If you needed any further evidence that the Bible can't just be read at face value, this about clinches it.
Tuesday, 19 July 2016
The Plain Truth About Balaam's Ass
If you needed any further evidence that the Bible can't just be read at face value, this about clinches it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
This prompted me to re-read the account of Balaam and references to him at other locations in the Bible. I found the whole story quite coherent. It illustrates an ethical principle that is clear.
The fact that there is archaeological support that Balaam was real is quite remarkable. You don't find that for most of the characters in the OT. There are also later appropriations of Balaam in various writings as Davidson points out. But are we to categorically conclude that the Bible is false and the historical appropriations are true? That seems to be what Davidson would like us to do without justification.
What I can say based on the Biblical narrative is that Balaam seems to have been of uncertain status at the beginning of the account about him in the Book of Numbers. It is almost like he is a bona fide prophet of God. God even speaks directly to him as if he counts for something. But as the account develops, his malfeasance becomes clear. Later he was killed by the Israelites. Given the Biblical Balaam's ambivalent nature, would we not expect to find dueling accounts about him in historical sources?
It is naive to believe that future historians will find a single monolithic evaluation of Donald Trump when looking at 21st century materials. The same with Balaam.
Overall, I find the account of Balaam in Basil Wolverton's Bible Story to be more plausible than what Davidson has brewed up.
But are we to categorically conclude that the Bible is false and the historical appropriations are true?
Near Earth Object, I don't believe I ever posed the matter in that fashion, nor told my readers what they should consider to be "false" and "true".
But as the account develops, his malfeasance becomes clear.
At what point does his "malfeasance" become clear? Can you tell me what malfeasance of his you find in Numbers 22-24?
Overall, I find the account of Balaam in Basil Wolverton's Bible Story to be more plausible than what Davidson has brewed up.
Almost nothing in my article is original, though I'm flattered you think otherwise. I've mainly summarized and organized the results of existing scholarship that can be found in the sources listed in my bibliography.
Paul D.:
Clearly, the moderator believed that your historical evidences knocked the Bible in the toilet. Why would he conclude that?
In the account of the donkey speaking, the angel says to Balaam "your path is a reckless one before me." We do not have the detail of what was going through Balaam's mind but it was not good. Hence, the malfeasance.
My expression "brewed up" does not mean that I think you originated this material. You have just articulated extant elements of scholarship. And I am very skeptical of scholarship that pretends to be something more than a particular interpretation. This "scholarship" is almost consistently spun in a way intended to invalidate the Bible. This uniform perspective might lead one to reasonably conclude that it has a political coloration rather than a purely scholastic value.
"Clearly, the moderator believed that your historical evidences knocked the Bible in the toilet."
No. My belief is simply, as stated, that "the Bible can't just be read at face value", which is a little different I think. Nor do I believe that you can approach the Bible with a hermeneutic of naivety. If you want to read it in more traditional ways, that's fine with me.
In the account of the donkey speaking, the angel says to Balaam "your path is a reckless one before me."
That's not good enough for me. "Reckless" doesn't mean Balaam is doing anything evil, especially when he is going on the journey at Yahweh's command and proceeds to bless the Israelites. The consensus of scholars that the angel on the road is a later insertion into the story satisfactorily explains the problem, especially in light of how the story is retold in Numbers 31 and elsewhere.
This "scholarship" is almost consistently spun in a way intended to invalidate the Bible.
I think that if you actually read academic scholarship, you would not see it that way. It is an attempt to understand the Bible. No scholar sits around writing sneering articles about how they have "invalidated" the Bible.
Nonetheless, you should pursue whatever analysis of the text helps it make sense to you.
Paul D:
"I think that if you actually read academic scholarship, you would not see it that way. It is an attempt to understand the Bible. No scholar sits around writing sneering articles about how they have "invalidated" the Bible."
First, you don't know what I read.
Second, it is disingenuous to assert that "Biblical Scholarship" does not have a palpable political slant when it is so uniformly anti-Bible in its interpretation of findings. While there is an august varnish of scholasticism brushed over many such articles coming out of this mill, a close reading indicates that the idea that they are all-about-historical-objectivity fails. Someone writes "it makes sense that" followed by some declaration. Why does it make sense and to whom? Why should the interpretation be believed as anything but someone's private interpretation?
This "discipline" would have us believe that it is populated by sincere academics who just cannot in all honesty deny the truth they have discovered as if they were physicists or chemists. The evidence just happens to be anti-Bible. "Nobody can help that. It is what it is. We just want to understand the truth. As noble scholastics we will defend the truth with our dying breath." When in reality, discoveries of neutral value are embedded with considerable artifice in pet, anti-Biblical theories to be read, typically, by nobody else but other people of the same mindset.
First, you don't know what I read.
No, but I can guess what you don't read.
Second, it is disingenuous to assert that "Biblical Scholarship" does not have a palpable political slant when it is so uniformly anti-Bible in its interpretation of findings.
What "political slant"? Higher criticism is an academic endeavour across numerous countries, spanning more than a century. There is no uniform political opinion to be found anywhere in the pages of the world's top Biblical studies journals and publishers, nor do I see what politics has to do with figuring out the Balaam story.
"Anti-Bible" is ridiculous slur I see no reason to even address.
Paul D:
How would you like me to make a bunch of unfounded guesses about you? It could get quite colorful with that kind of poetic license.
No political slant? "Anti-Bible" a slur? No uniform opinion? Everything quite objective, I'm sure. I think I may have touched a hot button.
Scholars would need to see some evidence before accepting any miracle (such as a talking mule.)
The Jews refined their regional polytheism (El,Baal,YHWH..) to one diety.
Some American cult leaders - HWA, Joseph Smith..- returned to polytheism.
The Jews created a super successful religion out of the junk religions of Canaan!
It still survives today, though in a more innocuous emasculated form.
Post a Comment