talk and about taking a text at face value. Are we not still too much reading this as if it was a book written to a 21st century Western audience?

My whole concern in all of this as Lydia goes on is that it looks like the whole thing is starting again. I was expecting something to happen when Mike had his book released, but not before. I do think that these are issues worth discussing and I do plan on discussing them, especially whenever I get to interview Mike on it. (I've asked for first interview!)

Ultimately, this is also one reason I just do not make a strong effort to defend Inerrancy really. If you engage a skeptic who makes a big deal out of it, they will just go to a website with 101 Bible contradictions and even if you addressed all of them, there would be more that they would want to have addressed. This has become such a hot button issue that we are losing sight of the real deal. When is the resurrection going to be central? When are we going to look at the Risen Jesus?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

 

Can We Still Trust Bob Wilkin?

Bob Wilkin has written a post on Defending Inerrancy asking if we can still trust New Testament professors. This is of course since arch-villain Craig Blomberg actually wrote a book asking if we can still believe the Bible, which he answers with a resounding yes. (Blomberg is noted as well for being involved with the supreme villain Mike Licona, who actually wrote a masterful defense of the resurrection of Jesus, but called into question whether one event in the Bible is literal or not which sparked this whole thing.)

Wilkin starts off saying about Blomberg that

 He says we can still believe the Bible, but only if we learn to distinguish between inspired fiction and inspired history.

He then says that if that sounds puzzling to you, it should.

It would be nice to know where exactly Blomberg says this in the book. Of course, he could. I don't have an exhaustive memory of it. Unfortunately, Wilkin does not tell us. He's more than happy to point out the conservative scholars that Blomberg argues against. The reality is that none of these conservative scholars are really scholars at all in the field of the New Testament and would not be recognized as such by writers in the field. Still, they must surely be listened to and their opinions treated seriously for they are "conservatives." Of course, this is really interesting to many of us who consider ourselves conservatives and actually write books defending the Bible and the resurrection and debate those who contradict it regularly.

When writing about Blomberg, Wilkin starts off with saying that Blomberg says when we read the Bible, we must recognize not every account is a historical event. Of course, Wilkin knows that there are parables, but he says some stances Blomberg takes will be shocking. For instance,

According to Blomberg, Jonah was probably a real prophet but the book of Jonah is a parable. Jonah was never swallowed by a large fish. He never went to Nineveh. The whole account is just an inspired short story (pp. 157-60).

Here's the problem. Blomberg never once says it is a parable. Not once. He does say arguments given for its historicity don't necessarily follow, but he himself never takes a side in the matter. Wilkin needs to show specifically where Blomberg says Jonah is probably a real prophet and the book is a parable. Both of those are false statements and for one wanting to uphold what Scripture teaches, Wilkin might want to see what it says about false witness about one's neighbor.

Wilkin goes on to the Genesis creation account.

What about Adam and Eve and the six days of creation? Blomberg believes that Genesis 2-3 cannot be pure fiction (p. 154). That is comforting. At least there is some kernel of truth there. Blomberg considers Genesis 1-3 to be fiction with a little bit of history underlying it. In his view there were two people named Adam and Eve. But they were not directly created by God. They were chosen out of a group of humans who lived at that time. The universe was not created in six days. But it was created in some fashion. Blomberg says, The genre of much of Genesis 1-11 remains a puzzle; historical narrative as the ancients would have recognized it begins in earnest only with the call of Abram in Genesis 12 (P. 154). 

Who else questions whether the whole account should be read in a literal sense? J.I. Packer, one of the framers of ICBI. In fact, he has endorsed books on asking if we have to choose between creation and evolution. I have written on that here. As for six literal days, there are few conservative scholars who would hold to six literal days if you mean 24-hour days and as for a universal flood, many believe in a local flood that was universal in scope. All of these can be conservative positions.

What about Job? It too is inspired fiction, though there might have been an actual person by that name (pp. 155-57).

Really? Blomberg says it's inspired fiction. I want a direct quote. Can Wilkin show me a direct quote where Blomberg says this?

Blomberg says the account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-21 is a parable, though it is not called a parable by the Lord. The events described never happened. The fact that no other parable lists the specific names of people (this one mentions both Lazarus and Abraham by name), and that it is not called a parable, should not confuse us. This is inspired fiction (p. 150).

Blomberg also points out that this parable is told on the heels of three parables should clue us in. One wonders also if Wilkin wants to say a man in hell before the resurrection has a tongue and a body since in a more orthodox stance, that does not happen until the resurrection. Well what about the naming of Lazarus. Why would Lazarus have a name?

