Sent by a liberal / anti-fundamentalist friend:

There is no ‘the Bible’ that ‘claims’ to be divinely inspired, there is no ‘it’ that has a ‘view of itself’. … There is no such thing as ‘the Bible’s view of itself’ from which a fully authoritative answer to these questions can be obtained. … The most obvious difficulty is the absence from the New Testamnent of clear unambiguous ‘claims’ about the infallibility and inerrancy of the total New Testament as we have it today. James Barr “Fundamentalism” (SCM Press:1977) p.78

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1000s CE – Glossa Ordinaria: a commentrary by a group of French scholars headed by Anselm of Laon. Discussion and questioning of the biblical text was encouraged through Aristotelian logic and dialectic.

1033 – 1109 CE – Anselm of Bec thought it was possible to prove anything. He seldom quoted the Bible in his theological writing. Became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1189. – Anslem’s theory of atonement became normative in the west while Maximus’ interpretation was normative with the Greek Orthodox.

1040 – 1105 CE – RASHI (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak) concerned with the plain meaning of scripture. Wrote a commentary on the Hebrew Bible concentrating on individual words that threw new light on the text.

1079 -1142 CE – Peter Abelard rarely quotes scripture and raised questions without appearing to offer solutions. (Famous for his love affair with Heloise)

1089 – 1164 CE – Abraham ibn Ezra states that exegesis must give priority to the literal sense; while legend had spiritual value, it must not be confused with fact. He found discrepancies in the bibical text: Isaiah could not have composed the second part of Isaiah and Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch.

1110 – 1170 – Andrew of St Victor the first Christian scholar to attempt a wholly literal interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.

1135 – 1204 CE – Maimonides tries to reassure Jews that both scripture and reason are in harmony. He agreed that anthropmorphic descriptions off God in the Bible must not be interpreted literally, and tried to find reasons for some of the more irrational biblical laws.

1170 – 1221 CE – Spaniard Dominic Guzman gave serious attention to the literal sense in exegesis. Dominicans aimed to adapt Aristolelian philosophy to Christianity.

1194 – 1270 CE – Nahmanides begins esoteric discipline of Kaballah. PaRDeS was an anagram for the study of Torah: peshat (the literal sense), remez (allegory), darash (the moral, homelitic sense), sod (the mystical culmination of Torah study). “Bible: is the Zohar – the Book of Splendour (probably the work of Moses Leon). The innermost essence of God is En Sof (‘without end’) and was incomprehensible and not mentioned in the Bible or Talmud.

1214 -1292 CE – Roger Bacon urged scholars to study the Bible in the original languages.

1225 -1274 CE – Thomas Aquinas reconciles older spiritual method with new philosophy. His Scholastics felt sufficiently confident of their reasoning powers to liberate their theological speculation from exegesis.

1270 -1340 CE – Nicholas of Lyre combined older methods of interpretation with the new insights of the Scholastics. Preferred the plain sense of historical exegesis. His “Postillae”, a literal exegesis of the whole of the bible, became a standard textbook.

1275 – 1342 CE – Marsillo of Padua challenged papal claims to be the supreme guardian of the Bible.

1329 – 1384 CE – Wyckliffe, an Oxford academic, became enraged by the corruption of the Church and argued that the Bible should be translated into the vernacular so that common people did not have to rely upon the priesthood but could read the bible for themselves.

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1440 CE – INVENTION OF THE PRINTING PRESS – People began to read newly printed Bibles in a modern way: relying on the Bible alone. Previously people did not own private Bibles and few had the literacy skills required to read a Bible.

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1405 -1457 CE – Lorenzo Valla produces an anthology of the main New Testament ‘proof texts’ used to support Church doctrine. He placed the Vulgate version alongside the original Greek, pointing out that these texts did not always ‘prove’ what they claimed because the Vulgate was so inaccurate.

1466 – 1536 CE – Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus publishes the Greek text of the New Testament. Due to the invention of the printing press, anybody who knew Greek could now immediately read the gosopels in the original.

1494 – 1536 CE – William Tyndale states that the gospel is greater than the Church.

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PROTESTANTISM BEGINS

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1517 CE – Luther posts 95 Theses

1525 – 1531 CE – Tyndale Bible in English

1537 CE – Thomas Matthew (really John Rogers)

- Henry VIII ordered a copy for every church

1557-1560 CE – Geneva Bible – First version to recognize the division of the text into verses

1561 – 1626 CE – Francis Bacon, counsellor to James I of England, wasone of the first to argue that even the most sacred doctrines must be subjected to the stringent methods of empirical science. If these beliefs contradicted the evidence of our senses they had to go. He was convinced that there was no conflict between science and religion since all truth was one.

1564 – 1642 CE – Galileo Galilei tests Copernicuss theory and observes planets going around the sun. Silenced by the Inquisition and forced to recant.

1596 – 1650 CE – Rene Descartes begins Cartesian philosophy. He maintained that there was no need for revealed scripture since reason provided us with ample information about God.

1609 CE – Baptist Church founded by John Smyth

1611 CE – King James Authorized Version Bible

1632 – 1704 CE – John Locke founds Deism based upon reason alone.

