Can There Be Such A Thing As Biblical History?

In a couple Blogs from the first part of this year I wrote about the two principles that guide me in all things spiritual, namely the formal and the material principles. The formal principle refers to the source of such knowledge. The material principle speaks about the essence or central teaching of this source.

In the Lutheran churches of America this was a very hot issue in the 1960s and 70s. The Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) published  several reports about the authority of the Bible. This issue continues to be very significant, not only among Lutherans, but in all churches worldwide. You will recall my warning about human philosophy in the Blog immediately prior to this one. As promised, I want to develop this issue further. In so doing I will be drawing upon those CTCR reports. I commend them to you for a very detailed analysis of what continues to be said and taught both inside and out of Lutheran circles. For my purposes I will only lift up what I consider to be the essential differences between historical Lutheran theology and the historical-critical method of such groups as the Copenhagen School and the Jesus Seminar. There is also a mediating view, represented in our days by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and others.

Back in the 1830s German theologian Leopold von Ranke set out to find from a study of history "wie es eigentlich gewesen ist," what really happened. To discover this he emphasized the importance of finding original sources, like diaries, memoirs, government documents, etc. His phrase became the guiding principle for historians ever since. That includes those who propose to study the history behind the Bible.

In response to this attempt it is most helpful to read a small volume by Dr. E.H. Carr (What Is History?) developed from a series of lectures at Cambridge University back in 1961. In his lectures Dr. Carr made several significant points about history:

1. The historian chooses certain facts and then decides that one is more valuable than the other. He interprets them and tries to understand how they relate to one another. Like a modern detective he has to use his deductive reason and follow his hunches. 
2. These deductions and hunches change over time. In that sense, the historian's work is never done, because he is always learning new facts, discovering new information. So he must always change his interpretations and re-write. 
3. The historian himself is part of his own time. He is influenced and molded by the events and situations of his own day and makes value judgments about the past from his own perspective. It is impossible to be completely objective.
4. To try to be objective the historian must try to rise above the limits of his own vision and that of the society in which he resides. This is, of course, never entirely possible. 
5. Finally he must help those who read his writing to join him in a dialogue with that past so that all may learn how that past has influenced the present in which we now live. 

 Well now, I can only hope that I have properly interpreted the writings of this wise historian who lived and worked over fifty years ago. No doubt, I too have not been entirely objective, but have inserted my own bias upon his writing. And that is my major point. There is no such thing as objective history! There is no way of discovering "wie es eigentlich gewesen ist." We can never have all the facts. And any study of the past through such things as archeology can never be scientific, let alone objective. We all bring our biases and presuppositions to the decision making process that we call history.

I'll say more about how this relates to Biblical studies the next time.