apologetics

Joshua and Judges as contrasting accounts- Archaeological evidence and apologetic import

Joshua and the Conquest Narratives- Archaeology says otherwise

Dever’s work, Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah is hyper-focused on the archaeological evidence related to Ancient Israel and Judah. There’s a lengthy section at the beginning about the differences between looking at archaeological evidence and its (largely) “given” nature (eg. a soup bowl is a soup bowl-that’s its use, and arguing otherwise doesn’t change it) as opposed to texts like the Bible or other writings which have interpretation, memory, hyperbole, fictionalization, etc. built in.

The book is full of major insights, and Dever continues to rely almost exclusively upon archaeological evidence to make his points. Eventually, he gets to the conquest narratives of Joshua-Judges. Of the 30+ sites mentioned as being conquered in those books of the Bible, only 3-4 have any signs of destruction in the right time period. Writes Dever:

“[I]n the light of the overwhelming archaeological evidence, there was no large scale warfare on the thirteenth- and twelfth-century horizon, except that initiated by the Philistines along the coast… The inevitable conclusion is that the book of Joshua is nearly all fictitious, of little or no value to the historian. It is largely a legend celebrating the supposed exploits of a local folk hero.” (186)

I kind of knew this already–a major impact point for myself as someone who literally got a degree in apologetics was looking at the evidence in ANE history and trying to reconcile that with the Bible. And broadly speaking, evangelicalism has a severe problem when it comes to the archaeological evidence here.

Dever, however, doesn’t simply unload on the Joshua account and move on. He shows the marked contrast between how Judges shows the inhabitation of the land and how Joshua does so, noting the difference in themes between the two books. Dever concludes regarding the two books:

“The conclusion in light of archaeology is inevitable. The book of Joshua looks like a late, Deuteronomistic construct preoccupied with theological concerns, such as the Sinai covenant, centralization, and the temple, that were paramount particularly in the exilic and postexilic era. Its authors were scarcely familiar or concerned with life in the early Iron Age settlements. The book of Judges, by contrast, has the ring of truth about it. The core of the narrative consists of stories about everyday life in the formative, prestate era, when ‘there was no king in Israel [and] all the people did what was right in their own eyes’ (Judges 21:25). The portrait of as much as two hundred years of struggles under charismatic leaders with other peoples of the land–of a long drawn-out process of socioeconomic, political, and cultural change–is more realistic than that of the book of Joshua, which is really the celebration of a legendary hero” (187-188).

These conclusions are supported broadly by Dever’s own look at the way people of that time period were living, with fascinating insights into the lack of states and lack of even defensive positions throughout the region at the time (see 133ff). Additionally, the conclusions are supported by Dever’s noting of the contrast between how Joshua does not accurately represent that region at the time while Judges even has details of how the people lived at the time portrayed in accurate ways (188). A careful reading of the two books reveals these contrasts, to go along with the list complied by Dever which includes things like Israel being a huge territory immediately conquered in Joshua compared to a small, decentralized entity in Judges. Again, the latter, a group of settlements with little to unify them and no central state, reflects the time period and the archaeological data far more than the concept of a vastly populated land ripe for dramatic, swift conquest. This is all buttressed even more by the fact that many of the sites mentioned in Joshua have been excavated and shown to either be unoccupied or unconquered with no layers of destruction in the time period it supposedly would have taken place.

These aspects present a series of problems for the conservative apologist as one who wants a unified, inerrant text with total historical accuracy. We’ll look at one attempt to do just that below, but for now I want to note the import of moving beyond such a view. Dever’s point of Joshua being theologically oriented to questions of the time in which it was written is vastly important. To say that Joshua doesn’t present an accurate view of what actually happened in the land does nothing to undermine its intent. It is not intended to be historically accurate as an account of Iron Age settlement in the region. Instead, it is focused upon questions of the land, the temple, and the strict monotheism, sprinkled with a heaping helping of hero worship of Joshua and classic Ancient Near Eastern hyperbole. It is only when the book is forced into modern boxes that it becomes problematic. The genocidal violence it portrays did not happen, and therefore does not present a problem for God’s character. While some may press that even this portrayal calls into question the character of God, I’m much less interested in that argument, because once we acknowledge that it is a work of humans attempting to understand God, it becomes, for me, much more understandable that sometimes they get it wrong.

A Contrasting, Evangelical View and Some Problems

Evangelical apologists, a group which once would have included me, have had a confrontation with this evidence in sight for a long time. In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?, a group of evangelical authors published with a conservative press (Crossway, 2012) a collection of essays attempting to confront some of the “modern and postmodern” challenges to Scripture. John M. Monson’s chapter is entitled “Enter Joshua: The ‘Mother of Current Debates’ in Biblical Archaeology.” Monson notes that apart from the most conservative scholars, the Joshua conquest account has been taken to be historically unreliable (431).

Monson confronts this presumed unreliability by calling into question a few things related to consensus views of archaeology. First, he plants the seeds of doubt by complaining that archaeology has been “given a privileged role of proving or–through assumed lack of evidence–disproving the biblical record” (431). Note the wording of this first contention. The use of the word “assumed” here carries a lot of weight in the sentence. Monson is implying that people are simply assuming the biblical text is mistaken on the conquest (and other) accounts. But that implies that there simply hasn’t been anything found, and so people are assuming with “lack of evidence” that there is no evidence. That is not the case, however, as Dever and others have demonstrated. Dever’s book outlines a list of 35+ sites mentioned in the Biblical conquest accounts. Of those sites, only 3-4 have any evidence of even possibly being threatened by Israelite incursions, and the majority of those which have been excavated do not show a layer of destruction in the right timeline for the conquest narratives. Thus, it is hardly fair to say people are assuming the biblical account is unreliable based on a “lack of evidence.” Instead, there is positive evidence to suggest that the Joshua conquest accounts are indeed inventions.

Monson, however, goes on in his defense. He argues that archaeology is a younger discipline and that combining its findings with other disciplines remains “fraught with challenges” (435, 439), he suggests that archaeology is simply assumed to be the discipline to confirm ancient writings but implies that such a use is perhaps mistaken (438-439), and he maintains that archaeology, due to its “scattered, random, and incomplete nature” struggles to find the right place alongside the Bible’s account which “is selective, ancient, and theologically oriented” (439). Many of these points are points that resonate with me, particularly the latter. Archaeology, like paleontology, relies quite a bit on luck. Now, both disciplines can rely increasingly on technology to help guide their finds, so “random” isn’t necessarily correct, but there is no corrective for discovering things which simply no longer exist. Like ancient creatures whose entire fossil record may have been destroyed by vulcanism, excavation, construction, or simply lack of preservation, with archaeology there are any number of figments of the past which no longer exist for any number of reasons. To rely too heavily upon archaeology for the construction of the ancient past seems to be the wrong approach. However, Monson’s own words about the Bible being “selective, ancient, and theologically oriented” should suggest to him and other apologetically oriented and/or evangelical readers that perhaps it is their own view of Scripture which is at fault here. If they are going in assuming that a text written with a theological (or other) purpose is supposed to yield faultless history, then perhaps that assumption itself is worth questioning as well. Indeed, why not simply acknowledge that Joshua is attempting to make theological and selective points rather than convey a 100% accurate historical picture of what happened in Israel?

Monson, for himself, goes on to make an argument that Joshua records geographically accurate accounts of coming into the land. When I originally read the book about 10 years ago, I found this utterly convincing. However, reflection now suggests that Monson’s argument is too neat. For one, while it is elegant in attempting to show that Israel’s conquest as recorded in Joshua would make sense along geographic lines, that doesn’t account for the fact that whatever ancient writers/editors of the book would also be well-familiar with the geography of the region and so would be unlikely to invent or embellish an account which did not correspond to the geography of the area. Second, Monson claims that his argument from geography shifts the burden of proof such that it “lies with those who would deconstruct these stories” (452). That may be, but having two alleged campaigns correspond geographically with the reason does not somehow undermine or disprove the archaeological evidence directly showing that multiple sites allegedly conquered during this time period either show no signs of occupation or no signs of conquest. This, notwithstanding Monson’s claims that some of these sites were uninhabited and so wouldn’t have had such signs (I believe I’m understanding his argument correctly on p. 436-438).

