another window into the Old Testament

My first semester at PTS included a high-level introduction to the Old Testament. The main textbook, The Hebrew Bible by John C. Collins included a majority of the same criticisms of the Old Testament that I encountered during my intro to OT class at UVa 8-9 years ago. I walked away from the course with a new set of questions that remained unanswered. I did not have another resource to balance or challenge the questions besides the Biblical text itself.

A friend recommended, indirectly, a book by John Bright titled A History of Israel. The book takes a more balanced approach to describing the history of people of Israel. In particular, the very assertions that remained unchallenged in Collins' book are put in a wider discussion with other perspectives and findings.

The first idea that is put in a larger conversation is the documentary hypothesis (J E D P) - a largely 19th century hypothesis questioning Moses as the author of the Pentateuch and, instead, positing multiple sources pulled together. The description in Bright's book that caught my attention immediately was that numerous archaeological findings have been made since the formation of this hypothesis. One result of incorporating these findings into a conversation about the writings of the Pentateuch involves the discoveries that date to the times of the patriarchs. These show that the very writings of the Pentateuch or the traditions upon which they draw are similar to other writings from that time period. In other words, the Pentateuch cannot be simply dismissed as being written by individuals who lived after the exile of the Israelites to Assyria and Babylon as a way of explaining why Yahweh could let the exile happen to God's chosen people. The sources for the Pentateuch, instead, match closely to the traditions and writings of those near the times of the patriarchs.

Overall, this example, along with many others, shows me that extreme criticism of the Biblical text needs to be put in conversation with other research and writings that challenge these assertions. A quote from a friend sums this up when he stated that "many great minds have also put thought and research into ideas and have come up with different conclusions." Of course, I could jump out into a discussion of the motivations of scholars who hold to extremely critical views that have only been held in the past 100 years (a small breath in the depth of history) but that is for another day.

This entry has been long overdue. I am willing to listen to all perspectives but I have very little patience with perspectives that refuse to incorporate any challenges from others who interact with the same material from other angles.