Apologetics and Academia Part Two

KEVIN HARRIS: This next clip begins with your comment on our podcast.Let’s check this out.

And that these secular scholars don't read books that are published by Zondervan and Moody and Crossway and so forth. That is why Christian scholarship is so important. Both Nicholas Wolterstorff and Robert Adams taught at Yale where Miller says he had never heard of or interacted with Christian scholars.

I think that he just did a bait and switch here. We started off with apologists. Now it's turned into just any Christian scholars. Richard C. Miller admittedly – he confesses this himself – he says, “Hey, I am on the full secular humanist critical side, and I think that faith-based research scholarship is just not going to get you the answers.” Because if you're a Christian who believes Jesus really did rise from the dead – that's part of something you believe (you can't not believe it; you believe it) – and he didn't rise from the dead, then how can you be accurate if he didn't rise? Let's say the answer was he didn't rise from the dead. But you believe he did. How can you come to the conclusion that he didn't if you have to believe that in your mind? It's something that you aren't challenging, you're not interested in actually finding out the truth on or not and what makes the most sense here. The scholars he's naming here are philosophers – irrelevant to the field that we're talking about here. But these are philosophers. And even Miller has said to me he thinks that Yale in many cases is very conservative because they're actually raising ministers. A lot at Yale, Princeton – you know, Dale C. Allison Jr. He's over at Yale. They are raising ministers. They're not asking these tougher hard questions in many cases.

KEVIN HARRIS: A lot of things to talk about there. Let's start with the bait and switch accusation.

DR. CRAIG: I don't know what he's talking about there. My point was that although Christian apologists on the popular level are irrelevant academically, nevertheless there are top thinkers working at secular institutions doing first-rate scholarship. And I named some of them like Wolterstorff and Adams at Yale, Davis at Claremont, Alvin Plantinga, William Alston. And he complained that those are philosophers. Right. But that is my field, primarily. And in philosophy Christians are very well represented at the highest level. I would say the same thing is true in biblical studies. You take a man like Dale Allison, for example. He certainly asks the tough questions. So he's just incorrect about what he's saying. People like the ones I've named can proceed from a faith-based perspective and explore the implications and challenges. There's no reason to impugn the value of their scholarship as he seems to want to do.

KEVIN HARRIS: In this next clip they take aim at Christian scholars, not just at popular Christian apologists.

Stephen T. Davis was an eminent professor at Claremont where Miller did his PhD. Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Philip Quinn were elected as presidents of the American Philosophical Association. And as for scholars in Miller's own field, is he unfamiliar with N. T. Wright, Craig Evans, Richard Burridge, Richard Bauckham?

Wow. I'm glad he's bringing this up and I get this little chance to mention N. T. Wright, Craig Evans, Richard Burridge, Richard Bauckham. These are scholars that in the upper echelon of scholarship I'm talking about – let's talk about the Paula Fredericksons. Let's talk about Richard C. Miller. Let's talk about Bart Ehrman. Let's talk about Elaine Pagels. Let's talk about these scholars who are like the top tier leading kind of in their avenue of expertise. And then there are others who may not be as popular. I'm naming some popular names here, like scholars like M. David Litwa that I've had on, and several other academics I bring on all the time. Robyn Faith Walsh. The list can go on. These scholars have maybe heard of N. T. Wright, but they do not have fondness of them.[/blockquote]

DR. CRAIG: OK! Here they really finally tip their hand. Paula Frederickson, Bart Ehrman, Elaine Pagels. These are supposedly representatives of the top tier of scholarship in the opinion of these two fellows. Now, look, I'm not going to fall into the trap of impugning the scholarship of these three persons, but let me simply say as soberly and circumspectly as I can, that these folks do not exceed by one iota any of those scholars that I mentioned. If you're a New Testament scholar and haven't heard of N. T. Wright then you've been living under a rock for several decades. The reason that some don't appreciate him is more probably because he holds to views that they reject (such as the historical resurrection of Jesus) rather than on the basis of the quality of his scholarship. I think this just shows that their prejudice against Christian scholarship is nothing less than that. It's just prejudice because the three people that they named do not in any way outshine the scholars that I named in that last clip.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next clip talks about scholars just trying to protect their territory.

