The Mind of Brian

I just finished up dabbling into OT study with Kenneth Kitchen’s On the Reliability of the Old Testament (OROT). In addition to dabbling into the portion of Scripture I spend less time in study (because of my lackluster Hebrew skills), I also dabbled into the discipline of archaeology, as it was more of an archaelogical book than it was a book on textual theory and analyses (though Kitchen does give an overview of OT texts to fit into the archaeological world, at times reading them with new accuracy, particularly the book of Joshua which he says does not point to a total conquest but instead raids on the land). I enjoyed it, as I am on firmer ground in my beliefs about the OT as well as understand how better to use archaeology.

Essentially, it is a response to the growing amount of minimalist scholars who see the OT history as the invention of post-exilic Israel; at first, the Pentateuch was made up with later writings, and now many see the same thing in regards to David, Joshua, etc. These scholars would see the United Kingdom as a mythical golden age. Therefore, Kitchen seeks to show that not only could the OT show reliable traditon and history, but that it makes the most sense to see it as accurate in this regard, as the details fit the culture of when it takes place (and ancient writers did not engage in historical fiction with the accuracy that we expect out of modern day novelists). For example, Deuteronomy is not something that comes later, as the treaty form (as well as view of history) fits better with other documents around the 1200’s BC. Elements of the Abraham story only fit in the second millienium BC, not during the kingdoms of Israel or post-exilic. Something that Kitchen does not allude to much, but which is important to remember, is that just because it contains faithful facts does not mean that the text contains faithful interpretation. That is, the OT gives historical events but gives a theological interpretation of the historical events. The crossing of the “Red Sea” (which does not seem to be our Red Sea but still a significant body of water) is said in the Bible to be the work of God. However, it could have been good luck, etc. In fact, Kitchen brings up a good point, which is that other ancient historical works attribute works of nature to God; we accept the facts and the events but not the interpretation of them. If we apply the same standard to the biblical text, we would at least accept the historicity of it. In some ways, it almost seemed that Kitchen explained miraclous events in light of natural means, though as we know we can believe that God uses the natural means to accomplish His will. Once again, it goes back to interpretation.

On the whole, I gained a new appreciation for archaeology. I knew it was a discipline that is in some ways subjective and speculative, which can lead to crazy theories. The thing I most learned in some ways, though, was that the attempts to disprove the accuracy of the biblical historical books is tied to arguments from silence when we really should expect silence anyway! Many sites are not even closed to being finished excuvated, some could not be examined without an intentional incident (i.e. Jerusalem), and the nature of archaeological texts makes sense of the absence of testifying about the Exodus (no one records a loss!) and the United Kingdom (it rose when other powers were weak and did not have interaction). Where there is silence, one would expect silence; but there are other forms of evidnece. There is evidence of a person named David who started a line and of Israel in the land of Canaan after the time of Joshua, but scholars use other explanations for these texts. Either the authors of these books were way better with details from earlier times than we are–or they are reliable traditions. Of course, you can think these events happened without the hand of God at work…but it seemed that the 19th century skepticism in regards to the OT story needs to be pitched (not the story) because of the fact and just the facts.