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AR 26:16 - "Does God decide where lethal tornadoes touch down?"
In this issue:
DEAD SEA SCROLLS - many prized fragments now identified as fakes
THEODICY - violent weather and "Acts of God"
WRIGHT, N.T. - Perpetuating 'one of modernity's biggest myths'?
Apologia Report 26:16 (1,521)
April 20, 2021
DEAD SEA SCROLLS
"Where Are the Other Fake Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Sixteen forgeries have been discovered so far in the collections of unsuspecting evangelicals. Experts have suspicions about many more." by Gordon Govier (Christianity Today, Dec '20) -- in 2013, Texas trial lawyer and philanthropist Mark Lanier "made sure an antiquities dealer had legal documentation of the authenticity of three pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls before he bought them to donate to the Lanier Theological Library in Houston. ... 'We did due diligence and were assured of the provenance.'
"A shadow of suspicion has spread across antiquities collections at US evangelical institutions in recent years as a small team of Dead Sea Scrolls detectives has raised concerns about modern forgeries. The Museum of the Bible reported <www.bit.ly/3aoFrsc> that all 16 of its prized fragments were fakes, and experts wonder: How many more are out there?
"More than 70 pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been offered for sale on the antiquities market in the past two decades. It seems unlikely a criminal would produce and sell 16 forgeries...." <www.bit.ly/3n1kpos>
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THEODICY
The Christianity Today 2021 Book Awards (Jan/Feb '21), "Our picks for the books most likely to shape evangelical life, thought, and culture" include something unique in its History/Biography category: Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather, by Peter J. Thuesen [1] -- "In this captivating study, Peter J. Thuesen assesses the mysteries of the tornado, its defiance of even the latest meteorological techniques for fully explaining it, and the sense of awe, terror, and reverence that it provokes. ... The tornado also provokes ethical questions, as many scientists attribute their rising frequency to climate change. Thuesen <www.bit.ly/3gnGjRJ> evaluates all these factors in a wide-ranging narrative that is delightful to read." <www.bit.ly/2PZQmks>
An earlier brief treatment by CT (May/Jun '20), "Tornados Put Our Faith to the Test: How American Christians have pondered the mysteries of violent weather" by Patrick Allitt, adds: "Does God control the weather, and does he decide where lethal tornadoes touch down? ... Peter J. Thuesen, professor of religious studies at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, can’t bring himself to answer either yes or no. In his fascinating new book, ... he explores how American Christians have historically thought about those puzzling questions." <www.bit.ly/3dui8hg>
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WRIGHT, N.T.
AR regularly includes items that can, at first, be considered objectionable. Those who feel this way are usually unfamiliar with our primary commitment to simply present apologetic resources and let them speak for themselves (or at least get you to see them for yourself). This is done as a service to alert you to the existence of the content without taking up precious space to further include a response and/or explanation. (Hopefully, the longer one reads AR the more likely one will be better equipped for the practice of such disparate apologia.)
With this review of History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology, by N.T. Wright [2] comes another example. Wright has consistently been controversial. The following suggests little has changed - to wit:
"Wright often insists that he is a historian, not a theologian. ...
"Lord Gifford endowed his lectures at Aberdeen University <www.bit.ly/3tAQp5j> with the goal of encouraging theologians to talk about God without reference to revelation - Jesus, the scriptures, the church, all the messy particulars. The lecturers were to look only at creation or 'nature' as the basis of their theology. The presumption was that although a 'vast, ugly ditch' (to quote Gotthold Lessing) separates the truths of history from the truths of religion, maybe, with Gifford's money, the best theologians could argue their way from earth to heaven by some route other than revelation. Many have tried; most have failed.
"Wright argues that the entire program is wrong. ...
"If Wright's self-designation as a historian rather than a theologian is an effort to avoid being dismissed by the secular academic guild, it hasn't really worked. ...
"Wright's rhetoric tends to imply that anyone who disagrees with him is wholly wrong. He generally reads scripture at a macro level and brushes off detail-oriented colleagues when they ask about this or that verse. When questioned, he tends to repeat himself rather than listen or nuance the point. ...
"Yet Wright has an admirable ability to attract a wide range of readers. That includes very conservative ones like John Piper, with whom Wright has had a running (and book-length) argument <www.bit.ly/32umcsY> over what Paul meant by justification by faith. ... Wright makes all readers trust more in the God of the Bible, and History and Eschatology shows how he does it.
"The idea that the first Christians were waiting for an apocalyptic end to the space-and-time world originated, Wright believes, with modern scholars like Albert Schweitzer. ...
"Fascinatingly, Wright details how Schweitzer was influenced by Richard Wagner, showing that the theologian's interest in beliefs in the end times was rooted in the composer's neo-Norse mythology. ...
"The notion that modern science should alter our interpretation of the Bible is built on bad eschatology, Wright says; it regards the turning point of history as modern science. ... The spirit (always, puzzlingly, lower case for Wright) is calling a people to be those through whom God puts creation to rights. ...
"Wright believes that the proper way to know anything is through a critically realist epistemology rooted in love for the other. ...
"There are plenty of places in the book where Wright is wrong. ...
"Wright speaks of theologians from the fourth century (Nicaea), the fifth (Chalcedon), the 13th (Aquinas), and the 16th (the Reformers) as if all they had to offer was error. Worse, he speaks as though all they had to do was read the bible historically - as he does - and they would have avoided their Platonist distortions. ...
"Wright also speaks disparagingly of contemporary theologians and, more generally, the guild of theology. ...
"Wright also portrays the temple as a microcosm of creation, and creation as a macrocosm of the temple. ...
"Wright describes Jesus' journey to Jerusalem as the long-awaited return of YHWH to Zion. ...
"Wright eventually gets around to some comments on what a Jesus-informed natural theology might look like. ...
"Wright also brilliantly connects his method of reading scripture to the official topic of the lectures. Natural theology, he believes, was always wrong to diagnose a 'problem of evil' and then pretend it cannot be solved. ...
"Wright's work might be the best of any biblical scholar drawing breath when it comes to the power of his writing and the missionary urgency of his account of scripture. ...
"Wright perpetuates one of modernity's biggest myths: that a text can have only one meaning, the one put there by the human author (and then covered over by layers of historic error until finally recovered by the diligent scholar). ... And his rhetoric can make it seem as if having the correct reading of scripture is what saves us - a common Protestant mistake. ...
"Wright's aim in the end is to shift natural theology from the first person of the Trinity to the second, and he speaks of what he calls a 'kind of "Holy Saturday" version of natural theology.'"
Wright or wrong, N.T. continues to stir things up for many who might not otherwise be bothered. Christian Century, Feb 26 '20, <www.bit.ly/3cMmPUz>
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather, by Peter J. Thuesen (Oxford Univ Prs, 2020, hardcover, 312 pages) <www.bit.ly/39Io7Oj>
2 - History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology, by N. T. Wright (Baylor Univ Prs, 2019, hardcover, 365 pages) <www.bit.ly/39HexLK>
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