Chicken Little Scholarship

When possible (I am often hopelessly behind), I try to include the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in my regular reading.  A week or two ago I quoted from Daniel Wallace's excellent piece in the June 2006 issue -- a review of Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. 

Wallace makes a comment at the end that has much wider implications, about an issue that has long concerned me: Bible and theology professors in both liberal and conservative institutions who undermine (whether deliberately or not) their students' confidence in the Bible as the Word of God.  In liberal institutions this is usually done by professors who have thrown over the evangelical or fundamentalist faith of their upbringing and have a life-long project of debunking orthodoxy.  In conservative institutions this is usually done by professors who are still wrestling with the questions they could not fully answer in a doctoral program at a secular university, and who want to expose the answers they once accepted but now fine wanting, under the pressure of liberal scholarship.  

In the church, however, scholars have a responsibility to build up faith and not to undermine it.  Here is how Wallace addresses the issue:  "First is my plea to all biblical scholars to take seriously their responsibility in caring for God's people. Scholars bear a sacred duty not to alarm lay readers on issues of which they have little understanding. Indeed, even agnostic teachers bear this responsibility. Unfortunately, the average lay-person will leave Misquoting Jesus with far greater doubts about the wording and teachings of the NT than any textual critic would ever entertain. A good teacher does not hold back on telling his students what is what, but he also knows how to package the material so they do not let emotion get in the way of reason. The irony is that Misquoting Jesus is supposed to be all about reason and evidence, but it has been creating as much panic and alarm as The Da Vinci Code. Is that really the pedagogical effect Ehrman was seeking? I have to assume that he knew what kind of a reaction he would get from this book, for he does not change the impression at all in his interviews. Being provocative, even at the risk of being misunderstood, seems to be important to him than being honest even at the risk of being boring. But a good teacher does not create Chicken Littles."