It's simple. The name refers to someone helped by God. Furthermore, it's meant to be a contrast. The rich man would normally be seen as the person to be honored and as having the blessing of God. The poor man would have the opposite. In Jesus's parable, Lazarus is the one truly blessed and he is the one worth talking about. The rich man is not even worthy of a name. It's a shaming device.

Remember the amazing account in Matthew 27 of departed saints in Jerusalem who rose from their graves when Jesus rose from the dead? Matthew says, the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matt 27:52b-53). Blomberg says that Matthew included this account because of the desire to maintain that Jesus’s [sic] bodily resurrection from the dead guarantees the coming bodily resurrection of all God’s people from throughout human history” (p. 174, emphasis his). He then continues. But does that mean that Matthew 27:52b-53 must reflect simple history? Or could the text, too, narrate symbolically what Paul phrases more prosaically [in 1 Cor 15:20]?” (pp. 174-75). In his view it is not “simple history. His point seems to be that this never happened, but that Matthew included it to show that all will rise one day. He even defends a scholar named Michael Licona (Houston Baptist University) who wrote concerning Matt 27:52b-53: “It seems best to regard this difficult text in Matthew as a poetic device added to communicate that the Son of God had died and that impending judgment awaited Israel (Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, p. 553).

Note again that Blomberg does not take a side. Wilkin has this habit of thinking that because one can make an argument to show that the other side is not denying the Bible, that one must be in total agreement with that side. Of course, we have mention again of the supreme villain Mike Licona, who might I remind everyone again wrote a masterful defense of the resurrection of Jesus, you know, the teaching that's only the central pillar of the Christian faith.

Licona went on to wonder “if some or all of the phenomena at Jesus death are poetic devices, we may rightly ask whether Jesus resurrection is not more of the same” (p. 553). He goes on to suggest that the answer is no. Jesus really rose from the dead. However, if one adopts the views of Blomberg and other New Testament scholars like him, it would seem that just about anything reported in the Bible might be considered inspired fiction.

Naturally, we have a slam on the panic button right here. There is no interacting with Licona's argument. There is no investigating it for its merits and analyzing any problems. The answer is simply that if we follow Licona's methodology supposedly, we could consider anything fiction. This despite the fact that Licona has a long section on what historiography is and how to do it but hey, facts. Who needs them?

Wilkin goes on to cite Blomberg again:

Sadly, some extremely conservative Christians continue to insist on following their modern understandings of what should or should not constitute errors in the Bible and censure fellow inerrantists whose views are less anachronistic (p. 10).

So what does Blomberg mean by this?

What he is saying is that there are errors in the Bible based on our modern understanding of the reporting of history. However, Blomberg says that the people of the first century didn’t view historical reporting as we do. They felt it was not an error to present miracle stories as history, when in fact they were fiction created by the Gospel writers to express their faith in Jesus. 

He does? Blomberg means this? For a crowd that goes on about how we can't know authorial intent, it's amazing how much Wilkin seems to know this. No. What Blomberg means is that modern standards of writing were different from historical standards.

What did the sign on the cross of Jesus say?

What did Peter say at the confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi?

What did God say at the baptism of Jesus?

Did the centurion come to Jesus himself or did a servant come?

What order did the temptations of Jesus take place in?

If you assume a modern understanding, you will have problems. If you take an ancient understanding where topics can be arranged thematically and topically and not necessarily chronologically, you have no problem.

Blomberg would have us believe that the New Testament authors had a very low view of reporting history. Hence, Matthew can include a resurrection that might never have actually occurred (Matt 27:52b-53; see p. 174-78). John can report that Jesus cleansed the temple at the start of his ministry (John 2:13-20), when in fact, according to most New Testament scholars today, He only cleansed the temple once, at the end of His ministry.

No. Blomberg would have you believe no such thing whatsoever and again, that message against false witness should be kept in mind here. It's interesting that after this last one about the cleansing of the temple, we have a little link to a footnote that says that Blomberg does not discuss this incident. Of course, his not discussing it will not stop Wilkin from writing about it as an example. Perhaps he should do something like, I don't know, use views that Blomberg says he actually holds to?

Blomberg and his non-anachronistic, and not-overly-conservative New Testament colleagues like Bock and Harris (Dallas Theological Seminary) believe that at Jesus baptism the Father did not say, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, as Matthew reports (Matt 3:17). Instead, He supposedly only said. You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11; Luke 3:21-22). If anyone suggests He said both, one to Jesus and one to John the Baptist and the crowd, then he is called ultraconservative” (pp. 176,214) and “far right” (p. 120). Surely Matthew’s readers knew not to think that the Gospel writers reported what was actually said or done. According to Blomberg, the Gospel writers made things up but that’s OK because they viewed the reporting of history much differently than we do today. 

