The Bible Places Blog (BPB) draws our attention to a new book edited by James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary entitled, Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture
. It looks like a quality resource. It’s focus is on how biblical historicity matters for inspiration and inerrancy. The BPB highlights one of the essays in the book by Michael Hasel, which seeks to address the paucity of evidence for the United Monarchy in Israel. There are what appears to be important essays on Jericho (John Monson) and why a historical exodus is needed for evangelical theology (James Hoffmeier). The essay by Jens Bruun Kofoed will no doubt be a new issue to many, but it’s an important topic neglected by evangelicals (“The Old Testament as Cultural Memory”). Basically, every one of the twenty-two essays in this book look worthwhile.
Dr. Heiser,
Your initial thoughts of this book are interesting when compared to Dr. Peter Enns’ book review: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/05/initial-thoughts-in-a-new-book-defending-evangelical-biblical-scholarship/.
I don’t think Dr. Heiser has read the book yet. Though even a book like this would likely still challenge a strictly inerrantist evangelical.
nope; just giving people a heads up that it’s out there; I’ll be getting it.
Dr. Heiser,
How old do you think the world is ? Many ancient texts (myths or not) told about thousands of years while Genesis describe a period of about 7500 years from the fall of Adam and Eve at least.
No idea. Since I don’t think Genesis is about dispensing scientific knowledge (and exegetically, there is indeterminate time prior to Gen 1:1 based on the syntax – see http://michaelsheiser.com/TheNakedBible/2010/08/genesis-1-and-creationism/), I have no guess. I also don’t care what the answer is.