From the beginning of The Skeptical Review, I have maintained an "open-door" policy, which allowed inerrantists to respond to articles that they disagreed with and even to submit their own articles in defense of the biblical inerrancy doctrine, but this policy was never intended to be what inerrantist writers have reduced it to within the last two years. In the articles of Dr. James D. Price and Everette Hatcher, we have seen a defense strategy that depended primarily on quoting or citing Christian writers who are in agreement with the positions that they were defending, as if it would be startling news to readers that there are actually writers who agree that Jeremiah's 70-year prophecy was remarkably fulfilled or that the book of Daniel was written by a 6th-century B.C. Jewish captive who had risen to a position of political importance in the Babylonian empire or that Jesus rose from the dead, and such like.
Since the quoting of books and articles that agree with the writer is something that the defender of any religious belief can do, TSR will no longer publish articles either by errantists or inerrantists whose supporting details rely primarily on quotations from books and periodicals. This does not mean that writers will not be allowed to quote sources; they will just not be allowed to let strings of quotations from author after author substitute for argumentation. They will at least be expected to quote material that gives relevant information to support the position they are defending, and the mere agreement of another writer doesn't constitute relevant supporting information. If there is reasonable evidence to prove the New Testament claim that Jesus rose from the dead, then a writer supporting that claim should understand his obligation to present evidence in support of it that goes beyond simply quoting passages from the New Testament that say it happened or citing commentaries or apologists who believe that it happened. If a defender of the resurrection knows of some unbiased, disinterested contemporary of Jesus who wrote something that supports the New Testament resurrection claim, it would certainly be appropriate to quote it. That would be real evidence, but quoting the mere beliefs of writers who lived well after the alleged fact would prove nothing except that there have been people all through the Christian era who believe that Jesus was resurrected. Isn't that a big surprise! The same is true of such claims as the scientific accuracy of the Genesis creation account or the stories of Noah's flood or plagues of Egypt or the parting of the Red Sea or the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies, etc., etc., etc. Finding writers who agree that such biblical claims as these are true would be as simple as going to the religious section of any public library and looking through books and periodicals. Would-be apologists who use this approach are proving nothing except that they have had access to books that agree with them, so in the future I am going to insist that writers on both sides of the biblical inerrancy issue do more than just cite writers who agree with them. They will have to support their positions with logical argumentation.
Inerrantists who wonder exactly what I am looking for should go
through back issues and check the articles that Roger Hutchinson
submitted. As simplistic as his logic often was, he did at least make
an
attempt to defend his position with what he no doubt thought was
logical
argumentation. Whenever he quoted a book or periodical, he usually did
so to give information in his source that was relevant to the argument
he was presenting, and sometimes he even submitted articles that
contained no quotations at all except from the Bible or the article in
TSR that he was responding to (See "Jairus's Daughter: Dead But
Raised
to Live Again," May/June 1996, pp. 4-5.) To a lesser degree, the same
was true of Matt Perman's articles submitted in defense of the
resurrection. His arguments were simplistic regurgitations of Josh
McDowellian apologetics, but he did at least give the substance of the
arguments and the reasons why he thought they were sound. This is all I
am asking inerrantists to do in their future submissions, and their
cooperation will be appreciated. In phone conversations with Everette
Hatcher, he has agreed that this request is reasonable, so in the
articles that he says he will submit in further defense of his
traditional view of the book of Daniel, we will expect to see more
argumentation and fewer citations that contributed little more than
just
agreement with his views.
