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Biblical Literary criticism: valid?

Brian2

Brian2

Veteran Member
Xavier Graham said:
When I was a staunch young earther Bible literalist, I viewed literary criticism of the Bible as nothing but a bunch of unfounded assumptions. Now I’m looking at it from a different light. I have some books written by biblical scholars, the Anchor Bible Series is a great collection of the Bible with scholarly commentary.
There is this theory called the Documentary Hypothesis which organizes the first five books of the Bible into various hypothetical authors. I used to think that it was rather flimsy, (as a layman, I’m no scholar).
Just, with the Documentary hypothesis, they suppose that an author cannot use more than one name for God. They say one author says Elohim, while another author says Yahweh. Would it have been impossible for Moses to use both those names? I know when I was a Christian, I used more than one name.
With Isaiah, scholars say there is three authors. They say this because of different writing styles. As a Christian, I countered this in my head by saying that Isaiah wrote the book over the course of his life. So, it made sense that there was variation of literary style.
I was looking at biblical scholarship with a closed mind, already set that the Bible was the literal word of God. Now I’m ready to reevaluate biblical criticism with an open mind. I’m reading A History of God by Karen Armstrong for starters.
Are there any scholars on this site? I ask scholars and layman alike though the following questions, as I am a layman myself.
Is biblical literary criticism reliant on flimsy assumptions?
Does biblical criticism in general start its investigation with a decided conclusion beforehand I.e. the belief that God of the Bible isn’t real?
Is viewing the literary style of a book a valid way of determining various authors?
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Digging into the Bible with all sorts of tools can produce better understanding.
That different parts of the Bible are stories from various sources that have been joined into one story seems right.
When it comes to the Documentary Hypothesis, the justification for it seems to have been that there was no archaeological evidence for Moses and the Exodus etc and so it was presumed that the stories did not happen and did not come from that era but were made up at a later time in the history of the Jews.
At this stage in archaeology I would say there is evidence for the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan and the existence of writing and written records back at that time etc but the documentary hypothesis was not thrown out altogether.
I'm sure that many people have lost their faith because of this sort of criticism being used in Theological Colleges.
Some forms of criticism are suitable for non believers to use against the Bible because they bring in presumptions that seem to attack the truth of the Bible, and it is interesting to see non believers call the scholars who rejects such presumptions as somehow lesser in their scholarship and not real scholars.
 
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firedragon

firedragon

Veteran Member
Xavier Graham said:
Does biblical criticism in general start its investigation with a decided conclusion beforehand I.e. the belief that God of the Bible isn’t real?
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Mostly, yes.

Typically, I mean really really typically, the approach is and in my opinion should be based on the premise that there is no God. It's called methodological naturalism in academia. Since maybe thousands of years it has been applied. You see what you have to understand is that if a hardcore Christian applies this method of not believing in God to approach bible criticism, it does not mean he has no faith. Its a methodology. Otherwise there is no point in applying any kind of criticism on the text.

Well, this is nothing new to the Christian scholars. They have been doing this for long time. So to answer your question, yes, it is a decided conclusion beforehand that there is no God, but methodologically, not philosophically.

Hope you understand.
 
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joe1776

joe1776

Well-Known Member
stvdv said:
You assume that God always give moral guidance. That is not correct from my POV
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I'm not sure what you mean. Please clarify.

There are more than 100 mentions of slavery in the Bible. Yet, none condemn the practice. If the Bible is of divine origin, God's word, isn't that point significant?
 
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joe1776

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Brian2 said:
When Jesus was on earth He said that God did not want divorce but that Moses allowing divorce because of the hardness of heart of the people.
We can see the law with this in mind and so see that the law did not always express how God wanted people to act, but was written with a purpose in mind and not just as a set of rules.
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If God didn't intend the Bible as a moral authority, why does it give moral guidance? What was its intended purpose?

