Biblical Literary criticism: valid?

[Polymath257]

They apply to how a text relates to the whole.

Which includes historical and cultural context, how the collection was assembled, how is was copied and by whom, and the realization that different parts were written at different times, often with knowledge of previous parts.

 

[firedragon]

And (just out of curiosity) was ...

​

... also a typo?

I don't understand your first statement.

Response to your second is "no".

 

[firedragon]

Certainly if uncontested archaeological evidence existed the hypothesis would not have been so well received.

I have no clue why you would think so. The documentary hypothesis is not about the exodus, its about the whole pentateuch, not one episode. I don't know what to say but I truly believe someone duped you, but you could prove me wrong and I will concede that I am wrong in thinking like that.

I really cannot understand how any kind of archeological evidence will have such a negative impact on the Hypothesis. I just cant get my head around it. If you could clarify I will be grateful.

 

[rational experiences]

O earth natural rock.
Heavens natural heavens.

Water stretched thin our heavens oxygenated by gardens body type where two natural humans exist first.

Human. All human's. Natural human. Consciousness.

Then a theist a man plus his brothers said I want to practice my invention. Human sciences.

As every single natural highest self existed presence created or living is present.

So you dig up a dead body it's a skull. It's not living.

Science says the place science was theoried was with the living.

Is exact and not legally arguable. Humans life position.

As legal has to be used as humans use words and lie.

The bible a testimonial after the fact of all changes to the living and the dead.

Reason is earths Rock substances changed so dead things would have changed too.

Legal human position a testimony against just human choice. False position rich man civilisation first fake position. Second fake position his machines and reactions.

Not life supporting. As to be rich he had murdered family humans. When he reacted science life got murdered sacrificed by heavens change.

So the summation the destroyer just an everyday human the theist scientist...a bible review.
Legal.

Man a theist first has to theory about a gas. Only the heavens owned a gas as notification what is a gas.

Man a theist then theoried earths dusts...chemical substances. How the gain by attack of mass to a gas.

Notice two different states theories ...science one act machine not either.

Man's mind split into two types of theists.

One that just talks heavens.
The other talks about ground mass.

Both theists human thought for science machine invention first. A humans teaching about science only a man humans choice.

That depicted him direct as a liar owning no legal support.

Legal a new branch was introduced as new governing for the people.

Versus rich man's lying murdering history civilization control. All choices versus life continuing as he cared less for humanity to become a rich man first.

Was the humans teaching.

Therefore rich men who interfere with natural history are the only incorrect human regarding why a legal system had been implemented. To save humanity from their lying brother.

No human began life by a position of a reactive conversion.

If a human says a ground mass reaction in nature produces a human life changed into an alien. They are a human. They are a human theist. They live exact the human. The theme is converting life in nature into the alien.

Was never as an alien became a human as a living human ....as a human is exact a human in human science.

First is natural human observation. Human present. As science by human identification first science status.

 

[Brian2]

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.

Unfortunately I read it on the internet and even though I may have bookmarked it, I have lost my bookmarks from that time and the site may not still exist.
I have found a couple of sites which include archaeology in their discussion and are worth skimming if not reading in full imo.
A PATCHWORK ANSWER TO AN UNJUSTIFIED QUESTION: A CRITIQUE OF THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
Sifting the Evidence: Rebuilding a Correct Interpretation of Old Testament Archaeology from the Ruins of Critical Scholarship

After Genesis the rest of the Pentateuch is about Israel in Egypt and the Exodus, and the tradition is that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, so the lack of evidence for Moses and the Exodus fits into the overall idea of the Documentary Hypothesis, that Moses was not the author.
The 2nd site above is a longer article and mentions the Mosaic authorship and how the acceptance of the Documentary Hypothesis probably has led to more liberal scholars and archaeologists rejection of evidence for Moses and Israel in Egypt and the Conquest of Canaan, and the acceptance of other ideas on the conquest and the authorship of the Pentateuch and date of writing.