It's amazing that someone as conservative as Bock can be treated in this regard. (Again, a nice little footnote to say Blomberg does not discuss this incident.) Wilkin needs to answer the question. Which was said at the baptism? If he thinks both were said and one to Jesus and one to the crowd, he needs to state why the Gospels do not say that. Why does no Gospel writer mention both being said? This is reading into the text a bizarre idea. Having Jesus be told that He was the Son of God and pleasing to God would mean the crowd needed to hear a personal message at the same time, or vice-versa?

Can we still trust New Testament Professors? No, we cannot trust most New Testament Professors. At most leading Evangelical seminaries those who teach the New Testament hold Blomberg’s views. He mentions some of his friends who are New Testament scholars and who, like him, have been criticized for supposedly abandoning inerrancy. Blomberg speaks of such evangelical stalwarts as Darrell Back [Dallas Theological Seminary], D. A. Carson [Trinity Evangelical Divinity School], and Craig Keener [Asbury Theological Seminary]” (CWSBB, p. 120).

I'm quite convinced we can't trust Bob Wilkin since he has misrepresented Blomberg and given him views that he does not hold. (If anyone thinks I'm wrong in this, not only have I read his book, but I consider Blomberg a friend and I know the views that he holds very well. He also wrote the foreword to my Ebook on Inerrancy.) If Wilkin wants to remove Christians from NT scholarship of the caliber he's speaking of, he does so at the peril of the next generation, and to add to all these people, Keener is also one who is nothing but honest and diligent in his research and there's no need for Wilkin to smear him as well. He's written the leading work on miracles today and the most thorough commentary on Acts around. (And also, the scholar at Dallas is Darrell "Bock.")

Wilkin can write all he wants to about our modern understanding of inerrancy, but what he needs to ask if the ancients held the same view. If they did not, then he is going to be running into problems as he will read his own culture into the Bible. He also might not want to be so quick to point to what the Southern Baptist Convention did since as scholars like Mark Noll point out in his book on the Civil War as a theological crisis, the convention was formed to defend slavery and what kind of reading of the Bible did they use? Yep. An ultra-literalistic one. In fact, it was the scholars who were more interested in the social and historical context of what was going on that were the abolitionists and they did not have a chance against a hard-line literalism.

The kind that is being pushed today and is helping to create internet atheists regularly.

Can we trust NT professors today? Yes. Yes we can.

We are not so sure about trusting Bob Wilkin.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

A Response To Geisler's Critique of John Walton

In 2 Samuel 11, we are told that spring is the time that the kings go off to war. After all, winter is a hard time to battle so to spare their own losses, most waited until spring.

Apparently some things haven't changed as this spring, Norman Geisler has started off with a "review" of John Walton's The Lost World Of Adam and Eve. Now I have elsewhere shown my great support for Walton, including interviewing him on my podcast. (For an earlier interview based on The Lost World of Genesis One, see here and for an interview I did with his co-author Brent Sandy on The Lost World of Scripture see here.) I have found Walton's work to be stellar in this area and hope before too long we all just realize he's correct in his approach. It will no doubt be refined, but I have found it thoroughly persuasive. 

Naturally, Geisler's main interest is Inerrancy, but not just Inerrancy. It's "Does Walton agree with my interpretation?" Geisler once again equates Inerrancy of interpretation with the Inerrancy of Scripture. If someone goes against what he understands ICBI to be, then they are denying Inerrancy because obviously, there's no other way to affirm Inerrancy other than ICBI. 

Geisler's review is hardly a review. He leaps to the end of the book and gives Walton's summary of the matter after 200+ pages of looking at all the data that he gives for his position. Instead, he gives the positions that will make his readers immediately raise up those red flags. Walton says humans were created en masse? He says there were other human beings around at the time? He says science might offer contrary information?

You would get the idea that these positions were just thrown out there with no reason behind them. Instead, it's just a jump to the practical reasons for holding the position. Now if all Walton had done was say "Adam and Eve might not be the first humans and science could say otherwise, so let's just get in line and accept it and here's the benefits for just accepting it", it would be right to be suspicious, but Walton has been defending numerous propositions in his book that Geisler does not even touch. 

Hmmmm. Something in this water tastes funny. It's like poison....

Geisler sums up his view of Walton in the following: 

1. The Bible does not teach that a literal historical Adam and Eve are Progenitors of the Human Race2. The scientific evidence supports the belief in macro evolution.3. Holding both 1 and 2 is not contrary to the doctrine of inerrancy.4. An acceptance of 1-3 is crucial to fulfilling the mission and proper growth of the Church.

