Is Jordan Peterson’s Psychological Approach to Genesis Legitimate?

Dr. Craig offers his thoughts on the appropriateness of Jordan Peterson's psychological approach to the first book of the Bible!

DR. PETERSON: I've been speaking to and watching and listening to audiences all over the Western world for the past four years, in person and in virtual form, and I've learned a few things in consequence. It all started in some sense with the lectures I did on Genesis in 2017. My family and I took a risk and rented out a theater in Toronto on the off-chance that there might be an audience for what might be described as a psychological approach to our ancient stories, and lo-and-behold and miracle of miracles, there was. I completed 15 or so lectures walking through the first biblical book, sold out the theater, and attracted, surprisingly, millions of viewers: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and atheists. And most of the people who attended live, and the majority of those who watched online, were young men. That is not a phenomenon that can be easily accounted for, but let me try.

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, he lectures on a secular, psychological approach to the stories in the Bible, to explore the values that they have. Is that approach legitimate?

DR. CRAIG: I think it can be legitimate so long as one doesn't contradict the fundamental teaching of those narratives. These narratives were not written for the purpose of providing psychological insights, and yet, as literary compositions with literary characters, they are open to such an analysis. We want to know how realistically has the author portrayed this person's character? Is it consistent? Does the person act in character? These are questions that can be asked of any sort of novel whether it's pure fiction or not. Literary characters have their own sort of integrity that can be examined psychologically. So as long as he's not attempting to subvert the teaching of the passage, it seems to me that it's quite legitimate to do a sort of literary analysis of the psychology of the different characters that appear in the story.