Talk:Biblical criticism

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Material moved to this page from the article on Torah did not seem appropriate to the article and was deleted. This page is mostly a link page to various aspects of biblical criticism.

DrJ1m

Contents

[edit] informal request for comment

Would people who regularly follow/contribute to this article please look at Yahwism and the talk page, where I express my concerns? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 19:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article is crap

There are NO criticisms of Christianity!? I myself am a Christian, and I can't believe there are not any criticisms. The links in the article tell you about criticism in general, not related to the bible. Ironman5247 01:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

You've totally got the wrong idea here... see Criticism of the Bible for that sort of thing, as it says at the top. 130.216.191.182 09:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not able to distinguish historical accuracy/myth?

According the article, "Historical criticism can not determine if the events that are recorded in the Bible are entirely accurate or clothed with material from another time such as myth, theology or tradition." This is, to say the least, an overstatement. The story of Noah and the Ark, for example, has earlier parallels in Sumerian and Babylonian texts with details, such as releasing birds, the origin of the rainbow, etc., clearly indicating its origin in legend/myth.Jim Lacey 17:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I added a fact tag, since I can't remove the statement out of hand given I am not a bible scholar. That said, anyone who is really convinced that god turned lots wife to a pillar of salt, needs to take a step back from any article which discusses the historical and factual accuracy of the bible. --Uncle Bungle 14:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
This is an odd article - almost content-free. The list of names and such should be integrated into a proper prose treatemnt of the subject. If that can't be done, it should perhaps be deleted, as it's no more than a list of links as it stands. PiCo 14:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New structural outline

This section was no more than a list of names, albeit all linked to articles. So I've added a concise history of OT criticism, with a strong bias to the Pentateuch/Deut. History. I know little about criticism of the remainder of the the OT, and nothing about the NT. Others are welcome to expand and otherwise edit this beginning.PiCo 12:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I've now given this section a new title to reflect the fact that I've given the article a new overall outline, with sections on history of biblical criticism, higher criticism, and lower or textual criticism. Some subsections are also suggested. The links to articles contained in each section (they'd normally be found in a "see also" section at the end of the article) can be integrated into the sections in coming weeks. The aim is to produce a normal prose article, to replace the existing lists of links. PiCo 16:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Extended the History section with a subsection on NT criticism.PiCo 05:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC) In fact I've been quite busy filling in the rest as well - lots of brief sketches of various forms of criticism.PiCo 16:37, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Robin Lane Fox and the list of major biblical critics

Why remove my addition of Robin Lane Fox? He has analysed OT and NT Greek and Hebrew documents; his focus is via Greek ancient history. His book is readable, reprinted and he is a don at Oxford. Not good enough for you maybe, but accessible to the rest of us.86.42.213.51 15:22, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

(Made this into a new section). I removed Fox because he hasn't contributed new ways of investigating the bible (i.é., new tools for biblical criticism), nor new insights. I think Fox himself would agree that he's a populariser, rather than a major figure within the discipline. If you feel this isn't so, please feel free to say why. PiCo 15:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
He brings historical and textual analysis and very few such books have made 3 editions. He is a populariser and synthesiser of others' theories, and that's useful to wikipedia whose readers are not expert but may want to read the main arguments. I didn't place him in the main text for that very reason.86.42.213.51 16:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 86.42.213.51. Wikipedia customarily references both popular and scholarly works. Rick Norwood 13:31, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The picture above the text of Albert Schweitzer is Alfred Nobel

The picture above the text of Albert Schweitzer is Alfred Nobel. Schweitzer did won the Nobel Peace Prize, but it is confusing to have Nobels picture in this article with Albert Schweitzers name below, and no explonation why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.2.175 (talk) 00:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restoring material on types of biblical criticism

I have restored some material describing various types of biblical criticism - source criticism, form criticism etc - as I fe3lt these are useful to the reader seeking an overview of the subject. There were also some repetitions and redundancies left over from previous merges with material from other articles, and I tried to cut these down. PiCo (talk) 08:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] bible contradictions

I'm not going to insist on NPOV here, in part because I agree that the contradictions are obvious. On the other hand, I'm sure you are aware of the vast literature of Biblical inerrancy, which claims that there are no contradictions, (except for a very small number of copying errors). I have on my bookshelf a large book explaining away 900 "apparent" contradictions. Rick Norwood (talk) 12:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The very fact that they have to be "explained" proves that problems exist. It's not purely a matter of contradictions: there are also matters such as Deuteronomy describing Moses' death - I'm not sure offhand how that's typified, but it's not a contradiction - and the case of the Edomite kings, or more precisely Genesis' own words to the effect that certain events happened "before there were kings over Israel" - an anachronism. The first such problem to be noted was the fact that in the oral Torah Moses refers to events from Genesis before he meets Yahweh on Sinai, implying that he had some other source of knowledge of these things other than Divine revelation - the Talmudic rabbis explained this, quite logically, by suggesting that Adam and Abraham had left records which Moses had in his possession - the very first precursor of the documentary hypothesis, in a way. Anyway, the essential point is that the problems with Mosaic composition are real, not perceived. PiCo (talk) 14:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
If that's true, why didn't the redactors fix these inconsistencies? After all, they were men of supreme intellect, men who were smart enough to engineer a myth that would serve as the foundation for the world's major religions. Surely they would be smart enough to ensure that the Bible would hold up to criticism of this level, right? - Anonymous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.220.81.183 (talk) 22:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, it does not take a "supreme intellect" to start a religion. Take L. Ron Hubbard, for just one example. Most religions are started by people who are just a little bit smarter than their followers. Rick Norwood (talk) 13:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a point that R.N. Whybray makes - his book criticising the documentary hypothesis was one of the major contributions to the movement of biblical scholars away from the documentary hypothesis in the last quarter of the 20th century. (Cassuto had made similar points some decades earlier, but Whybray had far more impact - presumably a question of the times being ripe for a change of paradigm). Anyway, in short, the point you make is a very valid one and well-known among biblical scholars. It's the reason why more recent theories about the composition of the Torah tend not to include redactors. There's a brief overview at the documentary hypothesis article, but I don't think there's any article on Wiki that really explains modern views.PiCo (talk) 01:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)