I can't say I agree with this. For instance, in my interview with Walton, he has said his interpretation of the text would not require macroevolution to be true. After all, you could be a YEC and hold to his view. This is just a way of interpreting the text. Walton used to be YEC. Why? He thought the text demanded it. He no longer holds that view and the reason he holds the view is that he once again says he thinks that is what the text is teaching.

Geisler looking at point 1 says:

First, he confessed, “I do affirm the historicity of Adam. But I do not consider interpreters who are trying to be faithful to Scripture to be denying inerrancy if they arrive at a different conclusion” (202). Apparently, then, any sincere exegete could deny the historicity of Adam and still be consistent with inerrancy? How about those who deny the historicity of Christ’s resurrection?

But this again confuses Inerrancy of Scripture with Inerrancy of interpretation. If someone says Inerrancy simply means that all that the Scripture teaches is true, then if they really believe the text does not teach the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, they could indeed hold to such a position. I think it would be difficult to defend such a position, but they could hold to it. Inerrancy tells you about the nature of the content of revelation. It does not tell you the message of that revelation. It just says that whatever the message is, it is true.

If Geisler wants to argue against someone with this position on Adam, then he's free to consider someone like Denis O. Lamoureux, who holds to the Inerrancy of Scripture and does not hold to a historical Adam as shown in Four Views on the Historical Adam. In fact, John Walton was one of the scholars who argued against his position. Unfortunately for Geisler, he will have to argue textually and scientifically against Lamoureux and while I am not persuaded by Lamoureux’s position, Geisler will have to do more than shout, "Inerrancy!" He will have to address Lamoureux’s textual and scientific arguments.  

Second, “…perhaps what Genesis is telling us is that God chose one pair from the rest of early hominids for a special, strange, demanding vocation. This pair (call them Adam and Eve if you like) were to be the representatives of the whole human race, the ones in whom God’s purposes to make the whole world a place of delight and joy and order…” (177- 178). So, to establish this first point we must show that (a) the Bible teaches us that there was a literal couple, commonly called Adam and Eve, (b) who were the progenitors of the entire human race. Let’s take them in order:

Keep in mind, all of this is without looking at Walton's arguments at all. There is no interaction with Walton’s view that the Bible is not talking about material processes. There is no dialogue with the concept of sacred space. There is no dealing with the idea of creation being good instead of perfect. All we see are Walton's conclusions without looking at why he comes to those conclusions, as if Walton just wants to see a position considered to be Biblical and just undermine it. The arguments Walton gives for his positions are never once addressed.

So how does Geisler refute the claim that Adam and Eve were not the first humans? Let's see what he says.

The first argument is that Adam and Eve were historical persons. It is odd that Geisler goes into all of this when he says Walton acknowledges this as evidence of Adam's historicity and Walton does hold to a historical Adam and Eve. 

Yet things get interesting when we move to Eve.

(1) Eve was also a literal person who, with Adam, were physical progenitors of the human race. For “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20 NIV). Even translated in the present as “She is the mother of all living” (ESV), her name (hawwa, living or life-giver) “signifies that the woman became a pledge in the continuation of the race, in spite of the curse.” Allen Ross (Creation and Blessing, 148). Her name also reflects the earlier prediction that the “seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15) would bring life and salvation into the world through her “seed” (offspring). Contrary to Walton (187), whatever else it may imply it does not exclude being the genetic progenitor. Likewise, a similar phrase “father of all” used of Jubal (Gen 4:21) implies a genetic progenitor since he was the genetic father of all “those [humans] who played” the harp; he was not the father of the organ.

This is quite odd for Geisler to bring up Jubal as a refutation of the point hoping his readers will see it immediately because the very point is made by Walton using Jubal as his example. Where does Jubal imply a genetic relationship between him and all harp players? Does that mean that all harp players must be genetically descended from Jubal? Not at all. This would make as much sense as saying all historians must be descended from Herodotus, the father of history. This will work if Geisler’s followers don’t read Walton themselves and never see the arguments he makes. Unfortunately, too many of them will indeed never read Walton themselves.

President Philip Ryken of Wheaton College presented six significant arguments for a historical Adam: 1. It explains humanity’s sinfulness; 2. It accounts for the presence of evil in the world; 3. It clarifies the biblical position on sexual identity and family relationships; 4. It assures us that we are justified before God; 5. It advances the missionary work of the church; 6. It secures our hope in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting (203). He added, “We cannot understand the world of our faith without a real, historical Adam.” But Wheaton Professor Walton summarily dismisses his arguments, claiming that “some of these are a matter of interpretation” and “even if we accept without question all these points, we could still maintain that no theology is built on the scientific implications commonly associated with Adam and Eve: that they must (theologically speaking!) be created de novo, as the only people at the beginning of humanity and those from whom we are all descended” (203-204).

