ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Person

John Currid

American Reformed Old Testament scholar and Egyptologist; the Carl W. McMurray Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte campus). Currid is the most articulate evangelical-academic voice for the polemical-theology reading of the Old Testament's relationship to its Ancient Near Eastern environment, the thesis that the biblical authors knew the surrounding ANE myths and wrote against them, not from them. His 2013 book Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Crossway) is the standard short statement of the position and the single most-deployed counter-text against the "Genesis just borrowed from the ANE" argument circulating in atheist-apologetic and skeptical-academic discourse.

Currid combines a primary-source Egyptological training (PhD, University of Chicago Oriental Institute, 1985) with a confessionally-Reformed theological commitment. The combination gives him standing in both the academic ANE / Hebrew-Bible guild and the conservative-evangelical confessional sphere, a relatively rare bridging-credential set, comparable to Kenneth Kitchen (British), James Hoffmeier (Trinity Evangelical), and K. Lawson Younger (Trinity Evangelical). Currid is more confessionally-Reformed than John Walton (more cautious on theistic evolution, traditional on Adam, traditional on inerrancy) and supplies the conservative-Presbyterian alternative to Walton's Lost World series.

Life

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  • B. 1951. Studied at the University of Vermont (BA) and Reformed Theological Seminary (MDiv).
  • PhD in Near Eastern Studies / Egyptology from the University of Chicago Oriental Institute (1985), under James Hoffmeier and the Chicago Egyptological school.
  • Ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA); has pastored and supplied for PCA congregations alongside his teaching.
  • Joined Reformed Theological Seminary in 1990; Carl W. McMurray Professor of Old Testament at RTS Charlotte; has lectured widely at Westminster Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, and PCA-affiliated venues.
  • Member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the Evangelical Theological Society.

Major works

  • Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament (Baker Academic, 1997), first major statement; ANE-comparative engagement focused on Egyptian primary sources; foundational for Currid's polemical-theology trajectory.
  • Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament (Crossway, 2013), the load-bearing short statement of the polemical-theology thesis; surveys ANE creation, flood, ancestor, and law parallels and argues each functions polemically rather than derivatively.
  • Genesis 1:1-11:26 (Evangelical Press Study Commentary, 2003), full commentary on the primeval history.
  • Genesis 11:27-50:26 (Evangelical Press, 2003), commentary on the patriarchal narratives.
  • Exodus, Volume 1: Chapters 1-18 (Evangelical Press, 2000); Exodus, Volume 2: Chapters 19-40 (Evangelical Press, 2001).
  • Leviticus (Evangelical Press, 2004).
  • Numbers (Evangelical Press, 2009).
  • Deuteronomy (Evangelical Press, 2006).
  • Numerous shorter monographs and contributions, including pieces in the Reformed Faith and Practice journal, the Westminster Theological Journal, and the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

Key positions

  • Polemical theology as the primary biblical mode of ANE engagement. The Old Testament authors are not derivative borrowers from ANE myth (the Wellhausen / Smith / popular-skeptic reading) and not isolated-from-ANE (the older fundamentalist reading). They are deliberate polemicists who use recognizable ANE vocabulary, motifs, and narrative structures to invert their theological content. Same furniture, opposite house. Currid lays this out across five domains in Against the Gods: creation accounts, flood narratives, ancestor / hero tales, prophetic theophany imagery, and legal codes. In each case the biblical text engages an identifiable ANE counterpart and theologically subverts it.

  • Egyptian polemic in the Pentateuch. Currid's Egyptological training shows in his Exodus and Genesis commentaries: the plagues of Exodus are read as point-by-point polemic against the Egyptian pantheon (Nile / Hapi; sun / Ra; cattle / Apis; firstborn / Pharaoh-as-divine-son); Joseph's elevation echoes and inverts the Egyptian "Tale of Sinuhe" / "Tale of the Two Brothers" patterns; the bronze serpent (Num 21) engages and subverts the uraeus serpent-deity imagery of Egyptian royal iconography.

  • Genesis 1-3 polemic against ANE creation accounts. Genesis 1 engages Enuma Elish but inverts its theology, no theogony, no divine conflict, no creation-from-divine-corpse; one sovereign creator, speech-act creation, humans as image-bearers of the creator (not as menial labor to free gods from work). Genesis 2-3 engages ANE garden / paradise / fall traditions and supplies the theological inversion: humanity falls through autonomy from a good creator, not through deity-rivalry or fated-tragedy.

  • Flood polemic against Atrahasis / Gilgamesh XI. Genesis 6-9 engages the ANE flood tradition but supplies the moral-causation explanation absent from the ANE counterparts. Pagan gods flood for trivial reasons (noise, overpopulation, divine annoyance); YHWH floods for moral corruption and violence (Gen 6:5, 11). The hero (Noah) is righteous-and-obedient rather than divinely-favored-by-trickery (Atrahasis hidden by Enki).

  • Historical Adam, traditional position. Currid defends a traditional historical Adam, sole biological progenitor, not John Walton's archetype-and-representative reading. This is the standard friendly-critic distinction within the evangelical-academic ANE-comparative school: Currid and Walton agree on polemical-engagement, disagree on Adam-anthropology.

  • Confessional inerrancy. Currid affirms the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and writes within Reformed confessional bounds (Westminster Standards). His ANE-comparative work is conducted as a constructive complement to confessional theology, not as a corrosive solvent, the comparative material illuminates the biblical text without relativizing its theological claims.

  • OT historicity, broadly maximalist. Currid sides with the maximalist OT camp (Kenneth Kitchen, Hoffmeier, Younger) against the minimalist Copenhagen school (Davies, Thompson, Lemche) and against the moderate-skeptic American school (Finkelstein, Silberman, Dever). His Exodus commentary defends a historical Exodus and Conquest; his Genesis commentary defends historical patriarchs.

Christian-apologetic relevance

Currid is load-bearing in the codex at three major engagements:

  • Genesis ANE Myth Borrowing Objection + Genesis ANE Myth Borrowing Objection Defeater, Currid's polemical-theology framing is the leading constructive evangelical-academic response to the "Genesis just borrowed from ANE myth" argument. The Currid framework can be summarized as: the parallels are real, but they function as polemic, not as derivation. This anchors the defeater's P1 (the parallels exist) while supplying the inversion that defuses the objection's force.

  • Canaanite Conquest and Herem + Canaanite Conquest Objection Defeater, Currid's Egyptological and ANE-rhetorical work informs the broader maximalist defense of OT conquest historicity, though John Walton's Lost World of the Israelite Conquest (2017) is the more-developed academic statement on this specific topic.

  • OT Polytheism Objection, Currid (with Michael Heiser) supplies the polemical-engagement counter to Mark Smith's developmental thesis. The biblical use of West Semitic divine vocabulary (El, El Shaddai, El Elyon, elohim-language, divine-council imagery) is read as polemical appropriation of ANE religious vocabulary in service of a monotheistic-with-supernatural-host theology, not as fossil-evidence of an earlier Israelite polytheism.

Currid sits in the evangelical-academic ANE-comparative cluster with John Walton, Michael Heiser, Kenneth Kitchen, James Hoffmeier, K. Lawson Younger, and Tremper Longman III. He is the more confessionally-Reformed and anthropologically-traditional voice in that cluster, accepts the ANE-comparative method, applies it polemically, holds traditional positions on Adam and inerrancy. Apologetically he is the first-line resource when the objection takes the form "the OT borrowed its myths from the ANE", Against the Gods (2013) is the standard 200-page survey response.

See also