On the Reliability of the Old Testament

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Toward a more literal view... - Rated
Kenneth Kitchen is an emeritus professor of Egyptology and Archaeology from the University of Liverpool; his interests and writings span many millennia of the ancient world across Egypt and the ancient Near East, including the area of biblical history. In this volume (which he amusingly describes as reducing to the acronym OROT, or O! ROT! as some of his critics may proclaim) Kitchen puts forth an interesting argument here against the dominant tide of biblical studies in Old Testament studies, eschewing modern or postmodern ideas of interpretation and preferring a more traditional approach. Having been inspired by his friend I. Howard Marshall and the text by F.F. Bruce 'Are the New Testament Documents Reliable?', he set out on the massive task of producing a similar volume for the Old Testament.

The job presents many difficulties, of course, not the least of which is the ever changing atmosphere, culture, literacy ability, and more of the people of the ancient lands over the millennia. Kitchen does have a care for facts - he doesn't engage in arguments of philosophical import (he doesn't care to address the nature of absolute truth, for instance, seeing that as an often-used diversionary sideline getting away from the basic understanding of reasonably certain objective facts in history). Kitchen supports his arguments with a wide-ranging knowledge of history and the languages of the areas and times. Kitchen makes it clear in the introduction there are three elements he means to address (history, literature and culture) and three he does not (theology, doctrine and dogma). Obviously the nature of the documents require discussion of the latter three, but these are not the focus points. Two primary questions Kitchen also addresses are these: Is there genuine information of the Israelite/Jewish culture from 2000-400 BCE contained in the biblical texts? Secondly, he asks did these documents originate entirely after this period, namely, the period 400-200 BCE?

Kitchen's approach is neither chronological nor canonical, but circles back through the text in a manner looking at culture and exile first primarily through kingdom and exile periods, going then back around to the patriarchs and the progress of history through to the prophets back to the exilic period again. Regardless of one's interpretative framework, much of this information is valuable and interesting, and makes one revisit some of the text from a new perspective.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is the final chapter, where Kitchen does a survey of the history of the interpretation of biblical history and texts. As perhaps only someone who has spent a lifetime devoted to the subject can do (and no longer has to worry about academic promotions, etc.), Kitchen candidly presents his analysis of key ideas and figures in the development of our understanding of the biblical text over the past 200 years of study. His particular thrust here is against the minimalists, and his biases are very clear here. After discussing the problems with various scholars' approaches, he puts together brief answers to his initial questions, deciding that there is far more reliability than many think.

Kitchen stops far short of proclaiming a word-for-fact inerrant correlation between the text we have today and actual history, but does go to great links to minimise the minimalists, showing that there is far more respect for the reliability of the text due to the Old Testament. Biblical literalists may still find the text difficult to accept because of this, but it does include much information for them to consider in a manner probably less problematic than most mainstream biblical scholarship.

This is primarily a book for scholars, evidenced by the wide range of material gathered, the assumptions of knowledge of history, archaeology, language, culture and biblical studies, and the extensive notes made in the text (the endnotes comprise more than 100 of the 660 pages of the text). There is a generous supply of plates, tables, charts and maps, and reasonable indexes for subject and scripture references. However, it is generally accessible to those with at least an undergraduate or equivalent education.

For those who are looking for an answer to the question, 'Can we trust the reliability of the Bible?', this gives some interesting information. Worth reading by those from the liberal and the orthodox camps.