Book Review
Polkinghorne, John. (2010). Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible. Grand
Rapids, Michigan. Brazos Press. [ISBN 978-1-58743-313-9, $11.44 from Amazon.com,
$8.88 Kindle ver.]
REVIEW: TESTING SCRIPTURE
John Polkinghorne is well known among people who are in Science and
Religion groups. He is a highly respected theoretical physicist and
also an Anglican priest. He, in fact, was the founding president of the
International Society for Science and Religion. Therefore, when this
book with the subtitle A Scientist Explores the Bible came to my
attention, I thought the book was one that possibly related to me in a
special way, even though my science is not in the theoretical field but
rather in the applied.
This is a little book, it being only 102 pages in length, yet each issue
presented gives serious readers pause to think (or ‘rethink’) what the
Scripture is saying. Polkinghorne wrote the book “in the hope that it
will be helpful to those who are seeking a careful and thoughtful
engagement with the Bible in their quest for a truthful understanding of
the ways of God and the nature of spiritual reality, but who are not
necessarily concerned to enter into an exhaustive academic study of
these issues.”
He set the tone of the book pointing out that the Bible is a collection
of human compositions and not a text of an inerrant divine dictation.
He said the notion that the Bible is inerrant is idolatrous, but also
that it is a grave mistake to regard Scripture as an antiquarian deposit
that does not need to be taken seriously today. This tone is expressed
throughout the book. And in the writing he endeavored not to make
assertions that do not have significant scholarly support. This I
expected from a scientist.
One chapter is simply titled Development, and it has to do with the
developing thought of who God is. The Bible contains some terrible
accounts of massacres and genocide, some ordered by God himself. The
modern reader finds it difficult to square the picture of a vengeful God
with the God, the Father of Jesus, who tells us to love our enemies.
Polkinghorne says we cannot reconcile the two pictures, and perhaps he
might add, “Don’t even try to do so.” He went on: “I believe that
response to his dilemma demands the recognition that the record of
revelation contained in Scripture is one of a developing understanding
of the divine will and nature, continuously growing over time but never
complete and quite primitive in its earliest stages.” What we see in
the Bible is the development of how people regarded God going from the
very primitive idea through polytheism to henotheism and to monotheism.
Even as the Israelites believed in one God (Shema, Deut. 6:4), the God
of Joshua and the God of the Second Isaiah are very differently
presented. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New
Testament as expressed by Jesus are even more so. [The idea here is not
to be thought as Marcionism. Marcion, a second century Gnostic,
believed that there were two distinct Gods - one of the Old Testament
and the other of the New Testament.] The thinking of who or what the
one God is by the community has ‘developed’ over the span of time.
Polkinghorne would have us see the role of development within Scripture
and after it.
Although the subjects that Polkinghorne covers are very important in the
understanding the Scripture, I choose to lift up those matters that I
felt I need to question or to challenge. One subject was on Ambiguity.
Polkinghorne said that an honest reading of Scripture will acknowledge
the presence of various kinds of ambiguity. Ambiguity means the quality
or state of something being ‘obscure,’ ‘doubtful,’ ‘indistinct,’ or
‘uncertain.’ That occurs in the Bible to be sure, but I believe there
are also things that are outright contradictory. But first, criticism.
I have been critical of conservative Christians who have made statements
comparing ‘our God’ with ‘their God.’ I, therefore, must criticize
Polkinghorne when he writes about ‘Christian God.’ That implies ipso
facto there is a ‘non-Christian God’ (or there are ‘non-Christian
gods’). I am aware of what he means, but the choice of words can be
interpreted by others to mean belief in at the least henotheism.
In further discussion on ambiguity, Polkinghorne commented that Abraham
is not portrayed as morally flawless, and he cited the account of
Abraham when he was living in Gerar as an alien. Polkinghorne wrote:
“When he fears that he is to be killed by Abimelech because the king
wants to have Sarah as his wife, Abraham deceitfully pretends that she
is his sister (Genesis 20).” The words of the second sentence can be
misleading. There is no pretense by Abraham in saying that Sarah is his
sister. She was, in fact, his half-sister. The ambiguity, as far as
the story goes, could have been avoided if Polkinghorne told the whole
story. The story proceeds with the king seeing in a dream God saying to
him, “You are about to die because of the woman whom you have taken; for
she is a married woman” (Genesis 20:3). Abimelech then called Abraham,
and we have Abraham’s defense: “I did it because I thought, There is no
fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my
wife. Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father but
not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife” (Genesis 20:11-
12). Today, such marriage would be considered incest, but this was not
brought up.
Yet another ambiguity Polkinghorne cited is the story found in Genesis
22 on the testing of Abraham by God. Abraham was told, as Polkinghorne
quotes, “to sacrifice his only son Isaac on Mount Moriah.” The account
in the Hebrew Bible does have God referring to Isaac as Abraham’s only
son, but that is not true. Abraham had eight sons - the first was
Ishmael, the second was Isaac, and there followed six sons by Keturah,
whom he married after the death of Sarah. The six sons are named in
Genesis 25:1. [Since the Hebrew canon was formulated in the post-exilic
period, one might have expected the editors to have corrected
misstatements.] The chronology here is important, and we again see
Abraham as morally flawed. We could dismiss here any consideration of
Abraham’s six sons by Keturah, for they came much later in Abraham’s
life. But, what were the known facts?
