To me, the two primary purposes of scripture are to learn new things and to find strength to live our lives.
Sometimes I think taking secular history into account can help that. It’s useful, for example, to know about the first-century Roman Empire and Judaism when reading the New Testament, and learning about both can help make parts of the New Testament a lot clearer. However, if we focus too much on that, it can lead us to make suppositions that prevent us from learning something new. For example, the dating of many of the Gospels is based on the scholarly assumption that events described in them, such as Jesus’s predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and of Christian persecution, had already happened when they were written. This is a useful thing to be aware of, but if you’re trying to learn about how God’s shared foreknowledge should influence your life, it can be a drawback if you start with the assumption that there is no such thing as prophecy.

I recently finished Isaiah, and what you can get out of the text is completely different depending on whether you believe it was composed in the 700s BCE, or whether it was written after the Jews’ return under Cyrus (composed, not compiled—that raises a whole extra dimension of complexity). A strictly historical view only supports the latter date. I feel a lot can be gained from that approach, but for Isaiah particularly even more can be lost, especially if you’re coming to the scriptures to learn something you don’t already think you know. But there’s a balance—if you don’t know at least a little about the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, it can be hard to understand anything to begin with, and learning more serves to enrich the text.

Beyond that, having studied history in college, I can say professional history changes a lot more frequently than most casual readers are aware; it’s not uncommon for a new generation of scholars to disagree with half the conclusions the preceding generations have made. Revisionism is the rule and goal, not the exception. A recent example is how the discovery of L’Anse aux Meadows in 1960 by the Ingstads completely changed what historians believed about Viking settlements North America; before that the consensus was that Vikings had come to the New England area, much further to the south.

Across the world, before the discovery of oracle bones in China most Western historians doubted that the Shang dynasty was a historical reality; because of them, today it’s accepted by everyone.

One of the pitfalls of modern science can be assuming we have reached the pinnacle of discovery of the world around us. I think you’re right that the historical Jesus and the historical Scriptures should just be one piece of our constructed religious worldview, alongside many other important components both learned and experienced.

I also have a higher view of our lay membership than some of the commenters. I don’t think I would ever refer to them as “babes” in anything, even if their experiences differ greatly from my own.

P, thanks for the clarification. I’m actually rather attached to historicity, to the idea that wondrous events happened in the real world, even as I recognize that turning events into texts, or reconstructing events from those texts, are complex and sometimes highly imprecise processes. Historicity is not really an issue I’m arguing about yet, except to note the gap between what happened and what can be reconstructed.

Blair, don’t give up so soon. From your response, it seems we agree on some things. Online exchanges almost never result in compromise, but they sometimes help people distill the essential points of their positions in useful ways.

Joel and PP (and others), thanks for your comments. No, I don’t think PP and I have argued before, but I appreciate his pushing back against me. For a serious post that is the product of a lot of thought, I hope to get some serious, full-contact argument. The Internet being the Internet, I’m unlikely to give much ground, but it will certainly help me refine what I think and write the next time I come back to the topic.

Joel – I appreciate your points. Faith will always be essential. A passage in the New Testament that I love is the one of the unclean woman who touches Christ’s clothing to be healed. She had to have faith to do that, but she also had to put forth effort to draw near to Him, to be in His vicinity. Likewise, I think we receive spiritual guidance when we make an effort to be in the vicinity of Christ. For me, the works of writers/historians like Wright have helped with that. Obviously it’s not the only way; people should find what works for them.

“Your concern about the harm to the general church membership’s likelihood of engaging with biblical scholarship is surely misplaced.”

I’m not sure what you understand my concern to be. My comment was long, so maybe you were responding in piecemeal fashion, not taking into account the part where I said “How many Mormons really read these blogs? Not many.” I was trying to acknowledge the fact that your audience wasn’t general church membership. I also expressed agreement with you (so I thought) by saying “you’re likely speaking more to your academic types who seem to pledge allegiance primarily to academic perspectives on religious issues, when at heart, some of the biggest points of belief can’t be pinned down through research.” I concluded by suggesting we might focus our attention on modeling fruitful ways of faithfully engaging academic scholarship.

