Northstate Science

Take a look at this video: https://youtu.be/S58rH52JWEU.

A couple of take aways from this exchange and Dan McClellan’s educated response to it. First, if you are not subscribed to any of Dan McClellan’s websites or social media, and your mind is actually open to refreshing new ideas regarding the interpretation of biblical texts, you need to look at what he has to offer (links at the bottom of this post). Those of you familiar with the older version of Northstate Science know that I have never regarded modern Christian interpretations of the biblical texts as having any sort of literary accuracy (or consistency) – I just never had the vocabulary necessary to express my frustrations with the cherry-picked meanings I was always offered. Dan McClellan’s work has given me a scholarly skeletal structure upon which to hang my skin of suspicion regarding Christian misinformation and subterfuge regarding bible interpretations. Of course I read Crossan, Pagels, Ehrman, Armstrong and others who gave me the understanding that modern Christian apologetics is largely selling snake oil. But finding McClellan (and a new host of other critical scholars – Stavrakopoulou, Higashi and others) after getting back into thinking critically about ancient texts has really furthered my understanding of what critical scholarship is supposed to be. A couple of personal takeaways from McClellan and others:

1. The bible’s text shows substantial changes from its original inception; the current versions held up in church services and Sunday schools every week are simply the latest iterations;
2. Understanding how biblical texts have changed requires understanding Greek and Latin, but mostly Hebrew; the texts have been negotiated to have different meanings by those often having religious and political motivations throughout the millennia (I always suspected biblical texts were changed through time (sometimes unintentionally, mostly not) but I really like the term “negotiated” to describe how texts have been altered or the meanings of particular passages argued in such a way as to present a desired meaning that otherwise can’t be reached by an unprejudiced reading of the original texts in context);
3. You can’t understand the original meaning of biblical texts without also understanding the social, religious, political and economic contexts in which those texts were originally written. By the way, this applies to any text – one also cannot fully understand The Origin of Species without also understanding the cultural context in which Charles Darwin composed the treatise;
4. The bible does not speak with univocality – it has no consistent voice as it is written by multiple authors, in multiple cultural contexts, in multiple geographic locations for multiple reasons and to reach multiple audiences. Again, something I have always suspected generally, but have only recently been introduced to the specific term “univocality”;
5. Texts do not speak for themselves; we always imbue them with our own interpretations derived from our own experiences and cultural contexts. This is something I have been ruminating on ever since I first hear Dan argue for it. I have come to realize that it is not only true for ancient texts but actually any text – the lengthier and more complex the texts are, the greater our assignment of particular meanings. My experience with land management planning has taught me that the same environmental document can be “interpreted” different ways depending upon your own personal biases – this is why environmental groups and development advocates can argue over the same document (and ultimately need the judicial process to determine the “correct” meaning – which itself can be problematical, but that’s an argument for a different day);

Secondly – pay attention to the reaction of the Christian apologists in video – this is typical Christian behavior when confronted within information and ideas that conflict with their preconceived notions of how the bible is interpreted. They talk over the individual presenting a different idea as if the accuracy of their viewpoint is proportional to how much their critics can be silenced. I’ve seen this constantly from creationists in particular, but apologists in general; and it is consistent with their attempts to ban books, limit social media, attack education, and otherwise seek to legislate their viewpoints. Christian apologetics cannot survive on an even playing field – the deck has to be stacked in its favor in order to triumph.