Old Testament Controversies Interview
Dear Readers,
We hope you enjoy this excerpt from the June edition of The Worldview Bulletin, which releases next week. We interview renowned Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman about his new book Confronting Old Testament Controversies: Pressing Questions about Evolution, Sexuality, History, and Violence.
Become a subscriber, and receive the full issue, which includes:
Part two of Paul Copan’s popular article Apatheism and the Unexamined Life—How should we respond to those who say it doesn’t matter whether God exists?
Paul Gould on the modern quest for authenticity—Should we follow the “Disney Model” and be true to ourselves at all costs?
Tawa Anderson on the ongoing relevance of worldview thinking—Does a worldview approach ignore the heart while overemphasizing the brain?
Plus new books in worldview and apologetics, conference info, and other great gems.—Don’t miss the always-popular New Books section!
For the price of one of your favorite coffeehouse beverages each month, get The Worldview Bulletin and stay informed and equipped on the most important Christian worldview issues of the day!
Chris Reese
Managing Editor
I (Chris) recently talked with Dr. Tremper Longman III about his new book Confronting Old Testament Controversies, which deals with some of the most controversial areas of the Old Testament, including human origins, sexuality, historicity, and violence. These topics frequently come up in discussions with skeptics as well as people who are just curious about the Bible. His decades of research and writing on the Old Testament give him unique insight into these disputed topics.
Dr. Longman is Distinguished Scholar and Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Westmont College, and has written over 30 books including commentaries on Genesis, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Daniel, and Nahum.
Worldview Bulletin: Dr. Longman, I appreciated your short section on hermeneutics before you get into the main topics of the book. In my experience, very few lay Christians have even a minimal understanding of basic principles of biblical interpretation. Do you have any suggestions for how churches can do a better job equipping their members with this kind of basic knowledge?
Tremper Longman: Unfortunately, many Christians think that reading the Bible ought to be easy and that they really don’t need to give any thought to how to read the Bible. But then when they read the Bible it’s harder than they thought, especially when it comes to the Old Testament. So the first thing pastors ought to do is encourage their members to learn how to read the Bible and then offer them resources for doing so.
Adult Christian education has taken a hit in recent years and needs to be revived with an emphasis on reading the Bible well. I have dedicated a lot of my writing over the years to helping people know how to read the Bible including books I wrote for Christian laypeople like Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind (NavPress) and Old Testament Essentials (InterVarsity Press) as well as a series of books that began with How to Read the Psalms back in the late 1980’s. I just finished How to Read Daniel, the sixth book in the series. So bottom line is that I think pastors should be out in the lead encouraging their congregations to become good readers of the Bible.
The Bible is the Word of God. God speaks to us through its pages. We should delight in studying his Word to hear his voice even though it takes effort.
WB: You address four controversial issues in the book—evolution, sexuality, history, and violence. These have been debated in scholarly circles for quite some time, but are now common topics of discussion at the popular level—especially between believers and skeptics, and between liberal and conservative Christians. Why do you believe this shift has taken place?
Longman: Yes this is true, and I would add one more new development and it is the new dimension of the debate that actually motivated me writing this book. And that is the debate within evangelical circles. As I think about it, though, there are mostly different reasons for these debates surrounding these four topics becoming more widespread.
Let me start with the topic of violence, and in particular divine violence. I have been working on and thinking about this theme since the early 1980’s and it is very clear when and why this theme became more of an issue in the broader culture and within the church. When terrorists attacked the Twin Towers on 9/11 in 2001, their act was justified by divine rhetoric. They killed because they believed that God wanted them to kill. People began to make a connection between what Osama bin Laden was saying and what they read, say, in the book of Joshua and it made them uncomfortable. Thus, they were open for suggestions like those provided by some modern theologians that argued that though God was depicted as violent, he was not actually violent.
The issues surrounding history I think are a result of general skepticism regarding the reliability of the Bible that led to an insistence that biblical events be confirmed by other ancient evidence rather than simply accepting the Bible’s own testimony. It had long been a conclusion by those scholars who did not accept the Bible as God’s Word that the lack of evidence for the exodus and the conquest, say, meant that these events did not happen. What stirred me to write on this topic was that this attitude was now being echoed by some of my colleagues who were teaching at historically evangelical institutions. They were arguing that even though the exodus did not happen it was still theologically meaningful, but I question that attitude and their conclusions, so I included this topic in my book.
As for sexuality, I think everyone my age (mid-60’s) stands amazed at the rapid change of attitude in our society at large. Let me say attitudes toward same-sex attracted people were horribly wrong at the beginning of this process. It was not rare that Christian parents would throw their gay children out of the house, and the church was not a place that was safe for same-sex attracted people to talk about their sexual issues. The church too often did not welcome same-sex people, but rather distanced themselves from them. On the other hand, more recent attitudes have moved beyond welcoming to include affirming. In other words, many in the church have buckled to societal pressure on this issue. I felt that there was a need to deal with recent re-readings of Scripture that went beyond loving same-sex people to affirming same-sex behavior.