“But the biggest problem with your comment, I think, is your assumption that all paths to Jesus are alike in being obstructed; what I’m saying is that there is no path towards any recognizable version of Jesus through history as an academic discipline.”

I don’t want to be misunderstood on this crucial point. It all depends on how you’re interpreting the idea that all paths are “alike” in being obstructed. I’m not suggesting all roads are equally untrustworthy or equally trustworthy. I think each path is “alike” in that each is filtered through preconceptions, grounding assumptions, human cognition, imperfect records, memory, etc.. I’m just trying to reckon along with Paul that we see through a glass darkly. A sort of perspectivism without extreme relativism. Epistemic humility. I’m not “Equating the church and history as merely two imperfect paths to Christ,” as you describe it. I even like your pithy line that “History won’t save you; it isn’t even interested in saving you. The church is willing to try.” The difficulty here is that the church, too, exists in history and carries on through history. I am basically expressing the same thing you did in the post when you said “…our understanding of Jesus is informed by the texts we read and the institutions in which we participate.”

“You and PP are quite agitated about N. T. Wright, but I’ve never doubted in the least that there are believing historians, or that people of faith can be exemplary historians, and I’m still not sure what their existence is supposed to show.”

The references to Wright are responses to your objection to the “foundational postulates of how the historical Jesus is constructed,” including “the basic assumptions that that Jesus was not divine, and that he did not rise from the dead.” You aren’t alone in rejecting those things. Is it possible you simply spoke a bit too broadly here? (BTW I’m not feeling “quite agitated” despite sensing a bit of tension in the comments.)

“But without that prior commitment, no historical analysis is going to conclude that Jesus was divine. It’s not the personnel that I’m concerned with; it’s the process.”

It seems like you’re trying to rebut my remarks here, but I don’t recognize my position in your rebuttal. N.T. Wright and his sort of methodology was peripheral in my own response. You may be conflating me with other people in the discussion.

Anyway, I get the sense this isn’t really a “common ground seeking” exercise, so having said my peace (piece?) I’m gonna cut and run.

PP: Thank you for your conciliatory tone with me. The absence of that tone with Jonathan leads me to believe you two have crossed swords before.

The great stumbling block for all of us mental patients, i.e., they who have “need of the physician” whose problem with the cure is mental, is that the cure actually requires—at least at first, or at least once—blind submission to an invisible, supreme authority. All must ask and act in faith, a notion diametrically opposed to empirical method; indeed empirical method itself assumes that anyone acting on faith has predetermined the outcome, and is deluded. They are at their roots incompatible logical and methodological theses.

So, Jonathan’s points are well-taken by me. Your point that seems to say there is more than one path to Christ is also well-taken. I am fortunate that Mormon doctrine allows for the path to Christ to continue into the next life for the well-lived, because I am forced to agree with the assertion of many of my Christian neighbors’ pastors that we do not currently believe in the same Christ—at least in the particulars. My espoused doctrine allows for their salvation, their does not allow for mine. I have felt the power of their witnesses of Christ in their lives. I believe them. I believe they have felt the power of mine while using only the bible to witness of His power in my own life.

Either way, theirs or mine, still requires that anyone who answers to the question of Christ, “Whom do ye say that I am?” without pretense, by saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” can only do so by having it revealed to them after an act of faith. The witness of a believer who is also a mental patient, even at 3700 pages, may be just the trick to get another mental patient to shut up, yield, put his brain on the shelf, and listen long enough to hear the voice that speaks to the heart or spirit.

I take Jonathan’s comments in this favorable light. Too many hope to have their answers in the history and I aver that is not possible, and further aver that Christ has said it is not possible, and that it more often than not erodes faith rather than bolsters it. Indeed, it is far more often used as a weapon by the empiricist to hack away at faith.

(hint: see the author bios)

Jonathan, there is simply no information about you to be found on the T&S blog. If I click on authors and then click on your name, it leads me only to your posts, not your bio. Was there an author bios section in the past sometime? If so, it doesn’t appear to be there anymore. Perhaps this is something that needs to be corrected. If there is info about you on this website, then it must be hard to find and needs to be made easier.