Monson’s argument appears to be revisionist and reactionary. While he provides one positive evidence in support of his claim, his entire argument for these two supposed campaigns relies not upon the actual evidence of destroyed sites but rather on the lay of the land. Fascinatingly, Monson is forced into analogical language even in this geographic argument, such as spending extensive time arguing that the Hebrew word for “gate” can refer to geographical features (448-449). That may well be the case, but it is hard to credit Monson for making an argument that supposedly buttresses the Joshua conquest narratives against archaeological evidence when he is to be found arguing not just that “gate” means a geographical feature, but also that Ai, the region being considered, can be referred to as “The Ruin” due to another lengthy argument relying upon the definite article being used with “ruins” (443-444) and that Ai, apparently problematic for a number of archaeological regions, could have, “For all we know,” been “nothing more than a small squatter’s settlement in the vicinity of the imposing ruins of the mighty Early Bronze Age City of the third millennium BC” (437-438). Well sure, but for all we know, that “squatter’s settlement” would then not make a lot of sense as the sight for two massive military campaigns that crisscrossed a whole region!

Finally, the real motivation between Monson becomes clear at the very end of his chapter. After pointing out the text of Joshua shows him remaining faithful to God, Monson writes: “Over a millennium later, another Joshua walked through this same region. He too remained faithful. If we dismiss the real Joshua ben-Nun and his times, what is to stop us from dismissing the later Joshua, Jesus of Nazareth?” (457). This remarkable final sentence of Monson’s chapter is a case study in a loaded question. First, it implies that only by agreeing with the conquest narratives in toto can one agree there was a “real Joshua ben-Nun.” Second, it implies that there is an evidential link between Jesus and Joshua’s conquest narratives. That may be true, but it is unargued for here. Third, it uses scare tactics. Only those who agree with a slippery slope type argument will acquiesce to it, but for those people–presumably inerrantists–it’s a powerful way to thwart disagreement. After all, if the Bible isn’t historically accurate on Joshua, then that somehow means we have to question Jesus! This, of course, is ridiculous, but it’s exactly what Monson is implying. And frankly, this scare tactic shows where Monson is coming from in the earlier parts of his chapter. There’s not a genuine engagement with the evidence happening. Rather, the evidence needs to be massaged, evaded, or simply denied in order to maintain the story of Joshua at all costs; because for Monson, Jesus and the literal, genocidal conquest of Canaan stand or fall together.

Conclusion

It is probably clear to the reader at this point that I think Dever’s account is much more convincing than Monson’s. Yet, I say this as one who remains a Christian. Reading Dever actually gave me a sigh of relief. For so long, I had a bunch of issues with these accounts. Initially it was the ethical problem–why would God destroy these peoples? Later, I had the archaeological problem–now that I’d sacrificed my ethical impulse to condemn the slaughter, what if it hadn’t actually happened? To have someone who studies the archaeology simply lay out the evidence and say “This did not happen, and it was likely a fictitious invention to celebrate a folk hero” is, in a way, a relief. For one, his following that up with arguing that Judges is likely a much more accurate account makes me convinced yet again of something I’ve thought for a while–that once one leaves aside inerrancy, the biblical text becomes not just more readable but less scary in some ways–it doesn’t require you as a reader to constantly defend the indefensible. For another, setting aside the conquest narratives means that it is what I had long leaned towards–that these parts of the Bible are really just people trying to hyperbolically make “their guy” sound better than “the other guy”–seems backed by archaeological evidence. And Christians, we should truly be concerned with truth rather than attempting to support a pet doctrine, inerrancy, that doesn’t work on its own terms anyway.

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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

Reconstructing Faith– Links for posts related to my own faith journey and how I have been reconstructing faith (scroll down for more).

Inerrancy With No Autographic Text?– Even those looking to defend inerrancy are having difficulty with the concept of the autographic text. But what if it is not just that we can never find such a text, but rather that no such text existed to begin with? I argue that such is the case at least for some works and that inerrancy therefore does not work.

SDG.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Inerrancy With No Autographic Text?

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, perhaps the most well-known and oft-cited affirmation of biblical inerrancy, declares that inerrancy as a doctrine applies explicitly to the autographic text of Scripture- “Article X. WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy.” The reality is that inerrancy as defined by the majority of inerrantists, including the Chicago statement, simply cannot stand up to the reality of how the Bible was formed. What makes this point most starkly, in my opinion, is that conservatives who affirm inerrancy are now finding themselves in the unenviable position of learning and having to acknowledge that for some of the Bible, the very concept of an autographic text is an impossibility.

One example of this is Benjamin P. Laird. Laird is associate professor of biblical studies at the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity of Liberty University. Liberty University’s statement of faith includes a clause about the Bible which states, in part, “We affirm that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, though written by men, was supernaturally inspired by God so that all its words are the written true revelation of God; it is therefore inerrant in the originals and authoritative in all matters.” Once again, at question is the “original” text of Scripture. But what if there is no original? I want to be clear, I’m not asking the question, which is oft-discussed in inerrantist writings, of what happens if we don’t have the original. Textual preservation has made that almost impossible for any ancient text, and inerrantists have long argued that this is no problem because while inerrancy only applies to the original or autographic text, the Holy Spirit has worked to preserve the text faithfully to the extent that we can be assured that we know enough to have proper faith and practice.[1] No, the claim I’m discussing isn’t whether we have the original text, but whether we can definitively point to any (imagined) autographic text as the original or the autograph at all.

Laird’s discussion of autographs in his book, Creating the Canon, is informative. The book focuses on the formation of the canon of the New Testament. Laird notes that the longtime assumption of [some] scholars was that the original text was the inerrant one. However, he goes on to look at how letters and other works were produced in antiquity, including a number of difficult questions this raises: “When we refer to an original autograph, are we referring to the initial draft of a work, a later revision or expansion, the edition that first began to circulate, or to the state of the writing at some later stage in the compositional process?” (48). Additionally, after noting that “it would seem most appropriate to identify the original autograph of a work not as the initial draft but as the final state of the writing that the author had reviewed and approved for public circulation” (49), he notes that letter writing in the ancient world often included the writer using a scribe and having that scribe produce “one or more duplicate copies” for themselves, including copies that may have differed depending upon the audience to whom they were sent (49, 54ff).

A concrete example is the ending of Romans, which Laird notes has some problematic textual history (56-57). After noting the difficulty of determining just how long the “original” letter to the Romans was, Laird notes various scholarly responses, including the possibility that there were two different “original” editions of Romans, one with a longer doxology that would have been intended for local audiences and one which omitted it, which were eventually combined (60-61). This leads to the remarkable conclusion that “it is a strong possibility that at least three copies of the text of Romans were produced at the end of the compositional process: one for the Romans, one for those in Corinth, and one for Paul and/or his associates” (61-62). In the conclusion of this fascinating section, Laird states, “Rather than assume that the compositional process of the canonical writings culminated with the production of a single ‘original autograph,’ it is therefore best to think of something that might be described as an original edition” (64).

I admire Laird’s dedication to highlighting the problematic nature of the concept of “autograph” when it comes to the biblical text, but have to wonder what kind of cognitive dissonance that might create for someone who teaches at a place where the statement of faith explicitly refers to inerrancy in the “originals.” Sure, Laird could punt the issue to whatever he means by “original edition” as opposed to “original autograph,” but at that point, what does inerrancy even mean?

I affirmed and defended inerrancy for many years. I finally let go of it for a number of reasons which are largely beyond the scope of this post. But I understand inerrancy, and understand how to defend it. I have even done so on this very blog. What I know included things like we defended the doctrine as applying to the autographic text. But if, as Laird and many, many others are pointing out, it’s true that there is no autographic text for at least some of the Bible, how can a defense of inerrancy even make sense? It’s like a constantly retreating battle for inerrantists: declare the Bible inerrant; but which Bible?; declare it only applies to the autographs; but we don’t have the autographs; so say that the autographic text is preserved at least to the extent that it doesn’t impact essentials of the faith; but autographs don’t exist to begin with. What’s supposed to follow that? For Laird the answer seems to be “say the original edition is inerrant.” But what is an original edition? And Laird’s questions, which are quite helpful, would absolutely apply to any such discussion- is it the drafts made along the way to the “final product,” and which final product- the one(s) Paul kept for himself or the one(s) to the local church or the one(s) to the church(es) at large?