Why Geisler is investing so much in a historical Adam when Walton holds to one would seem odd, unless he wants his readers to get the impression that Walton is skeptical of this, which he is not. Again, it would be helpful for them to read Walton. The views of Ryken come from the above counterpoints book that was mentioned earlier. Walton does not dismiss these. In fact, he says all of them are worthy of book length discussion. It's just that since he's not arguing against a historical Adam, they're not really relevant. (I would in fact argue that Ryken needs to focus more on Jesus than on Adam) What he does say is none of this is changed even if we accept these points by having Adam and Eve not be the first human beings.

In response, the literal historical-grammatical interpretation endorsed by ICBI (CSBI, Article 18) demands a de novo creation of God because: (1) Adam was created from “dust” [not from lower animals], and he will return to dust (Gen. 2:7; 3:19; Job 34:15; Eccl. 3:20); (2) Eve was made from Adam’s “rib” (Gen. 2:21); (3) God “created” (not developed through evolution) every living things (Gen. 1:21); (4) All acts of “creation” (bara) in Genesis 1 (1:1; 1:21; 1:27) resulted from God “speaking” and it occurred. Paul describes the creation of light as ex nihilo (out of nothing), “Let light shine out of darkness” (2 Cor. 4:6). Darkness does not evolve into light; rather, lightning strikes it from the outside; (5) Every form of life “produced its own kind” (it did not evolve into another kind); (6) Humans were made in God’s image, “male and female” which involves bodies (Gen. 1:27); (7) Humans could speak and name things from the beginning (Gen. 2:19-20; 3:3, 10); (8) Humans had moral capacity and responsibility from the beginning (Gen. 2:16-17); (9) Humans had God-consciousness from the start (Gen. 3:1-13). (9) Jesus affirmed this was all “from the beginning” (Matt. 19:4) from the “beginning of world” (Matt. 24:21). The only normal, literal interpretation of these verses is that the creation of Adam was de novo.

And as expected, we now turn to the Scripture of ICBI and since they have spoken, well the case is closed. We know what the text means because ICBI said so. It's because of positions like this that Geisler has earned the nickname, and rightfully so, of the Evangelical Pope. Some of these positions were dealt with in The Lost World of Genesis One. Still, let's point out some problems.

Adam was created from dust? For starters, Walton never says Adam was created by a macroevolutionary process, but ignoring that, Geisler wants his readers to think a key point is made by the text saying Adam is made from the dust and Eve from his rib as if Walton was unaware of this. In fact, Walton has an entire chapter on that section alone and what it means. Does Geisler really consider it good form to raise up a point that he would surely know Walton has addressed in the book without really giving the positions that Walton holds in the book and why? This is just dishonest on Geisler's part. Even if Walton's reasons for holding the view he holds are poor reasons, they should not be ignored.

For creation with bara, Walton deals with all of this in the first book. One could of course deny macroevolution and hold to Walton's view so 5 is not a problem. 6 isn't a problem either based on the first book. 7 only says something about Adam and Eve and not all humanity. This would be begging the question. Same for 8 and 9 would not be a problem either. After all, if the beginning means the immediate instant beginning, well humanity wasn't even there then. If it just means from the start of the human story, then Walton would agree.

Geisler's conclusion about the only normal, literal, interpretation I'm sure would be interesting to his YEC critics who also question his commitment to Inerrancy and see him compromising with a modern scientific consensus on the age of the Earth. After all, they would say "the only normal, literal interpretation is that the Earth is young. 

Ultimately, it comes back to a fundamentalist understanding of the text. The normal way to understand the text is in the way modern 20th and 21st century Westerners take the text. Could it be that Walton has a point that maybe we need to see what the viewpoint was of people back then and interpret the text in light of that? Keep in mind the word literal really means "according to the intent of the author."

Geisler starts off his next part saying, “In order to justify his claim that certain biblical references to Adam have no authority (181, 183),” but if anyone read these pages, they would see nothing like this. Instead, they would find Walton wanting to take the text seriously, as he does. Geisler is just trying to get his readers to think that Walton is wanting to dismiss the Bible for his positions. Again, this is a whole lot easier to do than actually do the work of dealing with his arguments. Now Walton does make a point about what the Bible teaches authoritatively and incidentally.

