Stoned-Campbell Disciple

An article was forwarded to me on Hebrews. My correspondent knows I’ve been preaching through Hebrews and have blogged numerous times on it recently. The article was taking a contrary point of view than myself on a few matters. Now having a contrary point of view from me is not a sin .

The problem with the article, besides being wrong on almost every claim it made (in my understanding) was there was no research done in anything written within my lifetime. Well one.

Burton Coffman, Adam Clarke, Matthew Henry, Pulpit Commentary and F. F. Bruce were put forth.

Of these, only Coffman’s Commentary on Hebrews was written in my lifetime (first published in 1971). F. F. Bruce the second most recent dates to 1963. Adam Clarke, Matthew Henry, nor the Pulpit Commentary would be admissible in even an undergraduate class on Hebrews. First they are ancient. Second they are more historical texts than exegesis. Bruce is the only source that would be accepted but even here, Bruce is considerably out of date and mountains of Hebrews stuff is quite different than what Bruce thought in 1963.

The sources listed here almost uniformly represent thinking on Hebrews that is significantly different than any contemporary scholarship. These older sources are often free FOR A REASON! If I turned in a paper and these were my sources, if the professor was gracious, it would be returned and told to do it again. If the professor was hard nosed (and I’ve had more than one), you would just receive a failing grade.

Revolutions – this is not hyperbole – revolutions have taken place in biblical scholarship since the 1960s. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, significant input from archeological studies, linguistic studies, the social world, etc have significantly impacted studies on Jesus, Paul, Hebrews, the Hebrew Bible.

Hebrews is NOT addressing “Jews” who are in danger of “apostasy BACK into Judaism.” Hebrews is NOT about distinguishing the so called “Old Testament” from the “New Testament.” Galatians and Romans are NOT written to ward of the danger of “legalism.” Galatians is not a “Cliff Notes” to Romans (the two letters are radically different in fact).

If your source of study is Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes, Pulpit Commentary, Burton Coffman, … and you “make a living” teaching the word of God … then you really need to revamp the library and allow yourself (and I speak to myself here too) to be Berean.

Hebrews is one of the most exciting texts in the New Testament. It is also one of the most easily twisted and perverted texts when we come to it with a trainload of unexamined but hugely influential assumptions. And you have those assumptions if the most recent book you have consulted (do we actually read a whole book about a book in the NT/Hebrew Bible?) was published when I was three.

In 1883, J. W. McGarvey spoke to a group of preachers in Missouri. He exhorted them to obtain the most current works of biblical scholarship and wrestle with them. In 1883, he already warned against using aged and inferior sources (i.e. Clarke, etc btw) because they are often simply wrong. He urged getting sources by people recognized to be experts in a particular field. I think he would say the same thing today.

See Also

A Talk with McGarvey on Books, Reading & Preachers

Tolle Lege: Alexander Campbell on Reading

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 18th, 2024 at 9:59 am and is filed under Bible, Bobby's World, Books, Discipleship, Hebrews, Reading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.