Writing
Papers for REL 2240: Approaching the New Testament as a Scholar
The Aim of New Testament Scholarship
The New Testament is one of the most influential collections of writing
in the history of humanity. It is hard for anyone in our culture to
approach these writings without preconceptions: if you are a Christian,
then you will probably read them as divinely inspired. If you are not a
Christian, then you might read them with great suspicion – perhaps, for
example, you are a feminist, concerned that the New Testament has been
used to pass on patriarchal values. It is also possible that in taking
this course, you are reading the New Testament for the first time, and
in some ways, it is an advantage to be able to approach this material
with an open mind. The aim of this course is to enable you to read the
New Testament as a scholar, but what does this mean?
The aim of a scholarly approach is to reach an understanding of the New
Testament that is based on an objective study of the historical
evidence. Historical evidence means ancient writings and archaeological
evidence. Historical evidence must be available for everyone to study –
so, if I have a dream about Jesus, or a vision of the Angel Gabriel,
that does not count as historical evidence. After all, not everyone
else can share my dream or my vision. In the same way, I may have a
deep faith that Jesus is my personal savior, a faith that shapes the
way I live. But other people cannot share my faith, so it is not
historical evidence.
The Importance of Methodology
Of course, two people can look at the same evidence and come to
entirely different conclusions. This is where the question of
‘objective study’ comes in. Of course, objectivity is not easy to
achieve, but it should not be dismissed as completely unachievable. Of
course, we are all human beings and we all have tendencies to be biased
in a certain direction. However, because we are diverse, we do not all
share the same tendencies, and this means that we can correct each
other when we encounter signs of bias. One aim of this course is to
enable you to take the first few steps towards membership of the
international community of New Testament scholars. I do not mean that
there is one official organization that all New Testament scholars
belong to, but that New Testament scholars around the world form a
large, informal network. It is important to notice that sometimes the
vast majority of New Testament scholars reach the same conclusion about
a particular topic. For example, I know of no New Testament scholar who
would deny that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans: there is a
complete consensus on this issue. I do not say that this complete
consensus is absolutely infallible, but it provides the strongest
possible indication that the belief that Paul wrote the Epistle to the
Romans is based on an objective study of the evidence.
Of course, it is not sufficient that you report the conclusions of
other scholars. You are trying to learn how to become a scholar
yourself. Once you know how to recognize what counts as evidence, the
next step is to understand that objective study requires that you
choose and follow a trustworthy methodology. A methodology is a set of
criteria that you can apply to different sources or different theories
that tells you what to accept and what to reject. Methodologies are
important because they enable you to avoid one of the most obvious
signs of bias, the application of double standards.
Suppose that someone says that Jesus was clearly the Son of God because
his mother was a virgin. Then someone points out that, according to
Hindu sources, Krishna was also born of a virgin. The Christian then
replies that the Hindu sources are obviously just legends, because the
stories about Krishna are too stupid to be believed. This is a
double-standard: the Christian is saying, “If I read a story about a
miracle in the Gospels, I accept it. If I read about a miracle in the
documents of another religion, I reject it.” The bias is obvious, and
scholars will simply not take such work seriously.
Of course, that does not mean that you must either reject the stories
about Krishna’s birth and Jesus’s birth or accept them both, but as a
scholar, if you accept one and reject another, you would have to point
to some significant difference between the two, and explain why you had
found a good criterion for accepting one and rejecting the other. You
would then have to show that you apply this criterion consistently.
Here are a couple of examples of applying a methodology.
