The Erosion of Biblical Certainty: Battles over Authority and Interpretation in America

245 Pages·2013·3.821 MB·English

by  Michael J. Lee (auth.)

The Erosion of Biblical Certainty
The Erosion of Biblical Certainty
Battles over Authority and
Interpretation in America
Michael J. Lee
the erosion of biblical certainty
Copyright © Michael Lee, 2013
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013
All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a
division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England,
company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has
companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-45288-0 ISBN 978-1-137-29966-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137299666
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Lee, Michael J. (Michael Jeehoon)
The erosion of Biblical certainty : battles over authority and interpretation in
America / Michael J. Lee.
pages cm
ISBN 978- 1- 137- 29965- 9 (alk. paper)
1. Bible— Evidences, authority, etc. 2. Bible—C riticism, interpretation, etc.—U nited
States—H istory. 3. United States—C hurch history. I. Title.
BS480.L4155 2013
220.1’3— dc23 2013018209
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: October 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Heidi
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
I The Eighteenth Century: The Battle against
Skepticism and Rationalizing the Bible
Prologue The European Background: Radical Critics 11
and Rational Defenders of the Bible
1 American Puritans, Rationalism, and Revelation: 25
Cotton Mather Naturalizes the Supernatural
2 Defending the Bible and Unintended Consequences: 53
Jonathan Edwards and Jonathan Dickinson Battle the
Deists
3 The Triumph of Rational Religion in America: Revealed 87
and Natural Religion at Eighteenth-C entury Harvard
II The Early Nineteenth Century: German Biblical
Critics and the Betrayal of History
4 Blindsided by Germany: Buckminster, Textual Criticism, 111
and the End of the Textus Receptus in America in the
Nineteenth Century
5 The Historical Bible: The Unitarians Grapple with the 141
Bible’s Past
Epilogue The Orthodox Reconcile with the Past 173
Conclusion 181
Notes 185
Index 239
Acknowledgments
I have incurred many debts in the writing of this book. I would like to thank
the history department of the University of Notre Dame for generously sup-
porting the research and writing of my book, which began as a dissertation. I
would also like to thank the graduate school of the University of Notre Dame
and the Friends of the Princeton University Library for providing grants,
which allowed me to conduct the archival research. The libraries of Prince-
ton, Yale, Harvard, Andover Newton Theological School, The American
Antiquarian Society, and the Massachusetts Historical Society allowed me to
use their archives for which I am grateful. I also want to thank Linda Smith
Rhodes, editor of The New England Quarterly, for permission to reprint por-
tions of my article and for her remarkable editorial skill. The anonymous
reviewer also made some extremely helpful suggestions. My dissertation
committee, James Turner, George Marsden, Brad Gregory, Mark Noll, and
Thomas Slaughter, made insightful and helpful comments. I would especially
like to thank my advisor James Turner. He has been encouraging, kind, and
patient. He is a model of an erudite scholar and a gracious mentor. My col-
leagues at Eastern University helped create an encouraging environment in
which I could write my book. I am grateful to Gary Jenkins, Beth Doriani,
and Kent Sparks for helping provide a course release. Finally, I must thank
my wife, Heidi Oberholtzer Lee. No words can fully express my gratitude for
her sacrifice, help, encouragement, and support.
Introduction
historians commonly agree that the understanding of the Bible as
a supernatural text conveying both spiritual and historical truths came
under devastating assaults from the natural sciences and German histori-
cal critics in the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century, among
many intellectuals, the image of the Bible as a supernaturally inspired and
infallible text eventually crumbled under the relentless assaults of secular-
izing forces—s o the story goes. The Erosion of Biblical Certainty corrects
this narrative. I argue that in America, the road to skepticism was ironi-
cally and unintentionally paved by the Scriptures’ defenders. From the
eighteenth to the first half of the nineteenth century, theologically conser-
vative Americans defended the Bible from critical attacks. However, the
Bible’s able and ardent defenders altered their conceptions of revelation to
preserve their faith in light of changing standards of plausibility. In doing
so, they gradually yet radically undermined the traditional understanding
of Holy Writ by denuding it of its supernatural nature. That is to say,
skeptics were not solely responsible for knocking the Bible off its throne.
Some of the fault lies with the Scriptures’ Protestant apologists.
Traditionally, Protestants knew that the Bible was infallible because
they believed that the Holy Spirit supernaturally allowed the faithful
reader to recognize the Scriptures’ divine nature. This intuition was priv-
ileged and available only to believers. In the early eighteenth century,
deists argued that spiritually granted knowledge was hopelessly subjective
and therefore must be rejected. If the Bible were examined by empirically
verifiable and universally accessible criteria, then one must conclude that
it was just one among several ancient religious texts. Therefore the Bible’s
accounts of miracles were no more reliable than fantastic fables recorded
in numerous pagan mythologies. In response, a few forward-t hinking
eighteenth- century American Christian thinkers defended the Bible on
the deists’ own terms. They argued that by the eighteenth-c entury stan-
dards of empirical evidence, especially historical evidence, the accuracy
of the biblical record was as plausible as any other ancient document.
