Faith and Reason in Biblical Studies

This Friday I will be attending the New England and Eastern Canada Regional meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). I have been a student member of the SBL for some time now, and have rather enjoyed it. The society is scholarly and academic, and focuses primarily on researching biblically related issues. It is quite liberal among the majority scope of members, but recently more and more confessional conservative Evangelicals are joining. First of all, this is a wonderful thing to do. It promotes dialogue and lets the “higher critics” (they are only “higher critics” because they view themselves in a sense as being above the texts) know that Evangelicals are serious about studying biblical literature.

However, such a movement has been met with certain conflicts and rejection. About eight months ago, Ronald S. Hendel (a biblical scholar from UC Berkley) published an article in Biblical Archaeology Review titled “Farewell to SBL: Faith and Reason in Biblical Studies.” The reason for his publication was due to the fact that the SBL has begun to not only allow confessional groups to join the society, but also to allow them to present and establish groups and sections, which are held along with others in the annual and I’m sure regional meetings (but not completely sure concerning the latter).

I’m working on getting Hendel’s full article in order to post it as a comment for all to read, but here is a link to an abstract of it anyway http://www.bibarch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=4&ArticleID=9, and the basic gist of it is two fold. First it is an attack on the SBL. Simply stated, he accuses SBL of changing “its position on the relationship between faith and reason in the study of the Bible.” Here’s a link to SBL’s answer and clarification concerning their position and responds to Hendel’s claims and accusations against the SBL http://www.sbl-site.org/membership/farewell.aspx. Second, Hendel criticizes the claim that faith reason work together in one’s scholarly investigations of the bible. He claims that they have two “different motivations and pertain to different domains of experience.”

It would be helpful to bracket this discussion with seeking to first answer the question, “Are faith and reason like oil and water? Do they never mix with each other?” Well perhaps. Part of me agrees with Hendel’s approach, which is one should not allow one discipline (i.e. faith or reason) to completely control and even triumph over the other. But Hendel also seems to be coming from it at a different angle. That is he feels that his biblical study and findings there in are in some sense better than those of certain faith groups, who are not as serious scholars as he is since they are promoting their faith along with or perhaps over the reason of the text, as they do biblical studies and thus express their findings also within the society.

Well again perhaps they he is right, but it seems to me that Hendel is guilty of the same criticism. That is, his faith or believe about what the text is and is not does in a sense influence what he believes the text itself is reasonably saying. In other words, based upon his historical and authorial beliefs about the text his exegesis or interpretation of the text can be skewed. This is of course very similar to what can happen with the confessional conservative Evangelical. Their belief about who God is and who they are and the historical reliability of the text and its universal authority can influence what they find in the text.

Therefore, I agree with Hendel’s point here, but also disagree with him. That is, I do not find the issue to be regarding one’s faith, believe or presupposition can never mix with reason or one’s scholarly exegetical investigation of the biblical text, but an issue of one’s starting point or presupposition(s). Again, it seems that the issue is not that all presuppositions are wrong, but can one’s presupposition or faith find support in the text in which it is based on? Hendel will more than likely seek to prove that his starting point is valid and sound (perhaps by the Document Hypothesis but I am not for sure), and the Evangelical or faith group will attempt to refute his starting point.

Lastly, reasonable, critical and logical thinking is a human discipline similar to faith and believe. Therefore, for Hendel to claim that the former is never to mix with the later misrepresents and even begs the question as to the nature of reason and the “reason why” they cannot be a mixing of the two. Is it because one is greater than the other as one can give us more reliable data than the other? If so, then this avenue of criticism has not been fully addressed.