Chapter 7.1: Pseudonymity in the Bible

In this chapter Loftus discusses issues surrounding the authorship of biblical texts. Loftus’ targets are evidently his Christian readers who have traditional (Protestant) views about the authorship and the general literary nature of the Bible.

Those who have some familiarity with biblical criticism will not be surprised by the couple of other people’s scholarly views cited in this chapter. In some cases, such as the so-called first five books of Moses, there is significant scholarly consensus, religious and secular, that Moses is probably not the author (that is, not even a principal or original author). Loftus spends considerable time going over similar issues, such as the theoretical division of the book of Isaiah into two or three authors. He moves on to New Testament territory, discussing such scholarly trinkets as Jude’s citation of 1 Enoch. Loftus is at least hazily aware of divisions in intellectual history regarding these points. For example, he says regarding Isaiah:

The main reason why the unity of Isaiah was accepted for so long despite the problems with the different historical contexts was because of a predisposition to believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible as a whole, modeled on the prophetic paradigm. But eventually, with the rise of historical consciousness, scholars challenged this assumption with the facts of Isaiah itself (Loftus, 169).

Loftus does his readers a disservice by leaving out of his intellectual histories what early Christians and Jews themselves took Scripture to be. Scholars, e.g. William Abraham, have done excellent work demonstrating the diversity of scriptural views present in the days of early Christianity. Aside from taking some shots at particular Protestant and American Evangelical anachronistic understandings of  the Bible, it is difficult to discern a main point in this chapter. Loftus appears to think it is a problem that “not even the inspired writers themselves knew what a true prophetic voice from God was!” He presumably has in mind differences of opinion expressed within the Bible, and the presence in the Bible of extra-Biblical Jewish traditions, again for some reason assuming a Protestant or American Evangelical understanding. But there is some scholarly consensus on another matter as well – that the process of “canonization” was much more organic than we popularly believe. The texts that are canonical usually are so because that’s how they were already being used. Canonization was probably a matter of affirming, just as much or more than a matter of deciding. Furthermore, from a theological point of view, it seems to me that the function of much of scripture is not figuring out who is a prophet, but proclaiming something about God. Indeed much of the pseudepigraphal literature evidences disputes about those matters. Theologically-inclined readers are encouraged to comment on this point.

As I’ve said elsewhere, of course the importance of these issues will be partly proportional to how “high” a view of scripture the reader has (note: few Christians with “low” views of scripture are happy with the choice of spatial metaphors). Verbal inspiration is one issue, but another is what inspiration even means, how we should read an inspired text anyway, and so on. I suspect that Christians similar to the younger John Loftus (by his own description) are especially in trouble in light of biblical scholarship. For example, young Loftus took the creation account to be in the same literary genre and mode as Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, which resulted in one of the three pillars of his de-conversion. But if Loftus really aspires to be the “undoing of Christianity” he will have to stop thinking about his young self, focus on less idiosyncratic opposing views, and stop presenting Christian positions at their weakest.

Old, Grizzled Third-Party Candidate May Steal Support From McCain

I want to say publicly that these tempered observations and criticisms are correct. I would desperately prefer to read something far more intellectually challenging, such as The Tao of Pooh or The God Delusion. But, because of pride, I want to finish the dreadful task I set for myself.

In my defense I was tricked by the padded list of compliments that Loftus regularly collects for himself, plus his claim that he was taking an approach inspired by theologian William Abraham, who I am now convinced Loftus hasn’t read (or worse, understood).

The reason why it has been so long since my last review is threefold: (1) I spent a month devoting my e-time to looking for a new car, (2) I was/am applying to graduate school, and (3) Loftus’ book is bad.

D’Souza had an apologetics career before this Christian touring – namely, he has been an apologist for state violence. I have disliked him ever since reading (I think in high school?) the horrid and self-effacing chapter, “Two Cheers for Colonialism” from the first installment of his silly brand, What’s so Great about America? I have never understood what’s great about Dinesh D’Souza, hopefully the title of his (inevitable) memoir. Dinesh just wrote another book, diverging from the brand, which will probably be worse than the previous two, Life After Death: The Evidence.

Anyway, leading up to the debate, during it, and after it, Loftus has obsessed over the event on his blog, as he is his favorite topic. Apparently everyone, including atheists, think he “lost” (whatever that means), and Loftus sort of admits it. Here Loftus says “I am NOT making excuses,” even though that post and others are littered with them. Some of the excuses are amazing: “Dinesh arrived just in time for the debate while I was overdosing on sinus medications.” Loftus at first has a hard time accepting that he “lost” the debate here, with this funny statement: “So here I am still wondering why my perceptions of the debate are different than the young skeptics in attendance.” Indeed – how could it be that Loftus’ inflated view of himself is so unique to himself?

Here I watched a couple of annoyingly edited minutes, and was amused that D’Souza expressed one of my own observations of Loftus, which is that Loftus says we can’t look at his initial reasons for becoming an atheist, but that we should only look at a Christian’s original and primitive reasons for becoming a Christian (especially in his unoriginal or incoherent or trivial “outsider test” and anthropological explanations of belief).

Also, unconstrained by intellectual honesty, Loftus has been quoting people with non-substantive criticisms of his debate, and then dismissing them as non-substantive.

I do not look forward to this debate being available online and will not watch it. Loftus is even less impressive, and less coherent, in person than he is in writing. Truly, even without God all things are possible!