Critical Scholarship Is Occult

                                                                                                                                                                  Vol. V, No. 5, September 1992

A former student of Rudolph Bultmann said she has come to the conclusion critical biblical scholarship is of the occult. Eta Linnemann told a 19 Feb. chapel gathering at Southeastern Seminary how she rose through the ranks of German theological scholarship studying under such men as Bultmann, Ernst Fuchs, Friedrich Gogarten, and Gerhard Ebeling, all historical-critical (h-c) experts. She finished her studies and began to teach at Braunschweig Technical University and at Marburg. Presently she is a professor in Batu, Indonesia.

Through her observations Linnemann said she determined that no truth could emerge from "scientific" work on the biblical text and that historical criticism does not serve the proclamation of the gospel. Linnemann's book, Historical Criticism of the Bible: Methodology or Ideology? was published in 1990 by Baker House and is now in its second printing.

Her doubts about the h-c method led her into severe depression which in turn opened her to God's leading. She began to attend prayer meetings with some of her students who were born again Christians and who began to pray for her salvation. At one of the prayer meetings, the pastor gave an invitation for those who did not know Christ to become Christians.

"This is a problem for historical-critical theologians: They think they are Christians and so you can't ask them if they want to become a Christian," Linnemann said. "But through the grace of God the altar call was formulated again, and I knew this was for me." Linnemann said before she accepted Christ "Everything was gray; I had no sins, but I had excuses." After she was saved, she was "led by the Lord to discern that everything was no longer gray but white or black. The Lord led me to the place where I named sin ‘sin' and repented of my old life."

The first time she gave her testimony about this at an evangelical university in Germany, Linnemann said a Bible teacher asked her, "Does this mean that historical-critical theology belongs to the occult?"

"At that time I wasn't sure of the answer, but after thinking it over I came to believe that the inspiration of the historical-critical theology is from the occult," Linnemann said. "That is not to say that everyone who uses historical-critical theology is a part of the occult. There is, however, a connection between the two." [BP]