I really liked the point about how Europeans and Anglo-Saxons view myth, one as seeing connection with the past, the other saying the stories are just made up. That relates, I think, to his four definitions of history: events, narrative, task, meaning. Theology has to do with the second and fourth, which are connected in the case of Christianity to real events. Some then reject any hint that some stories are in any way myth because when they hear “myth” they think “fiction” – a view that sprang up in societies founded by Anglo-Saxons. But that’s a misunderstanding that strips much of the Old Testament of the intended messages. By failure to grasp the original worldview, we end up with a fiction we can’t recognize until we actually grasp the concept of different worldviews.
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I really appreciated his point that ideas about history can be formed to hypotheses that can be tested against facts we know about history. It struck me that many YECists accept that when it comes to showing the reliability of the scriptures but reject it when it comes to science.
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I really, really liked the point about predictive historicism, the idea that there is a direction to history and we know what it is and therefor we should work to make it happen.
It struck me as he continued that theme that just as one couldn’t tell that Jesus was God by looking, so we can’t tell that God is in charge of history by looking at events. God being one Who hides Himself is an expression of Incarnation.
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I also loved the reference to scholars who reject the deity of Christ on the grounds that it conflicts with Jewish monotheism – I think they need to learn fom Dr. Michael Heiser.
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When he said to theologians “Don’t reject history – you have nothing to lose but your Platonism” I had to pause it I was laughing so hard.
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Last, what he said about historicans and archaeology resonated since I was just thinking of that while watching a video about what figures from the Old Testament can be counted as historical. One point that was made was that we can now (to use Wright’s term) hypothesize that David was a real person because we have discovered mention of “the House of David”, a mention that doesn’t confirm but definitely suggests that David was real. It made me wonder about Solomon: archeologists have found several things (stables, mines) that the scriptures mention in connection with Solomon, but no mention of Solomon’s name, so the hypothesis from that would be that his name ought to be appearing – and as wright noted, we can’t do an experiment to find it, we have to wait for those who dig up old ruins and old texts.
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