There are many such references in the Bible to views the Israelites held that we do not hold to. This should not be seen as a problem for us. One big example Walton would likely give is the firmament. This is one reason he does not hold to a Concordist position on Genesis 1. 

Walton's view is described as evolutionary when in fact, it is not. All the position is saying is that the question of evolution does not matter to the text. Believe it or not, we do not have to choose which side we want to come down on. The Bible doesn't address the question.

Does Geisler think such a position denies Inerrancy?

Then he needs to talk with J.I. Packer. Packer has given an endorsement of Denis Alexander's Creation or Evolution: Do We Have To Choose? Just look at the cover. In fact, Albert Mohler said about this that:

Denis Alexander in his new book Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? suggests that “God in his grace chose a couple of neolithic farmers to whom he chose to reveal himself in a special way, calling them into fellowship with himself so that they might know him as a personal God.” A couple of Neolithic farmers? Is that in any way a possible, legitimate exegetical reading of Genesis? More disturbing is not the contents of the book, but the endorsement from J. I. Packer on the front cover, who says, “Surely the best informed, clearest, and most judicious treatment of the question and title that you can find anywhere today.” 

Or consider his endorsement also of Melvin Tinker's Reclaiming Genesis with even writing the foreword and giving a hearty recommendation of it. The book has been described as pro-evolution and anti-intelligent design.

Is Packer denying Inerrancy?

Walton does not believe the reference in Acts 17:26 to making all nations from one man refers to Adam, but to Noah. This is based on the reference to nations coming right after the Noah account. Geisler has none of this and gives his reasons.

However, there is multiple evidence that Paul is including all individuals (of which nations are made). First, the word “made” (epoiasen) is used in this same context (Acts 17:24) of God making the world (cosmos). Second, it is used elsewhere in Acts 4:24 of “the Sovereign Lord, who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them” (cf. Acts 7:49-50). Third, it urges all men to seek Him (v. 27) and claims that all humans exist only “in Him we live and move and have our being” (v. 28) and, therefore should seek Him (v. 29). All this implies a genetic view of human beings who are connected to each other and to this one God by creation. Fourth, Paul elsewhere speaks of “the condemnation of all men” in Adam (Rom. 5:12, 13, 17), showing their unity and origin in him. In view of the context, to reduce this text to God forming or organizing nations is to reveal more of a Platonic influence (where the Demiurgos orders the eternal chaos into a cosmos but does not bring it into being). As St. Augustine put it, we are born “with a propensity to sin and a necessity to die” (City of God 14.1).

To begin with, Walton would have no problem with the first point. He would disagree on what is meant by made, which Geisler has not interacted with. The same applies to point two. For the third point, how does this imply a genetic relationship? It implies a common origin in being from God. It is not about our relationship to Adam but to each other. For the fourth, yes, all men are condemned in Adam. One could hold to Walton's view of Acts 17:26 and still hold to the condemnation of all men in Adam. 

In the next part, Walton deals with the idea that some readers will be hesitant to accept a new reading of the text. Unfortunately, a reading of Geisler will give the reader the impression that Walton is trying to explain an idea that would deny the historicity of Adam and Eve. It's as if Geisler didn't read the book itself and simply had someone else read it and say "Okay. Tell me everything you can that's wrong with it."

Keep in mind, I have read the book. I have it right here and have been looking up Geisler's claims in it.

1. “The church fathers often disagree deeply with one another” (205).Response: So do many scientists disagree about the origin of life, but we do not discard scientific evidence because of it. Nor do we disregard good cumulative evidence because of such disagreement.

And yet Geisler should surely accept that the church fathers have often disagreed strongly and what about where they haven't. Does Geisler accept baptismal regeneration? Many of the church fathers also accepted allegorical interpretation. Would Geisler accept that? What would ICBI say about those who interpret the text allegorically? All Walton is saying is that the church fathers are not the final authority. This should not be a problem. 

And again, Walton has not endorsed a macroevolutionary view. It's just not a problem.

2. The early Fathers regularly held positions that no one holds today.Response: So did early scientists hold views that virtually no one accepts today. For example, current evolutionists disown early evolutionary views of inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Again, Geisler misses the point. This is a book on what the text says and not what science says.

3. Their writings were driven by the needs [heresies] of their time, not by what the Bible intended to say.
Response: Heresies are often the occasion for the Fathers clarifying and defending the truth, but they were not the cause of it. The basis for truth was the inspired Scripture.

And in turn, the basis for Walton's view is inspired Scripture much the same way.

4. They were primarily driven by Christology, not by a text in its ancient context.Response: The great creeds were occasioned by heresy, nonetheless were usually based on sound biblical teaching. There is not necessary disconnection between Christology and their view of Scripture.