The massive import of these questions for any doctrine of inerrancy must be made explicit. The Chicago Statement makes its stand upon the autographic text. If there is no autograph to which we can point, that statement falls. Almost every definition of inerrancy in modern times does the same. They are written as if we could travel back and time and point to a text, fresh off the pen of a scribe or writer, and say “this text is inerrant.” The reality is that not only do we not have such a manuscript today, but it is becoming increasingly clear that such a scenario needs to be rewritten, with a number of different texts directed towards different audiences, with different inclusions and exclusions in the text. Would the time traveler have pointed to a text of Romans with a doxology or without it? Would they point to a work in progress or a final draft? Would certain stories that seem to have been edited into the text be part of the inerrant text or not? The time traveler scenario is now complicated beyond imagining. We don’t have a single text of Romans we could point to definitively and say “there it is.” This is admitted even by those who wish to affirm inerrancy. And so again, what does it even mean to affirm that doctrine?

It’s worth at this point stopping the discussion to ask a simple question: is inerrancy worth it? Is there something about inerrancy that makes it an unassailable doctrine that all Christians must affirm such that we must continue to circle the wagons in ever smaller circles in order to try to be able to point at something that is inerrant in Scripture? Or–hear me out–or is it possible that evangelicals have made the wrong thing inerrant? Instead of making a text inerrant and essentially equivalent to God, what if we allowed that place to stay with Christ, the God-Man Himself, and the person whom the Bible attests as the divine Word of God? This has been, historically, the position of the church[2], and is a position which requires far less retreating whenever a new discovery is made that seems to call into question some potential error in the Bible or some problem with how modern statements on how the Bible must work are read. Rather than trying to constantly revise and salvage a doctrine that appears to need a revisiting every few years, Christians should focus instead upon God, whose steadfast love never changes.

Notes

[1] See, for example, the Chicago Statement, again Article X- “WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.”

[2] A history of the doctrine of inerrancy is very revealing and shows it to be a largely American invention in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The statements on this doctrine were not found in ecumenical councils, nor creeds, nor really anywhere until the 20th century. Efforts to read the doctrine back onto history are just that- reading into history rather than reading history. For example, there is not discussion of the “autographic text” in early Christian writings on the canon. They didn’t even have a concept of why that would be important. The doctrine is totally dependent upon post-Enlightenment and modernist categories. Ironically, it is parasitic upon textual criticism, developing essentially in opposition to that which those who affirm the doctrine wished to deny. When textual criticism pointed out difficulties in the text as it stood, inerrantists punted the doctrine to the autographs. This is just one example of how inerrancy is entirely dependent on categories foreign to historical Christian doctrine or to the Bible itself.
As a Lutheran, an additional note- I mention here the Lutheran church explicitly because even in the earliest times for Lutherans, some Lutherans–including Luther–had questions about the canonicity of some accepted books of the Bible, along with some other issues that were raised. Lutherans have held almost from the beginning that, as Luther said, the Bible is the cradle of Christ; the Bible is not God. Some Lutheran denominations today hold explicitly to inerrancy (eg the LCMS and WELS), but this does not seem continuous with global Lutheranism or Lutheran doctrine specifically.

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SDG.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Book Review: “The Uncontrolling Love of God” by Thomas Jay Oord

The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence by Thomas Jay Oord is the kind of book that I would have either intentionally sought out to pick apart or steered clear of a few years ago. Why? Oord unabashedly challenges traditional conceptions of divine providence, especially digging at the wounds of evil to argue that such accounts are insufficient answers to the problem of evil that we face in the real world.

Before turning to evil, though, Oord argues for the establishment of actually random events. That is, events that are not predetermined by anything. This randomness is real, not apparent, and is balanced by laws of nature which are to be read as regularities, not as comprehensive explanations of reality in lawlike terms (43-44). Going along with this, non-predetermined free choice is another factor in the world which must be accounted for in accounts of providence.

A central concept of the book is the notion of “genuine evil.” Oord notes that philosophers tend to distinguish between necessary and gratuitous evils. He essentially labels gratuitous genuine evils. These evils are “events that, all things considered, make the world worse than it might have been” (65). That doesn’t mean there can’t be goods that might come from them; rather, they are events where the actors involved could have chosen something better instead (65-66). Most Christian theological positions are keen to prevent God from being the primary cause of evil or the one predetermining evil, and there are various attempts to avoid doing this. Oord presses the point though, arguing that even having God as a secondary cause for evil, or attempting to portray overriding goods or ultimate goods as somehow overcoming evil is insufficient to adequately respond to genuine evils (chapter 4 on Models of God’s Providence delves into this deeply).

Ultimately, Oord offers an alternate model of providence, which he calls the “essential kenosis model.” As the name implies, this focuses on the notion of kenosis–divine emptying of the divine self or power–for the sake of other. The model holds that God is essentially, not accidentally good. That is, God does not choose good, but rather is good. Along with this, Oord’s position, in contrast with almost every other position of providence, argues that “God cannot unilaterally prevent genuine evil” (167). Such a position, Oord argues, is aligned with views that God cannot do logically impossible actions. On this position, God preventing all genuine evil unilaterally is a logical and actual impossibility. Thus, Oord’s position avoids the difficulty of needing an overriding good for ultimate resolution of good and evil. The palatability of this will vary, but Oord makes a compelling case for his position.

The Uncontrolling Love of God presents a challenge to more traditional conceptions of divine providence. Oord takes the position to the logical extremes, which will likely alienate some readers. For those seeking an alternative to all-controlling views of God and evil, the book will resonate.

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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)

SDG.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

“Camp Damascus” by Chuck Tingle- A surprising look at faith, hope, and bigotry

CW: Conversion therapy, demonology, horror fiction, discussion of sexuality

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

I just read this novel by Chuck Tingle (more on author below). The story follows a young woman who’s part of an insular evangelical group that basically owns the town she’s in. The religious group is internationally famous for its Camp Damascus, a gay conversion camp that boasts a 100% success rate.

Fairly early on, some elements of horror crop up, and the main character seeks to figure out what’s going on. It becomes more and more clear that Camp Damascus is the center of something quite insidious. Just how did they get the 100% success rate, and how does it tie into the horrifying things experienced throughout town?

I wanted to bring the novel to this blog because it is a remarkably strong look at deconstruction from within a cult-like group, along with several other deep looks at Christianity. There are scenes in which characters fire verses back and forth at each other to try to discredit the other. There is discussion of science/faith and a logical/evidence vs. spiritual/faith based approaches to reality that is incredibly nuanced for genre fiction. Tingle asks readers how far is too far to go when it comes to one’s beliefs.

The book is horror, so it has several gruesome moments and isn’t probably the best pre-sleeping reading at times. It definitely tugs at the heartstrings and should engage readers to consider their opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.

I honestly grabbed it because I know the author will cause a stir, but was blown away by the content. I was shocked to see such frank and honest discussion of difficulties with faith and finding middle ground and even finding one’s way back when one’s been harmed by that faith.

I can’t in good conscience share without noting broader context of the author. Chuck Tingle is (in)famous for some extremely raunchy and intentionally ridiculous stories (search Amazon for his author name and you’ll see- NSFW titles FYI). A glance at his Wikipedia shows a strange history. The intent appears to be satirizing more than anything, but having not read these other works I can’t comment more upon them. Anyway, I am glad curiosity led me to read this book because it is such a thought-provoking look at faith and doubt.

Camp Damascus has me thinking. I was not expecting it to get me thinking. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but I thought it was worth writing more about. What happens when we make our own narratives; when we are willing to do what it takes to get results? And what of faith? How do we balance it and logic or evidence? I recommend the book, but only so long as readers are comfortable.

SDG.

Biblical Archaeology: Does the Mt. Ebal Tablet Prove the Bible?

The “Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet” has created something of a stir in some circles, especially those interested in Christian apologetics. The find itself could be extraordinary, assuming it passes additional review. While published in a peer reviewed journal, the publication of the findings is not published in an archaeology journal, leading to some skepticism about the ability to stand up to archaeological peer review. Others have pointed out additional problems with the journal publication, some of which are summarized in an article from the Biblical Archaeology Society.

