Biblical Maximalists vs. Minimalists

Biblical Maximalists and Biblical Minimalist differ in their view of the importance of using the Bible as a historical source with regards to archaeological discovery. Maximalists feel that the Bible should be trusted as a historical source with regards to archaeology; while Minimalists question most of the archaeological history of the Bible, particularly anything before the Post-Exilic period. One side sees the Bible as a history of an actual people who actually lived in actual historical cities; the other sees much of the “history” of the Old Testament to be nothing more than myth. As Price notes, “The worldviews of the biblical maximalist and minimalist are opposite and cannot be reconciled.” (Price 327) The term “worldview” is particularly applicable here because it is what is truly the difference—the entire worldview of each party. Maximalists see God’s Word as supreme over the discoveries and “history” of man, while the minimalist sees man’s historical discovery as supreme over and interpretive of the Bible. Those who argue for minimalism see themselves as empiricists so to speak. Therefore, they take the Bible, which is a “book of faith,” to be taken as a theological work, not a historical one. They therefore believe the Bible for its theological truths, but do not necessarily trust it to be historically accurate. They feel that the “science” of archaeology should be studied apart from the “faith” aspect, because science should be conducted based on the discoveries that modern man can see rather than the words of men who lived thousands of years ago. These claim that the Bible’s historicity should be judged by the same observable science that every other discovery in a scientific field would be.