I once received a simple, multi-line message. It consisted of a name and an address: The name was A. J. Mattill, Jr; the address was for a publisher, Flatwoods Free Press, in rural Alabama. I replied by jokingly asking if it was a suggestion of some sort, and it turns out it was - my correspondent wanted me to critique this fellow's work. And so, here he is - and he is no typical Skeptic. Mattill is a veteran scholar of the Bible; I have noted his work cited with appreciation once in a while by even conservative commentators. Naturally, we have to wonder: What's up with this fellow? What's up is quite simply that we have another Robert Price on our hands - although this one seems only to be whittling away on the self-publishing circuit rather than pursuing fame making grouchy faces on A and E's Mysteries of the Bible.

In terms of that self-publishing, I have in my possession a tiny booklet of some 40 pages called The Art of Reading the Bible by Mattill. (Gordo, AL: Flatwoods Free Press, 1988) It is rather a confusing little tract in one sense: Mattill describes it as the "attempts of a hypothetical person to master" the reading of the Bible - and yet it also "grows out of (his) own experience" and he tells us that "the 'I' of the narrative is only partly autobiographical." [4] What follows thereafter are brief accountings of 15 "methods" that Mattill (or whoever) used to read and understand the Bible - and the reason(s) why he(?) abandoned each in turn except the last.

Since we are not told what "partly" means here, and what parts are authentic, I will simply write here as though Mattill himself held to each of these views at one time. This little booklet tells us, if nothing else, a story of yet another Bible scholar turned apostate -- one who apparently got confused on the one hand, and let his heart rule his head on the other. I am not in disagreement with all of what Mattill has to say in this book; some of the methods he lists are indeed worthless, and we shall note that this is so. But there are a couple of cases where it seems obvious that either Mattill's knowledge and/or his critical faculties were not up to the task...in short, it's yet another case of someone paying the Price.

Let's move now to these 15 "methods" of Bible study of Mattill's.

#1 - The Devotional Method. As the name implies, this is simply the act of reading the Bible with childlike faith. It's a method that we all start with, and regrettably, many of us stick with for far too long. But Mattill, in this case, notes that as he grew older, his outlook "broadened and (his) childlike faith in the awesome authority" of those who instructed him in religious matters "began to crumble". [6] Well and well: These are the normal growing pains of one who realizes that the Bible did not, after all, simply drop out of heaven; it had a complex history. The key is where one goes from there, and this is where Mattill apparently began to show a certain lack of critical faculty....

#2 - The Proof-Texting Method. Again, the name speaks for itself: One finds texts that prove various points. It works fine for most books; why not here? Mattill tells us that he "gradually became disillusioned with this method, for I realized that I was picking and choosing only those verses which supported my position." [6-7] A common flaw of understanding: No need to panic. In fact, it is clear from the two examples that Mattill gives of how he "misused" this method that he panicked a little too soon and without clear understanding. He notes first that he used Proverbs 23:31-2 as a defense for total abstinence:

Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper.

How, Mattill asks, was he to resolve this with counter proof-texts for Christian liberty with alcohol, like 1 Timothy 5:23 (a little wine for your stomach's sake)? That he chose this as one of his two examples suggests that it was a matter that really tore him apart, but I rather think Mattill got his socks in a knot for nothing here! Proverbs, of course, are just that: proverbs. They are NOT absolutes. Therefore, while the verse above is excellent as a warning against indulgence, it cannot serve as a "proof" for abstinence at all. Therefore, it offers no conflict with the likes of 1 Tim. 5:23. (See more on this topic here.)