What I want to hone in on, though, are the fantastical claims made about the fine by Scott Stirpling, one of the archaeologists involved in the find and interpretation thereof, in a video he made with Sean McDowell. The video is on YouTube and entitled, “Oldest Hebrew Writing? Mt. Ebal Curse Tablet (Revisited).” Stirpling makes a number of claims in this video, and I think some of these are emblematic of the way the apologetics community unfortunately over-inflates the evidence for Christianity. This, I believe, is detrimental to the aims of Christian apologetics, because if we make claims that cannot be adequately backed by evidence, it makes people more likely to doubt other claims which may have a better evidentiary grounds for belief.

I won’t be reviewing the whole video, nor do I personally have expertise in archaeology. Any time I write about the “curse tablet” it should be understood that is meant as an “alleged” due to the highly controversial nature of the find. What I want to point out instead are problems with what I do have expertise in: apologetics.

Stirpling claims, among other things:
1. the curse tablet provides evidence for the notion that Moses and Joshua were literate (Starting around 20:00 into the video)
2. The curse tablet is directly tied to Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8 as a real find that really backs up those specific chapters of the Bible (21:20 and following)
3. The curse tablet undermines the documentary hypothesis (35:00 and following)
4. The curse tablet summarizes Deuteronomic curses and therefore provides evidence for them as historical events (9:20)

1. Curse Tablet and Literacy

The argument here has a number of hidden assumptions. First, that having a single inscribed tablet suggests widespread literacy. Second, it appears Stirpling is actually at least skirting the claim of suggesting this tablet just was written by Joshua and/or Moses. That’s a huge assumption and claim that I don’t think anyone could take as anything beyond invention. Would it be great to have? Of course! But this tablet is not that proof. It’s not like it’s signed “-Moses” or “-Joshua.” I don’t get it. Even assuming the tablet has writing, and that that writing is earlier than the earliest Proto-Hebrew we have, one has to ask the question: how does this prove that Moses and/or Joshua were literate/wrote this tablet? So far as I can tell, there is no evidence to suggest this is correct.

2. and 4. Curse Tablet and Bible verses

I couldn’t find the exact time stamp for one of the claims I heard from Stirpling as I listened to the video a couple times, but not only does he claim that the curse tablet is tied to Deuteronomy 27 and 28 and Joshua 8, he also claims that Job 19:24, in which the author exclaims desire to have their words inscribed by iron implement(s) on lead shows that this curse tablet is the exact kind of thing being referenced there. If a reader happens to watch the video and can find that reference again, I’d appreciate it.

Anyway, this claim is incredible to me. Not only does Stirpling acknowledge immediately after making it that he has to presuppose the exacting historical nature of the references in the Bible in order to make the argument (thus making it a kind of loop: Dt. 27 and Jsh. 8 and Job 19 all tie together to show a lead curse tablet; the lead curse tablet proves the veracity of those references), but the claim itself is so much stronger than the evidence at hand suggests we ought to make. Assuming Stirpling is right about the date of the tablet, its location[1], it actually having text, that text actually being “Proto-Hebrew,” and that text actually reading as Stirpling et al. suggest it does, how does a tablet that reads [quoting directly from their paper]:
“A.You are cursed by the god yhw—cursed. B. You will die, C. Cursed – C’. Cursed, B’. you will surely die. A’.Cursed you are by yhw—cursed.”
…how does that text actually support the claim that this is a summary of Deuteronomy 27 and 28’s curses? What exactly is there here to tie this tablet so explicitly to the exact curses of Deuteronomy, as Stirpling directly claims it is? Other than it using the word “cursed” and a possible version of the divine name, YHWH, what connection is there between this tablet and the verses it’s supposed to confirm? There doesn’t seem to be any other than in the imagination of those who want to connect the two, and that’s highly problematic for evidential value.

3. Documentary Hypothesis

The Documentary Hypothesis itself is a bit of a misnomer, as its splintered off into a number of different theories, and more recent works I’ve read (extreme caveat–I’m not an expert, so I may very well be behind the times here) seem to suggest that the overarching hypothesis has fallen somewhat out of favor due to its somewhat pedantic way of reading the Bible. Anyway, it’s really not clear to me how this find, if genuine, is supposed to undermine the Documentary Hypothesis (DH hereafter). We know that worship of YHWH was more ancient than most or all of the Bible, and that YHWH was worshiped in other lands possibly or probably prior to the ancient Israelites coming into the region. So having an ancient inscription using the name YHWH does nothing to the DH so far as I can tell. It’s not that no one ever used the name YHWH before the Yahwist came and edited the Bible. Instead, the DH, to my knowledge, suggests that a Yahwistic worshiper came through later and edited the Bible to insert YHWH’s name into portions somewhat haphazardly to ensure worship was properly being directed to YHWH instead of just or merely Elohim/El. But nothing about the date of the use of the divine tetragrammaton would somehow disprove or distort the DH. I’m willing to be corrected here, of course, but I just don’t see the relevance.

Conclusion

More study of the Mt. Ebal curse tablet is needed. I personally hope it turns out to be something genuine that might have value. The limited scope of the supposed text on the tablet, however, along with the already highly contested nature of the text itself makes me urge caution. We should not set up apologetics claims that are so grandiose that it’s easy to knock them down.

Additional Notes

[1] Stirpling admits at several points that his group is relying upon the earlier excavators’ accuracy in reporting exactly where the debris that they sifted through came from. Allowing for human error, it’s possible the tablet didn’t even come from an altar as the report claims. Moreover, the location of Mt. Ebal is, according to Stirpling himself, only known through the Bible. So while that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, one does wonder how one can tie this exact find to this exact mountain as the exact one in the Bible and on the exact altar of Joshua, as Stirpling claims in one of the claims I’m not covering at more length. He really does say that he thinks that the rounded altar this tablet supposedly came from due to notes from another archaeologist about where the debris came from that they sifted to find the tablet just is the altar Joshua used in Joshua 8. Why? It seems mostly because that would be of the most apologetic significance.

SDG.

“An Artful Relic” by Andrew R. Casper- Apologetics of the Shroud

An Artful Relic: The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy by Andrew R. Casper is an impressive study of the impact of the Shroud of Turin on art, artists, and society in the 1500s-1600s. Not only is it lavishly illustrated, it also provides excellent historical data for those interested in the Shroud of Turin.

The thesis of the book is simple: the Shroud of Turin was immensely important in shaping art and even culture in Baroque Italy. That said, the work touches upon many important aspects for those interested in Shroud research. One aspect is the debate over its authenticity in history. While the debate over the Shroud’s authenticity continues today, the historical debate should inform those interested in the question. Casper notes that the acceptance of the Shroud’s authenticity in Italy (and elsewhere) was at least partially due to the immense influence of the House of Savoy. Their vested interest in making the Shroud a focal point for veneration and cultic worship greatly raised its esteem in Europe. Additionally, its survival of a fire in 1532 was seen as only explicable by miraculous intervention, thus leading more to accepting the Shroud as authentic (10). Neither of these, of course, will fully tilt opinion in modern minds regarding the Shroud’s authenticity. For people interested in that question, though, they should take into account the fact that the Shroud’s authenticity only became cemented in this time, and that its appearance in history cannot be traced to earlier than the latter half of the 1300s.

Casper draws attention to the way artists and others commented upon the supposed miraculous nature of the Shroud’s image in Baroque Italy. This included much comment on the way blood formed the image. The notion that the Shroud was explicitly a work of art made by God arose in this time period. It was insisted that God’s handiwork was shown with Christ’s blood as the pigmentation (57-58). These contentions had to deal with earlier Christian theology that argued against the possibility of Christ’s blood being left behind in the resurrection. For example, Aquinas had argued that because Christ’s body was true and complete in the Resurrection, the blood all rose with Christ “without any diminution” (73). Of course, not all Christian theology held to this view, and others argued that not all the blood had to be back in Christ’s body at the resurrection (74). The notion that it was the blood that formed the image stands in contrast to some modern arguments that radiation from the energy of resurrection formed the image. While it might be too strong to suggest that these two interpretations are irreconcilable, the inability to agree upon the formation of the Shroud remains an open question in research. Casper notes the blood as central to the veneration and worship of/around the Shroud in Baroque Italy, however. This would suggest that any modern explanation that does not hold to the same view has shown evolution from and important differences with earlier thought on the Shroud.

