The gentle philosopher Socrates casts a towering shadow over Western thought. He accounted himself the least knowledgeable of men—one of his most famous sayings states, “All I know is that I know nothing.” But his awareness of his ignorance made him the wisest of men. In the early dialogues of his disciple Plato, Socrates is shown wandering about Athens interrogating men who seemed to have substantial knowledge of ethics, religion, justice or philosophy. He asks questions designed to point out the rickety foundations of these men’s supposed knowledge, imploring them to think of firmer foundations for such knowledge. In some cases Socrates’s interlocutors walk away in disgust from these hard questions. In the end, the city sentences Socrates to death for being such a pest, a “gadfly” stinging a lazy horse, in Socrates’s own metaphor.
Socrates showed how doubt can be marshaled against poorly constructed ideas and arguments, revealing unexamined assumptions at their root. His goal was to establish firm and well-warranted knowledge about important topics that could withstand close questioning. He used doubt as a corrosive agent to burn away sloppy thinking, leaving clear and well-examined thinking to provide a better foundation for genuine knowledge. With his methodology, Socrates paved the path of modern inquiry in the sciences and humanities.
Since the Western rediscovery of Greek thought during the Renaissance, Socratic doubt has been a basic part of scientific methodology. To put forth a solid thesis, one must combine data, analysis and well-tested theories into a model that can withstand the criticisms and queries put to it. If there are competing models, the one that best withstands the Socratic questions wins, at least until other and better models are available. Well-placed doubt is a key tool—perhaps the key tool—in scientific and historical inquiry.
These musings on Socratic method bring me to the current dispute among scholars of the Hebrew Bible between the “minimalists” and the rest of us. The minimalists are absolutely correct to use doubt as a tool against entrenched positions in biblical studies. This is what good scholars are supposed to do—to question received ideas and to uncover valid reasons for scholarly conclusions. In this respect, the minimalists are not destructive, nihilistic or even postmodern, as their critics sometimes allege. After raising the crucial question of “what do we know?” the minimalists go on to build their own models. This is also what scholars are supposed to do.
Several of the minimalists—notably Niels Peter Lemche and Thomas Thompson, both at the University of Copenhagen—conclude that the Hebrew Bible was primarily a creation of the Greek Age (in particular, the fourth to second century B.C.E.).
How does this minimalist model hold up to Socratic doubt? When one looks at Hebrew texts clearly composed in the Greek Age—like Ben Sira, Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scroll known as the Damascus Document and others—they show a stage of the Hebrew language that is clearly later than that shown in most of the books of the Hebrew Bible. In contrast, when one looks at Hebrew inscriptions from earlier times, say the ninth to sixth century B.C.E., one finds the same stages of the Hebrew language as in most of the biblical books. What conclusions should one draw from these questions? That the minimalists are right to raise the Socratic question of what we know, and that they are wrong to conclude that their late-dated model fits the facts.
Doubt is a useful and necessary tool in historical inquiry. After applying judicious doubt, a revised standard model—that much of the Hebrew Bible was written during the period of the Hebrew monarchy and shortly thereafter (ninth to sixth century B.C.E.)—works far better than the minimalist model that the Hebrew Bible was written during the Greek Age. Doubt is a great remedy for pretentious theory-building of any type. It can get one in trouble—just ask Socrates—but it’s still the best tool we have in scholarship. It keeps us alert, so that we don’t rest on our accepted opinions, like a lazy horse. We need gadflies, even if they sting.
The gentle philosopher Socrates casts a towering shadow over Western thought. He accounted himself the least knowledgeable of men—one of his most famous sayings states, “All I know is that I know nothing.” But his awareness of his ignorance made him the wisest of men. In the early dialogues of his disciple Plato, Socrates is shown wandering about Athens interrogating men who seemed to have substantial knowledge of ethics, religion, justice or philosophy. He asks questions designed to point out the rickety foundations of these men’s supposed knowledge, imploring them to think of firmer foundations for such knowledge. In […]
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