First, it was Sarah who gave her Egyptian maid, Hagar, to Abraham to
father a child, for she was barren. However, in her advanced age when
she finally bore a child, Isaac, she became very jealous for Isaac, and
she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the
son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac”
(Genesis 21:10). And Abraham, although distressed, in his weakness did
as Sarah has asked. He gave Hagar and Ishmael, who was probably around
sixteen years old, some bread and a skin of water and sent them off into
the wilderness of Beer-sheba, where they almost died of thirst. [Beersheba
is in a desertic steppe. It receives annually only about twelve
inches of rain.] Could sending them off into the wilderness meant sure
death? The bread and a skin of water did not last them long. But,
then, God did intervene and save them (Genesis 21:15-21). So, I raise
the question about Isaac being the only son of Abraham, “Was that meant
to be ‘the only surviving son’?” If the implication has any substance,
then Ishmael could not respect his father, but that was evidently not
the case. Ishmael did pay his respects to Abraham at his death.
Genesis 25:9 reads: “His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave
at Machpelah.” I can thus agree with Polkinghorne that there are
discrepancies in the Bible and that history is his-story. The bias is
plainly obvious.
Polkinghorne in very plain English tackles subjects of creation and
fall, Israel’s Bible, the Gospels, the cross and resurrection, Paul’s
writings and pseudepigraphs, and other New Testament writings. Therein
his Anglican leaning is to be noted. Martin Luther was referenced,
especially on his stance on the epistle of James. He said the epistle
and also Revelation do not belong in the canon. He called the epistle
of James ‘the epistle of straw,’ for he could not accept the declaration
by James that “faith without works is dead” (2:18-26) as all important.
Luther held firmly to the belief that we are justified only by faith.
Polkinghorne, nevertheless, interprets James emphasizing “true faith
must be manifested in deeds as well as words.”
The last chapter of the book is titled Profundity. In it Polkinghorne
speaks as a scientist and Christian. He could, therefore say: “At the
heart of Christianity lies the astonishing mysterious, exciting, and I
believe true, conviction that the infinite and invisible God has acted
to make the divine nature known in the clearest and most accessible way,
in the Word taking flesh as the man Jesus Christ.”
Review by Dr. Kazuyoshi Kawata, Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins
University. December 2011.
Rapids, Michigan. Brazos Press. [ISBN 978-1-58743-313-9, $11.44 from Amazon.com,
$8.88 Kindle ver.]
REVIEW: TESTING SCRIPTURE
John Polkinghorne is well known among people who are in Science and
Religion groups. He is a highly respected theoretical physicist and
also an Anglican priest. He, in fact, was the founding president of the
International Society for Science and Religion. Therefore, when this
book with the subtitle A Scientist Explores the Bible came to my
attention, I thought the book was one that possibly related to me in a
special way, even though my science is not in the theoretical field but
rather in the applied.
This is a little book, it being only 102 pages in length, yet each issue
presented gives serious readers pause to think (or ‘rethink’) what the
Scripture is saying. Polkinghorne wrote the book “in the hope that it
will be helpful to those who are seeking a careful and thoughtful
engagement with the Bible in their quest for a truthful understanding of
the ways of God and the nature of spiritual reality, but who are not
necessarily concerned to enter into an exhaustive academic study of
these issues.”
He set the tone of the book pointing out that the Bible is a collection
of human compositions and not a text of an inerrant divine dictation.
He said the notion that the Bible is inerrant is idolatrous, but also
that it is a grave mistake to regard Scripture as an antiquarian deposit
that does not need to be taken seriously today. This tone is expressed
throughout the book. And in the writing he endeavored not to make
assertions that do not have significant scholarly support. This I
expected from a scientist.
One chapter is simply titled Development, and it has to do with the
developing thought of who God is. The Bible contains some terrible
accounts of massacres and genocide, some ordered by God himself. The
modern reader finds it difficult to square the picture of a vengeful God
with the God, the Father of Jesus, who tells us to love our enemies.
Polkinghorne says we cannot reconcile the two pictures, and perhaps he
might add, “Don’t even try to do so.” He went on: “I believe that
response to his dilemma demands the recognition that the record of
revelation contained in Scripture is one of a developing understanding
of the divine will and nature, continuously growing over time but never
complete and quite primitive in its earliest stages.” What we see in
the Bible is the development of how people regarded God going from the
very primitive idea through polytheism to henotheism and to monotheism.
Even as the Israelites believed in one God (Shema, Deut. 6:4), the God
of Joshua and the God of the Second Isaiah are very differently
presented. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New
Testament as expressed by Jesus are even more so. [The idea here is not
to be thought as Marcionism. Marcion, a second century Gnostic,
believed that there were two distinct Gods - one of the Old Testament
and the other of the New Testament.] The thinking of who or what the
one God is by the community has ‘developed’ over the span of time.