Casper goes over the influence of the Shroud on art in detail, noting the care with which copies were made, contrasting that with the apparent carelessness (or at least, lack of caring for) selection of artists to copy the Shroud was sometimes conducted. The Shroud and veneration thereof appeared all over in artwork, and influenced how illustrations of Christ were made. Casper forcefully makes the point that the Shroud as an artwork hasn’t been explored enough, and that its influence on contemporary artwork (here going with the assumption that it did not exist earlier than the 14th century) is quite strong.

Indeed, this raises a question for those who argue in favor of the Shroud’s authenticity: why did it not influence art so heavily before? While some arguments insist upon coins or certain icons being based upon the Shroud, no artwork exists depicting the Shroud qua Shroud prior to this time period. If the Shroud existed and was venerated in the 4th century or earlier, as some argue, why did artwork not depict it as such? No argument about the alleged secret history of the Shroud could work here, because if other artworks depicting Christ were widely distributed that depict a Christ allegedly based upon the Shroud of Turin, why could not the Shroud itself exist in such artworks? And why is it that only once an imminently powerful European family, the House of Savoy, threw their weight behind it that the Shroud rose in cultural prominence? One could anticipate various answers to these questions, but for this author, the answers are insufficient to demonstrate the Shroud’s actual existence prior to the 14th century. Indeed, the ubiquity and influence of the Shroud in and upon art in Baroque Italy seems an argument against its earlier existence.

Casper’s work is not, I should clarify, an argument for or against the authenticity of the Shroud. While he touches upon the question, his focus is almost entirely on the way the Shroud was depicted in art. nd this itself is a fascinating question. Casper presents many firsthand accounts of the Shroud, explanations of its depiction, and specific inquiries into artworks based upon it. The book therefore is of great interest to anyone interested in the Shroud of Turin.

An Artful Relic is a highly recommended read. It clearly demonstrates the influence of the Shroud in Baroque Italy and raises many questions and paths of research into religious art and the Shroud specifically. Those interested in the question of its authenticity should also read the book and see what questions and answers may come to mind based upon Casper’s thorough research.

Links

The Shroud of Turin- An Apologetics Sinkhole? – My first post in the series on the Shroud of Turin in which I comment broadly about my interest in it and why I think it demonstrates so many problems.

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

Coins, Icons, and the Shroud of Turin- Apologetics of the Shroud

One category of claims made in favor of the authenticity of the Shroud is that other artwork reflects the image of the Shroud. Often, this is linked to legal status for points of congruence. Thus, for example, it is argued that legally, 14 points of congruence between a suspect’s fingerprint and a fingerprint from a crime scene are necessary to determine a match. But with the Shroud, there are allegedly many icons and coins and other objects with a huge number of points of congruence well beyond the legal standard. Thus, in a video on Shroud3D (linked to me by one apologist interest in the Shroud), it is stated that there are “250 points of congruence between [the] Shroud and icon,” which is left as an argument for the clear link between the icon and the Shroud.

There are a number of problems with this species of argument related to the Shroud of Turin. I don’t have the time nor the expertise to analyze individual alleged points of congruence. Indeed, most of the sources I found making claims like this cited other sources, which in turn cited other sources, which in turn I was either unable to find or unable to determine the specific alleged points of congruence. The video I linked above shows someone waving a mouse icon on a screen at some alleged similarities between the Shroud and an icon, but that, with the claim on screen of “250 points of congruence,” does not do nearly enough to allow for any kind of detailed analysis. And, again, I am not any kind of expert in forensics of icons or the like. Instead, what I’m going to focus on are some broader problems with the argument.

Why It Matters

The reason this argument matters is that apologists of the Shroud claim that because coins, icons, and possibly other artworks reflect attempts to imitate the Shroud, this allows them to place the date of the Shroud much earlier in history than the earliest historical mentions of it (14th century). The logic is simple: if coins from earlier than the 14th century show that they are copied from or based upon the Shroud, it follows that the Shroud existed prior to the 14th century. I’ll have more to say about this argument in the future.

Points of Congruence

I mentioned above that claims are made about these alleged “points of congruence” or similarities between the Shroud of Turin and other objects. What I’ve struggled to track down are both the actual diagrams showing these exact points of congruence, the methodology used to detect these alleged points, and the linkage between those points and actual forensic evidence. After some deep searching online on the website of the Department of Justice, I was able to find a number of articles about fingerprint analysis. One of these, an abstract of a chapter of a book about forensics and fingerprinting, notes that identification of similarities involves: “perception, similarity judgments, memory, and decision making. These abilities vary among individuals and can be improved with training and experience.” This raises far more questions than it answers regarding the alleged proof of the earlier dating of the Shroud of Turin based upon its alleged “congruencies” with icons, coins, and the like.

First, what kind of actual training do those marking these supposed similarities have? From what I can tell, the people making these types of claims do not have any training in forensic analysis of photographs, art, or fingerprints. While expertise is not absolutely necessary in order to make identification of similarities (I’m fairly sure that without a degree in art, I could identify a painting by or in the style of Salvador Dali, for example), it certainly would give more credence to the claims being made. And, it’s possible that I, being fairly new to this discussion, am missing people with relevant degrees or job experience. But I do know how often I’ve seen online apologists making these claims without citation, and those doing that certainly do not have the relevant expertise, nor are they citing sources with that expertise. This alone should be enough to urge skepticism about said claims.

Second, what about making judgment calls? If I have an image with a crown of thorns and another image with a crown of thorns, how do I make a judgment call of how many similarities there are? One has a thorn piercing the forehead directly in the middle of the left eyebrow? That could be evidence of congruence, but it could also be happenstance–the thorns had to hit the head at some points, after all. It seems somewhat obvious to me that those making these judgment calls in favor of the Shroud may have significant bias in favor of finding more congruence than there may actually be. And without degrees or expertise to back them up, this becomes even more likely. It’s easy to multiply points of congruence when one wants them to be there. And, as I will note below, this is even more problematical because of the nature of what is being alleged about, anyway (see the section on Baseline below).

Third, it’s clear that nearly every aspect of these points of congruence regarding the Shroud and various artworks are matters of opinion. But when the subject being depicted has many features that are generally well-known (crucified figure, scourged, with crown of thorns, etc.), how does one determine whether a point of congruence is evidence of actual copying or whether it is just happenstance based upon the known circumstances of the subject being depicted? It seems like sorting that question out would be nearly impossible. It would rely so much upon judgment calls it would start to become absurd. Indeed, one would have to constantly assume intent into the depictions on the coins or icons–that they were intended to look like the Shroud, rather than happening to follow the same general outline of an image. But that brings us to the argument below.

There is a Baseline

Perhaps the most severe problem with claims about the supposed congruence between the Shroud and various artworks, coins, etc. is that these arguments fail to note the works are not independent. What I mean by this will take a little explaining. Going back to the example that is being cited–fingerprint analysis–the example has no independent goal towards which to aim. If I have a fingerprint from a crime scene, and I have the fingerprints of the suspect, I can compare them and conclude that if there are enough similarities–whatever that standard is legally–then that means they’re a match.

With the Shroud, however, we have two objects, the Shroud, and some other item, say a coin, which are not independent of each other. This isn’t like plucking a fingerprint from somewhere and hoping to find a match. Instead, it is taking two objects, each of which has a goal oriented towards depiction of a specific subject, and then declaring that because they have similarities to each other, they are necessarily connected. Icons, coins, and the like are all intended to depict Jesus, at least in some sense. Obviously, they didn’t have a photograph, and details about what Jesus looked like in the Bible are totally scarce, but there are very early artistic depictions of Jesus, some with significant variation. There are also obvious features of a crucified human being with a crown of thorns that would lead to points of similarity in depiction of a human in that state. Two people trying to show a crucified Jewish man from the first century would likely align on many “points of congruence” without having any other knowledge of each others’ works.

The history of iconography of Jesus is its own separate subject, but by the time the artworks like the coins and icons being discussed by Shroud apologists were created, there was already an established baseline for what Jesus was supposed to look like in such iconography. So if you have an established representative style for what a subject, Jesus, is supposed to look like, and you have an icon and a coin that match that style, having another object–the Shroud–have many dozens or even hundreds of “points of congruence” with those other objects does not prove that those objects are based upon the Shroud. At best, it just proves the Shroud is consistent with the established baseline representation of Jesus in that era, but that would hardly be surprising whether it is a copy or genuine. But if I have three independent things, Bob, a coin that is supposed to depict Bob, and something that allegedly is the cloth Bob was buried in, it would hardly be surprising that both the burial cloth and coin are similar, given that they are both trying to aim at Bob as an image. That would be true whether the cloth is genuine or not.