1632 – 1677 CE – Baruch Spinoza, a Shephardic Jew of Spanish descent, stated that the manifest contradictions in the Bible proved that it could not be of divine origin, the idea of revelation was a deluision and that there was no supernatural deity. What we called ‘God’ was nature itself. On 27th July 1656 Spinoza was excommunicated from the synagogue.

1642 – 1727 CE – Isaac Newton scarcely mentioned the Bible in his work because he derived his knowledge of God from an intensicve study of the universe.

1667 -1752 CE – William Whiston believed that early Christianity had been a more rational faith. he published a version of the new testament in 1745 which excluded every reference to the Incarnation and the trinity.

1698 – 1760 CE – Israel ben Eliezer begins the Hasidim (‘pious ones’) movement in Judaism (fundamentalist Judaism)

1711 – 1776 CE – David Hume argued that there was no reason to believe that anything lay beyond the experience of our senses.

1724 – 1804 CE – Immanuel Kant convinced that a divinely revealed Bible violated the autonomy and freedom of the human being.

1729 – 1786 CE – Moses Mendelssohn argued that God had revealed a law code and not a set of doctrines on Mount Sinai and this left the mind entirely free. Jews must convince themselves rationally of the Bible’s claims before they accepted it.

1768 – 1834 CE – Friedrich Schleiermacher promoted a spirituality that was founded ‘the feeling of absolute dependence’ that was fundamental to all religion.

1800s CE – Agreed by scholars of Higher Criticism that the Pentateuch was a combination of 4 independent sources.

1844 -1918 CE – Julius Wellhausen showed that the four document theory was too simplistic as there had been additions to all four sources before being combined into a single narrative. He also asked why the prophets never mention the Mosaic law.

1859 CE – Charles Darwin publishes Origin of the Species

1861 CE – Seven Anglican clergymen publish “Essay and Reviews” which made Higher Criticism accessible to the general reader. This included: – Moses had not written the Pentateuch – David had not written the Psalms – Biblical miracles were literary tropes and should not be understood literally – Most of the events in the Bible were not historical

1881 CE – Revised New Testament Greek by Westcot & Hort (using the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus).

1886 – 1929 CE – Franz Rosenzweig argued that our daily lives should illuminate the Bible, and in turn the Bible will help us dicover the sacred dimension of our day to day experience. We required the new covenant of Jeremiah when the law would be written on our hearts.

1888 CE – Mrs Humphry Ward publishes the best-selling novel “Robert Elsmore”. Robert’s wife states: “If the Gospels are not true as fact, as history, I cannot see that they are true at all, or of any value.”

1895 CE – Five Fundamentals formed

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FUNDAMENTALISM BEGINS

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1914 CE – Assemblies of God founded

1916 – 2000 – Wilfred Cantwell Smith argued that it was impossible to say what the Bible ‘really’ meant when any one of its verses was likely to have been interpreted in several different ways. Religious people have all worked out their religion within the confines of a particular place and time.

1925 CE – Scopes “Monkey” trial

1940s CE – Jewish philosopher Martin Buber believed that the Bible witnessed to God’s presence at a time when he seemed absent. Exegesis could never stand still, since the Bible represented an ongoing dialogue between God and humanity. The study of the Bible must lead to a transformed lifestyle. Buber noted that the rabbis called scripture a miqra, a ‘calling out’,. It was a summons that did not allow readers to abstract themselves from the problems of the world but trained them to stand fast and listen to the undercurrent of events.

1945 CE – Nag Hammadi Library discovered in Egypt;

1953 CE – Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Letters Form Prison” published in English. Asks “Who is Christ for us today?” and talks of a “religionless Christianity”.

1956 CE – Jean Paul Sartre publishes “On Being and Nothingness” which contains a proof of God’s non-existence.

1963 CE – John A T Robinson publishes “Honest To God” which brings to the public items of Higher Criticism usually only discussed in theological colleges. Pronounces the end of theism and advocates Paul Tillich’s “Ground of Being” as a description of God.

1969 CE – Beginning of “Christian Rock” with Larry Norman’s “Upon This Rock”

1973 CE – Roe vs. Wade

1981 – James W Fowler publishes “Stages of Faith”

1987 – 1988 CE – Televangelist scandals

1989 CE – First woman ordained in an apostolic-succession church (the Protestant Episcopal church)

1991 CE – John Shelby Spong publishes “Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalism”

1992 CE – John Dominic Crossan publishes “The Historical Jesus: The life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant”. – Australian Presbyterian Church begins heresy trial of Dr Peter Cameron, former Principal of St Andrew’s College, Sydney University based on a statement discussing women’s ordination.

1993 CE – Jesus Seminar publishes “The Five Gospels” with probability ratings for all words of Jesus in the four gospels plus the Gospel of Thomas.

1996 CE – Robert W Funk publishes “Honest To Jesus”

2006 CE – Richard Dawkins publishes “The God Delusion”

Currently CE – Fundamentalism holds the Bible as the supreme “Paper Pope”. – Decline in attendance for all the major churches

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– The most pronounced characteristics [of fundamentalists] are the following: (a) a very strong emphasis on the inerrancy of the Bible, the absence from it of any sort of error; (b) a strong hostility to modern theology and to the methods, results and implications of modern critical study of the Bible; (c) an assurance that those who do not share their religious viewpoint are not really ‘true Christians’ at all. – James Barr “Fundamentalism” (SCM Press:1977) p.1

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