An Apology

This week we are sort of following our general theme of the past few weeks and discussing what it means to be an LDS scholar. This is occasioned by a conversation I had many years ago with a friend of mine. I am sure that he has forgotten it (and well he ought to have, it wasn't that important of a conversation), but in this conversation he questioned the validity of Biblical scholarship (although I was an archaeologist in those days, I was still interested in the archaeology of Syro-Palestine), wondering what purpose such scholarship had and if we weren't something of a mutual improvement admiration society, where all the discussions have no bearing on the 'real world,' and are just for the benefit of those in the field.

Very well. So it may indeed be. There is something of internal discussion in any field, whether in the humanities, the social sciences, the physical sciences or even in the trades. Whenever you have a series of specialized skills, you end up with specialized vocabulary and concepts. Without making reference to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (which essentially states that different languages express thoughts differently, ergo people think differently), an anthropologist and a psychologist mean different, although related, things when they talk about acculturation and socialization. As a lay mathematician I get lost in any discussion of mathematics much further out than trigonometry. I expect to not be able to understand what a theoretical physicist is discussing in a paper, and understand that there is something closed about their community, because physics requires a certain basic level of mathematics to be able to even communicate the concepts the physicist wishes to have communicated. So it is with any academic community. Any academic community is a little bit closed, because the entry fee is so high.

There is, however, a difference in my field than in the sciences. First of all, I am firmly entrenched in the social sciences and the humanities, and the entry fee is much more attainable. Since these fields are more subjective than the sciences, the layman has more ability to interact with the specialist on a meaningful level. This is true in history, anthropology or in any of the cognate fields. It is, of course, doubly true of my own field. This is because I am studying Biblical studies, and everyone are encouraged to study and to form an opinion of the Bible. So, as a Biblical scholar I have to tread especially carefully in my discussions of the scriptures. It is not my purpose to attempt to tell any person that their opinion or interpretation of the Bible is somehow less important or less valid than my own, merely because I have made the language of the Bible my particular study. Indeed, it would be wrong of me to do so. Even less so if and when I make essays into Book of Mormon studies, because then I don't even have Hebrew to back me up.

But, here we come to why I study my field. The Bible matters. Other fields do also, of course, but I am not addressing them. I refer solely and specifically to my own experience. The Bible is an important book (or series of books) and it ought to be studied. There is a feeling generally, I think, that the so-called 'hard' sciences are somehow more 'real, and therefore more important and valid to study. I would humbly disagree. I am certain that the sciences are in need of study, and greatly aid to our understanding of ourselves, but the study of the humanities is the study of what it means to be human. Not just what it means to be a member of homo sapiens sapiens, but what it means to be a human, as independent from a beast and as an interacting, thinking being. I myself can think of no more noble field of study. Especially in the study of religion, for man's search for the divine is part of what makes him man. So we come into Biblical studies. My job as a Biblical scholar is to help those outside the field make informed decisions and form informed opinions about the Biblical text. I deal the Bible's primarily historical and anthropological content, and not with its religious or ethical content, which, however, I also try and live. As Shakespeare said, "Each man's soul's his own." The ethical and doctrinal parts of the Bible are most important. I deal with the other stuff in the Bible to aid those who wish it in their study of the Bible.

So to answer my friend of long ago-Biblical studies may seem to be an unimportant field, closed to noone but themselves, dealing with minutiae and not the "weightier manners of the law." It may indeed be so, but I do not think this invalidates the truth which is gleaned through Biblical scholarship.

Excelsior!

P.S. My title comes from apology used in the technical sense of an explanation, and not as a way of saying sorry. -ARS.