Theissen and Merz, in their book The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive
Guide pp.3291-301 discuss the different types of miracles that Jesus is
said to have performed: exorcisms, healings and nature miracles (e.g.
walking on water). They argue that there are sayings of Jesus that
presuppose that he was a healer and exorcist, that in the passages that
summarize the miracles that Jesus typically performed mention is made
only of healings and exorcisms. So they conclude:
The right to judge the other miracles –
walking on water, the transfiguration, multiplication of the loaves and
miraculous fishing trip – differently arises out of the sources. At a
very early stage they were not included among the ‘typical’ miracles of
Jesus. (p.301)
For another example of following a methodology consistently see my
article on The Da Vinci Code
(http://mailer.fsu.edu/~bmurphy/Page9.html). There I argue that the
story found in Luke’s Gospel that Jesus healed the ear of the
high-priest’s servant and the story found in the Gospel of Phillip that
Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene are both fictitious. It is the same
reasoning, in each case, that leads me to reject the story. I adopted
this tactic for the following reason. Like most Christians, I find it
hard to accept that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. When I reject
this story, I can be accused of showing a bias. However, I wanted to
show that my rejection of this story was the result of my following a
carefully considered method for accepting and rejecting stories, a
method that I consider reliable and objective. However, this same
method also means that I have to reject a story that I would like to
believe is true, the story about Jesus healing the ear of the
high-priest’s servant. By accepting this unwelcome result, I
demonstrate because I value truth, even if the truth is not always what
I would like it to be. I do not adopt the method just because it
enables me to reject a story that I do not like.
As individuals, we are all subjective. We have our inherent biases.
This is no bad thing: we are human beings, not computers, and our
emotional attachments make us what we are. However, by co-operating
with other people who have very different emotional loyalties we can
formulate and apply methods that lead to reliable results.
Learning From Other Scholars
In this course, you are taking your first steps in the exciting world
of New Testament scholarship. You should begin by learning your way
around. As a beginner, you will often be in the position of having to
rely on established results of scholarship.
For example, the New Testament was written in Greek, but we are
studying it in English, which means relying on a translator. There are
thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek, often with
variant readings. The translator of the New Testament will probably
have used a critical edition of the Greek text that lists important
variations in the manuscripts, this critical edition being prepared by
a team of textual critics. (Being a textual critic is a great job,
because you get to travel to libraries all over the world so as to read
these ancient manuscripts). The textual critic needs to have some idea
about the age of the manuscripts, relying on the work of orthography
(the study of handwriting) and carbon dating. So, New Testament
scholarship involves team-work: even the best New Testament scholars,
who devote their life to the subject, have to rely on investigations
carried out by other scholars who specialize in a particular area. This
is possible because, very often, the experts in a particular field
agree about certain results (in which case we have a consensus). If
they do not agree, it is possible to learn about the reason for that
disagreement, and to make an informed version about which side you
agree with.
Books that are written at an introductory level should help you in this
process. Books such as the text books for the course (Harris: The New
Testament: A Student’s Introduction) and The New Oxford Annotated Bible
(‘Annotated’ means that it contains extensive notes for students), not
to mention the book I quoted by Theissen and Merz (The Historical
Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide), and The Oxford One Volume Bible
Commentary (edited by Barton and Muddiman) all contain information
about what results have been established by scholars, what areas are
disputed, what methodologies are considered appropriate and, in many
cases, suggestions by the author about what conclusion they favor. It
is acceptable, in this course, for you to say “This is the academic
consensus, and I am not going to challenge it”, but only if you are
sure that there really is a consensus: if you take sides on a disputed
question, you should be able to offer some defense of your position.
Of course, not all books are written for beginners, and not all
scholarship establishes a consensus. Scholars establish their
reputation not by simply agreeing with everyone else, but by asking new
questions, putting forward new theories and even, on occasion, by
overturning the established consensus. For example, Gerd
Theissen’s work on The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity
showed how sociological techniques could cast new light on Paul’s
theology. Elizabeth Schlusser Fiorenza’s book, In Memory of Her
examined the New Testament from a feminist perspective, arguing that
androcentric scholarship had obscured the important role played by
women in the early Church: she, and later feminist scholars,
incorporated some of Theissen’s ideas, but were also critical of his
approach. E.P. Sanders, in Paul and Palestinian Judaism and Jesus
and Judaism overturned the view most scholars had of Judaism in the
time of Jesus. Then there are writings that, while they do not attempt
to challenge the whole academic consensus, do attempt to change the way
that we think about a particular book, or perhaps even a particular
passage.
