Avalos, Hector. The End of Biblical Studies. Prometheus Books, 2007.)
Biblical scholars, for example, are almost solely devoted to maintaining the cultural significance of the Bible not because any knowledge it provides is relevant to our world but because of the self-serving drive to protect the power position of the biblical studies profession. (23)Biblical Studies is an iatrogenic disease, a self-perpetuating malady that professes to speak to world but in the end is speaking only to itself, because the world does not care. But beyond that, it is engaged in a pattern of obfuscation and intentional deception to hide the fact that the Bible has no real relevance or reliability.
Avalos claim is breathtaking and his subsequent survey of a series of topics is likewise breakneck in the pace of his attack. He is quick and unfaltering. He engages topics like a knight in battle, slashing his enemies (mortally?) and then moving on. If there is any criticism to be made of the book it is that its swath it too wide, that each of the nine chapters devastating a different aspect of Biblical studies could well have been a carefully argued book in itself. And yet more data clearly would not have changed the argument. Like the initial analogy of the emperor without clothes, further recitation of the fabrics, colors and styles that the emperor was not wearing would not have changed the basic realization of the nakedness that was apparent. Yet it is precisely the brevity in which Avalos confronts the many topics that creates the symphonic aspects that make his point. Many of his points are made in Book length treatises by others. But by weaving them together in a single argument one can see how vulnerable is the house of cards.
Avalos starts with the basics: rock, paper, scissors -- Archeology, Text Criticism and The Historical Jesus. Starting with Text Criticism he shows how the notion of the Bible is problematic in two ways. First, the manuscript tradition is such a mess that the text which lies on nightstands and in pews is a scholarly "best guess" lacking any of the kind of surety Christians take for granted. Second the process of translation is just as problematic as modern interpreters fill the multiple gaps of the text with theology. Archeology is no clearer. I once heard Jonathan Reed say that he went into archeology because texts could lie but rocks could not. Yet while rocks may not lie, Avalos argues that archaeologists with theological agendas have acted as lying ventriloquists for their rocks. Ultimately siding with the archaeological movement called "minimalism", Avalos puts the conclusion rather starkly,
David's existence is still more akin to that of [King] Arthur, and the Tel Dan Inscriptions tells us no more about David than the Modena Inscription tells us about Arthur. There is no independent evidence for a kingdom headed by Solomon, so that is where we have to leave the claim--inconclusive.... We can now affirm...that there is not much history to be found in the era of the kings....(163)Archeology then can give no certainty to the most important stories of the Bible. From Abraham to Moses to David to Solomon archeology has found a empty hole. Thirdly, Avalos takes a skeptical view of the quest for the Historical Jesus. Ironically, the quest for the Historical Jesus is usually attacked from the right as being too skeptical. Here, Avalos turns the tables and argues it has not been skeptical enough. Pointing at the Jesus Seminar, Avalos notes that the methods that the Seminar used to identify authentic sayings of Jesus which amounted to handful of sayings printed in red. Yet even these few sayings, when the reasoning is critically examined are the result of a tautology that presumes to know things that are not in evidence. We cannot know what the early church actually thought (that is one of the things we allegedly find out in this process) so we cannot decide what the early church could or could not conceive of Jesus doing or saying, thus the category of dissimilarity fails as a helpful method. Even the more popular method of multiple attestation can only allows us to show the existence and persistence of a particular tradition about Jesus but tells us nothing about Jesus himself. Finally, our data is skewed as we privilege canonical texts (since they are in the most abundance) yet when we see the testimony of the non-canonical texts we realize that Jesus is merely a cypher in which communities could freely project all kinds of theological and ethical ideals. "What these 'Christianities' have in common is their claimed connection with a 'Christ,' who is portrayed in astoundingly variegated fashion."(211) Like Albert Schweitzer before him, Avalos pronounces this latest quest for the Historical Jesus as "failed," and proclaims "Jesus cannot be found and any notion of following actual words or deeds of Jesus is vacuous."(212)
The combination of these three things strikes at the heart of Biblical Studies. Were he to rest his case here, Avalos contribution would have been secure. Yet he goes on to make several more interesting arguments. He unmasks literary studies of the Bible for their attempts to avoid the hard historical questions and sneak theology in through the guise of "beauty" or "story." He attacks Biblical Theology as a form of "Bibolatry" which attempts to reconceptualize the Bible in some way that imports relevance to it so that it still has meaning today. The price of this he claims is too high, it requires a selective exclusion of texts replete with violence and intolerance. Even American Liberation theologians ignore the anti-liberationist themes in the Bible in a quest to authorize their image of "liberation," yet Avalos remarks,
And just as liberation theologians are prepared to repudiate Nazi literature completely for its genocidal and imperialist thoughts, liberation theologians should be willing to repudiate completely a prophetic literature that endorses genocide and Yahwistic imperialism.(280)Reconceptualization of the Biblical narrative and texts ultimately, as I have argued elsewhere, espouses a set of non-biblical perspectives and tries to force the Bible to fit this new mold. But as Christopher Hitchens penetratingly ask, what other domain of knowledge do we work so hard to transport from the Bronze Age so completely? Why should we travail so mightly to import this one?
Finally, Avalos attacks the institutions of Biblical Studies, the professional meetings, the publishers and the journals which are all bent on self-perpetuation through the fostering of the illusion that the Bible still has relevance in our time and otherwise seeks to secret itself away. In the end we must admit the Biblical Studies is not relevant for today. It fails its audience by not telling the truth and allowing them to selectively choose what they want to find relevant to today.
Avalos here speaks the truth. The attempt to make the text meaningful today requires an intellectual labor that presumes the answer before the question is asked. The Fundamentalists are in no better position, however, the selectivity is different in content but the same in method. What would we say to the proposition that we assemble a collection of middle-eastern Bedouin sheepherders and illiterate day laborers and tell them you shall determine the moral system for the rest of the world -- go to it! Would we expect a new vista of openness, tolerance and multiculturalism to arise? Would we take their pronouncements and carefully parse them looking for themes of liberation and salvation? Avalos asks us this very question and it seems one worth pondering.
