I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship

/ Introduction /

Testimony Still Matters

John Byron and Joel N. Lohr

It had been on our minds for a long time. Like many students, our professors made quite an impression on us. Indeed, we recognized not only how our lives had been enriched as a result of our time with them — in their writings, in the classroom, at seminars, tutorials, conferences, and so on — but it’s probably safe to say that we became scholars ourselves because of them. When we became graduate students the relationships grew deeper and stronger, and their influence only intensified.

The more people we talked to, whether in church or the academy, the more we heard the same story, almost like a broken record: I became a scholar (or teacher, or pastor) because of my professor, Professor x. This, coupled with a love for autobiography (Joel having just read Stanley Hauerwas’ Hannah’s Child and John, A Place at the Table, the biography of G.E. Ladd), got us talking late one evening about a need to put together a book like this — a book of Bible professors’ autobiographies. We loved and admired our professors and wanted to learn more about them. We also knew that some of them were getting on in years and we didn’t want their stories to be lost. We wanted to hear their life stories — why they entered the field, why they do what they do, what makes them tick. We wanted to learn about their struggles, their pains, their sorrows, but also their joys, reasons for hope, and what brought them fulfillment in life. We knew there were stories to be told — we had already caught glimpses of them in the classroom — but we also suspected many of them would judge the idea of writing a complete autobiography too pompous, or self-indulgent, or even arrogant. Maybe a chapter would be more realistic. But then we wondered: Even if we could figure out a way to get a life story into a chapter, would we be able to round up a good roster of contributors? Could we pull it off? And would it end up being an odd, disparate collection of essays or could we find a way to unify them by way of a theme? What theme?

It turned out that the more we thought about the project the more things came together. The more we talked to people about it, people from all walks of life, the more these people — and we — got excited. Everyone thought it was a good idea. In fact, as a side note, we find it interesting that this project stands as the only one either of us have worked on in which virtually every invited contributor not only agreed to participate but everyone actually submitted their essays. No one had to withdraw. Ultimately, we got our dream team. And everyone (well, almost everyone!) submitted things on time. In truth, many contributors submitted their essays early. Remarkable. A book envisioned to contain fifteen essays ended up with eighteen as a result. What a wonderful problem to have. This speaks, we think, to the authors’ interest in the project but also something bigger. It speaks to its worth. And we think the authors’ enthusiasm for the project shows in the quality of the essays, as you will see. But, to return, there was still the question of theme in planning the book. How might we focus it? Was that necessary?

The more we talked about possible themes the more that of faith and scholarship came to the fore. In particular, we found ourselves talking again and again about how our own work as scholars of biblical literature affected our lives as people of faith. Conversely, we couldn’t help but be reminded that our lives in the church and as people of faith did affect our scholarship, at least in terms of the areas we decided to research, our emphases, and what we took away from it. Further, given that we regularly encountered stories in popular books and other media of prominent Bible scholars who left the faith as a result of their scholarship, and personally knew others who journeyed similar paths, away from faith, was there more to this story? Was there more to tell? Might some of the trusted, senior biblical scholars we knew, or knew of, have something to say or share on this front, through their life stories?

The result is the book you have in your hands, a collection of life stories by a diverse group of prominent — indeed some of the world’s most influential and popular — Bible scholars. All of them explore how faith and biblical scholarship intersect, each in their own way. All of them engage with the ever-important question of how serious study of the Bible affects, whether to threaten or enhance (or both), one’s faith. For some of our contributors there were few or even no real crises of faith. For others the journey into scholarship entailed a struggle — indeed a wrestling with God, with God’s Word, and at times, yes, with God’s people. This book provides a spectrum of genuine, real-life stories, and now that the project is coming to its completion, and we are writing these pages, we confess that we are a little overwhelmed by the fruit this harvest has yielded. We are humbled to be involved, and we feel privileged to be the editors.