The evolution issue is different than any of the three above. It’s not true that the evangelical church has been resolutely anti-evolution until recently. The church has been split on the matter. That said, what has generated the most recent discussion is the sequencing of the human genome about twenty-five years ago that provided even more powerful evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as well as evidence for the conclusion that there was never a time when there were only two homo sapiens and that raises questions about the story of Adam and Eve. In this area, I believe that, though it might look like it at first glance, there is no reason to think that the Bible and the theory of evolution conflict with each other.
WB: The first controversial issue you address in the book relates to science and Christianity. What pitfalls should Christians avoid when they approach issues of science and faith?
Longman: The main pitfall to avoid is simply to believe that science and faith are in conflict with each other. Listen to the Belgic confession on the subject:
We know him by two means: first, by the creation, preservation and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely, his power and divinity, as the apostle Paul saith, Romans 1:20. All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly and fully known to us by his holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to his glory and our salvation.
That means that when nature is correctly interpreted by science and the Bible is correctly interpreted, they will never conflict. Famously during the time of Galileo there were those who felt that the science that displaced the earth from the center of the cosmos had to be wrong because the Scriptures taught otherwise. After all, the psalmist says that the earth would not be moved and the sun rose and set. But in this case science helps us read the Bible better. I believe the same dynamic is happening now in the Bible and evolution question.
WB: You push back against Christian scholars like Peter Enns and Kenton Sparks who maintain that the exodus and conquest are essentially fictional accounts. What do we stand to lose if the historicity of those events is undermined?
Longman: Pete and Kent argue that the theological message of the exodus and conquest don’t depend on their having actually happened in space and time. They rightly point out that sometimes stories communicate their theological message without being actual historical events. The parables of Jesus are good examples of this phenomenon. However here we can begin with hermeneutics. The books of Exodus and Joshua contain a different type of narrative than a parable and I think it is hard to argue that the authors of these books are not interested in talking about what actually happened in the past.
But for me the point is clear on an event like the exodus that if nothing like the exodus actually took place then its theological message is compromised. After all the theological message of the exodus is that our God is a God who can enter space and time and save us when we can’t save ourselves. We can look back on the exodus and gain confidence for ourselves in our own troubled present. To put it another way, the story of the exodus establishes a track record for God. We, like the psalmist in Psalm 77, can look back on the mighty acts of God in the past to bring us not only confidence but also hope for the future.
WB: You survey several recent books that deal with the problem of divine violence, but write that you aren’t completely persuaded by any of them. In your view, what is the best way to understand this phenomenon—especially in relation to the conquest of the Canaanites, since that comes up regularly in discussions with non-believers about the Bible.
Longman: Well, it’s a hard truth, especially for those of us who are 21st century Western believers, but the most important thing to observe is that God’s violence is always associated with his judgment and so it is a matter of his justice. Throughout the Bible, God is at war with evil. It just so happens that we live in a period of time between the first and second coming of Christ that our warfare is exclusively directed toward the spiritual powers and authorities and those enemies are engaged with spiritual not physical weapons (Eph. 6:10-20). Jesus wins this war by dying on the cross, but it is a victory that will only be finalized when Jesus comes again to bring judgment against all spiritual and human evil (Rev. 19:11-20).
WB: In the last chapter, you address the question of how a church should respond to an openly gay couple who seeks to become members of the church. Since this is a frequently asked question today, can you summarize your advice on that issue?
Longman: I find this a particularly difficult question. In my book, I show how the Bible is clear that while we should welcome all sinners into our lives and into our churches to hear the gospel, the issue becomes problematic when people who are active in a same-sex relationship seek membership in the church. Yes, we are all broken people in many ways including in our sexual lives. Yes, the church is filled with sinners of all sorts. But people who are greedy or lustful or devious or gossiping aren’t typically in the practice of defending their behavior when confronted by others. They may try to hide their sinful behavior, but they don’t defend it as OK (and if they do then they should be subject to church discipline).
There is no question but that same-sex attracted people who chose to live a celibate life or marry someone of the opposite sex can become members, and clergy even, as they struggle with such desires. But, as a couple of pastors whom I deeply respect pointed out to me, the problem with allowing a same-sex active person to join the church is that such a person would come immediately under church discipline. I think we always need to be welcoming of same-sex attracted people to attend our churches. We need to challenge them, as well as challenge ourselves, to live as God wants us to live.
——
Learn more about Dr. Longman’s book Confronting Old Testament Controversies here. Read an excerpt here.