Polkinghorne would have us see the role of development within Scripture
and after it.
Although the subjects that Polkinghorne covers are very important in the
understanding the Scripture, I choose to lift up those matters that I
felt I need to question or to challenge. One subject was on Ambiguity.
Polkinghorne said that an honest reading of Scripture will acknowledge
the presence of various kinds of ambiguity. Ambiguity means the quality
or state of something being ‘obscure,’ ‘doubtful,’ ‘indistinct,’ or
‘uncertain.’ That occurs in the Bible to be sure, but I believe there
are also things that are outright contradictory. But first, criticism.
I have been critical of conservative Christians who have made statements
comparing ‘our God’ with ‘their God.’ I, therefore, must criticize
Polkinghorne when he writes about ‘Christian God.’ That implies ipso
facto there is a ‘non-Christian God’ (or there are ‘non-Christian
gods’). I am aware of what he means, but the choice of words can be
interpreted by others to mean belief in at the least henotheism.
In further discussion on ambiguity, Polkinghorne commented that Abraham
is not portrayed as morally flawless, and he cited the account of
Abraham when he was living in Gerar as an alien. Polkinghorne wrote:
“When he fears that he is to be killed by Abimelech because the king
wants to have Sarah as his wife, Abraham deceitfully pretends that she
is his sister (Genesis 20).” The words of the second sentence can be
misleading. There is no pretense by Abraham in saying that Sarah is his
sister. She was, in fact, his half-sister. The ambiguity, as far as
the story goes, could have been avoided if Polkinghorne told the whole
story. The story proceeds with the king seeing in a dream God saying to
him, “You are about to die because of the woman whom you have taken; for
she is a married woman” (Genesis 20:3). Abimelech then called Abraham,
and we have Abraham’s defense: “I did it because I thought, There is no
fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my
wife. Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father but
not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife” (Genesis 20:11-
12). Today, such marriage would be considered incest, but this was not
brought up.
Yet another ambiguity Polkinghorne cited is the story found in Genesis
22 on the testing of Abraham by God. Abraham was told, as Polkinghorne
quotes, “to sacrifice his only son Isaac on Mount Moriah.” The account
in the Hebrew Bible does have God referring to Isaac as Abraham’s only
son, but that is not true. Abraham had eight sons - the first was
Ishmael, the second was Isaac, and there followed six sons by Keturah,
whom he married after the death of Sarah. The six sons are named in
Genesis 25:1. [Since the Hebrew canon was formulated in the post-exilic
period, one might have expected the editors to have corrected
misstatements.] The chronology here is important, and we again see
Abraham as morally flawed. We could dismiss here any consideration of
Abraham’s six sons by Keturah, for they came much later in Abraham’s
life. But, what were the known facts?
First, it was Sarah who gave her Egyptian maid, Hagar, to Abraham to
father a child, for she was barren. However, in her advanced age when
she finally bore a child, Isaac, she became very jealous for Isaac, and
she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the
son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac”
(Genesis 21:10). And Abraham, although distressed, in his weakness did
as Sarah has asked. He gave Hagar and Ishmael, who was probably around
sixteen years old, some bread and a skin of water and sent them off into
the wilderness of Beer-sheba, where they almost died of thirst. [Beersheba
is in a desertic steppe. It receives annually only about twelve
inches of rain.] Could sending them off into the wilderness meant sure
death? The bread and a skin of water did not last them long. But,
then, God did intervene and save them (Genesis 21:15-21). So, I raise
the question about Isaac being the only son of Abraham, “Was that meant
to be ‘the only surviving son’?” If the implication has any substance,
then Ishmael could not respect his father, but that was evidently not
the case. Ishmael did pay his respects to Abraham at his death.
Genesis 25:9 reads: “His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave
at Machpelah.” I can thus agree with Polkinghorne that there are
discrepancies in the Bible and that history is his-story. The bias is
plainly obvious.
Polkinghorne in very plain English tackles subjects of creation and
fall, Israel’s Bible, the Gospels, the cross and resurrection, Paul’s
writings and pseudepigraphs, and other New Testament writings. Therein
his Anglican leaning is to be noted. Martin Luther was referenced,
especially on his stance on the epistle of James. He said the epistle
and also Revelation do not belong in the canon. He called the epistle
of James ‘the epistle of straw,’ for he could not accept the declaration
by James that “faith without works is dead” (2:18-26) as all important.
Luther held firmly to the belief that we are justified only by faith.
Polkinghorne, nevertheless, interprets James emphasizing “true faith
must be manifested in deeds as well as words.”
The last chapter of the book is titled Profundity. In it Polkinghorne
speaks as a scientist and Christian. He could, therefore say: “At the
heart of Christianity lies the astonishing mysterious, exciting, and I
believe true, conviction that the infinite and invisible God has acted
to make the divine nature known in the clearest and most accessible way,
in the Word taking flesh as the man Jesus Christ.”
Review by Dr. Kazuyoshi Kawata, Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins
University. December 2011.