Walton's point is that the writers were not often looking to understand Genesis as Genesis but Genesis in light of Christ. There is nothing wrong with this, but a fuller understanding can be found just understanding Genesis on its own first.

5. Most of the time they were not familiar with Hebrew and Greek.Response: As helpful as studying the original languages is in understanding the nuances and technicalities of exegesis and theology, their value is sometimes overestimated, especially by the teachers of the languages. All the major doctrines in Scripture can be discerned by the common languages. In fact, some of the great theologians of the church past and present were not proficient in Hebrew and Greek—St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas among them.

This is quite flummoxing. Why would Geisler not want to go back to the original languages? Geisler makes the same kind of statement in Defending Inerrancy. Why do we need to try to find what Jesus said in Aramaic? Isn't what we have in Greek enough? Why not try to get a fuller understanding? We might as well say "Why do we even need to read Geisler's books on the Bible? Isn't what we have enough?" 

6. They had no access to the ancient world as we do through archaeology.Response: As helpful and insightful as archaeology can be (see Joseph Holden, A Popular Handbook on Archaeology and the Bible, Harvest House, 2013), no essential of the faith is impossible to discover from Scripture itself. Further, unfortunately some scholars who are most trained in the surrounding culture are the most tempted to misuse it in misinterpreting the Bible. Even Walton himself warns that “We should note, however, that the Israelites often show marked dissimilarities from the surrounding world. Proper interpretation will recognize both” (199).

Walton here is simply saying that archaeology has increased our understanding, such as the tablets we've found that show us more on how ancient people thought. (You know, that material Geisler never interacts with at all during his review.) Once again, it looks like a dismissal on Geisler's part.

7. Walton claimed that the early Fathers did know and expressed some of the ideas he had in his book (205).Response: Contrary to Walton, this would indicate that all of our new ideas are not dependent on studying these new cultures. However, many of these new studies are the source of unorthodox teachings entering the bloodstream of evangelicalism.

And there is the keyword of "unorthodox" again. This is a possible threat, so we must stop it now. Geisler's anti-scholarship position is the real threat to the church today. How about this unique idea of, oh, I don't know, looking at Walton's arguments as arguments and critiquing them? For instance, while I do not agree with what Lydia McGrew says on her review of the book (incomplete at this point), at least she is not playing the Inerrancy card repeatedly and making accusations of unorthodoxy. 

Next we move on to macroevolution.

While Walton disavows expertize in science, nonetheless, he claims a high degree of certainty about certain scientific issues. For example, he is firmly convinced of macro-evolution, including the genetic evolution of the first human beings. Consider the following (emphasis added): “The current scientific consensus is that humans share a common ancestor with other species based on the evidence of material (phylogenetic) continuity” (206). “The modern scientific consensus affirms that there is material continuity between all species of life (technically designated phylogenetic continuity).” “All species have a common ancestor.… [This] idea is almost universally affirmed among scientists” (190). He adds, “It [‘evolution’] is not inherently atheistic or deist. It has plenty of room for the providence of God as well as the intimate involvement of God” (191). He adds, the evidence for macroevolution “is compelling.” (182).

Yet in all of this, Walton has not said he is a macroevolutionist. In fact, I could agree with what Walton says here and still say I'm not ready to sign on the dotted line yet. In fact, aside from the last two viewpoints that Geisler might not accept, surely he would accept the first three. Does he want to deny that the current consensus in science is what Walton says it is? You don't have to be a scientist to know this.

And again, if this is a problem for Walton, why does J.I. Packer get a free pass?

Now I will not deal with the arguments Geisler gives for evolution because again, I see them as pointless to Walton's thesis, and second, because I am not a scientist. Yet Geisler says the framers have denounced theistic evolution as not compatible with Inerrancy.

A lot of this however hangs on the idea that Walton does not treat Genesis 1-11 as historical. The problem is that he simply does treat them as historical. He just doesn't accept the idea of the claim of what the history is being said. He is not saying these accounts are untrue. He is persuaded fully of the truth of the accounts. In fact, he would say he could hold to a literal interpretation of these passages based on his engagement with the text.

Sorry, but throwing around ICBI does not refute his arguments. It just says that the magisterium has spoken and the case is closed. 

And as said earlier, how can we think the framers thought this when Packer's endorsements and actions say otherwise?

So let's move on to the practical realities. Why does Geisler not find them convincing?

First, one fails to see how denying the direct (de novo) creation of Adam helps motivate one to care more for God’s creation” (207). In fact, one could make a strong argument to the contrary. For knowing “this is my Father’s world” should motivate me to care for it with great concern.