 

[firedragon]

Unfortunately I read it on the internet and even though I may have bookmarked it, I have lost my bookmarks from that time and the site may not still exist.
I have found a couple of sites which include archaeology in their discussion and are worth skimming if not reading in full imo.
A PATCHWORK ANSWER TO AN UNJUSTIFIED QUESTION: A CRITIQUE OF THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
Sifting the Evidence: Rebuilding a Correct Interpretation of Old Testament Archaeology from the Ruins of Critical Scholarship

After Genesis the rest of the Pentateuch is about Israel in Egypt and the Exodus, and the tradition is that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, so the lack of evidence for Moses and the Exodus fits into the overall idea of the Documentary Hypothesis, that Moses was not the author.
The 2nd site above is a longer article and mentions the Mosaic authorship and how the acceptance of the Documentary Hypothesis probably has led to more liberal scholars and archaeologists rejection of evidence for Moses and Israel in Egypt and the Conquest of Canaan, and the acceptance of other ideas on the conquest and the authorship of the Pentateuch and date of writing.

None of that is evidence of your claim Brian. This is just irrelevant. Cheers.

 

[Hermit Philosopher]

May I ask *why* you disagree?

We know that the different books of the Bible were written separately and then assembled together.

Isn't it reasonable to read each book as a unit to learn what *it* has to say and then compare messages between different books?

Or, if it can be determined that a book was actually written by more than one author and then merged together, isn't it of interest to know what the different views were and how they related?

Not to mention the motivations of those that chose these particular books (as opposed to others we know existed); is this not of crucial importance to the interpretation of the text?

Apologies for late reply @Polymath257; I’ve been in short hermitage.

Though there is nothing wrong in wanting to analyse the composition of religious scripture and its historical context in order to reflect upon why it was put together in such and such way and what the motives of a religion could have been in so doing, if one is using Scripture for one’s spiritual understanding, reading it from cover to cover is not the best way.

Much like one does not read a law-book from cover to cover in order to understand the law, one also does not read the Bible from cover to cover to understand its spiritual meaning.

This is not (as @ChristineM on here suggested) a question of “cherry-picking” from its content but rather, a matter of going to passages in Scripture that speak of whatever one is going through at a particular moment in time.

We are possibly all familiar with having read something somewhere that, at the time of us reading it, did not seem to speak to us in any real way, only to come across the same words at a different time in our lives and be surprised at our new understanding of what is being said.

Scripture works like that. Passages that at one time do not appear to relate to what we’re living, very much do so at others - and when they do, their “new” meaning (our new understanding, rather) is experienced in very profound, spiritual ways.


Humbly
Hermit

 

[Polymath257]

Apologies for late reply @Polymath257; I’ve been in short hermitage.

Though there is nothing wrong in wanting to analyse the composition of religious scripture and its historical context in order to reflect upon why it was put together in such and such way and what the motives of a religion could have been in so doing, if one is using Scripture for one’s spiritual understanding, reading it from cover to cover is not the best way.

Much like one does not read a law-book from cover to cover in order to understand the law, one also does not read the Bible from cover to cover to understand its spiritual meaning.

This is not (as @ChristineM on here suggested) a question of “cherry-picking” from its content but rather, a matter of going to passages in Scripture that speak of whatever one is going through at a particular moment in time.

We are possibly all familiar with having read something somewhere that, at the time of us reading it, did not seem to speak to us in any real way, only to come across the same words at a different time in our lives and be surprised at our new understanding of what is being said.

Scripture works like that. Passages that at one time do not appear to relate to what we’re living, very much do so at others - and when they do, their “new” meaning (our new understanding, rather) is experienced in very profound, spiritual ways.


Humbly
Hermit

So the Bible is like all good literature: we get out of it what we put into it.

The difficulty, as I see it, is when people start taking literature as true and not just helpful for perspective.

 

[Herzlich]

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?

There are several types of biblical criticism: Textual - focused on establishing the most authoritative source; philosophical - study of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic); literary - the various literary genres of a text; tradition - traces the development of oral traditions; form -classifying writings according to preliterary forms; redaction - how the documents were assembled; historical - interpreting biblical writings in the context of their historical settings. These all view the Bible as a literary work rather than an exclusively sacred text. Biblical criticism is a serious study by serious scholars but as one might expect filled with complex views. The assumption in the "God of the Bible" being real is one of belief.

