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I had the great misfortune to go to a church last Sunday where I heard a sermon that was truly horrible. I happen to be a biblical scholar of some note and was dismayed to hear a priest spewing fundamentalism from the pulpit. His sermon was nothing more than an advertisement for Jeff Cavins about whom, quite frankly, I can find nothing good to say. Mr. Cavins lacks any real scholarship and his so called “Bible Time Line” is loaded with inaccuracies. But Mr. Cavins is mild compared to the hateful drivel preached last Sunday. The priest in question even said that form criticism was evil, or something to that effect! The gall!!! Please comment.

Dr. Eisenbart

Dear Dr. Eisenbart

I’m sure that the simple curate in question had no idea that he was preaching in the presence of his betters and said some regrettable things. I’m sure that in the spirit of Christian charity you have forgiven him his errors. Let us begin, however, by explaining “form criticism” to the our readers. Form criticism is a method of studying and understanding the Bible by means of classifying its literary forms. It seeks to find a passage’s original form and historical context in order to better understand it and to arrive at the intent of the authors of the text. In some circles form criticism is an attempt to reconstruct the opinions of pre-Talmudic Judaism or the early Christian church. This is scary. I remember my college days at Watsamatta U. Our morals teacher talked about “epichaia.” Epichaia means that if one can arrive at the intent of the moral law, one can then adapt the law to modern circumstances. Most Friday nights, we were very enthused about adapting such moral and biblical laws as “thou shalt not commit adultery” to a more contemporary understanding. I don’t know if we ever arrived at the opinions of the early church, but we certainly arrived at some interesting opinions of our own!

The long history of form criticism goes all the way back to 1633 and Thomas Hobbes, the great English philosopher who pointed out that the text of the Torah seems to make it impossible that Moses was the author of the first five books of the bible, as was generally held by Jews and Christians, The text says that “...to this day no one knows the place of his(Moses’) grave.” (Deut. 34:6). This certainly implies that the text was written long after the death of Moses.

In 1753 Jean Astruc noticed that the book of Genesis had two different names for God, Elohim and YHWH, and seamed to be a blending of two different traditions. The idea grew in the hands of a number of scholars until finally Julius Wellhausen in the late 1800's decided that there were four different strains that formed the Torah. This is called the documentary hypothesis and is now unshakeable academic orthodoxy. You may have heard the proverb that there is no one so conservative as a liberal. Form Criticism points out the inconsistencies and contradictions within the text itself. Thus, the text cannot be completely true to fact, because it so obviously contradicts itself. The temptation then begins to find out what part of the text is true, and therefore what must be believed and, conversely, what can be neglected. For example, it seems in the New Testament that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and was born in Nazareth. It seems that he ascended into heaven in Galilee and that he ascended into heaven in Judea. All these things cannot be true, can they? If these things are false. What else in the New Testament is false? Eventually we get to the situation reported to me just this week of a confused student at his very expensive north shore high school, a Catholic school, whom a priest told that the Bible was full of myths and really didn’t have to be believed. I doubt that the priest said this, but it was what the poor student heard. What started as a respectful attempt to understand Scripture on the part of 18^th and 19^th century German Protestant scholars has ended up in the twenty first century convincing a young Catholic that the Bible is just a myth. I also imagine that the same young man is probably trying to convince his girlfriend that the Bible is a collection of myths, especially those pesky commandments.

There is a wise and holy priest who once told me that the current struggle in the church is not between liberals and conservatives, but between those who believe in the supernatural and those who do not. I was a great proponent of higher criticism until I went to Fatima. I went as tourist and left as a pilgrim. God shook me to my core as I knelt on holy ground. I started to investigate Fatima and was astounded. On October 13, 1917, an estimated 70,000 people gathered at Fatima. They saw the sun fall from heaven and though they were wet and mud spattered, when the sun returned to its place, they were clean and dry. Shortly after this theophany, this manifestation of God’s power, the anti-Catholic government of Portugal fell and the history of the world was changed. The pastor of the church of my youth was a student in Rome at the time and he well remembered the sun quivering in the Roman sky. Rome is quite a distance form Portugal, but the sun did not fall in, for instance, Keokuk, Iowa. How could it have fallen in Portugal, but not in Iowa? You should say that it appeared to fall. No, I say it fell in one place, and did not in another. I don’t understand how this could be. I am not the judge of God. I am a little man unable to reconcile what appear to be irreconcilable contradiction. In God, however, all things are reconciled. When decide that we are the unerring judges of truth we cease to be scholars.

Scholars pointed out that the “Acts of the Apostles” erred historically when it claimed Paul had appeared before Gallio, brother of Seneca in a trial at Corinth (Acts 18:5) After all, Gallio, brother of Seneca had never been the proconsul of Greece. Well, around 1900, archaeologist discovered an inscription confirming that Gallio had been proconsul of Greece in 52 AD, the probable year of Paul’s trial. Oh well, never mind. There are contradictions in the text and between the text and branches of science. The problem is that we sophisticated moderns make ourselves the judges of the text, and if we do not understand, well, it must not be true. Admittedly, the history of God’s intervention is written in poetry and proverbs as well as history, and it can help to understand the literary form, but the intervention of God in the history of humanity is real, involving real human being and a real and living God. The study of the literary form is fine if the study leads to deeper understanding and fuller obedience. If, however the study of the from makes us the judges of God, well then that uneducated priest was quite right. Form criticism becomes evil. If you reject the reality of supernatural things, then of course the text is corrupt and obedience to it is unnecessary, but if it is treated as the “oracles of God,” as demanded by the Vatican Council, then the apparent contradictions themselves become a kind of divine speaking, evidence of God who is all embracing. We short sighted mortals are an “either or sort of creature.” To embrace the mystery with humility is quite a different matter than to pick and choose what I will accept as true.

By the way, Jeff Cavins is a great man who is bringing thousands into a deeper relationship with Christ by teaching a respect and love for the text of Scripture. Some form critics, of course excluding you, Dr. Eisenbart, have only served to distance humanity from the Word that could heal them. You think that his Time Line is inaccurate. Why should I believe that your understanding is any more accurate? Next month someone may turn over a spade full of dirt in some eastern desert that will set your theories on end. These things are only inadequate tools that help us to lay hold of the text.