I think much of Hart's view on the OT can be reconciled with his explicit statement that the God of OT is not other than the God of the NT. Hart never made what I'm about to say explicit, but I suspect he has the something like the following in mind: the prophetic tradition of the OT gradually developed until it was consummated by the Incarnation. This is not to suggest that YHWY underwent any sort of development or change. Our human understanding of God (our ability to receive revelation itself) within the prophetic tradition converged on a Truth that guided it along all the while. Providentially, the consummation of the prophetic tradition occurred at the juncture of Hellenic philosophy and Jewish Revelation. I don't think this can be plausibly construed as Marcionism, and the substance of what I propose is not antithetical to Hart's more tame statements on the subject.

To be fair, he doesn't say there actually was an evil lower diety who created the world and who was known as Yahweh. He says the idea of Yahweh developed over time, and human conceptions of Him often made Him out to be evil. There is a very important difference between those two positions.

An observation that might be helpful here: I believe it was in a recent interview with Jonathan Martin about DBH's recent book that DBH brought up Marcion with regard to the OT. (It is strangely difficult to locate the interview on Martin's site! I'll post if I find it.) In a discussion of modern evangelical fundamentalism, DBH took Marcion as an early example of an almost successful attempt to read scripture "literally" in the modern fundamentalist sense. Hart claims Marcion is basically right that the OT, _thus read,_ presents a God who must be rejected as un-Christian. Marcion rejects _the God of that reading;_ DBH's (traditional, orthodox) allegorical reading rejects _that reading of God._ There is no comparison between these positions, really; they are qualitatively different. And the difference has little or nothing to do with the details of the development of Hebraic monotheism before Christ. You say here that DBH is making some claim to the effect "Oh, but the author [of some OT passage] is really intending something allegorical in [that OT passage]," but he has forcefully rejected this idea many times, and - again referring to the Fathers - made it clear that authors' "intentions" have traditionally been considered of little interest for the reading of scripture (or much else). Hart is as far from Marcionism as can be.

Would you agree that Hart quotes Gregory of Nyssa more than Origen?

One odd thing is, for someone who quotes Origen so much (Hart), Origen was the first prominently making a case that the Old and New Testaments were of the same God.

Literalism is heresy amen to that

It's much easier to debate with DBH when he isn't able to respond, isn't it?

Sounds like you're talking about a "Martian night." ;-) Several years ago I picked up a copy of Hart's beautifully illustrated The Story of Christianity. While the visuals are lovely indeed, I found the text so irritating that I gave it away shortly thereafter.

I think “ yes, he is a marcionite” would’ve been a fair enough answer, but thanks Dr. Cooper for clarifying.

A link would be helpful. Thanks.

Hart's point is that we cannot read the bible using the same method we would for other texts precisely because it is divinely inspired, what he has argued is that the meaning of the text has little or nothing to do with what the human authors might have thought it meant.

There are lots and lots of historical things that would be wildly inappropriate for the second temple period that make perfect contextual, historical sense for when the texts were actually written, too. There are glosses (mostly geographical) that date from the 1200s to the 500s or so that have been incorporated into the text, but the underlying text is impossibly historical for being written in the second temple period. Even something like the first appearance of chariots being called out as IRON chariots--if this was written in the second temple period, that would be like saying "a horseless carriage" in 2020, but it's perfectly correct for the time. The people of the second temple would not have known that, because historiography just wasn't very good then!!!!

That moment when an infernalist refers to someone who has theologically emptied hell as "inflammatory"....