How one investigates matters of the Bible depends on how one views its contents. What one "believes" may or may not be true. Serious scholars investigate evidence. Many approach the Bible in a conservative manner finding support for their assumptions in what they find in the Bible's writings.

The word "Bible" comes from the Greek word meaning "book" or "books." There has been and continues to be controversy concerning the number of books and the legitimacy for viewing them as "authoritative" (Canon). The "Bible" a collection of ancient documents assembled and "authorized" by religious leaders (Jews for Christian Old Testament, Christians for Christian New Testament). The history of the compilation of the "Bible's" documents is another complex matter.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There are several types of biblical criticism: Textual - focused on establishing the most authoritative source; philosophical - study of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic); ...

Did you mean philological?

 

[dybmh]

There are several types of biblical criticism

And yet very few apply their critical methods to themselves.

Irony to the nth degree.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

And yet very few apply their critical methods to themselves.

Give us an example, perhaps using Amy-Jill Levine, Bruce Metgzer, or Emanuel Tov as an example instead of smearing those in the field.

 

[dybmh]

Give us an example, perhaps using Amy-Jill Levine, Bruce Metgzer, or Emanuel Tov as an example instead of smearing those in the field.

I can use Prof Joel Baden. I can also use HUC. The seat of Reform Judaism. You forget. I was born in Cincinnati. I have Reform Rabbis in my family tree.

 

[dybmh]

smearing those in the field.

the field = smearing

That's what they do.

they're criminals; you promote them

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

they're criminals; you promote them

You sound a bit like Trump denigrating science. I'll leave you to it ...

 

[dybmh]

You sound a bit like Trump denigrating science. I'll leave you to it ...

Jay, we're never going to agree in regard to ... biblical criticism. Judaism asserts that both sides should be presented. I presented my side. You can present your side. It would best, I think, if we agree to disagree.

I didn't reply to you in this thread. I presented a reasonable educated informed opinion. You are free to present your own reasonable educated informed opinion.

The Jewish biblical critics that I have read engage in deceptive business practices akin to putting their fingers on the scale. It's not kosher. It's certainly not science. Get real.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Jay, we're never going to agree in regard to ... biblical criticism. Judaism asserts that both sides should be presented. I presented my side. You can present your side. It would best, I think, if we agree to disagree.

That's a false equivalency. You didn't ridicule the discipline, you disparaged the people, calling them criminals. It would be as if I labeled the class of Jewish sages filthy pigs. And, yes, I disagree with both vile dogmatism and dogmatic ad hominem.

 

[jimb]

And yet very few apply their critical methods to themselves.

Irony to the nth degree.

@Herzlich wrote in post #69 that there are several types of biblical criticism: Textual - focused on establishing the most authoritative source; philosophical - study of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic); literary - the various literary genres of a text; tradition - traces the development of oral traditions; form -classifying writings according to preliterary forms; redaction - how the documents were assembled; historical - interpreting biblical writings in the context of their historical settings. These all view the Bible as a literary work rather than an exclusively sacred text.

And you replied with the above post? You clearly have no understanding of the term "Biblical criticism". Here is a working definition...

Biblical criticism is the field that studies textual, compositional, and historical questions surrounding the Old and New Testaments. Biblical criticism lays the groundwork for meaningful interpretation of the Bible.

 

[Herzlich]

@Herzlich wrote in post #69 that there are several types of biblical criticism: Textual - focused on establishing the most authoritative source; philosophical - study of biblical languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic); literary - the various literary genres of a text; tradition - traces the development of oral traditions; form -classifying writings according to preliterary forms; redaction - how the documents were assembled; historical - interpreting biblical writings in the context of their historical settings. These all view the Bible as a literary work rather than an exclusively sacred text.

And you replied with the above post? You clearly have no understanding of the term "Biblical criticism". Here is a working definition...

Biblical criticism is the field that studies textual, compositional, and historical questions surrounding the Old and New Testaments. Biblical criticism lays the groundwork for meaningful interpretation of the Bible.

Thanks for your criticism. Since you do not know me, you have little to say about what I understand.

 

[Herzlich]

Did you mean philological?

Yes, sorry for the mistype.