Saint Jerome – Patron Saint of Biblical Studies
Liberal Biblical scholarship as I have mentioned before has been very damaging to the faith of many in the Church. The average churchgoer has not been directly exposed to this, but indirectly. A seminarian will learn these liberal interpretations of the Bible and then this will come through when he is a priest and is preaching to the congregation. The congregation will have no clue and could likely swallow this poison whole.
A prime example of this is dating the Gospels. If you ask someone who’s been to a seminary or read liberal scholarship, they will tell you that Mark is the first Gospel, that Matthew and Luke were written next and that John was written last toward the close of the first century. This view is taken for granted in liberal circles and not even discussed.
The truth is, there is no more evidence to prove that Mark was first anymore to prove that John was first. The common argument is that John has “highly developed” theology that needed time to develop so it could not be written before about 95 AD. The truth is that John has a very vibrant writing style. This amplifies the doctrine found on the text. No one denies that John has a unique writing style because it is seen also in the epistles and Apocalypse.
The reason this is done is because liberals use the historical critical method. This same method when applied to the OT gives us the JEPD theory of the Pentateuch which I won’t expand on here. Basically the method denies the supernatural and that God can and has acted in history.
Since scripture is inspired by God, this method doesn’t work. Let’s say you’ve spent five years studying the Armenian Language. You’ve studied grammar, pronunciation, and have extended experience in both written and oral components. Imagine someone comes up to you and says: “You’ve studied Armenian. Translate this for me.” The page given to you is a page written in Greek. Obviously it can’t be understood since you don’t have the tools. What one would normally do is admit they can’t read it. Liberals try to use their Armenian to read the Greek text. Liberals bring their naturalistic method to a supernatural text and come up with mush. Using the Armenian-Greek analogy, its easy to see why.
This topic is very close to my heart. Liberal scholarship has destroyed the faith of millions and no doubt many more. What do we know about the ordering of the Gospels? We know that they are documents from the first century by the Christian community. That’s all. Anything to do with ordering is pure speculation. If someone wants to tell you the order, remind him that what he is saying is only a theory.
I will definitely be posting more on this in the future.
Allan Ruhl,
having read your article on so-called ‘liberal scholarship’ it appears you have no understanding of the historical critical method and how it can offers students profound insights into the nature of the gospels. I have benefited greatly from critical works, as produced by scholars of all persuasions.
Retreating into fundamentalism is no longer a viable option I’m afraid.
Well, I’m not going to lie, I read more Saints than liberals. I do read some liberals. I have read Bart Ehrman, Raymond Brown and Geza Vermes, and a few others. When I compare these writings to the great writings of the saints, they just don’t compare. I’ll fully admit that I’m a fundamentalist, but that’s because I follow Jesus Christ. In terms of modern scholarship, Jesus Christ was a fundamentalist because he thought that Moses wrote the Torah as seen in Mark 10:1-5. He didn’t embrace the modern JEPD which is what liberal scholarship embraces. I know this isn’t the NT but I look at the NT and the OT in the same way.