The Sages as Bible Critics (original) (raw)
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Old Testament Research and Criticism
The growth of Protestantism against Catholic dogma loosened the tethers that stopped free enquiry into the bible for a thousand years. Enlightenment and science led to the Higher Criticism of the bible. Julius Wellhausen showed that the law of Moses was misplaced in sacred history. It had to come at the end of the evolution of Judaism. The bible shows the tribe, society, at first was the prime entity, not the individual. Marx called it primitive communism. Anthropology found tribal totem power was the power of society, and it was eventually personified as a god. Such gods were the " religion " of the ANE. Then Persia entered a new phase. It was a huge empire in which local gods had fused under Zoroastrianism into an imperial If something has been written down, then it has been written down by human beings using peculiarly human skills, such as language and symbolic representation. Once this was realized to be true of the bible, then what was previously considered the ultimate, universal and eternal Word of God became subject to the same study and appraisal as any other books. What had been thought of as sacred history unquestionable by mere mortals was now subject to free enquiry. It was the growth of Protestantism against Catholic dogma that loosened the tethers that had restricted free enquiry into the bible for over a thousand years. The subsequent Enlightenment, and the growth of science opened the barriers to investigation, leading to the Higher Criticism of the bible which revealed that it had been assembled almost piecemeal, and had been multiply edited before it arrived in the form it is now in.
Biblical Interpretation, 2014
Pp. xi-^ 379. Jaco Gericke and Yoram Hazony attempt a major interdisciplinary feat, arguing, with different methodologies, that philosophy (and especially the philosophy of religion) and Hebrew Bible studies mutually inform each other. Both authors believe that such cross-pollination is possible and desirable. Both authors recognize that others have attempted this before, often with poor results, and show good awareness that they understand the magnitude of their task. Gericke creates two methodologies in the hopes that he can create a relatively neutral perspective from which both believer and skeptic can read the ancient text. Hazony, on the other hand, believes that tbe study of the Hebrew Bible has suffered greatly from what he calls the "reason-revelation dichotomy" of Christianity, and that tbe metaphor, analogy, and typology of the Hebrew Bible are ultimately an exercise in reason, not revelation (which he believes destroys the text). The problem, according to Hazony, is tbe continued dependence of both fideists and heretics on this reason-revelation dichotomy. Since the texts appeared at least five centuries before Christianity, Hazony believes that the idea of revelation in the Hebrew Bible ends up undermining much the texts attempted to say. His thesis is that one can-and should-read the Hebrew Scriptures as works of philosophy. Language that is inaccessible to contemporary readers contributes to the problem, according to Hazony. "Thus says the Lord ..." is likely to lead someone to believe that the Hebrew Scriptures are nonsense, or downright unscrupulous. Ironically, Hazony pinpoints this as a propaganda line used by French philosophes and German professors in an attempt to discredit the church and move it out of European politics. While accurate in regard to the philosophes and many German professors, it does not seem to support his assertion of a reason-revelation dichotomy as applied to all Christianity. Christian interpretation suffered, according to Hazony, from an overdependence on the idea that the ability to conduct pbilosophical inquiry was contingent or reliant on revelation from God. Contemporary interpreters address this bias either by ignoring it entirely or by not drawing any weighty conclusions from it. Hazony then traces this line to his major foil for the text: early Christian doctrine that taught that reason comes from the Greeks and revelation comes from the Jews. While intriguing, it is not certain that this applies to Christianity in general.
Jewish Concepts of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction (sample chapter)
What do Jews think scripture is? How do Jews view the anthology they variously call Tanakh, Miqra or “the Bible? Until now, no book has surveyed the answers Jews through the ages have given to these questions. This is the more surprising, since one would think that the conception of the Book among the People of the Book would be a topic of interest. The way Jews construct scripture, after all, is one way Jews construct themselves. The purpose of this anthology is to fill this gap. The seventeen essays in this collection explore how various figures, movements, or texts conceptualize scripture. Issues they address include: - Ways in which the Tanakh is and is not thought to be authoritative - The relationship between Tanakh and tradition (in rabbinic parlance: between the Oral and Written Torahs) - The question of who has the authority to interpret scripture - The special status of the Bible’s language, or the ways its use of language differs from that of other texts - The relationship of scripture to God and/or heavenly intermediaries - The place of the Tanakh in the life of Jewish communities"
Elec29.Textual Criticism of the Torah Ten Short Case Studies
TheTorah.Com, 2023
Even though the Dead Sea Scrolls have opened up seemingly endless resources that help us better understand and reconstruct the early biblical text, we are still groping in the dark when we try to understand how the various biblical texts emerged. Thus, the more we know, the less we know. We will never have firm answers regarding whether there was once an original text of Hebrew Scripture and which of the known texts represents that text best. Moreover, at least in some chapters, it seems quite possible that more than one formulation of the text circulated already in early times, making it difficult to even discuss which formulation is earlier or later. TheMasoreticText(MT)oftheTorah,theversionusedbyallJewstoday(including Karaites),[1] is a carefully copied text,butthatdoesn’tmeanitisperfectoralwaysreflectiveoftheoriginal.[2] Whenanalyzingvariants, scholars will often express an opinion on the comparative value for each reading, and I will do so here as well.
The Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture in Old Testament History
The Scriptures alone possess the authority and sufficiency to explain who God is, to provide an accurate history of His deeds, to make known His will for His people in all eras of Earth’s history, to save sinners from their sin, and to reveal God’s plan for the future. However, readers and interpreters of the Old Testament too often make themselves and their knowledge the standard by which to judge the text. Reader-oriented linguistic, historical, cultural, and theological presuppositions create havoc with objective biblical interpretation. A secular education frequently produces humanistic methodology for interpreting biblical history. On the other hand, a humanistic approach to the OT need not be the product of either a secular educational or a liberal theological system. Even evangelical interpreters might impose their own erroneous presuppositions upon the text. In fact, arrogance regarding our own authority and knowledge can affect our treatment of the Old Testament.