We should say, before we begin, that although we provided a rough theme we did not attempt to control the essays to make them uniform in any kind of prescriptive way. The idea was not to produce a homogeneous picture or send a unified message so much as provide a forum for scholars to tell their stories. While most of the essays do, whether intentionally or not, provide subtle apology for the academic study of the Bible, it was our hope that more than anything the contributors present real stories, with all the complexities and struggles they may hold. And they do. We did not try to silence those areas in which readers might become uncomfortable or disagree with the conclusions of our contributors. Great is the mystery of faith and we believe there is room for a diversity of opinions on the topics explored in these pages. In some ways, we might say that this book is not far from others in a Zondervan series called the Counterpoints Collection, a series in which Four Views (or Five Views, Three Views, etc.) are presented on given topics, all from Christians who are committed to their life of faith and to the church. So, in some of the pages of this book you will read about a person’s wrestling with issues of gender and sexuality in the church, and in others you will read about inerrancy and inspiration (as one contributor writes: Something is wrong when our common agreement that the Bible is . . . ‘without error’ produces agreement on virtually nothing else). Some describe what it was like to be a woman in scholarship when few others were, when feminist readings did not exist or were still in their infancy (. . . it was, perhaps not ironically, the Bible that came to my aid). Another contributor discusses his journey away from Historical Jesus studies, ultimately finding the enterprise unsatisfying as a scholar (historians simply cannot get from the evidence itself to the depth of confession in the Gospels). Some find themselves increasingly interested in religious dialogue, or engaging with voices outside the church (Despite differences, the Bible and Buddhism can talk with each other), while others mention no such interest and focus elsewhere.

One area in which it seems our contributors are almost completely unanimous was in their indebtedness to their own professors, teachers in whose footsteps they followed. With only one possible exception (I have had no revered teachers in whose footsteps I piously follow), it seems that all of our contributors are not only indebted to their professors but that their lives were changed as a result of their encounters with them. Some of those teachers and professors deserve special mention here. There is the influence of popular writers like Francis Schaeffer. And, of course, there is the late great Brevard Childs, someone whose influence was especially acute through writings and scholarship. Clearly Childs’s influence goes beyond his seminal textbook on the Old Testament. In many ways Childs completely re-shaped how responsible, faithful scholarship on the Bible can be done, and a number of contributors express deep indebtedness to his work. We might say that Childs’s legacy is proof positive that publications matter. On the other hand, a number of contributors independently testify to how significantly they were influenced by in-person, classroom teaching of professors, and for a good number of contributors this was especially true at Union Theological Seminary. James Muilenburg in particular, who taught there, is mentioned more than once by separate contributors. As one contributor puts it: We students would wait for that unpredictable moment when the Spirit entered this amazing teacher; when he incarnated the scripture he taught; when deep called to deep; when faith wrestled with faith. These testimonies teach us that though writing is important and publications matter, it’s also clear that these are not the only thing that create legacy.

In reading the essays of this book, the reader will come to see that it’s not uncommon for scholars to have a faith commitment prior to their taking up a career as a scholar, and that this faith was often the impetus for seeking further education and beginning scholarly research. This faith may then have been shaped, challenged, nurtured — at times changed — in relation to one’s scholarship and teaching, and oftentimes questions of faith propelled scholars to study further. Questions about the Bible and faith at times manifest themselves in the work scholars produce; or, the circumstances in one’s life can affect the choices a scholar makes regarding topics or passages to research. One author, for example, shares how an unexpected, difficult life circumstance — contemplating the loss of and then losing a dearly loved one — led that scholar to contemplate seriously the passages of Jesus in Gethsemane and Abraham at Moriah. His conclusion? My night as wrestling Jacob finally persuaded me that most kinds of theodicy, attempts to rationalize and/or justify the ways of God, are futile; the bottom line is that either you trust, or you don’t. The latter story in particular, sometimes called the Akedah, became the focus of this scholar’s life work, at least a good portion of it. Another shares how life in a segregated, southern church as a child challenged and deeply affected her way of reading scripture, ultimately making a lasting impression that would entail never again reading scriptural texts in ways that exclude others. As she states, I have ever since been deeply distressed by attempts to draw circles that exclude, whatever feeble grounds are offered, especially when such circles are presented as ‘Christian’.