For example, it has often been said that John’s Gospel must have been
written after 85-90, because it contains a reference to Christians
being expelled from Jewish synagogues, and that was something that only
happened after the fall of the second temple. (Harris states this as an
accepted conclusion on p. 212 of the 4th edition of his book). However,
in an article in the Journal of Theological Studies, April 2003, David
Instone-Brewer argues that the expulsion of Christians from synagogues
may have taken place before the fall of the Second Temple in the year
70. (This is based on his study of a neglected manuscript that, he
claims, was misunderstood based on the publication of an inaccurate
transcription in 1898. Instone-Brewer’s work is based on an analysis of
the original document which was left gathering dust in the library of
an obscure university in a place called Cambridge). If Instone-Brewer’s
thesis is accepted, then we can no longer be quite so certain that
John’s Gospel must be dated after 85, and Harris might have to re-write
that section for a new edition. That is if scholars accept
Instone-Brewer’s work.
Of course, when scholars write for other scholars their work is
different from when they write to introduce students to the subject.
They will presuppose a knowledge of certain technical vocabulary and
understanding of certain methodologies. They will take great care to
quote all the evidence that favors their case, but might not be so
careful to examine the evidence that counts against them, particularly
if it is well-known. Sometimes, they will even try to suggest that they
are overturning a consensus even though the question is disputed,
because that makes their work seem more exciting. If you are knew to
the discipline, it is easy to be persuaded by such work: of course,
something written for a professional audience is going to seem
impressive. You should be careful about jumping to conclusions however,
particularly if you do not have the chance to read both sides of the
argument. There are ways to incorporate such ideas into your work
without simply accepting everything you read – notice that in the
previous paragraph, I discussed what would be the implications if
Instone-Brewer’s work was accepted. I did not say whether or not I
think it should be accepted (I need more time to make up my mind).
I am not saying that you should not read articles and books that were
written for a scholarly audience. It is only by reading such works that
you will get an idea of how good scholarship proceeds. However, you
cannot cite every idea you read as though it were an established fact –
you must learn to distinguish between the consensus of scholars, that
you can usually rely upon from the kind of thesis that divides
scholars. Then you want to learn to formulate and defend such theses
yourself.
Writing New Testament Papers
I remember a lecture given by Ed Franklin (one of the contributors to
the Oxford One Volume Bible Commentary) in which he encouraged us not
to rely on everything that he said. “For goodness sake” he said, “don’t
take something to be true just because I say it. You might be the next
Ed Sanders, who will teach us that everything we think about the
subject is wrong.” This is good advice, but you won’t become the next
E. P. Sanders over night. Right now, you are learning the basics of New
Testament study. So here are some tips about how to proceed.
You want to aim to do more than repeat opinions that you have read: you
should take sides on an important debate (What did Paul really mean by
justification? Was Paul really a misogynist? What was Luke’s view about
the end of the world?) or advance some new thesis, however modest it
is. So remember the essentials – you must take an objective approach
(explain your methodology and apply it consistently) based on
historical evidence (make sure you study the primary sources
thoroughly: all the fancy techniques and vocabulary you may pick up are
no substitute for reading, re-reading and re-re-reading the New
Testament itself!) Of course, you cannot read all the available ancient
documents overnight, so I suggest that you always clearly distinguish
between what is in the foreground and background for any particular
paper.
In the foreground are the texts that are your main concern in the
paper. You should read these texts with great care, weighing up every
detail, and checking in good commentaries for possible interpretations.
You will not receive a good mark if you overlook important evidence in
these texts.
In the background are theories and ideas that are relevant to your
paper, but which you do not have time to study in quite so much detail.
Here, you will try to rely on a consensus of scholars, if there is one,
or you might choose to make certain assumptions that seem reasonable,
even if you are aware that they are not beyond question.
