This was originally a Facebook post I wrote titled “When Biblical Scholars Are Not Being HONEST”
If I ask you to tell me what Jesus, Paul, and Peter believed about the Old Testament Scriptures, meaning if they believed they came from a Divine all-knowing God, would you say, yes?
So if Jesus, Peter, and Paul all believed the Old Testament was inspired by God, why are you agreeing with people like Dr Michael Heiser (author of “The Unseen Realm”).
I have accused him of being dishonest and inconsistent
Here is why:
“Heiser’s ANE (Ancient Near Eastern) comparative approach often requires viewing the Torah as a composite document stitched together by later scribes during or after the Babylonian exile (the Documentary Hypothesis), adapting Babylonian and Canaanite myths. You can argue that it is intellectually inconsistent for a scholar to claim absolute submission to the Lordship of Christ while simultaneously rejecting Christ’s own stated historical view that Moses wrote the Torah.”
​The Core of Your Critique of Heiser:
​”Your accusation of inconsistency is logically sound. Heiser attempted to bridge the gap between critical secular scholarship (which views the Bible as an evolution of ANE literature) and Evangelical orthodoxy (which views the Bible as the infallible word of God).”
​”To make your argument airtight, force the issue: Heiser cannot have it both ways. He cannot logically affirm that the New Testament is the inerrant word of God while simultaneously dismissing the New Testament’s explicit claims about how the Old Testament was written””
I am upset at the dishonesty and inconsistency found within modern Evangelical scholars who out of one side of their mouths are saying, the Bible is God-breathed while saying out of the other side of their mouths, it’s not.
I’ve written extensively on this topic. But more importantly I’ve attempted to demonstrate “why” Evangelical scholars are speaking out of both sides of their mouths and yet don’t even know it.
Here is the actual heart of the issue:
The New Testament authors tell us that scripture is “inspired by God.” But Dr Michael Heiser and other modern scholars “don’t” believe this yet, “claim they do”
If you were to ask Jesus, Paul, or Peter what the word “inspired” means, they would tell you it means God “downloaded” messages into the minds of the authors of scripture. But Dr Heiser and the others have REDEFINED the term scripture to mean “God used ancient texts from Babylon to teach Moses and the other later authors and scribes of the Torah “after” Moses to write things that glorified Yahweh instead of the gods of the other nations”
Do you see a problem here?
Modern Biblical scholars have “redefined” what scripture MEANS so that they can try and make sense of difficult or complicated passages of scripture.
But they’re completely oblivious that they are in one instance saying they believe the New Testament, which is WHERE we learn about the definition of scripture being “God-breathed,” and in another instance claiming that Paul, Peter, and Jesus definition of scripture is incorrect
They are not being honest nor consistent. And I’m calling them out on it!
Note: It is popular these days to no longer define scripture as God “downloading” words into the minds of the authors of scripture. The problem is though, the definition of “scripture” requires it. The problem is that when we read our New Testament, it dosen’t look like God is downloading words into Paul’s mouth or mind. And the reason is because when Paul and Peter used the term “scripture” in the New Testament, they were ONLY talking about the Old Testament since the New Testament had not yet even been written nor compiled into a Bible. And I’ve written extensively on that also. In other words, though its hard to accept, the New Testament is not actually “scripture” but is a combination of God and men working side by side whereas the Old Testament is rightly defined as “God-breathed scripture”
Aletheia: Truth in the Darkness 