One example of this was found in a podcast I was listening to about the Shroud of Turin [and, of course, my apologies as I have been unable to find the exact time stamp, but it was the Backstory on the Shroud of Turin Podcast, “The Stories Coins Can Tell with Justin Robinson,” August 11, 2022]. In that podcast, the person being interviewed noted that the way a strand of hair came across Jesus’s face matches the Shroud of Turin. In fact, it gets better, said Robinson, because the coin had to be printed in reverse, and so the artist was intentionally matching how that strand of hair came across the face to the Shroud of Turin! But this argument is specious. If you have two depictions intentionally aimed at a long haired Jewish man crucified, it would hardly be surprising for there to be a strand of hair dangling across the face, no matter which side the strand of hair falls upon. And the argument about the image having to be flipped for a coin does nothing to strengthen the attempt to link it to the Shroud, apart from making a supposed link to intention that cannot be proven. But these types of arguments are put forth as if they give definitive proof of (or at least, strong evidence for) the notion that these artists were copying the Shroud. Even as one who would love to have such evidence, this rings hollow and reads as attempted justification for something tenuous at best.

Fingerprints and Coins?

Similarly, those making claims about coins, icons, and the like fail to recognize the goal-directed nature of artwork. These aren’t just someone’s happenstance fingerprints or something; these are intentional depictions of a figure purported to be a representation of Jesus. The people making the argument about forensic evidence in court of law and applying that same style of evidence-gathering to questions about the Shroud of Turin seem to be engaging in a category error.

Fingerprints, as one might note, are not coins. Fingerprints are subjects of nature, possibly subject to scarring, and have numerous other aspects that are quite different from coins or icons. Icons and the faces on coins are intentional depictions of something. They are meant to appear as whatever vision the artist intended. Not only does this make it problematic as an argument because there is a baseline, as noted above, but it also means that trying to establish a 1:1 correspondence between what is required to demonstrate in court of law that a suspect and a piece of fingerprint evidence are the same and what is required to establish that a coin was specifically based upon the Shroud at least requires some kind of argument to establish. But that argument is never made. It’s just noted that in court of law there is some number of similarities required for fingerprints, and then because there are allegedly even more similarities between the Shroud and some piece of artwork, that establishes the artwork was copying the Shroud.

The leaps in logic here are over vast chasms. Criminal forensic evidence just is not the same as analysis of art and vice versa. Expert analysis simply does not exist for comparison of the coins with the Shroud imagery, so far as I can tell. Forensic analysis would not be the correct category to make this comparison with anyway. What possible correspondence could there be between an artwork and a supposedly genuine image of a body and between a naturally occurring phenomenon–a fingerprint–and the discovery of a fingerprint at the scene of a crime? They’re entirely different fields of study with entirely different backgrounds, contexts, and levels of intent. While it sounds like a good argument to cite one to defend the other, when one examines the actual arguments, they fall apart.

Conclusion

There are more problems that could be raised with the supposed similarities between the Shroud and various icons or coins or other artworks, but many of them would need to focus on specific artwork. I have left aside analysis of specific, individual claims to focus more upon methodology. Because of this, my argument may be dismissed by some as being to vague or broad. That may be, but I think that the points I’ve raised here should cause some to pause and urge caution about claims related to the Shroud of Turin. So often, it’s not experts doing this analysis, the arguments are vague, or categories are confused. Apologists should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and I don’t think this is happening with the Shroud.

Links

The Shroud of Turin- An Apologetics Sinkhole? – My first post in the series on the Shroud of Turin in which I comment broadly about my interest in it and why I think it demonstrates so many problems.

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

The Shroud of Turin: A Secret History? – Apologetics of the Shroud

I am writing a series of posts about the problems I see in apologetics related to the Shroud of Turin. Check out my introductory post here.

Tracing the Shroud in History

A number of claims are made about the Shroud historically and the alleged trail that can be pieced together in order to get it from Turin back to Palestine. Most apologists I’ve read or watched in videos are careful to say that we know with a fairly high degree of certainty where the Shroud was in the 14th century, but before that it becomes murkier. That doesn’t stop many apologists from then turning to making extremely specific claims about the Shroud in history. Here, I’ll be starting an examination of “The Shroud of Turin: Photograph of the Resurrection,” a video from Duran Smith, an apologist with Ratio Christi, an apologetics organization.

Even referring to a “murky history of the Shroud” prior to the 14th century begs the question in a way, by assuming the Shroud did exist and so would have had a history at all prior to the 14th century. I wrote in my introductory post that I’m not convinced by the evidence for the Shroud. In fact, I think the apologetics related to the Shroud of Turin generally show many of the issues I have identified with apologetics more broadly.

Duran Smith, in this video, goes over a wide swathe of arguments about the Shroud of Turin. Here, I’ll be focusing only on how he traces the Shroud in the earliest periods of its supposed existence.

The Discipline of the Secret?

Smith alleges that the Discipline of the Secret is something that can be applied to discussions of the Shroud. In the video at 8:24, you can see a slide in which he writes about the Discipline of the Secret: “It was used until the 5th century.” Intentionally or not, this slide and the discussion surrounding it make it seem as though the Discipline of the Secret is both an established fact of history with a specific lineage and that it persisted in Christianity from the beginning “until the 5th century.” Neither of these are true as stated that way. The Discipline of the Secret is, like many assignations from historians, a categorization of something they observed in the past, rather than a specific Discipline. Hopping again over to Wikipedia, one can trace the historical origins of the phrase and that it was a categorization invented in the 17th century to describe something happening in the 4th and 5th centuries, but not before. So it is technically true that the practice was “used until the 5th century,” but not true that it was persistent throughout Christianity until then, and certainly doesn’t appear to be some kind of strict practice as Smith makes it out to be.

I belabored the above point because it is important to see that it is easy to throw out terms, phrases, and dates and start piecing a case together based upon them. The untrained eye may find it very easy to go along with this. However, on examination, it makes the case pretty thin to have it based on a 17th century categorization of something that was 4th-5th century, especially when it’s applied in this way. Smith specifically says that the Christians after Jesus’s resurrection “had to keep a lot of things hidden,” which strongly implies he is saying that this was a 1st century discipline. “There were things that they couldn’t… write down,” Smith says (about 8:35).

Smith actually goes on to make a number of claims about the Discipline of the Secret. Starting around 8:50 into the video, he claims: “the Apostles and the disciples spoke in a secret code… it was called The Discipline of the Secret. That’s [a/the] name given to it by some of the early church fathers. It was a code language that the early Christians used to protect themselves [from] being found out by the oppressive government. And it was used until the 5th century.” He goes on to imply this may be why we don’t have exacting evidence of the Shroud’s existence in this early period. The problem is that each of these claims, so far as any research I can do, appears to be false. There is no church father that talks about the “Discipline of the Secret,” falsifying the claim that that name was “given to it by some of the early church fathers.” Web searches turn up many, many sites talking about the discipline, but even in the corners of Catholic Encyclopedias, one finds time and again that they say that term did not originate until the 17th century or so, and the practice itself may have had earliest origins with Tertullian (3rd century) but didn’t solidify until the time of Basil (early 4th century) or Gregory of Nazianzus (mid-late 4th century). Not one of these church fathers used the phrase “Discipline of the Secret.” Where Smith found a source for his claim is unclear, and I understand YouTube is not an easy place for citations, nor are lectures like this, but I am curious as to exactly what source Smith is basing this claim upon. There doesn’t appear to be a foundation for it anywhere.

The claims about this Discipline continue, as Smith says a lot of research goes into decoding this secretive language and says that “this is where the fish comes from” referring to the symbol of a fish as a symbol early Christians used. Once again, there is no source cited or concrete evidence to suggest that this is in any way connected to an actual discipline that any church father referenced or named anywhere.

