Barton’s whole point, as I understand him, is that biblical criticism is not primarily born from a historical impulse, but from a literary or hermeneutical one. He keeps insisting that what makes criticism critical is not merely noticing inconsistencies, because harmonizers also notice them. What makes criticism critical is the way one understands the nature of the text: as a finished whole, with its own internal dynamic, logic, and genre. And I agree with that principle in itself. I agree that certain types of texts provide certain types of information. I agree that we cannot just go to every text looking for a simple transcript of events. Every text tells a story in its own way, and to read it well, we need to ask what kind of text it is. Barton even quotes Matthias Flacius Illyricus, who says that in reading a text one must decide whether it is narrative, history, instruction, consolation, accusation, description, speech, and so on. I completely agree with that. But that is exactly why I am struggling with Barton’s use of the principle. Because if genre recognition is the heart of the critical attitude, then what counts as an inconsistency should itself depend on genre. The charge of inconsistency should be the result of a critical reading, not something presupposed before the critical reading. You first identify the genre, then you determine what kind of consistency that genre requires, and only then can you say whether a tension is truly an inconsistency. This is why I find his Proverbs example much stronger than his Gospel or Pentateuch examples. In Proverbs, the so-called contradiction between “answer a fool according to his folly” and “do not answer a fool according to his folly” is not really an inconsistency once you recognize the genre. Proverbs is wisdom literature. It works through maxims, tensions, contextual judgment, and sometimes opposing aphorisms. So harmonizing those verses into one flat rule does misread the genre. There, Barton’s point works.

Happy Monday 🔥🔥 I want to kick us off this week with a good ol' interactive. What is everyone currently studying? Drop it in the comments 👇

I think Tim has put out a video on monotheism that references some of the works that Dr. Joshua Sijuwade had mentioned as being the "most fundamental person". In Than's new video "The Two Powers in Heaven" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzaOyXcon4s) There is an observation of the Greek New Testament, specifically the Substantival versus the Masoretic, in Daniel 7:13. The Substantival translation muddles the distinction between the Son and the Ancient of Days through a theological interpretation rather than a scribal error, in an attempt to preserve the idea of monotheism. It seems like "Angel Veneration and Christology" by Loren T Stuckenbruck isn't using the same definition of "monotheism" but rather the "one true God". These philosophical and theological categories we're using now don't map onto these older understandings. I think that makes it difficult to deploy as an argument in a way that is not just a theory, because there could be contending theories. For example, it was a scribal error, or they weren't seen as two persons but may be one person in different forms like in modalism. @Than Christopoulos Would love your input here as these differences in understanding of "monotheism" throughout time and its implications in apologetic work and argument deployment needs some clarity.