Before turning to the essays, it may be helpful to know the questions we provided for our contributors to frame their essays, when we invited them to participate. Not all of the questions are answered by everyone, and we purposely made clear to the contributors that they need not answer them all. In short, we tried to provide freedom for the authors to shape their essays even while they addressed a theme. The result is a diversity in presentation. And, when the questions are answered, you’ll see that each author tackles them in unique, often subtle, and at times creative ways. In fact, one author even decided to frame his essay as an imagined interview, asking questions of himself that might better stimulate answers that get at the heart of his life’s journey.

The questions we posed to the contributors were:

• What is the story behind your becoming a Bible scholar? Were there particular questions that propelled you into the field?

• Have there been ways in which you felt your faith to be in jeopardy as a result of your study? Can you give a specific example, or examples? What was the result of the experience?

• How has your research (e.g. topics you’ve pursued, specific area of expertise) shaped and enriched the person you have become, both as a scholar and a person of faith?

• How has your life in the church affected your research and teaching, and vice-versa?

• How might you address the question of losing faith through serious study of the Bible?

• Are there specific parts of your story that you would like to share with the reader, whether difficult moments or periods in life, or times of joy that have pulled you through?

• What practical words of advice can you offer those at the beginning of their careers?

More than anything this book affirms that testimony — or witness (μαρτυρέω, martureó) — is an integral part of the Christian tradition. Testimony still matters. The unique testimonies you are about to read, each in their own way, give us a mosaic of faith — beautiful, at times subtle, often sophisticated, wonder-filled statements of faith. We, like the contributors of this book, say with them: I (Still) Believe. The essays you are about to read have strengthened our walks and blessed us on our way. We hope they strengthen and bless you too. More than anything, we hope this collection brings glory and honor to . . .

the One who lives and reigns with God the Father,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

now and forever —

the author and perfecter of our faith.

/ 1 /

A Life with the Bible

Richard Bauckham

I suppose I was a bit precocious as a biblical scholar. I think it was at the age of thirteen that, when the class was asked to write an essay on a book we had read in the school holidays, I wrote about the volume on Ezra and Nehemiah in the International Critical Commentary series. In those days the debate was about whether Ezra came to Jerusalem before or after Nehemiah, and I remember I came up with a theory all my own about that. Actually, my interest arose out of a fascination with ancient history. Reading about the Persian empire, I think I already had a historian’s instinct to want to grapple with the primary sources, and the Old Testament offered some easily accessible texts of the period that I could study for myself (in the King James version!). At the same time I read Herodotus on the Persian wars and tried to put the book of Esther together with Herodotus’s account of Xerxes. This probably sounds like a weird point of entry to biblical studies, but I’m owning up to it here because it says something about my interest in biblical studies right down to the present: I have an insatiable interest in history as such, quite apart from its relevance for faith. I hugely enjoy detailed study of the sources and puzzling over problematic details of the evidence or the events. Readers, especially those who know that I am also a theologian, sometimes attribute apologetic concerns to work of mine that has actually been driven by the motives of a historian. Apart from anything else, I just want to understand what happened in the past! I doubt if good historical work on the Bible can be done without some degree of purely historical curiosity.

I guess that could be the beginning of the story of a biblical scholar of that rather rare variety: someone whose interest in the Bible has never had anything to do with personal religious faith. But in fact I was at the same time acquiring a serious Christian’s interest in the Bible, which did make me think about issues of historical reliability in relation to the inspiration of Scripture. At that time, as a young teenager, I opted (with no encouragement at all from the relatively liberal clergy I knew then) for something like scriptural inerrancy because it seemed to me to make theological sense. I think even then this was tempered by understanding that Scripture contains a wide variety of literary genres. For example, I don’t think I ever thought the early chapters of Genesis should be read literally in the creationist sense. But I did develop a strong commitment to reading Scripture as the word of God, which I have never lost, though I no longer find it necessary to say that, to be the word of God in human words, it needs to be inerrant. (I would now say that the Bible is trustworthy for the purposes for which God has given it.) I think it may be because I was grappling with serious biblical scholarship at the same time as my Christian beliefs were taking shape in my teenage years that I never had any sort of crisis of faith over issues to do with the nature of Scripture. From as soon as I was seriously interested in the Bible, I knew about critical scholarship and I knew that everything was debated. I was prepared to take a critical attitude to all brands of scholarship.