One struggles to see what the connection is. Adam and Eve are not the first human beings, therefore this is not our Father's world? What is going on here? Walton's view is that Adam's vocation was to be the caretaker of the world that he was put in and to serve as the maintainer of sacred space. (You know, that position Geisler NEVER interacts with.) This in fact does depend on this being our Father's world.

Second, it is difficult to see how denying Inerrancy and the biblical teaching about a first literal Adam is a path of “convergence and compatibility” (208). Compromise on crucial beliefs does not lead to real compatibility. It leads to chaos. Try compromising on the quality of steel in a sky scrapper.

Yet this is just more of the question begging that Walton is denying Inerrancy and Biblical teaching. Yeah. Walton made an argument from the text, but I guess the Pope has just spoken....

Third, one fails to see how unless a person accepts theistic evolution and denies inerrancy, they must “abandon their brains” (208-209). The intelligent design movement has attracted some very smart scientists like Charles Thaxton, Philip Johnson, Hugh Ross, Fuz Rana, and Stephen Meyer, to mention only a few.

 Walton never once says that not accepting theistic evolution means a person is abandoning their brains. His position here is that many people curious of Christianity are being told essentially that to hold to Christianity, they must abandon their brains. Literally? Probably not, but by saying they have to go against what they see scientifically, then yes. Does Geisler think this is not happening? I assure him it is. I have heard too many times of cases where people present objections and are told "That's why it's called faith." and the story of a boy coming to a pastor with his doubts and the pastor just shows a Bible and says "This is what we believe. Do you believe it or not?" The boy said he didn't, left, and never came back. Too many atheists today think that if you believe in science, you cannot believe in anything religious. What about those who are not anti-theists but do hold to positions that they think are shown to be scientifically true. What will they do if those outside say "Well, we know you think the science shows this, but you must believe otherwise because this book you question that we base everything on says otherwise?" 

Yes. People are abandoning Christianity because of this.

Fourth, Walton contents that “They [our young people] have heard their revered pastors tell them that people who believe in evolution cannot be Christians” (209), thus leading them to leave the church. However, this is largely a “Straw Man” argument since few actually say “they cannot be a Christian,” if they accept evolution. The most conservative usually only say that evolution is contrary to Christian teaching—which is something else. Further, the real question is not whether some may leave the church if the doctrine is taught (whatever it is) but whether or not it is an important truth of the Christian Faith. And, as for the doctrine of creation, it is certainly an important truth of the Christian Faith since both the apostles and Jesus connected it with many significant Christian teachings. For instance, the Bible offers the doctrine of creation as the basis of (or connected to) the doctrines of: (1) human dignity (Jas. 3:9-10); ( 2) governmental authority (Gen. 9:6 cf. Rom. 13:1, 4); (3) marital fidelity (Matt. 19:4-6); (4) Ecological responsibility (Psa. 14:1; Psa. 8:4); ( 5) ecclesiastical authority (1 Tim. 2:13-14 cf. Heb. 13:17); (6) family identity (1 Cor. 11:3-8); (7) human mortality (Rom. 5:12); (8) redemptive activity (1Cor. 15:45-49); (9) resurrection reality (1 Cor. 15:22), and (10) human mortality (2 Pet. 3:3-4).

I hate to say it, but this does indeed happen. This is why for so many people, evolution is the breaking point. You either accept evolution, or you accept the Bible. Again, let's remember that Packer endorsed a book that argued that we do not have to choose and is there any reason to think that he is denying Inerrancy?

Geisler concludes with his usual alarmist statement.

However, a new generation has arisen that knows not Kantzer, Culver, and Kaiser. They have convinced themselves from extra-biblical sources, in whose light they reinterpret the Bible, that Adam was not the first man; that his body is genetically the same as other early hominids, that all humans are not Adam’s descendants; that human death is not the result of Adam’s sin, and that Darwin was basically right about common ancestry! All I can say is that this is not the Wheaton I knew, nor is it the one to which I can recommend my grandchildren.

Yes. We're quite sure Walton is just so unfamiliar with the OT scholarship. This is more of Geisler's "A great man has spoken. The case is closed." When a new position rises up, it must be examined on its own merits. It must not be rejected because it disagrees with the prior traditional interpretation. One would think a Protestant like Geisler would accept that, but it looks like he does not and prefers to point to the magisterium of ICBI instead. 

In the end, Walton's book remains untouched. None of the arguments for his position were mentioned let alone dealt with and this is simply pushing a panic button, but then again, this is what we are used to.

In Christ,

Nick Peters