Readers Reply

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Reexamining Cherished Presuppositions

I am writing to commend you on your excellent magazine.

It is a refreshing difference to see the Bible handled so openly and honestly in a magazine designed not just for scholars but for the reading public.

The Bible itself stands as our timeless model of truthfulness and candor.

It is my opinion that truth has nothing to fear from full disclosure.

Christians need to be informed of the findings of scientific biblical criticism, even if this challenges us to reexamine cherished presuppositions.

Your magazine fills this need—and much more—while still approaching the Scripture with the full sympathy and reverence due the Word of God.

An Amateur Astronomer Comments on the Biblical Text

As an amateur astronomer I would like to comment on your enjoyable but all too short article, “The Stars in the Heavens— Many or a Few?” (Illuminations, BR 03:03).

The beginning of the article discusses the problem of the relatively small number of visible stars, supposedly promised as the number of Abram’s descendants. Look at the first sentence of the Biblical text again. “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” God implies in His address to Abram that there are so many, seen and unseen, that to count them all would be a stupendous task.

Abram was probably aware of the difficulty of the task as well, as further reference to Josephus shows:

“He communicated arithmetic, and delivered to them the … science of astronomy; for before Abram came into Egypt, they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also.”

Apparently Abram was quite an astronomer, with background from Ur. Did he have a lens to help him as well? Who knows. But I find it fascinating how much we are discovering that the ancients knew, knowledge that we rarely give them credit for having.

I am constantly awed by the ever-increasing enormity of God’s creation. Like Abram’s descendants, it continues to grow.

Thank you for a great article, and magazine.

Textual Criticism Produces Implausible Version

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (“What Really Happened at the Transfiguration?” BR 03:03) dismisses much of the biblical narration of the transfiguration on the grounds of “implausibility” and reconstructs the story on the basis of textual criticism.

The story he ends up with is considerably less believable than the Gospel versions. According to Murphy-O’Connor, Jesus and some disciples went up the hill. While Jesus was praying, his face lit up, as some new idea occurred to him. Then they returned down the hill.

The most unbelievable thing about this version is the idea that anyone would have found this occurrence worth mentioning at all. And is it really conceivable that men whose whole faith, a faith they were willing to die for, was based on the real historicity of their message, could so callously mangle the truth for the sake of some vague theological “tradition”?

It seems to me, in short, that Murphy-O’Conner’s “conclusion,” that the “early Church was NOT motivated by a desire to record past … but to make the tradition a vital force in the present,” was in fact not a “conclusion” at all, but the assumption he started out with.

Treating Scripture with Proper Reverence

I have just received and perused the Fall 1987 issue of Bible Review, the first of my subscription, and I am very disappointed with it.

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Its biggest problem is that the Bible is not reverenced as the inerrant Word of God. Scholarship is fine, and analysis is a powerful tool towards deeper understanding, but unless the Scriptures are treated with proper reverence, man will remain lost in the shallowness of his own thinking, engaging in mental gymnastics rather than putting on the mind of Christ.

From Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s comment (“What Really Happened at the Transfiguration?” BR 03:03) on the lack of integrity of the Gospel portrayal of Peter denying Christ (an event totally justified simply by human nature, considering the apparent ruinous end of Jesus’ ministry) to the many remarks in Paul Hanson’s article (“War, Peace and Justice in Early Israel,” BR 03:03) preferring culture causality to simple, straightforward statements in the Bible referring to God directly speaking to Moses, the magazine is laced with comments that erode the sanctity of Scripture.

Honest criticism of the Bible will always do one of two things; it will either substantiate and enrich the recorded account, or it will end in an open-ended irresolution. Jesus Himself said that “Scripture cannot be nullified,” and based His whole life and ministry on it. If anyone tries to force a conclusion out of facts that in truth cannot be joined together in a particular way and at the same time retain their integrity, he errs greatly, and misleads both himself and others.

New Biblical Worlds

Though I hesitated a bit, after receiving your subscription letter earlier this year, the last issue of Bible Review convinced me of the wisdom of my decision to subscribe. Bible Review has indeed opened “new biblical worlds” to me.

Sincerely pleased.

Reexamining Cherished Presuppositions
I am writing to commend you on your excellent magazine.
It is a refreshing difference to see the Bible handled so openly and honestly in a magazine designed not just for scholars but for the reading public.