So, yes, I did want to repost this one as well, but frame it a little differently than how I had originally.
This continues a series where I argue that Joseph Smith’s perennialism, I think, allows for greater flexibility to deal with biblical scholarship that seems to be increasingly calling lots of the OT historicity into question. Again, I’m not a biblical scholar, but I’ve noted this scholarly trend and I’ve seen a lot of evangelicals and Mormons express faith concerns over learning about this scholarship.
So in the next few posts I want to give some a few observations on what looks to me like some scholarly trend on OT historicity.
This Wikipedia page seems like a useful overview and here are a few quotes (I’m focusing on OT, and will table NT for the time being).
A useful quote: “According to theologian Thomas L. Thompson, a representative of the Copenhagen School, also known as ‘biblical minimalism,’ the archaeological record lends sparse and indirect evidence for the Old Testament’s narratives as history.” I know “minimalism” gets debated but my sense is that OT scholarship looks like it’s trending in that direction.
As I’ll discuss in later posts, we do have evidence of kingdoms of Israel and Judah, along with some kings including David, but biblical history of that time period is still problematic, lots of scholars say (see the entry), and there’s major reasons to doubt the historicity of the religiosity portrayed in the OT, especially the Law of Moses.
So in coming posts, I want to share what I learned from two recent books not mentioned in the Wikipedia article: Jacob Wright’s Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and Its Origins (Cambridge, 2023), and Yonatan Adler, The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Perspective (Yale, 2022). Wright gives a nice overview of evidence we have for biblical history outside the Bible, while Alder gives a summary of archeological and historical evidence strongly suggesting the Pentateuch was written pretty late, perhaps c. 300 BC.
So from my novice point of view, Wright and Alder point in more minimalist direction. I claim no expertise on these debates, nor will I try to defend all the individual aspects of the minimalists’ arguments. Yes, there were some kingdoms and kings, but a whole of OT history called into question, even the later stuff. (Wright technically isn’t fully on board with the minimalists, but adding his info to Alder’s seems to point in the minimalists’ direction).
Again, I’m not a biblical scholar, and the point of these coming posts isn’t to attack Christianity or Mormonism, but only to give a little overview of some things I’ve noticed. Just to restate my larger point: I believe that Joseph Smith’s theology allows for wiggle room to deal with these kinds of question of OT historicity.