I was one of a few students at my school who opted to do Religious Education (as it was then called) as a subject for public examinations. The syllabus we followed was almost entirely in biblical studies. As usual with school work that really interested me, I read more widely than the course really required, though strictly limited by the resources of local libraries. I remember reading B. H. Streeter’s The Four Gospels, a classic of Gospels source criticism. If I remember correctly, that was before I had any Greek, which must have made it hard going. However, I did learn some classical Greek. Greek was not taught at the school, though I was fortunate to be able to take Latin to a high level (something now rare in state schools in England). But one of the Latin teachers kindly tutored me in Greek sufficiently for me to do well in an examination in the subject. Since I never had the opportunity to learn New Testament Greek at university, I have often seen this, with hindsight, as providential. The same Latin master gave me my first copy of the Greek New Testament, an old Westcott and Hort. (As far as I know he was not a Christian, and maybe he thought he didn’t need it anymore.)

It will be clear that I was unusually bookish and intellectual in my youth. I think I knew from the age of about seven that I was going to write books, though I had no idea what sort of books they would turn out to be. At that time I was writing little stories and plays. At secondary school for several years I edited and myself wrote a good deal of a weekly magazine composed entirely of humorous writing. Somewhere at the back of my mind there has always been the sense that my ideal form of life would be that of a full-time writer, though I doubted this would ever be practicable and it is delightful to be actually living such a life now that I’ve retired from university employment. It’s as though this is the part of my working life for which the rest has been preparing me. The fact that I have always thought of myself as a writer (later: a scholar-writer) partly explains why it has been a very high priority for me to keep researching and writing even at times when my other duties in university employment have been sufficient for a full-time job and most other academics in that situation would not have got much writing done. People sometimes ask how I have managed to publish so much. One answer is: I’m a writer; it’s who I am. Another is: It’s my vocation from God.

I grew up in the Church of England. In other words, my parents sent me to Sunday school, which in England in those days meant Christian education for children on Sunday afternoons. (It was before most families had cars and wanted to do other things as families on Sunday afternoons.) In those days people did not take young children to church services, and I only started attending services after I was confirmed at the age of twelve and could receive communion. Then church became an indispensable part of my life. As I came, in my late teens, to identify strongly as an evangelical Christian, I tended a little to disparage my traditional, non-evangelical Anglican heritage, but I see now that it was formative and crucially important. But a process of thinking through my faith, largely on my own and over a period, led me to an evangelical emphasis on Scripture and the gospel of salvation through faith in Christ crucified.

Equally important, however, in my personal appropriation of Christian faith in my teenage years was the need to make sense of life and to find a meaning to life that was there in reality, not just invented for myself. I think I took it for granted that Christianity was about the whole of life, because what I wanted was a holistic, integrated view of reality. So, in those formative years (as a school student and then an undergraduate) I read books about Christianity and science, Christianity and literature, Christianity and philosophy. I couldn’t have remained a Christian without being sure that Christianity made intellectual sense in such fields.

Although I didn’t think of it in these terms, I was training myself to be a Christian intellectual, bringing Christian faith to bear in the world of ideas and public practice. And I seemed to be more aware than most English Christians of my generation that we were moving into a much more secular world in which it would not do to be merely traditionalist. Christian witness needed to engage with the realities of the contemporary world. I am making this point in the present context because this desire for distinctively Christian engagement with the contemporary world has stayed with me and become a major part of my thinking and writing about the Bible. Alongside the strongly historical interest I have already stressed there has also been a persistent concern for the contemporary relevance of Scripture.

