Inerrancy or Contextual Incongruities?

The diagram shows Nimrod's Sumerian wife. She named their firstborn son after her father, Asshur. This is an example of the cousin bride's naming prerogative, a distinctive feature of the early Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern. It explains why some male names repeat every other generation.



Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Understanding the biblical texts requires paying attention to the anthropologically significant data. The empirical approach of Biblical Anthropology rejects the notion that there are "errors" in Genesis. Instead, it recognizes contextual incongruities. Consider a Native American chief with a fleet of birch wood canoes controlling trade between villages on the Mississippi in 1720. Fast forward a mere 200 years to 1920 when a river magnate controls commerce on the same river with his fleet of riveted steel ships. Same river, very different cultural contexts.

The contexts of the biblical persons in Genesis 4-12 were as distantly in the past to First Century Jews as they are to most readers today. Adam and Eve lived around 5000-4800 BC in a vast well-watered region called Eden. One of their descendants Nimrod left Kush (East Africa) and established his territory on the Euphrates River around 3500 BC (Gen. 10). Abraham was one of Nimrod’s descendants. Abraham the Hebrew controlled the water systems at Hebron and Beersheba and the wells that he dug in Gerar around 2000 BC. To understand biblical history, we must grapple with these contextual incongruities and the best disciplines to apply in this effort are cultural anthropology, archaeology, DNA studies, and linguistics.

Critical reading avoids imposing a presumed order or interpretation on the text. To flesh out the narrative we must notice the incongruities and discrepancies, trace the layers, and listen for the subordinated voices. Those often are the voices of women.

The term "layers" is helpful if we imagine the growth rings of a tree. The oldest rings are near the center of the tree. The layers are visible when we cut through the tree. That is what Biblical Anthropology does with the canonical Scriptures. It seeks to identify the oldest layers and to use that data to gain a clearer picture of the social structure of the early Hebrew. Antecedents matter!

Biblical anthropology asks about antecedents. It explores what comes before what is described in the text. What events preceded the events recounted? It seeks to understand the cultural context of the earliest persons named in Genesis: Adam, Eve, Cain, Seth, Noah, etc. It is concerned with ancestors and received traditions. From what earlier context did certain practices develop? What traces of ancient memory can be uncovered?

Over the past 8 years the international forum The Bible and Anthropology has helped to advance the science of Biblical Anthropology. If this research interests you, consider joining that forum.

Related reading: Biblical Anthropology: Another Reason to Believe; The Dispersion of the Early Hebrew; The Hebrew were a Caste; Just Genesis: Learn About the Early Hebrew; Cousin Brides

Remembering Ernest L. Schusky

Ernest L Schusky (1931-2019) was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, the only son of Lenora Davis Schusky and Ernest Schusky. His B.A. degree was from Miami University, Ohio; his PhD degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago. 

He was an active member of St. Francis United Methodist Church in Tucson, Arizona, and an associate member of the First United Methodist Church in Collinsville, Illinois.

Schusky began his academic teaching career at South Dakota State University in 1958. In 1960 he joined the new campus of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and developed the program in anthropology. He retired as emeritus professor in 1993. 

His professional career included a Fulbright in 1977 at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, as well as a summer Fulbright in India. He spent a sabbatical year at the London School of Economics.

Lectureships included National Science Foundation invitations at Cornell College, Huron College, St. Xavier and the University Chicago and a semester at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where the family lived in a historic log cabin on campus. 

Schusky was a fellow of the American Anthropology Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology and served as President of Central States Anthropology Society.

His Manual for Kinship Analysis has been considered by some anthropologists to be one of the most significant books of the 20th century. Originally published in 1964 by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, this volume has been used by students as an introduction to classifying and analyzing the kinship systems of the world. This second edition introduces in a simple, step-by-step style the methods of componential analysis as well as determining the structure of Iroquois, Crow-Omaha, and other kinship systems. A good supplemental text for Introductory Anthropology courses.

Schusky's scholarly research and writing emphasized Sioux Indians (his PhD dissertation studied the Lower Brule Sioux in South Dakota). The Right To Be Indian (1965) is his most reprinted work and Introducing Culture was widely adopted as an introductory text and had four editions. Several of his texts have been published in Korean, Japanese, and Portuguese. Other titles included The Forgotten Sioux and Introduction to Social Science.

In retirement, Schusky began writing fiction based on his lifelong commitment to Native American history and culture. His first novel, Journey to the Sun, described life at Cahokia Mounds ca.1,000 A.D. Other titles include Ride the Whirlwind (Pueblo Indians), Return to Beauty (Navajo) and Too Many Miracles, about the life of a Papago Indian Schusky had interviewed as a graduate student at the University of Arizona. 

Ernest L.Schusky died on December 12, 2019 at age 88.