For another example of why he abandoned this method, Mattill says that he was "all too often...lifting verses out of context to prove my point, and in so doing I was distorting the meaning." That's sad, but Mattill's own personal malfeasance really offers no excuse. At the same time, it is clear that Mattill fell for the usual bigotry that many literal readers do today: He supposes that the NT writers took verses like Isaiah 7:14 out of context, oblivious to the fact that they were doing nothing extraordinary for their time. We'll discuss typology a bit more shortly; for now, let us close with this observation. Mattill abandoned this quite useful method because his own knowledge was inadequate, and his own critical thinking skills insufficient. How dare I say this? Let me say that anyone who, like Mattill as he does in this section, quotes Robert Ingersoll as an authority, has self-evidently thrown his brains out of the window. One ought no more quote Ingersoll (or Paine, or Voltaire, etc.) on the Bible that one ought to quote John McEnroe or Ilie Nastase on good tennis sportsmanship, or Luciano Pavarotti on singing country and western. Let the dead bury their uneducated dead. On to the next ---

#3 - The Dispensationalist Method. Mattill calls this the "principle of literal, normal and plain interpretation" [8-9] of the text. All he does, though, is vaguely cite the fact that there are disagreements among various dispensationalists (though he neither names, nor cites - much less critically evaluates! - any given example of disagreement), which accomplishes nothing and proves nothing. Mattill's paltry two pages hardly serve as any sort of reasonable exposition on this subject.

#4 - The Historical-Critical Method. Now this one has some real use, and I use it often myself: To understand the Bible, understand it in its context. Seems cool! What did Mattill do with this? Uh, well, he ruined it: He tells us that he "envisioned groups of legend-swappers sitting around campfires", telling, re-telling, and embellishing the Biblical stories "long before the scribes reduced them to writing and added their own touches and harmonistic glosses as they wove the sources together" - all, he adds a bit sarcastically, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Well, one thing is correct: Mattill did indeed use his imagination. The scenario he envisioned has little to do with the realities of ancient oral and textual preservation, but it has everything to do with how certain folks addicted to slice-and-dice games imagined the Bible was put together.

Beyond that, Mattill also offers three examples of things that "stunned" him when he used this method. let's look at all three:

1. He learned Hebrew, he tells us, and did his own translation of Genesis 1:1-2 thusly: "At the first, when the gods began to create the sky and the earth, the earth was in the greatest possible state of chaos." This, he tells us, caused him to question the ideas of monotheism and ex nihilo creation. I think rather he should have questioned his own translation skills: Monotheism is not in question, for while the plural (likely of majesty or power) Elohim is used here (and I might add, is used throughout the OT in a way that suggests a majestic rather than a numeric plural), it is coupled with a verb in the singular. (For more, see here, and ironically, here for a note that the latest recognition is that the OT does NOT teach "monotheism" as much as "monolatry"!) As for ex nihilo, it is true that there are some arguments (based on the lack of a definite article) that suggest creation from pre-existing matter is indicated, but these are far from conclusive (similar temporal phrases without the definite article can be cited), and at any rate, if this verse by itself does not indicate ex nihilo, it is certainly indicated by the way this creation was understood subsequently by Jewish writers later on - who are in a decidedly better position to understand it. (For more on this, see our article on this subject here.)

2. Second, Mattill looked at Acts 2:38 --

   Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins."

   Mattill notes that in this verse "for" is eis - a word that can mean with for or because of. His problem is that if it is the former, it means that baptism is essential to salvation; if the latter, then it is not, and this apparently threw him into yet another purple tizzy.

   I really have to wonder what Mattill is about here. In Luke's works it is consistently asserted that only repentance is essential to salvation, so that "because of" is all the more likely. But even so, throughout the NT we have demands upon believers for behavior validating their commitment to Christ; baptism is hardly any different. Does the lack of the behavior mean one is not saved? Not necessarily, but one has a right to question the faith of anyone who produces no validating behavior. In regards to the current case, can we picture someone hearing the preaching of Peter and saying, "Pete, that's good stuff, I'll repent as you say, but you can take that baptism requirement and stick it in your ear." ? Bottom line: Whatever eis means in this verse, it is clear that baptism, like any validating behavior, is "essential to salvation" in the sense that if you don't want to go through with it, we have to wonder what exactly your problem is. One should not take this as supposing that one who repents but dies on their way to the baptismal pool is out of gas for eternity: This is law, not administrative code. If that were the case, then we should have expected a far greater and different emphasis on the baptism ritual in Luke's material and in the NT, and a lot more questions about it in the early church. (For more on this, see yet another item here.)