Note that I have not used the word “lying” here in regards to what Smith is saying about the Discipline of the Secret. I don’t know Smith’s intentions or mindset and believe one should always assume others are sincere unless you have direct counter-evidence. Instead, what I’m observing is that Smith is making a number of explicit claims about the origins of the Shroud and this “Discipline,” none of which appear to be backed by reliable historical data. So where did it come from? It is possible Smith made it up, but in my own experience in academic apologetics as well as apologetics circles online, it seems more likely that Smith has fallen victim to what I’ve seen as a kind of group re-affirmation process in which a claim is made and then others pile on more supposed evidences to back up that claim, whether through anecdotes or other experiences, which are then taken to be true and real evidences, which then back up the claim, until an kind of circle of evidence is made such that the original claim seems unassailable. I could see someone reading about the Discipline of the Secret, and then having a kind of enthusiastic discussion about that related to the Shroud and how it could explain why there aren’t explicit writings about the Shroud or evidence referring explicitly to it prior to the 14th century. How you get from that to making an explicit claim that the church fathers explicitly gave the practice the name is conjecture on my end, but I could see it being inferred and then taken as true at some step along the way.

However it happened, Smith’s discussion of the Discipline of the Secret shows some gaps in understanding, along with several claims that, upon examination, cannot hold weight.

The Lost Gospel of the Hebrews?

Smith then turns to an allegedly lost Gospel of the Hebrews. Again, digging around online turns up that this lost Gospel may in fact be three separate Gospels, that it may have had its origin in the Gospels in the Bible today, and a number of other tidbits. There’s not a lot there, just some fragmentary quotes, including one from Origen (a favorite of mine) that hedges bets a bit when he writes “And if any accept the Gospel according to the Hebrews” before citing a fragment in his On John. Anyway, all of this is to say we don’t have much by way of established fact here, either.

After noting that the Gospel is lost and we don’t have it at all, Smith claims that “We use it to kind of get insight into what those early Christians were thinking… It’s used for some theological purposes, but it also has some historical details…” [around 10:20 and following]. Then he quotes it, “and when the Lord had given the linen cloth to the servant of the priest, He went to James and appeared to him.” I was able to confirm this is a quote from Jerome attributed to the Gospel of the Hebrews. Smith then states that the “servant of the priest probably refers to Peter, who was traditionally known as the Priest.” Going on, he says “it’s very likely that, according to the Discipline of the Secret, that the Gospel of the Hebrews is indicating that Jesus gave the linen cloth to Peter.” Going on, Smith notes that Peter is the head of the church, and the rock upon which the church is founded, and that it would then make sense that Peter would have this “very important relic” (the Shroud). Peter then spent quite a bit of time in Antioch.

There are problems with many of the claims made in this section. First, Peter wasn’t traditionally known as “the Priest.” He was known as the Rock. I don’t have comprehensive knowledge of or access to early church writings, but I struggle to find any reference to any tradition in which Peter is known as “the Priest.” Some believe he was known to the High Priest. Several Roman Catholic claims about Peter being the first Pope would then make him a priest, but having him referred to as “the Priest” is different from that claim. Again, I found no referent anywhere in searches online or through books on church history. I’m willing to be corrected here, of course, but it seems to me that if a claim can offhandedly be made that Peter “was traditionally known as the Priest” then that tradition should be fairly easily associated with Peter, and it is not. But suppose Smith is right, suppose Peter was known as “the Priest.” The passage he cites says that the “linen cloth” was given to “the servant of the priest.” So the passage would in fact be saying that the linen cloth was given to Peter’s servant, not to Peter himself. Of course, one might surmise that that would then mean that the linen made its way to Peter, but that is another step of transmission that Smith needs to establish. He also needs to establish that the linen cloth is, in fact, the Shroud.

Second, given the problems with Smith’s interpretation of the Discipline of the Secret noted above, it is highly problematical for him to deduce anything from that analysis. But he explicitly states that it is “according to the Discipline of the Secret” that the citation from the Gospel of the Hebrews is telling readers that the linen cloth is given to Peter. Note the shift here. It’s subtle, but it happens. In just a few minutes in the video, Smith has moved from saying that there is such a thing as a Discipline of the Secret in which Christians secretly communicated with each other to making that very Discipline the actor in interpreting passages from a fragmentary text available only through quotations from others. It isn’t that it is possible that there is a secretive explanation of a passage; no, Smith states that it is “according to” that secretive discipline that we may then infer that the passage is referring to the Shroud. In no small amount of time, and without argument, the Discipline of the Secret has moved to a broad way to explain that Christians spoke secretively to a means by which we may infer truths. I really can’t belabor this point enough because it’s a major shift. It is according to the Discipline, which is by no means established by a discipline and which did not exist even according to sources writing about it in this time period, that we may then conclude that a fragmentary passage from a book that is not extant to this day is explicitly referring to none other than the Shroud of Turin. This is such a massive leap, but is made without even an argument.

The shift from “there’s a secretive discipline in the early church” to “we may infer from that secretive discipline conclusions about what they were saying in specific texts” is huge. Again, careful examination of Smith’s arguments make it clear they come up quite short when it comes to whether they can actually support the conclusions he’s drawing.

Conclusion

Duran Smith has demonstrated here a number of problems I find in apologetics more generally. He makes claims that are unsupported by evidence, other claims are, upon closer examination, false. He shifts from argument to evidence without enough evidential support to make the conclusions he does. It also seems that he’s not as fully versed in the claims he’s making as someone giving a lecture on a topic ought to be. Whether it’s the claims about what Peter is traditionally called or about the actual dates and extent of the Discipline of the Secret, there are a number of errors that a bit more research could have prevented. But these errors are integral to the case Smith has made so far. If they are indeed errors, most of his case to this point falls apart. We’ll be examining more of the historical evidence Smith claims exists for the Shroud in the next post in this series.

Links

What’s Wrong with Apologetics? – I raise a number of pitfalls apologists ought to avoid.

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

The Shroud of Turin: An Apologetics Sinkhole?

I have noticed an increasing amount of interest in some apologetics circles about the Shroud of Turin. When I was in graduate school, there was a group of people studying apologetics I deemed “The Shroud Crowd” due to their especial interest in the topic. Increasingly, I have seen articles getting shared about the supposed authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. For those unfamiliar, the Shroud of Turin [wiki link] is alleged to be the burial shroud in which Jesus was wrapped or covered after the crucifixion. Yes, the actual thing. One could see why this would be of great apologetic interest if it could be shown to be genuine.

I’ve found is that apologetic arguments in favor of the authenticity of the Shroud often fall victim to some of the issues I’ve found in apologetics more broadly. One of these is the tendency to make major claims instead of modest ones. Apologists tend toward maximal conclusions when minimal ones might be easier to establish based upon argument. But because maximal conclusions are more exciting and easily seen as relevant, apologists tend to focus on those rather than more minimalistic arguments. For the specific scenario of the Shroud, I have seen multiple videos of apologists arguing for its authenticity explicitly stating that “It is the true burial Shroud of Christ” without any kind of hedging or contextualizing of that claim. Such a bold claim needs a massive amount of evidential support to carry the day. A more modest claim regarding the Shroud might be more defensible[1]. By claiming not only that this is a burial shroud of someone in the first century, or someone who was crucified, or some other more modest claim, the apologist is taking on the burden of proof a number of degrees of certainty higher. After all, supposing the Shroud is from the first century and is from Palestine and is an actual burial shroud of someone who was crucified. None of that yet makes it the burial shroud or cloth of Jesus Christ!

Now, the apologists arguing in favor of that latter claim would likely counter by saying the miraculous nature of the image itself and how it was formed point to it being the shroud of Christ, but my point is that that claim itself needs a much more significant defense than a mere claim that it is a burial shroud of a crucified person. But of course that more modest claim doesn’t have the theological and apologetic import that making it the shroud of Christ would provide. It would be much less interesting if it were just an anonymous burial covering of a crucified man from the first century[2]. And for the apologist, the apologetic value of the shroud would be greatly undermined if it weren’t directly pointing at Christ.[3]

Another common mistake apologists make is to throw every possible argument at a question instead of focusing on the best arguments. Videos, lectures, and presentations I’ve watched about the Shroud of Turin are generally excellent examples of this very problem. Rather than focusing upon a select few extremely powerful evidences–or at least developing one or two arguments more fully–the apologist throws every possibly related argument in favor of their position out there. The seeming conclusion is then sometimes that this constitutes a great deal of evidence for the apologist’s claim. But simply making arguments is not the same as finding evidence. Conflating argument and evidence is a major problem in apologetics generally. Additionally, a bunch of speculative phrases or hypothetical scenarios thrown out alongside a few pieces of actually compelling arguments doesn’t bolster the strength of the latter, but can rather distract or even undermine them. Examples of this very situation regarding arguments related to the Shroud of Turin will be a primary focus of my future post(s) on this topic.

