DALLAS PROFESSOR DENIES BIBLICAL INSPIRATION

DALLAS PROFESSOR DENIES BIBLICAL INSPIRATION

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Copyright 2000. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites and cannot be sold or placed by themselves or with other material in any electronic format for sale, but may be distributed for free by e-mail or by print. They must be left intact and nothing removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our goal is not devotional but is TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, give us your name, address, and the name of the church you are a member of, and request to be placed on the list. Please note that this is not a free service. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and each subscriber is expected to participate. To unsubscribe or to submit a change of address, send your name and the request to fbns@wayoflife.org. This is not an automated list. Changes in the database often require two to four days to activate. Some of these articles are from O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 17th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site -- http://www.wayoflife.org. The End Times Apostasy Online Database is also located at this site.]

Updated April 7, 2000 (first published May 21, 1998) (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - For many years knowledgeable men have warned of the infiltration of theological modernism into the field of "evangelical" scholarship. (See the article on "Inspiration" in the 2nd Edition of the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity for documentation.) A recent example of this is found in a report posted to the Internet by Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, Associate Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary. In a 35-page report entitled "The Synoptic Problem," Wallace supports the redaction approach to the Gospels, that the Gospels were written not by direct inspiration of God but by copying material from secondary sources, thereby denying the inspiration of Scripture by the Holy Spirit as taught by Christ and the Apostles. Wallace’s report is largely a review of Robert H. Stein’s "The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction." (The 63-year-old Stein is a professor at Bethel Theological Seminary.) In fact, Wallace says: "Indeed, I have found Stein’s book so helpful a synthesis of the issues involved, that to some degree our comments here will be merely a distillation of his work."

Note carefully the following excerpts from Wallace’s report:

"It is quite impossible to hold that the three synoptic gospels were completely independent from each other. In the least, they had to have shared a common oral tradition. But the vast bulk of NT scholars today would argue for much more than that." (page 1)

"We shall see later that before the Gospels were written there did exist a period in which the gospel materials were passed on orally, and it is clear that this oral tradition influenced not only the first of our synoptic Gospels but the subsequent ones as well." (page 4)

"The majority of NT scholars hold to Markan priority [Mark was written first and then Matthew and Luke based their gospels upon it] (either the two-source hypothesis of Holtzmann or the four-source hypothesis of Streeter). This is the view adopted in this paper as well." (page 6)

"One argument concerning Mark’s harder readings which has been (as far as I can tell) completely overlooked is the probability that neither Luke nor Matthew had pristine copies of Mark at their disposal. ... An intermediate scribe is probably responsible--either intentionally or unintentionally--for more than a few of the changes which ended up in Luke and Matthew." (footnote 49)

"Matthew and Luke have in common about 235 verses not found in Mark. ... Only two viable reasons for such parallels can be given: either one gospel writer knew and used the gospel of the other, or both used a common source." (page 19)

This approach to the Gospels, now parroted by scholars claiming to be "evangelical," was devised by unbelieving modernists who deny the perfect inspiration of Holy Scripture. These men look at the Bible largely as a product of human invention, not as a supernatural book given word-for-word by inspiration of God through holy men of old. Similarly, large numbers of "evangelical" scholars are parroting the unbelieving historical critical approach to the Old Testament, which denies that Moses wrote the Pentateuch as we have it in our Bible today, claiming, rather, that the Pentateuch was formed over a long period of time and was not completed until during the era of Israel’s kings. This nonsense is a blatant denial of what the Bible itself says about the Pentateuch. Christ and the Apostles attributed every part of the Pentateuch to the historical Moses, as we have demonstrated in our studies on inspiration in the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity. (See also the article "Did Moses Write the Pentateuch" under the Modernism section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life web site.)

