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shoddy scholarship

Shoddy Scholarship or Dishonest Scholarship

By Ardel Caneday

Perhaps it is my age, perhaps not, but I seem vexed daily, not that I am unpleasant, unhappy, miserable, of churlish. No. Actually, I am quite happy, pleasant, and cheerful. My vexation is not prompted by ailments, body pains, or anything within me. Rather, my vexation comes because I encounter others, I read others, and I engage the ideas of others, however loopy, weird, bizarre, wrongheaded, poorly researched, or even dishonest those ideas are. It is particularly vexing when I encounter scholarship, so called, that is either quite shoddy or simply dishonest.

Yesterday I received a copy of Christian Smith’s The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. That was vexatious. Then today I stumbled onto Scot McKnight’s blog where he briefly summarizes Smith’s chapters. Here is his summary for chapter 3. McKnight accurately summarizes Smith’s chapter. Lamentably, McKnight also seems to accept Smith’s assertions as accurate and truthful without any question, investigation, or dispute.

I will leave the issues concerning Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield without comment, except to say one thing. It seems to elude Christian Smith that every bit of his sociologizing of what he calls “Biblicists” and “biblicism” could be turned back upon him. For example, Smith points to what he calls “homophily,” “love for and attraction to what is similar to oneself,” as having enormous power to construct “effective ‘plausibility structures’ to sustain the ‘reality’ and believability of their particular assumptions and convictions. . . . We also know sociologically that people’s personal perceptions, concerns, and evaluations are strongly shaped by the social networks in which their lives are embedded. The more homogenous a person’s social network is, the more likely he or she is to take the characteristics and assumed viewpoints of the people in that social network for granted, and they increasingly lose touch with the distinctive, visceral realities of the lifestyles and beliefs of people in other, different social networks” (p. 61).

Oddly, it seems not to dawn upon Smith that what he asserts, by way of an argument against Biblicists, applies to himself. Concerning Hodge and Warfield, does Smith do any original research for himself to investigate whether the claims he makes by citing others are actually accurate and truthful? No. What does he do to give his assertions concerning Hodge and Warfield seeming credibility? He simply appeals to the usual suspects—George Marsden, Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, et al. Does he offer any reference to anyone who challenges the “orthodox” interpretation of the old Princetonians? No, none at all. In fact, he shows no awareness that the debunking of Old Princetonians as “Scottish commonsense realists” has been seriously challenged and disputed by many careful scholars. For example, see Paul K. Helseth, “Right Reason” and the Princeton Mind: An Unorthodox Proposal. In other words, Smith is as ghettoized as he claims Biblicists are. He exhibits the same kind of “homophily” by appealing to other usual suspects—Craig Allert, Peter Enns, Kenton Sparks, et al.—without indicating the slightest question as to the veracity of the claims they make and assert as true. Smith takes the assumed viewpoints in his preferred social network for granted and thus falls prey to his own critique of Biblicists.

Elsewhere he states, “G. K. Beale’s attempted refutation of Peter Enns’s Old Testament scholarship in his The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism: Responding to New Challenges to Biblical Authority actually suggests that the Bible does not need to be interpreted, that—in contrast to a ‘subjective’ view, in which the scriptural interpreter makes ‘precarious’ judgments about truths scripture teaches—the truths of the Bible are objectively evident” (pp. 57-58).

Upon my reading of this, Smith’s assertion seems wide of the mark and simply wrong. Since I have Beale’s book, I decided to check out what Beale actually does say.

Beale is making the case that those who have chosen to describe their view of Scripture as infallibility over inerrancy do so because infallibility implies or conveys the idea that Scripture is not capable of misleading in matters of theological doctrine whereas those who uphold Scripture’s inerrancy affirm that whatever the Bible addresses is without error.

So, Beale states, “Those who held to infallibility did so, since it allowed them to maintain Scripture’s authority without holding to inerrancy. Those holding only to infallibility today do so for the same reason. The mere infallibility view inevitably means that the interpreter is the one who decides which parts of the Bible are mistaken and which are correct, which are not theological and which are. This is a precarious position, since ultimately each interpreter or interpretive community decides what constitutes infallible Scripture. Packer repeatedly noted the problem of the infallibility view back in the 1950s. He said it was a subjectivist view; that is, the extent of the truth of the Bible is dependent on the interpreter” (p. 220).

Read again Smith’s claims concerning what Beale states. Take note of the words he flags with quotation marks as though he is citing Beale exactly—“subjective” replaces “subjectivist” and “‘precarious’ judgments” replaces “precarious position.” These are not inconsequential errors committed by Smith.

Smith is simply wrong at multiple levels in his brief engagement with Beale. Does Smith really think that his readers will accept his word for it that Beale is so naïve that he believes that “the Bible does not need to be interpreted”? Really? Can readers be that gullible? Of course, Beale readily acknowledges that the Bible entails interpretation. His vocational calling as Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology daily engages him in the interpretation of Scripture. By altering “subjectivist,” a term that has a specific reference to a philosophical theory or doctrine, with “subjective,” Christian Smith fundamentally changes the subject from what Greg Beale actually addresses to what he wants to address for the cause of his own argument in his book. Furthermore, Smith wrongly imputes to Beale the notion that he claims that “the truths of the Bible are objectively evident.” Beale makes no such claim in the portion that Smith cites. In fact, the only time the word “objective” occurs in Beale’s discussion, on the page Smith cites, is when he states, “The objective of this book has been to address these objections and demonstrate that they are antithetical to the authority and inspiration of Scripture” (p. 220).

After improperly imputing to Beale beliefs he does not affirm, then Smith insults Beale by claiming, “Such views [as Beale’s] are intelligible only within the larger presupposed framework of Scottish commonsense realism, the Baconian theory of science, and the picture theory of language.” It is vexing that a reputed scholar engages in what amounts to either (1) shoddy scholarship, or (2) dishonest scholarship. Neither one is at all commendable. Unfortunately, this is what characterizes Smith’s new book.



Ardel Caneday (Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Professor of New Testament Studies and Biblical Studies at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has served churches in various pastoral roles, including senior pastor. He has authored numerous journal articles, many essays in books, and has co-authored with Thomas Schreiner the book The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance (Inter-Varsity, 2001).

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