Gradually the Bible’s apologists shifted the basis of belief from a personal
faith empowered by the Holy Spirit to the more defensible and culturally
respected position of empirical evidence.
2 The Erosion of Biblical Certainty
By the early nineteenth century, American Christians rested comfort-
ably in the knowledge that history vindicated the authenticity of the Bible.
American biblical scholars such as Joseph Buckminster, Andrews Norton,
and Moses Stuart also came to understand that in order to ascertain the
authentic meaning of the Bible, one needed to contextualize his or her
interpretation of the sacred text in the world of the biblical writers. They
used their historicized interpretation to affirm their convictions, such
as the authenticity of miracles. However, these conservative apologists
were utterly unprepared for the critique of nineteenth- century German
biblical scholars, such as D. F. Strauss, who historicized the Bible with
results far more radical and disturbing than the Americans could have
anticipated. Strauss interpreted the biblical text as the product of a people
with a primitive worldview rather than as a timeless revelation that could
be understood by Christians of any age or culture. Strauss concluded,
to the outrage of most Christians, that Jesus’s miracles were culturally
conditioned myths. Because the eighteenth-c entury American Christians
had so inextricably tethered their defense and interpretation of the Bible
to historical examination, their nineteenth- century children struggled to
formulate an adequate response to the German historical critics.
The Erosion of Biblical Certainty demonstrates that from the eigh-
teenth to the mid-n ineteenth century, conservative American biblical
scholars, for the purpose of defending the notion of a supernatural Bible,
gradually became increasingly naturalistic in their understanding of rev-
elation. They continuously appropriated the cutting- edge tools of the
age— naturalistic and empirical modes of interpretation—t o confirm rev-
elation’s supernatural nature. In doing so, they conceded that the Bible
was accountable to outside authorities and needed to be reconciled to
new fields of knowledge. Every critique necessitated a new defense and
adaptation. Increasingly, the Bible’s nature became determined less by
theology and more by ancillary disciplines such philology and history.
Eighteenth-c entury Americans confidently grounded their defense of the
Bible in reason and evidence. After all, they were certain that the Bible
was true. What had they to fear from subjecting it to examination? And
their defense was effective. However, the nature of reason and evidence
evolved. The standards of plausibility changed. Tragically, the apologists
failed to consider fully the effect this would have on the conceptualiza-
tion of the nature of revelation. My book argues that the eroding belief in
the Bible was not exclusively the result of the efforts of the skeptics who
examined the Bible under the harsh light of critical examination. Rather
the Bible’s most able and vigorous defenders played a key role in the
demise of its authority.
Introduction 3
The scholarly examination of the rise of biblical criticism usually
focuses on Europe. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Euro-
pean skeptics such as Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, Jean Le Clerc,
Richard Simon, and deists challenged the factual accuracy and historical
reliability of the biblical text by raising issues of its authorship, trans-
mission, canonical status, historical authenticity, and inspiration. They
pointed out internal inconsistencies of the biblical text, questioned the
claims of the fulfillment of prophecy, and challenged the possibility of
miracles. In short, they interpreted the Bible by the same rules they used
for ordinary ancient texts. Historian Jonathan Sheehan observes that in
Europe, the Bible’s readers, in response, altered the manner in which they
understood Scripture. Interpreters increasingly relied on disciplines such
as philology and history, rather than theology, to access the Bible’s mean-
ing. Similarly, theologian Hans Frei notes that before the eighteenth cen-
tury, “precritical” readers assumed that the Bible, as inspired revelation,
accurately related historical events. In response to the critical attacks on
the historical validity of the biblical narratives, he writes, some Christians
conceded that the Bible did not accurately relate historical events but
merely spiritual truths. Increasingly, some interpreted the Bible’s narra-
tives as products of a primitive culture and therefore it ceased to be a
historically reliable record.1
Scholars argue that the Bible’s authority on matters beyond theology
proper, such as history and science, eroded. Many Christians previously
assumed that cosmological or historical truths needed to conform to a
fairly literal reading of the Bible. By the eighteenth century, the inter-
pretations of the Bible began to need to conform to the conclusions of
history and science. Revelation became subject to empirical and nontheo-
logical disciplines. The order of authority and interpretation changed
directions. People once interpreted the world through the Bible. By the
eighteenth century, they tended to interpret the Bible through a diverse
and growing body of new knowledge.2 This shift affected both the pro-
ponents and enemies of the Bible. For the skeptics, history and science
repudiated the Bible, but the Bible’s defenders used those disciplines to
vindicate the Scriptures.
Though the changes in the status and interpretation of the Bible in the
European context have received ample attention, historians have tended
to neglect the understanding of the Bible in early America. The Erosion
of Biblical Certainty examines how learned Americans dealt with the new
and often unsettling ideas. They predictably resisted some of the most
radical claims. However, many demonstrate a remarkable and surprising