The Lord Jesus Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the disciples into all truth and remind them of past events concerning Himself (Jn. 14:26; 16:13-15). It would have been humanly impossible for the Apostles to have recalled the exact words of Christ’s sermons, the various conversations, and the details of the various events infallibly, but the Apostles were not dependent upon their own fallible memories in the recording of the Gospel accounts. They were not dependent upon their own thinking to select which material to present and how to present it. They wrote by direct inspiration of God. They did not copy from one another. The Holy Spirit guided each Gospel writer to portray Christ in a special way via the manner in which the material is presented.

We conclude with the following thoughts:

(1) IF THE REDACTION THEORIES OF THE GOSPELS ARE TRUE, WE DO NOT HAVE AN INFALLIBLE ACCOUNT OF CHRIST’S LIFE. If there was a fallible human element in the recalling and recording of the Gospels, they cannot be the perfect, inspired Word of God. Either the Gospels are infallible Scripture, or they are the fallible work of men. There is no middle ground here, and we have no difficulty whatsoever in rejecting ALL redaction theories (AND those who hold such theories) and accepting the Bible’s testimony about itself in simple faith. The Bible plainly tells us that "ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16).

(2) IF THE REDACTION THEORIES OF THE GOSPELS ARE TRUE, WE WILL NEVER KNOW FOR SURE WHAT PART OF THE GOSPELS ARE THE FALLIBLE WORDS OF MEN AND WHAT PART IS THE INFALLIBLE WORD OF GOD. If, as Dallas Seminary professor Wallace implies, there was a mysterious "Q" document from which some of the Gospel writers drew their information, it is a matter which will never be known for certain. The fact is that there was no "Q" document. The Gospel writers did not need assistance from existing oral accounts or documents, and if they did use anything, God has not chosen to explain this to us and it, therefore, DOES NOT MATTER! Dr. Wallace admits that there are dozens of theories within the broad scope of redactionism. If redaction theories of the Gospels are true, we are not left with established and settled truth; we are left with endless theorizing.

(3) THOSE WHO ACCEPT REDACTION THEORIES ARE NOT EDIFYING THE FLOCK; THEY ARE ENTERTAINING THE SCHOLARS. Only someone trained in the finer nuances of modern textual criticism could even understand Wallace’s report. It does not contain one word of doctrine, reproof, correction, or instruction in righteousness, yet those are the purposes for which the Holy Scriptures were given (2 Tim. 3:16).

(4) THE ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS AND PROBLEMS WITHIN THE GOSPELS WHICH ARE RAISED BY THOSE WHO PROMOTE REDACTION CRITICISM HAVE BEEN ANSWERED SATISFACTORILY WITHOUT RESORTING TO REDACTIONISM. Wallace mentions many alleged contradictions, and claims that the only satisfactory answer to these is some sort of redaction view of the writing of the Gospels. He says, for example, "when one compares the synoptic materials with John’s Gospel, why are there so few verbal similarities? On an independent hypothesis, either John or the synoptics are wrong, or else John does not record the same events at all in the life of Jesus." The many differences between the Gospels have been analyzed carefully by men of God through the centuries and satisfactory answers have been given without resorting to fanciful textual criticism. I have a large library of books dealing with the alleged contradictions in the Bible, including many volumes from the 18th and 19th centuries, and some even earlier. The problems raised by Dr. Wallace have been answered to the satisfaction of many godly minds.

(5) ONE OF THE ERRORS WHICH LEADS TO THEORIES SUCH AS REDACTIONISM IS TO FOCUS ON THE METHOD OF INSPIRATION RATHER THAN THE PRODUCT. We know that there is a human element in the Scripture in the sense that men wrote the Bible, but the Bible itself never focuses on the human element. We are given brief glimpses from time to time in Scripture of some of the mechanics of the giving of Scripture, such as God speaking face to face with Moses and angels speaking to some of the prophets, but for the most part we do not know the mechanics of inspiration and are not instructed to fret about it. The fact is that "ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God." That is all we need to know, and it is a fact which can be accepted ONLY by faith. It can never be understood by scholarship. "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Heb. 11:6).