3. Finally, Mattill had a big problem with a calm little Greek word, mello --

   3195. mello, mel'-lo; a strengthened form of G3199 (through the idea of expectation); to intend, i.e. be about to be, do, or suffer something (of persons or things, espec. events; in the sense of purpose, duty, necessity, probability, possibility, or hestitation):--about, after that, be (almost), (that which is, things, + which was for) to come, intend, was to (be), mean, mind, be at the point, (be) ready, + return, shall (begin), (which, that) should (after, afterwards, hereafter) tarry, which was for, will, would, be yet.

   The problem? This word is used in several places like this concerning the return of Christ, where I have placed the word "soon" as Mattill supposes it should be - to wit:

   Acts 17:31 For he has set a day when he will (soon) judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.

   Acts 24:15 and I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will (soon) be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked.

   Eph. 1:21 ...far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one (soon) to come.

   At issue here, Mattill apparently perceived that mello indicated a "speedy coming to the end of the world" - and thus he complains, well, it's not here yet, so there's obviously a problem! The problem, however, is again with Mattill's own understanding. Let's look at some "non-eschatological" uses of mello:

   Mark 10:32 They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was (soon) going to happen to him.

   Luke 10:1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was *about to* go.

   John 4:47 When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was *close to* death.

   John 6:6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was *going to* do.

   This should be enough to make it obvious that mello has little or nothing to do with speed as it stands - rather, it is a word expressing fixed intent, something decided beforehand that cannot be escaped. In another book published by Western North Carolina Press, Luke and the Last Things, Mattill wastes a great deal of time trying to figure out what exact time-frames are involved with mello, and finds place where it refers to events that take place a few moments later, or up to a year later. This should have alerted him at once that measured time is not the issue: All of the writers of the NT lived a year and more beyond these pronouncements. (At the same time, even if mello should indicate a short time in some cases, how much of a problem it is depends on your eschatology...for the preterist of any sort, like me, for example, it causes no problem at all.)

   Mattill closes this section with a cadre of presumptions against the miraculous and arguments by outrage - things which he says he considered to be "embarrassing statements which seemed to be impossible, untrue, and unworthy". Well, that's an interesting reflection on Mattill's personal bugaboos and narrow-mindedness, but it has not a whit to do with whether or not what is in the Bible is valid. A. J. Mattill is not the standard of all truth, even if he thinks he is.

#5 - The Symbolical Method

#6 - The Allegorical Method

These are two methods which we agree are useless. On to the next:

#7 - The Typological Method. This, we shall assert, is yet another fully valid method of Biblical interpretation that Mattill chucked out of hand: It was within the thought-paradigms of the writers of the Bible, and it is certainly not our place to declare it invalid. Admittedly, one cannot really suppose typology to be valid unless the existence of a God who would implement "types" is presumed to begin with; but that's part of the package deal. As I have written elsewhere, we do not really expect skeptics to accept typology as something to be taken for granted.

Mattill, though, seems to have believed in God at that point; so why did he abandon typology? Once again, it seems to have been his own lack of self-control at issue: He says, "I found that when I read the Bible typologically there are no effective controls to restrain my cleverness from running riot in detecting correspondences and resemblances and making forced connections between type and antitype." [20] For a specific example, he says:

I recalled the words of my rationalistic wife when I told her emphatically that the red color of the sacrificial red heifer without spot (Numbers 19:2) was a type of the sacrificial blood of Jesus. 'Well,' she replied, 'it would be all the same if the cow had been black. Whatever the color of the cow, you'd find some sort of typology for it. Typology is worthless.'

