C. S. Cowles (–2017)

The four essays in this volume are by C.S Cowles "The case for Radical Discontinuity", Eugene H. Merrill "The case for Moderate Discontinuity", Daniel L. Gard "The Case for Eschatological Continuity" and Tremper Longman III "The Case for Spiritual continuity". All four authors are American Evangelicals.

What becomes quickly clear is that while the differences between the last three authors on the issue are not huge - all three see no ultimate problem in a asserting that God authorized and even demanded the genocide of the peoples of the land of Canaan in order to make way for the arriving Israelites. They also agree that this in no way justifies similar violence today. They differ only in precisely how we are to relate the Old Testament to the New on this matter.

Cowles is the only one to really face the issue more radically, declaring that the OT witnesses to a misunderstanding of God by Israel, and the New Testament corrects this.

None of the authors addresses the question of the nature of the biblical narratives, treating them as substantially historical. This is a pity, since many scholars today would argue that this misunderstands the texts, that the authors were more interested in the relevance of the stories to their own time than in the accuracy of their historical context, and to impose modern ideas of history on to such texts is as inappropriate as, for example, trying to write a biography of the 'prodigal son' beyond the information in the parable.

In fact modern scholarship has thrown a great deal of light on these narratives which, by recognising their genre, has allowed a much richer reading of the text. One such study is the recently publishe "The Joshua Delusion" by another Evangelical scholar, D.S. Earl. In my opinion Earl goes a bit too far the other way, but non the less his contribution is, in my opinion, considerably superior to any of the four offerings here.… (meer)