Maybe I am being pedantic, but Hart's position is not that of Marcion of Sinope. Hart is wrong and his dismissal of the Old Testamemt is a grave error. Marcion also made that mistake... but don't the similarities end there? Aren't we letting Marcion's manifold errors of the hook by equating him and Hart? We don't do historical context or precise language any favors by using very particular historical terms with very particular meanings to criticize modern positions that have only passing resemblance to the facts of the rhetorical accusation. Where is Marcion's Docetic Christology in Hart? Where is the divine demiurge and the monad? Has Hart denied the Pastoral Epistles? Has he redacted the Gospel of Luke? Does Hart argue the Marcion position that the OT god is just? Does Hart posit that the OT god created the material world and the NT god did not? Where is the denial of the final resurrection of the body? All of the above and more are Marcion's heresies. I'm not defending Hart. I'm saying he can be critiqued and his opinions defeated without twisting historical terms to the point that they barely mean the same thing. Such a weak argument is only compelling to people who are already predisposed to agree with you... and adding inprecise labeling to a stronger argument does not improve its credibility. One last time: Hart may not be a Marcionite, but he is dangerously wrong about the OT and his tone in itself requires repentance.

I have a lot of respect for DBH and also for Peter Leithart. Both are original thinkers and of course great theologians. It’s very odd that DBH should have verbally attacked PL in this way as they seemed to get along well at First Things. I can’t help but wonder whether DBH has been affected by the Lyme disease with which he’s been living for a few years now which unfortunately can cause aggression. Very sad if true - but of course there’s no way of knowing unless DBH himself brings up the subject. Very sad if true.

An Episcopal priest recommended That All May Be Saved to me, and I didn't like it... Absolutely YIKES that this guy would say this.

My annoyance is how particularly these Greek Orthodox Universalists only help reinforce a stereotype that you have to reject Literlaist to teach Unviersal Salvation. In the Early Church the Antiochian School why Hyper Literlalists more so then any modern Fundamentalist, and Theodore of Mopsuesta taught Universal Salvation unambiguously.

Douglas Rushkoff is a Jewish author who has described the Hebrew bible in the same way... as showing the evolution of God from polytheism to monotheism.

Man,---- who ARE you, and where you been all my life! rrrrrrrROCK on!

Pretending the OT was a stand-alone text since the beginning is hilarious and wrong.

No; he is not a Marcionite. He accepts the OT as part of the canon of Christian scripture. But as an Eastern Orthodox theologian he reads the OT allegorically.

What are your thoughts on non canonical texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and those found at the Nag Hammadi area? Personally I think they are very enlightening in that they offer a glimpse into the development of the over all Jewish and Christian faiths as well as demonstrating how the early Jews and Christians disagreed over various theological ideas, albeit different ideas, as much it is done today!

I have a hard time caring about the particulars of these sophisticated distinctions and arguments since I believe that if this God really exists why are the particulars so opaque and key arguments so much in unending controversy seemingly impossible to resolve. And we haven't even gotten to the proper of evil.

Further, in Hart's response to Leithart, he accuses modern fundamentalists of being Marcionites. You stopped reading his article too soon. Hart says, "Judaism (as we know it today) and Christianity came into existence in much the same period of Graeco-Roman culture, and both reflect the religious thinking of their time. Neither was ever literalist in the way you [Leithart] apparently are. The only ancient Christian figure whom we can reliably say to have read the Bible in the manner of modern fundamentalists was Marcion of Sinope. He exhibited far greater insight than modern fundamentalists, however, in that he recognized that the god described in the Hebrew Bible-if taken in the mythic terms provided there-is something of a monster and hence obviously not the Christian God. Happily, his literalism was an aberration."

Hart's riposte is more subtle than you give him credit for (due to your own "literalist" disposition?). In his "reply" He disavows Marcion *because* of his literalism: "The only ancient Christian figure whom we can reliably say to have read the Bible in the manner of modern fundamentalists was Marcion of Sinope. He exhibited far greater insight than modern fundamentalists, however, in that he recognized that the god described in the Hebrew Bible-if taken in the mythic terms provided there-is something of a monster and hence obviously not the Christian God. Happily, his literalism was an aberration." C.S. Lewis takes a somewhat similar approach (though far milder and more congenial) in "Reflections On The Psalms" - when it comes to the dashing of babies heads... Do not let hand-waving, "categorize then dismiss" responses distract you from the very real issues that Hart is forcing us to face - be it ever so aggressively...

