Typical scholarship on the OT tends to follow old source criticism and form criticism. But these theories of the 19th century got us nowhere. I am currently taking a class on First Isaiah where the professor buys into source criticism in that he thinks that we can actually tell if something is Isaianic or a mere gloss (He is old school Harvard). He is one of the most conservative historical critics, though, in that he attributes VERY LITTLE to later disciples of Isaiah (e.g. passages that are taken by Christians as messianic are authentically Isaianic. You can't say that Isaiah didn't give these oracles merely because they have a sense of eschatological hope, as if, Isaiah was incabable of this). While I have enjoyed his class (and the man kicks some ass in Akkadian, Egyptian....), I don't find it actually feeding me faith, and I don't find these methods actually useful in the ecclesial setting of sermon making. They seem unhelpful because they are incredibly speculative and they presume things we will never know unless we miraculously uncover a scroll of Isaiah's oracles before they were compiled. I think NT scholarship has noted the uncertainty of such scholarship by their shying away from source criticism in Acts of the Apostles. In other words, source criticism and form criticism strikes me as a bunch of bologna!
What we do have - the actual MT and the amazing narratives that have fed a community (you might say...communities) for centuries. If we use these narratives and assume incredible intelligence on the part of authors and redactors, what does the final product do for us. The incredible pay off of this is the benefit of word proclamation (i.e. sermon delivery). Asking how the character of Samuel is portrayed in 1 Samuel offers meaning to my life. Wondering how we know if Samuel's words were actually the words of God has incredible import to my life as I look at things like Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggart (both A/G ministers ... and boy are we proud). If our fear is irrelevance (as was the fear of these U of Chicago proffessors), we might also ask are these narratives irrelevant. Are they merely one more theory at how to view the universe that will fail?
I guessI'm now just wondering - what isn't theory? isn't our faith a very theory of explaining the universe? am I missing something?
Um, where did they promise to take anyone? Serious question.
I am currently taking a class on First Isaiah where the professor buys into source criticism in that he thinks that we can actually tell if something is Isaianic or a mere gloss
To what goal? This is the problem with such critical methods. They are like dissecting gossamer. The only end-product of such an inquiry seems to be a lack of faith in the Text at all. The goal is to reject the existing texts as authentic and to try to pick them apart to find what is "real" and what is not.
SD
As you point out, it is all speculation. It can be fun, one can pull together a lot of interesting connections, maybe even make a doctoral thesis out of it. But it is all speculation. It can prove nothing.
I guessI'm now just wondering - what isn't theory? isn't our faith a very theory of explaining the universe? am I missing something?
I guess it boils down to what your purpose is in reading and studying the text. You can look for meaning and inspiration, or you can look to deconstruct and explain away all meaning. Ultimately, post-modernism is nihilism.
Right. I'm probably not going to tell you something that you haven't throught of, but I find that Bible criticism fails because it accepts Descartes' premise that knowledge begins with doubt rather than Augustine's's premise that knowledge begins with faith. Especially when unfettered by a faith community's authority, Biblical scholars tend to treat Scripture like other ancient documents. This won't do. I seem to recall a story about Maimonides. that he almost reasoned himself out of faith. This seems to happen to Bible scholars. I once talked to Father Raymond Collins and he seemed to find some GLEE in telling me that "Mark" probably didn't exist!