Apologies, Jonathan, if I’m misreading/mis-representing. My suspicions are obviously contemptible and I am busy repenting. It is certainly possible I’m having a Mormon Paranoid Breakdown because I’m also wondering, actually wondering, if you and others (#2) are the “so-called intellectuals” Elder Packer warned us about.

I agree with you that the Spirit ultimately provides a testimony of Christ’s divinity, but the ways of the Spirit and of the Lord can be quite mysterious. There is a very prominent LDS apologist/historian who, after renouncing the LDS faith and turning to atheism, became a believing Christian again in part through reading academic works like those I’ve referenced above. I also know that some academic works have provided me with spiritual experiences, confirming the divinity of Jesus Christ, every bit as powerful as anything I’ve experienced elsewhere. Intelligence is the glory of God; His fingerprints are often found in works of first-rate scholarship, and whether scholars recognize it or not, His Spirit often provides the sparks of insight that lead to discovery and “academic” advance.

This is not to say that indiscriminate academic reading will lead you to Christ; I personally try to be very selective in whose academic works I read (about Christ), consciously choosing scholars whose works will affirm my faith rather than undermine it. I’ve offered up the name of one scholar (NT Wright) in my prior comments as someone who I think LDS folks would really like (a bit like C.S. Lewis), so they don’t have to wade through works by faith-destroying scholars to learn about the historical context of Christ’s ministry and the rise of the Christian faith.

“Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my father which is in heaven.”

If walking with the contemporary Jesus (by itself) could not “reveal” the Jesus we worship to Peter, how could studying the scant historical record or parsing the words descended from those who walked with him? Or reading multiple tomes from even believing historians?

Thanks for the great perspective on the uses and ultimate limits on historical inquiry to reveal Jesus.

Blair, my audience is the self-selecting group of people who choose to reads blogs like this. To judge by the posts and comments that can be read on those blogs, the attitudes I’m arguing against are not uncommon. Your concern about the harm to the general church membership’s likelihood of engaging with biblical scholarship is surely misplaced. But the biggest problem with your comment, I think, is your assumption that all paths to Jesus are alike in being obstructed; what I’m saying is that there is no path towards any recognizable version of Jesus through history as an academic discipline. Equating the church and history as merely two imperfect paths to Christ confounds the entirely different categories in which each resides. History won’t save you; it isn’t even interested in saving you. The church is willing to try. You and PP are quite agitated about N. T. Wright, but I’ve never doubted in the least that there are believing historians, or that people of faith can be exemplary historians, and I’m still not sure what their existence is supposed to show. People with prior commitments to Christian belief will often find correspondences between their beliefs and academic research; I have experiences like that myself. But without that prior commitment, no historical analysis is going to conclude that Jesus was divine. It’s not the personnel that I’m concerned with; it’s the process.

PP: For an acronym, you’re rather demanding that I lay out my qualifications. It’s actually quite rude to toss out my personal information in your comment, as if figuring out who I am (hint: see the author bios) proves something. So instead of hammering on who I am, put yourself on the line: write what you believe, sign your name to it, and see who salutes. Also, stop pointing at N. T. Wright’s 3700 pages of writing, and start summarizing it for us. What are his key points that you think disarm my argument? How can one simply do history and find Jesus? I think it’s impossible – so prove me wrong.

I only inquired about your undergraduate-ness (and I apologize for the mistake) to get a sense of how familiar you were with an academic discipline. I pretend to no expertise in the field of biblical studies. I’ve spent enough time in my own discipline, however, and some of the methods and problems that it shares with biblical studies, to start sensing where the limits of historical or textual inquiry are. I quite agree with N. T. Wright’s position, as you describe it, that the best explanation for the NT was that Jesus is who he said he is: but I’m not arriving at that conclusion through simple historical inquiry.

Lots of scientists believe in Christ and his resurrection. They aren’t all atheists. According to a Pew poll of scientists who belonged to one association, ? were theists. As that link notes right around 30% – 40% of scientists usually subscribe to a belief in a personal God, whatever their ability to prove it publicly. (Interestingly belief in a personal God is more common among young scientists rather than old – a generational gap?)