You really seem to misunderstand Hart here. You should seriously look at the recent "Tradition and Apocalypse." Hart has a very different view of how the text is inspired and how it functions. It is more organic and hard to describe. He believes the Spirit was working through the writing of these texts, and then their later organization, redaction, and anthologizing. At 20:40 you say he denies this. But this isn't the case. You keep insisting that Hart is saying "The Old Testament says x." But Hart's entire point is that the "Old Testament" as a collected anthology is NOT the same as the individual works of the Old Testament. The individual works often DO portray incomplete and even immoral views of God. But when taken together, and read in the new light of the whole, and especially of Christ, they say something that the individual parts (and their original authors) do not. I understand that this is complex. It's hard on my brain, too. He clarifies a lot in the book I mentioned. But Hart constantly comes off aggressive and pretentious because people online, and within our Churches, are comfortable calling him a heretic or Marcionite without REALLY putting in the work to understand him. You even say he is not a Christian thinker. What? Come on. Frankly, he is right to be condescending to others who interpret him like this. I am a philosopher, not a theologian, not a biblical historian, and even I could decipher Hart with only one read through. Why? Because I have put in the time to read broadly, carefully, and not primarily read post-reformation works. With my tiny bit of Greek I can do this. There is no excuse other than engaging with him flippantly. And, yes, scripture is not the prime authority for Hart... just like its not the prime authority for the Eastern Orthodox. It is the Spirit of Christ that is the prime authority, and the Apostles and Scriptures are authoritative parasitically. There you go. Easy. This is in St Philaret's and Peter Mogila's catechisms.

My church denomination educational materials and programs all sound like DB Hart, a very low view of the Hebrew, and THE LORD, and as a fan of the Bible and continuity of biblical theology and coherence of its design, it drives me absolutely crazy. I am praying for permission to find a church that respects the Bible, but I don’t want to surrender to my instincts to run away without testing. Advice welcome. If I thought that the orthodox fathers were proto-critical as if they all studied vonHarnack then I could see a point, but we know the fathers had a high view because Jerome went so far as to learn Hebrew and collect scrolls as if the LXX wasn’t enough to go on. Harts low view of Augustine and Hebrew is typical of so many. I first heard this anti-YWHW stuff in my TEC confirmation class 2 years ago. I am a trained exegete so I dismissed it as silly modernism. But I think I joined the wrong group in my zeal for liturgy.

don't you kind of love Boogie Boogins Pffpbltlart's translation of the New Testament tho? ... i sure do. despite his snarky footnotes and whatnot

Marcionism is not Gnosticism. Quite on the contrary, Marcion probably never had anything thing like "secret teachings"; If anything one could consider Marcion the first fundamentalist and Sola Scriptura theologian. You can call him a dualist (and even then his dualism might have been no deeper than contemporary Christians dualism with regards to God and satan), but to call him a gnostic is intellectually dishonest.

24:20 I didn't know that a particular view of scripture is what makes someone a Christian. I thought it was Jesus.

Moral and ethical intuition should take primacy over any text. Unless one takes a presuppositionalist position how else is one to judge the Bible or any other text except in the light of moral intuition guided by reason?

this video is unwatchable please present your argument in a more concise and straight to the point manner instead of it being a half hour rant

Of course he dislikes Calvinism: it is an early modern deformation of the Christian faith which has probably been partially responsible for the secularisation of those countries that once embraced it (to varying extents).

Hart understands the ancient mind. His knowledge of the ancient world is peerless as far as I can see. I agree with Hart on the critique of the Evangelical-Fundamentalist approximation to Christianity. Modern Evangelical and Fundamental Christians have adopted modern philosophical ways to look at the world, truth, scripture, etc. As a result, the approach imposes unintended interpretations on an ancient scripture. Pick up a philosophy book and try to understand modern Nominalism as the corrupting influence. It leads to the breaking apart the holistic writings of the Bible, which permits selective emphasis on pieces of scripture and permits blindness to the rest. Rationalization is then required to argue why certain portions must be ignored or receive strained interpretations. The arguments between Reformed and Arminian Theologies are the clearest example of this selective interpretation of scripture. This argument is not even an argument among the early Church Fathers because they use holistic metaphorical interpretation to embrace the whole of scripture. Modern Evangelicals use modern rationalistic coupling of verses that stretches the ancient books of the Bible into broken Denominationalism. Modern Christians can be smart but they are stuck in a Nominalist frame of mind so they have blinders that keep them in their misunderstanding and misrepresenting mindset towards Scripture most certainly. I note that Cooper's analysis is completely embedded within modern analysis and cannot even understand Hart's criticism. As a result Cooper attacks what he thinks Hart is saying and not what Hart is saying.