From what I have said it might seem obvious that, when I applied to study at the University of Cambridge, it should have been to study theology. If anyone had told me it made any sense to gain a degree in theology without any thought of entering the ministry, I might well have done so. As it was I studied history. Given that I was likely in any case to keep up my interest in biblical studies, as well as a growing interest in Christian theology, studying history as my degree subject actually meant I got a much broader education at university level than if I had done theology. I also acquired a very good training in historical method, studying with such giants as Geoffrey Elton, then the most eminent of Tudor historians, and A. H. M. Jones, whose work on the later Roman Empire was magisterial. I took Jones’s special subject on the reign of Justinian, which was entirely focused on the primary sources. Jones (at least at that stage of his life, two years before he died) was a supremely dull teacher and so one had to be self-motivated, but of course I was. I was also drawn to the history of ideas, taking courses on political thought from Plato to Rousseau and thought and religion in early modern England. I began to think of myself as a historian of ideas, including religious ideas, and undertook a doctoral thesis on the career and thought of William Fulke (1537 – 1589), a Cambridge theologian who, among other things, wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation. Hardly anyone had ever heard of him then and hardly anyone has now.

Tracing my path to being a New Testament scholar is difficult. At no stage did I really think I would become a New Testament scholar and nothing else, and, even when eventually I became more of a New Testament scholar than anything else, I still didn’t think I was only a New Testament scholar. I’m still trying to relate the New Testament to everything else that interests or concerns me — whether it be ancient history, Christian theology, the mission of the church or the big issues of our time such as climate change and poverty.

I will mention two people who, in the period when I was so amazingly lucky as to have a postdoctoral research fellowship in Cambridge, drew me in different, though not inconsistent directions. One was C. F. D. (Charlie) Moule, whom I knew initially because he was a fellow of Clare College, where I was a student. Charlie recognized and encouraged my serious interest in New Testament studies. When I was still working on my thesis on Fulke, he invited me to his Tuesday evenings, which were informal seminars for a specially invited, small group of students he thought would benefit from them. The others were all undergraduates in theology or postgraduates in biblical studies, and when I was attending they included Rowan Williams, then an undergraduate, as well as Andrew Chester and Jim Voelz, on their way to becoming New Testament scholars of note. When I became a research fellow, Charlie invited me to his senior seminar, which I attended for most of three years. That was where I saw New Testament scholarship, not just in books, but being done by senior scholars such as John Robinson, Barnabas Lindars and John O’Neill, as well as by PhD students, and I got to participate.

The second key person was Jürgen Moltmann, though I did not get to meet him until years later. Somehow I found myself thinking a lot about the book of Revelation and biblical eschatology generally at a time when systematic theology in Germany was rediscovering eschatology as actually concerned with the future of the world. Reading both Pannenberg and Moltmann showed me how biblical eschatology was not a curiosity belonging to an ancient world picture, incredible in the contemporary world, but a decisive element of a worldview that could make very good sense of the contemporary world. Reading Moltmann’s Theology of Hope for the first time (when it had not long been available in English) was one of the most exciting theological experiences of my life. This was creative theology for today that took the Bible, Old and New Testaments, just as seriously as the Reformers had done in their very different time. Theology of Hope and the two major books of Moltmann’s that followed it (The Crucified God and The Church in the Power of the Spirit) opened up for me hermeneutical structures for relating the central themes of biblical revelation to the contemporary world. In that sense they helped me to go on seeing the Bible as credible and relevant — something biblical scholarship alone could never have done. Committed as I am to doing the best possible historical work on the biblical texts, I also know that to go on hearing the Bible as the Word of God we must also do creative theology rooted in the Bible, theology that is not just a painstaking arrangement of proof-texts but draws on all the rich resources of understanding and experience that are available in our context and that engages the concerns and the challenges of our context.

The Bible, in other words, is normative but not sufficient for theology, something that some biblical scholars who aspire to do theology find it hard to recognize, just as some scholars in both biblical studies and systematic theology think the Bible is best kept out of theology. Of course, not everyone can do everything, but it is therefore lamentable that so often the collaborative potential of the various theological disciplines is sabotaged by specialization and professional self-protection. In teaching undergraduates — both in my years at Manchester when I was teaching historical and contemporary theology and in my years at St. Andrews when I was teaching New Testament — I usually found students keen to make the connexions between the various subjects they were