Apologists arguing for the authenticity of the Shroud also tend to make a number of seemingly outlandish claims related to it. For example, more than once I’ve seen arguments made that the Shroud’s image could only have been made by radiation coming from a body being miraculously resuscitated. While it is perfectly acceptable to hold such a belief, it is to me apparent that we can’t do much to evaluate such a claim. After all, how are we even supposed to begin testing it? We have no way to resuscitate a dead body, and no way to induce a miracle, so a claim that that is exactly the one and only possible explanation is either unable to be grounded in reality or may only be held as a pillar of faith. That’s fine, but claims like this are being presented at times as if they are themselves evidence!

So, where are we going from here? My plan is to look at a few apologetics videos related to the Shroud of Turin and analyze the arguments therein. I’ll be using the video(s) to show how apologists are arguing in favor of its authenticity and then offering my own counters to and problems found with several of these arguments.

I am by no means an expert in several of the related topics. I take some comfort in the fact that, so far as I have been able to determine, those apologists making arguments in favor of the Shroud are also people without expertise in any related field (eg. radiometric dating). That said, I want to make it clear that I’m not claiming any special authority in this area. I’m just an interested observer who believes there are severe problems in many of the most popular arguments in favor of the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. I also want to be clear that I am a faithful Christian. It would certainly be wonderful if we could have such a wonderful piece of evidence for the resurrection, but I do not want to have people staking their belief in Christianity on what I believe are poorly constructed arguments.

[1] I say “might be more defensible” because while it would be easier to defend a more modest claim, I’m not convinced the endeavor would be worthwhile, nor am I convinced that a more modest claim could be carried on the evidence.

[2] Though, to be fair, any extant burial shroud from the first century of anyone, let alone someone who was crucified, would be of major archaeological interest, I would assume.

[3] And again, in this case, a more modest claim would still have apologetic value. After all, such an extant shroud could tell us a lot about how crucifixion occurred, the way it impacted the body, etc., etc., all of which would have apologetic import to some degree.

Links

What’s Wrong with Apologetics? – I raise a number of pitfalls apologists ought to avoid.

Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

“The Shape of the Past” by John Warwick Montgomery- A Christian Historiography?

John Warwick Montgomery is a Christian apologist who is perhaps best-known for his defense of the method of evidentialism and attacks on presuppositionalism. The Shape of the Past is a work that outlines a Christian historiography–a Christian way of reporting history. I first read it maybe a decade ago or so and remembered it being fairly impactful to my own development. I read it again recently and was struck by how my perceptions of it changed. While I still believe it to be useful book in some ways, I also found difficulties in others. Montgomery’s central theses developing a supposed Christian philosophy of history are problematic.

The first four chapters of the book focus on definitions of history and historiography, an intriguing look at history as time travel, classical conceptions of historiography, and modern histography [modern at the time- 1975]. These present a survey of some major approaches to history and historiography, while highlighting a few problems Montgomery identifies without what he’s going to build up as a central development of historical writing and research. For example, early on Montgomry notes that historians at some point must make decisions about motivations, acts, etc. such that they are making decisions about what is “humanly possible” or probable. But whither the criteria for “humanly possible”? Ultimately, he argues, “the historian’s conception of human nature stems from his general philosophy of life…” (14). Historians, on this problem, must have a sound philosophy of life in order to make sound judgments about historical events.

Montgomery here is clearly on to something, but he fails to take seriously enough his own noted problem. If, as he says, historians are dependent upon their philosophy and background beliefs in order to make determinations about history, how is objectivity in history possible? While it can largely be agreed that historical events did happen, the exacting details of how they happened are much harder to pin down. And if an historian states that, say, a specific soldier on the battlefield at Gettysburg turned right when he in fact turned left, what does this mean for the “objectivity” of history and the truth thereof? Does this undercut the rest of the historian’s narrative? How much of it is discredited by “minor” details being wrong? And if historical evaluation depends so much upon one’s philosophy of life, how does one even begin to judge said evaluations? Most of these questions don’t get answered (and some aren’t even asked) in the book.

To be fair, Montgomery isn’t trying to answer questions he didn’t ask. I bring them up because they seem a logical extension of the problems he himself points out with history, and it would be interesting to see his answers to them. He does, however, turn to objectivity in history. How are Christians different in this regard?

“The Christian Answer” is the title of Chapter Five, which purports to offer a Christian solution to this difficulty. To get there, Montgomery insists that Christianity can provide the valid interpretation of history because its truth is “‘accessible to science’ and rests upon an objective foundation”; namely, he argues that the Christian worldview rests upon “the objective, historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead” (138). However, to get to the point that resurrection is an “objective, historical truth,” he uses a very brief evidentialist style argument: that the Gospels “are found to be trustworthy historical documents”; that they report Jesus “exercis[ing] divine prerogatives”; that they describe Christ’s bodily resurrection “in minute detail”*; that the resurrection “cannot be discounted on a priori grounds” [emphasis removed]; that Christ spoke the truth regarding the OT and confirms the NT; and that “It follows from the preceding that all Biblical assertions bearing on philosophy of history are to be regarded as revealed truth” (138-139).

Examining each of these steps in detail is beyond my scope here. Instead, I want to reflect on the reasoning. The problem at hand is: how do we find objectivity in Christianity to give us a valid interpretation of history? The answer is a purported historical fact. But how do we validly interpret that question of the resurrection? So far as I can tell, Montgomery is insisting that it is an historical fact. But the question he’s seeking to answer is whether Christianity can provide an objective basis for historical interpretation, and then he answers that with an historical interpretation: that the resurrection is objective fact. It’s a circle, and I’m not sure how it is supposed to escape that circle. I don’t see a way out of this circle. Even if one introduced some hidden premises about historical reasoning to get to the historicity of the resurrection, that would undercut his argument that Christianity is the objective arbiter of historical interpretation by introducing some external mechanism for that same evaluation. It seems hopeless to me.[1]

Now, it is possible to simply state that Montgomery’s argument here has failed, but that Christianity is valuable in historiography because it can give an objective (or at least “better” by some measure) way of interpreting history. While that would undermine much of his argument, it would leave one free to delve into the questions of what Christianity brings to the table as an evaluative tool. Montgomery does list several “principles of Christian historical interpretation,” and some of these are indeed valuable. For example, under metaphysical principles, he notes that Christianity gives the possibility to historical intepretation that history is inherently meaningful due to “God’s… activity” (145). This would take some effort to hash out, but it seems a potentially fruitful path to pursue.

Other principles he gives seem almost hopelessly naïve, in my opinion. For example, he argues that “human nature is constant” on Christianity, and so “the Christian historian has the assurance that a common ground exists between himself and the [people] of past ages whom he studies…” (148). So, he lists Louis XVI as one possibility for the Christian historian to be able to “confidently interpret motives” due to this constancy of human nature (ibid). Even conceding that human nature is constant, one would wonder how that alone would make it possible to determine the motives of Louis XVI with such confidence, especially if purely based upon that premise. After all, the vast chasm between my own experience and that of Louis XVI makes even the smallest decisions we have to make entirely different. Because I have made so few decisions that even resemble decisions with which Louis XVI was presented, that should give me at least some caution in drawing out his motivations for specific tasks. Other criteria Montgomery presents are helpful, but some need additional caveats.

Ultimately, The Shape of the Past is a frustratingly tantalizing read. Montgomery’s writing style is winsome and matter-of-fact. He writes in an easy manner about all sorts of scholarly topics. The central theses, however, remain unproven and possibly viciously circular. His criteria for Christian historians are a mixed bag. It’s unclear to this reader that Montgomery truly provides a reason to suppose Christianity is superior to other historiographic methods when it comes to objectivity in history. A specifically Christian historiography might be possible and even desirable, but it will need to be heavily supplemented from here.

*Interestingly, Mark does not do this unless one accepts the longer ending as genuine.

[1] Montgomery does note several potential objections to his view, but none of them hint at the circularity inherent in this reasoning: 1. We need an objective standard for historical evaluation; 2. historical evaluation shows that the resurrection is objectively true; 3. therefore, Christianity can be the objective standard for historical evaluation.

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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)

SDG.

——

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.