Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?: A Critical Appraisal of Modern and Postmodern Approaches to Scripture
Overview
Is historical accuracy an indispensable part of the Bible’s storyline, or is Scripture only concerned with theological truths? As progressive evangelicals threaten to reduce the Bible’s jurisdiction by undermining its historical claims, every Christian who cares about the integrity of Scripture must be prepared to answer this question. Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? offers a firm defense of Scripture’s legitimacy and the theological implications of modern and postmodern approaches that teach otherwise. In this timely and timeless collection of essays, scholars from diverse areas of expertise lend strong arguments in support of the doctrine of inerrancy. Contributors explore how the specific challenges of history, authenticity, and authority are answered in the text of the Old and New Testaments as well as how the Bible is corroborated by philosophy and archaeology. With contributions from respected scholars—including, Craig Blomberg, Graham Cole, Michael Haykin, Robert Yarbrough, and Darrell Bock, and distinguished historian James K. Hoffmeier—Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? arms Christians with fresh insight, arguments, and language with which to defend Scripture’s historical accuracy against a culture and academy skeptical of those claims.
Top Highlights
“‘Virtually every modern archaeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.’” (Page 107)
“‘If the historical faith of Israel is not in a certain way founded in history, this faith is erroneous and cannot command my assent.” (Page 102)
“biblical ‘assertions.’ This is not a matter of reducing Scripture to an anthology of theological propositions” (Page 82)
“‘Evidence must always be affirmative. Negative evidence is a contradiction in terms—it is no evidence at all” (Page 109)
“whose ranks are composed of both foundationalists and coherentists,” (Page 38)