When Christian leaders, the popes and the Protestant clergy, offer moral advice, what moral authority are they basing it on if not their Bible?
 
Brian2

Brian2

Veteran Member
firedragon said:
Nope. Absolutely wrong.
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I do remember reading years ago that the lack of archaeological evidence for the Exodus was a justification for the acceptance of the Documentary Hypothesis.
Certainly if uncontested archaeological evidence existed the hypothesis would not have been so well received.
 
Brian2

Brian2

Veteran Member
joe1776 said:
If God didn't intend the Bible as a moral authority, why does it give moral guidance? What was its intended purpose?

When Christian leaders, the popes and the Protestant clergy, offer moral advice, what moral authority are they basing it on if not their Bible?
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I did not say that the Bible is not intended for moral guidance. I was speaking of the Law of Moses in particular and that not all the laws are there for moral guidance to what God thinks is right or wrong. Some are there it seems as a compromise between what God sees as absolute right and wrong and what the people could accept.
To get the total picture of what God wants means to look at the whole Bible and not just bits and pieces.
 
joe1776

joe1776

Well-Known Member
firedragon said:
Well, this is nothing new to the Christian scholars. They have been doing this for long time. So to answer your question, yes, it is a decided conclusion beforehand that there is no God, but methodologically, not philosophically.
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While I don't doubt the truth of your comment, I doubt that the human mind is capable of adopting a negative bias opposed to something it truly wants to believe.

Biases are sneaky devils. They can't be stopped easily.
 
firedragon

firedragon

Veteran Member
Brian2 said:
I do remember reading years ago that the lack of archaeological evidence for the Exodus was a justification for the acceptance of the Documentary Hypothesis.
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Okay. Which book? Please find it, and give me the book's name. I will truly be honoured, and will order it, and read it. Thanks.
 
stvdv

stvdv

Veteran Member
joe1776 said:
I'm not sure what you mean. Please clarify.

There are more than 100 mentions of slavery in the Bible. Yet, none condemn the practice. If the Bible is of divine origin, God's word, isn't that point significant?
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Evolution goes slow.

E.g. you can't tell Trump to stop lying now. So, "God" might tell Trump to lie 5 times per day. That's already a huge improvement (if you are a fan of Trump then substitute it with a politician)
 
Jayhawker Soule

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
firedragon said:
Mostly, yes.

Typically, I mean really really typically, the approach is and in my opinion should be based on the premise that there is God. It's called methodological naturalism in academia. Since maybe thousands of years it has been applied.
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Huh?
 
joe1776

joe1776

Well-Known Member
Brian2 said:
I did not say that the Bible is not intended for moral guidance. I was speaking of the Law of Moses in particular and that not all the laws are there for moral guidance to what God thinks is right or wrong. Some are there it seems as a compromise between what God sees as absolute right and wrong and what the people could accept.
To get the total picture of what God wants means to look at the whole Bible and not just bits and pieces.
Click to expand...
I'm drawing a blank. If I'm a Catholic pope in 1800, and I want guidance on the slavery question, I read what the Bible has to say about slavery. How do I "look at the whole Bible and not just bits and pieces" to get an answer?
 
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firedragon

firedragon

Veteran Member
joe1776 said:
While I don't doubt the truth of your comment, I doubt that the human mind is capable of adopting a negative bias opposed to something it truly wants to believe.

Biases are sneaky devils. They can't be stopped easily.
Click to expand...

Yeah. That is why it is called a methodological approach.

But what you say is true. We could never get rid of our biases, and that is why there are influences of biases from both sides, naturalism and theism or supernaturalism if there is a word like that. But you will be surprised to read hardcore theists who practice some kind of higher criticism to such an advance level trying their best to be rid of these biases. It's highly commendable. In my opinion. Since this is a Bible thread, I will recommend reading up on truly evangelical, hardcore Christian scholars like Richard Bauckham, Raymond Brown, etc.

Cheers.
 
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