My point is, I can probably find stuff in some of these scholars that I would agree with. And I'd give a thumbs up. But most of the academics I'm talking to are saying “They are putting on this ‘I'm doing real rigorous historical research under the facade of theological faith-based rigor.’” They have an agenda to really make this be the case and convince others this is true kind of thing. There are some Christians that are scholars I interview that aren't, and are like, “Listen. I have a personal faith. I choose this path. I'm doing historical research.” They find problems left and right. They have no problems saying contradictions – “The texts don't agree. I don't even know if that's the case. That could be false. I don't think Jesus said those words. Jesus was wrong about the apocalypse.” Christians! I don't understand it personally, Paul, and I'm sure you don't either, but there are Christian scholars who say Jesus was wrong. Can William Lane Craig say that? Can he say that Jesus got the end wrong? I very much doubt he can. And if he did, what would happen? What would happen to him if he did?

DR. CRAIG: But what they're attacking here is biblical inerrancy, not the fundamental historicity of the narratives. And I think this just shows that these two fellows are ignorant of what Christian scholars actually argue. The description he gave could have been made of Craig Evans, for example. Craig Evans fits that description. He's offering a gross caricature. The scholars that I've named argue for the fundamental historical credibility of the Gospels as sources for the life and teachings of Jesus. And that doesn't require belief in biblical inerrancy which is what they're criticizing.

KEVIN HARRIS: One more clip today, and here he talks about the direction of scholarship.

Most scholars are heading toward the direction that these Gospels are literature, not historical eyewitnesses, reportage, all that kind of stuff. That is the stuff the apologists need and really want. Why? Because of their similitude. There's realisms. This person, this place is real. This person's real. Therefore, walk on water, therefore all of these other claims that are in these Gospels are reliable for these kind of things. So they're using things that are mundane like names and other things to try and give credibility to the literature, and then they make the leap to the miraculous.

KEVIN HARRIS: Is that the trend in scholarship?

DR. CRAIG: This reveals how ignorant they are of what these Christian scholars argue. None of the people I mentioned argues as he represents them – that because the Gospels have verisimilitude culturally and historically that therefore Jesus walked on water. I would defy him to find any example of an argument like that in the works of the scholars that I named. And when he says that the Gospels are literature not history, that's a false dichotomy. What sort of literature does he imagine them to be? Does he think they're first century novels? Practically nobody thinks that. Something can be both a piece of literature and a piece of historical writing as well. This is simply a false dichotomy. So I think that what we're seeing here is a reflection perhaps of the people that they're interviewing. These fellows don't read scholarship themselves. They don't attend the Society of Biblical Literature meetings or the American Philosophical Association. Rather, they've interviewed certain people who are part of the secular intellectual elite, and these people have told them that they look down on the work of these Christian scholars, and they believe them. What they fail to appreciate is that the secular intellectual elite can be living inside a bubble just as much as the popular apologists that we talked about where they don't read people outside that little bubble, they interact with people who agree with them. Therefore I don't think their opinions are all that credible in terms of representing what good scholarship says. I suppose the question for our listeners is: How do you know who's right? How do you know that I'm right in saying that these are credible top-tier Christian scholars and that the people that these two fellows are championing are not in fact those who have the better end of the stick – who've got the best argument? How can you tell? Well, I think that's the genius of the debates that I have participated in over several decades now on university campuses in public forums. I have debated some of these top scholars, not only philosophers but biblical scholars like John Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman, Gerd Lüdemann, Marcus Borg, and many others. These are available on YouTube. Some of them have been published as books that you can read. For example, John Dominic Crossan and I published a book together called Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? that includes a transcript of our debate and then includes as well responses to the debate by two scholars that Crossan picked and two scholars that I picked. Then we have a final response. Similarly, my book with Gerd Lüdemann called The Resurrection: Fact or Figment? includes the transcript of our debate at Boston College and then responses to the debate by two scholars picked by Lüdemann and two scholars picked by me. And then our final response. So if you want to see how my arguments stand up in the face of these top scholars, take a look at these debates, watch the videos, or read the books, and make up your own mind. My experience has been in interacting with these scholars that they are neither able to refute the positive case that I offer nor are they able to offer cogent arguments in defense of their own position. So I am not at all intimidated by the people that they name as representing the top tier of non-evangelical scholarship. I'll take them on anytime, and I think that the example of these debates show that the Christian view will fare very well.

KEVIN HARRIS: Please consider giving a financial gift to the work of Reasonable Faith that reaches the world. Thanks so much. We’ll see you next time on Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig.^[1]