(6) REDACTION CRITICISM IS OF THE DEVIL. It is the devil who loves to cast doubt upon the Word of God. He has been doing exactly this since his conversation with Eve in the Garden. He is doing it today through "evangelical" scholars who are trained at the feet of modernists (either directly or through their writings or through other evangelical scholars who sat directly under modernists). This is the root problem with men such as Daniel Wallace and Robert Stein. They are leaning on the research of modernists and they are trying to impress those same modernists that they, though "evangelicals," are serious scholars. They are trying to adapt the scholarship of unbelievers to a position of faith, and it is an absolutely impossible task. We have seen that Dr. Wallace follows Dr. Stein. Where was Dr. Stein educated? He has a bachelor of divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, a master of sacred theology from Andover Newton Theological Seminary, and a doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary. At Fuller the doctrine of biblical infallibility has been denied for decades. We have reviewed Fuller professor Charles Kraft’s modernistic commentary on Genesis, in which he claims that Moses did not write the Pentateuch and that the Old Testament contains myth and error. (See "Third Wave Evangelical Denies Biblical Inspiration" in the O Timothy Computer Library. See the same article under the "Evangelical" section of the End Times Apostasy Database at the Way of Life web site.) The American Baptist-affiliated Andover Newton is a hodgepodge of modernism and unbelief. For example, in 1982 Max Stackhouse, professor of religion at Andover Newton, spoke at the National Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Event, claiming that the doctrine of the Trinity is man-made. Andover Newton is a member of the Boston Theological Institute, which also includes Boston University, Episcopal Divinity School, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary, Roman Catholic St. John’s Seminary, and Harvard Theological Seminary. Princeton Seminary, from whence Stein obtained his doctorate, is one of the hotbeds of theological liberalism and apostasy in America.

(7) THE FACT THAT DANIEL WALLACE AT DALLAS SEMINARY IS PROMOTING REDACTIONISM SOUNDS A LOUD WARNING TO FUNDAMENTALISTS ABOUT THIS SCHOOL. Many professors at fundamental Baptist seminaries are going to Dallas to obtain advanced educational credentials. It should be obvious that a thorough-going New Evangelical school like Dallas is not a healthy climate to build fundamentalist convictions. The head of Dallas Seminary is Chuck Swindoll, a Promise Keepers speaker and long-time Billy Graham supporter who denies biblical separation (i.e., in his book Grace Awakening). Dallas Seminary’s National Pastor’s Conference in 1992 featured Chuck Colson, one of the fathers of the dangerous Evangelicals & Catholics Together venture. Ecumenist Leighton Ford was the Dallas Seminary commencement speaker in May 1997. Dallas Seminary entertained modernist Bruce Metzger in 1992. In the New Oxford Annotated Bible, Metzger claims that the Pentateuch is a mixture of myth and legend that gradually evolved over a period of hundreds of years, that Job is a "folktale," that Jonah is a "popular legend," that the biblical account of a worldwide flood is merely a "heightened version of local inundations," etc. It is obvious that Dallas Seminary takes no stand against modernistic views of the Bible today. It is therefore apostate and God’s Word commands us to avoid it (Romans 16:17, etc.).

My fundamental Baptist friends, be careful about the schools. Among many other considerations, it is important to find out where the professors obtained their degrees. If they obtained degrees from New Evangelical (or worse) institutions such as Dallas, find out if they have plainly denounced and disassociated themselves from the errors of that institution. It is a common rule that "a man's convictions are closest to those of the last school he attended."

The Bible says that two cannot walk together except they be agreed (Amos 3:3), yet today’s "fundamentalist" scholars think they can walk together for months and years on end with unbelievers and not be harmed spiritually. They are deceived. Separation from error is not an option; it is a commandment, and it is there to protect God’s people from spiritual danger.