May I just say, generally, that in such complaints Mattill reminds me of the drunkard who sots himself to the gills and then blames his friends who drink in moderation or not much at all for the ills that follow. His cleverness ran riot? That's a shame: But that's no call for those of us with more mental discipline to chuck things. More to the point, let's look at that cow typology, which I'll assume here to be valid. Would it be the same if the cow were black? If so, HOW? Red matches blood, and the perfection of the redness of the heifer makes for the blood of perfection; what would black then equal? A perfect death? Perfect dirt? The perfect darkness of the grave? More to the point, was Mattill's "rationalistic wife" an expert on ANE thought-forms? To put it simply: One can indeed run wild with typology, but as with analogies that one can likewise run wild with in daily life, so it is that some type/antitype equations make more sense than others. If you can find a better typology than one suggested, do so. If you can't make one fit too well, then don't worry about it. But don't have the presumptive arrogance to call it "worthless" unless you have more knowledge than the God who may have established it in the first place.

#8 - The Bumble-Bee Method. This is a method Mattill picked up from "erudite fundamentalist friends" while in a "mood of desperation" - and he would have been better off without it. It's basically the naive "read, believe" method that causes the likes of Harold Lindsell to create nine cock crows, and I find it no more worthwhile than Mattill did.

#9 - The Fuller Sense Method. This method seems little different than the typological one; and here again, Mattill bleats on and on about the alleged distortion of verses like Isaiah 7:14. One comment is worthy of note [23]: "If an omniscient God were really moving holy men of old to prophesy, then it would be no problem for him to give them a vision of future events, such as the virginal conception of Jesus." By the same token, here is my response: If readers like Mattill were not so overbearingly self-centered and smug about the supposed superiority of their modern thought-forms, then they would not register complaints about how God "could have made it more clear" or "could have amazed me by prophesying things like the Nazis and space travel." In this regard Mattill is little more sophisticated and no less bigoted than Ken's Guide to the Bible.

#10 - The Spiritualizing Method. Here Mattill seems to have tripped into some form of the "health and wealth" gospel - I can't really say for sure. Either way, we agree that this method is worthless.

#11 - The General-Drift Method. This method is basically runs under the supposition that the men of the Bible had "evolved" their morality in between these times. I of course reject this idea, and Mattill does also: He perceptively observes that in using this method, he was "in fact transferring my authority to my own reason and conscience which I used to identify and evaluate the trends within the Bible." [30] That's actually what Mattill was doing most of the time in the first place; but one other noteworthy comment in this section: "no longer could I believe that a chapter like Nehemiah 7, with its names and numbers, is as much inspired as such spiritual masterpieces as John 14, Jesus' farewell discourse." [29] If by "inspired" Mattill means "makes me feel good all over", then he is right, but that is not what we mean when we say that the Bible is inspired: We mean rather that it tells the truth. One suspects here, once again, that Mattill has let his heart pound his head into submission. (And, we might add, submitted once again to bigotry: The readers of Nehemiah thought that the names and numbers were essential; who is Mattill to insult them by declaring his own statement of value on such texts?)

#12 - Glory of the Book Method

#13 - Existentialist Method

#14 - The Latest Methods

Little needs be said here: Mattill for the first two of these went into experiential liberalism and then Bultmannianism, and as we might expect found them wanting. For the last he tried some of the "latest methods" like reader-response criticism and structuralism, most of which he found to be useless fads. He's only partially right, but we need not get into that right now. Let's just go right to Mattill's final method of reading the Bible, the one he apparently was stuck with in 1988, though by now he may have tried ten dozen others for all we know:

#15 - The Reason and Conscience Method. Mattill says that he has combined the best of the historical-critical method with this method - where he uses his own reason and conscience as a guide. As such, it is simply back to the old Casper Milquetoast god who never lifts a hand against sinners (with the possible exception of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot); who can do no miracles, and may not even exist.

And thus does Mattill's apostasy come full circle. What we have here from Mattill is not a journey of careful consideration, but one of confusion, bitterness, and ignorance -- and it is all the more insulting that Mattill thinks that this tract of barely 40 pages is worth even the paper it is printed on.