Would it be more accurate to say he's not your kind of Christian? Is that more accurate? Thank you for your post.

What a straw man

What might we say of early Yahweh, relying on the Pauline principle of interpreting the Old Testament through the new prism of Christ, if we, following René Girard, understand the demystificatory thrust of the Scriptures as being a "work in progress" against the archaic violent sacred? Thereby, we can accept a certain admixture of mythological elements (i.e. violent or vengeful, demanding sacrifices) with the ultimate revelation of God as love and mercy. An example: the killing of the sons of Aaron, or better, the similar killing of 400 Baal priests killed by the "fire of God" in the contest of faith with the prophet Elijah, or, more spectacularly, the tenth plague )death of firstborn) which, quite plausibly, could be understood through a Girardian lens as a crisis amongst pagan people who sought, by the massacre of their children, to placate their false gods through this sacrifice.

So when do you "think" the man of sin may be revealed...

I think that DBH will go full apostate and become the next great atheist neckbeard sometimes in the next few years.

Hart gets away with lying about the Patristics because most people are too lazy to read them and are happy to follow him to hell as long as he makes them feel smug and warm and fuzzy. He will take a few quotes out of context and then mix into it his liberal "mythology" reading of the OT and then hammers everything in a shape that suits his own vanity. If you are an educated person who reads the Patristic writings just as they are, you would never, in a thousand years, come to his conclusions. I am reminded of any number of NT verses, warning against myths devised by men and scripture twisted to the destruction of the listeners. For those who are not educated, let me explain something veeeeeeery simple. The Fathers believed that the OT was history and the God of the OT was their God. They ALSO believed that Hebrews is correct to use a type and shadow hermeneutic. So they spoke of real things that happened that prefigured later things (and so on). The "four readings" tradition was an extension of this. None of that tradition denied a literal reading or denied that the God of Abraham was the triune God they worshipped. When modern emergent churches get horrible hermeneutics, it's almost all because they inappropriately allegorize, say, David and Goliath into an absurd sermon about Slaying Your Giants Today!!!! Allegorical interpretations must be done only with care, because they can be abused the most easily. (The supposed allegory of the perpetual virginity of Mary is an example of the misuse of this method by the RCC.) I don't disagree that it's possible to over-literalize things that aren't literal, such as turning "my sheep hear my voice" into "if you are not getting prophecy from God you're not a Christian", but that's not that common, and it's never, in my experience, a so-called fundamentalist church that distorts DOCTRINE in that way.

You blather on without a detailed demonstration of David Bentley Hart’s error. Watching you just reinforced my admiration of DBH.

David Bentley Hart being a heretic, oh, wait, nothing new, yet he is convincing to some due to his arrogance, let us look at heretics in the past, arrogance is what makes one a heretic, rejecting the opinion of the Fathers, the Church and sticking to your own opinion.

I was previously unaware of this man and am wondering why we are discussing anything this unbeliever wrote. Is he influential in certain circles or was he at one time a solid Christian? Was his recent book the equivalent of Rob Bell's 'Love Wins' signaling his departure from the faith? Thanks.

he should just become even more based and reject Christianity for some other form of theism

Couldn't one consider Hart as a kind of unitarian? He believes in God - hence universal salvation. But where is the need for Jesus? And the old Testament? Or anyone aside from Origin and DB Hart. Hart is a major thinker, but he's also an egomaniac with a serious mean streak.

As an Orthodox Christian, David Bently Hart is an embarrassment to us,

hart is the most based theist