For example, you might decide to do a study of Jesus’ teaching based on
the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke.
You would want to compare these two passages closely, making use of
that indispensable tool, the Gospels in Parallel
(http://www.utoronto.ca/religion/synopsis/). You would want to read a
couple of commentaries on these passages – e.g. the relevant sections
of the Oxford One Volume Bible Commentary and, if available, the Anchor
Bible Commentaries. You would also want to read what Harris has to say
about Matthew and Luke.
One thing you would discover from this is that Matthew’s Gospel is
considered to be more Jewish than Luke’s, and you might want to mention
how this Jewish influence is reflected in the Sermon on the Mount. E.P.
Sanders’ theory was that Judaism at the time was a religion based on
covenantal nomism. That is God’s covenant, his agreement with the
nation of Israel, means he will protect everyone who demonstrates their
membership of a community based upon the law, (the nomos). Sanders
argues that all the different forms of Judaism from the time of Jesus
were variations on this pattern. Perhaps you are aware of Sanders’
work, and you can see that it is relevant to your paper, but you also
know that not all scholars agree with what he says, and you do not have
time to study all of the sources that he refers to in detail (to do so
would probably be the work of many years). It would be quite reasonable
for you to announce that, in your discussion of the Jewish element in
the Sermon on the Mount, you are going to assume that Sanders’ theory
about covenantal nomism is correct. On that basis, you might find
something original to say.
Types of Source
Keep in mind the importance of understanding different types of source.
(1) Primary Sources: the ancient documents themselves. Thorough
knowledge of ancient documents is what sets scholars apart from the
rest. Reading as many ancient documents as possible, even in
translation, and paying attention to every detail, is absolutely
essential.
Ancient sources are not always reliable, but so much of the fun is
trying to figure out how to use every scrap of knowledge that we have.
The fact that somebody expressed an opinion, and how they expressed it,
is always a matter of great interest.
(2) Introductory Scholarly Sources: These give you an indication of the
range of scholarly opinion, suggestions about how to read the evidence,
and advice on where to go for more information. A good introductory
source is no substitute for reading primary source material, but it
should help you to make more sense of the primary sources.
(3) Advanced Scholarly Sources: These sources might very well advance
controversial theories. As you read them, think carefully about whether
they make out a compelling case: what is their methodology, and do you
agree with it? If so, think how you could apply that methodology to
other questions. If not, perhaps you could write an article criticizing
what is said.
(4) Non-scholarly Sources: Beware! It is so easy to be led astray by
these. I have been trying to explain how to approach the New Testament
in a scholarly manner, but this is not the only legitimate way to write
about the New Testament. For example, much devotional writing makes
great use of the imagination. Personally, I do make use of Ignatian
prayer techniques where you imagine yourself participating in a New
Testament story – what would it feel like to be in a storm on the Lake
of Galilee? What did Jesus look like when he commanded the waves to be
still? For myself, I think it is wonderful to use your imagination like
this to enter into the New Testament world, but this is not a scholarly
approach.
Then there are writings that are neither devotional nor scholarly but
just plain bad. There is a lot of rubbish published on the internet by
people who are ignorant of history and have no grasp of proper
methodology. There is no shortage of good scholarly material available
for you to use. As well as the books mentioned above, we have access
(via EZ-Proxy) to some excellent journals: e.g. the Journal of
Theological Studies, New Testament Studies and the Journal for the
Study of the New Testament. I will also put some links on the web-site
to good resources and, if you are ever short of reading material, I can
lend you books from my personal library, or help you find quality
web-sites. Remember, you can order books from Tallahassee by means of
ILLIAD, although they take a few days to arrive. Use the bibliographies
in books like Harris to locate books that will be helpful for the
papers you want to write. There is no need to waste your time reading
all the rubbish that is out there. As you advance in scholarship
yourself, you will find it easier to recognize what constitutes
respectable scholarship, and what does not.
Finally, do not ever forget, for one tiny second, PLAGIARISM
WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
For more information, see my notes on plagiarism.