gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz) (05/17/85)
I think that as far as contemporary academic biblical sholarship is concerned (ie academic in the sense that it is NOT necessarity done in the service of the church) the virgin birth narrative is seen within its contemporary milieu as a legend articulted more for the interest of significance than for disinterested historiography. If seen in the socio-cultural matrix of the 1st century such a story is neither unusual nor unbelievale. Children born fron the union of a God and a motral woman were not common but not unusual. Was this not one the legends surrounding the birth of Alexander the Great ? Such births were common in Homeric times. Even later, the great philosophers were said to be born in this way. I think the birth narrative reported in Luke and Matthew has a purpose more to set Jesus within this context of "greatness" than anything else. To see the gospel writers in the same light as modern disinterested historiographers is to assign them a role which could not be conceived in those times. One may sample the later apocyphral texts (2nd century) to see how this bith narrative found in Luke and Matthew has been elaborated and embellished. Why is it embellished ? Becuase they have more facts ? Has more data come to light ? I think rather the interest in embellishment has to do more with preaching and theology then with a acquisiton of more "factual" data. If Evangeliacl Protestants assign "legend" to the rather full blown and embellished apocyrphal birth narrative account and "truth" to the rather simple accounts in Luke and Matthew then they have put too much weight on the notion on canonicity. Canonicity is consensus and does not guarantee "truth" under the criteria of modern historiography. I see no reason why the Xian texts can NOT be seen to partake of the same literary devices, codes, rhetoric and genres of its contemporary non Xain literature. For these reasons and others I think biblical scholarship right in assigning non facticity to the birth narrative considering its appearence in the gospels more expected than strange. Those who think it stange and wornderful and incarnational are usually those who cannot recreate the historical context in which the texts were produced. And in this case they have every right to read this narrative with awe and wonderment. For the sake of preaching and ministry one ought seriously consider what criteria of truth is operative and normative. One may want to make the distinction - "truth" as adequation to the historical facts as they can be reconstructed by disinterested historiography or "truth" as adequation to human being as human being tries to make sense of the world. Clearly, if Xianity is seen as an idion for comstruing the world, or better, as an idion for re-making the world fit for meaning-full human habitation then the virgin birth narrative insofar as it participates in an essential way within the Xian story must be taken as a fact. It all depends on where YOU live and the particular way that YOU have re-made the world that decides if the "virgin birth" is Reality or is not Reality. Gary
hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) (05/22/85)
> ... the virgin birth narrative is seen within its > contemporary milieu as a legend articulted more for the interest of > significance than for disinterested historiography. > .... > .... I see no reason why > the Xian texts can NOT be seen to partake of the same literary devices, > codes, rhetoric and genres of its contemporary non Xain literature. > .... > It all depends on where YOU live and the particular way that YOU have > re-made the world that decides if the "virgin birth" is Reality or is not > Reality. > ... > Gary I would like to suggest a slightly more moderate position than yours. Perhaps you didn't mean it to come out this way (and my excerpting probably exaggerates this), but you sound like you are treating the NT sort of like a Rorshak ink blot. If this is carried too far, it provides justification for the literalist position: "Once you start doubting the truth of God's Word, how can you possibly draw a line? Either it is God's Word, or it is just so much mythology." I would like to propose that there is a middle ground, which says that Scripture is roughly what we would expect from an honest witness in a courtroom, namely a good faith attempt to tell the truth, but subject to limitations of human accuracy, and to differences in standards between the first and twentieth centuries. I agree that we need to read the NT texts with an understanding of the standards that the authors actually used. For example, it seems clear that there is no equivalent in the First Century of the modern quotation mark. When we see " ", we expect what is inside the quotes to be verbally accurate, as if recorded by a tape recorder. As I understand it, ancient authors were more concerned that their quotations were a fair representation of the views of the person quoted, even if they combined things that he said at different times, or were typical of the sort of things they the person said. In some sense it is probably misleading to put quotation marks into translations, since they are not there in the Greek, and the attitude that they represent isn't there either. I also agree that we need to have an understanding of the sorts of things that happen to texts as they are transmitted orally. A good example is the Resurrection account. In the empty tomb, we initially have a young man (Mk. 16:5), then two men in bright clothes (Lk. 24:4), and finally an angel (Mt. 28:3 ff.) Nevertheless, I think there has to be some control on this sort of critique. It is not true that the NT authors were totally oblivious to the factual side of truth. "And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins." (I Cor. 15:17) In Lk. 1:1-4, Luke shows an attitude which bears at least some resemblence to historiography: "because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught." Now he probably meant truth to include an existential element as well as a factual one. But it is hard to believe that the factual is totally absent. The mere fact that the Gospels are written as narrative rather than as collections of sayings seems to indicate that events had some significance. I am also willing to assume at least a certain degree of competence on the part of the Gospel writers. While a certain amount of legend has clearly crept in during retelling of the stories, I am willing to believe that the church did have a basic understanding of what Jesus was trying to say, and that we do have a substantially correct picture of his teaching and the sort of things he did. I do not believe that they simply made things up out of whole cloth. If the Virgin Birth is in fact a creation of Matthew (I regard the account in Luke as at most ambiguous), it seems likely that it came Is. 7:14 ("A virgin will become pregnant ...") While no current historian would use prophecy in this way, I am prepared to believe that Matthew might have done so. I would also like to point out that the history of Higher Criticism is not a very encouraging one. If you want to be in tune with what scholars are going to think 50 years from now, you are better to bet on the Biblical text than on the current scholarly theories. (For example, consider the vicissitudes suffered by the Gospel according to John.) One of my problems with academic Biblical scholarship is that I do not see much evidence of an interest in this problem. Perrin did come out with some criteria for trying to identify Jesus' original opinions, but I haven't seen much work like that. I would like to see some critical studies that look back over a few decades of NT scholarship and try to look at the problem of developing proper controls on speculation. (I trust you realize I use the word "control" in the scientific rather than political sense.) I'm not sure quite what to make of your mention of the New Testament apocrypha. You seem to be saying that because there are varying degrees of embroidery, it would be naive to think that the documents we have are free from it. Well, I guess I agree to some extent. On the other hand, the range of documents seems betray a differing attitude towards the task of writing the Gospel. And the church seems to have chosen documents written by people who did have a reasonable regard for fact (always understanding that the form in which it shows in them is not the same as it would show in a modern historian). The thing that upsets me most in your message is the following: > It all depends on where YOU live and the particular way that YOU have > re-made the world that decides if the "virgin birth" is Reality or is not > Reality. I still cling to the outmoded idea that Reality is independent of my attitudes. I hope you don't really mean what it sounds like you mean. (I realize it is dangerous to put too much weight on one sentence.) If I had to choose between this and Francis Shaeffer, I would take Shaeffer.