Featured What Is Scholarship?

Not too long ago on a thread I objected to the faulty scholarship of a source used by my opponent in the debate. My opponent never fully answered my objections, but showed his ire by putting me on ignore. (BTW, the source's quotes were from centuries after the event in question, so not reliable.) I had two grounds for the objection:

(1) The source was apparently a church of Christ pastor, had pastored 9 CofC churches, and been employed by a major CofC college. In case you don't know, the CofC is generally a baptismal regeneration heresy. I ran into them many times when I lived in Tennessee. My opponent claimed that many CofC preachers didn't believe that heresy, and how dare I insult his friend.

(2) The source my opponent used had a degree from an apparent degree mill. Anytime a college or grad school's website doesn't list the faculty and their experience and degrees, it's a degree mill, you can be sure.

This brings up the question, what is scholarship? My answer:

1. Scholarship is a search for truth. Anyone here on the BB can honestly search for the truth, and do honest and good research to find it.
2. Scholarship does not depend on degrees. I know people with impressive doctorates who are not scholars, but twist facts to fit their own narratives. On the other hand, someone with no advanced degrees can turn out to be a genuine scholar. One example is William G. Pierpont, who along with Dr. Maurice Robinson, edited the Byzantine textform Greek NT (https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Original-Greek/dp/0759800774). Now Dr. Robinson is a well-credentialed, well-known, and highly respected scholar of textual criticism, but Pierpont was a retired engineer. However, Pierpont made himself into a genuine scholar by his diligent research. (Check out his background with the Amazon link I gave.)
3. Scholarship is willing to change its view when genuine evidence is presented.
4. Having said all of that, getting a genuine college or grad school/seminary degree teaches good research methodology, thus good scholarship. In my classes where a research paper is required, I give lectures about how to do research, what sources are acceptable, and how to cite sources. Again, I am working on a D.Min. degree, and the first class I had to take was one on how to do research for the D.Min.

So, what do you think? Do we see much scholarship on the BB?

P. S. My opponent on the above-mentioned thread said at one point, "You claim to be a scholar...." No, I do not claim that, though some have said it about me. But I do try to do good, scholarly work.

 

I agree: the Holy Spirit definitely leads to truth, and is a huge help in genuine scholarship. However, "faith without works is dead." In other words, the Holy Spirit will help in research, since one part of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control. However, He will not do the research for us.

Also, what I wrote above applies also to non-Biblical fields. For example, if an evolution-believing scientist will genuinely examine the evidence, he or she will realize that evolution was developed without the scientific method, and will change his or her view.

 

Well said.

 

I agree.

Any true scholar should be competent to judge true scholarship. In other words, if someone loves truth, they can recognize it.

 

As necessary for my profession, I'm well acquainted with the world of Bible scholarship, and can't think of any CofC scholars who have made solid contributions. But there's a lot I don't know. At any rate, to promote heresy in the area of the substitutionary atonement of Christ demonstrates a lack of love for the truth. Seeking for truth is my main qualification for scholarship.

I have the book of the 1935 debate between W. L. Oliphant (CofC) and John R. Rice (Baptist). I didn't see much true scholarship on the side of Oliphant.

Here is the thing. Pursuing a genuine master's or doctorate requires many thousands of hours and many thousands of dollars. Believe me, I know! It thus requires character and tremendous work and expense.

On the other hand, getting a degree mill degree takes a minimum of work (maybe a book report for reading 100 pages for 3 credits) and a few hundred dollars. Thus, getting a degree from a degree mill shows a significant lack of character. The "doctor" with a degree from one of those places simply wishes for the honor but doesn't want to spend the money or time to do it right. Thus--a lack of love for truth.

I recently corresponded with friend who is a genuine scholar with a genuine doctorate, and he asked me to pray for him as he writes a new book and I will. He once advised a young man who was going for a bogus degree to go for a real one, since he had the brains for it. I've followed that man's career, and his lack of scholarship shows.

Agreed

And yet, to get a degree mill advanced degree is a huge shortcut. I have genuine BA, Japanese language school, and MA diplomas. That tells me how hard it is to get a genuine degree. More than that, however, my son has three grad degrees. Watching him get his PhD was a big eye opener as to what a genuine doctorate means in comparison to a degree mill PhD. For example, he had to learn two languages just to be able to read the theologians in those countries, French and German.

 

Here is an example of how the theological presuppositions of a liberal Bible translator affected his scholarship. The TEV (Good News for Modern Man) was originally a translation done by one man, a liberal SBC scholar named Robert Bratcher. (See more about him at: Good News Bible translator dies; opposed inerrantists: Robert Bratcher supported dynamic equivalence.) He had been asked by dynamic equivalence inventor Eugene Nida to do a dynamic equivalence version that could serve as a model for missionary translators; thus, the TEV was the first translation done with the DE methodology.

To continue, Bratcher had a presupposition that the blood of Christ didn't really save, wasn't efficacious. So in various passages he translated the Greek word for "blood" (haima, αἰμα): Acts 20:28, Col. 1:14, etc.). So, Bratcher proved his lack of scholarship by his obedience to his presupposition about the blood of Christ, and thus abandoned truth. There was such an outcry by Bible believers that the revisions, including the GNB, changed the rendering to the correct "blood." But I have a first edition of the NT, and it certainly has the original rendering. (I did a paper on this issue that I presented at the Bible Faculty Summit some years ago.)

 

There was quite a battle going on in the SBC in those days about inspiration and inerrancy. I still have books about it by Harold Lindsell and W. A. Criswell.